requisite. In order to gather the rose in the cross of the Present, we must take that cross itself upon us.
Finally, it has been sought to establish the existence of the Idea historically by going back to a beginning of the human race marked by the features above indicated. Among many peoples, remains and indications have been found which present a contrast to the other elements which constitute these ideas, or, it may be, we come upon scientific knowledge which does not seem to be in harmony with their present state, or which could not have been parallel with their initial state of culture. The remains of such a better condition of existence have been made the basis of conclusions as to a previous state of perfection, a condition of complete morality. Among the people of India, for example, great wisdom and varied knowledge have been found, to which their present state of culture does not correspond. This and many other similar circumstances have been looked upon as traces of a better past. The writings of the monks of the Middle Ages, for instance, have certainly often not come out of their own heads, but are remnants of a better past.
At the time of the first discovery of Indian literature, much was heard of the enormous chronological numbers; they seemed to point to a very long duration of time, and to yield wholly new disclosures. In recent times, however, it has been found necessary to give up these numbers entirely, for they express no prosaic conditions whatever as regards years or recollection of the past. Further, the Indian peoples are said to possess great astronomical knowledge; they have formulæ in order to calculate the eclipses of the sun and moon, which, however, they use in a wholly mechanical way, without any foreknowledge or investigation of the presuppositions, or the method and the formula they employ. Quite lately, however, the astronomical and mathematical knowledge of the Indian peoples has been more thoroughly examined into, and an original state of culture is undoubtedly to be recognised
