The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

I have proceeded rapidly in the explanation of the foregoing lines, because the morals which they contain, founded upon the proofs of sentiment, are not susceptible of receiving others.

I do not know if this simple reflection has already been made, but in any case it ought to draw with it one more complicated, and serve to find the reason for the surprising harmony which reigns, and which has always reigned, among all the peoples of the earth upon the subject of morals.

Man has been allowed to disagree upon subjects of reasoning and opinion, to differ in a thousand ways in those of taste, to dispute upon the forms of cult, the dogmas of teachings, the bases of science, to build an infinity of psychological and physical systems ; but Man has never been able, without belying his own conscience, to deny the truth and universality of morals.

Temperance, prudence, courage, and justice, have always been considered as virtues, and avarice, folly, cowardice, and injustice, as vices; and this, without the least discussion. Never has any legislator said that it was necessary to be a bad son, a bad friend, a bad citizen, envious, ungrateful, perjured.

The men most beset with these vices have always hated them in others, have concealed them at home, and their very hypocrisy has been a new homage rendered to morals.

If certain sectarians, blinded by a false zeal and furthermore systematically ignorant and intolerant, have circulated that the cults differing from theirs lacked morals, or received impure ones, it is because they either misunderstood the true principles of morals, or they calumniated them; principles are the same everywhere; only their application is more or less rigid and their consequences are more or less well applied in accordance with the times, the places, and the men. The Christians extol, and with reason, the purity and the sanctity of their morals; but if it must be told them

Examinations of the Golden Verses 165

with frankness they have nothing in their sacred books that cannot be found as forcibly expressed in the sacred books of other nations, and often even, in the opinion of impartial travellers, one has seen it much better practised. For example, the beautiful maxim touching upon the pardon of offences " is found complete in the Zend-Avesta.

It is written: "O God! greater than all that which is great! if a man provoke you by his thoughts, by his speech, or by his actions, if he humbles himself before you, pardon him ; even so, if a man provoke me by his thoughts by his speech or by his actions may I pardon him." * One finds in the same book, the precept on charity, such as is practised among the Mussulmans, and that of agriculture placed in the rank of virtues, as among the Chinese.

" The King whom you love, what desire you that he shall do, Ormuzd? Do you desire that, like unto you, he shall nourish the poor?"' "The purest point of the law is to sow the land. He who sows the grain and does it with purity is as great before me as he who celebrates ten thousand adorations. . . . '' "Render the earth fertile, cover it with flowers and with fruits; multiply the springs in the places where there is no grass.

" ' This same maxim of the pardon of offences and those which decree to return good for evil, and to do imto others what we would that they should do unto us, is found in many of the Oriental writings. One reads in the distichs of Hafiz this beautiful passage :