By
no greatest happiness principle, greatest nobleness principle, or any
principle whatever, will you make that in the least clearer than it
already is;--forbear, I say, or you may darken it away from you
altogether! 'Two things,' says the memorable Kant, deepest and most
logical of metaphysical thinkers, 'two things strike me dumb: the
infinite starry heavens; and the sense of right and wrong in man.'
Visible infinites, both; say nothing of them; don't try to 'account for
them;' for you can say nothing wise."
226. Very briefly, I must touch one or two further relative conditions
in this natural history of the soul. I have asked you to take the
metaphorical, but distinct, word '[Greek: *chrisma*]' rather than the
direct but obscure one 'piety'; mainly because the Master of your
religion chose the metaphorical epithet for the perpetual one of His
own life and person.
But if you will spend a thoughtful hour or two in reading the
scripture, which pious Greeks read, not indeed on daintily printed
paper, but on daintily painted clay,--if you will examine, that is to
say, the scriptures of the Athenian religion, on their Pan-Athenaic
vases, in their faithful days, you will find that the gift of the
literal [Greek: *chrisma*], or anointing oil, to the victor in the
kingly and visible contest of life, is signed always with the image of
that spirit or goddess of the air who was the source of their invisible
life.
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