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COMPARATIVE RELIGION.
Note on the Examination of the Biblical doctrine with reference to Sannyasa.
BY Champat Rai Jain, Bar-at-law.
M EN to-day look upon philosophy as a subject to be accomIVplished in an arm-chair ; but this has not always been so. The ancients, who took a more serious view of life than ourselves, looked upon it not only as a science but also as an art, the art of life, and regarded it as necessitating a systematic and habitual training. In his interesting work “The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian Church" Edwin Hatch, D.D., points out that the air of the training was to bring the passions under control. It was a sort of moral gymnastic intended for the development of the moral side of human nature.
“Just as the training of the muscle which is necessary for perfect bodily development is effected by giving them exaggerated exercise so the training of the moral power was effected, not by reading the rules and committing them to memory, but by giving them a similarly artificial and exaggerated exercise............. The aim of it was to bring the passions under the control of reason, and to bring the will into harmony with the will of God" (Loc. Cit. 147).
Dr. Hatch's conception of the harmony between individual and the divine wills is necessarily tinged with the current misconceptions of mystic origin, but the student of the Science of Religion will have no difficulty in grasping the sense of the expression to consist in the aspiration of man to acquire the nature of God. The principle of exercising the moral restraint needs no comment from me, beyond this that as in physical culture over-exertion will be productive of strain and fatigue, and under-exertion will lead to no good results, in the same way with
13 Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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