The sequel of those ethics is
known to all the world, in the spectacle of the most unrivalled
religiosity, and scrupulous respectability, combined with a more utter
absence of moral sense, in their most cultivated and learned men, than
the world has ever beheld before or since.
In such a state of mind it was impossible for them to look on their old
prophets as true seers, beholding and applying eternal moral laws, and,
therefore, seeing the future in the present and in the past. They must
be the mere utterers of an irreversible arbitrary fate; and that fate
must, of course, be favourable to their nation. So now arose a school
who picked out from their old prophets every passage which could be made
to predict their future glory, and a science which settled when that
glory was to return. By the arbitrary rules of criticism a prophetic
day was defined to mean a year; a week, seven years. The most simple
and human utterances were found to have recondite meanings relative to
their future triumph over the heathens whom they cursed and hated. If
any of you ever come across the popular Jewish interpretations of The
Song of Solomon, you will there see the folly in which acute and learned
men can indulge themselves when they have lost hold of the belief in
anything really absolute and eternal and moral, and have made Fate, and
Time, and Self, their real deities.
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