Neither have we any reason to suppose that they learnt it from the
Hindoos. That much Hindoo thought mixed with Neoplatonist speculation
we cannot doubt; but there is not a jot more evidence to prove that
Alexandrians borrowed this conception from the Mahabharavata, than that
George Fox the Quaker, or the author of the "Deutsche Theologie," did
so. They may have gone to Hindoo philosophy, or rather, to second and
third hand traditions thereof, for corroborations of the belief; but be
sure, it must have existed in their own hearts first, or they would
never have gone thither. Believe it; be sure of it. No earnest thinker
is a plagiarist pure and simple. He will never borrow from others that
which he has not already, more or less, thought out for himself. When
once a great idea, instinctive, inductive (for the two expressions are
nearer akin than most fancy), has dawned on his soul, he will welcome
lovingly, awfully, any corroboration from foreign schools, and cry with
joy: "Behold, this is not altogether a dream: for others have found it
also. Surely it must be real, universal, eternal." No; be sure there
is far more originality (in the common sense of the word), and far less
(in the true sense of the word), than we fancy; and that it is a paltry
and shallow doctrine which represents each succeeding school as merely
the puppets and dupes of the preceding.
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