[7:A] See _Character and Life_, edited by P. L. Parker, pp. 19-31. (Williams and Norgate; November, 1912.)
I will now call attention to a few of the facts which lead to the conclusion as to the stationary condition of general character from the earliest periods of human history, and presumably from the dawn of civilisation. In the earliest records which have come down to us from the past we find ample indications that general ethical conceptions, the accepted standard of morality, and the conduct resulting from these, were in no degree inferior to those which prevail to-day, though in some respects they differed from ours.
As examples of great moral teachers in very early times we have Socrates and Plato, about 400 B.C.; Confucius and Buddha, one or two centuries earlier; Homer, earlier still; the great Indian Epic, the Maha-Bharata, about 1500 B.C. All these afford indications of intellectual and moral character quite equal to our own; while their lower manifestations, as shown by their wars and love of gambling, were no worse than corresponding immoralities to-day.
In the beautiful translation by the late Mr. Romesh Dutt, of such portions of the Maha-Bharata as are best fitted to give English readers a proper conception of the whole work, there is a striking episode entitled "Woman's Love," in which the heroine, a princess, by repeated petitions and reasonings persuades Yama, the god of death, to give back her husband's spirit to the body. It is described in the following verses:
"And the sable King was vanquished, and he turned on her again, And his words fell on Savitri like the cooling summer rain: 'Noble woman, speak thy wishes, name thy boon and purpose high, What the pious mortal asketh gods in heaven may not deny!'
"'Thou hast,' so Savitri answered, 'granted father's realm and might, To his vain and sightless eyeballs hath restored the blessed light; Grant him that the line of monarchs may not all untimely end, That his kingdom to Satyavan and Savitri's sons descend!'
"'Have thy wishes,' answered Yama; 'thy good lord shall live again, He shall live to be a father, and your children, too, shall reign; For a woman's troth endureth longer than the fleeting breath, And a woman's love abideth higher than the doom of death.'"