Books: Matter of Soul

THE STORY OF ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY— L. Adams Beck—Cosmopolitan ($5).

In spite of indignant denials, India has been firmly established in the mind of the general reader as a purgatory of child marriages, a hell of sadistic animal torture. Mrs. Beck touches lightly upon these abuses, announces firmly that India has made the greatest spiritual contribution of all time. While the West has been making rapid jerks of progress—materialistic, intellectual, scientific—the East has long since attained a spiritual consummation which -the West cannot forever ignore. Western science has recently discovered evolution in the development of a man’s body—Eastern philosophy has always been concerned with evolution of the soul to higher and higher spirituality. Western science of the future will be more concerned with the consciousness of man rather than his knowledge—Eastern philosophers have always been so concerned. The two greatest of these Oriental philosophers are India’s Buddha and China’s Confucius.

Buddha tossed aside wealth and temporal power that he might attain victory over old age, death, disease, sorrow. His inheritance was the ancient Vedantic philosophy (man is soul, and has a body that must be subjugated); his contribution was the forging of the middle way between pleasure and self-mortification by which man ascends the Mount of Vision. Confucius, Ancient Teacher, Perfect Sage, “has river eyes and a dragon fore head … his arms are long, his back is like a tortoise . . . when he speaks he praises the ancient kings. He moves along the path of humility and courtesy. He has heard of every subject. . . . His knowledge of things seems inexhaustible.” He edited the ancient classics, compiled the precepts of propriety, attempted to uplift and order civilization. As magistrate, he justified Plato’s ideal of government by philosophers — until political jealousy put him out of office. Bitterly disappointed, he died in sorrow, little guessing that it would be said of him: “Confucius is China.” But such is Author Beck’s opinion. Best known for her biographies (by “E. Barrington”), she has long been a student of the Orient. Her present volume is avowedly “popular,” readable; but the interpretation is sound, the information valuable.