age, so that it
perpetuates institutions and customs which are a drag on
civilisation. Mahomet's Paradise, in which the warrior is to be
ministered to by beauteous houris (the number of whom is not
mentioned), may not have been an immoral conception in his day; but
it is so now, and apparently cannot be left behind. An admirable
instrument for the discipline of populations at a low stage of
culture, and well fitted to teach them a certain measure of
self-restraint and piety, Islam cannot carry them on to the higher
development of human life and thought. It is repressive of freedom,
and the reason is that its doctrine is after all no more than
negative. Allah is but a negation of other gods; there is no store of
positive riches in his character, he does not sympathise with the
manifold growth of human activity; the inspiration he affords is a
negative inspiration, an impulse of hostility to what is over against
him, not an impulse to strive after high and fair ideals. He remains
eternally apart upon a frosty throne; his voice is heard, but he
cannot condescend. He does not enter into humanity, and therefore
cannot render to humanity the highest services.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

_The Life of Mahomet_, by Sir W. Muir, 1858.

_Mohammed_, by Wellhausen, and "The Koran," by Noeldeke, in
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, vol. xvi.

The Preliminary Discourse prefixed to Sale's _Koran_; and Professor
Palmer's Introduction in _S. B. E._, vol. vi.

_Islam_, by J. W. H. Stobart, in the "Non-Christian Religious
Systems" Series of the S.P.C.K.

_Der Islam_, by Houtsma, in De la Saussaye.

Hughes, _A Dictionary of Islam_ (1885, 1896).

Sell, _The Faith of Islam_, Second Edition, 1896.

Stanley Lane-Poole, _The Speeches and Table-talk of Mohammad_, 1882;
the most important parts of the Koran, chronologically arranged, with
a very useful introduction.

Margoliouth. _Mohammed and the Rise of Islam_, 1905.

PART IV
THE ARYAN GROUP

CHAPTER XIV
THE ARYAN RELIGION

The science of language has placed it beyond dispute that the
languages of the leading European peoples are genealogically related
to each other, and that the languages of India and of Persia also
belong to the same family of speech. The Indo-European languages,
those, namely, of the higher race in India, and of the Persians, and
those of the Greeks, Italians, Celts, Germans, Slavs, Letts, and
Albanians, approach each other always more nearly as they are