The Scented Garden

The Origin of Religion. 109 Be this the song of El Qahar In gold on ivory enscrolled.5 1. Ascetic. Zahid, indifferently to represent the fat easy-going, conventional materialist, self-styled orthodox, common to all religions, and the despe- rate devotee who does not set his life at a pin’s fee when heaven is at stake. El Haji probably wishes to kill the two birds with one stone. 2. Another hint that all Religion is subjec- tive ; and that consequently mean men are Evan- gelicals, gross men Roman Catholics, cowards be- lievers in Eternal Punishment, sensual and senti- mental men Universalists, and so on. Such a ra- tionalistic view of the Genesis of Creed is uncom- mon enough in Eastern literature, though the gen- eral Fichtean positing of the non-Ego by the Ego implied in the previous stanza is to be found open- ly or obscurely in most sacred books. 3. This stanza is almost certainly spurious. 4. This is the old jest : “ As long as you drink a drop of this medicine daily, you will not die.” Though perhaps the erectio penis of the hanged may give the lie to the jape. 5. In fact, I saw a very beautiful copy so inlaid on thin sheets of ivory in the house of a wealthy whoremaster.