Author Description

Published in 1893. In his final course of Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1892, F. Max Müller concentrates on the essential unity or oneness of the objective Infinite in nature (God) and the subjective Infinite in man (soul), which is the final consummation of all religious and philosophical endeavors. Much time is spent discussing the relation of the soul to Brahman in the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta, and of similar strains in the Sufi branch of Islam. The final four lectures are, according to the author, the key to his whole series, demonstrating historically that Christianity, with its doctrine of the Logos, is neither merely a continuation or a reform of the Jewish faith, but rather a synthesis of Jewish and Western thought: this strength of the Christian faith is responsible for its unique ability to convince both the heart and the rational mind of its truth.