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PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY. 251
foxes, apes, oxen, asses, pigs, nowhere was there a man !
They only made out after a time that the few existing
human beings, in order to hide themselves and not to wit
ness what was going on, had retired to those desert places
which ought to have been the dwellings of wild beasts."
The same reason indeed accounts for the peculiar inclina
tion of all men of genius for solitude, to which they are
driven by their difference from the rest, and for which their
own inner wealth qualifies them. For, with humanity it
is as with diamonds, the extraordinarily great ones alone
are fitted to be solitaires, while those of ordinary size have
to be set in clusters to produce any effect.
Even the three Gunas, or fundamental qualities of the
Hindoos, tally with the three physiological fundamental
forces. Tamas-Guna, obtuseness, stupidity, corresponds
to reproductive power; Rajas- Guna, passionateness, to
irritability; and Sattwa-Guna, wisdom and virtue, to sen
sibility. When however they add to this, that Tanias-
Guna is the fate of animals, Bajas-Guna the fate of man,
and Sattwa-Guna that of the Gods, this is to be taken in a
mythological, rather than physiological sense.
In Chapter 20th of the 2nd Yol. of my chief work en
titled
" Ob
j edification of the Will in the Animal Organism,"
I have likewise treated the argument of the present
therefore I advise my readers to read it after this,
chapter ;
1
as a complement to what is here given.
I may observe, that the passages I have quoted from
pp. 14 and 15 of my Essay on Colours, refer to the first
edition.
1 In my Parerga," 94 of the 2nd vol. ( 96 in the 2nd edition)
belongs also to the above.