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.