His distinctive character very early revealed itself. Legend delights to show him even from his infancy in revolt against paternal authority, and departing from the common way to fulfill his vocation.[1] It is certain, at least, that he cared little for the relations of kinship. His family do not seem to have loved him,[2] and at times he seems to have been hard toward them.[3] Jesus, like all men exclusively preoccupied by an idea, came to think little of the ties of blood. The bond of thought is the only one that natures of this kind recognize. "Behold my mother and my brethren," said he, in extending his hand toward his disciples; "he who does the will of my Father, he is my brother and my sister." The simple people did not understand the matter thus, and one day a woman passing near him cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which gave thee suck!" But he said, "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."[4] Soon, in his bold revolt against nature, he went still further, and we shall see him trampling under foot everything that is human, blood, love, and country, and only keeping soul and heart for the idea which presented itself to him as the absolute form of goodness and truth. [Footnote 1: Luke ii. 42 and following. The Apocryphal Gospels are full of similar histories carried to the grotesque.] [Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.] [Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 48; Mark iii. 33; Luke viii. 21; John ii. 4; Gospel according to the Hebrews, in St. Jerome, _Dial. adv. Pelag._, iii. 2.] [Footnote 4: Luke xi. 27, and following.] CHAPTER IV. THE ORDER OF THOUGHT WHICH SURROUNDED THE DEVELOPMENT OF JESUS. As the cooled earth no longer permits us to understand the phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which penetrated it is extinct, so deliberate explanations have always appeared somewhat insufficient when applying our timid methods of induction to the revolutions of the creative epochs which have decided the fate of humanity. Jesus lived at one of those times when the game of public life is freely played, and when the stake of human activity is increased a hundredfold. Every great part, then, entails death; for such movements suppose liberty and an absence of preventive measures, which could not exist without a terrible alternative. In these days, man risks little and gains little. In heroic periods of human activity, man risked all and gained all. The good and the wicked, or at least those who believe themselves and are believed to be such, form opposite armies. The apotheosis is reached by the scaffold; characters have distinctive features, which engrave them as eternal types in the memory of men. Except in the French Revolution, no historical centre was as suitable as that in which Jesus was formed, to develop those hidden forces which humanity holds as in reserve, and which are not seen except in days of excitement and peril.