The isolation of the soul with its paramount importance to its owner (that is to say, to itself) makes it obligatory to pursue its interests even at the expense of the most sacred affections. The Pagan, the Jew, the Moslem could not have been brought to yield assent to this doctrine, but it meets us continually in Catholic hagiology; for instance, St. François de Sales told Madame de Chantal that she ought, if needful, to walk into the cloister over the dead body of her son. So in a Jaina story, father, mother, wife, child, sister, brother try in vain to wrest a holy young man from his resolve to leave them. In vain the old people say: “We will do all the work if you will only come home; come, child! We will pay your debts; you need not stay longer than you like—only come home!” The quite admirable young man (who sets one furiously wishing for a stout birch rod) proceeds on his way unmoved. But it is remarked, “At such appeals the weak break down like old, worn-out oxen going up hill.” We prefer the weak. Who was the first anchorite? Perhaps in very early states of society a few individuals got lost in the mountain or forest, where they lived on fruits and nuts, and then, after a long time, some of them were re-discovered, and, because they seemed so strange and mysterious after their long seclusion, they were credited with supernatural gifts. Animals do not go away alone except in the rare case of being seized with mania, or in the universal case of feeling the approach of death. The origin of hermits cannot, therefore, be explained by analogy with animals. One can conceive that a hermit’s life may have great attractions, but scarcely that of a Jaina hermit, who is expected to employ his leisure in the most painful mortification of the flesh. Though other-worldly advantages form the great object which spurs men to choose such a lot we must not forget that this sort of life is held to confer powers which are, by no means, other-worldly. By it the Brahman becomes superior to caste, being incapable of pollution: if he wished he could drink after the most miserable Western had touched the cup.