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tinent which he discovered, and we speak of Newton's law of gravitation."

If Newton had been the great thinker and discoverer which he is reputed to be, it would indeed be strange that he was proud of the silly commentary he had written on the Revelation of St. John.

Now, suppose we accept the view of Schopenhauer concerning the priority claims of Hooke, does not Hooke's thought live on, whether or not the honor of priority is attributed to Newton? Is it not simply as though Hooke had written under the nom de plume of Isaac Newton? It is, after all, his actual soul that marches down triumphantly with the mark of truth through the ages and is reincarnated in many thousands of scientists. The actual soul of a man, which alone can properly be called his own, is not his name, but consists in the thoughtforms, sentiment forms, and deed-forms which originate in him. They are characteristic of him as the peculiar product of an interaction among those other soul-forms of his which constitute his inheritance from former ages.

He who seeks his self and is anxious to preserve it in its separateness, will surely fail, for his present individuality will at last be dissolved in death. He who attempts to immortalize his name, may or may not succeed. A name, the combination of letters in the mouth of posterity, is in itself an empty thing, and for that reason it is sometimes more lasting than our bodily organization. But he who endeavors to be an incarnation of the truth, and nothing else be

sides, is sure to succeed; he will not be hampered by other considerations; he has attained immortality, and his soul in its peculiar personal idiosyncrasy will be, and will forever remain, a most valuable presence, a never-failing blessing, in the advancing and growing spirit of the human race.

THE BASIC CONCEPTS OF BUDDHISM.

BUDDHISM is generally characterized as a religion

without a belief in God and the human soul, without the hope of a future existence, pessimistic and desolate, looking upon life as an ocean of suffering, quietistic in ethics, and finding comfort only in the expectation of a final extinction in nothingness. Now, it is true that Buddhists, with the exception of some less important heretical sects, do not believe in a personal God; but, while on the one hand, there are many faithful Christians who look upon the theistic dogma merely as the symbolical expression of a deeper truth, on the other hand, the Buddhists believe not only in the Sambhôga Kâya which is an equivalent of the Christian God-idea, but even in a trinity of Sambhôga Kâya, Nirmâna Kâya, and Dharma Kâya, bearing a close resemblance to the Christian conception of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Further, it is undeniable that Buddhists do not believe in the âtman or Self which is the Brahman philosophers' definition of soul, but they do not deny the existence of mind and the continuance of man's spiritual existence after death. Men trained in Western modes of thought, however, are so accustomed to their own terminology that Eastern thinkers, when

using expressions denying the allegoric terms of Christian thought, are suspected of negativism. Even Western thinkers who have ceased to be believers in Christianity fail to see the positive aspect of the Buddhist world-conception, and we are again and again confronted with the refrain: If Buddha's doctrine is not nihilism, it practically amounts to nihilism.

Benfey says in the preface to his translation of the "Pantscha Tantra":

"The very bloom of the intellectual life of India (whether it found expression it Brahmanical or Buddhist works) proceeded substantially from Buddhism, and is contemporaneous with the epoch in which Buddhism flourished ;—that is to say, from the third century before Christ to the sixth century after Christ. Taking its stand upon that principle, said to have been proclaimed by Buddhism in its earliest years, ' that only that teaching of the Buddha's is true which contraveneth not sound reason,' ,'* the autonomy of man's Intellect was, we may fairly say, effectively acknowledged; the whole relation between the realms of the knowable and of the unknowable was subjected to its control; and notwithstanding that the actual reasoning powers, to which the ultimate appeal was thus given, were in fact then not altogether sound, yet the way was pointed out by which Reason could, under more favorable circumstances, begin to liberate itself from its failings. We are already learning to value, in the philosophical endeavors of Buddhism, the labors, sometimes indeed quaint, but aiming at thoroughness and worthy of the highest respect, of its severe earnestness in inquiry. From the prevailing tone of our work, and still more so from the probable Buddhist origin of those other Indian story-books which have hitherto become known to us, it is clear that, side by side with Buddhistic earnestness, the merry

*Wassiliew, Der Buddhismus, etc., p. 68.

jests of light, and even frivolous poetry and conversation, preserved the cheerfulness of life."

This description does not show Buddhism in a gloomy light, and it is different from what people usually imagine it to be.

In spite of the innumerable exuberances of modern Buddhism, its power and possibilities are still great, mainly because it enjoins on its devotees the free exercise of their reasoning powers. Among all religious men Buddhists more than others appear to be at the same time full of religious zeal and also open to conviction.

We read in M. Huc's Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China (II., p. 189) that the Regent of Lhasa incessantly repeated to the French missionaries :

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'Your religion is like our own, the truths are the same; we differ only in the explanation. Amid all that you have seen and heard in Tartary and Thibet you must have found much to condemn; but you are to remember that many errors and superstitions that you may have observed, have been introduced by ignorant Lamas, but are rejected by intelligent Buddhists.' He admitted between us and himself only two points where there was disagreement-the origin of the world and the transmigration of souls. Let us examine them both together,' said he to them again, 'with care and sincerity; if yours is the best, we will accept it; how could we refuse you? If, on the other hand, ours is best, I doubt not you will be alike reasonable, and follow that.'"

Now it is strange that in those two points which constitute the main differences between Buddhism and Christianity, viz., creation and the nature of the

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