EVIL IN THE SERVICE OF GOOD.

In the later development of Northern Buddhism, all the evils of this world, represented in various devil personalities, are conceived as incarnations of Buddha himself, who, by showing the evil consequences of sin, endeavors to convert mankind to holiness and virtue.

We find in the Buddhist temples of China and Japan so-called Mandaras, which represent the world-conception of Buddhism in its cosmic entirety. The word Mandara means "a complete ensemble," and it exhibits a systematically arranged group of Buddhaincarnations. The statue of the highest Buddha who dwells in Nirvâna always stands in the centre. It is "Bôdhi," enlightenment, or "Sambôdhi," perfect enlightenment, that is to say, the Truth which is the same for ever and aye. He is personified under the name Amitâbha, which means boundless light, being that something the recognition of which constitutes Buddhahood. He is like God, the Father of the Christians, omnipresent and eternal, the light and life of the world, and the ultimate authority of moral conduct.

The catalogue of the Musée Guimet of Paris, the best religious museum in the world, describes a Mandara, which is the highest Buddha in the centre of the group, surrounded by a number of his incarnations of various degrees and dignities. These are the prophets and sages of the world, who have taught mankind or set them good examples by their virtuous lives. On the right we see a group of personified abstracts,-piety, charity, science, religion, the aspiration for progress. On the left is a third class, consisting of the ugly figures of demons, whose appearance is destined to frighten people away from sensuality, egotism, and evil desires.

The devils of Buddhism, accordingly, are not the enemies of Buddha, and not even his antagonists, but his ministers and coworkers. They partake of Buddha's nature, for they, too, are teachers. They are the rods of punishment representing the curse of sin, and as such may fitly be conceived as incarnations of the

Bôdhi. The Buddhist devils are instruments of education who contribute their share to the general system of working out the final salvation of man.

Christian salvation consists in an atonement of sin through the bloody sacrifice of a sinless redeemer; Buddhist salvation is attained through enlightenment. Hence Christ is the sufferer, the innocent man who dies to pay with his life the debt of others who are guilty. Buddha is the teacher who by example and instruction shows people the path of salvation.

EDITOR.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.

FRANCE.

M. A. FOUILLÉE gives us at one stroke two octavo volumes, Le mouvement positiviste et la conception sociologique du monde, and Le mouvement idéaliste et la réaction contre la science positive. His aim in these two works has been to build up a "first philosophy" wherein will be harmonised the subjective and objective points of view between which speculation has always oscillated. How has he gone about this synthesis? He does not find it in mechanicalism, for the mechanical order is merely a "silhouette of the universe projected upon our thought," nor in biology, which furnishes us with an incomplete type only of the universe. Sociology alone, he says, can furnish us with a complete type. Comte foreshadowed the idea, but unfortunately, M. Fouillée adds, positivism was restricted to the objective systematisation of facts; it held to the abstract laws of the world, whereas the new idealism seeks in man and in psychical activity the ultimate explanatory principle, and is bent on representing the world in psychical terms and by means of sociological relations. In short, we have to admit, according to M. Fouillée, the unity of composition of the universe and the psychical character of that unity. Physical energy is accordingly nothing but the outward expression of moral energy, or of the will, which is omnipresent, at once founder and maker of reality. At the bottom of all are found states of consciousness in varying degrees of intensity and combination; universal relations being conceived as the first stage of the most complex relation known to us, namely, social solidarity.

1 F. Alcan, publisher.

Two theses, at least, are mingled here, as will be seen. Nevertheless, they may be separated. The universal solidarity of created beings is a legitimate hypothesis, but not now broached for the first time, having been first suggested by astronomy and nowise depending on any particular doctrine of M. Fouillée. On the other hand, the same hypothesis, according to which the universe is resolvable into atoms that are at once matter, life, and mind, does not determine us to accept the reduction of all reality to desire and of all physical energy to states of consciousness. Moreover, I do

not see the practical advantages of this mode of viewing things. I do not see what light it throws upon psychology, æsthetics, and morals, nor how it can suffice to explain the relations between subject and object, which it is still best to accept as actual facts, after the manner of everyday experience, or naïve realism. M. Fouillée seems to me to arrive, by a skilful mingling of the doctrines of Plato, Kant, Comte, and Hegel, at a sort of spiritualism without substance, a sort of psychism without soul, a sort of vitalism without organs or environment. And this situation finds expression in his system in the word "idealism,”—an idealism which is epitomised in the concept of the "idea-force," which has always been obscure, seeing that idea and force have here the value of a pure metaphysical entity.

It is an old saying that ideas rule the world, that ideals are the real moving power in social life, And I prefer to hold by this ancient formula, which is not so full of obscurities. The scholarly dialectic of M. Fouillée leads him to some grand deductions (the critical part of his works is quite remarkable), and I should be glad if I could be convinced by them. But I do not feel myself upon sufficiently solid ground to abandon myself to the guidance of so ambitious a master.

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The little volume of M. F. LE DANTEC, Le déterminisme biologique et la personnalité consciente,' carries us singularly far from M.

'I find this hypothesis formulated in the Principes Sociologiques of M. Ch. Mismer, published about eighteen years ago.

2 F. Alcan, publisher.

Fouillée. The author has undertaken here to develop the ideas relating to phenomena of consciousness which he had merely touched upon in the last chapter of his Théorie nouvelle de la vie. The phenomena of consciousness are for M. Le Dantec epiphenomena. As our readers already know, he very distinctly characterises states of consciousness as "inactive witnesses" of physiological life, wherein everything happens according to the laws of physics and chemistry. But what is consciousness? M. Le Dantec seeks to explain it as he has explained life. With Haeckel he regards consciousness as a property of atoms, and consequently of nervous elements (neura). Our ego would result consequently from the summing up of the epiphenomena which are produced by the activity of the different neura. In short, he takes his stand upon these two hypotheses: (1) that atoms have a fixed and inalienable consciousness for each atomic species; (2) that the atomic consciousnesses are summed up in the molecules, the molecular consciousnesses are summed up in continuous masses of plastic substances, and the plastidiary consciousnesses in the total aggregate of the nervous systems of resultant higher beings. He examines, on the basis of these facts, what elementary consciousness and what summed up consciousness is. Then he studies epiphenomena among polyplastidiary beings. and explains them without recourse to the intervention of immaterial principles and without admitting anything which is antagonistic to chemical determinism.

This new book will appear perhaps more hazardous than the former one of M. Le Dantec. But it bears the same ear-marks, and I regard it a remarkable production. The author has frankly entered upon the straight path which leads to discoveries. He has the merit of great precision in analysis and many other qualities which are requisite for attacking difficult problems.

M. LEON BOURGEOIS, formerly president of the ministerial council, publishes a short little work, Solidarité,' which I should not like to omit. Our thanks are certainly due to M. Bourgeois for

1 A. Colin & Co., publisher.