before Christ. No theory of occult science, of esoteric wisdom known to the initiated of different countries, will account for this similarity. The Eleusinian mysteries are shown by Mr. Grote to have related only to beliefs touching questions of Greek thought and worship. The common origin of primal truths in morals and religion may rather be ascribed to the remains of the primitive revelation which held its place through the centuries because true to the moral nature of man. Aristotle, as quoted by Jowett, ascribes these truths to the wise men who lived near the beginning of things. Some of these truths are to be found in the Vedas, and though lost sight of in the pantheism and the moral degradation of his time, could not fail to have enlisted the thoughtful regard of a mind so keen in its moral perceptions as that of Gautama. Indeed, Gautama's own testimony may well be taken in proof that he was not indebted to any outside sources.

What is of more interest to us at this day is his formal rejection of any esoteric doctrines for an elect few. There was no privacy in his instructions even for those whom he organized as an order, only certain stricter rules of living as became men devoted to the work of making known his instructions to others. Esoteric Buddhism, of which we hear so much in these later times, is purely an after-thought. When the Buddhism of Gautama had declined from its first estate it compromised with Brahmanism, accepting some of its speculations, among the rest, the Yoga system of occult knowledge, and gave in exchange its Buddha to occupy a place in the Hindu pantheon as an incarnation of Krishna. The instances recorded in which supernatural power is claimed for Gautama in the earlier books are so rare and so out of keeping with their general tenor as to be fairly accounted for as interpolations of a later day, to give increased dignity to his character; unless we suppose that in his old age, like Mohammed or even Keshub Chunder Sen of our time, he may have yielded to his flatterers and accepted their ascriptions of extraordinary

power.

So once for all we may clear our way of all the fancies of esoteric Buddhism, seeing in its claims not the teachings of Gautama, but the accretions of the popular legends of a credulous and superstitious age, reinforced on the one hand by the speculations of an oriental imagination, and on the other by the jugglery and legerdemain of the devotees of occult science. This is all we can make out of Mr. Sinnetts' Esoteric Buddhism, notwithstanding his claim to have received permission to publish its secrets from

certain Buddhist priests, kindly considerate of the welfare of mankind and of his credulity. This, too, is rather more than we can make out of Colonel Olcott and his Buddhist Catechism, and we are not surprised at the failure of his mission to Japan.

When we read the speculations on Cosmogony, in which so cultured and well balanced a mind as Plato could indulge, we need not be surprised at the vagaries of the Orientals, however much we may wonder at their acceptance in these later times by men of the Anglo-Saxon race. As to the occult science of esoteric Buddhism much need not be said. The exposure of its lying pretensions and of the deceit practiced to pass off tricks of the trained juggler for miraculous effects, has added but little to the knowledge of the possibilities of human credulity. In a curious work called "Apokatastasis, or Progress Backward," by a late professor in one of our New England colleges, we have numerous citations from Latin authors of the first centuries of our era, from which it appears that occult science has made but little, if any, progress through the discoveries of these later times.

Whatever powers are now ascribed to Gautama, it is an interesting fact that he never claimed to have attained to any other powers than were possible to any other man capable of the same sublime abstraction of mind.

The one great thought of Buddhism, observes Sir MonierWilliams, is intellectual enlightenment such as man can acquire "through his own intellectual faculties and through his own inner consciousness, instincts, and intuitions, unaided by any extraordinary or supernatural revelation of any kind."

For the first time in the history of mankind was proclaimed "A salvation which each man could gain for himself and by himself in this world during this life without the least reference to God or to gods, either great or small.”1

Gautama makes no attempt to account for the origin of things, rather he deprecates all such inquiry as idle and useless. He accepts from Brahmanism, as the ultimate fact, the existence of the material world and of conscious beings living in it, but the practical side was enough to absorb his thought and effort, and he left to others the privilege of speculation.

In the foregoing presentation only incidentally is any reference made to the sanctions of the moral system taught by Buddha. On the one hand he held up his doctrine of the Nirvana as the reward of fidelity to him and his doctrines-rest for the weary, Rhys Davids's Hibbert Lectures, p. 29.

for all burdened with sin and doubt and earthly trials, rest and then the end. On the other hand, he held up the doctrine of transmigration from one state of being to another according to character, till the end is reached, though millions of years be spent in the process.

That which passed from one stage to another under the transmigration process is not the soul, as taught by Brahmanism and by Greek and Egyptian philosophy, but the net result in thought and sentiment of all former experiences, an unconscious force called Dharma, attaining to consciousness in each successive stage of experience, on reaching a sufficiently high grade of being. "Buddhism sees no distinction of any fundamental character, no difference, except an accidental or phenomenal difference between gods, men, plants, animals, and things. All are the product of causes that have been acting through the unmeasurable ages of the past; and all will be dissolved. Of sentient beings nothing will survive save the result of their actions; and he who believes, who hopes in anything else, will be blinded, hindered, hampered in his religious growth by the most fatal of delusions.” 1

Buddhism thus approaches the modern religion of humanity. Progress is made or lost in accordance with unchanging laws, and the elevation of the race as a whole is due to the aggregate of good over evil in the life of each succeeding generation. The one thing to be striven for is knowledge. The evil, the suffering in the world, is due to ignorance; men do wrong because of ignorance. There is no such thing as an evil will; no such thing as sin, because there is no higher spiritual being to whom men are responsible. Indeed, there is no proper spiritual being at all, as understood in Western thought. No future rewards, only the Dharma to complete its course, and then to be dissolved.

In Buddhism we start, therefore, with an order of things already existing; coming, we know not whence, beginning, we know not when or where; with material forces working on in endless change, as a mechanism complete in itself. With beings inorganic and organic, the latter in their higher forms attaining to consciousness; yet in the highest forms to the consciousness of suffering, of sorrow, of misery, having a life whose ideal state is attained in the suppression of all desire, affection, or emotion, in a dreamy unconsciousness and then final extinction. . . . “In short," remarks Sir Monier-Williams in his last work, "the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal circle, according 1 Rhys Davids's Hibbert Lectures, p. 214.

to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism" (p. 122).

The most popular verses in the Pali-Buddhist books are said to be these:

“How transient are all component things,

Growth is their nature and decay;

They are produced, they are dissolved again :

And then is best, when they are sunk to rest.”

Such is Buddhism as set forth by its founder, a protest, a rationalistic protest against the prevailing systems of his day. Not inaptly has its relation to Brahmanism been likened to that of Protestantism to Romanism twenty centuries later, with this difference, that Buddhism is not properly a religion at all. It is a philosophy, the last result of unaided human thought on the great problems of life. It is a confession of human misery; a recognition of life as a scene of conflict between the lower and the higher nature; of the appetites, desires, passions, and cravings, that inspire and animate the material nature, with the intellectual and spiritual forces that make up the man. It is the old problem of the thoughtful of all ages, but in no instance has there been so complete a rejection of everything distinctly spiritual or supernatural. The supreme object of human endeavor is to extinguish all life, all sentiment, all feeling, all consciousness. When the object is attained, life may be continued up to the moment of physical death to be sure, but as bare existence only, and then victory is swallowed up in death!

In Buddhism, therefore, there is no Creator, no Divine Providence, no infinite love and sympathy, no Father in Heaven, no plan for the redemption of a fallen spiritual being, no final triumph of truth and righteousness, no eternity of blessedness to redeemed souls; no first chapter of Genesis, no first chapter of John, no story of the Christ, and none of the New Jerusalem. The Light of Asia is not the Light of the World!

BOSTON, MASS.

N. G. Clark.

EDITORIAL.

THE CHARACTER OF PRESIDENT WOOLSEY.

THE death of Yale's senior ex-president has revived the memory of his important services, and so doubtless secured the production in due season of fitting memorials of his work as an educator and a teacher. These, we believe, will place him high among the intellectual forces of his generation. Dr. Leonard Bacon (no mean judge of men and well acquainted with Dr. Woolsey) once declared him to be the most gifted and accomplished man who had up to his time been President of Yale, and certainly no one doubts that of the talents intrusted to him all were put to good account. The length of his presidency, the relative prominence of the college which he efficiently governed and led, and the excellence, amount, and variety of his contributions to literature, will, we are confident, put him high in the front rank of American college presidents.

Discussion of the value of so long and laborious a career obviously requires special and thorough study of its fruits. It is pleasant to reflect that death in such cases only lifts the life to view and calls attention to its abiding worth.

In respect to the moral qualities displayed by a man long in prominent service, this reason for delay does not exist; so far at least as the impression carried by his contemporaries is the source of knowledge, and it is perhaps better that what is to be said should be spoken while recollection is fresh.

We will try to give some account of President Woolsey's personality as it appeared to those of his pupils who knew him in his riper years.

The first of the deeper impressions received was that of force. Young men did not meet their President many times before finding out that he was a man of resolute and commanding nature. Not that he had an imposing presence. On the contrary, the spare, bent figure, the small though shapely head, the rather high-pitched voice, the absolutely unstudied and undemonstrative utterance, suggested the man of books, and of books only; one too much absorbed in ideas to be capable of dealing effectively with men. But a powerful will can express itself through any physical organs whatever, and President Woolsey's pupils soon felt his manful and masterful nature. His quick movement, his brilliant eye, his terse, direct utterance, his calm intensity of tone, all suggested power. If occasion arose for the display of authority, such, for example, as a display of boyish turbulence, the spirit of the man went out in strength. One of the absolutely unquestioned facts of college life was the majesty of the President's authority. No legend attributed weakness to him. On the contrary, the legendary tales of which he was the hero represented him as dominating not only students, but Faculty.