which constitute personality. Through Namarupa one does good works or evil, and through these works begins the existence of another Namarupa.' Thus, it is explained, the flame of the lamp ignites the straw, and the flames of the straw ignite the house; but the flames of the lamp are not the same as the flames of the straw, and these are not the same as the flames of the house. Even so the person who does good or an evil deed is another than the person who reaps the fruit thereof. More plainly expressed, the theory is that each human life is merely the link in a long chain of cause and effect; that each link is the result of what has gone before, and will mould the one which is to follow. Merit, or Karma, as the Buddhist calls it, is all that survives after death, and will advance, not the being-the Namarupa-who accumulates this merit, but the result of all which one being has done in a term of existence will invest another who has no conscious identity with himself.

In Buddhism there is no transmigration of souls in the accepted meaning of the term. After death a being is destroyed; another one is called into life. The chain of continuity is a migration of Karma. That which constitutes personality passes away, for it is nothing but a conception of that union of appearances which constitute the individual. It is merit which lives, which is part of Dharma (the world-force), which is never lost but can be overcome only by the struggle of man in the world of expiation. When evil has been overcome, when man has crushed it, when the mind has become clear in the understanding of truth, there is no longer need of existence, no longer need of an union of appearances for the sake of further expiation. Man perfected sinks into nothingness, absolute and external. Weary is the spirit of the Indian, seeking rest, eternal rest-rest without fruition, rest without hope and without love. The Christian, too, seeks rest, but it is that rest which he finds in a full knowledge and love of the Divine, so perfect and complete that further strife is needless.'

Buddhism, then, is a religion without God, and without immortality. Stripped of equivocation and of poetic detail, it is nothing but miserable agnosticism, and yet there are those who would compare it to the doctrine of Jesus Christ. How vain the taunt that Christ was a disciple of Buddha, that every word of the Gospels was borne from the East! Even granting that Christ was familiar with Buddhism, is there aught, beyond the moral law implanted by nature in our breasts, which in the former approaches the teachings of the Saviour? The principles of morality are the 1 Kellogg.

2 Comp. Childers' Pali Dict., “Nibbanam,” Rhys Davids' Buddhism, Kern, Buddhism, et al.

same in the breast of the African savage and in the breast of the enlightened European. Nature in the one may be perverted to such an extent as to crush all moral instinct, but the moral law has been written in the soul by the finger of God in the beginning, and if the Indian after centuries has read this law according to his nature, need we marvel to find much therein analogous to the Christian doctrine ?

What is the moral effect of this religion without God and immortality? There are many expressions in the canonical writings which, gathered together, would indeed make an excellent moral code; but there is also much which is contrary to our moral conception and to all reason. "Strive to become Buddha," is the fundamental principle of Buddhism. There is nothing in all the universe which is desirable save the liberation of self. Therefore it is taught in "Dhamapada," page 379, "Let self urge on self, let self try self, and watching over self you will live happily, oh, monk; for self is the vanquisher of self; self is the refuge of self; therefore control self as a merchant would his noble steed." Buddhism is essentially the religion of selfishness. Personal deliverance from all suffering is the aim of the Buddhist, and only that is useful which is subservient to this end. He may not hate his neighbor, for hatred is desire, and desire hinders him in attaining Nirvana. For the same reason he may not love his neighbor; for love, too, is desire. "Those alone who neither hate nor love have no fetters." Kindness, mercy and benevolence are recommended, not through motives of love, but through a motive of utility, for reflection assured him that they are better than cruelty and tyranny. If Buddhism teaches the forgiveness of wrong, it is easily perceived that this forgiveness is not incited by a love of enemies, but by the fact that reconciliation and forgiveness are more convenient than revenge. As it is with love, so it is with all virtues. They have no intrinsic value. A virtuous life is good because it is useful in the attainment of the highest knowledge and Nirvana. "Him I call truly wise who in this world is lifted above good and evil, lifted above the submission to either." "He who regards virtue, or a life of virtue, as the highest end to be attained in this world, is rebuked by the sacred books, for the loss of it would cause man to suffer; he yearns and prays for it like one who has lost his caravan or has wandered from his home. It creates in him desire." "Acts are to be avoided, for every kind of act is impelled by some motive of love or hate (rajas), and as rajas colors a pure and upright existence, tarnishes it more or less, therefore must he who strives to avoid all impurity act as Dhamapada.

1 Dhamapada.

3 Sutta Nipata. Vid Müller, S. B. E.

2

little as possible." "Not faith, strengthened by works, not hope in a reward for the good accomplished in this world, not charity to his neighbor, nothing that comprises the great motive of Christian works, is an incentive to the follower of Buddha. It is only essential for him to comprehend the four truths in order to attain perfection and Nirvana; it is only necessary for him to walk in the eightfold path. Righteousness is the lowest degree of moral worth; far higher is meditation and self-contemplation, and highest is wisdom. Morality has worth only as it is useful to an end, in this world, to the enjoyment of a happy life, and to the final absolute end, deliverance."

Buddhism is not for the poor in spirit, and in this particular it is the opposite of Christianity. The religion of Christ is for all— the lowliest as well as the most enlightened. Being a gospel of love, it comprehends humanity in its all-engrossing scope. Not only he whose mind can comprehend the abstract notions of a speculative belief, but all who are capable of a simple, earnest belief in a loving God, and of a desire to attain by righteous living a union with Him in the life beyond, may reach eternal happiness. Not so the Buddhist. His salvation depends upon knowledge. The gospel preached to him is a mass of abstruse, speculative sophism. Can his understanding grasp it? If so, he may attain enlightenment; otherwise, salvation is not for him. He who is burdened with cares of this world, who has entered upon the fierce struggle of existence for himself, for his wife, and for his children, finds little time or occasion for sophistic speculation, which, according to Buddha himself, will only, after years of severe application, lead to the desired result. Therefore, it is declared that the law is not for those who lead a family life. "Family life is suffering, is the seat of impurity. Only he who leads a monastic life can avoid sin." "From a family life comes contamination." "He alone is wise who wanders about homeless, who has resigned all service to his fellow-man, who has lifted himself above the serving of gods, who is free from all service, and whose path is known neither to the gods, to the demons, nor to the men." Not for him who is a member of the family, nor even to him who clings to the social order, is salvation, but for him who isolates himself from the rest of humankind, becoming an outcast and a beggar. If he crush the love for his wife and child out of his heart, if he learn to regard all men with absolute indifference, if he break all social ties, the consolation remains for him that his merit will in another existence invest something else with a fuller

1 Kern.
Sutta-Nipata.

2 Oldenburg, Buddha, 295. Oldenburg's, Dhamapada, 411.

perfection than was his lot in this world, and which something may finally reach Nirvana.

Is there aught in this marvellous web of human ideas-in which the warp is purest egotism and the woof a strange self-denial-which approaches the law of Christ? Love thy God and love thy neighbor as thyself has commanded the Saviour of the world. Love thyself to the exclusion of all else for all else will bring pain and suffering into thy life-declares he who has been pointed out as a prototype of Jesus Christ, and whose code of laws has been declared to be the source of the divine precept of Christian love. Buddhism, which teaches that all in this world is delusion, producing pain and sorrow and misery, that there is no hope, no light, no actual substantial happiness even hereafter, but that surcease of sorrow is only in non-existence, leads not upward. If, therefore, there are those that maintain that Buddha is the "Light of Asia," that he has led countless numbers to the light, they but demonstrate their own blindness, and that they, in reality, see no light who have ceased to see in Him who declared to a suffering world that He is the way, the Truth and the Life, the Light which shines for all the world.

J. S. GEISLER,

Scientific Chronicle.

A MAGNO-MICROSCOPE.

It appears that we are on the eve of a revolution in dioptrics. What we have long been accustomed to designate as the "wonders of the microscope" will be dwarfed into very pigmy marvels indeed. It is stated that Prof. Gates, of Washington, has worked out a process by which objects can be magnified to a size three hundred times greater than by any microscope now in use. The process is one by which the magnified object projected on a lens can be magnified by a second, as if the reflection were a real object. Prof. Gates says that the power of the instrument is three million diameters.

If this discovery fulfils all that is claimed for it, it will deserve to be ranked as an original discovery in dioptrical science, and the discoverer will be more fortunate than he or those who invented the original simple microscope, for the honor of which there is a scramble between the partisans of Malpighi, Lieberkühn, Hooke, Ellis, Swam-Werdam, Lyonnet, and several other scientific men. Sir David Brewster made the important discovery of the superiority of ground gems, such as diamond, sapphire and garnet, to the ordinary glass magnifiers previously in use. The garnet lenses were found the best of these, as they show no trace of the double refraction tendency inseparable from the sapphire and the diamond. Dr. Wollaston, who discovered the system of compound lenses, made the first great advance in the direction now claimed by Prof. Gates; but his improvement appears to have been rather the result of chance discovery than mathematical cogitation. Mr. Tolles, of Boston, deserves credit for the invention of a decided improvement, much in the direction of Mr. Gates's discovery, an achromatic concave contrivance called an amplifier, which is introduced into the body of the instrument. But Prof. Gates's method, if his expectations be realized, must upset the conclusions of many eminent men regarding the limits of microscopic vision and segregation. It ought to be an invaluable help in determining the real nature and source of the light obtained from the famous Crookes tubes.

It is not very surprising to find that ancient civilization was acquainted with the principle of the microscope. Mr. Layard found a rude one in his Nineveh explorations amid the ruins of the palace of Nimrud. The apparatus was fashioned from a piece of rock-crystal. In Athens magnifying glasses were common articles of commerce as far back as the days of Aristophanes, and we may be certain that Archimedes devoted much attention to their scientific properties when he proposed to utilize his "burning-glasses," as the legend goes, to the destruction of hostile