said of every Church on earth, and if it comes to a question of 'pious frauds' possibly the Roman Church might not find its record any better. But we have no wish to raise the controversial question here. The real lessons to be derived from Mr. Bridgett's book concern historians rather than theologians. They are the old familiar ones, ' Don't rely on second-hand authorities,' and 'Verify your references.'

ART. V.-BUDDHISM.

Buddhism in its Connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism and in its Contrast with Christianity. By Sir MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, K.C.I.E., M.A., Hon. D.C.L. of the University of Oxford, Hon. LL.D. of the University of Göttingen, Hon. Member of the Asiatic Societies of Bengal and Bombay and of the Oriental and Philosophical Societies of America, Boden Professor of Sanskrit, and late Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, &c. (London, 1889.)

THE study of religions not our own has become highly fashionable of late. The old plan was to set down the existence of all other faiths to the machinations of the devil, and leave them aside as wholly unworthy of consideration. The idea that they contained germs of truth, or that anything might be learnt by means of studying them, scarcely entered people's heads. It is possible that this wholesale neglect of all faiths except the Christian came from the extreme Calvinistic view of the world. The heathen were looked upon simply as men predestinated to destruction, lying wholly outside the narrow boundaries of the redeeming purpose of God. This was not, at any rate, the more ancient view. The well-known language of Justin Martyr, and of Athanasius, show how the ancient Church recognized the influence of the Word of God in regions outside the Jewish and Christian dispensations.

1 It may be remarked that we have in this article consistently disregarded the first of these canons, having been obliged in almost every case to take quotations and references simply from Mr. Bridgett. That this is not absolutely safe may be gathered from an instance or two quoted above, and from at least one false reference which we have found, viz. on p. 249 the British Museum MS. referred to should be Addit. 4791 instead of 4785.

But, at the same time, the scientific study of other religions is a modern growth, and, like many modern growths, it threatens to become over-luxuriant. Bishop Butler remarks in the Analogy that 'it is one of the peculiar weaknesses of human nature when, upon a comparison of two things, one is found to be of greater importance than the other to consider this other as of scarce any importance at all.' And the opposite tendency is equally remarkable, when a thing which has been considered of no importance is discovered to have a certain amount of interest to infer at once that it is the one thing worth considering in the world. This tendency has been fully illustrated in the history of the science of religion. Heathen creeds, which were once simply passed by, have met with a sudden change of fortune. The better ones have been exalted to a position quite equal to that of Christianity, and it is more than hinted in certain quarters that the functions of the missionary are at an end. Why need we attempt, it is asked, to disturb the faith of those who hold to so very lofty a faith as that of Buddhism? For, after all, there are so many points of contact between the faith of Christ and that of the Buddha that proselytizing may well be out of the question. Why cannot both creeds go on together, each doing its work, living and letting live?

It would be easy to show that this attitude rests upon a very limited and inadequate view of Christianity. Indeed, it usually accompanies a conviction that Christ's mission was exhausted in the Sermon on the Mount. But it is also possible to show that it springs from a no less mistaken view of Buddhism. In a lecture delivered at Oxford, and then printed in the Nineteenth Century for July 1888, the Bishop of Colombo developed this view of the religion of the Light of Asia. The discussion of so large a question in a lecture could not but be somewhat slight, and, though the real nature and affinities of Buddhism as it is in Ceylon were clearly set forth, it was plain that there was room for a much fuller treatment. We believe that we may hope for a more complete treatise at no very distant date from the Bishop's pen.

In the meantime the veteran scholar Sir Monier MonierWilliams has brought his life-long study of Oriental languages and modes of thought to the consideration of this problem. In a series of lectures delivered in Edinburgh he has given us a scientific and scholarly treatment of Buddhism, its relations to other forms of religion in India, and its contrast with Christianity. There is much more in this volume than it is easy to absorb at a first reading. It seems as if there were in

it materials for the study of the antiquities of Buddhism-its religious symbols, architecture, customs, and history—as well as a complete exposition of the faith itself. Such a work cannot but be of first-rate importance for the final settlement of the questions as to the real nature and value of Buddhism. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that its appearance will succeed in destroying altogether the sentimental leanings to Buddhism, of which we hear so much nowadays; but we are quite sure that anyone who wishes to know the facts may find them here, and that they are not of such a nature as to encourage Buddhistic sympathies.

One of the points which comes out most clearly from the present work is the close and inseparable union of Buddhism with other forms of Hindu religion. It is commonly maintained that the work of Gautama represented a completely new start: he is described as coming forward with a Gospel of self-sacrifice and love in an age of immorality, with a spiritual and transcendent agnosticism in an age largely given over to idolatry. The facts of his life are difficult to ascertain ; later hands have adorned them copiously with miraculous legends; but those which can be acquired show the operation of causes natural in the age and country where Gautama passed his life. At the time of his birth, Sir Monier Williams tells us, Brahmanism had passed through three stages of its existence. There had been the old worship of the personified forces of nature represented in the Vedic hymns, which haď developed into the philosophical Brahmanism of the Upanishads on the one hand, and the cumbrous system of caste rules and domestic usages found in the law books. But Brahmanism had not been able to rule things all its own way. Scepticism, bold and blatant, had arisen and said many hard things about the orthodox faith, going so far on occasion as to pronounce the Vedas 'a tissue of nonsense.' Even the philosophical Brahmanism represented earnest doubt clinging as far as might be to the Vedic religion. Buddhism itself was a form of scepticism—not offensive and quarrelsome, nor philosophical, but still a scepticism after all, rising out of a contemplation of things under the aspect they bore to the Brahmanistic philosophy. According to the more trustworthy traditions of Gautama's life, he is said to have been born about 500 B.C. in a family of considerable position. The father of the founder of Buddhism was simply a chief of the Sakya. tribe-certainly not a king in our sense of the term, but rather a great zamindar, or landlord, whose territory was not so large in area as Yorkshire' (p. 22). The natural course

open to Gautama would have been to be instructed in certain portions of the Veda, and to become a soldier (p. 24). There are legends to the effect that he failed to display the proper interest in martial and athletic exercises, but, on being tested, displayed his superiority 'in archery and the twelve arts.' He was made to marry early and had at least one son. The birth of the son is the 'first momentous crisis of his life.' Already the desire to forsake his home had been working within him, and now he feels that it must be done at once or never. 'He seeks the chamber of his wife, and finds her asleep with her hand on the head of his infant son. He longs for a last embrace, but fearing to arouse her suspicions hurries away. Outside, his favourite horse is waiting to aid his flight' (p. 28). Thus he escapes from home, and, when at a safe distance from his father's territory, cuts off his hair, exchanges clothes with a passing beggar, and 'assumes the outward aspect and character of a wandering ascetic.' He attaches himself first as a disciple to two Brahmans .. who imbue him with their own philosophical tenets and theory of salvation.' Failing to find this satisfactory, or to attain by its means the rest and peace which he sought, he attempts to establish intercourse with the divine beings, by means of self-mortification. This too fails, and so he turns to a third method, viz. meditation. Under the shelter of a sacred fig tree . . . he gave himself up to higher and higher forms of meditation. In this he merely conformed to the Hindu Yoga-a method of attaining mystic union with the Deity,which, although not then formulated into a system, was already in vogue among the Brahmans' (p. 32). At first sight this seems almost a less hopeful method than the other two. Sir Monier cites the following regulations for its due performance from a work much later than the time of Buddha, but illustrating his proceedings sufficiently well. Holding his body, head, and neck quite immovable, seated on a firm seat in a pure spot with Kusa grass around, the devotee should look only at the tip of his nose, and meditate on the Supreme Being. Further on he is directed to meditate so profoundly as to think of nothing whatever' (p. 32). This process, though so unsuggestive in appearance, was crowned with success, in spite of much opposition on the part of Mara, the evil spirit. After a long struggle he emerged fully enlightened-a Buddha. The doctrine which had been attained after all this trouble was simply as follows: 'that this present life is only one link in a chain of countless transmigrations; that existence of all kinds involves suffering, and that such suffering can only be got rid

of by self-restraint and the extinction of desires, especially of the desire for continuity of personal existence' (p. 35). It was pessimism of the most unmitigated kind, leading, if properly put into practice, to a paradoxical negation of all human interests and joys, to the abolition of all social ties, with a view to the ultimate extinction of all individual being. Strictly speaking there was no reason for Gautama on discovering this truth to do anything further; and he was subjected, according to the legend, to a new temptation on the part of Mara, in order to persuade him to enjoy his knowledge by himself. However he resists this and goes to the deer park at Benares, where five ascetics, who had been his companions when he sought illumination through self-mortification, were still practising their self-tortures. He converts them, and he and the five constitute the first six members of the monastic fraternity. He spent about forty-five years in itinerant preaching, and died at an advanced age from a fit of indigestion, caused by eating pork.

These are the bare outlines which have survived of the life of Gautama and the simplest facts about his teaching. It is easy to see how widely the renunciation of home and kindred, which forms the starting-point of Gautama's career, differs from anything known to Christianity under that name. The disciples of Christ were to be in the world, although not of it, and to be kept from the evil one. There was no reason for supposing that the Buddha was the first to whom this plan of attaining truth had occurred: the story as told by Sir Monier shows plenty of indications that at the time of his departure rigorous asceticism was a common practice. And the renunciation which he preached has even less community with that demanded of the Christian. It is different alike in motive and in nature. In order to make this clear it will be necessary to speak a little more in detail of the substance of the original doctrine taught by Buddha.

There are two principles which seem to be the foundations of all that Gautama taught. The one is that this is the worst of all possible worlds. Sir Monier tells us (p. 36) that this conviction is not uncommon in India. The climate is not conducive to optimistic views of life.' It seems to have been shared by many other thinkers of Buddha's day. 'The Upanishads and systems of philosophy which followed on them all harped on the same string. They all dwelt on the same minor key-note' (p. 101). The other is that there is no final difference in kind between gods and men and animals. All life is merely one link in a series of successive existences,