Buddhism was not native to China. It came from India where it originated and from which it was finally driven by Mohammedanism and other religions in India. The peculiarity of Buddhism is that it denied the existence of a soul, though it remained by the doctrine of transmigration or metempsychosis. Its primary conception, however, was materialistic in as much as it maintained that all things were compounds destined to dissolution. It was thus a protest alike against the Animism of primitive time, or Jainism and the Pantheism of the Brahman philosophy.

The characteristic which gave it power was its ethics and this was a Stoic system grafted on a materialistic theory resembling that of Epicurus and Lucretius. It was the superiority of its ethics that enabled it to conquer more superstitious beliefs and customs. Why it should have adhered to the doctrine of transmigration after adopting a materialistic point of view does not appear clear to some writers, but I think this can be explained easily enough, though I shall postpone this question till I come to discuss the Hindu religions. It suffices here to indicate its relation to a rival religion and belief in China and its tendency to depart from the Animism and ancestor worship of that country, setting up a system of practical ethics without a theology or a belief in the immortality of the soul. It was evidently one of those systems which always arises in opposition to more naive conceptions and this makes it react against primitive ideas and customs all along the line. Its success was due to the cultivation of an ascetic ethics and the preservation of a priesthood with a literature.

Its doctrine of Nirvana, which was long supposed to be a belief in annihilation has been proved to be a doctrine of asceticism, or the suppression of the sensuous life and of a primary interest in it, the "dying of the sense life." I shall have more to say of this again.

Here it is necessary to say so much in order to show its starting point as disregarding the interest in a future life, which it denied, except as it affirmed transmigration which, after all, does not preserve personality and is thus convertible with materialism. Its ethical instincts would instigate antagonism to the cruelties associated with more primitive religions which based their beliefs and practises on the existence of a soul and its survival. Buddhism might very naturally find it necessary to deny the existence of a soul to eradicate those customs. It thus became associated with culture and ethical refinement. But it never wholly overcame the ancestor worship upon which it grafted its philosophy. It refined it and left it in popular tenancy. To do this it more or less compromised with Taoism in China, adopting portions of that creed while Taoism also adopted portions of Buddhism, the two forming one religion in the end, at least in their main characteristics.

The relation of Mohammedanism to China needs little consideration. It is a modification of Christianity and lays stress on the immortality of the soul. It is probable that its influence in China, correcting the nonhuman interest of Buddhism in that respect, but more nearly coinciding with what is implied by ancestor worship, was the cause of its growth. This influence, of course, was of a later period, but its chief power lay in its doctrine of immortality and strong government which adapted it readily to the social institutions of the East.

2. Hindu Beliefs

In regard to India Col. Grant observes, in his classification of the religions in India that "the oldest of these religions is Animism, which represents the beginnings of religion in India, and is still professed by

the more primitive tribes, such as Santals, Bhils, and Gonds." This remark, placing Animism among the tribes that are less civilized, is a clear indication of what it was that Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism supplanted. Distinct evidence of the same is found in the relation of Jainism to Buddhism. The founder of Jainism was Maha-vira. He was a contemporary of Buddha and opposed alike the Pantheism of the Brah-. mans and the Materialism of the Buddhists. He remained by the principles of Animism, holding that everything had a soul.

The Brahmans held that there was one all pervading and eternal essence or reality which we should call God. Man's life was to be one of good conduct and final absorption in this Absolute. The Buddhists ignored or denied the single Absolute and made the cosmos and all that was in it composite and subject to change. Man's personality did not survive, but the effect of his life would be found in later incarnations. This was his conception of transmigration. Brahmanism accepted transmigration, but differed from Buddhism in the manner of applying its system of castes in which its ethics varied from that of Buddha. But in respect to man's destiny Brahmanism accepted transmigration and absorption in the Absolute as practically identical.

This outlines the three main systems of religion in India, prior to the introduction of Mohammedanism, as Pantheism, Animism, and Materialism. Buddhism would probably object to that description of its creed, but the fact that its conception of the cosmos was practically the same as the Atomists, the materialists of Greece, except that the Buddhists did not develop it into a theory of atoms, but made all things compounds to be dissolved at some stage of change, shows that we have indicated the essential feature of their doctrine. Indeed they were more materialistic than the Greek materialistis; for the latter admitted there was a soul.

The Buddhists denied that there was a soul. The Greek materialists denied immortality, though admitting a soul. The Buddhists denied both, and it was later materialism in the west that came independently to the same position. But in spite of this it had to be grafted on the Animism of the time and to some extent compromised its philosophy.

It was Brahmanism that was the older religion of India. But it was a reform of the early Vedic religion and the common Animism. The early Vedic religion traces its origin to the 14th century B. C. But this history is probably legendary. But it seems to be agreed that Brahmanism is the first historical reform of that primitive view and grafted itself on the previous Animism, modifying it by Brahmanic Pantheism. Animism is either what we should call pluralistic, or so near it as not to reach the conception of the unity of the Absolute and its creatures. Brahmanism is based upon that unity and adjusted Animism to its theory of transmigration. Buddhism arose to oppose Pantheism, or monism by a pluralistic scheme whatever the ultimate unity of things might be. Hence philosophically it was opposed to Brahmanism. Jainism was simply a philosophic effort to defend the Animism against which both Brahmanism and Buddhism were protests.

These systems prevailed among the intellectual classes, while Animism never wholly lost its force with the popular mind and availed to modify the philosophical system to the extent of admitting transmigration which was a concession to the doctrine of a future life which prevailed in Animism, though it eradicated what was of personal interest in that theory.

For the psychical researcher, Brahmanism has very little interest. Its philosophy, that is, its Pantheism, which is consistent with either a personal survival or personal annihilation, makes the question of immor

tality depend on facts, not upon a deduction from its premises. Hence there is no importance in the discussion of that. It is the doctrine of transmigration alone that brings it into relation with the problem of survival. Here it is not as clear as Buddhism. The latter makes it specific that personality does not survive and only the influence of a past life upon later generations can be found in the similar qualities displayed by the later individuals. This was in reality the same as the doctrine of Plato, whose view will come up for notice again. Brahmanism associated this reincarnation with absorption in God, so that it is difficult to form a clear conception of what it meant.

Like Buddhism, Brahmanism was primarily an ethical system and was chiefly distinguished for its caste system which regulated the relations between fellow men. Its religion was an attempt to unite the ideas of a monistic and a pluralistic conception of things, so that its relation to immortality is not so clear as that of Buddhism. Transmigration, in so far as its logical conception is concerned, is perfectly consistent with either personal or impersonal survival. All depends on the view we take of the soul. It is merely a dogmatic belief which says its personality is lost in the reincarnation, and perhaps the belief arose from the discovered fact that there was no evidence for the retention of personality in the transmigration. The persistence of like attributes, whether physical or mental, in successive individuals might well suggest the permanence of something and not admitting that there was any real destruction, reincarnation would take the form of denying the survival of personality.

The perplexity which most people have with this doctrine is either ethical or philosophical. The ethical perplexity is to make it consist with human ideals. The Pantheist who denies personal survival demands that we calmly sacrifice them to the law of nature and