{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_77146/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_77146","id":"gutenberg_77146","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77146","summary":null,"tags":["Buddhism and science","Science -- Philosophy"],"text":"BUDDHISM & SCIENCE\n\n\n                                   BY\n                               PAUL DAHLKE\n\n\n                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN\n                                   BY\n                          THE BHIKKHU S\u012aL\u0100C\u0100RA\n\n\n                       MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\n                       ST. MARTIN\u2019S STREET, LONDON\n                                  1913\n\n\n                                COPYRIGHT\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n     Introduction                                                    vii\n\n  1. What is a World-Theory and is it necessary?                       1\n\n  2. Faith and a World-Theory                                          8\n\n  3. Science and a World-Theory                                       13\n\n  4. An Introduction to the Thought-World of the Buddha Gotama        23\n\n  5. The Doctrine of the Buddha                                       35\n\n  6. Buddhism as a Working Hypothesis                                 81\n\n  7. Buddhism and the Problem of Physics                             110\n\n  8. Buddhism and the Problem of Physiology                          126\n\n  9. Buddhism and the Problem of Biology                             140\n\n 10. Buddhism and the Cosmological Problem                           194\n\n 11. Buddhism and the Problem of Thought                             206\n\n     Conclusion                                                      254\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n                        The Purpose of the Book\n\n\nThree kinds of books there are. First, those that give nothing and from\nwhich we demand nothing. These constitute the greater portion of the\nbook-world; empty entertainment for the idle. Secondly, those books\nthat give the unfamiliar and are unfamiliar to us--that is, demand only\nour memory. These are manuals of instruction presenting facts. And\nthirdly, those books that give themselves and demand ourselves. These\nare the books that are mental nutriment in the real sense of the words,\nand impart to the entire process of mental development a stimulus\nwhich, like the stimulus imparted to a growing tree, never again can\nbe lost. The present book makes claim to belong to the last category.\nAs something experienced by myself, it is meant to become such an\nexperience to others.\n\nThe mental poverty of our time finds its most accurate expression in\nthe prevalent lack of individual experience. We are not impressed where\nwe ought to be impressed, because we allow ourselves to be impressed\nwhere in truth there is nothing impressive. We mistake our true\ninterests. The interesting is something in which we have an interest,\nin which we have a share. But there has been such a derangement of\npositions that in presence of our true interests we stand stupid\nspectators, whilst for the interesting in the banal sense, we are\nready to go through fire and flood. To the average man of to-day it is\nfar more interesting to read hair-splitting investigations into the\nquestion as to whether Christianity is a branch of Buddhism or Buddhism\nof Christianity, than to think out and live that which both have taught\nand continue to teach.\n\nAll this is inherent in the conditions under which we live at the\npresent time.\n\nThought is ever confronted by life as by a question--a question that\nof necessity becomes actual in me, the thinker. For as a candle\nilluminates a certain portion of space and thereby first calls forth\nquestion-raising objects, so does thought itself illuminate these\nstellar spaces and thereby first calls forth question-raising objects.\nThe _I_ is the natural point of departure of every view of the world,\nbeing the objective as well as the subjective point of departure. Now\nthat philosophy, in the endeavour to construct a world-conception out\nof pure thought alone, has come to ruin on her own nothingness, natural\nscience has constituted itself the emissary of the world-conception\nidea, and in contradistinction to philosophy has sought to realize it\nover the head of the _I_, so to speak--an attempt which, despite all\nits grandeur, is forever doomed to failure, seeing that, as the last to\ninclude the _I_ itself in this world-theory, the problem is insoluble.\nHence the fact that we no longer possess a philosophy such as the\nancients and the schoolmen possessed; and do not yet possess a natural\nscience that can give us any genuine aid.\n\nEvery thinker, every seeker--and every thinker is a seeker--is to-day\nin a state of mental interregnum. And it is the hope of this book\nthat, as masses of atmosphere in labile equilibrium frequently at the\nslightest impulse break into whirling motion, so also the minds of our\ntime that are in this state of labile equilibrium may prove themselves\nstill more susceptible to stimuli, and respond, if not exactly with a\nmental typhoon, at least with a gentle zephyr.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThree kinds of men there are. First, the indifferent, comparable to the\ninert bodies of chemistry. To them applies the saying of Confucius,\n\u201cRotten wood cannot be turned.\u201d Secondly, the believers, comparable\nto those chemical bodies whose affinities are satisfied. In so far as\ntheir faith is genuine, to these applies already during their lifetime,\nthe parable of beggar Lazarus in Abraham\u2019s bosom. And thirdly there\nis the thinking class, destitute of faith, corresponding to chemical\nbodies in the nascent state. To them applies that word of the Buddha,\n\u201cPainful is all life.\u201d\n\nOur book has value only for this third, last kind. The indifferent,\nhowever highly educated he may be, will never give himself the\ntrouble to think it out; and with the believer it will only provoke\ncontradiction.\n\nA thinker destitute of faith I call him who at the idea of endlessness,\nwhich none who thinks at all can escape, reacts with that psychic\nuneasiness which may be compared with the purely intellectual\nuneasiness one experiences in presence of the irrational in\nmathematics, both, as a matter of fact, being also analogues.\n\nThe circle of readers of this book is thus circumscribed in advance.\nBut the few for whom it is written, they are the few that count.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThree questions there are that before all else occupy every thinking\nman, and always have occupied him. The question, \u201cWhat am I?\u201d The\nquestion, \u201cHow must I comport myself?\u201d The question, \u201cTo what end am\nI here?\u201d This \u201cwhat,\u201d this \u201chow,\u201d this \u201cto what end,\u201d--these are the\nsubjects of contention in all mental life. It is not every one who,\nlike Emperor Augustus of old, can withdraw from this scene of things\nwith a _plaudite amici_. There _are_ minds to whom life is more than a\nplay, and all that is transient more than a symbol.\n\nIt is the negative task of this book to show that neither faith nor\nscience supply such an answer to these questions as can satisfy the\nthinking man. It is the positive task of this book to show that a\nsolution of these three questions is furnished in the Buddha-thought,\nbut in a form so strange at first sight, that until now it has\nachieved no practical importance. Trained one-sidedly to inductive\nattempts at concepts, we know not how to translate into modern prose\nthese enigmatic formulas of thought. We know not what to make of a\nNirvana--the epitome of all blessedness and yet no heaven. We know not\nwhat to make of a Karma that from beginninglessness binds existence\nto existence and yet is no soul. And so the truest of all teachings,\nuncomprehended by philosophy, unheeded by natural science, is lost to\nus and to the needs of our time.\n\nThe question arises, How comes it that Buddhism has always remained\nessentially alien to us, a sort of mental curiosity?\n\nTo this I give the answer, brief and blunt, It is not understood. That\nis only too painfully evident from the literature published about\nit. Here I do not at all refer to those commonplace compilations\nthat simply swarm with misconceptions. It is just the best books on\nthe subject which reveal how far removed it is beyond our powers of\napprehension.\n\nI am prepared to have reproach brought against me; first, that in\nmany places I have become polemical, and secondly, that I have not\nsufficiently studied that tone of affected diffidence such as has\nbecome the fashion in our books, just in so far as they deal with the\ntheme of a world-conception.\n\nAs to the first point, I can bear witness that nowhere have I indulged\nin polemics for polemics\u2019 sake. It is with the Buddha-thought as with\nmany a colossal edifice, whereof the greatness only becomes apparent\nby comparison with ordinary erections. As in the case of the pyramids\nof Gizeh, the endless background of the desert offers no fitting\nstandard of measurement for their greatness, so the Buddha-thought,\nwhen projected upon beginninglessness alone, offers nothing by which\nits greatness can be measured. One must place by its side other mental\nstructures if one is ever to be able to reveal it in all its stupendous\nproportions. It is easy to understand that in this case simple\ncomparison must already amount to polemics.\n\nAs to the second point, my opinion is this: Either one has something\nuseful to contribute, in which case one does not need to practise this\naffected diffidence, or else one has nothing useful to contribute,\nin which case one does not need to write at all. I dare speak thus\nbecause I bring _nothing of my own_, but only speak in the place of a\nGreater. \u201cWe do not know, but there is no sound reason for doubting\nthat so-and-so,\u201d and all such phrases, howsoever couched, by means of\nwhich an endlessly considerable probability is intended to be smuggled\ninto the ranks of truth, are quite uncalled for in a teaching like that\nof the Buddha. Whoso knows, \u201cThus it is,\u201d simply says, \u201cThus it is.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n              WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY AND IS IT NECESSARY?\n\n\nThere is present a something given, an actuality, which we designate by\nthe collective name of \u201cworld.\u201d The untutored person and the thinker\nalike make use of the same expression. This latter is indifferent,\nacquiring a definite meaning only with reference to a particular\nexplanation--that is, with reference to a view of the world.\n\nThe impulse to explain actuality, the need of a world-theory, a\nworld-conception, is deeply embedded in every living being endowed with\nconsciousness.\n\nThe moment any being has so far developed as to begin to think, it\nfinds itself involved in a huge system within which it seeks to know\nits way, striving the while to understand it in its various details.\n\nThis system comes before it in a twofold aspect: on the one hand,\nas \u201csomething that is,\u201d _i.e._ things; and on the other hand, as\n\u201csomething that happens,\u201d _i.e._ the play of events among things. A\n\u201cbeing\u201d without a \u201chappening\u201d attached, is as little to be found as a\n\u201chappening\u201d without a \u201cbeing.\u201d In other words: processes only exist.\n\nHere two questions immediately arise. First, _What is the world?_ And\nsecond, _How does the play of events come about?_\n\nBoth sides of the world-picture, and therewith both questions, blend\ninto one question--the question as to adequate causes. As well the\nfact that \u201csomething is here,\u201d as the fact that \u201csomething happens,\u201d\nrequires adequate causes. _The adequate cause is the thought-necessity\ngiven with all mental life._ The entire universe in all its parts and\nprocesses, is to the thinking man a species of marionette show. He sees\nthe puppets dance but he does not see the strings, neither does he see\nthat which pulls the strings. The incentive to a view of the world is\nthe craving, so to speak, to get a peep behind the scenes, to spy out\nNature\u2019s secrets, and therewith seize upon the meaning and significance\nof life itself. This latter is the real object of every world-theory.\n\nNow it is quite true, that if I do not perceive the meaning and\nsignificance of life I am but little better than the donkey that drags\nthe full sacks to the mill and the empty ones back without knowing why,\nin the one case as in the other. I owe it to my dignity as a man to\nseek out the meaning and significance of life. But this is not all.\n\nThat I am here is a given fact. Were I not here, had I never been here,\nnot for that would any breach have yawned in the structure of the\nworld. But now that I am here, all turns upon _how I conduct myself\nduring this my existence_. Not the fact _that_ I am here, but _how_ I\nemploy this existence is the all-important thing.\n\nThis question as to the \u201c_how_\u201d can only be answered in any natural\nway through the \u201c_what_.\u201d I must know what I am, and what are the\nthings and beings outside me; I must learn my relations to the external\nworld, I must apprehend the meaning and significance of life before\nI can possess a genuine canon and standard for my behaviour, for my\nmorality. For all morality, whether it find expression in doing or\nin leaving undone, issues in acts of selflessness. This, however,\nrequires that motives be brought forward, otherwise such an act is\neither a perverted form of self-seeking like all asceticism, or it is\nmere training, bearing, indeed, the outward semblance of morality, in\nreality, however, having nothing at all to do with it. It is only in\nvirtue of cognition that any act acquires moral value. One can speak\nof real morality there only where it is a function of cognition.\nHence there can be no morality without comprehension, without a\nworld-conception.\n\nThis is the first reason why a world-theory is necessary.\n\nBut it behoves a being worthy the name of man also to know whether\nthis life is merely a blind adventure, or whether it has aim and goal.\nThe thinking man demands to know what he may expect after this life.\nHe insists upon looking beyond this life. He claims an answer to the\nquestion, \u201cWhence? Whither?\u201d\n\nThis demand to look out beyond life, this questioning, as to _the aim\nand goal of life_, is called _religion_. As with the query, \u201cHow must\nI conduct myself?\u201d which permits of being answered in natural fashion\nthen only when I know what I am, so is it with the question, \u201cWhence\nam I, and whither am I bound?\u201d Only when I know what I am, can this\nquestion also find a natural reply. A genuine religion, like a genuine\nmorality, has its roots in cognition. _Both alike must be functions of\ncognition._\n\nSuch are the two reasons why for every thinking being a world-theory is\nnot only a matter of giving honourable satisfaction to his dignity as a\nman, but also why it is a positive necessity. _In their absence genuine\nmorality and genuine religion alike are impossible._\n\nNow every backward glance into time, _i.e._ universal history, as\nwell as every look round us in space, _i.e._ ethnology, reveals the\nfact that there never has been, and also that there is not, a people\ndestitute of every trace, every touch of morality and religion. The\nonly question is, Is this natural capacity of mankind for morality and\nreligion a veritable function of cognition?\n\nThe essence of all cognition is the individual. Every act of cognition\nis always something individual, personal, pertaining to me alone. Were\nall men to cognize alike, the content of this cognition would still be\nthe individual possession of each and every single person. _Cognition\nseparates._\n\nOpposite to it stands another function of human nature--emotion.\n_Emotion unites._ If things cognizable are the affair of the\nindividual, things emotional have to do with the mass. Every natural\ncapacity of mankind for morality and religion consists altogether\nof what pertains to the emotions. Here all morality is founded upon\nan instinctive feeling of correlation which finds expression in the\nwell-known saying:--\n\n  What you would not men did to you,\n  See that you do not them unto!\n\nor in the maxim, \u201cSo conduct thyself towards others as thou wouldst\nwish that they should conduct themselves towards thee!\u201d\n\nThe unifying quality of emotion is made manifest in every form of\ncompassion, which latter frequently rises to the pitch of an actual\nvegetative suffering with the afflicted person. Such facts, open to\nevery one\u2019s observation, awaken in all the instinctive feeling of an\ninner connection of beings, and yield a natural morality that is purely\na function of emotion.\n\nIt may be asked, \u201cCould such a morality of emotion suffice humanity?\u201d\n\nIt would suffice a humanity whose development had only reached so far\nas the capacity for emotion. So soon, however, as a being passes from\nthe stage of the emotional and enters upon the stage of the cognitive,\nthe morality of emotion no longer suffices, as little so as the reasons\none is accustomed to give to children suffice the grown man.\n\nThe emotional holds sway as long as an individual is not yet fully\nconscious of himself, not yet come to pure reflection. So soon as he is\nfully conscious, there arises also the need to understand ourselves as\nwell as our morality and religion. Then only may I say that I _have_\nmorality and religion when I have understood them, when both have\nbecome functions of my cognition. So long as this is not the case,\nso long are religion and morality things of emotion, and these are\nsubject to every conceivable variation. Hence the endless diversity\nof moralities as well as of religions in the stage of the emotional.\nHere both--to use the language of current speech--are mere matters of\ntaste, lacking in all inner foundation. Hence also comes all that is\nunintelligible in the manners and customs connected with morality and\nreligion among foreign peoples of ancient and of modern times. This\nis not the place to go into details. Every historical record, every\naccount of civilization, furnishes abundant examples.\n\nWhether upon our globe a state of affairs has ever prevailed in which\nmorality and religion have been exclusively things of emotion, it is\nimpossible to say. The fact remains that at the point where, in our\nglance backward over the history of the world, man first emerges,\nthe purity of emotional morality and religion is no longer intact.\nHistorical man, as first presented to us in the states of Egypt and\nBabylonia, already exhibits a morality and religion which are no longer\npure functions of emotion, but have now become functions of reflection.\n\nThis necessity for reflection is given with the essential being of all\nthat is real.\n\nAs already said, all that is, on the one hand, presents itself as\n\u201c_something that is_,\u201d _i.e._ a being; and, on the other hand, as\n\u201csomething that happens,\u201d _i.e._ a becoming; that is, as a process.\nWherever something happens, an adequate cause must be present. And\nthe world by its simple existence, by reason of its very nature as a\nprocess, is the standing incitement to comprehension, to reflection,\ninasmuch as the mind hankers after an adequate cause for all that\noccurs. \u201cThe apparent changes in organic being all about me,\u201d\nsays Goethe in his _Morphologie_, \u201ctook a strong hold of my mind.\nImagination and nature seemed to strive with one another which of the\ntwo should stride forward with the bolder and firmer step.\u201d\n\nThe search after adequate causes is everywhere given as a necessity of\nthought wherever mental life is found. An adequate cause is required\nfor \u201cthat which is,\u201d just as much as for \u201cthat which happens\u201d; it is\nthat which both presume. _To possess a world-theory and therewith a\nworld-conception means to comprehend adequate causes._\n\nAccording to the attitude assumed by mental life toward the question\nof adequate causes, does it separate off in two main directions: the\ndirection of faith and the direction of science.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n\n                        FAITH AND A WORLD-THEORY\n\n\n_There is present a something given--the world._\n\nIt presents itself as an endlessly vast sum of processes. Where there\nis a process there is happening. Where something happens, there\nadequate causes are demanded.\n\nEvery attempt to comprehend adequate causes leads backwards in endless\nseries, since each cause comprehended is something which itself in\nturn demands an adequate cause, and so on backwards without ever a\nconclusion.\n\n_Faith_ is that particular form of mental life which from this fact\ndraws the inference that for the human mind a real comprehension\nis impossible, since behind the physical there stands a something\ntranscendent, a force, with reference to which all life-phenomena\nbecome that which their name expresses: _phenomena of a \u201clife\u201d_ which\nfaith for the most part designates by the word \u201c_god_.\u201d\n\nThis force stationed behind the physical, to which faith traces\nback all that happens, must be an \u201cadequate cause in itself,\u201d hence\nsomething contrary to sense in the fullest meaning of the words.\nFor all that is, without exception, requires an adequate cause. An\n\u201cadequate cause in itself\u201d would thus be that something which by\nits simple existence would give the lie to this thought-necessity,\ninasmuch as itself would be that which would have no adequate cause.\nWhen the thought-necessity of an adequate cause is thus satisfied with\nan \u201cadequate cause in itself,\u201d this just means: it is satisfied _in a\nfashion contrary to sense_.\n\nThe essence of all that is contrary to sense consists in this, that\nwhen followed out in thought, it deprives itself of the possibility of\nexistence. A mistake in an arithmetical sum is the most familiar form\nof what is contrary to sense. It is something that in correct thinking\nis by itself deprived of all possibility of existence; it is something\nthat makes its appearance only that it may appear no more.\n\nIn like case stands faith. Does it essay to think that in which it\nbelieves, then must that present itself to it in one or other relation\nor form--that is, conceptually. A transcendent, however, that presents\nitself conceptually is transcendent no longer, but, on the contrary,\nthe one completely conceptualized thing there is in the world, inasmuch\nas its whole existence just consists of the concept of it. Accordingly,\nwhen faith ventures to think, it deprives itself of the possibility of\nexistence; when it does not think, it has no existence _as faith_, and\ntherefore no existence at all.\n\nWhen, as in these days frequently happens, people complain of the\never-increasing decay of faith, the reason mostly given is, that\nfaith does not contain a sufficiency of what is of value to the\nunderstanding. The believer must know what, how, and why he believes,\nand not have his faith based simply upon feeling. But this is somewhat\nthe same as if one should reproach darkness with not containing a\nsufficiency of light among its ingredients. Is light present, then\nthere can be no darkness; is understanding present, then there can be\nno faith. _Credo ut intelligam_ is the most vain of all wishes.\n\n_Pantheism_ in its noblest form, that of the Indian _Vedanta_,\nendeavours to avoid this dilemma by conceiving of its divine in purely\nnegative terms. But the famous \u201cneti, neti\u201d--\u201cnot this, not this\u201d--of\nthe Upanishads, is a definition too, and so a limitation.\n\nThrough this its essential characteristic, of itself in being thought\nout, depriving itself of the possibility of existence, faith takes its\nplace--as third in the trio--along with illusion and error.\n\n_Illusion_ is what I call a mistaken view; _error_, what I call a\nmistaken experience. When I mistake a rope for a snake, a train of ants\nfor a crack in the ground, these are illusions. When I hold infusoria\nto have their origin in the infusion of hay, or look upon the evening\nand the morning star as two different orbs, these are errors.\n\nUpon this, its community of nature with illusion and error, is based\nanother essential characteristic of faith--namely, the impossibility,\nwhen once it has vanished, of its ever again coming to life. Once\nthe rope on my path which I formerly mistook for a snake has been\nrecognized by me for a rope, never again can I voluntarily return to\nmy illusion. I can, indeed, by force of imagination, represent it to\nmyself as a snake, but this representation no longer \u201cworks\u201d; it no\nlonger excites fear. And in just the same way I can quite successfully\nrecall the conditions under which certain optical and acoustic\ndelusions made their appearance, but they are illusions that are dead.\nThe like holds good of error and, for a third, of faith.\n\nPeople who call for a resuscitation of vanished faith, and by some\nmeans or other hope to see it effected, know not what it is that they\nhope and call for. They are calling for the restoration of a vanished\nignorance--an utter inconceivability.\n\nNow there exists one great distinction between faith, on the one hand,\nand illusion and error on the other; in this respect, namely, that the\ntwo latter have the physical, the material for their object, hence can\nbe checked and set right by this--that is, by reality. Faith, however,\nthat has for its object the non-physical, the non-material, which\nis just whatever the believer chooses to conceive it to be, cannot\nbe checked and set right by reality. On the contrary, the believer\ninterprets the entire world in accordance with his concept, devours, so\nto speak, the world\u2019s entire content of reality, and sets up a view of\nthe world that is _unreal_, seeing that he interprets the physical from\nthe transcendental standpoint--that is, abnormally; and therefore he is\nnever in the position to be set right by reality, since he never can\nknock up against contradictions. One must know that one does not know\nbefore one can let oneself be taught.\n\nIn perfect accordance with this essential feature of faith (so far as\nthe theory of knowledge is concerned) is its morality and religion:\n_both are contrary to sense_.\n\nThe essence of all morality is to be found in selflessness. Every\nact of selflessness requires a motive. To possess a motive one must\nexercise cognition, comprehension.\n\nAs a matter of fact the essential nature of every faith-morality is\nselfish, despite all its acts of renunciation. Here one practises\nrenunciation like a man who stints himself of a certain amount of money\nand invests it in a lottery. As he parts with his money that he may win\nback more in its place, so here the believer gives up money, goods,\nlife--yea, honour and truth, everything, if so be he may draw the first\nprize above.\n\nThe essence of all religion consists in the search for the aim and\ngoal of life. This search faith satisfies by referring life as a whole\nto a something transcendent. But the existence of the transcendent\nis nothing else but the concept of it. To refer life as a whole to\na transcendent thus means nothing but to refer itself to itself,\nwhich--so to speak--is the analytical expression for ignorance.\n\nFurther development of these ideas is not essential to our task. Here\nwe have only to bear well in mind that, as the world-theory from the\nstandpoint of faith is one contrary to sense, so also is its morality\nand its religion. All three are functions of a nescience, and therefore\nvoid of actuality.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                       SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY\n\n\n_There is present a something given--the world._\n\nWith reference to this something given, science takes up a position\nthat in its own way is every whit as arbitrary as again in its way\nis that of religion; with this difference, however, that whereas the\nlatter, so to speak, turns the clock of mental life backward, science\nwould fain turn it forward.\n\nThe play of world-events with equal justice may be held to declare that\nwe comprehend adequate causes as to declare that we do not comprehend\nthem, inasmuch as all we may have comprehended as the adequate cause of\nany life-phenomenon, itself on its part demands an adequate cause, and\nso on backwards _ad infinitum_. In short, Every adequate cause is of a\nsecondary nature. From this science argues as follows:--\n\nIt is a fact that we comprehend adequate causes, in certain respects,\nup to a certain degree, consequently perfect comprehension is possible,\neverything depending simply on patience and correct methods.\n\nWith this claim of the _comprehensibility in principle_ of\nlife-phenomena, science takes upon itself the proud task, of itself\n_working out a world-theory_ from the foundation upwards.\n\nComprehensibility in principle of life-phenomenon is that standpoint\nwith reference to actuality which is given for every science without\nexception. On any other hypothesis science as science has no\njustification whatever for its existence. Science, if it is to be what\nits name implies, is that which furnishes knowledge. Knowledge can only\nbe furnished where things can be completely demonstrated, made tangible\nto sense. That, however, is only possible if nothing lies hidden in\nthings that is not perceptible by sense. Hence science, if she does not\nwish to gainsay her own right to exist, must proceed upon the arbitrary\nhypothesis that _there is nothing in the play of world-events that is\nnot perceptible to the senses_. And if really there is something of\nthe sort there, then for her it is merely the _not yet demonstrable_,\nwhich later on, with patience, with improvements in methods, will\nalso be achieved. This is the position which science takes up with\nreference to the play of world-events, the foundation on which her\nwhole superstructure is erected. Science is possible there only where\nthere is the sensible, the demonstrable, where there is something\nso constituted that I can class it with others of its kind. And all\nscience--to put it briefly--is just the endeavour to make tangible to\nsense the entire play of world-events.\n\nIn support of this standpoint in principle of science, I cite the\nfollowing passage from W. Ostwald\u2019s _Schule der Chemie_:--\n\n  _Pupil._ These are only properties. What I mean, however, is that\n  which lies at the root of all properties.\n\n  _Teacher._ This then ought to remain behind when you have thought\n  away all properties from the matter. Well, think away all its\n  properties from a piece of sugar--colour, shape, hardness, weight,\n  taste, and so forth--what then remains over? Nothing! For it is\n  only through its properties that I can recognize that there is\n  something there.... You must get rid of the notion that apart from\n  the properties of a thing there is anything at all to be found\n  beneath them that is higher or more real than the properties.\n\nFrom this rejection of all that is not perceptible to sense, it follows\nthat science may not recognize as adequate causes for \u201cthat which is\u201d\neven as for \u201cthat which happens\u201d--in short, for all the phenomena of\nlife--anything else but other phenomena of life. If for faith the\nthought-necessity, an adequate cause, becomes an \u201cadequate cause in\nitself,\u201d _a pure absolute_, for science it becomes _a pure relative_.\nAnything is an adequate cause purely in its relation to another\nphenomenon of life, and with reference to itself another phenomenon of\nlife again is the adequate cause. In brief, the adequate cause is here\njust as much an \u201ceffect\u201d as a \u201ccause.\u201d\n\nWith this rejection in principle of all that is not perceptible to\nsense, science rejects all actual energies. For _an actual energy can\nnever be anything perceptible to sense_, the latter ever and always\nnecessitating the question as to its adequate cause.\n\nIn the universe as constructed for itself by science, the actuating\nimpulse is simply the various differences that obtain in situation and\ntension, which are equally as countless in number as the countless\nprocesses with which they are given. The play of world-events in its\nentirety becomes a stupendous process of compensation, and all values\nbecome simply values of relation. Here nothing has sense and meaning by\nitself, but only as it first receives them from others.\n\nThe purely scientific standpoint can only be the materialistic\none, along with which of necessity is given the mechanical mode of\napprehending the play of world-events.\n\nIn the mechanical apprehension of things, the play of world-events\nbecomes a \u201cfalling.\u201d Every fall demonstrates the absence of actual\nforces by the fact that in its downward course it can be computed in\nadvance.\n\nThe aim and object of all science is computation in advance. The\nability to do this finds its due expression in scientific _law_.\n\nThe proof that upon this path one had arrived at a world-theory, would\nthus be an absolutely and universally valid law.\n\nSuch a law science does not possess. Every law, without exception, is\nan abstraction from experience, and may be swept away again by fresh\nexperiences.\n\nNow it is true modern physics lays claim to one universal law--the law\nof the conservation of energy.\n\nWe shall have to return to this law later on. Here in passing be it\nonly said--\n\nFirst, That the law of the conservation of energy has by no means been\narrived at upon the legitimate path of science--that is, upon the path\nof induction--but has been found intuitively. Secondly, The law of the\nconservation of energy is nothing but a \u201creading\u201d of the facts, on one\nhand, by way of definite compromise; on the other, valid only for a\nlimited domain of nature.\n\nThe compromise is as follows:--\n\nWere the law of the conservation of energy really a law abstracted from\nexperiences and absolutely valid, it would be proven by the complete\npassing over, without any remainder, of one phenomenon of life into\nanother; as, for instance, by the transformation of a process of heat\ninto a process of motion; and physics would have a right to draw the\nconclusion of an analogy between this and other processes. The play of\nworld-events as pure relation-values, its potential comprehensibility,\nwould be proven by a single transformation without residue, of heat\ninto motion and motion back into heat--that is, by a single _completely\nreversible process_.\n\nBut the idea of reversible processes has practical and theoretical\npossibility only in an absolutely closed system. Such a thing, however,\nis not to be had in the world of actuality. All things here, without\nexception, stand in relation to one another, and these mutual relations\ndo not admit of total suspension even for a single moment of time.\nThus at no time can one get anything but approximately closed systems;\ntherefore at no time can one attain to anything but approximately\ncorrect results. Every attempt to demonstrate practically a completely\nreversible process works with minimum losses, which the physicist, to\nbe sure, lays to the charge of the procedure adopted, but which the\nthinker is equally justified in interpreting as a _loss_ of energy.\nNo matter what the exactitude with which the experiment is carried\nout, no matter how small in value the loss, it is always there; _there\nis no such thing as a completely reversible process!_ One can only\nderive a law of the conservation of energy from the facts, if for\nthought the same is already given. From experiments alone, inductively,\nit would be as impossible to arrive at a law of the conservation of\nenergy as it would be to arrive at the concept of the circle solely\nfrom the concept of the polygon. The circle must be given beforehand\nas ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_); and in exactly the same way the\nlaw of the conservation of energy must be given beforehand as ultimate\nconcept (_Grenzbegriff_), if the experiments are to lead up to it.\nThus it was with Robert Mayer\u2019s great intuition: it was a thing given.\nAnd this intuition was taken up by science and worked out, because\nhere was given it a means of proving with scientific appliances the\nimpossibility of a _perpetuum mobile_. Perpetual motion, however, is\nthe violation of the law of adequate cause, transferred to the domain\nof the physical.\n\nThat is one side of the matter. The other is that the law of the\nconservation of energy conformable with its nature, can only possess\nvalidity in the domain of processes reversible and not dependent upon\ntime, for in a non-reversible process there would lie no possibility\nwhatever of its proof.\n\nHere this is quite enough to signalize the nature of the law of the\nconservation of energy. In the conception of the play of world-events\nas yielded by this law, the physicist turns his eyes entirely away from\nthe real, active energies of the play of world-events. He confines\nhimself entirely to what is exhibited to sense, the motions; he takes\nthem for the forces themselves, but is entitled to do so only so long\nas he keeps clear before him the fact that it is only a _reading_ that\nis in question, and derives therefrom what alone can be derived--_work\ndone_. Work done, however, is not energy itself but the reaction from\nenergies. And that which the physicist calls the \u201cworld-picture of\nenergetics\u201d is, in point of fact, void of all energies. The entire\nworld-picture of energetics is no _actual_ thing but, in the strictest\nsense, a thing _re-actual_,--if such a word may be coined--which as\nsuch has no title whatever to be used as a world-theory. Should,\nnevertheless, this occur, then those consequences follow about which we\nshall speak later.\n\nSo long as science abides by actuality she can say nothing else but\nthat every attempt to trace back completely one phenomenon of life to\nanother--that is, to represent the play of world-events in the form of\npure relation-values--slips into an endless series; and what is most\nof all worthy of remark, each member of this endless series is itself\nin turn the point of departure for a new endless series, so that in\nthe last analysis the fact of this limitless comprehensibility of the\nphenomena of life remains as the one real problem of science. And every\nscience that is in earnest, and does not merely seek to avail itself\nof technique, at the very outset must ask itself the question, This\nlimitless onward movement which every point of departure yields, start\nwhere we may, has it or has it not a conclusion?\n\nTo be able to judge of that one must possess some firm standing-ground\nfrom which to look out and see whether this unceasing progression\nreally is progress. On this journey upon the high seas of knowledge\none must have a landmark by which to steer. Such a possibility,\nhowever, is excluded, and excluded by science itself. For, as\nalready said, science as such has standing only where the hypothesis\nof potential comprehensibility, of the absence of all that is not\nperceptible to sense holds good; in other words, where the play\nof world-events admits of being resolved without remainder into\nrelation-values. Such a landmark, however, could only be something\nwhich itself did not admit of being resolved into pure relation-values,\nbut was a constant in itself, an unconditioned constant. Were science,\nhowever, to admit the existence of such a \u201csomething,\u201d she would be\ncutting the ground from under her own feet. The whole value of science,\nas such, resides in its pure relativity, in the liability of its\nvalues; even as the value of faith resides in the fixity of its one\nvalue.\n\nFrom all this it follows that in science itself absolutely nothing\ncan be found that might serve it to prove whether or not there is\ngenuine progress toward knowledge--that is, whether all these endless\nseries, which every experiment and every piece of thought opens up,\ndo or do not proceed toward a final conclusion. At this stage one\nview of the matter has precisely as much justification as the other;\nan _ignorabimus_ just as much and just as little value as the most\nflamboyant optimism. We cannot know. It is, so to speak, entirely a\nmatter of taste as to the sense in which one chooses to interpret these\nendless series.\n\nIn full consonance with this is the value which science possesses in\nrelation to morality and religion.\n\nWhoso will give mankind morality and religion, must give it something\nin which it can find support. Both morality and religion at bottom\nare nothing but a support in the wide waste of infinitudes. Every\nthinking man craves for such a support. If it is lacking, then for the\nreal thinker a condition supervenes that is all as unbearable as that\nphysical one, when for the moment a person has lost all possibility of\nlearning the lie of his surroundings, as, for instance, when he wakes\nup confused out of a deep sleep and does not know how to find his way\nanywhere. Here as there it is the pure anguish of thought that comes\nover us in such a condition, an anguish that will not let us rest\nuntil we have again constructed the mental support, again established\ncontinuity in thought with the whole.\n\nIf faith fabricates this support in a manner contrary to sense, and\nconsequently projects in consonance with her nature a morality and\nreligion that are contrary to sense, science as a whole on its part\nis nothing but the attempt to fabricate for itself a support in law.\nScientific law, however, yields a support solely with reference to a\ntheory of knowledge. Hence never under any circumstances can science\nproject moral and religious values. It would be a contradiction of her\nown nature. Could she do so, she would no longer be science--_i.e._\n_the_ form of mental life which _must_ comprehend the entire play\nof world-events in the form of relation-values. Where there exists\nnothing but relation-values, there can exist no support in itself,\nand therefore no morality or religion. Science is _a-moral_ and\n_a-religious_; and the layman as well as the scientist himself ought\never to keep this clearly before his mind. The efforts made in our day\nto carve out, so to speak, the results of science to suit religious\nends as modern monism seeks to do, only go to show how necessary is\nsuch an admonition. From the continuity of life, expounded in the\nmaterialistic sense as a cell, men seek to deduce the idea that we\nourselves live on in the generations to come, somewhat as the manure\nlives on in the plant it has manured. But these are such playthings of\nthought as only are possible where one is operating with what is wholly\ndivorced from actuality, that is, with the empty concept of \u201clife.\u201d\n\nTo seek to derive moral and religious values from science is, as the\nIndian saying has it, \u201cto milk the bull by the horns.\u201d\n\nNow both faith and science alike have the same starting-point--the\nthing given, the world. The question then arises, \u201cHow can it be\npossible that with reference to this given thing, each should take up\nsuch a directly opposite position? How comes it that the one apprehends\nthe adequate cause of the play of world-events as a pure absolute,\nwhile the other apprehends it as a pure relative?\u201d\n\nAt this point we come face to face with the Buddha-thought and its\nsignificance for mental life.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n\n       AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THOUGHT WORLD OF THE BUDDHA GOTAMA\n\n\nAs aid towards a better understanding of that personality of the\ngreatest significance for the mental life of mankind, there follow here\nsome remarks upon him and the age in which he lived.\n\nBuddhism is the teaching of _the Buddha_, or as one may equally well\nsay--of _the Buddhas_. For \u201cBuddha\u201d is no private name, but the title\nof one endowed with certain mental capacities. The word, therefore,\nought always to be accompanied by the article. It signifies, The\nAwakened.\n\nAccording to the teaching the number of the Buddhas is endless. He whom\nwe know by this name, for the time being the last of this beginningless\nseries, is the Buddha Gotama. His family name was _Siddhattha_. He came\nof the ancient race of the Sakyas, well known for their pride, and as\nsuch belonged to the warrior caste. He is, therefore, often alluded\nto under the name of \u201cSakyaputta,\u201d scion of the Sakyas, or as \u201cSama\u1e47a\nGotama,\u201d ascetic Gotama.\n\nHe was born in _Kapilavatthu_, the capital city of a small state\nin Northern India, on the borders of present-day Nepal. His grave\nwas discovered in the year 1898 near Piprav\u0101, in the jungle-covered\nfoothills of the Himalayas called the Terai.\n\nThe years of his birth and of his death cannot be exactly determined.\nMeanwhile one does not go far wrong if one places the period of his\nactivity in the neighbourhood of the year 500 before the Christian era.\nThis would make him the elder contemporary of Heraklitus of Ephesus and\nsomewhat younger than Lao Tse in China.\n\nHe died at the advanced age of eighty years (if one does not choose to\nregard the recurring statements in the texts as to age, on the part of\nthe most different personalities, as merely an indication of old age in\ngeneral), after almost fifty years of active life spent in travelling\nabout, preaching.\n\nThe precepts, discourses, and explanations--all that which makes up\nthe Buddhist canon--are gathered together into what is called the\n_Tipitaka_, or _Three Baskets_. The language of the canon is P\u0101\u1e37i.\nWhether this was the Buddha\u2019s own mother tongue or only related to it,\nis a question upon which there exist differences of opinion between\nnative and European scholars.\n\nThe mental atmosphere in which the Buddha arose may be briefly\ncharacterized as follows: A feeling of life as suffering, fermenting\nthroughout the entire Indian people; a firm belief in the\n_transmigration of the soul_ and the endless prolongation of this\nsuffering conditioned thereby; the conviction that asceticism purifies,\nafter the effected purification from old guilt, heaps up merit, assures\nre-birth in heaven, and finally procures deliverance from _Sams\u0101ra_,\nthis terrible, ceaseless wandering from existence to existence. Once\nmore, the fundamental theme in this Indian symphony of destiny,\nrecurring in unending variations, was this, _Life is Suffering_, or to\nsay the least of it, a somewhat doubtful blessing. But this statement\nof life as suffering was not in ancient India the hollow phrase that\nit is with us to-day; neither was it that cold play of thought found\nin many philosophical systems. It was a grim reality which men sought\nto escape with an energy of self-immolation, a determination, a\nrecklessness, an ardour of which we lukewarm creatures of to-day can\nform no conception.\n\nIndia in the days of the Buddha was full of companies of monks and\nschools of ascetics, all of them wrestlers with the riddle of life. But\none only wrestles with life when one feels it as suffering.\n\nThe sons of noble families left their homes to search for truth either\nout there in the frightful solitudes of the Indian forest, or in the\ncloister of the monk. As in later days men went forth in search of El\nDorado, so in those days did men go forth upon the search for truth.\nBut what gives to the search for truth in ancient India a character\nentirely its own is this, that all search here is turned towards the\n_I_ itself; that the fight for truth did not as in ancient Greece\nexhaust itself in elegant rhetorical disputations and exercises in\ndialectic, but in full unmitigated rigour was lived out in one\u2019s own\n_I_, without a single thought as to whether the outward form would\nsupport the heat of the friction within or not.\n\nAmid this swarm of searchers for truth the young Siddhattha also made\nhis appearance. \u201cBlack-haired, in the bloom of manhood,\u201d in spite of\nweeping and wailing parents, in spite of a loved and loving wife, in\nspite of a dear young son, he left his father\u2019s halls where he had\nled a life of rarest pomp and pleasure to enter shaven of head and\ngarbed in yellow, upon the inclement life-path of the penitent. It\nwas the force of thought that drove him forth. He gazed face to face\non the transiency of all that lives, and troubled, tormented by this\nirresistible, unseizable flood of appearances, he turned his mental\neye inwards, resolved to find there in the depths of his own _I_ that\nhold and stay which the outer world everywhere denied to him, the\nweary. Truthfulness toward oneself, seriousness of search regardless of\nconsequences, an unfailing sense of reality, that was the foundation\nupon which that most banal of all phrases, adapted as is no other to\ncoquetting with itself--the phrase, \u201cAll is transient,\u201d--became for him\nthat unique teaching of which he himself could say with ample right,\n\u201cIt is the teaching which is founded upon itself.\u201d\n\nIn one of the Buddhist monk\u2019s chants there occurs the phrase, \u201cOne\nsingle thing--he thinks it out!\u201d This, in few words, is what the\nBuddha did. He thought out to an end, _one_ thought--the thought of\ntransiency. I will not call his teaching the grandest or the deepest\nof all teachings. Grand, likewise, is Heraklitus\u2019s teaching of the\nAll-becoming; deep, likewise, is the Vedanta teaching of the All-one\nin Brahman; but the teaching of the Buddha is more than this--_it is\nactual_. Through this it obtains that really compelling character\nsuch as is possessed by actuality alone. For there is only one\nthing that is compelling--truth; and there is only one thing that is\ntrue--actuality.\n\nThrough this its truthfulness, his teaching has conquered half a world;\nnot by fire and sword but even as truth conquers, by demonstration, by\nteaching. And so it now stands, old by two thousand years, before the\nportals of western culture, and claims entrance not into the cloudy\ndomain of a vague mysticism or a crude pantheism, but into the realm\nof clear, clean thinking, as fulfilment of that which never can be\nattained by the means at the disposal of science. Comprehension, a\nworld-conception, this goal of all mental life, made impossible by\nscience in its false apprehension of the task--this the Buddha resolves\nin the limitation that reveals the genius.\n\nWhoso, if only from afar, has scented the import of the Buddha and\nhis teaching, must feel that here he has to do with something wholly\nunique. One can place on one side not only all the religions of the\nworld but also all the philosophical and scientific systems, and\nupon the other Buddhism will take its place alone. Yet not as their\nantithesis. Buddhism is the teaching of actuality, and actuality has\nno antitheses, because itself the union of antitheses. The Buddha laid\nhold of actuality there where alone it can be laid hold of--in one\u2019s\nown _I_. Here he found the secret law, the sacred riddle that the\nchorus outside there mockingly sings us, like to some oracle of Delphi\nat one and the same time revealing and concealing.\n\nAll religions founded upon revelation are of a decidedly revolutionary\nnature. Buddhism is a pure evolution, a process of mental development\nin which thought, so to speak, passes a culminating point and works on\nwith reversed signs. This reversal of all life-values has set in with\na new point of view, from which the _struggle for no more existence_,\nso unintelligible for us, follows as a logical necessity. Henceforth\ntruth is no more the servitor of life, but life of truth. As a candle\nmanifests itself through itself, by consuming itself in burning, so\ndoes the _I_ manifest itself through itself in expending itself in\nthinking. In this teaching he is not great who loves most, but he who\nthinks most.\n\nThe full scope of this can only be understood later; for the moment it\nmay serve the reader as preparation for what is to follow. Let him know\nthen, at the very outset, that here he enters the realm of a man who\nseeks not life but truth--a man for whom life has no value in itself\nbut only as an instrument of truth. Him I call a sorry seeker for truth\nwho in his investigation of the riddle of life, sets life itself as\nsacrosanct in a place of security, making that which is to be measured\ninto the measure itself.\n\nTo unite in passion, to contrive clever arrangements that insure the\nsuccess of the business of propagation and the rearing of the young\ngeneration, these the animals also can do; their arrangements for\nliving together in herds are by far more ingenious than those of men;\nbut the capacity to doubt, to question, to seek--of these even the most\nhighly developed animals possess only faint suggestions.\n\nTo doubt is the duty of man, and the Buddha is the representative\ntype of humanity, because _the_ doubter. We common men, we do indeed\ndoubt of this and of that, and pique ourselves in no small measure\nupon our powers of judgment; but we none of us get any further than\nthe symptoms. He alone seized at one grasp the entire, ever-changing\nhost of doubts and questions by the root, with the daring of genius\ndemanding to know the right to exist of life itself. This the reader\nought well to bear in mind, otherwise for him the Buddha-thought\nmust always retain something strange and forbidding, even as for the\nhonest townsman we all know, a man who dares go up to High Authority\nItself--whether established in heaven or on earth--and ask for its\nidentification papers, ever remains in some sort a fear-inspiring\nfigure.\n\nI now pass on to a point more external, but one, none the less, that\nhas its own importance in an introduction to the thought-world of the\nBuddha.\n\nBuddhism is not only the oldest of the three world-religions, but also\nthe only one of the three that is of Aryan origin.\n\nThe significance of this fact lies for me not in the racial question,\nbut in the matter of language. The tongue in which the Buddha preached,\ntaught, and thought, whether it was the P\u0101\u1e37i itself or some dialect\nrelated to it, belongs to the Indo-Germanic stem. The root-words,\nthe grammatical constructions, are akin to those found in European\nlanguages. Without any more said, we see how deep is the tie that binds\nus to the Buddha. Mental life can mix and blend with mental life only\nthrough the medium of language. If no congruity exists between one\nlanguage and another, neither can there be any congruity of thought. We\nknow what enormous difficulties block the way of any European scholar\nwho would force an entrance into the thought-world of the Chinese. So\nmuch so, that even at this late day it is still possible to argue the\npoint as to whether the Chinese have any conception of deity at all.\nTo this day it remains open to every translator to interpret Lao Tse,\nfor example, either as a \u201cgod-inspired man\u201d--to quote a good Christian\ntranslator--or as a free-lance in the fields of thought.\n\nSomething similar, if in somewhat less positive terms, may be advanced\nconcerning the Semitic stem. Who can say whether the Indo-German has\never rightly understood Semitism as the deserts of Judea and Arabia\nhave hatched it out. The absurdities and confusions of thought in which\nIndo-German peoples find themselves entangled the moment they make the\nattempt to understand and think it out leave it fairly open to doubt.\nIt may be, that pure Semitism, that is to say, that flat contradiction\nto sound sense, a personal god, can only be perfectly digested with the\nhelp of the Semitic root language. The thinking of the Indo-Germanic\npeoples, or rather of the Indo-Germanic root language, has set itself\nagainst this bald crudity from the very beginning. At the idea of\npredestination, over which the Semite Paul balances his way with\nconsiderable natural agility, the half-Aryan Augustine only comes to\ngrief. For the brutality with which the latter champions this dogma is\nnothing else but the expression of the brutality with which he forcibly\nsqueezed his own mind beneath its yoke. For us the Aryan speaking and\nthinking, a religion that in its natural logical consequences conducts\nto such an anomaly as predestination, is either at bottom a moral\nmonstrosity, and so incapable of becoming religion, or else it is a\nthing misunderstood.\n\nOn the other hand, I should refer the intellectual derailment which the\nBuddha-thought has undergone in Tibet, China, and Japan, in no small\nmeasure to the lack of congruity that exists between the Indo-German\nand the Mongolian languages. The tongue of the Mongol is simply\nincapable of rendering exactly the content of the P\u0101\u1e37i syllables.\n\n_Buddhism is the teaching of actuality_, and its language also--the\nP\u0101\u1e37i--as regards content of actuality, takes a leading place among\nlanguages.\n\nAs upon one hand one may look upon the phenomena of life as processes,\nactualities, things alive, and upon the other as things rounded off in\nthemselves, rigid, strictly defined, realities, according as, following\nmental disposition, here the one there the other mode of comprehension\npredominates, so in one language does the thrust of the actual\npredominate, and in the other the thrust of the real, the objective. In\nthe one the _dynamic_ predominates, in the other the _static_.\n\nA language of an eminently static character is the Latin; whence the\nimpossibility of finding another equally good to take its place in a\nwell-ordered _corpus juris_, with which latter capacity for definition\ncounts above everything. What jurisprudence requires is the complete,\nthe bounded (objectively as well as conceptually) realities. It lops\naway everything actual, which at all times and places is a _processive\nmotion_, a species of _status nascens_, until comprehended it can be\ngrasped, pretty much as out of the actual surface of the earth in a\nstate of constant transformation the land-surveyor cuts out a piece,\nsettles it as something real and seizable, so that as such its owner\nat will can exchange it, till the time when the millenium hand on the\nhorologe of the world indicates an advance and renders necessary a new\nsettlement, a new definition. This method is quite sufficient where\nit is only a question of arriving at definite ends. It corresponds to\nthat which in another place was styled the _re-actual_ comprehension\nof things, and the Latin word _res_, considered etymologically, points\ndirectly to this \u201cre-actual\u201d feature.\n\nIn complete opposition to Latin the P\u0101\u1e37i is a language of an eminently\nactual character. The seeming offences against logic, that with more\nor less good nature have been laid to the charge of the Buddha by\nwestern scholars, have their rise in this content of actuality that\ndistinguishes the language on one hand and its thinking on the other.\nIn actuality there is nothing defined or definable to be found--nothing\nbut a relentless processive movement. Every definition is a compromise\nwith actuality, and is always to be held, as such, by every genuine\nthinker.\n\nIt is owing to this content of actuality in Buddhism and its language\nthat so many expressions are found in it for which a fitting\ntranslation is scarcely or not at all to be found. In language, also,\na gradual stiffening process is taking place amongst us which renders\nus ever more capable in definition, and ever more incapable in the\ncomprehension of actuality. Here quite evidently we are caught in a\nvicious circle. We are proud of this our ability in defining, and\nimagine we have comprehended the thing itself when we have succeeded in\ndecorating it with a definition. In such cases, however, all we have\nreally done is to fling bridges of thought, as it were, high up over\nthings, which permit us to hop from one conceptual \u201cplace\u201d to another\nwithout once wetting even our toes in actuality. On the Rhine near Bonn\nthere stands hewn in stone these words: \u201cCaesar primus flumini pontem\nimposuit.\u201d There are not a few minds associated with the lecture-room\nand laboratory who take themselves for C\u00e6sars when they \u201cimpose\u201d new\ndefinitions upon things, upon actuality. The riddles of life in this\nwise are neatly and perfectly resolved in definitions; which, after\nall, is nothing very much to wonder at with riddles of life that for\nthe most part only exist in the form of definitions.\n\nAll things in the world are so constituted that with them concept and\nobject are separable: the concept admits of being \u201cmanipulated\u201d apart\nfrom the object. And all mental life in a certain sense just amounts\nto the attempt to get concept and object to coincide--an attempt that\neternally fails, because eternally losing itself in unending series.\nOne thing only in all the world is so constituted that in regard to\nit no separation of concept and object is found--I myself! For that\nwhich I conceive myself as, that even I myself am; and every attempt to\nform a concept is just a form of myself. Here the concept of myself is\nexperience, actuality itself. I myself am the unique, to me accessible,\npure actuality of the world. _Buddhism is the teaching of actuality._\nIt starts out with the only pure actuality of the world, and from\nthis point proceeds to suck the entire play of world-events without\nexception into the whirlpool of its thinking. And with this we find\nourselves in the presence of the Buddha-thought itself.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                       THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA\n\n\nI begin with the question that concludes the third essay: \u201cHow can it\nbe possible for faith and science to possess opposed conceptions when\nboth actually start out from one and the same given thing, the world?\u201d\n\nAll that exists presents itself on one hand as \u201csomething that is,\u201d and\non the other as \u201csomething that happens\u201d--that is to say, as something\nfound in a state of perpetual change, as processes.\n\nWhere something happens, there adequate causes must be present. These\nadequate causes must be forces.\n\nAll processes--_i.e._ the entire play of world-events--fall into two\ngreat classes: those _that are maintained_, dead processes, and those\n_that maintain themselves_, living processes; the latter presenting\nthemselves, on the one hand, as processes of combustion, as flame, and\non the other as processes of alimentation, as living beings.\n\nAll dead processes can be interpreted or read as falls. Their type is\nthe falling stone. A stone does not fall because of an indwelling force\nthat causes its falling; it only falls because it has previously been\nraised, because between it and the surface of the earth there exists\na difference of tension. Its fall thus signifies that force must have\nbeen present, in the sense that it must _previously_ have been active;\nfor otherwise the difference in position of stone and surface of the\nearth could never have come about. When physics interprets the fall\nof the stone in differing fashion--namely, by having it caused by the\nattractive force of the earth\u2019s surface in action during the fall--this\nis purely a working hypothesis, advanced solely in the interest of a\nuniform physical world-theory.\n\nTo much the same effect as the falling stone, every physical happening\nwithout exception is to be interpreted or read, whether it concern\nmechanical, chemical, thermal, electrical, magnetic, or any other\nsuch-like phenomena. All alike are to be taken as falls from places of\nhigher to places of lower tension. The import of each and all is only\nthat forces, actuating impulsions, _must once have been present_. In\neach case we really have to do not with actions but with reactions.\n\nThe proof that no actual forces are here at work is to be found in the\nfact that the process ceases so soon as the differences of tension are\nadjusted.\n\nThis world of reactions is the given province of all science.\n\nScience, because bent upon furnishing demonstration, has a title to\nexistence only where there is nothing that is not perceptible to sense.\nWhere there are actual living processes, there _actual forces must be\npresent_. A force, however, can never be perceptible to sense; for\neverything perceptible to sense necessitates the question as to its\nadequate cause--that is, as to the force in virtue of which it exists.\nWhere there are dead, re-actual processes, there forces are not in\naction themselves, and hence force is not a real but only a conceptual\nnecessity, a mere logical presumption. Hence also in the interpretation\nof this re-actual world, it is always possible to slur over, to\neliminate the question as to actual forces, and to replace these latter\nby the various differences of tension, of potentiality, and thus remain\nwholly within the domain of the sensible.\n\nSuch a position is quite permissible to a science that devotes itself\nexclusively to technique, _i.e._ aims at nothing more than to measure\nand calculate in advance, for it is only re-actual proceedings that\nadmit of being measured and calculated in advance. When such and such a\nplanet will occupy such and such a position in the heavens, this admits\nof being calculated beforehand with the most perfect accuracy. But\nwhether this next moment I shall twirl my thumb to the right or to the\nleft, that no science, no academy in the world can compute in advance.\n\nThe position which science takes up towards the world--a rejection\nin principle of all that is not perceptible to sense--of necessity\ninvolves restriction to the re-actual world, and therewith the\nmechanical conception of the play of world-events.\n\nYet once more. This conception is perfectly legitimate so long as it\nconfines itself to the re-actual world. But it becomes an anomaly the\nmoment it seeks to pass beyond this re-actual world--the moment a man\ntries to read the actual world, the living processes, according to\nthe same scheme--that of a falling. For here it is actual forces that\nare at work; here the question as to actual forces declines to be\neliminated or exempted by acts of intellectual violence that by their\nrepugnancy to common sense bring about their own downfall. Later on we\nshall have to revert to these attempts to interpret physically living\nbeings, the entire man as a falling, a mere process of adjustment,\nand to explain consciousness in purely mechanical fashion. Though one\nshould be able to \u201cread\u201d the animal organism after physical formulas\nin never so far-reaching a manner, though one should be able to\nco-ordinate the whole process of alimentation, the housekeeping of\nlife, in never so perfect a fashion with the law of the conservation of\nenergy, nothing has been gained withal that might settle the question\nas to what exactly that is which keeps this mechanism going: such\na question is never once touched on at all; nay, by this method of\nprocedure it is deliberately pushed on one side, as much and as long\nas ever is possible, until straightforward, natural thinking rises\nin revolt against such behaviour as a learned pastime and demands\nactuality.\n\nHence:--\n\nThat particular form of mental life which rejects in principle what\nis not perceptible to sense, thereby of necessity is confined to\nthe re-actual world. If it seeks to encroach upon actual processes,\nit must arbitrarily leave out of consideration that in them which\nis _essential_, the forces at work in them,--whereby it falls into\nabsurdities that speedily take their revenge by raising problems that\nare insoluble.\n\nThis form of mental life is universally called \u201c_science_,\u201d whereby,\nit must be admitted, the more or less active counter-currents--those\nof the teleological conception of things--are passed over unnoticed.\nScience, properly speaking, is always _materialistic_, and its\nconception of the play of world-events always strictly _mechanical_.\nFor it the adequate cause of each occurrence is simply another\noccurrence. Adequate causes remain perceptible to sense.\n\nOpposite to it stands faith.\n\nFaith is that particular form of mental life which recognizes an\n\u201cimperceptible to sense in itself,\u201d _i.e._ _believes_, and so doing,\nassumes a universal \u201cadequate cause in itself\u201d for the entire play of\nworld-events. From this it follows that the living processes are the\ntrue province of all faith. In them alone are actual forces, _i.e._\nthat which is imperceptible to sense, actively at work.\n\nAs soon as faith seeks to make use of its intuition, _i.e._ seeks\nto supply a world-view, it finds itself in the same predicament as\nscience. Just as this latter, as world-theory, is obliged to read the\nactual processes according to the scheme of the re-actual, so faith as\nworld-theory is obliged to read the re-actual processes according to\nthe scheme of the actual; in other words, it must represent the world,\neven to the extent that it represents itself as purely a falling, as\nguided by a divine force. Here not a hair can drop from my head, not\na stone fall to the ground, without a divine decree having taken an\nactive part therein as adequate cause, an idea which, thought out,\nleads to the absurdity of the doctrine of predestination, with which\ndoctrine faith robs herself of the possibility of her own existence.\nFor, where there is predestination, there is no free will; where there\nis no free will there is no soul; and where there is no soul there is\nno God.\n\nThat which, in being thought out, deprives itself of the possibility of\nexistence is contrary to sense, and as such, a nescience, like illusion\nand error.\n\nBetween and raised above both these opposed positions stands the Buddha.\n\nThis is his teaching:--\n\nAll that is, all processes whatsoever, whether they be re-actual or\nwhether they be actual, all is Sankh\u0101ra. This is the epistemological\nkey-word of Buddhism. Its meaning is, All is of a compounded, of a\nconditioned nature. The Buddha concurs with modern science in so far\nas it rejects an uncompounded, an unconditioned, a unity in itself, a\nsoul-substance, or whatever else one chooses to style it. As already\nshown, for science one event is entirely conditioned by other events;\nshe makes the adequate cause of one phenomenon of life simply other\nphenomena of life, and thereby frankly remains always in the realm of\nthe sensible, the demonstrable--thereby limits herself, however, to\nthe re-actual side of the world. Among the actual, self-sustaining\nprocesses, this position has no foothold whatever; for in these actual\nforces _must_ be present, and as such never by any means can be\nperceptible to sense, thus also can never be the subject of science.\n\nOne can only speak of an actual view of the world where the _actual_\nworld is concerned. I comprehend it when I discern the adequate causes\nof the actual processes, that is, the forces actively at work in them.\n\nNow the word _Sankh\u0101ra_ signifies not only \u201cthe compounded,\u201d \u201cthe\nconditioned,\u201d but also \u201cthe compounding,\u201d \u201cthe conditioning,\u201d somewhat\nthe same as the German word _Wirkung_ may equally well be held to\nsignify the result effected by the cause as the actual effecting of\nthat result itself. In the former case it signifies that forces have\nbeen present; it has reference to the re-actual world. In the latter\ncase it means that forces _are_ present; it refers to the actual world.\nLike the word _Wirkung_, the word _Sankh\u0101ra_ embraces both these\naspects.\n\nWith reference to the self-sustaining, actual processes, the teaching\nof the Buddha proceeds:--\n\nAll living beings exist by reason of forces. Accordingly the Buddha\nhere agrees with faith, inasmuch as he recognizes the presence in\nliving beings of what is imperceptible to sense; for a force can never\nbe perceptible to sense.\n\nBut whilst faith makes every living being exist in virtue of a\nuniversal force, and thereby assumes an \u201cadequate cause in itself\u201d--as\na transcendent, an absolute, a god--which means \u201cbelieving,\u201d thus\nlanding itself in the predicament of having to interpret the re-actual\nside of the world also by this \u201cforce\u201d; the Buddha on his part\nteaches:--\n\n_Every living being is here in virtue of individual force peculiar\nto him alone._ This force hereby in quite a literal sense becomes an\n_in-force_, an _en-ergy_. The Buddha teaches the existence of _actual\nenergies_, in contradistinction to faith\u2019s universal force.\n\nThis _in-force_ peculiar to every living being, and thereby _unique_,\nis called by the Buddha _the Kamma_ (Sanskrit, Karma) of such a living\nbeing.\n\nKamma means nothing but \u201c_the working_.\u201d Kamma is that in virtue\nof which a living being manifests activity after its own unique\nfashion--in its own unique way reacts upon the external world; it is\nthat which makes a living being to be an individuality, a personality.\n\nEvery living being is a thing unique, and as such incapable of being\ncompared, incapable of being repeated, as re-actual processes are not,\nsince in them no actual forces are active. Though I see, hear, smell,\ntaste, touch, and think the same thing, it is yet my own, a something\nunique that I see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think.\n\nI am a thing unique, a personality in virtue of my _in-force_, of my\nKamma.\n\nThe distinction between an _in-force_ and a universal force is this:--\n\nThe latter is a something existing of itself, a something existing of\nits own authority, _i.e._ a creation of faith; _whilst an in-force has\nbeing solely in dependence upon its material_, only with the help of\nthe material worked up by it. As \u201cheat,\u201d \u201clight,\u201d \u201celectricity,\u201d and so\nforth, are words of no meaning in the absence of a material in which to\nmanifest themselves, so _in-force_ Kamma, is a word of no meaning in\nthe absence of its material.\n\nThis material of Kamma is by the Buddha called the _Khandhas_.\n\nThey are five in number, these namely:--\n\nCorporeality, Sensation, Perception, Discriminations, and Consciousness.\n\nThe word Khandha may be variously translated as group, aggregation,\ncoagulation, formation.\n\nThe Khandhas do not represent _parts, pieces_ of the _I_-process, but\n_phases, forms of development_, something like the shape, colour and\nodour in a flower. An actual process, a proceeding of the nature of\ncombustion or alimentation, never can have any parts. It is only in\nconnection with dead products like a table, a chair, and so forth, that\none can speak of such; as also where one intentionally conceives of\nthings after this fashion with a definite end in view. From the purely\nanatomical standpoint, the eye, the brain, the lungs, the liver, and so\nforth in a corpse, are parts of the body. Truly speaking, in the living\nperson they are forms of development, since all have come forth from\none common root. One must keep firm hold of this if one makes claim to\nthink in terms of _actuality_.\n\n\u201c_Material_,\u201d in contradistinction to matter, is that which is\nspecially worked up by an energy. \u201cMatter in itself\u201d is all as hollow\na figment of thought, projecting like a blind end out of actuality, as\nis \u201cforce in itself.\u201d Both are products of faith: the one pertaining\nto science, the other to religions. _Actuality has no \u201csubstance,\u201d no\n\u201cmatter,\u201d but only material_, _i.e._ matter worked up by energies;\nit has no \u201cforce,\u201d but only energies, _i.e._ forces apparelled,\nsubstantialized, so to speak. Actuality always and everywhere is only\nthe unity of opposites--a process.\n\nTo allow one\u2019s thought to occupy itself with a \u201cforce by itself,\u201d or a\n\u201csubstance by itself,\u201d means to work with half actualities possessing\nas much content of actuality as one side of a sheet of paper imagined\nby itself. I assert that to think thus is an intellectual _breach of\ndiscipline_.\n\nNow the manner in which I represent myself corporeally, receive\nsensations, acquire perceptions, exercise discriminations, become\nconscious of things, is one peculiar to me and to me alone, a thing\nunique. This means:--\n\n_In every motion, corporeal as mental, physical as psychical, I am the\nform of Kamma itself._\n\nThis fact, that every living being is wholly and entirely the\nembodiment of his Kamma, is expressed by the Buddha in the word\n\u201canatt\u0101,\u201d not-self. All beings are \u201canatt\u0101,\u201d but this does not in\nany way mean, as science would fain make out, that they are all of a\npurely re-actual nature. It only means that they do not conceal within\nthem a \u201cforce in itself,\u201d a \u201cconstant in itself,\u201d but are _out and out\nprocesses of combustion, of alimentation_, such as cannot conceal any\n\u201cconstant in itself,\u201d since at every moment of their existence they\nrepresent a fresh biological value, and hence hold nothing that could\npossibly justify the notion of an _I_-identity, a genuine self.\n\n\u201cThe body, O monks, is \u2018anatt\u0101.\u2019 If the body were the self (_att\u0101_),\nthen this corporeal frame could not go to decay, and in this corporeal\nframe, this wish of mine would find fulfilment: \u2018Let my corporeal part\nbe thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!\u2019 But, O monks, because the\ncorporeal is anatt\u0101, therefore does the corporeal go to decay, and the\nwish, \u2018Let my corporeal part be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!\u2019\ndoes not find fulfilment.\u201d[1]\n\nFollowing the like scheme, the remaining four Khandhas are then dealt\nwith; and so, step by step, the idea of an _I_-identity is banished.\n\nThe Buddha conceives of the entire _actual_ world, _i.e._ the world of\nself-sustaining processes as an infinitely large number of combustion\nprocesses. Every being burns in virtue of a purely individual\n_in-force_, Kamma.\n\nThis his world-conception is given by the Buddha in that famous\n\u201cFire Sermon\u201d which, shortly after the inauguration of his career of\nactivity as a teacher, he delivered to his followers on a hill in the\nneighbourhood of Gay\u0101. It is the \u201cSermon on the Mount\u201d of Buddhism.\n\n\u201cAll things, O monks, is a burning. And why, O monks, is all a burning?\nThe eye, O monks, is a burning. Visual consciousness [that is, the\nconscious representation that results in virtue of visual impressions]\nis a burning. Visual contact [_i.e._ the act of the encountering of\neye and objects] is a burning. That which arises in virtue of visual\ncontact, be it a pleasant, be it an unpleasant sensation, be it a\nneither pleasant nor unpleasant sensation, is a burning.\u201d[2]\n\nFollowing the like scheme, the ear and the audible, the nose and the\nolfactory, the tongue and the gustatory, the body and the tangible,\nthought and concepts are then dealt with.\n\nThe place of the Buddha between and above the opposites, faith and\nscience, may be briefly formulated as follows:--\n\nFaith says, \u201c_Everything stands_,\u201d--namely, in the place in which it\nhas been set by that \u201cforce in itself,\u201d God. Science says, \u201c_Everything\nfalls_,\u201d which means that she neglects actual forces in general. The\n_Buddha_ says, \u201c_Everything burns_,\u201d meaning that every process exists\nin virtue of a single _in-force_, peculiar to itself.\n\nAnd now as a consequence there follows this question:--\n\n\u201cIf through and through, without residue, I am a form of Kamma, where\nis to be found the position from which I can comprehend myself _as\nsuch_?\u201d For every position, without exception, of sheer necessity must\nitself again be a form of Kamma.\n\nKamma, the _in-force_, is that which gives to the process concerned, to\nthe living being, _foothold, coherence, continuity_.\n\nAs such it presents itself to me the individual _immediately as\nconsciousness_. In consciousness I comprehend myself as a something\nexisting in virtue of an _in-force_, inasmuch as consciousness on one\nhand is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process; on the other\nhand, however, at every moment presents a fresh biological, Kammic\nvalue, even as cannot be otherwise in any combustion process.\n\nBe it well noted, however, Consciousness is not the Kamma. That\nwould give us Kamma as an identity. But Kamma in the course of its\nself-acting development _becomes_ consciousness. Consciousness is\nthe _ultimate value_ (_Grenzwert_), in which at every moment of its\nexistence the form of the energy and the energy itself merge and\nmingle, and consequently that which gives to the _I_-process not only\n_conceptual_, but also _actual_ continuity.\n\nFaith adopts as adequate cause a transcendent force, an imperceptible\nto sense in itself. Science rejects all that is imperceptible to sense\nand adopts as the adequate cause of one occurrence other occurrences.\nThe Buddha teaches that the actual processes have being in virtue of an\n_in-force_, _i.e._ an imperceptible to sense; but this imperceptible\nto sense is so, _not \u201cin itself,\u201d_ as a transcendent in itself, but in\nthe course of its automatic development, _for the individual becomes\nperceptible to sense as consciousness_.\n\nIt is in this sense that we are to understand the matter when the\nBuddha, having specified consciousness as one of the five Khandhas,\nthus making it a _form_ of Kamma, upon another occasion says, \u201c_It\nis Cetana (thinking) that I call Kamma._\u201d In a Burmese school I once\nlistened to the following questions and answers: _Teacher_, \u201cWhat\nis Kamma?\u201d _Pupil_, \u201cCetana.\u201d _Teacher_, \u201cWhat is Cetana?\u201d _Pupil_,\n\u201cKamma.\u201d\n\nIn this sense is to be understood the frequently recurring formula:\n\u201cIn dependence upon individuality (_n\u0101ma-r\u016bpa_) arises consciousness\n(_vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a_); in dependence upon consciousness arises individuality.\u201d\nFor _in-force_, in contradistinction to a transcendent universal force,\nis something that only exists in dependence upon its material.\n\nThe understanding of this point will be rendered much easier by a\ncomparison with a flame.\n\nIn a flame each moment of its existence represents a specific degree\nof heat which, as such, _is the power_ to set up a succeeding moment\nof ignition. This power is actualized wherever and for as long as\ninflammable matter, fuel, is present. The inflammable matter, so\nto say, is the liberating provocation that causes this power, this\npotential energy which the flame every moment represents in virtue of\nits heat to enter into life, and shows it the way into living energy.\n\nBut with this conversion into living energy, _i.e._ with the fact that\na new ignition moment is called into life, a new degree of heat, a new\nvalue in potential energy also is produced, which, as the succeeding\nignition moment, anew passes over into living energy, thus forming\na repetition of the whole proceeding. It is a process which may be\nbriefly designated as a self-charging. The self-discharging, the act\nof the passage of potential into living energy, is simultaneously the\ncharging anew with potential energy. Precisely in this consists the\nnature of the self-active. The self-active is that which possesses the\nfaculty, the power to sustain itself; and this self-sustaining, when\nanalyzed, exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. If potential\nenergy has passed over into living energy, there is here no need of an\naccession of foreign energy to fashion a new store of potential energy.\nThis new store is implied in the discharge itself. Energy, actual\nenergy, is not something that must receive an impetus from without in\norder to come into activity, it is activity, action itself, and proves\nitself such by itself; and all that is necessary is to comprehend, to\ncomprise it in this its characteristic quality.\n\nThat this perfectly natural conception to us has become so unnatural,\nmust be laid to the charge of our habits of thought, trained\none-sidedly as we have been, along the lines of mechanical views. Where\nsomething happens, we look for some impulse from without; but we ought\nnever to forget that science does not give the actual world at all,\nbut only a re-actual world; in which world, to be sure, impulses must\nbe given if anything is to happen at all. The mechanical world-theory\nis simply a \u201creading\u201d of the play of world-events in order to give\ncomputation and determination in advance; never under any circumstances\ndoes it furnish an insight into actuality itself. Actuality is action\nout of itself; it is the self-active. And all the insoluble problems\nin which science loses her way when she seeks to carry the mechanical\ncomprehension of the play of world-events from the reversible processes\nwhere it is possible and legitimate, over to the non-reversible\nprocesses, all in the last analysis amount to this, that one is trying\nto demonstrate something--_i.e._ the biological process--from external\npreconditions, which along such lines can never be demonstrated,\nnot because in itself incapable of demonstration, but because it is\ndemonstrating itself through itself.\n\nThis the genuine thinker must absolutely hold to. Actuality is action\nitself, not something that first must be acted upon. Everything\nre-actual is thinkable only as the sequel of a push requires a push for\nits explanation. Everything that is actual burns.\n\nAfter this, what takes place in the _I_-process becomes comprehensible.\n\nHere the passing over from potential to living energy has its\ncounterpart in the _volitional movements_. At every moment of its\nexistence the _I_-process represents a specific value in potential\nenergy which there where the external world enters with its\n\u201cliberating\u201d provocations, ever and again passes over into living\nenergy as volitional movement. Every discharge in the form of a\nvolitional movement is a charging afresh with potential energy. It\nis a self-sustaining proceeding in the fullest sense of the words.\nThe volitional movements are the ever repeated new foothold which the\n_I_ fashions for itself, the ever repeated \u201csustenance\u201d wherewith it\nprovides itself afresh.\n\nThe all-important point about this conception is that one should\nclearly see that Kamma _does not, like a cord of some sort of solid\nmaterial_, thread itself through the _I_-process, as would be bound to\nbe the case with an _I_-force, whether dubbed soul, or life-force, or\nwhatever else; but that in every volitional movement it ever and again\nsprings up anew out of a material to which it itself, in the first\nplace, ever and again lends the power to this end. The material has\nto be _Kammatized_ so as to be able to give Kamma the opportunity to\nspring up anew. As in the friction of one piece of wood with another,\nheat springs up, and ever and again springs up with each repetition of\nthe friction, so in the friction of the _I_-process with the external\nworld, with things, ever and again new volitional movements spring up.\n\u201cSomewhat, O monk, as when two pieces of wood are laid one upon the\nother, are rubbed one against the other, heat arises, fire springs up;\nand when these two pieces of wood are parted, are separated, the heat\nthat has arisen, disappears, ceases; even so, O monk, by reason of a\ncontact of a pleasurable nature, a pleasurable sensation springs up.\u201d[3]\n\nThis the reply, the reaction peculiar to itself of the _I_-process\nto the external world, a reply, a reaction that takes the form of\nvolitional movements, this is Kamma, the action of this _I_-process.\nThat which as regards all the rest of the world is imperceptible to\nsense, here in the self-acting, the spontaneous development of the\nindividual, _becomes_ perceptible to sense. Nothing else whatever is\nconcealed within the _I_-process: itself has disclosed itself. As in a\nflame there is nothing hidden and concealed, its activity constituting\nits entire being, so in the _I_-process there is nothing hidden and\nconcealed. Its activity constitutes its entire being, and this activity\n_in full entirety_ is disclosed in consciousness to the individual\nhimself, and to him only. And nothing more is needed than to comprehend\nactuality simply as that which it is.\n\nThis insight into the _I_ as a pure combustion process places the whole\nproblem of existence upon an entirely new foundation.\n\nIn a combustion process every moment of its existence is a\n_setting-up-of-life_ just as much as an _entering-into-life_. The\n_I_-process in all its activities, whether of the corporeal or of the\nmental variety, is a constant growing up of life itself, an arising,\na perpetual refashioning, setting up anew, inasmuch as the energy\nperpetually works up, assimilates fresh material. Here is no _I_ that\nexperiences; no _I_ that thinks, speaks, does. I do not _have_ all this\nas my functions, but this doing, speaking, thinking--this itself I\n_am_. In all this I ever and again am being built anew, just as in the\nassimilating of the nourishment of which I partake, I ever and again am\nbuilt anew,--it is all the one same process of combustion, differing\nonly in the surrounding circumstances and antecedent conditions.\n\n\u201cWhat, O monks, is the arising of the world? By reason of the eye\nand of forms there arises visual consciousness. The conjunction of\nthe three constitutes contact. In dependence upon contact arises\nsensation. In dependence upon sensation arises the thirst for life. In\ndependence upon the thirst for life arises clinging. In dependence upon\nclinging arises becoming. In dependence upon becoming arises birth (as\nthe birth of a fresh biological impulsion). In dependence upon birth\narises old age and death.\u201d\n\nThis passage recurs with great frequency in the Scriptures. Following\nthe same scheme there are next dealt with--hearing and sounds, smell\nand odours, taste and flavours, the body and contacts, thinking and\nconcepts.\n\nIn every one of its activities, at every moment of its existence, the\n_I_-process is not something that possesses arising as a function,\nbut it _is_ the arising itself, as the flame _is_ the arising itself.\nAnd it _is_ the arising itself because it burns, because it exists\nin virtue of an individual energy. It is the thirst for life, the\nimpulsion towards life, which _upholds life_, causes it ever and again\nto spring up anew, and _is life itself_; in exactly the same way\nthat the heat of a flame upholds the flame and is the flame itself.\nWe do not _have_ the impulse to life--that calls for a _conscious_\nimpulse--but we _are_ the life-impulse itself.\n\nA lay adherent upon one occasion inquires of the nun Dhammadinna:--\n\n\u201cPersonality, personality, they say, O venerable One. But what does the\nExalted One say is the personality?\u201d\n\nTo which the nun replies:--\n\n\u201cThe five forms of clinging (_up\u0101d\u0101nakkhandh\u0101_) is the personality, the\nExalted One has said; these namely: the form of clinging that refers\nto body, the form of clinging that refers to sensation, the form of\nclinging that refers to perception, the form of clinging that refers to\ndiscriminations, the form of clinging that refers to consciousness....\u201d\n\n\u201cThe arising of personality, the arising of personality, they say, O\nvenerable One. But what, O venerable One, does the Exalted One say is\nthe arising of personality?\u201d\n\n\u201cThis thirst for life (_ta\u1e47h\u0101_) that leads to re-birth, bound up with\nlust and craving, now here, now there, revelling in delight--namely,\nthe impulse towards sensuality, the impulse towards existence, the\nimpulse towards present well-being (without regard to any possible\nfuture). This, friend, so the Exalted One has said, is the arising of\npersonality.\u201d[4]\n\nThe distinction between faith and science on the one hand and the\nBuddha on the other, may be formulated thus:--\n\nAccording to faith, living beings all possess as adequate cause for\ntheir existence a transcendent force, usually called \u201csoul.\u201d According\nto science, living beings as well as all re-actual processes, have\ntheir adequate cause entirely in what is perceptible to sense; which\nmeans that science derives living beings simply and solely from their\nbegetters--mother and father--thus entangling herself in her insoluble\nproblem of heredity. The Buddha on his part teaches _that every being\nis adequate cause to itself_. As a flame maintains itself by its own\nheat, so every _I_-process maintains itself by its volitional movements.\n\nNow it is an incontestable biological fact that man, and along with\nhim a considerable proportion of the animal world, originate in the\nunion of a maternal ovum-cell with a paternal sperm-cell. How can the\nteaching of the Buddha that beings are their own adequate causes be\nbrought into line with this fact?\n\nIt is just here that the Buddha breaks with vulgar thinking in a manner\nthat at first sight seems out of all reason.\n\nHe teaches that that which mother and father furnish in the act of\nunion is only, so to speak, the material of the new living being, only\nrepresents the _possibility_ of a new individuality; that this material\nis developed into an individuality only through the advent of an\nindividual energy. \u201cBy the conjunction of three things, O monks, does\nthe formation of a germ of life come about. If mother and father come\ntogether, but it is not the mother\u2019s proper period, and the exciting\nimpulse does not present itself, a germ of life is not planted. If\nmother and father come together and it is the mother\u2019s proper period,\nbut the exciting impulse does not present itself, a germ of life is\nnot planted. If, however, O monks, mother and father come together and\nit is the mother\u2019s proper period, and the exciting impulse presents\nitself, then a germ of life is there planted.\u201d[5]\n\nAs the igniting spark catches, breaks in, and, taking the kindling wood\nand the oxygen of the atmosphere which, but for its advent, would have\nlain beside one another for long enough without any reaction, fuses\nthem together into the individuality, \u201cflame,\u201d so does the individual\nenergy joining up with the material of procreation, fuse ovum- and\nsperm-cell together into the new personality.\n\nThis \u201cin-breaking\u201d energy that joins up with the raw material of\nprocreation,--this is the Kamma of some other existence which has been\nunable any longer to maintain its form against the pressure of the\nexternal world, an occurrence which we usually denominate \u201cdeath.\u201d The\nKamma of the disintegrating existence--so the Buddha teaches--at the\nmoment of death passes over into a new abode, plants itself, breaks in\nhere in new inflammable material, kindles a new _I_-process, fashions\na new _I_-sayer. And as the igniting spark _becomes_ the flame by\ndeveloping itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which\nit has taken hold, so does Kamma _become_ the new form of existence by\ndeveloping itself, growing, unfolding along with the material of which\nit has taken hold. In other words, _I am the form of my Kamma. I am my\nKamma corporealised._\n\nThis Kamma series it is which constitutes the _actual_ genealogical\ntree of a living being. As the genealogical tree of a fire does not\nlead in the direction of the forest or the coal-mine whence its\nmaterial was derived, but back to the flame from out of which the\nkindling spark took hold, so the genealogical tree of living beings\ndoes not run back in the direction of progenitors but in the direction\nof the Kamma, the direction of a disintegrating existence. \u201cHeirs of\ndeeds,\u201d therefore, the Buddha calls living beings, not heirs of mother\nand father; and, \u201cspringing from the womb of Kamma (_kammayon\u012b_).\u201d The\nKamma, in virtue of which I now say \u201c_I_,\u201d derives from a previous\nexistence; the \u201c_I_-sayer\u201d of this previous existence, on his part\nagain, derives from a previous existence, and so on further and further\nback in a series that never has had a beginning. _At every moment\nof my existence I am the final member of a beginningless series of\n\u201cI-sayers.\u201d_ The Kamma at this moment active in me--it has never not\nexisted, never not been active. This is what means a self-sustaining\nprocess. Such a process can never have had a beginning; for then it\nwould be no self-sustaining thing, it would have been created, either\nby a god, or by external circumstances and antecedent conditions. It\nwould be no actual process but a product. As soon as clear cognition\nbrings me the insight that I am a pure process of combustion, _i.e._\nsustain myself, along with that insight is given as a logical necessity\nbeginninglessness.\n\n_Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the guiding clue\nto the Buddha-thought._ In it is exhausted the teaching of Kamma.\nThe _I_-process has its _in-force_, its Kamma from out a previous\nexistence. Otherwise expressed: The _I_-process is not the result of\nan impact, has not been set going, but burns on from beginninglessness\ndown to this present moment, itself ever and again _perpetuating\nitself_. Whenever an existence disintegrates, the Kamma in virtue\nof which it has been burning takes hold anew in a new location and\nthere sets alight a new _I_-process that unfolds itself into a new\npersonality. _The Buddha teaches re-births._\n\nThe self-perpetuation of the individual energies, the Kammas, in\nthe formation of ever new individualities, is by the Buddha called\n\u201cSams\u0101ra.\u201d\n\nThis word is most frequently translated, \u201cthe circling round of\nre-births,\u201d--a rendering that may easily lead to a false conception.\nWhere the entire universe is nothing but a huge summation of single\ncombustion processes, there no circling round can be; there each moment\nof existence always and everywhere is something that never before has\nbeen and never again will be. With the translation \u201ccircling round of\nre-births,\u201d one only works with physics and its reversible processes;\none is in danger of apprehending life mechanically. As a matter of\nfact, \u201cSams\u0101ra\u201d means nothing but the \u201ctogether-wandering,\u201d the ascent\nand descent of the beings in the universe, that ever and again, now\nhere now there, come into manifestation anew, according as their Kamma\nhere or there takes hold.\n\n\u201cWithout beginning, without end is this Sams\u0101ra. A beginning of beings\nencompassed by nescience who, fettered by the thirst for life, pass on\nto ever new births, verily is not to be perceived.\u201d\n\nThe thinking man naturally asks, \u201cIs there any proof of such a\nteaching? or must it simply be believed?\u201d In the latter case it were as\nworthless to the genuine thinker as is every religion of faith. Whether\nI call that on which I believe, force or energy, god or Kamma, makes no\nessential difference.\n\nBut to this question there are two answers--an answer of a real, and an\nanswer of an abstract nature.\n\nThe answer of real nature is supplied by the Buddha when he\naffirms of himself that simultaneously with the attainment of his\nBuddha-knowledge, he acquired the faculty of remembering his previous\nforms of existence back into eras of time the most stupendously remote.\nHe teaches, however, that every one who, like himself, has wrestled\nhis way to the same knowledge, obtains this same capacity of calling to\nremembrance his previous states of existence.\n\nNow the Buddha-knowledge is no supernatural illumination, but consists\nsimply of a clear insight into the nature of my own existence--or\nrather, in the removal of a false conception as to myself, the\nconception of the \u201c_I_\u201d as an identity. To attain to this insight,\nall that is needed is reflection and instruction. This seemingly\nsupernatural character of the faculty of remembering previous\nexistences is thus \u201csupernatural\u201d only in the sense that the telephone\nor the R\u00f6ntgen ray or wireless telegraphy is supernatural to untutored\nsavages. We are merely lacking in the prerequisite conditions as\nrespects cognition, and in the intellectual technique.\n\nThis much safely may be said, that the biological possibility of memory\nof the distant past can only be brought to bear upon the several\nexistences in so far as these themselves have run their course in\ntouch with the power of memory, in touch with consciousness. To try\nto make this faculty extend over the embryonal periods also, would\nbe absurd, since here the organic possibilities of such memory--the\nsense-organs, namely--are not developed, and so there is nothing there\nfor one to remember. Hence, when he speaks of his previous existences\nthe Buddha says, not, \u201cI remember having left such and such a womb,\u201d\nbut, \u201cI remember having been of such a name, such a family, such a\nrank, such a calling; having experienced such and such weal and woe,\nand such a departure from life.\u201d Here what is meant by the constantly\nrecurring phrase \u201c_evam \u0101yupariyanto_\u201d--\u201cthus was the term, the end\nof my life\u201d--is not physical death, but the ending of that section of\nthe individuality which runs its course self-illuminated, under the\ndesignation of consciousness. This end may indeed synchronize with the\nphysical end, death, but it may also precede it by a longer or shorter\nperiod of time.\n\nIn corresponding terms the Buddha goes on to say, \u201cDeparting thence,\nelsewhere I appeared anew. There now I was, bore such a name,\u201d and so\non. The memories of the past adhere only to those phases of existence\nthat are illumined by consciousness.\n\nIt may be asked, \u201cBy what means is it possible to acquire such a\nfaculty of remembering the distant past?\u201d\n\nI reply, \u201cI do not know.\u201d I can only suggest an analogy. One must\nextinguish one\u2019s own light in order to see the light that shines\nthrough the chink in a neighbouring room. In somewhat the same\nfashion, a man must have extinguished his own light--the notion of an\n_I_-identity--and won to the Buddha-knowledge, in order to see himself\nemerge recurrently as a something luminous in consciousness further and\nyet further away in the \u201cdark backward and abysm of time,\u201d--one lucent\nphase, ever and again revealing itself, anterior to the other, until\nthe last faint glimmer is lost in the dim dusk teeming with life, of\nthe beginningless infinitudes.\n\nThe Buddha himself instances a definite limit to the capacity to recall\nto memory past existences, up to which limit he himself attained.\nHere we have the best possible proof that we have to do, not with\na supernatural enlightenment, a species of omniscience, but simply\nwith an intellectual technique which as being purely intellectual,\npresupposes a certain grade of cognition. If we may put any confidence\nin the texts, there were in the days of the Buddha, and in those days\nof which the \u201cChants of the monks and nuns\u201d tell us, quite a large\nnumber of persons who had acquired this faculty. If some one here\ninterjects, \u201cSuch a thing is impossible!\u201d he resembles a man at the\nfoot of a hill to whom another standing on the top has described what\nhe sees from that point of vantage, and who retorts, \u201cIt is quite\nimpossible that you should see all this. I have eyes in my head as well\nas you. I look upon the same world as you do and I perceive nothing\nwhatever of all this. Consequently your imagination must be playing\ntricks with you.\u201d\n\nSo much for the real answer. The abstract answer presents itself in the\nlight of an intellectual necessity.\n\nKamma is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process. As such it\npresents itself to me the individual immediately as consciousness.\nConsciousness, rightly comprehended, tells me that the _I_-process\ngives to itself its own coherence; which means that it is self-acting;\nwhich in turn means that it is beginningless. I experience the\nself-perpetuation, the burning of the _I_-process in consciousness. But\njust as Kamma conducts from one moment of existence to the next, so\ndoes it conduct from one existence to the next.\n\nShould one wish to render this procedure in comprehensible language,\none can come at it no otherwise than simply by saying, \u201cConsciousness\npasses over from existence to existence.\u201d \u201cKamma\u201d in itself conveys\nno more meaning than, for example, the word _I_, which indicates\nanybody and everybody without distinction, and only acquires _actual_\nsignificance with reference to myself. In exactly the same way \u201cKamma,\u201d\nthe force in virtue of which every single living creature has being,\nacquires _actual_ significance only as my own consciousness. Kamma _as\nsuch_ has being only as consciousness.\n\nIt is in this sense that those passages are to be understood, so\nobscure to our scholars, in which the Buddha speaks of _vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a_\n(consciousness) as that which plants itself in the new womb. Addressing\nhis disciple \u0100nanda, he says, \u201cIf, \u0100nanda, consciousness did not pass\ninto the womb, would it then be possible for the (new) individuality to\ndifferentiate itself?\u201d[6]\n\nAmong the Theras of Ceylon the established expression for the Kamma\nthat passes over from one existence to the next is _pa\u1e6disandhivi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a_,\na word which means \u201cthe again-linking-up consciousness,\u201d the\nconsciousness that ever and again supplies the bond between existence\nand existence.\n\nThat there is here no thought of consciousness as \u201csomething in\nitself,\u201d as soul, as an identity, is made abundantly clear in the\nfollowing passage:--\n\nA monk named Sati, as the outcome of his own cogitations, arrives at\nthe conclusion that \u201cconsciousness\u201d is something that in the progress\nof re-births passes over as _ana\u00f1\u00f1a\u014b_, as \u201cnot-other\u201d--that is,\nas an identity, as a spiritual substance. He is reprimanded by the\nBuddha in these words: \u201cHave not I in many and diverse ways expounded\nconsciousness as something arising always in dependence upon somewhat?\nWithout adequate cause there is no coming to be of consciousness.\u201d[7]\n\nTo much the same effect runs a passage in the _Visuddhi Magga_:--\n\n\u201cBut it is to be understood that this latter consciousness (that of the\nnew existence is meant) did not come to the present existence from the\nprevious one, and also that it is only to causes contained in the old\nexistence that its present appearance is due.\u201d[8]\n\nOnly when one understands that _Vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a_ (consciousness) is Kamma\nitself, does a \u201cconsciousness\u201d that passes over from existence to\nexistence become divested of its seeming senselessness.\n\nWhen, for example, I say, \u201cThe American heat-wave has passed over to\nEurope,\u201d this does not mean that an absolutely definite something\ncalled \u201cheat-wave\u201d has set out on a journey. It only means that certain\npulses of energy which manifest themselves to sense under the form of a\nwave of heat are making their presence known in a new locality. In just\nthe same way, when I say, \u201cConsciousness passes over from one existence\nto another,\u201d this does not mean that an absolutely definite something\ncalled \u201cconsciousness\u201d goes forth upon its travels, but that the pulse\nof energy of the _I_-process which, wherever it is present at all _as\nsuch_ manifests itself as consciousness, makes its presence known in a\nnew location. Should any one insist upon conceiving of the heat-wave\nas a something travelling, he would rightly become the butt of\nridicule. In similar wise, the scholars of the west with their profound\nresearches into this \u201cconsciousness\u201d that passes over from existence to\nexistence, make fair marks for jest and laughter. Here, of course, they\nare only working further along in the tracks of physiology and biology,\nboth of which so long as they seek for a \u201cseat\u201d of consciousness,\nlabour under a like tragi-comic misconception.\n\nNo good purpose is to be served by instancing here in detail all the\ncrass misconceptions of which our western scholars are guilty in the\ninterpretation of this point. That would only be to burden this book on\nits way with quite unnecessary ballast. Wherever the reader meets with\nsuch misconceptions, he can correct them for himself on the lines of\nthe foregoing explanations. In passing, however, it may be mentioned\nthat he will meet with such misconceptions in pretty nearly every book\nabout Buddhism.\n\nAnd now we stand confronted by the question:--\n\n\u201cAfter what fashion is one to picture to oneself the passing over of\nKamma from one existence to another?\u201d\n\nTo us in the West who have been reared in the mechanistic views of\nscience and admit of the inductive method alone in argument, this\nseems the point most obscure among all the obscurities we find in the\nBuddha-thought. In the Buddha\u2019s days, however, this point seems to have\nbeen so completely free from anything savouring of the problematical\nthat the Buddha himself would seem never to have found it necessary to\nexpress himself categorically upon it.\n\nIf to-day one asks the Theras in Ceylon or Burma how one ought to think\nof this passing over, one receives the unfailing reply, \u201cIt is not the\ncase that \u2018something\u2019 passes over.\u201d\n\nHere one must fall back upon the works of the commentators for fuller\ninformation.\n\nIn the _Milinda Pa\u00f1ha_ (the _Questions of King Milinda_), a work that\nin Ceylon is held in the highest esteem, there occurs the following\npassage:--\n\n(The King says): \u201cBhante (Reverend Sir) Nagasena, does the connection\n(with the next existence) take place without anything passing over?\u201d\n(The Monk Nagasena replies): \u201cYes, great King, the connection takes\nplace without anything passing over.\u201d \u201cGive me an example of connection\ntaking place without anything passing over!\u201d \u201cSuppose a man to light\none lamp at another, does one light here pass over to the other?\u201d \u201cNo,\nbhante.\u201d \u201cIn just the same way the connection takes place without\nanything passing over.\u201d[9]\n\nHereupon the question arises:--\n\n\u201cThis previous existence of which I am the immediate continuation--am I\nthis itself or am I another?\u201d\n\nA further passage in the same book, the _Milinda Pa\u00f1ha_, runs:--\n\n\u201cHe who is born--is he the same or is he another?\u201d \u201cNeither the same,\nneither another.\u201d\n\n\u201cGive me an illustration!\u201d \u201cSuppose a man to light a lamp: would it\nburn the whole night through?\u201d \u201cYes, it would burn the whole night\nthrough.\u201d \u201cNow, is the flame of the first watch the same with the\nflame of the middle watch?\u201d \u201cNo, indeed!\u201d \u201cOr is the flame of the\nmiddle watch the same with the flame of the last watch?\u201d \u201cNo, indeed!\u201d\n\u201cThen is the lamp of the first watch one, the lamp of the middle watch\nanother, and the lamp of the last watch yet another?\u201d \u201cNo, indeed! In\ndependence upon one and the same (lamp) the light burns all the night\nthrough.\u201d \u201cEven so does the continuity of men and things come about.\nOne arises, another passes away. On the instant, as it were, without\nbefore or after, the linking up is effected. Thus it is not oneself,\nnor yet is it another, that passes on (and constitutes) each last\npresent phase of consciousness.\u201d\n\nWith this we arrive at the crucial point. _The passing over ensues on\nthe instant, immediately, not in space and time._\n\nBuddhism, if it is to satisfy the thinker, here will have to come to an\nunderstanding with modern physics. In a succeeding essay this will be\nattempted. For the present, as preliminary, we hold fast only to the\nfact.\n\nThe _I_-process as being the form of an _in-force_, at every moment of\nits existence represents a certain value in potential energy, a certain\nunique state of tension, an individual tendency. This tendency it is\nwhich at the breaking up of the old form immediately establishes itself\nin the new location.\n\nBut where? Is this new location always ready waiting to take up the new\nKamma?\n\nA universe that consists of nothing but a huge summation of combustion\nprocesses, finds itself, so to speak, in a perpetual _status nascens_.\nHere every fresh moment represents a new, unique, biological, Kammic\nvalue, which as such never before has been and never again will be.\n\nNow all actual happenings come to pass in virtue of peculiar\nattunements--in the language of chemistry, specific affinities. A\nbody, a process, acts upon another because in virtue of its peculiar\nattunement it can and must act on that other. But where the entire\nuniverse is a something existing in a perpetual _status nascens_, there\nis, strictly speaking, no such thing as a _being attuned_, but only\nan _each-after-other self-attuning_, taking place anew with each new\nmoment. The entire actual happenings of a world from this point of view\nbecome something that does not _have laws_, but _is law itself_; a\nthought as sublime as it is terrible. The significance of Buddhism for\na morality is completely dominated by it.\n\nHence, where the actual play of world-events alone is in question,\nthe same is indicated by the word \u201cDhamma\u201d (law or norm). All beings,\neven as they are Sankh\u0101ra, are also Dhamma.[10] Kamma, the individual\n_in-force_, at the break up of the form, will \u201ctake hold\u201d anew there\nwhere in the beginningless each-after-other self-attunement of the\nplay of world-events, it can take hold--indeed, _must_ take hold. This\n\u201ctaking hold\u201d anew is not something that _has_ law, that runs its\nappointed course according to definite laws, but it _is_ law itself.\n\nNow Kamma, as individual _in-force_, is a something unique. It is\n_itself_ and nothing else besides, as it manifests itself in me the\nindividual; for my consciousness tells me that I am a something unique,\nthat I am myself and nothing else besides.\n\nAs a something unique, it must also be uniquely attuned to its\nnew location. There will be one single location which, out of the\nendless host of world-events, will correspond to the Kamma of the\ndisintegrating existence, will answer to it. _We all eat out of the one\ndish--every one eater for himself._\n\n_This unique attunement, however, implies immediate passing over as\na logical necessity._ If Kamma passed over in space and time, this\npassing over would be a new self-attunement at innumerable points.\nImmediate passing over and unique attunement are two different\nexpressions for one and the same event.\n\nWe shall have to dwell upon this idea at greater length in another\nplace. Here I conclude with the caution that the Kamma-teaching\nof the Buddha is not to be confounded with the teaching of the\ntransmigration of the soul found in pantheistic systems. The two have\nnothing, absolutely nothing, in common with one another except the\nwords \u201cSams\u0101ra\u201d and \u201cre-births.\u201d Language is no more than a servant. It\nserves one master just as well as another. To seek to deduce community\nof essence from similarities in terminology is a piece of idle trifling\nof which many an expositor of Buddhism is most unwarrantably guilty.\nIt is no very difficult matter to \u201csupport\u201d the words of the Buddha\nwith quite a host of sayings culled from the works of mystics and\npantheists--and scientists also, if one so chooses. But in good sooth,\nto him who understands, all this only makes needless ballast, and to\nhim who does not understand, needless perplexity.\n\nA transmigration of the soul requires something persistent, something\neternal, a unity in itself. \u201cAs the worm from leaf to leaf\u201d--runs the\nillustration in the Upanishads--\u201cso goes the soul (the Atman, the true\nSelf) from existence to existence.\u201d\n\nFor the Buddha there is no such \u201csomething in itself.\u201d For the real,\ngenuine thinker life is a thing that at every moment wholly and\ncompletely arises anew. Life is this arising itself, just as a flame\nis the arising itself. _Any kind of persisting something here is not\nto be found._ Every moment of existence is a new, biological, Kammic\nvalue, whereof the prerequisite condition, the adequate cause, resides\nsolely in the previous moment, while itself is prerequisite condition,\nadequate cause to the moment succeeding. _No continuity_ is present,\nas a Being, as a true _I_, a something identical with itself, _but\nwith each new moment the continuity is formed anew_; every moment is\nthe last link in a beginningless series; every _now_ the final result\nof an individual combustion process that, hither descended from past\nbeginninglessness, continues to burn on through future endlessness; the\nKamma whereof, as oft as one form falls to pieces, without break seizes\nhold of a new raw-material. It is no persisting something in itself\nthat passes over; it is the individual tendency, the predispositions,\nthe character, the consciousness, or whatever else one has a mind to\ncall the value in potential energy represented by the _I_-process at\nits disintegration, that passes over, by _immediately_ taking effect,\nstriking in, imparting the new impulse to the material to which it is\nuniquely attuned--the material that appeals to it alone of all that is\npresent, and to which it alone of all that is present, answers.\n\nYet once more:--\n\nKamma is no cord binding the existences together--as little so as the\nlightning of the firmament is a cord. The notion of a persisting \u201cself\u201d\nor \u201csoul\u201d is repeatedly and emphatically repudiated.\n\n\u201cFurther, one may entertain the notion: \u2018This identical self of mine,\nI maintain, is veritably to be found now here, now there, reaping the\nfruits of its good and of its evil deeds; and this my self is a thing\npermanent, constant, eternal, not subject to change, and so abides for\never.\u2019 But this, monks, is a walking in mere opinion, a resorting to\nmere notions, a barren waste of views, an empty display of views; this\nis merely to writhe, caught in the toils of views\u201d; runs a passage in\nthe second Sutta of the _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_. While we find Buddhaghosa\u2019s\ngreat commentary, the _Visuddhi Magga_, saying: \u201cThere is no entity,\nno living principle, no elements of being, transmigrated from the last\nexistence into the present one.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nI sum up in brief what has gone before.\n\nThe Buddha teaches:--\n\nAll actual processes are combustion processes.\n\nThey burn in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_ (Kammas).\n\nAs such they are self-sustaining processes.\n\nAs such they are beginningless.\n\nThey have sustained themselves from beginninglessness down to the\npresent by volitional activities.\n\nWith the Kamma-teaching the significance of Buddhism for a\nworld-conception is given in all its amplitude.\n\nTo possess a world-conception means to comprehend the play of\nworld-events.\n\nTo comprehend means to comprehend adequate causes.\n\nAdequate causes must be forces.\n\nForces of necessity must be something imperceptible to sense.\n\nAs such they must lie beyond the reach of all comprehension.\n\nAn exception to this is constituted by one single process--the _I_, the\nindividual himself; inasmuch as the _in-force_, in virtue of which I\nhave my being, _becomes_ perceptible to sense in consciousness.\n\nThis given, the whole problem here focuses itself, as it were\nautomatically, into one point, forth from which every genuine view of\nthe world must necessarily proceed--_one\u2019s own I_.\n\nWhilst faith conceives of the _I_ from a transcendental standpoint,\n_i.e._ believes; whilst science strains itself to conceive of the\n_I_ from the standpoint of the material world, _i.e._ inductively;\n_the Buddha conceives of it from the standpoint of itself_, i.e.\n_intuitively_.\n\nAlong with my comprehension of myself is comprehended the entire\nresidue of the world. If I myself have being in virtue of a purely\nindividual _in-force_, then all remaining actual processes also have\nbeing in virtue of purely individual _in-forces_, and I comprehend\nthem all--_i.e._ the world--as thereby beyond being comprehended; not\nas being incomprehensible in themselves--that were a self-evident\ncontradiction--but as so fashioned that each of them can only\ncomprehend itself.\n\nHere it may be objected:--\n\nA world-conception that teaches me to comprehend the world as being\nincomprehensible--is it not just as much of the nature of a paradox as\nthe world-conception of faith?\n\nTo this the answer is:--\n\nThe demand for a view of the world is not to be taken literally\nas such. If a freezing man says, \u201cI much need a coat,\u201d it is not\nthe coat in itself of which he has need, but the warmth that the\ncoat will procure him. In the selfsame way, when an uninstructed\nperson says, \u201cI much need a view of the world,\u201d what he would fain\ncomprehend is not the world in itself, but that which furnishes\ninternal support, coherence, to the play of world-events. In reality,\nevery world-conception means nothing else but a comprehension of the\nsomething that persists throughout the play of world-events, that\nremains constant through all vicissitude,--hence, a satisfaction _of\nthe idea of conservation_.\n\nThis idea of conservation religious faith endeavours to satisfy with\nits \u201cforce in itself,\u201d God. Scientific faith endeavours to satisfy it\nwith \u201cmatter,\u201d which is just as much a thing of faith as is \u201cforce.\u201d\nActuality knows neither force by itself nor matter by itself; it only\nknows the unity of both: processes. One is just \u201cbelieving\u201d when one\noperates abstractly with either of these two opposites; and to operate\nwith them other than abstractly is quite impossible.\n\nOut of itself does science provide satisfaction for the idea of\nconservation in the cosmogony of energetics; this it does, however, by\nfurnishing not _actual_ energies but only the _reactions_ of energies.\n\nAn _actual_ conservation, and therewith an _actual_ world-view is\nfurnished by the Buddha alone when he points out that every living\nbeing is a something self-sustaining; in other words, that there is no\nsuch thing as an \u201c_I_,\u201d considered as identical with itself, as a unity\nin itself.\n\nThe same, to be sure, is said by every school of criticism. Hume and\nmodern psychology say so with unequivocal clearness, but none of them\ngo beyond negation. They confine themselves to Socratic knowledge.\nAlone the Buddha says, \u201cI not only am aware that I am no true _I_,\nas a unity in itself, but I also know what it is that I am. And that\nthis has really been comprehended by me,--this I prove _in my own\nperson_. For, from the moment that I comprehended myself as a process\nsustaining itself from beginninglessness down to the present hour by\nits own volitional activities, all volitional activities have wholly\nceased in me. A new up-welling of _in-force_, any further self-charging\nof the _I_-process, has no more place in me. I know; this is my last\nexistence. When it breaks up, there is no more Kamma there to take\nfresh hold in any new location, be it in heavenly, be it in earthly\nworlds. The beginningless process of combustion is expiring, is coming\nto an end of itself, like the flame that is fed by no more oil.\u201d\n\nThis thought which finds expression in the four propositions concerning\nsuffering and the Nibb\u0101na teaching, sums up the significance of\nBuddhism for morality and religion, and its amplification, therefore,\nbelongs to the successor to this volume. Here it is only interesting\nto us from the epistemological point of view, _i.e._ in so far as _it\nmakes ignorance as to oneself the antecedent condition of all life_.\nFor--\n\nI sustain my own existence through the perpetually renewed up-welling\nof volitional activities. It is possible for these to spring up\nagain and again only so long as an object for my willing is present,\n_i.e._ so long as the delusion of identity is not put an end to. The\nmoment any being arrives at the insight that there are in truth no\nidentities--that there are nothing but flickering, flaring processes of\ncombustion, which are one thing when I crave for them, another when I\nstretch forth my hand to seize them, and yet again another when I have\nseized them and hold them fast, he stops short, begins to reflect; and\nin reflection the blind impulse to live is sapped and weakened. The\nknowledge is borne in upon him: \u201cIt is not worth the seizing.\u201d\n\nSo long as I take a glittering object in the grass for a diamond, I\nwill clutch at it, scuffle for it--mayhap enter on a life-and-death\nstruggle to obtain it. But the moment I perceive, \u201cIt is a dewdrop in\nwhich a sunbeam is reflected,\u201d I trouble myself no more about it. I\nknow \u201cA shake, a gust of wind--and all is over!\u201d\n\nSo is it with the genuine thinker in face of the world and its values,\nwhether they be called wife or child, money or possessions, fame or\nhonour, family or home. One clear, piercing, scrutinizing glance is\nmore than they will bear. To the penetrating mind, the wretchedness of\ntransiency is everywhere manifest--he turns away--it is not worth while!\n\nTo Sakka, the king of the gods, the Buddha imparts the following\ninstruction:--\n\n\u201cThen, chief of the gods, a monk hears: \u2018All that is, when clung to,\nfalls short.\u2019 And when, chief of the gods, a monk has heard: \u2018All that\nis, when clung to, falls short,\u2019 he closely observes each and every\nthing. In the close observation of each and every thing he sees into\neach and every thing. And seeing into each and every thing, whatsoever\nsensation he experiences, whether pleasurable or unpleasurable, or\nneither pleasurable nor unpleasurable, in all these sensations he\nabides in the insight that they are transient, so that he cares naught\nfor them, ceases from them, renounces them. And abiding as respects\nthese sensations in such insight, he clings to nothing whatsoever in\nall the world. Clinging to nothing in the world, he is free from fear.\nFree from fear he attains to his own extinction of delusion.\u201d[11]\n\nThis insight that ignorance as to one\u2019s own self is the antecedent\ncondition of all existence, is formulated by the Buddha in the\nso-called \u201cCausal Chain.\u201d[12]\n\nIt is not the intention of this book to furnish a fully rounded\nstatement of Buddhism, and so I am at liberty here to confine myself\nto what is necessary for our immediate purpose. To attempt to deal in\ndetail with all the many mistakes that have here been made by western\nexpositors would require a whole book to itself.\n\nThe Causal Chain consists of twelve links, on which account it is also\nalluded to under the name of the \u201cTwelve Nid\u0101nas.\u201d\n\nThe twelve links of the chain are: 1. Ignorance (Avijj\u0101); 2.\nPredispositions, Tendencies (Sankh\u0101ra); 3. Consciousness (Vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a);\n4. Individuality (N\u0101ma-r\u016bpa); 5. The seat of sense; 6. Contact; 7.\nSensation; 8. Thirst of life (Ta\u1e47h\u0101); 9. Clinging (Up\u0101d\u0101na); 10.\nBecoming (Bhava); 11. Birth (J\u0101ti); 12. A Complex consisting of the\nessential ingredients of all existence--namely, old age, death, misery,\nlamentation, sorrow, grief, and despair.\n\nThis \u201cChain\u201d is translated by the great majority of occidental\nexpositors of Buddhism thus: \u201cOut of Ignorance arise the\nPredispositions. Out of the Predispositions arises Consciousness,\u201d and\nso forth.\n\nSuch a translation is at one and the same time incorrect as regards\nthe wording and misleading as regards the meaning. For here the\nseparate links of the chain are placed with regard to each other in\nthe relationship of cause and effect, in the purely physical sense in\nwhich the two represent a following after one another. But in order\nto have a pure following after one another of cause and effect, there\nare needed artificial preconditions such as physics puts for herself\nwhen she works with \u201cbodies,\u201d--that is, with fixed magnitudes complete\nin themselves. Actuality, however, knows nothing of any such things.\nActuality knows only processes which at every moment of their existence\nrepresent a new biological value.\n\nOnly where \u201cbodies\u201d in this purely physical sense are presumed to\nexist, can one speak of a following after one another of cause and\neffect;--a mode of representing matters that is ridiculed by men of\ninsight among physicists themselves. E. Mach, for example, makes fun of\nit in the humorous phrase: \u201cUpon a dose of cause there follows a dose\nof effect\u201d; whereby, to be sure, himself, and with him the whole of\nmodern positivism whose mouthpiece he is,[13] falls into the opposite\nextreme, inasmuch as he seeks to substitute for the conception of\ncausality of scholasticism--the following after one another of cause\nand effect--dependence outside of time, as represented by the concept\nof mathematical function.\n\nIn sooth, one position is as far removed from actuality as the other.\nEvery causal relation existing in actuality runs its course on the\nlines--to take an example--of seed and tree, where the causal relation\nis neither a pure, unmixed following after one another, nor yet a lying\nalongside one another outside of time, but a combination of following\nafter and lying alongside one another.\n\nThis combination of succession and juxtaposition is implied, moreover,\nin the P\u0101\u1e37i word, _paccay\u0101_, used to express the connecting together\nof the separate links. Verbally correct and true to the meaning, the\nCausal Chain would be translated as follows:--\n\n\u201cIgnorance must be present in order that Tendencies may come to\npass. Tendencies must be present in order that Vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a may come to\npass;--which latter here signifies Consciousness as passing-over Kamma;\nfor this passing-over Kamma does not admit being spoken of otherwise\nthan in the form of consciousness. This passing-over Kamma must be\npresent in order that the fashioning of a new Individuality may come\nto pass. This latter must be present in order that a referring back\nof all the Six Kinds of Sense-Impressions to myself may come to pass.\nThis must be present in order that Contact, an approaching on my part\nto things whether physical or mental, may come to pass. Contact must\nbe present in order that Sensation, this in order that Craving, this\nin order that Clinging, this in order that the perpetually repeated,\nnew upspringing of the _I_-process may come about which here is\ndisintegrated in the stage of Passing-over (Bhava) and the final result\n(J\u0101ti),[14] the Coming-into-manifestation of a new Kammic impulsion\n_within_ this my personality; whereupon the last link follows as a\nnatural consequence.\u201d\n\nThe Causal Chain is the best touchstone by which to test whether a\nperson is really capable of following the Buddha-thought or not. If he\nis incapable of doing so, he comes by a sad fall at the \u201cviolation\u201d of\nthe law of contradictories which follows from _J\u0101ti_ being taken as\n_Birth_ in the grossly vulgar acceptation of the word; and cannot make\nout how an individual who has long since been active as such, should\nonly subsequently be \u201cborn.\u201d\n\nThe other absurdity which necessarily arises when one interprets the\nlinks in the vulgar sense as a following after one another of cause and\neffect, is this: that in this case Ignorance is installed as a sort of\nblind end, and so the way is opened for the introduction of all sorts\nof cosmological speculations to which our men of learning are only the\nmore inclined that they generally come from Sanskrit to P\u0101\u1e37i, or, what\nin substance amounts to the same thing, from the Upanishads to the\nSuttas.\n\nIn the Vedanta, \u201cIgnorance\u201d is a given thing in itself, an\nincomprehensible; it is the point on which, for the genuine thinker,\nthe whole system comes to grief. In Buddhism Ignorance is not anything\nthat is given in itself. Its presence in everything that lives has\nno other basis than that all that lives, by the mere fact of its\nexistence shows that it must have been compounded with Ignorance,\nsince otherwise the _I_-process concerned would have been bound to\nhave collapsed, just in the same way that everything that has being,\nby its very existence shows that up to now it must have been fertile,\ncapable of propagation, since otherwise it could not be here. As little\nas on that account \u201cfertility\u201d is a given in itself, just as little is\nIgnorance a given in itself.\n\nWhen the Buddha in the formula of causality places \u201cIgnorance\u201d at the\nhead of his world-system, makes it the antecedent condition of all\nindividual existence, he does nothing but formulate _abstractly_ what\nin the Kamma-teaching he gives _actually_--the beginninglessness of the\n_I_-process. To the question, \u201cWhat is the adequate cause of living\nbeings? How is it ever possible for the _I_ to come about?\u201d he gives in\nthe Kamma-teaching, the answer, \u201cthrough willing,\u201d and in the Causal\nChain the answer, \u201cthrough ignorance as to one\u2019s self.\u201d Both answers\nbear the one import,--this, namely, that anterior to the present _I_\never and again stands the _I_, running backward in a series that knows\nno beginning, and never has known a beginning. Whether I say, \u201cA being\nis here in virtue of his volitional activities, of his Kamma,\u201d or, \u201cHe\nis here in virtue of his Ignorance,\u201d there exists no other distinction\nbetween these two expressions than between the two phrases: \u201clight is\npresent,\u201d and, \u201cshadow is present.\u201d Shadow in itself means nothing\nsave only that light is present. Shadow is light itself, but in empty\nabstract form. In the selfsame way Ignorance of itself means nothing\nsave only that will is present. Ignorance is will itself, but in empty\nabstract form.\n\nIn the intuition of the beginninglessness of the individual, both\nseries--the actual as the Kamma-teaching, and the abstract as the\nteaching concerning ignorance--merge into one.\n\nBuddhism is the teaching of actuality. The actual is only what I myself\nexperience--I, the _I_-process.\n\nThe Buddha teaches me to comprehend myself, and only as a function\nof this self-comprehension does there follow a comprehension of the\nexternal world.\n\nA view of the world based solely upon a comprehension of one\u2019s self\nperforce lies beyond reach of any inductive procedure; the question,\ntherefore, arises:--\n\nBy what means and method is such a doctrine to be brought within reach\nof others?\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n\n                    BUDDHISM AS A WORKING HYPOTHESIS\n\n\nEach with its own world-conception, faith and science alike, are\nrepresentatives of a knowledge.\n\n_Faith_ stands for a \u201cknowledge in itself,\u201d--the knowledge, in fact,\nof a something divine. _Science_ seeks to work her way to a knowledge\nplaced in \u201claw\u201d; a labour, to be sure, with which she remains for\never \u201con the way.\u201d The _Buddha_, on the contrary, obtains his\nworld-conception, not by the creation of any new knowledge _but by\nbringing to an end a beginningless ignorance_.\n\nNow we moderns are accustomed to look upon science as the mediator\nbetwixt us and truth,--as the high-priest of truth, so to speak,\nfrom whose hands we receive the sacred host. With the position which\nevery science takes up towards nature--a rejection in principle of\neverything not perceptible to sense, implying thereby the potential\ncomprehensibility of the phenomena of life--its methods also are\ndefinitely determined; they are the methods of _induction_ and\n_deduction_. Both amount to comprehending an occurrence by roundabout\nways through other occurrences; or, what is the same thing, to finding\nthe adequate cause of one phenomenon of life in other phenomena of\nlife.\n\nNow there is one unique thing in the world with reference to which\nthis possibility is absent--something that I never can approach by\nroundabout paths; it is my own consciousness. For, this I myself am;\nand where I am, thither it is impossible for me to go, though I seek so\nto do by the cunningest and craftiest of psycho-physiological by-ways.\n\nThe whole Buddha-thought has its roots in discernment as to the\nessential nature of consciousness. This discernment, however, is itself\na form of consciousness, thus, cannot be come at by any kind of path,\nby any kind of method; _it cannot be mediate_.\n\nHere the scientist will say, \u201cIf a discernment be not mediate--that is,\nderived from experience--then it must be immediate. But that means it\nis an illumination, a matter of faith. And thus the whole of Buddhism,\nwith its teaching of Kamma, differs only in name not in nature from\nreligions founded upon revelations.\u201d\n\nSuch a conclusion, however, would be false. There offers a third\nalternative.\n\nScience conceals within herself a domain in regard to which it is with\nher much as it is with us all in regard to the sexual commerce of daily\nlife. We are proud of our children but we are shame-faced over the act\nthat has brought them into the world. Even so is it with science in\nrespect of those of her children that have not originated as homunculi\nin the reagent tube, but have really been begotten--_her intuitions_.\nOne is proud of them, but one never rests until one has methodized\nthem, put the inductive smock-frock on them, and brought them into tune\nwith the tone of conversation of science.\n\nGalileo\u2019s law of falling bodies, the Newtonian law, Robert Mayer\u2019s law\nof the conservation of energy, are all intuitions. But many another\nflash of insight to which science has denied the status of legitimate\nchild, contemning them instead for bastards, are like intuitions--such\nas the phrenology of Gall, Hahnemann\u2019s idea of _similia similibus\ncurantur_, which has blossomed into the methods of treatment so fraught\nwith blessing to humanity, of hom\u0153opathy, and many others.\n\nAll these intuitions have this in common that they have not been\nabstracted from a duly defined number of experiments. They are each\nan _experience_ in the domain of cognition that has come to pass by\nreason of a unique impulse. They are each a process of mental growth,\nmental development that has been evoked by an impulse of a special\ncharacter. As all vegetable growth demands an impulsion, a provocation,\nso also does that mental growth which science names \u201cintuition.\u201d One\ndoes not arrive at an intuition by the paths of induction-deduction;\none _grows_ into it. Were the power of comprehending things so\nfashioned that it could lay hold of, work up, and assimilate a definite\nimpulsion, as result there would blossom forth such a sequence as could\nnever be reached by the path of experiment. A single impulsion, the\nlighter coloured blood of the venous circulation in the tropics, gave\nRobert Mayer his intuition. A single impulsion, a remark in Cullen\u2019s\n_Materia Medica_, about China and its characteristic of giving rise\nto intermittent fever, supplied Hahnemann with his intuition. A single\nimpulse--so it is said--a falling apple, furnished Newton with his\nintuition; and so on through many examples.\n\nSuch an intuition is the Buddha-thought also. The sight of an aged man,\na sick person, a corpse--so says the legend--gave rise in the Buddha\nto that impulsion which, worked up by him, and proceeding to bud and\nbloom, drove him forth from the home of his fathers, forced him into\nasceticism, eventuating finally the ripe fruit of the Buddha-teaching.\n\nThe Buddha-teaching is a pure intuition, is _the_ intuition, and proves\nitself such in that any attempt to treat of it after the methods of\nscience, to master it inductively, is impossible.\n\nThough I lay the Buddha-teaching before the ablest scientific man that\never lived, it must always remain for him an entirely insipid thing\nif his intellectual faculty is not in such a condition as to vibrate\nin harmony with it, react to the \u201cprovocation\u201d offered, work it up,\nassimilate it.\n\nAs little as it can be proven that a given food is nourishing for\nme--it can only be offered, and I myself must eat, whereupon the food\nof itself proves its own nutritive quality or its worthlessness--just\nas little can the truth of the Buddha-thought be proven: it can only\nbe offered, and I myself must try it, whereupon the thought is either\nworked up as nourishing stimulus or rejected as entirely worthless.\nHere holds good the old saying: \u201c_Sapere aude!_\u201d\n\nThe Buddha-thought is powerless in respect of a mind to which it is\nnot assimilable, as also is that mind in respect of the Buddha-thought.\n\nIn respect of the teaching it is with such minds as it is with many\ndesert regions of the torrid zone in regard to rain: their overheated\nsoil prevents the rain-clouds that pass over them year after year from\ndischarging their burden. They receive no rain, not because they are\nsoaking with water, but because they are too parched and dry. They come\nunder the law of the _circulus vitiosus_. Because they are rainless no\nvegetation can come; and because they are without vegetation no rain\ncan come. Here there is nothing to be done but wait patiently until\nsome time in the course of the beginningless, incalculable play of\nworld-events a seed sprouts, a drop of water falls, and so a happier\ncircle sets in which, with the increasing vegetation, increases the\ncapacity for drawing down rain, and with the increasing rain-fall\nincreases the capacity for bringing forth vegetation. In the selfsame\nway, in the case of those minds that are overheated with theories,\nthere is nothing to be done but wait patiently, point out and point\nout again and again, until one day in the course of the beginningless,\nincalculable play of world-events some first grain of the teaching\nsprouts, some first drop of genuine insight falls.\n\nStrictly speaking, no intuition, whether appertaining to the Buddha\nor to science, can be proven. All so-called proofs are surreptitious\nproofs, as is most clearly to be seen in the case of the scientific\nproof of the law of the conservation of energy. The value of an\nintuition admits of being measured only by its usefulness as a working\nhypothesis.\n\nAnd so with respect to the Buddha-thought, the only thing to be done is\nto ask: \u201cOf what use, of what service is it as a working hypothesis?\u201d\n\nIf here it is of any service, a man will place confidence in it. If a\nman places confidence in it, he will reflect upon it. If he reflects\nupon it, he allows his thoughts to dwell upon it. If he allows his\nthoughts to dwell upon it, the more readily will the possibility occur\nof the mind leaping to the truth of the teaching and recognizing, \u201cIt\nis so!\u201d\n\nAll mental life is based upon the thought-necessity of adequate cause.\nTo it faith and science alike are subject. But no science is able to\nfurnish any explanation as to what it is that this necessity is founded\non.\n\nThe Buddha furnishes this explanation by showing that\n_consciousness--as Kamma--is this adequate cause itself_. Hence the\nnecessity that wheresoever life runs its course under the configuration\nof consciousness, this question as to adequate causes is given along\nwith it. So long as one fails to grasp the fact that consciousness is\nforce, _i.e._ adequate cause, one seeks in phenomena that which one is\noneself, that which is accessible nowhere else save only in oneself.\n\nThis it is which makes possible that scepticism--as found in Hume, for\nexample--which denies that there is any _actual_ causality at all.\nFor the adequate causes of happenings can never _be proved_, since\nas forces they can never be perceptible to sense. From this there\nfollows the possibility of unravelling a process to any extent one\nchooses without once coming upon anything to justify the conception of\ncausality. One must first have understood that my consciousness, the\nconsciousness of the investigator, is this causality itself, if one is\nto understand wherein lies the necessity of seeing a causal relation\neverywhere--_without seeing it!_\n\nTo arrive at the conception of causality by way of experience is quite\nimpossible. This has been shown by Hume in masterly fashion. But his\nescape from the difficulty by declaring this conception to be a product\nof habit is all as mistaken as the other device of declaring it to\nbe a something given _a priori_ to all experience. There is a third\nalternative, lying between and above these two opposites.\n\nAs from the polygon one could never arrive at the conception of the\ncircle, though one carried the duplication of the angles never so\nfar--one would still be left with the concept of the polygon,--so\nfrom the simple data, from the following upon one another of two\noccurrences, one can never arrive at the conception of causality though\none should multiply one\u2019s observations even to infinitude. One can\nonly comprehend the circle from the polygon, when the former is given\nas ultimate concept (_Grenzbegriff_). In the selfsame way one can only\ncomprehend the causal relation from the succession of events, when the\nformer is given as ultimate value (_Grenzwert_). This, however, does\nnot mean that it is a something given _a priori_; it only means that\n_consciousness itself is this ultimate value_. Towards this it is that\nall unwittingly one is striving when one sees in events the causal\nrelation and yet is unable to furnish any explanation of it.\n\nSuch is the riddle of the _logical necessity of the law of adequate\ncause_ as solved by the Buddha.\n\nAgain: All mental life splits itself up into these two divisions--faith\nand science.\n\nFaith says, \u201cThere _must_ be present a something imperceptible to\nsense.\u201d Science says, \u201cWe are unable to find anything imperceptible to\nsense and therefore reject in principle any such conception.\u201d\n\nAt this point the Master interposes and points out that they are both\nof them right, because they are both of them wrong, since neither\nof them knows how to interpret \u201cconsciousness,\u201d _i.e._ oneself.\nConsciousness, as Kamma, is the something imperceptible to sense,\nis the _in-force_, but it _becomes_ perceptible to sense for me,\nthe individual, in the course of its beginningless, self-acting\ndevelopment. Such is the interpretation supplied by the Buddha as\nto how it is possible for mental life to manifest itself in the two\ncontradictories, faith and science.\n\nAgain: Science makes shipwreck on the boundlessness, so to speak, of\nher results. Make a beginning where she will, everywhere there opens\nbefore her a new, unending series of facts, each one of which in turn\nis the starting-point of another unending series. And in science\nherself no point of departure is to be found, proceeding from which she\nmight be able to account for this fact. She is unable to say whether\nthese series, converging, move on towards a conclusion, or the reverse.\n\nHere again the Buddha-thought proves its value as a working hypothesis.\n\nThe entire world of actuality consists of an endless number of\nself-sustaining processes.\n\nThe _in-forces_ in virtue of which these processes subsist are\nimperceptible to sense, save where they become sense-perceptible to the\nindividual himself as consciousness.\n\nThis amounts to saying that I can comprehend nothing but myself--that I\ncan do nothing in regard to the external world but _react to it after a\nfashion altogether inexhaustible_--that, however, despite the endless\ndiversity of the symptoms necessarily bound up with the same, a genuine\ncomprehension ever remains equally near and equally far.\n\nWhence, then, the fact of scientific law? For that science is in\npossession of genuine laws is proven by her faculty of calculating in\nadvance. If, however, I can calculate in advance, this must mean that I\nnot only react but also really comprehend.\n\nIt is precisely upon scientific law that a peculiar flood of light is\nthrown by the interpretation of the play of world-events yielded by the\nBuddha-thought.\n\nWhere the universe is nothing but an endless number of combustion\nprocesses, there the whole play of world-events is just the passage\nfrom one process to the next, the self-adaptation of process to process.\n\n_The play of world-events is law itself._\n\nThis, however, for the observing mind, also implies the possibility\nof apprehending the play of world-events as something that _has_\nlaw. As the flame _has_ light and heat because it _is_ light and\nheat--these themselves, so the play of world-events _has_ laws because\nit _is_ law itself. The laws of science are simply the outcome of an\nact of self-adaptation, self-accommodation to actuality. To use an\nillustration: Science in its relations to nature resembles an old\nbody-servant who has studied his master\u2019s ways long enough to be able\nto prophesy with tolerable accuracy what his master will do then and\nthen under this or other circumstances--provided only that he does not\ndo something else!\n\nSuch is the position of science towards the inexhaustible play of\nworld-events. The longer she observes, with all the more probability of\nbeing correct, she can tell beforehand what her master, Nature, will\ndo at this or the other moment under such and such conditions--always\nsupposing that he does not go away and do something else quite\ndifferent!\n\nAll laws, even those that would appear to be most surely established,\nin every case hold good only up to the \u201cnow\u201d; they may at any\ntime be overthrown by the succeeding \u201cnow.\u201d Even the forecasts of\nastronomy--that pride of science--hold good always only under the\nproviso that the entire system within which the forecast applies, up\ntill then has not suffered a collision; vulgarly put, that up till then\nthe world has not come to an end. In fine, the forecasts of astronomy\nonly hold good if something else does not happen, to say nothing at all\nof predictions in the field of biology, therapeutics, and so forth.\n\nAnd so science hobbles along at the tail of the play of world-events,\never and again conforming herself to it anew, as she tinkers and\npatches up her \u201claws.\u201d And when she would fain have us believe that in\nthe end man may soar to the position of lord of this world-process, she\nonly resembles the fool in the Indian saying, who shakes his stick at\nthe setting sun and then assumes great airs as if its going down was\nall his doing.\n\nIf one has comprehended the Buddha, one comprehends that the human mind\ncan do naught save react in a manner that is altogether inexhaustible.\nAs through and through a process of combustion, in every motion whether\nphysical or psychical, I am this reaction itself. I am positively\nnothing else but just this reaction. The whole universe is nothing but\nan eternal self-adaptation of process to process.\n\nScience in all its forms, without exception, is nothing but a\nmethodical description of occurrences. All its \u201cexplanations,\u201d without\nexception, are only so many skilful forms of description.\n\nWhen in hours of despair she now and then admits this herself, as\nKirchhoff, for instance, has done in his well-known saying, this only\nmeans that she is making a virtue of necessity. And when E. Mach also,\nin his _Analyse der Empfindungen_, says: \u201cOne might imagine that the\nconcern of physics is the atoms, forces, laws, that to a certain extent\nconstitute the kernel of the sensible facts. Nothing of the kind! All\npractical and intellectual requirements are met so soon as our thoughts\nare able completely to counterfeit the sensible facts,\u201d he assumes with\nregard to nature the purely disinterested attitude of description, and\nin effect says the same as Kirchhoff.\n\nIt may be said:--\n\n\u201cProvided only that it were sufficiently abundant, might it not be\npossible through description also at last to attain to a genuine\nknowledge?\u201d\n\nTo this the answer is:--\n\nBy description, even though carried on to all eternity, I attain\nnothing but the cognizing again and again of a certain occurrence as\nsuch, even under altered conditions, and in a state of disguise. But\nthis act of recognition has nothing whatever to do with a genuine\nknowledge. I may meet a man year after year on the street, recognize\nhim in every imaginable costume, be able to describe him with the\nfullest detail, all without knowing the man himself. And, to adapt this\nsimilitude to the Buddha-thought: Even if some day this man of himself\nshould make himself known and say to me, \u201cMy name is so-and-so; I am\nsuch-and-such a person,\u201d this would still mean nothing but an extension\nof the process of description. Really to know and comprehend means to\nknow the energies at work in things. These, however, can be got at\nonly in one single case: there where the individual comprehends them,\n_i.e._ in himself, in consciousness. Every other kind of intercourse\nbetwixt me and the external world is all of it, positively all, nothing\nbut a reaction. I can describe but I cannot explain, though I set\nmyself to it never so scientifically. Though the intercourse betwixt\nmyself and another be never so intimate the two _I_-worlds are for ever\ndivided, the one from the other. Self-luminous and illuminating only\noneself, each goes his own way through the beginningless infinitudes--a\nterrible thought when grasped in all its fullness. But it is verily so:\nactuality _is_ terrible, and whoso fails to recognize it as such does\nnot know it.\n\nHere it may be interposed:--\n\n\u201cIf each single person can do naught save react to the external world\nafter his own individual fashion, how is it ever possible to arrive at\nuniformity in impressions, ideas, concepts?\u201d\n\nThe answer is:--\n\nBy means of language such a thing becomes possible. Again and again\nlanguage misleads us into thinking that solid bridges of thought\nstretch from _I_ to _I_. But when I say, \u201cThat is green,\u201d \u201cThat is a\ntree,\u201d and so forth, and another person says the same, in strict truth\nwe both agree only as regards the form of words. Each reacts in his\nown individual fashion, perceives his own \u201cgreen,\u201d his own \u201ctree.\u201d The\nBuddha instructs us that this individual perception and sensation also\nare merely forms of the individual combustion- or alimentation-process.\nThese, too, are nourishment, a tasting, just like that of the tongue.\n_We all eat out of the one dish--every one eater for himself._\n\n\u201cWhence, then, springs the uniformity found in our terms of speech?\u201d\n\nThe answer is:--\n\nSounds are simply token-values. When I say, \u201cThat is green,\u201d the\nstatement conveys no definite positive content of knowledge; in making\nit I only say, \u201cThat is not red, yellow, blue, and so forth.\u201d And if I\nsay, \u201cThat is red,\u201d by such a statement I only say, \u201cThat is not green,\nyellow, blue, and so forth.\u201d Thus, just as in an algebraical equation,\none sign repeatedly serves as the fellow-determinant of another, and\nnone possesses any positive content of its own. Each merely announces\nthat I react, _i.e._ that I burn. I do not recognize a cherry tree in\nitself, but only to the extent that it is not a plum or an apple or\na pear tree, and so forth. And I recognize a plum tree just in so far\nas it is not a cherry or an apple or a pear tree, and so forth. It is\na General Reciprocity Company, each member of which gives the other\ncredit without a single member in the whole company possessing a penny\nof solid capital; in fine, a fraudulent concern which the honest,\nupright thinker must keep a sharp eye on if he would not be swindled.\n\n\u201cBut whence comes language at all then?\u201d\n\nTo this question the reply is: Thence whence I myself am come, whence\nthou thyself art come--out of beginninglessness.\n\nThe miracle of language is as little to be explained as the miracle of\nthe _I_-process. There is present a given beginningless something--the\nworld. And this thing given represents not only a mere _possibility_,\nas science would have us believe--whereby she lands herself in the\npredicament of being obliged to explain how all our faculties could\nhave come to be--but it represents a _power_ in itself, in which the\npower of speech is just as much implied, as a beginningless faculty, as\nthe power to see, to hear, to think, and so forth.\n\nI turn back to our main subject.\n\nAll the seeming explanations furnished by science are nothing else but\nmore or less ingenious and special forms of description founded solely\nupon skilful adaptation. They assume the semblance of explanations\nfrom the fact that an impression of continuity is produced by an\never more closely packed accumulation of momentary forms. Such\ncontinuity, however, resembles the continuity of a circumference\nmade up of a number of the smallest possible single parts: the\ngreater the appearance of continuity, all the greater in reality, the\ndiscontinuity. The impulsion which furnishes the actual connection\nbetween events--the energies at work in occurrences, the real laws of\nformation--are thus never touched on at all, nay, they are deliberately\nignored.\n\nThese eternally repeated attempts at adaptation on the part of science\nmay very well be likened to the voyage of a vessel up stream through\nlocks. When one has come to a stand-still in a lock--that is, when\none has completed one act of adaptation--one waits until sufficient\nwater--that is, sufficient new material in the shape of facts--has\naccumulated to enable one to reach a new lock--that is, a new act of\nadaptation.\n\nThis process of adaptation displays itself in its most characteristic\nshape when it assumes that epochal form known as \u201cinversion of point of\nview.\u201d\n\nAn example of such an epochal form of adaptation to new factual\nmaterial is to be found in the inversion that took place in the\nastronomical idea of the world when Copernicus displaced Ptolemy. A\nsimilar inversion, but in the epistemological domain, was effected by\nKant, in terms of which the conformity to law observed in phenomena was\nlifted out of the occurrences and placed in the mind observing them.\nAnother such inversion, but in the realm of biology, is the transition\nfrom the old teleological view which said, \u201cThe eye leads _to_ seeing,\u201d\nto the modern mechanistic view which says, \u201cThe eye results _from_\nseeing.\u201d\n\nIt is one of the most striking proofs of how little science is\nacquainted with her own nature that she extols these inversions as\nthe greatest of her achievements. Far from that, they are nothing but\nthe clearest possible expression of the fact that the human mind can\ndo nothing but limp along in the wake of events; and as it does so,\nthe incongruity, the lack of consonance, ofttimes becomes so very\npronounced that nothing short of a complete revolution--some such\ninversion to wit--is needed every little while to relieve the situation?\n\nEven the most successful of these inversions ever remains but an effort\nat adjustment. The Copernican inversion also is nothing but a useful\n\u201creading\u201d of the facts of the astronomical world. When a sufficiency of\nnew factual material has accumulated, then just as men perforce were\nswept away out of the Ptolemaic system, so in turn will they be swept\naway perforce out of the Copernican.\n\nThat whereby science finds herself constrained to make ever fresh\nadjustments, is experiment. With reference to this latter she resembles\nthe neophyte in magic of Goethe\u2019s poem, with his broom. One is in\ndanger of drowning in the superabundance of material, and knows not the\nmagic word wherewith to bring the irresistible inflow of results to a\nstand-still.\n\nWere the fresh facts which science is continually bringing forward real\nstages on the way to knowledge, then in the hour of death we could not\nhelp but feel like the expiring caravan animal in the desert, as with\ndying eyes it gazes after the caravan that wends its way there before\nit towards the longed-for goal now to itself for ever lost. Death to\nthe thinker would be a most terrible occurrence, the hugest of all\ncatastrophes. But science does not wend its way towards any goal at\nall. That question which science from her own resources can never\nanswer, as to whether her endless series, converging, tend towards any\ngoal, finds answer thus in the Buddha-thought: We can do naught save\nreact, inexhaustibly react to the external world, and so doing we alike\nremain eternally near and eternally far from knowledge.\n\nScience occupies herself with problems in variation and permutation.\nHow were it possible for us to know so terribly much if we actually\nknew anything? Exact science has to do only with relations. She does\nnot wish to know anything at all about things themselves. Any such\nknowledge would be as inconvenient to her as would be to an advocate a\ntoo far-reaching confession on the part of his clients. It is only this\nutter absence of misgiving as to things themselves which really makes\npossible scientific methods of procedure.\n\nIt is men of science themselves who are responsible--partly\nintentionally and partly unintentionally--for the mistaken, exaggerated\nideas as to the nature and value of science current among the laity.\nOne does not quite like to let people peep into pots. One much prefers\nto appear before an astounded public with results imposing by reason\nof their completeness. With a certain kind of diffidence--intelligible\nenough, by the way, to him who can see behind the scenes--which,\nhowever, with no little skill is so managed that along with the simple\nkeynote quite half a dozen overtones vibrate in unison,--hopes,\nallusions to the future--one tenders one\u2019s gift to the world, but\ndoes not at all care about acquainting that world with the fact that\nat bottom this gift is the simple product of a scientific game of\nblind-man\u2019s buff, and \u201cshut-your-eyes-and-hit-the-pot!\u201d If it does not\nsuit one way perhaps it will the other. Every theory is the outcome\nof trying, of testing. It was thus that Galileo himself adjusted his\nintuition with respect to the law of falling bodies. Thus did Kepler\nall his life \u201cplay\u201d against nature and finally--once for all--win the\ngame; and so to all eternity will this playing against, and these\nefforts at adjustment, go on. So to all eternity will descriptions\nin the form of explanations be brought forward--descriptions which,\nstrictly speaking, will convey no more than Reuter\u2019s _bon mot_ about\ndestitution to the effect that it is the result of \u201cpoverty.\u201d\n\nI can describe with increasing exactitude the fall of a body and\nformulate the laws that govern the same. But all these descriptive\ndetails only assume the character of an explanation through men in each\ncase interpolating as adequate cause the attractive force of the earth.\nThis latter, however, is purely the creature of thought, a working\nhypothesis pure and simple, advanced with the sole object of making\npossible the comprehension of all single instances of falling. From the\npurely epistemological point of view, I am equally entitled to say that\nthe force of attraction results from the falling; for it is only from\nthis, from a definite number of single instances of the same, that the\ntheory of the \u201cattractive force of the earth\u201d is obtained.\n\nWith her working hypotheses science acts like a man who, in order\nto relieve himself of troublesome daily disbursements, pays out one\nlump sum of money for the settlement of all these petty claims. So\nscience, in the place of countless daily, hourly--yea, in the amplest\nsense of the words--continuous incomprehensibilities of life, pays out\none single, great incomprehensibility in the shape of central forces,\natoms, ethers, out of which all the trifling requirements of the\nday--the running expenses, so to say--can now be met. The knowledge\nwhich science supplies us is the most pregnant possible expression for\nour ignorance. Were a genuine comprehension in question, one would make\na speculation of it like a man who should buy up all the tickets in a\nlottery in order to make sure of the first prize.\n\nFrom the position which science takes up towards the play of\nworld-events--that of potential comprehensibility--she is obliged\nto combat everything that would militate against this potential\ncomprehensibility. Hence the embittered fight over the axioms of\nmathematics. Science, if she would remain science, may tolerate only\nwhat springs from experience. But what springs from experience can\nalso be swept away again by experience. As the god Kronos devours\nhis own offspring, so, in reverse wise, does each young experience\ndevour its genitor. But it is just this mobility, this, the complete\nrelativity of her results, which lends to science her security. Were\nshe anywhere to strike against solid ground, against anything not\nspringing from experience, it would be with her as with a deep-sea\nvessel gone ashore: she would be dashed to pieces by the crashing waves\nof actuality. Of course there is no danger of any such thing happening\nso long as science keeps to _her own domain_, the re-actual world. As\nbiology, however, where she must encounter life itself, face the fact\n_consciousness_, she is such a stranded ship as long since must have\ngone to wreck under the assaults of actuality did not physics time and\nagain come to her aid and support.\n\nThis is the interpretation of the fact \u201cscience\u201d in the Buddha-thought:\nWe can do nothing but inexhaustibly react to a world which in its\nevery motion _is law itself_, and therefore offers the possibility of\na _reading in accordance with law_, but in regard to its own essential\nnature for ever and ever remains utterly beyond our reach.\n\nWhence then the possibility of the human mind ever and again adjusting\nitself anew to this inexhaustible play of world-events?\n\nBecause thinking itself is energy, therefore it does not _have_ the\nfaculty, the power of adjustment, but _is_ this power itself. Thinking\nin every form, even in the most vulgar, is a self-adjustment, and the\nscientific form is distinguished from the lay form only in this, that\nit is _directed_, set in play towards definite ends; hence, whatever is\ntroublesome is here dropped with more skill, and on the doing of this,\nin the last resort, all scientific adjustment is founded. Rightly does\nE. Mach say, in his _Erhaltung der Arbeit_: \u201cScience has almost made\ngreater progress through that which she has known how to ignore than by\nthat which she has taken into account.\u201d\n\nHere for a first occasion I would bring that reproach against science\nwhich in what follows in treating of her problems will be frequently\nrepeated: She deprives us of the sense of actuality_; or_, rather,\nplaces it in a false object, the re-actual, whereby she does just\nas much harm to honest thinking as faith does by placing it in a\nnon-actual, in the transcendental.\n\nThere is only _one_ actuality in the world--that which I experience as\nsuch. To deprive us of this pure actuality, to direct our attention\ntowards a world that can be \u201cread\u201d in the form of work done--this I\ncall a turning of genuine thinkers into tradesmen whose one and only\nconcern is the establishing of advantageous relations with the external\nworld.\n\nGradually to win back the lost sense of actuality, gradually again to\narouse the feeling that there is a given something present which as\nsuch cannot be proven, not because unprovable in itself but because\nproving itself by itself--a given something representing no mere\n_possibility_ but a _power_--this will be the first task of a time\nwhich itself feels in every nerve and fibre that there\u2019s something\nrotten. It is this blind running against all the facts of life, this\ncourage of pure folly ever and again excited and supported by an\noverheated scientific imagination lacking in all self-control--it is\nthis that we must leave behind would we make good our claim to be\nmentally adult.\n\nThat science can furnish no real explanations she herself admits with\nher calculation of probabilities on the one hand and her philosophy of\nprobabilities on the other. Both require compromises with actuality,\nthe ignoring of minimum values, the equating of an endlessly great\nprobability with truth itself: in fine, an intellectual act of\nviolence. Whoever has his need of a world-theory satisfied by Herbert\nSpencer\u2019s deductions, I should imagine he might also find it relieved\nby those of Thomas Aquinas. And if any one maintains with particular\npride that his world-theory is based on strictly scientific axioms, he\nperpetrates an involuntary joke, inasmuch as he thereby says that his\nworld-theory is based upon an exact calculation of probabilities; for,\nwhen all is said and done, the only exact thing about science is her\ncalculation of probability--that is, the freedom she takes to herself\nto be inexact.\n\n\u201cWhat of mathematics?\u201d it may be asked.\n\nBut the higher mathematics which, in the consideration of the world\nfrom the physical point of view, comes into question before everything\nelse, is just the calculation of probabilities itself. And it is with\nno actualities that geometry and algebra deal, but with ultimate\nvalues--that is, values that are neither actual nor non-actual, but\nare given with actuality, as for example, the horizon and the ideal\nplane betwixt the air of the atmosphere and the surface of a sheet of\nwater are neither actual nor non-actual, but merely things given with\nactuality.\n\nThis is a point of the highest epistemological importance which, so far\nas my knowledge goes, has nowhere been taken into consideration; to go\ninto it more fully, however, would here be out of place. The Euclidean\ninstruments--point, line, superficies--are simply, ultimate values of\nlike kind; hence, neither actual nor non-actual. To operate with such\nultimate values where the problem of life, actuality, is concerned, and\nin such operations to set out from mathematical truths, as does the\nKantian philosophy for instance--this just means that one has failed\nto understand actuality.\n\nMathematics is only possible where there are identities. These,\nhowever, are to be found only in the realm of ultimate values.\nActuality has no identities. Where there are nothing but combustion\nprocesses, there each moment of existence is a thing unique that never\nbefore has been and never again will be.\n\nWhoso has comprehended the play of world-events after the manner of\nthe Buddha, to such an one it becomes ever more clear that science,\nwith her pretensions to furnish us at some future date with a genuine\nworld-conception, resembles that penniless wag who affixed a notice\noutside his door bearing the inscription: \u201cTo-morrow I will pay my\ndebts.\u201d Science, to the question as to when she finally means to pay\nwhat she owes to humanity, a genuine world-conception, has always but\nthis _one_ answer, \u201cTo-morrow!\u201d\n\nScience might easily obtain a clear idea of her own nature if only she\nwould venture to think out to a conclusion her own trains of thought.\n\nThe nature of every scientific world-conception consists in\ncomprehending the play of world-events in its entirety, without\nresidue, as relation values. Herewith she remains stuck fast in what\nmay be called conclusionless comprehension. The Buddha explains\nthis fact in the manner already shown; science confronts this fact\nall uncomprehending of its import, and therefore with some show of\njustification can argue in this strain:--\n\n\u201cWe are undoubtedly making progress in comprehension, as is shown by\nour increasing capacity for determination in advance. Hence we are\njustified in presuming the final link in our train of thought--the\nentire play of world-events as a summation of pure relation values--and\nin building up for ourselves already the world-conception which we are\nsure to reach in practice some time in the future.\u201d\n\nThis is the world-conception which modern physics calls her cosmogony\nof energetics--that is, that ideal world which is wholly subject to\nthe law of the conservation of energy, and thus is conceived of as\nconsisting entirely of reversible processes not dependent upon time.\n\nOf course, the more discerning among modern physicists now clearly\nperceive that the law of the conservation of energy merely represents\nfrom the limited standpoint of physics a _reading_ of the play of\nworld-events. If one forgets that, if one attempts to make it cover\nactual processes, tries to work it up into a world-theory, then not\nonly does the real nature of the law of the conservation of energy come\nto light, but also the real nature of the whole of science. For--\n\nThe law of the conservation of energy has sense and meaning only in\na closed system. In this fact alone its purely hypothetical nature\nalready stands revealed; for never under any conditions whatsoever can\nactuality have a closed system. Thus at the very outset one has to make\na compromise with actuality, a proceeding that is justified only where\nit is a question of achieving some practical result.\n\nIf now one makes the law of the conservation of energy into a universal\nlaw and on this erects a world-theory, one is bound to posit the\nuniverse itself as a closed system; otherwise, to speak of a universe\nin which the sum of all existent energies remains constant were\naltogether meaningless.\n\nWith this, however, science puts herself in such a position that, so\nsoon as she ventures to think things out to a conclusion, she robs\nherself of the possibility of her own existence, as the following\nconsiderations will make evident.\n\nA universe such as this, consisting entirely of relation values without\nresidue, would be one huge process of compensation, an endlessly\ndiversified fall from positions of higher to positions of lower\ntension. It is just this mode of representation which makes it possible\nfor the physicist to calculate, to determine in advance. He cannot set\nabout this his work at all until first after such a fashion he has\ngiven a new interpretation to the play of world-events. He must also,\nin similar wise, mechanise the invisible matter of the molecules,\nbefore he can master, so far as calculation goes, what takes place\ninternally. In thought, one must loosen the existing connection between\nthe molecules in order to be able to establish the internal falls. It\nis here as it is in a minuet: one takes a step backward in order to be\nable to take a step forward!\n\nBut this is what the physicist dares to do. All he is concerned about\nis to calculate, measure, determine in advance. As a general rule he\nnot only says, \u201c_Apr\u00e8s nous le d\u00e9luge_,\u201d but also \u201c_Avant nous le\nd\u00e9luge_.\u201d He rejoices in his power of being able to interpret and make\nuse of the re-actual play of world-events to suit his own ends, and for\nthe rest does not care a straw whence this power comes or whither in\nthe future it may go. _He does not think: he only works._\n\nNow, so long as he preserves as physicist an attitude of strict\nimpartiality towards this universe, the attitude of simple spectator,\nhe may reach by calculation, by technique, whatever so is reachable.\nHe stands before his universe as before an open piece of clock-work in\nwhich with increasing accuracy he observes the style and manner of its\nrunning and formulates the laws of the same. If, however, he allows\nhimself to be led away into working at a world-view, into putting the\nquestion \u201cWhere will this clock-work run to?\u201d he cuts the ground from\nunder his own feet.\n\nFor in such a universe there remains as actuating impulsion nothing but\nthe distinctions given with the separate processes. It is just like a\npendulum ever hastening on towards a condition of rest.\n\nNow, since under the assumption in question--a universe as a closed\nsystem--an influx of force from without is excluded, what we have here\nis a process of mutual borrowing, so to speak, and cosmic bankruptcy is\nonly a question of time.\n\nThis logical necessity is taken account of by science in her entropy\nconcept--the concept of the whole universe as a process hastening\ntowards equilibrium, though that consummation be distant by millions of\nyears.\n\nTherewith, however--presuming that she is honest--science stands\nconfronted by the following question:--\n\nEvery difference of tension demands a something that has established\nthis difference. Where there is a swinging pendulum it must originally\nhave received a push. If, however, the entire universe is one single\nmass of differences in tension, the impelling force can only lie\noutside the universe. In other words: this force could only have\nbeen the finger of a god. He it was, the Father-god, who put all his\ncapital of force into this universe, upon which capital everything now\nfeeds and will continue to feed until at length all is consumed, and\nthe great world-death comes which \u201cHe\u201d alone again can bid depart in\ncommunicating a fresh impulsion of motion--_if He should happen to feel\nso disposed_.\n\nOf course science does not say, \u201cEnergy disappears.\u201d Instead she says,\n\u201cEnergy only becomes inert; _as such_, however, remains conserved.\u201d\nThis, however, is about as sensible as if one should say, \u201cHeat does\nnot disappear, it only becomes cold; _as such_, however, it remains\nconserved\u201d--an absurdity rightly denounced by thinking minds among\nphysicists, such as E. Mach, for example.\n\nAnd the conclusion of the whole matter?\n\nThe colossal achievements of science upon which is erected her\ncosmogony of energetics, have served no other purpose but to look after\nthose interests of faith which faith itself dare not look after if it\nwishes to retain its vitality. In her audacious attempt to make light\nof the \u201cimperceptible in itself,\u201d the god-idea, as a mere rudiment of\natavism, science has made a pitiable shipwreck. By such an attempt she\nonly shows that she herself is an apostate from the god-idea; and to be\nhonourable, nothing is left her but to return as contrite vassal to\nthe ancient and sovereign race of those that are \u201cof Jehovah.\u201d\n\nShould she, however, attempt to interpret the play of world-events not\nas a fall, but try instead to interpolate forces, then of necessity\nshe must resort to the hypothesis of central forces; and, as above\nshe plays into the hands of the extra-cosmic deity of monotheism, so\nhere she plays into the hands of the intra-cosmic deity of pantheism;\nfor this central force, if really believed in and not a mere working\nhypothesis, would be nothing else but the world-spirit of pantheism\ntranslated into physical terms.\n\nThese two, faith and science, at their deepest roots, share in one\ncommon nature, since both in truth represent that grandest form of\nsymbiosis in which is made manifest the instinct of self-preservation\non the part of the universe--the universe considered as the totality of\nall living beings. When faith thinks things out it falls back into the\nlap of science. When science thinks things out it falls back into the\nlap of faith. And both by their simple existence demonstrate the truth\nof the Buddha-teaching that all mental life perforce operates under the\nencumbrance of ignorance. For let science, or rather the scientist in\nperson, place himself, if only temporarily and for a specific purpose,\nat the artificial standpoint of the mechanistic world-view, and so soon\nas he really begins to think he gives the lie to his own scientific\nview, inasmuch as he everywhere works with the concept of identity.\nNay, he is never even in a position to maintain a clear distinction\nbetween the two points of view. This is proven by the problems of\nscience, which, without exception, are of a purely dialectical nature,\ninasmuch as they all presuppose the erroneous concept of things as\n_identities_.\n\nOur task here is to throw the light of the Buddha-thought upon these\nproblems, and to this task we now proceed to address ourselves.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n\n                  BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICS\n\n\nWere one to lay the Kamma teaching of the Buddha before a physicist, in\nall likelihood he would dismiss it with this objection:--\n\n\u201cImmediate passing over that cannot be put to the proof in space and\ntime is telekinesis. Telekinesis is a fact only for faith. Accordingly,\nBuddhism too, like every other religion, is a religion of faith.\u201d\n\nThe scientifically-educated man would probably concur in this train of\nthought. Hence, if Buddhism is to have any prospect whatever of playing\na part in our intellectual life, it must offer a reply to such a line\nof argument.\n\nThat reply would run somewhat as follows:--\n\nActuality, when, where, and howsoever it makes itself manifest, really\nmeans nothing more than this--action is present. For actuality is\naction, doing, the power to do itself. It tells us, however, nothing at\nall as to how this action is bound to take place. Whence comes it then\nthat science has the presumption to dictate to actuality a definite\nkind of action--would have it, so to speak, run along fixed rails?\n\nThe one-sided requirement of science that all action must be mediate,\ndemonstrable in space and time, follows perforce from the position she\ntakes up towards nature.\n\nScience is only possible where there is the perceptible to sense--where\nthere is what can be compared.\n\nComparison is only possible where things are so arranged that the\nactual energies can be neglected. For every energy is something unique,\nstrictly individual, not comparable, as my consciousness immediately\nproves to me.\n\nThis leaving out of account of the actual energies is only possible\nin the world of reactions. Here it is possible, and therefore also\nlegitimate, to regard any kind of process as a something constant and\ncomplete, as a product, and correspondingly to treat it as such. Every\nphysicist knows that the grocer\u2019s pound weight, as well as the grain\nof his own scales, rigorously tested, to-morrow are no longer the same\nas they were to-day. Nevertheless we make a compromise with actuality\nand act as though they were the same. It suffices for all practical\npurposes, and so is permissible. Here one is not at all aiming at a\nworld-theory; one only seeks to measure and weigh, and satisfy certain\nneeds.\n\nThis compromise with actuality--the looking upon things as finished,\ncompleted--is forced upon us by the idea of identity, with which\nall mental life, without exception, operates. And the physicist\naccommodates himself to this idea with his concept of \u201cbody.\u201d\n\nBody, in the physical acceptation of the word, is nowhere to be found\nin actuality; none the less the physicist is justified in making use\nof this idea so long as, in the pursuit of his aims, he can do so\nwith advantage--that is, so long as it is a question of measuring and\ndetermining in advance.\n\nThe re-actual point of view of science involves as logical correlate\nthe merging in one, of \u201cmotion\u201d as manifesting itself to sense, and\n\u201cenergy.\u201d Aught else corresponding to energy besides motion itself is\nnot to be found in the re-actual world of the physicist. Here motion is\nenergy itself.\n\nUnder these two preliminary conditions--the regarding of things as\n\u201cbodies,\u201d and their motions as energies themselves--the play of\nworld-events displays itself in its entirety to perception by the\nsenses; and every effect is something mediate, possible of being\nfollowed up in space and time.\n\nBut the movements that are perceptible to sense are just as little the\nenergies themselves as \u201cbodies,\u201d in the physical acceptation of the\nword, are actuality.\n\nThe sensible motion is not the energy; it is only the evidence that\nenergies are present.\n\nWhen two electro-magnets, placed in a certain position with reference\nto each other, go through circular movements, this does not mean that\nthese circular movements are the energies themselves; it only means\nthat energies are there present, and of themselves prove themselves\nsuch by producing effects.\n\nWhen a geyser discharges water every hour, it does not mean that this\nkind of action is energy itself; it means nothing more than that\nenergies _are there present_, and as such are at work.\n\nThe earth\u2019s course round the sun does not represent energy itself; it\nmeans nothing more than that energies are there present, and as such\nare at work.\n\n_Motion is not energy itself, but the by-product yielded by two systems\nof energies acting on each other._ This by-product will manifest\nitself, according to circumstances and antecedent conditions, at\none time as circular, at another time as elliptical, at another as\nrhythmical motion, and so forth.\n\nIn its essential nature this by-product--the movement perceptible to\nsense--corresponds wholly and completely to a shadow. As a shadow means\nnothing save that light is present--it is nothing but the by-product\nof two systems of energies, one giving, the other receiving, light--so\n\u201cmovement\u201d means nothing save that energy is there present. It is\nnothing but the by-product of two systems of energies.\n\nIt is absolutely essential that the genuine thinker should make this\nidea as to the intrinsic nature of all motion his own. As little as\nit is possible ever to draw from shadows any conclusion as to light\nitself--saving the one conclusion that it _must be present_--just as\nlittle is it possible ever to draw from movements any conclusion as to\nthe energies themselves, saving only that they must be present. The\nenergies themselves withal remain wholly inaccessible. As to whether\nthese are transmitted mediately or immediately, the fact \u201cmovement\u201d\nsupplies no information whatever.\n\nHere the physicist will say, \u201cThat the movements are transmitted\nmediately is proved to me by experiment, since I can intercept an\nenergy on its way at as many intermediate stations as I choose; hence,\nas mediate, can track its path.\u201d\n\nBut this is a grossly erroneous conclusion.\n\nTo be sure, if I have a magnet here and a needle there, I can intercept\nthe magnetic energy at as many intermediate stations as I choose, and\nso construct for myself a \u201cpath\u201d for the energy. But such a \u201cpath\u201d is\nnothing but a dead line artificially made up of momentary reactions\nwhose continuity is nothing actual and vital, but founded solely upon\nthe minuteness and multiplicity of the moments of section.\n\nAgain the physicist may object:--\n\n\u201cWe can measure exactly the speed with which the energies propagate\nthemselves, as, for example, the time required for light to reach us\nfrom the moons of Jupiter.\u201d\n\nBut this also is an erroneous conclusion.\n\nOf course, the fact itself is beyond dispute. But the time here\nmentioned does not represent the transmission-speed of the energies\nthemselves; it only informs us as to how much delay these have\nencountered on their way; whether the halting-places have been very\nnumerous and the stay at each a long one. This time which the physicist\nmeasures does not give the speed of transmission of the energies, but\nonly the time of their non-transmission.\n\nIn accord with this is the incorrectness of ordinary physical\nterminology. The physicist calls light, heat, and so forth, energies\nthemselves. But light is not energy itself, but only a designation for\nenergies that lie for ever beyond our reach.\n\nBut once more I would call attention to the fact that this entire\nmanner of conceiving of things as \u201cbodies,\u201d and of movements as\nenergies themselves, is quite legitimate on the part of the physicist\nso long as he remains a physicist. It only becomes illegitimate when,\nreaching out beyond the field of reactions, it seeks to get itself\nrecognized as a world-theory--that is, when it would have actual\nprocesses \u201cread\u201d in accordance with the like scheme. For now there\nfollows the claim one makes upon nature that all her action shall\nmanifest itself mediately, as possible of being followed up in time and\nspace.\n\nThe illegitimate feature about this conception arises from the fact\nthat it poses itself with an insoluble problem--the problem of\ntelekinesis.\n\nIf one regards things as \u201cbodies\u201d in the physical sense, and if upon\nthis conception one insists on erecting a world-theory, then one has\nto solve the question: How can it ever be possible for action to take\nplace between separate bodies?--a question which involves the idea\nthat every effect produced by contact, even the very slightest, always\npresents itself to thought as a form of telekinesis. In other words:\nEverywhere effects are being produced, and yet one is unable to explain\nhow they can ever be brought about.\n\nThe insolubility of this problem is attributable not to things but\nto thinking; that is to say, it is a problem of a purely dialectical\nnature.\n\nIn starting out from the conception \u201cbody\u201d as a thing complete\nin itself, identical with itself, one cuts oneself off from the\npossibility of ever being able to explain how one thing can act\nupon another. In thought one has torn things out of their natural\nconnection, and holds them fast conceptually in this artificial\nisolation. Once I make a thing a \u201cbody,\u201d no power in the world can move\nit so as to bring it into contact with some other thing; as little so\nas any power in the world can impart movement to a reflected image,\ntaken by itself. Just as such movement can only be brought about\nthrough movement of the object reflected, only from this can proceed,\nso contact between things can only take place, proceeding forth from\nthe beholder, when he lets drop his false notions and comprehends\nactuality unmodified as that which it is--namely, _perpetual coming\ntogether into contact itself_. Actuality is verily nothing but the\npassing over from thing to thing--that is to say, process. Actuality\nis not, as science would fain have us believe, mere _possibility_--if\nso, it would always be necessary first to have explained how these\npossibilities could ever arrive at realization--but actuality is a\n_potency_, and so, at every moment of existence, self-realization\nitself.\n\nIf only actuality is rightly conceived of, the question as to how\naction betwixt thing and thing can take place simply loses all meaning.\nActuality is seen to be nothing but this action itself. Where one is,\nthither one cannot go; and what one is, that none can become.\n\nWhen physics, and with it science as a whole, puts forward the claim\nthat all action must be capable of being tracked mediately in space and\ntime, it excludes itself from this requirement. For, without exception,\nevery case of action in its own domain is to be read as a special\ninstance of telekinesis. But be it well noted, the concepts, action by\ncontact and telekinesis, are not something existent in themselves; they\nare merely intellectually-conceived functions of the purely artificial\nconcept \u201cbody.\u201d Where this concept is absent, there is neither action\nby contact nor yet telekinesis; there the whole universe, as a totality\nof combustion-processes, is action itself, but tells us nothing\nwhatever as to how action can come about, or as to whether this action\nis mediate or immediate.\n\n_How_ action proceeds can never be comprehended from the observation\nof reactions, though one should track these with never so much\nperseverance and accuracy; that can only be ascertained where one is\nacquainted with the energies themselves.\n\nIn all the world there is but _one single_ energy that is open to\napproach--my own _in-force_ which _becomes_ perceptible to me in\nconsciousness. Thus the question as to how action itself proceeds\ncan never be answered on the lines of induction: it can only be\n_experienced_.\n\nWhen one asks the Theras of Ceylon for an illustration of how Kamma\npasses over from one existence to the new location, the example of\nteacher and pupil is that most frequently given. As instruction,\nstimulation, pass over from teacher to pupil, with effects that last\nthroughout the latter\u2019s entire lifetime, even so does Kamma pass over.\n\nAnd just here we come upon something that lies too close at hand for\nthe ordinary person to give much heed to it. Nothing is more strange to\nus than actuality--that is, than we ourselves!\n\nAs a matter of fact, life in its entirety, as it runs its course among\nhuman beings, is such an instance of immediate effectuation. All\nactuality is immediate: it is only _re-actuality_ that is mediate.\nWherever I actually am alive, I stand in the midst of such immediate\neffectuations as mock at all scientific calculations.\n\nWhen two pairs of eyes encounter one another and that springs up\nwhich we call love or hate, as the case may be, this is an instance\nof immediate passing over between two systems of energies. All forms\nof mental excitement, all our numberless sympathies and antipathies;\nthe mutual understanding between man and man, between man and animal;\nthe unspoken self-revelation, self-discovery between man and wife;\nthe communion between mother and child;--all these are immediate\neffectuations. Each possibility of one giving an order to another, of\none obeying another; all possibility of life in communities, animal\nor human; every possibility of education, has its roots in such\nimmediate effectuations. But the very attempt to enumerate them tends\nto beget the fallacious idea that they are the exceptions. It is not\nso! All beings communicate with one another immediately. In immediate\neffectuations we live, move, and have our being. But through the\nre-actual apprehension of things inculcated by science our sense of\nactuality has become so dwarfed and stunted that we no longer dare to\ntake actuality as itself; nay, we do not even know how to do so, but\nare disposed to recognize it as such only when we can have it handed us\nby some system of grains, feet, and seconds.\n\nAll unspoiled, natural thinking and feeling proceeds by way of\nimmediate effectuation. The never wholly-eradicable idea of magic, as\nit still survives to-day--one last little remnant of it--in the form\nof \u201c_Sympathiekuren_,\u201d is nothing else but the instinctive idea of the\nnecessity for such effectuation. How the nobleman of Capernaum would\nhave laughed if Professor X. had said to him, \u201cWhen you say to your\nservant, \u2018Do this!\u2019 and he does it, that seems to you quite a natural\nthing. But in strict truth this fact simply bristles with insuperable\ndifficulties from the point of view of exact scientific explanation.\u201d\nIt is the high privilege of our age to listen with becoming awe to\nsuch-like profound absurdities just because the sense of actuality is\nlost to us, because through the insistence and authority wherewith\nscience has been able to make her re-actual views prevail, we have\nfinally come to the point of believing in all seriousness that in the\nactual, in things like eating and drinking, a proceeding indispensable\nto their proper performance is carefully to count one, two, three!\n\nScience dubs all immediate effectuations \u201cmystical,\u201d and refuses to\nrest until she has extirpated all such-like ideas. But the mystical is\nnot that which science understands by the term; for to her the mystical\nis nothing but the non-scientific. It is actuality itself that is\nmystical. Apart from actuality there is nothing mystical whatever; for\nit is only the actual, no matter where one lays hold of it, that rolls\nback into the twilight of beginninglessness. Beginninglessness is what\nis mystical, and my consciousness _the_ mystical itself. A miracle is\nnothing mystical. For, if it happens, then it is law; and if it does\nnot happen--why, then it simply is not!\n\nThis immediate action of man upon man--this it is that reveals to me\nhow energies operate. When a glance from my eye produces a \u201cstir\u201d in\nanother human being, this energical impulse is not obliged to pass\nthrough all the media lying between, but operates _immediately_. To\nbe sure, an attempt is made to read mechanically this fact also--to\ninterpret it in the form of psychic vibrations, subtlest etheric waves;\nand science and theosophic, spiritistic, and all sorts of mysticism\nhere go hand in hand. But there is not the least necessity that it\nshould be a glance, a sound, or anything else of a positive nature\nwhich moves another. A silence, a failure to look may ofttimes be that\nwhich produces the most striking psychic convulsions. To interpret\nthis, however, as a case of transmigrating vibrations, were scarcely\npossible even for the boldest of hypothesis-makers.\n\nIt is even so! That which is most natural is most strange to us. Here\ntoo, as with \u201cconsciousness,\u201d it is a case of _sapere aude!_ We simply\nmust learn again to dare to take actuality for that which it is--for\nthat which acts there where it can and must act.\n\nWhen love springs up between two beings, this means that unique\nattunement prevails. This, however, signifies that energy passes\nover immediately. It has no need first to wrestle with air and ether\nmolecules: _it exists there only where it acts, and it acts there only\nwhere it is uniquely attuned_.\n\nThis is the way in which actual energies operate. This way cannot be\nproven inductively: it can only be experienced intuitively. And it is\nthis experience which supplies us with our parallel, our point of\nsupport, in comprehending how Kamma works. And only because we have\nlapsed out of this actual life into the re-actual life of science, has\nthe Kamma-teaching become strange and unnatural to us.\n\nThe value of an intuition to him who has not himself experienced it, is\nonly measurable by the extent to which it is of service as a working\nhypothesis.\n\nOf what service is the Buddha-thought here?\n\nIn the first place, it makes it possible to \u201cread\u201d both kinds of\nmotion, the inorganic as well as the organic, the falling as well as\nthe proceeding, from one common point of view.\n\nWhere the whole _actual_ play of world-events is a summation of\nself-sustaining processes, existence is action itself; and the simple\nexistence of an energical, of a Kammic system, purports that it makes\nitself felt with regard to other systems of energies--sustains itself\nin opposition to them. Actuality is devouring: man in his very nature\nan eater.\n\nWhere there are a number of energical systems, they act against one\nanother. Where there is action, the corresponding reactions are present\nin the shape of motions perceptible to sense.\n\nThese latter, here also, signify nothing save that energies are\npresent, and as such are at work according to circumstances and\nantecedent conditions.\n\nWhen two men, in wrestling with each other, fall into a whirling\nmovement, this by no means implies that there resides in these men\nan energy of this particular variety; it means nothing more than\nthat energies are present, even as the circular movement of two\nelectro-magnets intimates nothing more than that energies are present.\nHere also motion is only a by-product, the equivalent of the shadow in\nthe case of light--nothing in and of itself. When the flower unfolds\nitself to the sun, when the creeper draws itself up towards the light,\nwhen the caterpillar crawls along the leaf, when the wild geese cleave\nthe air like a wedge, when the dog snaps at the tit-bit, when I lift\nmy arm, lie down, get up, do this or the other thing--in each case it\nis the same. All this only intimates that energies are present, and\nin the course of their action against other systems of energies yield\nby-products. In this mode of apprehending the fact \u201cmotion\u201d as the\n_shadow of energy_ the entire play of world-events, organic as well as\ninorganic nature, the dead as the living, the re-actual as the actual,\nadmits of one uniform reading.\n\nSecondly:--\n\nIn her fight against \u201ctelekinesis,\u201d it is with science as with one who\nin public discourses eloquently on enlightenment, but whose own house\nis haunted by a ghost.\n\nThis hobgoblin of exact science is _gravitation_; and it bids fair\nto scatter all exactitude to the winds, since the physicist, too, is\nunable to represent it to himself otherwise than as acting independent\nof time.\n\nIn the Buddha-thought this independence of time permits of being\n\u201cread\u201d without the least difficulty, since here it is nothing but the\nby-product which two systems of energies acting upon one another yield\nwith every alteration of energy-value on one side or the other. When I\nshift the light with reference to the object illumined, the movement\nof the shadow takes place as a by-product independent of time. In the\nselfsame way, what we call gravitation is nothing but the by-product\nindependent of time which informs us that a change is taking place in\nthe energical relation of two world-systems.\n\nThirdly:--\n\nThe Buddha-thought furnishes a reading of the concept of time and space.\n\nTime and space as something existent in themselves are only possible\nwhere one is working with \u201cbodies\u201d in the physical sense, where one is\noperating with identities. Such bodies have need of a space existent\nin itself in order to perform movements; and, as a matter of fact,\nphysics so completely objectifies the conception of space that it does\nnot hesitate to make the attempt to determine the curvature-measurement\nof space. Such bodies, further, require time as something objective in\norder to traverse this space. An objective time and an objective space\nrepresent, so to speak, the ordinate and abscissa of the artificial\nsystem \u201cbody\u201d as conceived of by the physicist. If one does not work\nwith such \u201cbodies,\u201d but, as a philosopher, with things regarded as\nmere \u201cappearances\u201d--like Kant, for instance--then time and space, from\nbeing things purely objective, must become just as much things purely\nsubjective--forms of perception given _a priori_; the one view as\nerring as the other!\n\n\u201cAvoiding both extremes, the Buddha points to the truth in the mean.\u201d\nThis continually-recurrent phrase applies, as everywhere, so also here\nin the strife of opposites. Actuality has no opposites. It is the\nunion of opposites itself. And wherever contention reigns of or about\nopposites, it only shows that both parties alike have become entangled\nin pseudo-problems of a purely dialectical nature. This the seeker for\ntruth may depend on, as a rule that has no exceptions: Where there\nare opposites, there is nescience! Whence it follows that there is no\nsolution from the side of things, but only from the side of thinking,\nin the rectification of our mental assumptions.\n\nSo also is it here.\n\nWhere the actual play of world-events is comprehended as a summation\nof individual combustion-processes, time and space are things neither\npurely objective nor purely subjective, but belonging equally to\nboth--a _Becoming_, like everything else. They arise, spring up, in\nthe effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world\nwheresoever the preliminary conditions are such that they can and must\nunfold themselves; in just the same way that consciousness arises in\nthe effectuation of the _I_-process with respect to the external world\nwheresoever the preliminary conditions are so regulated that it can and\nmust unfold itself.\n\nSo much for the Kamma-teaching, and its bearing upon the claims of\nmodern physics.\n\nImmediate passing over does not contradict actuality, but only the\nartificial premises of science. All that is actual is immediate. For\nthis reason a passing over of the actual in time and space is an\nabsurdity, since time and space are, first and foremost, functions of\nthe actual, forms of experience, hence never can be made to serve as\nmeasure of this experience.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VIII\n\n                 BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF PHYSIOLOGY\n\n\nIn the position it assumes towards actuality science resembles a man\nwho has reduced all language to mere grammar and now finds himself hard\nput to it to explain how purely grammatical signs and formul\u00e6 could\never have given rise to actual speech. As grammar presupposes actual\nspeech--is secondary, derived from it--so the mechanical, re-actual\nview presupposes actuality--is secondary, derived from it--and it\nis against all common-sense to seek now to turn the tables with an\nendeavour to prove the possibility of the living language \u201cactuality,\u201d\nassess its title to existence, by the \u201cgrammar\u201d of the scientific\nconception of things. From this position, the fact that anything ever\nhappens at all, remains an eternally unfathomable mystery.\n\nThe first claim upon the genuine thinker is that he should understand\nclearly that a something given is present, whose simple existence\nrepresents also the _power to exist_; whose activity has no need of\nbeing proven, since proving itself by itself. The endeavours of science\nfrom its re-actual position, to govern and administer actuality itself\nalso, betray a limitedness and crudity of thought at which later\ngenerations will stand amazed. So long as science fails to understand\nand respect her natural limitations, so long as she keeps trying to\ninterpret the actual mechanically, so long is she as serious a danger\nto the world as faith.\n\nIn the treatment of the problem of physiology that follows I can be\nbrief, because all the details here relate to a technical domain to\nwhich the majority of my readers are unlikely to bring either interest\nor ability to understand.\n\nJust as physics--in the widest sense of the word--may be briefly\ndesignated as the teaching that informs us of the relations existing\nbetween \u201cbodies,\u201d so physiology may be succinctly termed the teaching\nthat instructs us as to the relations existent between living beings\nand the external world.\n\nWhere living beings are comprehended as processes of combustion pure\nand simple, every relationship betwixt them and their environment\nbecomes a _form of alimentation_. The intellectual as the vegetative,\nthe psychic as the physical life, are here comprised under the one\ncommon, all-inclusive concept of alimentation. Whether I appropriate,\nassimilate something to myself through the organs of sense and thought\nor through the tongue and the digestive apparatus, both proceedings are\nthe same--forms of alimentation.\n\nAccordingly we find the Buddha calling living beings \u201c\u0101h\u0101ra\u1e6d\u1e6dhitik\u0101,\u201d\n_i.e._ \u201cexisting through alimentation,\u201d and placing this expression--as\nsynonymous--alongside \u201csa\u00f1kh\u0101ra\u1e6d\u1e6dhitik\u0101,\u201d _i.e._ \u201cexisting through\nSankh\u0101ra,\u201d compounded, conditioned.\n\nHere in their every movement the entire existence of living beings\nbecomes a _laying hold of the external world_--a gross laying hold with\nhands and teeth as well as that subtle _mental_ laying hold which we\ngenerally denominate \u201ccomprehension.\u201d As the whole existence of a flame\nis a laying hold of the external world, as it subsists solely by reason\nof this prehensile activity, even so is it with the _I_-process.\n\nBuddhist psychology distinguishes between four varieties of aliment.\nFirst, there is aliment in the common, vulgar sense of the word, be it\nin gross growth-promoting form as solid or liquid food, be it in fine\ngrowth-promoting form as respiration. Second, contact, as the mutual\nencounter of the senses and their corresponding objects. Third, mental\napprehension; and fourth, consciousness; these two latter being the\nworking up, the assimilating of what issues from contact.\n\nFrom the commanding height of the position which Buddhist thinking\ntakes up towards the process of life, it cannot possibly encounter\nthat \u201cproblem\u201d with which scientific physiology finds itself forced to\nwrestle.\n\nBriefly stated, that problem runs as follows:--\n\n\u201cHow can it ever be possible for a living being to appropriate\nsomething to itself, assimilate something, take up something into\nitself, whether this \u2018something\u2019 be of the gross growth-promoting\nvariety--nourishment in the vulgar sense of the word--or of\nthe intellectual sort, as sense impressions and the content of\nconsciousness?\u201d\n\nThere was a time in the history of natural science, more particularly\nin the history of the healing art--and that time is hardly past yet;\nwe still stand within its fringes--when to work at all with the concept\nof a \u201cvital energy\u201d was regarded as synonymous with being unscientific,\nindeed, was esteemed mere blind faith. At every opportunity, seasonable\nand unseasonable, it was declared that \u201cto-day\u201d we had no longer any\nneed of a \u201cvital energy,\u201d that the mechanical view explained all that\nvery much better; yet, in actual truth, one only showed how wanting one\nwas in the sense of actuality when one could accept as satisfactory a\n\u201creading\u201d of life which presented it under the figure of endosmotic and\ndiosmotic processes, and such like.\n\nHere, however, is abundantly proved true that saying of Horace that\nnature is something which man cannot drag out even with a pitchfork;\nand it was with a pitchfork of the biggest sort that the mechanists\ntook the field against actual life. To-day the antithesis of the\nmechanical view--the teleological--has found its way back into medical\nthought, and begins again to move about naturally and without restraint\nin the domain of therapeutics.\n\nBeyond all else, it was the progress made in physiological chemistry,\nthe peculiar, seemingly inexplicable facts here observed, which\nperforce impelled towards this inversion of positions.\n\nHere in the domain of physiological chemistry there come to light\nprocesses, reactions, which make a mock of all the rules and laws got\nfrom reagent tubes. Here in the living organism it is found that the\n\u201cstrongest\u201d acid--sulphuric acid--is crowded out of its combinations\nby the \u201cweakest\u201d--carbonic acid; which means nothing else but that the\nconcept of \u201cstrength\u201d as it has been taken over from inorganic nature\ndoes not apply here at all. By reason of such experiences it has been\nfound necessary to introduce a new concept, that of \u201cavidity\u201d; in other\nwords, here as everywhere, one hobbles along at the heels of the facts\nof actuality, being obliged ever and again to adapt oneself to them\nanew as best one may.\n\nHere in the living organism, albumen, fats, and carbohydrates are\nworked up at temperatures at which they undergo no change under the\naction of the oxygen of the atmosphere. The most marvellous thing of\nall, however, is the action of the glands, which, in taking up the\nmaterial to be elaborated, display a power of choice that, so far as\nour ideas go, defies all explanation. Not the least regard is here paid\nto chemical and physical laws as abstracted by science from inorganic\nnature. Complete arbitrariness prevails. The epithelium of the stomach,\nfor example, possesses the power of always despatching the hydric\nchloride set free from sodium chloride in one direction--namely, into\nthe excretory ducts of the rennet glands, and of always sending the\nsodium carbonate formed in another direction, back into the lymph and\nblood circulation.\n\nExamples such as this might be multiplied to almost any extent, did we\nhere aim at completeness.\n\nThe key-word to it all, as revealed to us by the latest researches in\nphysiological chemistry, is--arbitrariness!\n\n\nOf course, as everywhere so also here, only give her time enough and\nscience will come round to adjustments in thought, and with that to the\nformulation of all such facts into laws. In respect of such facts,\nhowever, it must clearly be understood that the purely mechanical view\nis no longer able to hold the field; that the teleological view has\nbroken through the artificial embankments of the mechanical view and\nagain poured forth over the level lands of scientific thinking.\n\nThat which has hitherto given such weight to the mechanical view in\nphysiology is the possibility, up to a certain degree, of reading the\nphysiological facts mechanically. One can \u201cread\u201d the eye so far as its\nexternal apparatus is concerned, according to the laws of catoptrics\nand dioptrics; but the bearing of this upon the faculty of seeing or\nupon an explanation of that faculty is simply nothing. This is not the\nfitting place to deal with the revolting outrage upon sound thinking of\nwhich the scientific theory of vision is guilty in its interpretation\nof the reversed retinal image: that demands a chapter to itself.\n\nOne may \u201cread\u201d the heart and the vascular system as a pumping\ncontrivance, and the osseous system and its joints as an arrangement\nof levers. One may reckon in heat-units the nutrition-values taken in\nand given off, and equilibrate them with tolerable success, as can also\nbe done with a calorimeter; that is to say, one can \u201cread\u201d the living\norganism in accordance with the formula of the law of the conservation\nof energy. But nothing thereby is gained that is of the slightest\nassistance towards a comprehension of the _actual_ energies at work in\nall these functions, except in so far as to the genuine thinker all\nthis makes more vital and pressing the question as to what precisely\nthat wonderful something is which pulls the strings. And if one\nschool of science would like to make us believe that on the basis of\nan ever-increasing facility in \u201creading\u201d the organism mechanically the\nquestion as to actuating energies may in the end be completely disposed\nof, as referring to quantities so minute as to be negligible, it need\nnot be taken seriously; it only resembles a man who would account for\nthe revolution of a wheel solely from the shape and texture of the wood.\n\nThat which along with the results of physiological chemistry helped\ntowards the overthrow of the mechanical view, was the new tendency in\ntherapeutics--serum therapeutics, to wit--which, put briefly, amounts\nto a working out of specific affinities between the living organism and\ncertain organic substances.\n\nAs the physiological chemist was forced to note that he had fallen\nout of the realm of crude but easily-handled quantities into the\nrealm of unaccountable qualities--that is, out of re-actuality\ninto actuality--so was it with the experimenter in these specific\nremedies. One was obliged to take note that in this field the grossly\nquantitative according to mass and weight no longer went for anything.\nEhrlich calls the antitoxins \u201cmagic bullets\u201d which hit their mark\n_immediately_. Here it is no longer a question of the mere more or less\nby which one has hitherto been accustomed to gauge effects, but of an\nattunement more or less fine and delicate. In short, one has forced\none\u2019s way into the domain of actual energies and seeks gropingly after\none or another method of accommodation. For the quantitative position\nmay not be abandoned entirely if one would remain scientific. One\nmust be able to measure. Actual energies, however, do not admit of\nbeing measured by dead material. They are only to be measured through\nthemselves, _i.e._ through their working.\n\nAlready more than a hundred years ago, Hahnemann, the founder of the\nhom\u0153opathic method of treating disease, consciously and completely\nabandoned the crude quantitative position in the field of medical\nscience. He had freed himself entirely from the quantitative conception\nof curative effect. He called his remedies \u201cpotencies,\u201d and this\npotency was determined not according to mass but according to the\nfineness, the delicacy of the mutual accord between the organism and\nthe remedy. This mutual accord, however, grows subtler, more acute,\nwith progressive dematerialization, with the freeing of the active\nenergies resident in the remedies from the burden of their ballast\nof material. Hence the apparently paradoxical idea that the curative\neffect augmented with the diminution of the dose--an idea which has\ngiven the doctors of the orthodox schools such abundant occasion\nfor misunderstanding and barbed raillery. The effectiveness is not\nincreased with the lessening of the dose, but with the subtilization\nof the unique accords concerned. Hahnemann had the courage to bring\nhis thinking into line with the actual energies and their manner of\nworking--a courage which modern serum therapeutics does not possess,\nand quite likely never will possess, so that we may look to see the\nwave of actuality which here has burst upon therapeutic life again\ncrushed under by re-actual tendencies.\n\nWherever opposites are found, there mere dialectical problems form\nthe subject of contention. The contradictions between the mechanical\nand the teleological views with respect to the living organism are\nalso of a purely dialectical nature. Both take up the position\nthat the organism is an identity, and accordingly a something so\nconstituted that it can take nutriment _into itself_. Both alike,\nteleology as mechanism, looking upon the cell as life itself, make it\ntheir endeavour to master the miracle of that life; the former, as a\nresult of its efforts, coming to the conclusion that a vital force,\nan incomprehensible something in itself, must somewhere lie concealed\nin this wonderful machinery; whilst the latter pushes on unswervingly\ntowards the goal it has set before itself--that of becoming, by ever\ncloser and closer description, master at length of the great riddle.\n\nAs everywhere, so also here, the Buddha stands between and above these\ntwo opposites, inasmuch as he teaches:--\n\nA living being so constituted that it must and can take up something\n_into itself_ simply does not exist. Such a living being is only to\nbe found where one is dealing with the concept of identities. But\nidentities are nowhere to be found within the domain of actuality. Here\nare only processes of combustion. If one sets out with the concept\nof identities, one creates for oneself a problem whose insolubility\nproceeds as much from its purely dialectical nature as the problem of\ntelekinesis in physics. If one abides by the _actual_, if one holds\nstrictly to the insight that living beings are individual processes\nof combustion, then there exist nothing but energies which for a\ncertain period of time put a body of material specifically belonging to\nthemselves in a specific condition of tension, for a time maintain it\nso, and then after a time again abandon it. Here the cell is not life\nitself, but simply the most primitive structural expression of the fact\nthat certain materials find themselves in a certain state of tension,\nin the same way that the ridges and furrows in a Chladni\u2019s sound-figure\nare a structural expression of the fact that a certain material--some\nsand on a glass plate--finds itself in a certain state of tension.\n\nThis whole body of phenomena is by physiology termed the \u201ccirculation\nof matter.\u201d But there is here no \u201c_I_\u201d as an identity that takes\nup matter into itself, melts it down, and--so to speak--gives it\nforth again as new coinage. Nowhere in the universe are there any\nunstamped values, nowhere is there any raw material of substance, but\nalways and everywhere only a recoining: a continuous change in the\nindividual conditions of tension which as little warrants the idea of\n\u201cresorption\u201d--taken literally--as the flame, or the wind that for a\ncertain space of time whirls up and holds a certain particle of sand in\na certain form. An appropriation, a taking up into oneself, can only\ntake place where there is a proprietor able to take something into his\nhouse. But actuality does not permit of any such comfortable ideas.\nHere are nothing but energies that continuously lay hold, pull to\nthemselves, and maintain what has thus been pulled, under the influence\nof their individual tendency, until such time as other energies make\ntheir presence felt in superior force, whereupon the tension is\ndissolved here, only to assert itself anew elsewhere.\n\nWhatever may be manifest as form in the living being, from the gross\nforms of the limbs down to the cell, to its protoplasm, to its nucleus,\nto the ever-new marvels of the structure of its body--it is all alike\none material, maintained by one individual energy in an individual\nstate of tension.\n\nI do not _have_ the marvel of alimentation as my function, but I _am_\nall this itself; and beyond this, nothing! That, however, I am this\nindividual, unique being--of this the antecedent conditions lie buried\ndeep in beginninglessness.\n\nKamma is an individual energy: as such it is a thing unique: as\nunique it seizes hold of Kammic, _i.e._ unique material, whereof the\nuniqueness is proven in the fact that Kamma evolves therefrom a unique\nbeing, an individual. If all this marvel of alimentation, this marvel\nof sight, hearing, and so forth, were obliged to come about as a\nsomething entirely new only through external preconditions, never could\nit come about at all. I learn to see, hear, taste, and so forth, as the\nflame learns to burn, the flower to blow. All this, down even to the\nminutest detail, lies ready, prepared beforehand, in the material; and\nit needs but the stimulator--which, just because it is a question of\na unique material, must also be a thing unique--in order to have all\nthese properties brought into play, have them set in full activity.\n\nThe material lineage of the living being is perforce as beginningless\nas the Kamma lineage; but whilst the beginninglessness of the\nlatter manifests itself only immediately in consciousness, the\nbeginninglessness of the former admits of being comprehended only\nmediately as a logical deduction.\n\n\u201cSuppose, O monks, that a man were to cut down all the grass and\nleaves in this Jambud\u012bpa [India], and, gathering them together, take\none handful after another and say (at each handful), \u2018This is my\nmother; this is my mother\u2019s mother,\u2019 there would never be any end to\nthe mother\u2019s mother of such a man; but all the grass and leaves in\nJambud\u012bpa well might run out, well might come to an end.\u201d[15]\n\nBoth lineages, the material as the Kammic, are a beginningless,\nreciprocal, each-to-other self-attunement, in a universe that in its\nevery motion is law itself.\n\nTo this we shall have to return in the succeeding essay, in treating of\nthe problem of heredity.\n\nThe man of science will say, \u201cIt is no very difficult matter to explain\neverything if one simply refers everything back to beginninglessness,\nand assigns as reason for the fact that everything is as it is, that in\naccordance with the natural conditions of growth it has been _obliged_\nto come about thus and not otherwise.\u201d\n\nTo this it may be said in reply that the Buddha-\u201creading\u201d of the play\nof world-events is productive of but little for science, being that\nreading which is actuality itself--which takes and leaves actuality\nas that which it is, thereby shutting off the very possibility of\nall those learned and profound researches which accrue to science in\nsuch abundant measure through its endeavours to have actuality become\nactuality only under its own hands, so to speak; in somewhat the same\nway that I, the living being, exist to a magistrate, not as myself, but\nonly in virtue of certain identification papers.\n\nBesides, the Buddha-thought is an intuition. And the value of an\nintuition is made manifest solely in its use as a working hypothesis.\n\nAs a working hypothesis, then, of what service is the Buddha-thought in\nthe domain of physiology?\n\nThe answer is:--\n\nIt alone explains the possibility alike of disease and of cure.\n\nNeither for science--that is, in the purely mechanical manner of\nregarding the living being--nor for faith--that is, where living beings\nare represented as endowed with soul--is disease--and therewith cure--a\nconceivability. As well to a thing divine as to a purely mechanical\nfall, disease were an unattainable capability. _Man_ only can fall\nill--the man whom the Buddha points out to us, the man who through\nand through is a combustion, an alimentation-process, with whom at\nevery moment of his existence energy and material stand in mutual\nfunctional dependence each upon the other. Correspondingly, it is only\nin a process thus constituted that the fact of cure is capable of\nexplanation.\n\nBy the term _cure_ I understand the fact that a single incitation\ndevelops a reaction which no longer stands in any kind of working\nrelationship to the original impulse, but goes on developing itself\nas a self-acting increase. Such a proceeding is possible neither with\na purely mechanical process of compensation nor yet with a \u201cforce in\nitself.\u201d It is only possible there where an energy and its material\nstand in a relation of mutual functional dependence.\n\nThe fact also that diseases permit of being affected by the power\nof the mind, by thought, is possible of explanation only where an\nindividual energy and its material stand in a relationship of mutual\ndependence.\n\nAll the numberless instances of the influence of the mind over\nthe body, of the body over the mind; all our \u201cmoods\u201d of good and\nill-humour; further, the _acquisition of habits_ and the physical\nnecessity of sleep, are explicable only in the Buddha-thought.\n\nIt may be interposed:--\n\n\u201cWe have not the least need of the Buddha in order to see that. We\nhave long since recognized the mutual dependence of mind and body as a\nnecessity.\u201d\n\nVery good! But if you have really recognized that, you must also draw\nthe conclusions unavoidably consequent upon the same, and these consist\nin the intellectual necessity of individual beginninglessness. If you\nhave not understood that, then you have understood neither the Buddha,\nnor actuality, nor yourselves. You have not understood the truth; you\nonly meet it, as two cross-roads meet one another and then pass on in\nopposite directions. Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the\nguiding clue to the Buddha-thought.\n\nAnd with this we come to that most important of all problems, the\nproblem of heredity.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IX\n\n                  BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF BIOLOGY\n\n\nTo the question, \u201cWhence have I sprung?\u201d faith answers, \u201cFrom God,\u201d\nwhile science answers, \u201cFrom your parents.\u201d Faith calls men the\nchildren of their Father in heaven; science calls them the children of\ntheir begetter.\n\nMeanwhile this discrepancy means no more than that the answer of\nscience, couched in such a form, despite its apparent accuracy yields\nmen no satisfaction. For that I am descended from my parents, on this\nno rational being can cast a doubt; and if the believer says that\nbeings have sprung from God, he can only mean this in some particular\nrespect.\n\nUpon what foundation rests the necessity for this peculiar\ninterpretation of facts patent to all eyes--the facts concerned with\nprocreation?\n\nAll things in the world may be divided up into two great\nclasses--things that admit of being generalized, and things that do\nnot admit of being generalized. Of these, the former alone lie within\nreach of science, for science comes into play only where comparison and\nrepetition are possible, comparison being a generalization in regard to\nwhat is presented simultaneously, and repetition a generalization in\nrespect of what is presented in succession. Living beings do not admit\nof being either compared or repeated, hence cannot become a subject of\nscience.\n\nIn one particular regard, it is true, living beings may be conceived\nof as open to comparison and repetition; but this, as pointed out,\nhas to do only with that in the individual which precisely in a\ncertain specific elaboration can be rendered capable of comparison and\nrepetition--namely, that in me which is re-actual, not the actual, not\nthat which says, \u201c_I_ am.\u201d[16] As this latter I can neither be compared\nnor repeated. As a being endowed with consciousness, I am a something\nunique, a unity--more correctly, a non-duality; and here is to be found\nthe reason why the answer given by science never satisfies and never\ncan satisfy. Heredity requires the single-branched tracing back of one\nbeing to another. I bestow no theory of heredity upon a flame when, on\nthe one hand, I trace it back to the kindling wood, and on the other\nto the oxygen of the atmosphere. The answer of science, however, would\nhave me, the unity, arise out of two other unities, father and mother,\neach of whom in their turn would spring from two other unities, and\nso on in geometrical progression; thus, in place of a single-branched\ntracing back, one infinite in its ramifications. Hence the answer of\nscience is lacking in that which it is bound to supply if it is to\nsatisfy the thinker. As a something unique I am a something singly\ndetermined. If, however, I were nothing but the product of the union\nof an ovum-cell and a sperm-cell, there would positively be nothing\npresent to make it necessary that precisely _I_ should spring from\nthis ovum-cell and this sperm-cell. I could just as well have sprung\nfrom the cell material out of which, as a matter of fact, my brother\nhas come forth; while he, on his part, could just as well have come\nfrom the cell material from which in the actual event I have come. The\nuniquely determined goes by the board. But that that which \u201c_I_\u201d now\nam, might just as well have been some other _I_,--such an idea is a\nself-evident absurdity. It is not the cell matter alone that does make\nup the \u201c_I_.\u201d The cell matter is only so much working material of a\nparticular kind, and a something uniquely determining this material\nmust appear on the scene, otherwise there would offer no possibility\nwhatever of the fact, \u201c_I_.\u201d To think to explain me by the cell matter\nalone were somewhat the same as thinking to explain the flame by the\nkindling wood and the oxygen of the atmosphere, exclusively.\n\nOf such an _Hebraic_ conception of the matter--to speak like\nHumboldt--no physicist would ever be guilty; but the biologist is. The\nmanner in which he deals with the problem of heredity is Hebraic in the\nfullest sense of the word, and so fashioned that it cannot help but\ntumble to the ground simply of its own weight. Assuming beforehand the\nidentity of \u201clife\u201d and \u201ccell,\u201d endeavour is made to solve the riddle of\nlife by means of description alone, the way leading from the material\nof generation to the new living being plotted out with ever increasing\nexactitude until finally an apparently uninterrupted succession stands\nbefore us; where, to be sure, it is conveniently forgotten that its\nseeming continuity is solely due to the fineness, the delicacy, of\nthe isolated momentary images. As little as I can fabricate actual,\nliving movement out of a series of stereoscopic pictures, though making\nnever so slight the duration of each separate picture, just as little\nis the process of generation to be comprehended by mere description,\neven though it bring before us a simply endless number of phases of\ndevelopment. Still, I can lull myself with the delusion that by this\nmethod I am drawing ever nearer to my goal, and that salvation lies\nsimply in the fineness of the lenses, the delicacy and ingenuity of the\nmodes of colouring, and in patience. But far other powers than these\nare required for the solving of the riddle of life. For upon this line\nof inquiry one remains ever and always concerned with reactions. Let\nthe discoveries thus made, the new demonstrations of the entire process\nsupplied, be never so novel, never so interesting, withal they remain\nreactions, and tell us nothing save that energies _must_ be present;\nnever a word do they say bearing on these latter themselves.\n\nThis is not the place to go more closely into the details which\nphysiology and embryology have brought to the light of day in the\ncourse of their increasingly accurate demonstration of the germination\nprocess. It must suffice to point out that all these results without\nexception have to do with reactions, and say nothing--absolutely\nnothing--about the _essential nature_ of what takes place--a fact\nwhich sufficiently indicates the extent of their value. The question\nas to how it is possible that a man, a living being, can be developed\nout of a cell, is one that is never even broached upon this line\nof inquiry. The question as to _actual energies_ is here set aside\nunintentionally, as in the mechanical world-theory of the physicist it\nis excluded deliberately.\n\nThe reading which the Buddha-thought supplies on this question already,\nin what has gone before,[17] has been sufficiently worked out, and so\nneed only be briefly summarized here. It runs as follows:--\n\nThe whole insoluble problem of heredity only arises, as with the\nproblem of the effecting of contact and the problem of nutrition,\nthrough working with fixed quantities, with identities. As in physics\none asks, \u201cHow can two bodies come into contact?\u201d thus putting a\nquestion the answering of which is already estopped with the simple\nputting of the question, since in the physical sense there are no such\nthings as \u201cbodies\u201d; and as in physiology one does the like when one\nasks, \u201cHow can the living being assimilate nutriment into itself?\u201d\nwhere there is not anything at all present of such sort that it can\nassimilate something _to itself_; so in the matter of procreation the\nquestion is asked, \u201cHow is it possible that out of two biological\nidentities a new identity can arise?\u201d But it is not an identity at\nall that rises new in procreation; that truly would mean carrying out\nthe arithmetical sum _one plus one equals one_ into actual practice.\nNothing happens save that material of a peculiar character, for a\nlonger or shorter period, is subjected to a new state of strain of a\npeculiar character--has a fresh tendency imparted to it. And this new\ntendency, this impulsion it is, which, as Kamma coming from a previous\nexistence, now takes hold. It takes hold where it does take hold, just\nbecause it _must_ take hold there; because this location answers to it,\nthe individual, the unique, as the only one in the universe; and all it\ndoes here is merely to stimulate, to develop that which already lies\nprefigured in the material, extending even to what is most singular,\nmost individual. Were the material nothing individual, certainly no\nindividual energy could take hold of it. But just because there is\nan _individual_ material, therefore does it call for _individual_\nenergy. Because the energy is _individual_, therefore does it call for\n_individual_ material, and nowhere else can it take hold save just\nthere where it does.\n\nThe question as to how it is possible that I can see, hear, smell,\ntaste, feel, think, take nourishment, and so forth, here rolls back\ninto beginninglessness, into a double question--that concerning the\nsuccession of Kamma, representing endlessness in time; and that\nconcerning the material, representing the corresponding endlessness\nin space. I learn to see, hear, think, and so forth, as the flame\nlearns to burn. Had I to learn this in the vulgar sense of the word,\nnever in life could I compass it. As pure process of alimentation I\n_have_ not all these powers; I _am_ this potency itself. I do not\n_have_ functions; I _am_ functioning itself, as a genuine, self-acting\nprocess which burns in virtue of a genuine energy that never can _be\ndemonstrated_, that only _demonstrates itself_ in consciousness.\n\nWhen _science_ teaches that I am descended wholly and entirely from my\nparents, it teaches that the _I_-process is not kindled at all, but\npropels itself hither from parents, grandparents, and so forth--does\nnot burn, but rolls--so making necessary the question as to the\nfirst beginning of this motion; for everything set in motion, urged\nonward--in short, every reaction--must have a first moment of beginning.\n\nIn contradistinction to science, _faith_ teaches that the parents\nprovide the material, while God sets all alight by endowing me with an\nimmortal soul--an idea, indeed, demanding faith.\n\n_The Buddha_ teaches: The parents provide the material, the groundwork,\nand the _I_-energy of some disintegrating _I_-process corresponding\nuniquely to these potentialities, sets all alight. Here I take rise\nin my parents as the fountain takes its rise in the hill. That the\nfountain does so, is beyond all cavil, is patent to any eye; yet it is\nbut as an alien guest.\n\nThus of the three, the Buddha is the only one to abide by actuality,\nthe only one with whom the entire miracle of propagation takes its\nplace among mundane events, conforming likewise to the laws of mundane\noccurrences. For faith, the miracle of propagation lies outside the\njurisdiction of these latter; for science, it is true it remains within\ntheir jurisdiction, but only as a barren possibility.\n\nIt is here where the true thinker must clutch and claw his way in,\nthat I would confront him, as the highwayman the traveller, with a\n\u201cSta viator!\u201d For the simple fact that I am here, a single moment of\nthe \u201c_I_,\u201d yields the entire cosmogony of the Buddha. Every _I_-moment\nis possible, is thinkable, only as the point of intersection of the\nlines of Kamma and of the material, hence as the form of a world that\n_has_ not law but itself _is_ law. I am here, means, I am here as\nself-conscious. I am here as self-conscious, means, I am determined as\none and single. I am determined as one and single, means, The twofold\nmaterial of generation must be made one through some energy. That,\nhowever, means, I am without beginning.\n\nOf what service is this idea as a working hypothesis?\n\nThe answer is: It alone makes possible a reading of the fact,\n\u201c_consciousness_\u201d--that is to say, a reading of myself which, as\nalready shown, can never be of an inductive, but only of an intuitive\nnature. That which in the mode of apprehending it peculiar to science,\ninvests the problem of heredity with a specific gravity such that of\nitself it must necessarily tumble to the ground, is the fact that in\nthis apprehension of the problem consciousness falls to be included as\npart of that which is to furnish the demonstration.\n\nFrom the standpoint physiology adopts, consciousness must reside in\nthe groundwork, in the cell material; so that now it is a question of\ncarrying the demonstration right on into this groundwork.\n\nAs their trump card against the materialistic and mechanistic\nwing of science, the idealistic and teleological wing play this:\n\u201cConsciousness, thought, psychic faculty, or whatever else one chooses\nto name it, does not admit of being explained under the image of a\nmotion, thus cannot be explained mechanically.\u201d And materialism yields\nthe point with a grinding of the teeth behind which is concealed a\nsort of inward satisfaction that would say something to this effect:\n\u201cIt is quite true what you say there. We can account for everything,\nonly not for this last little remainder, consciousness. The extent of\nour knowledge is best shown by this our helplessness; but the day will\nyet come when this holy Ilion also, this stronghold of nature and her\nsecrets--consciousness--shall fall before our giant strokes.\u201d\n\nWith the adoption of such an attitude, science finds herself in the\ndifficult position of having to account for consciousness from its\nantecedent conditions. These antecedent conditions may be followed\nup along two lines of inquiry; on the one hand, along the line of\nanatomical, physiological conditions, sense organs and brain; and\non the other hand, along the line of functional conditions, of the\nperceptions in their varying degrees and qualities--two tasks which\nphysiology and psychology share between them.\n\nTo the former task it is that we are indebted for the existence of\none of the most splendid departments--perhaps, indeed, the most\nsplendid department--of the physiological sciences: the physiology\nof the sense-organs. One may say that this line of research reveals\nmost impressively of all the splendid poverty of science--a dazzling\naltogether astounding wealth of the most interesting details, which,\nhowever, instead of converging to draw nearer to the sought-for goal,\nlose themselves in the boundless.\n\nThat which the physiology of the sense-organs aims at is to make\nfunctioning--with what one might call suggestive violence--follow as\na logical necessity from the anatomical and physiological details.\nThe delicate intricacies of the retina, of the cortical organ, of\nthe papill\u00e6 of smell and taste, have been laid bare with such a\ncompleteness that it seems to need but one more breath, the last and\nlightest of all, to wake in this wondrous instrument the melody of\nlife. But it is just this last lightest breath that remains lacking,\nand is not to be secured by any mere dexterity in method however\nhighly developed. Set to where one will, whether at the first turning\nover of the ovum, whether upon the heights of the evolution of sense,\neverywhere the miracle stands before us complete. It is entirely owing\nto the vast numbers and continuous relays of workers in the realm of\nscience that the conviction that upon this path, a description becoming\never more minute and exact, there is nothing real to be achieved has\nnot already gained much more ground than is the case. As oft as pen\nand scalpel fall from a trembling hand, into the breach leaps youthful\nvigour, and begins the battle anew with fresh courage.\n\nThe like holds good of the latest branch of psychology, the working\nout of prerequisite conditions of function. On all hands a similar\nscene meets the eye. Each new result, each fresh-won eminence avails\nnothing but to open out in yet more impressive fashion the vista of\nendless, towering mountains beyond. Here it would almost seem as if\nmen intentionally slurred over the patent fact that the explanation of\nconsciousness, of the power to think, already in every case presupposes\nthis itself, and that every sensation, if at all present as such,\nalready possesses also a certain content of consciousness. It is the\nchase after the horizon,--the attempt by a vigorous and decided advance\nto see over on the other side of one\u2019s own limit of vision,--perpetual\nprogression without progress!\n\nThe best illustration of this is furnished by what I might call the\nna\u00efve disunion prevailing within psychology\u2019s own camp. The various\nmovements are not infrequently to be found fighting against one\nanother, like different divisions of the same army in the darkness\nof night. One party says: \u201cIn the analysis of the sensations lies\nall our salvation. Out of them only can we have consciousness arise\nsynthetically, and, all said and done, up to our time science\nhas achieved nothing just because she has neglected this natural\nprerequisite to all possibilities of knowledge.\u201d The which {sic}, it\nmaybe remarked in passing, is somewhat cold comfort after more than two\nthousand years of labour! Then suddenly a counter-movement interjects:\n\u201cThe sensations are what one may not seek to analyse.\u201d[18] Well, that\nis what I should call plagiarizing the words of the _bon dieu_ in the\nGarden of Eden: \u201cOf the tree of knowledge thou shalt not eat.\u201d If I may\nnot lay finger upon the fount of my existence, what boots to me the\nnever so broad but turbid stream of the lower levels?\n\nIf one compares with this utter lack of success the indubitable honesty\nof the effort, the entire phenomenon \u201cscience\u201d assumes something\nof an air of sublime absurdity, of melancholy enthusiasm, such as\never and again recalls to one\u2019s mind the immortal hero of Cervantes\u2019\nromance--vigorous, single-hearted effort from a mistaken standpoint,\ndirected towards a mistaken end.\n\nAs a matter of fact, however, in these latter days the impossibility\nof the old path with reference to the problem of consciousness seems\nto be perceived. But the new path upon which in their need men have\nentered is an utterly paradoxical one; it is the modern theory of the\ncell endowed with consciousness in the shape of the faculty of memory.\nSeeing no possibility whatever of explaining consciousness into the\ncell material without more ado they have recourse to the device of\nmaking the cell set out on its campaign, so to speak, with the faculty\nof memory in its knapsack.[19] In this manner they rid themselves once\nfor all of the mischief-maker, \u201cconsciousness\u201d; and with astounding\nsimplicity change ground to a position whence they can fight out the\nbattle about a world-theory after the fashion of army man\u0153uvres, all\naccording to programme upon any lines that may be desired. \u201cGive\nme a chaos and out of it I will make you a world,\u201d says Kant in his\n_Prolegomena_. \u201cGive me a cell and out of it I will make you a Goethe\nor a Newton,\u201d says the modern biologist. The necessary arrangements are\nall made, the \u201cstern wrestle with the problems of life\u201d can begin in\nthe shape of fantasies drawn from the _Ratskeller_ of the Alma Mater.\nIf one hews out the building stones to one\u2019s own fancy, one may indeed\nerect systems--a mechanics, a thermo-dynamics, but never a genuine\nworld-conception.\n\nThe possibility of ideas such as these is to be found in what I might\ncall the mechanizing of biological values. Thinking is represented,\nalong with heat, as a molecular vibration; the psychic act, under the\nfigure of an impress, of an \u201cEngramm,\u201d[20] thus of work accomplished;\nand therewith we get the possibility of that rolling back of the\n_I_-process from the individual to his begetters, and from these in\nturn to their begetters, and so on backwards _ad infinitum_--in short,\nthe possibility of remaining upon the lines of the purely material,\nwhich partakes of the nature of a reaction precisely as much as the\nlines upon which the physicist works in the cosmogony peculiar to\nenergetics. Just as there, from the outset, the real energies are\nleft out of consideration and only their reactions dealt with, looked\nupon as work done; so in the treatment of the problem of heredity by\nscience the whole process of life is looked upon simply as work done,\nin biological guise, a mode of apprehending it to which scientific\nthought itself, as represented by the teleological school, is entirely\nopposed.[21]\n\nWith the mechanistic representation of things is necessarily involved\nthe question as to the seat of consciousness. Modern physiology vaunts\nitself not a little upon having got beyond the follies of the centuries\nthat are past, when this seat was sought for in all sorts of hidden\nnooks. But sooth to say, its own position nowise differs; the change\nis only in the means of defence employed. Now, as formerly, endeavour\nis made to localize consciousness in certain regions; there is a\nsearch for the \u201cseat\u201d of consciousness. Whether as a pure hypothesis I\ntransfer this seat to the pineal gland, or whether, from the results\nof experiments upon animals, I seek by a process of exclusion, as it\nwere, to find it in the cerebral cortex--all this makes no essential\ndifference. The mistake, the Hebraism, lies in seeking for a \u201cseat\u201d of\nconsciousness at all. To such an idea only a few exceptionally clear\nminds oppose a front of resistance. As an example, I cite in a footnote\na passage from E. Mach\u2019s _Analyse der Empfindungen_.[22]\n\nSingular reflections are provoked when one contrasts with these\nextravagant profundities the conception of things presented by the\nIndian thinker six hundred years before the Christian era began. In the\nBuddha-thought there is no something called \u201cconsciousness,\u201d as equally\nthere is no something called \u201clife.\u201d There is only an experience of\nthe unfolding of consciousness--a constant _becoming conscious_. I do\nnot _have_ consciousness as I might have a half-crown in my pocket,\nbut I _am_ consciousness objectified, as I am will objectified.\nAs long as I think in terms of actuality, there is just but _one_\nconsciousness in the world--I myself. As long as I think in terms of\nactuality, consciousness means just this and no more--to experience\nmyself. But this is possible only as an intuition, and a specific\nimpulsion, instruction, is needed in order to arrive at this intuition.\nConsciousness, just like all the remainder of the _I_-process, is a\nform of the individual process of nutrition; the only difference is\nthis, that it is the last, the highest phase, as the fruit is the\nlast, the highest phase of the vegetative process. To speak of a\n\u201cseat\u201d of consciousness has about as much meaning as to speak of a\n\u201cseat\u201d of bodily heat. All this falls under the one inclusive concept,\n\u201cnutrition.\u201d What modern physicist would ever be so childish as in\nsome hot body to search for the \u201cseat\u201d of heat? But physiologist and\nbiologist stagger along exhausted under the load of their learnedness\non the subject of the \u201cseat\u201d of consciousness. There is just as much\nreason, and no more, for holding the brain-cells of the cerebral cortex\nto be the seat of consciousness as there is for regarding the electric\ncells in its central telegraph office as the seat of the intelligence\nof a great city.\n\nThe teaching of Buddhist physiology is as follows:--\n\nWhere the eye and forms encounter one another, and the antecedent\nconditions are such that each acts upon the other, there arises\nvisual consciousness. Where the ear and sounds encounter one another,\nthere arises aural consciousness. Where nose and odours encounter\none another, there arises olfactory consciousness. Where tongue and\nflavours encounter one another, there arises gustatory consciousness.\nWhere bodies and objects come in contact with one another, there arises\ntactile consciousness. Where thinking and things (known abstractly)\nencounter one another, there arises thought-consciousness.\n\n\u201cIf the inward eye is undamaged, and external objects do not come\nwithin the range of vision, and (as a consequence) no corresponding\ninteraction takes place, then a corresponding moment of consciousness\ndoes not result. If the inward eye is undamaged, and external\nobjects come within the range of vision, and (nevertheless) no\ncorresponding interaction takes place, then also a corresponding\nmoment of consciousness does not result. If, however, the inward eye\nis undamaged, and external objects come within the range of vision,\nand the corresponding interaction takes place, then there results the\ncorresponding moment of consciousness.\u201d[23]\n\nThus my entire individuality, the totality of individual experience is\na _becoming conscious_ at every moment of existence. Consciousness is\na Sankh\u0101ra, like all else, distinguished therefrom only in this, that\nin it Kamma itself becomes perceptible to sense.\n\nWere teleology and mechanistics to come before the Buddha and say,\n\u201cDecide thou! Which of us two is right? Is the eye born of seeing,\nor is seeing born of the eye? Is the brain born of thinking, or is\nthinking born of the brain?\u201d the Buddha would reply with a smile:--\n\n\u201cMy young friends, you are both right because you are both wrong.\nYour question is not correctly put. There are no such things as \u2018eye\u2019\nand \u2018brain\u2019 in the sense in which you use the words. There is only an\n_I_-process, that unfolds itself by way of certain differentiations\nwhich in themselves run their course at a pace sufficiently slow to\njustify such separate verbal designations as the \u2018eye,\u2019 the \u2018brain,\u2019\nand so forth. Your question, \u2018Is the eye born of seeing, or is seeing\nborn of the eye? Is the brain born of thinking, or is thinking born\nof the brain?\u2019 would have sense and meaning only if the eye and the\nbrain were in themselves organs all finished and complete, to which in\nthat case a specific function also would have to correspond. All this,\nhowever, is nothing but a phase, nothing but the form of development\nassumed by a single process. It is not the eye that sees: _you_ see.\nThe eye is neither born of seeing, nor yet is seeing born of the eye;\nthe eye is simply _the form under which seeing exists_. You do not\nsee _with_ the eye but in virtue of the fact of eye-evolution, the\nsame as you think in virtue of the fact of brain-evolution, which is\nonly another way of saying that you are the form assumed by individual\nenergies.\u201d\n\nHere the physiologist breaks in: \u201cThat consciousness has its seat in\ncertain regions of the cerebral cortex may be proven by experiments\non animals.\u201d But this is a conclusion as grossly mistaken as that of\nthe physicist when he imagines he can follow up energy throughout all\nits ramifications.[24] What can be got at by experimental methods is\nmerely negative phenomena, and these furnish no warrant for coming to\nconclusions as to the seat of consciousness. If I cut through the wire\nconnected with an electric light at any point at all in the circuit,\nthe negative phenomenon \u201cdarkness\u201d assuredly supervenes; but to say on\nthat account, \u201cThe point of section must be the seat of the electric\nenergy; here is ocular demonstration,\u201d would be sheer foolishness. Yet\nthe physiologist is guilty of just such foolishness, and at its behest\ndoes not stick at the perpetration of all those cruelties such as are\nscarcely to be avoided in experiments upon animals. If only the time\nwould come when true ideas about life would take possession of science,\nthe laboratories of physiologists would no longer be those places where\nevery day sacrifice is made to error as in the temples of blood-stained\nidols.\n\nAll these researches on the subject of the seat of consciousness are\nonly possible where one is working with empty concepts. If one thinks\nin terms of actuality consciousness is just that with regard to which\na reading, a working hypothesis of an inductive nature, is utterly\nimpossible; for here the reading is precisely the form assumed by the\nconsciousness, by that which is to do the reading, by the problem\nitself, and thus itself again requires a reading, and so on _ad\ninfinitum_.\n\nBut there is another point involved in this problem of \u201cconsciousness\u201d\nwhich, so far as I know, has never been taken account of, and yet is of\nthe utmost significance.\n\nAs the Darwinian idea does not embrace in its purview the case\nof hybrid formations--it does not react upon it at all--so the\nscientific mode of envisaging things does not take in the case of the\nphysiological negative phenomena of consciousness, does not at all\nreact upon it. With the apparatus of science there is no possibility\nwhatever of getting at such facts as \u201cfaith,\u201d \u201cillusion,\u201d \u201cerror,\u201d\n\u201cforgetting.\u201d Science requires something sensible and objective,\nsomething so constituted that I can rank it along with other things.\nIn no respect, however, are any of these negative phenomena objective\nthings. Here no possible point of entry offers for science with its\ninstrument, induction.\n\nI may indeed _read_ consciousness under the figure of associative\noccurrences, but only in the form of recollection. Applied to the\ncorresponding dissociative event, forgetting, this explanation is\nas impossible as that a molecular mixture which has once come to\nequilibrium within itself should again spontaneously return to\ndissolution, to dissociation. As the natural adjustment of differences\nof molecular tension may be explained or read as a fall, so in its\nassociative activities consciousness may be explained or read as a\nfall, but never so in its dissociative activities. This, however,\ninvolves the utter worthlessness of the former explanation; for every\nmixture, every association, presupposes separation, dissociation, and,\ncalled upon to indicate the _essence_ of consciousness, what I should\npoint to is not so much the associative as the dissociative, not so\nmuch recollection, conjunction, as forgetting, disjunction. Once the\nstone is raised from the earth\u2019s surface its return fall forthwith\nensues. But it is the separation from the earth\u2019s surface for which\neffective causes must be found. In like manner, it is dissociation,\nforgetting, that really demands elucidation; association, recollection\ncan as easily be read mechanistically as the fall of a stone once it\nhas been raised. Dissociation is the physiological miracle, in presence\nof which science stands altogether helpless.\n\nThe like holds good of faith, illusion, error. The purely mechanistic\nconception of things, the view which regards the _I_-process simply\nas an instance of the phenomenon of the compensation of tensile\ndifferences, can never be accommodated to the possibility of such\nthings as faith, illusion, and error. But a similar impossibility also\nexists for the teleological apprehension of the world. How should a\n\u201cforce\u201d ever acquire the faculty of deceiving itself or of falling\ninto error? To a compensation-phenomenon pure and simple, as to God,\nillusion and error are wholly unattainable potentialities; they belong\nto mankind alone, to the man whom the Buddha points out to us.\n\nIf I am nothing but an unceasing reaction to the outer world, if I\nconstantly adapt myself to things and things adapt themselves to me,\nnot as a mere adjustment but in virtue of specific energies, only then\nare faith, illusion, error, and all other negative phenomena equally\npossible with all positive phenomena. Beginningless process furnishes\nthe possibility of both.\n\nSuch things as actual illusion, actual error, science may nowise\nrecognize, for in so doing she would be recognizing something for\nwhich there is absolutely no room in her cosmogony. One would thereby\nintroduce functions for which one could furnish no organized basis.\nOnly in the cosmogony of the Buddha, only in the concept of individual\nbeginninglessness does each find its necessary place. Here they are\nthe necessary preconditions of all existence. Science is powerless to\ndefend herself against them otherwise than by an attempt to \u201cexplain\naway\u201d such occurrences out of the order of world-events. Upon this\npoint E. Mach, in his _Analyse der Empfindungen_, expresses himself\nas follows: \u201cThe phrase, \u2018illusion of the senses,\u2019 shows that man has\nnot yet rightly come to a consciousness, or at least has not yet found\nit necessary to express such consciousness in fitting terminology,\nthat the senses indicate neither false nor true. The only \u2018true\u2019 of\nwhich one can speak in connection with the sense organs is that under\ndifferent conditions they yield different sensations and perceptions.\nSince these conditions are so extremely manifold in their variety ...\nit may very well seem ... as if the organ acts dissimilarly under\nsimilar conditions. Results out of the usual order are what men are\naccustomed to call illusions.\u201d This is to make illusion merely truth in\nan infinitesimal form, to \u201cread\u201d it as a special form of truth, and so\nbe rid of it.\n\nBut the value of the Buddha-thought in this domain does not end here.\nOver and above, it explains to begin with, the every-day fact of\nexperience, that not every pairing evolves a new embryo. This fact is\nalike incapable of explanation whether from the standpoint of faith or\nfrom that of science.\n\nFaith, which sees a divine soul breathed into the material of\ngeneration, permits of no standpoint at all, since for it everything\ntakes place according to God\u2019s good pleasure. From the standpoint\nof science, however, with every conjunction of ovum and sperm-cell,\nconception also must be granted, since here both are already the form\nof the new life, already contain in themselves all the ingredients\nof this new life. It is only the Buddha-thought that explains why,\nmeanwhile, despite the union of ovum and sperm, conception does not\ntake place: it has not \u201cstruck in.\u201d At the moment when both were\nopen to the inflow of the energy, the latter was not ready. In the\nceaseless, unbroken attunement, each to the other, of the happenings of\na world, the proper moment was let slip.[25]\n\nThe Buddha-thought further explains the else inexplicable fact of the\nsimultaneous resemblance and lack of resemblance between parents and\nchildren. The view of the matter taken by faith supplies no argument in\nfavour of any kind of resemblance whatever between the two. The soul\nis inbreathed by God whithersoever it pleaseth him. In the view of\nscience, on the contrary, there is found no argument for any failure\nin resemblance betwixt progenitors and offspring. Ever and always\nthe characteristics of the latter can only be a combination of the\ncharacteristics of both the parents. In the Buddha-thought _alone_ are\nsimilarity and dissimilarity alike accounted for. I may have inherited\nmy father\u2019s nose, his manner of blowing it indeed, since all lay\nforeshadowed in the material, and was obliged so to evolve itself:\nbut the evolver is a stranger, hence one common starting-point yields\nan independent evolving series. Here conception means no more than\nthat two paths, two lines, that of the material and that of energy,\nintersect one another. We are as at some cross-road, where two highways\nmeet, only to lead further and further away from each other the further\nwe pursue them.\n\nThe third item that finds an explanation in the Buddha-thought is the\nfact of innate aptitudes. Where the act of learning is envisaged from a\npurely empirical point of view these are a standing, incomprehensible\nmiracle. Opposed to this, the defectiveness of the nativistic theory\nresides in the fact that according to it every being must make his\nappearance fitted out all complete with fixed, inborn abilities. Midway\nremoved from both extremes stands the Buddha. With equal ease he\nexplains the possibility of gradual development and that of appearance\nall ready and complete, inasmuch as with him all depends upon the\n_tempo_ at which the energy closing with the material enters upon its\nunfolding process. Is the _tempo_ so fast that the organic recipients\nare already developed upon leaving the womb, then the innate abilities\nare there present; the organs can set to forthwith, the external world\nacts immediately as liberating lure, and the nativists have the last\nword. Is the _tempo_ slow, then there set in processes that admit\nof being empirically interpreted or read as a gradual attainment of\nfaculty by experience.\n\nApart, however, from the biological facts, the Buddha-thought also\nexplains those lofty speculations that have haunted the minds of men\nfrom the earliest times, such as \u201cprevious existence,\u201d Plato\u2019s idea\nof learning as \u201creminiscence,\u201d and so forth. \u201cMany a time it has\nseemed to me as if I must have been in existence once already,\u201d says\nsuch a clear, keen mind as Lichtenberg. Indeed here, if one likes,\neven the Kantian \u201c_a priori_ of all experience,\u201d this pure _ens_ of\nscholasticism, acquires sense and meaning. That which with Kant stands\nout from reality as a blind end, destitute of any real foothold, like\nthe spirit moving upon the face of the waters, here balls itself\ntogether into the _I myself_. My Kamma is the \u201c_a priori_\u201d; in a\nsense, such as Kant never suspected, it is true. All these minds\nlack guidance, lack light. In dim fashion they feel, but they do not\nsee. During my latest sojourn at Anuradhapura, in the course of a\nconversation with the abbot of Ruanwelli, he said to me, \u201cEvery one who\nis without the Teaching is like the blind elephant in the jungle: he\nfeels at every twig\u201d--to find out if it is eatable. Here we have an apt\nillustration of inquiring ignorance.\n\nWith this solution of the problem of procreation as furnished by the\nBuddha are involved a few necessary questions which might have been\ndisposed of in our fifth essay, but may more fitly be dealt with here.\n\nThe first is this:--\n\n\u201cIf, as said above, the uniquely appropriate energy is not always\nready for the material, if contact can be missed, must then a quota of\nmaterial always stand ready for the Kamma that is set free at every\ndeath?\u201d\n\nTo which the answer is: \u201cThat a faggot should miss the kindling spark;\nthis may very well happen, but that the kindling spark should find\nnothing upon which to act, such is never the case.\u201d Its very being is\njust its taking hold, the actuity itself. The _I_-energy takes hold\nthere precisely where it can take hold.\n\nBut will it always take hold just there where legitimately it ought to\ntake hold? Will it take hold rightly?\n\nTo put such a question is the same as if one should ask: \u201cWill the\nsun indicate mid-day correctly and unfailingly every day? Or: Will\nthe ocean maintain itself unceasingly at sea-level?\u201d Where the entire\nuniverse _has_ not but _is_ law there, \u201cto take hold\u201d is as much as\nto say \u201cto take hold legitimately\u201d: \u201cto take hold legitimately\u201d is\nas much as to say \u201cto take hold rightly.\u201d All such questions were\njustified only if we had to do with a reciprocal being attuned; but\nall things are found to be a series of ever new self-attunings, each\nafter other--no working into one another like cog and groove, no\npre-established harmony, no psycho-physical parallelism. The whole\nuniverse is a thing that finds itself in a state of perpetual nascency.\nIf a jest may be ventured in face of the monster, one might say that\nthe whole world is constantly in a state of bringing forth, yet never\nis there born a \u201csomething\u201d that stands ideally fast, so as to be\nfitted to serve as a standard for true and untrue.\n\nThe fact that a chemical compound decomposes, that its constituent\nelements are set free, always implies that from another direction\nforces more powerful are coming into play. Decomposition is nothing\nbut the form of a new combination. In similar wise Kamma does not\nbecome free just for the sake of becoming free, just in order to\nbe free. Not in any arbitrary fashion does it leap out of its old\nlocation; it does so only because its material falls away from under\nit. That it can take fresh hold and always can take hold, of this the\nguarantee is the simple fact that there is a world at all, for the\nlatter is just the series of self-attunings each after other, itself.\nWere the world obliged to _come_ to this self-attuning first, never by\nany means could there be a world. What we find present is precisely\nsomething given--actuality, and this stands for no mere set of\n_possibilities_; it represents a _power_--its own power to exist; and\nthe expression of this power to exist is just this eternal ability to\ntake fresh hold.\n\nTo change the simile: For every falling stone there is always ready\nthe spot on which it can fall. For along with the fact \u201cfalling stone\u201d\nare also given all the prerequisite conditions in which such questions\nas, \u201cWhere can it fall? Will it find its spot?\u201d are already met and\nanswered. Its fall is nothing motiveless; it does not fall blindly, by\npure accident. Neither is its fall any previously determined affair;\nit does not fall towards any given goal. Its fall is an attuning of\nitself, an accommodating of itself to its goal. In the act of falling\nit finds its goal. In the same way this my whole existence is simply my\nfinding my way, my accommodating of myself to the new goal. Kamma does\nnot _go_ to its new place as a spontaneous force, nor does it _fall_,\nas a mere reaction, but it advances itself as a flame advances itself.\nIn the beginningless happenings of a world, living at every moment\naccommodates itself to living. It is like a universal round dance, this\nSams\u0101ra. Kamma has seized his partner, and with her whirls through the\ninfinitudes until she collapses with fatigue, is worn out, or, become\nclumsy and heavy, slips from him because she no longer suits him. She\nno longer suits him, however, because there is another whom she suits\nbetter. Thus does the material pass from hand to hand, because one\nlender snatches it away from the other.\n\n  Indeed \u2019twas only borrowed--the lenders are so many!\n\nAnd thus is disposed of that other question: \u201cOnce set alight, could\nnot an _I_-process burn for ever?\u201d\n\nScience, because it never can be actual science, makes an effort at\nleast not to be of the laity, and endeavours to make good this its\ndistinctive characteristic by the striking, one might almost say the\nsensational, manner in which it formulates its problems. Thus it tries\nto signalize the commanding nature of its standpoint with respect to\nthe problems of life by telling the dumbfounded layman of a death\nthat is purely a phenomenon of adaptation--yea more, of a death that\nis nothing but a bad habit. Upon this point, Weismann in his _Dauer\ndes Lebens_ says: \u201cFrom a purely physiological standpoint there is no\nperceivable reason why it should not be possible for the fission of the\ncells to proceed _ad infinitum_, _i.e._ for the organism to function\neternally. To me the necessity for death is intelligible only from\nthe standpoint of utility.... An individual that lived for ever would\nalways become infirm and useless to the species. Death is merely a\nutilitarian arrangement; it is no necessity, grounded in the essential\nnature of life.\u201d This is about as sensible as if one said, relying upon\nthe facts of kitchen routine, \u201cThe going out of the fire is merely a\nutilitarian arrangement: it is no necessity grounded in the essential\nnature of fire.\u201d To speak of death as a phenomenon of adaptation is\nto juggle with death as with some empty concept. In truth it is not\nas some think, death that accommodates itself to life, but simply\nthinking to the facts. The crass absurdity only becomes evident when\nout of this mere \u201creading\u201d of the facts one seeks to evolve a truth of\npractical application, as Metchnikoff does in his \u201cdaring\u201d surmises.\nI assert that science ought to be ashamed of herself for filling the\nnursery room of mankind with such fabulous tales of the future, when\nalready the air is thick enough with the fables of the past. The old\nSalernitanian school of medicine used to ask: \u201c_Cur moritur homo, cui\ncrescit salvia in hortis?_\u201d In much the same way the new--nay, the very\nnewest--school of medicine demands: \u201cWhy does man die, for whom in the\nlaboratory grows the Maya Yoghurt?\u201d thereby showing that in the depths\nbelow the surface she grows on the same stock as the so much contemned\n\u201cblind faith.\u201d\n\nLike a grown man among children stands the Buddha towards such\nfictions. With him death is nothing but living in a new environment.\nThe distaff keeps ceaselessly turning; it is only that a new clump\nof wool has been placed on it. The discernment that life is of the\nnature of a process involves of necessity the discernment that life\ncan persist only so long as the active affinities concerned are not\novermastered by other affinities. Here again, to be sure, I can\ninterpret death as a phenomenon of accommodation, but equally as\nwell can I so interpret life, for here I am just the beginningless\nself-accommodating, self-attuning itself. However varied the length of\ntime during which the attuning may last, however it may be prolonged by\nthe use of specific contrivances, to speak of a potential immortality\nis to do away with the process-like nature of life, to make the\nnever-resting actuality stiffen into a childish counterfeit. With the\nfact that I am born, the fact of dying is _guaranteed_ me. For beings\ncan only be born if previously they have died; they must buy themselves\ntheir birth with their own death. Were we not born, then, to be sure,\nwe need not die either. But to be born and yet not to see in death\na necessity grounded in the very nature of life, this demands place\nalongside that passage in the book of Joshua: \u201cSun, stand thou still\nupon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.\u201d What a different\nring has this word of the Master: \u201cThat that which has life should not\nmeet with death--such a thing is not!\u201d And yet it is so! We demand\nlife-values at any cost; and, are the udders milked dry, then must\ndeath itself make good the lack!\n\nIf science and the Buddha-thought be placed alongside one another\nfor mutual and unbiassed comparison, perforce the superiority of the\nlatter must be acknowledged, since by it is neatly resolved in one\nsingle conception that which science with two distinct concepts makes\nan inextricable tangle of. From the point of view of science, dying is\nevery whit as much of a miracle as being born, since in birth a new\nidentity appears on the scene all entire, and in death all as entire\nvanishes; in the same way that to a child\u2019s idea a thunderstorm as\nsuch, _i.e._ taken purely as a symptom, is something that arises all\nentire, and all entire passes away again. The simple fact is: despite\nall the technical skill with which she handles the problem of heredity,\nand notwithstanding all the suggestions made to the understanding to\nrecognize as uninterrupted the passage from life to life, science\nhas her abode in the realm of the miraculous. The technique of her\ndescriptions, to which she gives the misleading title, \u201cdoctrine of\nevolution,\u201d leave the actual problem of evolution entirely untouched.\nIn face of the miracles of birth and death, science strongly resembles\na boy making his first observations in natural history. Finding in\nhis glass-case the caterpillar dead and the butterfly born, he will\nsay, \u201cTwo miracles! The old has died and something new has made its\nappearance.\u201d Instead of both facts merging into one another in a true\nconception of what has taken place, to his mistaken notion they fall\napart from one another, and become problems defying solution. Even so\nis it with science. Through her failure to recognize that the facts of\nbirth here and death there are forms of one and the same experience\ninstead of a single comprehension of both under the one aspect, two\nmiracles are found by her to be present. The noose of life has become\na knot, and every attempt to undo it by continued pulling only makes\nworse the tangle. On this point the physicist has already left the\nstage of childhood behind. To-day he no longer says, \u201cTwo miracles!\nHeat is gone and motion is present.\u201d He has found the clue, albeit,\nit is true, only in form of reaction. The biologist, however, still\nremains incapable of replacing two miracles with a true and genuine\nconception. He is still unaware that it is with dying that being born\nmust be purchased. Hence he treats birth as a fact by itself, and\ndeath as a fact by itself, and so remains confronting both problems\ninternally insoluble.\n\nSo much for that point. A further question that suggests itself is:\n\u201cCould not a Kamma be simultaneously attuned in two or more places?\u201d\n\nTo this the answer would be: \u201cTheoretically, so long as one\nconfronts the problem from the mechanistic standpoint, that is,\nfrom the standpoint that deals only with reactions, it is attuned\nin places innumerable.\u201d In exactly the same way a drop of water, as\nit trickles downward, theoretically can have innumerable points as\nits resting-place; practically, however, it will have one single\nresting-place, and this latter will prove itself the resting-place and\nthe one single resting-place among countless possibilities simply and\nsolely by the fact that the drop comes to a halt just at this spot.\nActuality is simple as singly determined. It only becomes complex in\nthe mechanistic mode of apprehending it; that is, where reactions alone\nare dealt with.\n\nAgain, it may be asked: \u201cCould not two Kammas attune themselves to one\nand the same body of material?\u201d\n\nBut this question has just as much meaning as if one asked, \u201cCould not\ntwo men appropriate to themselves, assimilate, and be nourished by,\nthe same loaf of bread?\u201d So long as one treats of \u201cbread\u201d in purely\ntheoretical fashion, eats concepts, well and good! But if one eats in\nactuality, the absurdity becomes obvious.\n\nAgain: \u201cMight it not happen for once that the ovum should conduct the\nlightning without the assistance of the sperm-cell?\u201d\n\nSo far as mankind is concerned, the only reply is that here both\nfactors are required. It simply is so! Why are certain reactions\nbrought about only when certain catalytic agents or ferments are\nintroduced? How weighty the above objection has always been to the mind\nof mankind is shown by the important r\u00f4le which \u201cimmaculate conception\u201d\nhas played from the earliest times. That in itself it is not impossible\nthe animal kingdom sufficiently attests. With man, however, the\nconditions are so disposed that both, ovum- and sperm-cell, are\nrequired in order to conduct the Kamma and cause it to take hold.\n\nIf one asks: \u201cBut could not this also happen outside a maternal womb?\u201d\nI reply: \u201cI do not know.\u201d It certainly does not happen with man. It\nhappens with cold-blooded creatures, with dogs, and so forth. In the\nbotanical gardens at Peradeniya, Ceylon, in the climate the most\nperfect in the world for vegetation, there are several trees--the\n_Bertholetia excelsa_ of Brazil, for example--which, despite the\nsimilarity of the climate to that of their native haunts, as yet have\nresisted all attempts to propagate them. It simply is so! Actuality\nlays down its own laws because it is itself law. Science can do nothing\nbut hobble along as best she may in the wake of all these facts, and\nendeavour to accommodate herself to them. But what bears witness in\nfavour of the Buddha-thought is precisely the impossibility of getting\nfecundation to take place outside a womb, or of bringing it about by\nintroducing sperm into the uterus by artificial means, of which latter\nproceeding a single, not altogether unequivocal instance is reported\nby an American gyn\u00e6cologist. What is needed is the living energy which\nfor a limited period vibrates in the material like the energy in the\nplucked string of a lute. It is just this vibrating energy in it which\nfirst makes the material to be material, _i.e._ the thing that is\ncapable of a unique attunement.\n\nAnd here we come to the most important question of all:--\n\n\u201cIs a human Kamma always obliged to take fresh hold precisely of human\n_I_-material? Would it not be possible for once, that human Kamma\nshould be attuned to animal material or reverse wise, animal Kamma\nto human material?\u201d To this the answer is: Kamma can take hold only\nwhere there is material that itself is the form of a Kamma. How far\ndown in the kingdom of living creatures this material extends cannot\nbe said any more than in the case of a flame can be indicated exactly\nhow far the circle of its radiance extends, the precise limit stated\nat which it gives place to darkness. And just as, despite this, the\nflame has a definite circle of radiance, so Kamma has a definite sphere\nof operation, albeit no science--such as zoology or anthropology and\nso forth--is in a position to establish this thesis. Kamma takes hold\nwhere it can take hold--that is to say, where in the material of\nprocreation there vibrate energies to which it is uniquely attuned; and\nin the scale of living creatures it reaches just as far as it is able\nto reach.\n\nIn the Jatakas, the birth-stories of the Buddha, we see him in Sams\u0101ra\nranging this whole scale through from the lowest stages of the animal\nkingdom right up to the worlds of the gods, ever and again planting\nfoot there where the Kamma was attuned at the moment of collapse.\n\nIt is a fact of experience that between living beings there exist\npeculiar consonances. To a stone or a tree no tie of compassion binds\nus. Compassion only begins at the animal world, and its limits are\nindividual, and vary according to bringing up. With many compassion\nis entirely confined to human beings; more especially is this the\ncase with those brought up in the shadow of monotheistic beliefs. In\npantheism, on the contrary, as it has prevailed in India from the\nearliest days, the boundary line of compassion runs right down into the\nlowest animal kingdom. Meanwhile, among us, too, those incapable of\nfeeling compassion for a dog, a horse, a cow, a cage-bird, are very few.\n\nIn the last analysis the capacity for compassion consists in the\npeculiar attunement, consonance existing between one _I_-energy and\nother _I_-energies. Where, as in the case of the stone, there are no\n_I_-energies, there can likewise be no compassion.\n\nIn the Buddha-thought the classification of the phenomena of life\nadopted is one peculiar to itself alone. The usual crude divisions\ninto stone, plant, animal, and man, or into inorganic and organic,\ncount for nothing here. All these are based upon the assumption\nthat things are fixed quantities, identities; hence they prescribe\nartificial preconditions, and consequently have no value in themselves\nbut only with reference to some such determined end as increased\nfacility of comprehension. In the Buddha-thought all life-phenomena\ndivide themselves into these two classes--those that have power to act\nupon me, stimulate or excite me, set me in sympathetic vibration and\ncorrespondingly be set in sympathetic vibration by me, and those with\nwhich this is not more or not yet the case.\n\nWe are bound to admit--and all physiological phenomena bear witness to\nit--that the ovum- and sperm-cell are those forms of development of\nthe _I_-process in which the _I_-energy of the individuals concerned\nreveals itself in its purest and most intimate, because most intrinsic\nform. If they are torn apart from the whole in the act of generation,\nyet are they able to furnish the new _I_-material, because they keep\nthe _I_-energy vibrating sufficiently long in themselves to be able to\nanswer to the Kamma peculiarly attuned to them.\n\nSuch an apprehension of things would seem like a slap in the face\nfor biology and the whole history of evolution, and here the task of\nthe Buddha-thought is to come to an understanding with the theory of\ndescent if it is to prove satisfactory to the man of education.\n\nTo begin with, one must be quite clear on this point--that the whole\ntheory of descent is nothing but a form of reading the biological\nfacts, a theory in the strictest sense of the word. As a consequence\nit has value only with reference to certain ends. First, in order\nto group together under one main heading the enormous miscellany of\nfacts--thus, for didactic ends. And secondly, read from below upwards\ninstead of from above downwards, that is, apprehended as a theory of\nevolution instead of as a theory of descent, it suggests a life-value\nof such inspiring power as in this respect might also be set alongside\nthe ideas of God and of the state--the idea of a development of mankind\nthat progresses ever further and further. This idea, of course, is much\nolder than Darwin, but it was only in his teaching that for the first\ntime it assumed requisite reality.\n\nThe evolution theory is far removed from Darwin\u2019s original teaching\nupon natural selection and the survival of the fittest. It has\nonly been read into it by this age of ours ever hungering after\nlife-values. Man must have something to which to cling in the dread\nwastes of endlessness; he must have something that points beyond this\nlife--something to which he can relate this life as a whole. To an age\nwhose belief in God more and more dwindles away, the evolution theory\nis an invaluable substitute. Even if it yields no real nourishment,\nyet does it point in emblem beyond this life of the individual, and\nsoothes like the sight of a beautiful picture. That in reality one can\nonly speak of evolution where one has at hand a standard one can apply\nto it, to the progress made--in other words, where one can measure it;\nthis men forget and willingly forget, for this single consideration\nperforce flings the whole idea of progressive evolution into the\ncategory of illusions. We must have an absolute point of departure if\nwe are to speak of evolution in itself. This we no more possess than\nwe possess an absolute space to which we can relate its motion. Where\nan absolute point of departure is lacking, the idea of evolution is\nas meaningless as the idea of absolute motion. The evolutional is\n\u201cinterpreted into\u201d the facts by main force. To declare man to be more\nevolved than the monads, savours of a limited despotism. The directly\nopposite view were every whit as possible. Since the monads achieve\nlife with an infinitely much simpler apparatus than man, they therefore\nstand higher in evolution; for \u201cit is in limitation that the master is\nrevealed.\u201d A great many animals can do very much more than man with his\norgan of thought, the main purpose of which, when all is said and done,\nwould appear to consist in putting obstacles between him and actual\nlife, and subjecting him to the tyranny of concepts. In point of fact,\nhowever, the miracle of the cells is everywhere the same, in the monads\nas in the brain-cells, and one position is all as futile as the other.\n\nIn the fact that science as represented by biology is particularly\nqualified to adopt the development-idea in the form of the theory\nof evolution, and to make use of it, she shows her deep-lying and\nessential fellowship with faith. For where in this sense there is\ndevelopment, there is beginning; where there is beginning, there is an\nabsolute; and where there is an absolute, there is faith. To honest,\ngenuine thinking, every thing, every moment of beginning, whether of a\nreal or of a conceptual nature, leads back to a beginninglessness. In\nthe simple existence of life, that is, of anything that is alive, its\nbeginninglessness is already implied. With this the evolution idea is\ndeprived of all possibility. Here development signifies nothing but the\nunfolding of the characteristics involved in the material laid hold\nof. Actual development proceeds just as much from seed to blossom as\nfrom blossom to seed. A moment of _evolution_ is as little to be found\nin the happenings of the world as in a burning flame. To hold one\nworld-period as more developed than another is a childish position.\nEvery moment demonstrates, simply by its existence, that it is _the_\nform of adaptation which just at that moment is the only possible and\ntherefore necessary one. The world of the cosmic nebula--as being the\nblossom of earlier worlds, the seed of later ones--is as developed as\nthe world of the ichthyosaurus, as the world of the _homo sapiens_.\nAll are forms of the series of self-attunings, each after other. To\ncall the world of the _now_ more developed than the world of the Coal\nAge were somewhat the same as to call the descent of a stone after\nit has been falling for five seconds more developed than when it has\nbeen falling for one second. The downward velocity after one second is\n_the_ adaptation just as much as is the downward velocity after five\nseconds. It only shows the childishness of the biological apprehension\nof things that it should still continue to find satisfaction in such\ntrivialities, based wholly as these are upon concepts of its own\nfabrication.\n\nBut as already said, in the original teaching of Darwin nothing is to\nbe found of such conceptions. He was a good Christian who had not the\nremotest idea of setting up a primordial cell as competitor against\nthe _bon dieu_, or of aping him with such like theories. And when he\nhappens to meet him on his way, he humbly pulls off his hat like Hodge\nin presence of \u201csquire.\u201d\n\nThe essence of Darwinism is contained in the theory of selection.\nAgainst this theory reproach has been brought that it embraces in its\nscope only the transformations, not the arising of living creatures.\nRarely has theory encountered reproach more childish and mistaken. That\nis found fault with, which precisely constitutes the very greatness of\nthe thought.\n\nDarwin\u2019s thesis is as follows:--\n\n\u201cGiven the existence of organic matter, given its tendencies to\ntransmit its characteristics. Given, finally, the life conditions of\nthe organic matter--these things in their totality are the causes of\nthe present and past conditions of organic nature.\u201d\n\nThe greatness of this statement lies in its truly scientific\nexactitude, in its purely mechanistic apprehension of things. Just\nas the physicist, when he speaks of force and mass, intentionally\neliminates everything of the actual--he simply cannot work until\nfirst all that is actual is eliminated, and pure relation-values\nestablished--so Darwin eliminates everything actual and sets to work\nwith pure relation-values. Otherwise put: His teaching is nothing but\na new system of measurement for actuality; and his greatness consists\nin this, that he was the first to take biology and apply to it the\nmethods of the physicist. He it was who first approached the biological\nfacts from the standpoint of differences of tension, differences of\npotentiality. His doctrine of the survival of the fittest is simply\na kind of biological measure of force. What would one say of a man\nwho made it a matter of reproach in connection with a yard-stick that\nit did not also at the same time indicate the nature and origin of\nthe object measured by it? Only when it is independent of all such\nquestions can anything serve as a standard of measurement. Where would\nthe physicist find himself were he to say, \u201cI will not concern myself\nwith forces until I really know what force is?\u201d He does not wish to\nknow what force is. Were one to tell him he would stop his ears. He\nwants to make use of force, to be able to measure it; nothing more.\nIn the same way Darwin does not in the least want to know and tell\nwhat living beings are. Should one say, \u201cThey are from God,\u201d another,\n\u201cThey are from the devil,\u201d he, Darwin, happens to be of the former\nopinion; but that has nothing to do with the problem before him. As the\nphysicist lays hold of the pendulum in its swing and says, \u201cIf now I\nlet it go, such and such phenomena must occur,\u201d so Darwin--figuratively\nspeaking of course--lays hold of the biological pendulum and says,\n\u201cIf now I let it go, this and this must happen.\u201d The physicist so\narranges his preliminary conditions that he can measure what occurs,\nand so also does Darwin. As the physical resultant is measured in the\nform of work, so Darwin measures the biological resultant in the form\nof the law of the survival of the fittest. Previous to him, biology\nstood much on the same level as the Ptolemaic universe which is based\nsolely upon observation. Observation indeed permits of measurements of\nmass but not of measurements of force. At one bound Darwin leaps to\nan apprehension and treatment of biology strictly after the fashion\nof energetics, and thereby makes good his claim to rank with Robert\nMayer and his successors. Comprehension, science, can only be carried\non where there is flux, where there is change. It is the glory of the\nDarwinian theory that it sufficiently fluidized for thought, the world\nof living beings, broke up the rigid conception of species, the belief\nin single acts of creation, as to render them accessible to a physical\nmode of apprehension; the which always amounts to a mechanistic mode,\nto a falling, even where it calls itself the mode of energetics. His\ntheory of natural selection is, in the strictest sense of the words, a\nliquidation of the inventory of antiquated ideas. But be it well noted:\nlike the greatness of every mechanistic view, the greatness of the\nDarwinian thought resides in its purely re-active quality, in the fact\nthat it only furnishes biological relation-values.\n\nI incline to look upon the reception and interpretation which the\nDarwinian teaching has received at the hands of science as one of the\nhugest jokes world-history--taken in the biological, not the historical\nsense--has ever indulged in at the expense of the human mind. It\nis more than a joke; it is a stroke of wit! In all seriousness men\nwrangle as to whether Darwin\u2019s doctrine is true or false; which is\nthe same as if they disputed, for example, about the truth or falsity\nof the decimal system. Men find that the longer the theory of natural\nselection is tested, the more frequently does it fail them; which is\nthe same as if a man bent upon measuring everything regardless of\ndistinctions with a yard-stick, should find, the longer he proceeds, an\never increasing number of things that do not admit of being measured\nby such a scale. In fine, men so comport themselves, that oftentimes\none could almost wish to live sufficiently long to hear the helpless\nlaughter of posterity. And, with it all, what erudition!\n\nIt is unfailingly interesting and instructive to observe the\ndifference between biology and physics. In the latter is found a sort\nof well-bred _savoir vivre_, a clear perception of the relativity of\nall knowledge-values--Pontius Pilate\u2019s query translated with all the\nrefinements of mechanistics into physicist phraseology. In the former,\nin modern monism, is heard the droning, \u201cA mighty stronghold is our\nGod,\u201d sung in unison by shepherd and sheep; wherein, to be sure, by\nthe word \u201cGod\u201d one does not mean that jealous God who visits the sins\nof the fathers upon the children, but that abstract creature of air,\n\u201cthe law of evolution\u201d which in retrospective wise, seeks to avenge the\nfollies of the children upon the fathers.\n\nYet once more be it said, The doctrine of the evolution of life out\nof one primordial form to forms that mount by degrees ever higher and\nhigher, is of purely symbolical significance, as indeed every law is\nof purely symbolical significance, inasmuch as it furnishes nothing\nsave the possibility of grouping together in one definite connection a\nlarge, nay, a limitless number of phenomena.\n\nOf course men point to the fact that modern biology is able to bring\nabout actual and genuine modifications in living creatures. Nothing is\nfurther from my intention than to call in question the facts connected\nwith breeding. Daily life sufficiently proves them, and the laboratory\ndemonstrates them under a variety of elegant and surprising forms. But\nwhat does one breed? One breeds peculiar conditions under which some\nlife-process or other runs its course--never by any means the process\nitself--in the selfsame way that the physicist \u201cbreeds\u201d the sunbeam as\na spectrum, as a polarised ray, as interference, and so forth. Never\nyet has breeding brought about the transmutation of one life-form into\nanother higher in the scale of being.\n\nNow comes the moment when the evolution theorist plays out his last and\nhighest trump. \u201cVery good!\u201d he says. \u201cLet it be that in consequence of\nour hitherto still defective technique we have not yet succeeded in\ntransmuting one species into a higher, nevertheless, in the facts that\nhave been grouped together under the name of the fundamental biogenetic\nlaw and in rudimentary formations, Nature shows us that she herself has\nactually come this way.\u201d\n\nOf a surety the Buddha knew of no fundamental biogenetic law, probably\nalso had no idea of so-called rudimentary formations; but I simply\ncannot imagine anything that more conclusively proves the truth of\nhis thought than these same facts. For, to him who has learned of\nthe Buddha, these facts do not say that which the modern biologist\nimputes to them; they testify to the existence of _actual_ associations\nbetween living beings right down into what we call the lowest stages.\nThey bring immediately before our eyes the competency of human Kamma\nto find foothold outside the human kingdom also. As a traveller bears\nabout with him this and the other trace of the dirt of the roads along\nwhich he has journeyed, so does the embryo in the various stages of\nits development exhibit the traces of Sams\u0101ra, demonstrate its power\nto take hold in the heights and in the deeps, exactly according as its\nKamma is attuned, and demonstrate also that it _has taken_ hold in the\nheights and deeps, exactly according as its Kamma _was_ attuned. The\nembryonal forms show--to use the language of physics--the tremendous\namplitude of vibration of the _I_-process. They show _that we all eat\nout of the one dish_.\n\nI am quite prepared to find interpretations such as these evoke nothing\nbut merriment among orthodox men of science. But I address myself as\nlittle to the slaves of science as to the slaves outside it. I address\nmyself to men who think with sufficient independence and possess\nsufficient sense of actuality to allow facts to have unbiassed weight\nwith them.\n\nThe following is also worthy of consideration:--\n\nThe fundamental biogenetic law, as interpreted by Haeckel is a complete\ncontradiction of the very nature of the theory of Natural Selection.\nLike every purely scientific mode of envisaging things, the latter\ncomes in on an unaccented beat, so to speak. It starts out with a given\ndifference of potentiality, with respect to which one does nothing\nbut observe the symptoms furnished by the process of compensation;\nrefraining, however, from every interpretation of how these differences\ncould ever have arisen. In the interpretation of the evolutionist, on\nthe other hand, the facts upon which the fundamental biogenetic law\nis based of necessity point in the direction of a first beginning;\nthey converge upon the idea of the \u201csetting in of life.\u201d Hence they\nconstrain to a scientific form of faith, which necessitates acrimonious\nwarfare against the church-form of the same, if one cannot agree that\nthe primordial cell, existing all complete, and the \u201cIn the beginning\nGod created the heaven and the earth,\u201d may be regarded simply as\ndifferent attempts at the definition of one and the same occurrence.\nIt is the feud betwixt dog and wolf. In the dusk they might pass for\nmates, were it not that each is busy trying to take a bite out of the\nother\u2019s throat. But, like all atheists from the most ancient times,\nmodern monism, too, forgets that to challenge the _bon dieu_ to single\ncombat is, as politicians would say, to \u201crecognize him in principle,\u201d\nand that at bottom this duel can be nothing but a _modus vivendi_ for\nboth parties.\n\nDarwin\u2019s original position entirely obviates such a strait as this. It\nis, as all science should be, strictly a-moral. With disconcerting--or\nif one likes, refreshing--coolness, the biological pieces are set up on\nthe cosmic chess-board, and a game begun. The first move of the opening\nis already made, and now move after move follows of simple necessity.\nWhere, for example, Darwin speaks of the cuckoo\u2019s instinct, he makes no\nattempt to account for the same by itself. He rather begins, \u201cNow let\nus suppose that the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo had the\nhabits of the American cuckoo, and that she occasionally laid an egg in\nanother bird\u2019s nest ...\u201d and so on;[26] which simply means: the game is\nalready in full swing, and so one move follows from the other.\n\nDarwin might be called the grand master of the art of biological\nchess. Nothing was further from his mind--originally at least--than\nturning the game to earnest; from the fact that a biological game is\nin progress, to seek to deduce an answer to the question as to _how_\nsuch a thing could ever have come about. That would only mean spoiling\nthe whole game. And as a matter of fact, by none has it been more\ncompletely spoiled for him than by his own followers. To them it is\nthat Bunge\u2019s words are directed: \u201cThe Darwinians teach that everything\nis cleared up, that only the riddle of heredity yet remains to be\nsolved. But it is precisely this riddle of heredity which makes up\nthe riddle the Darwinians imagine they have explained. What, then, is\ninherited? In the case of man there is inherited the capacity to evolve\na man out of a cell. For as long as one remains unable to solve this\nriddle--the riddle of ontogeny--one remains still less able to solve\nthe riddle of phylogeny.\u201d[27]\n\nDarwin himself so chose his position that at all times he could look\nhis God in the face. The unalleviated insipidity of his position is\nprecisely the proof of the exact scientific form in which he--the\nfirst to do so--laid hold of the biological problem. But in this mode\nof laying hold of it, the fundamental biogenetic law with its various\nperspectives has no place whatever.\n\nBut neither do the rudimentary formations admit of being read by the\nDarwinian formula. They must have arisen through persistent disuse. In\nthe mechanistic world-view, however, an arising through disuse is a\nsheer contradiction. Every disuse implies the presence of an arbitrary\nimpulsion. In the strictly mechanistic apprehension of things, the\nwhole universe in each of its impulsions is to be apprehended as the\nrelapse of some other impulsion, that is, as process of compensation;\nand every deficiency of activity in this never-resting process of\ncompensation, practically as well as theoretically, would be a\nmiracle. As in the mechanical cosmogony of the physicist, so also in\nthe Darwinian cosmogony, the single active impulsion in the whole\nmechanism remains the diversity given with the various forms of life;\nand as above the physical, so also here the biological event becomes\nsimply the compensation of these countless single diversities. Hence\nevery theory of disuse is synonymous with the introduction of a\nforeign, non-mechanical impulsion.\n\nThe Darwinian formula lays hold of the phenomena of life only in a\ncertain medial tract. Somewhat as a scale of temperature-measurement\nlays hold of the phenomena of heat only in a certain medial tract, and\nabove and below that tract is of no service, so the theory of natural\nselection is of no service as regards the fundamental biogenetic law on\nthe one hand, and the rudimentary formations on the other.\n\nThe third and weightiest consideration, however, is this, that the\nfact of the formation of hybrids lies neither above nor below the\nscale, but altogether outside of it; following our metaphor, to apply\nthe Darwinian idea to them would mean to seek somehow to apply the\nheat-scale to electric or magnetic phenomena. So soon as the evolution\ntheory attempts to bring the fact of the formation of hybrids within\nits sphere of operation, it annihilates the possibility of its own\nexistence. Natural selection is only possible in self-copulation.\nA self-copulation to the point of sterility is a contradiction in\nitself; hence Darwin himself is here obliged to have recourse to\nunknown impulsions. \u201cThe general sterility of crossed species may\nsafely be looked at, not as a special acquirement or endowment,\nbut as incidental on changes of an unknown nature in their sexual\nelements.\u201d[28] Again, \u201cThe extinction of species has been involved in\nthe most gratuitous mystery.... We need not wonder at extinction; if\nwe must marvel, let it be at our own presumption in imagining for a\nmoment that we understand the many complex contingencies on which the\nexistence of each species depends.\u201d[29] This, however, means nothing\nbut putting the question, \u201cWho says we have a right to inquire into\neverything?\u201d And that, again, means nothing but to be a good Christian.\n\nThat, of course, is not the slightest disparagement to the teaching, so\nlong as one takes it for what it really is--a standard of measurement\nfor the facts, a formula by means of which one may more easily express\nthem. It would be passing sentence of death upon it, as also upon the\nlaw of the conservation of energy, if, apprehending it in childish\nwise, one interpreted it as a genuine world-conception, as a law that\nshould not merely supply a _reading_ of the facts, but account for\nthese facts themselves.\n\nWhen modern biology inclines to set aside the Darwinian teaching in\nfavour of the more novel theories of mutation, it is acting like that\ncountryman who bought himself a pair of spectacles, expecting them not\nonly to make print clear to his eyes but also teach him how to read,\nand who then made complaint that the glasses did not do their duty.\nThe theory of natural selection, as well as every other theory, may\nbe likened to reading-glasses. It reveals the facts in such a way as\nto lighten the labour for weakly eyes, but it does not teach one to\nunderstand the facts themselves. And as with glasses, so with theories;\none has to change them, on an average, every five years.\n\nBut let us return to our subject proper.\n\nHere also the Buddha supplies a single concept in the place of two\nmiracles. That to which science gives the name of rudimentary organs\nare here not the results of continuous disuse--once more I ask, how\nin a purely mechanical apprehension of things disuse can ever set\nin at all--but, precisely the same as the facts of the fundamental\nbiogenetic law, they are witnesses to a beginningless journey up and\ndown throughout the entire domain of living creatures. In the place of\nthe double miracle--a threatened absolute beginning in the facts of\nthe fundamental biogenetic law, and a threatened absolute end in the\nfact of rudimentary organs--one single concept! And the formation of\nhybrids is here robbed of all its danger. Beings are neither heirs of\ntheir progenitors nor bequeathers to their posterity; they are heirs of\nthemselves.\n\nIn such a mode of apprehending life, that which we basely and vulgarly\ncall co-ition acquires a meaning of its own. Again there is that\ndelicate irony that comes only of commanding height of position.\nThe intercourse of the sexes is only the _attempt_ at co-ition, at\ncoming together. In plain truth, both man and woman are nothing but\nthe surrogates of nature, which makes use of them in order to render\npossible the real co-ition, the conflux of Kamma and its material.\nHence, species and sub-species count for nothing. Such a \u201csomething\u201d as\nspecies is nowhere to be found in actuality. It is nothing but a way\nof apprehending the phenomena of life.\n\nIt may be rejoined, \u201cBut as a matter of fact beings are so constituted\nas to admit of their being grouped together into species. This is\nso in the scientific apprehension of things, where the new being is\nexclusively derived from the material of the parents, in accordance\nwith nature. But in the Buddhistic apprehension of things, there is no\nreason whatever why two living beings, so far as form is concerned,\nshould be like one another at all.\u201d\n\nTo this, reply may be made, Two living beings exactly alike as to form\nare not to be found. Groupings, of no matter what kind, are always\nmatters of accommodation; which means that they are only made possible\nby the neglecting of trifling divergencies. The fool in _King Lear_,\ninforming us why the Pleiades has seven stars, says, \u201cBecause there are\nnot eight of them.\u201d There are not eight of them, however, not because\nan eighth is not there, but just because we leave out the remainder, do\nnot count them in. So also is it with species. Of course, I am never\nin any doubt as to what it is that I name man, dog, cow, and so forth,\nfor these concepts have first been settled by myself. But as that which\nI comprehend with my horizon changes content at every step I take, so\nalso do the concepts man, dog, and so forth. Everything is comprehended\nin an uninterrupted self-accommodation, self-attunement, each after\nother, that only runs its course with sufficient sluggishness,\nprovisionally to render possible and justify the groupings of natural\nscience in order to better understanding. To ask why precisely\nthere are the forms that there are, is to ask why in general there\nis anything given at all. It simply is so! The question would have\nsome meaning were stationary forms here present from eternity and to\neternity. But all these forms are nothing but a perpetual forming\nitself into itself from beginninglessness down to the present moment.\nTo say that there is a world, a reality at all, is to say that there\n_must_ be resemblances. Otherwise a self-attunement of energy and\nmaterial were utterly impossible. The resemblances, and therewith in\nthe second place the possibility of classific syntheses are real and\nconceptual _preliminary condition_ of all actuality--yea, actuality\nitself.\n\nAnother objection which every thinking man must make is one that out of\nprudence is raised by the theory of descent itself. It is this: \u201cHow\ncan the theory of a gradual unbroken ascent in the evolutional series\nbe reconciled with the simultaneous existence of the lowest alongside\nof the highest forms?\u201d Here the theory of descent is unable even to\nmake an attempt at a satisfactory explanation. Darwin himself on this\npoint says, \u201cSuch objections as the above would be fatal to my view,\nif it included advance in organization as a necessary contingent.\u201d[30]\nThis declaration throws a flood of clearest light upon Darwin\u2019s whole\nattitude towards the theory of evolution, and at the same time upon the\narbitrariness with which he has been interpreted by his followers.\n\nNow let us consider the other side. The Buddha-thought, regarded from\nthe physiological position, is based upon the insight that every\nliving being is a singly determined existence. The question is, Are\nthere facts in nature which would contradict this one and single\ndetermination?\n\nI confine myself to the most promising instance, that of the am\u0153ba\nmultiplying themselves by fission. This fact, interpreted according to\nscience, would mean that here energy divides itself, exists alongside\nitself, since Weismann says that at the moment of partition neither\nof the two cells, if \u201cendowed with self-consciousness,\u201d could say\nwhich was mother and which daughter. \u201cI have no doubt that each half\nwould look upon the other as the daughter, and itself as the original\nindividual,\u201d he says in his _Dauer des Lebens_.\n\nWere there any real necessity to compel such an interpretation,\nthen the single determination of energies would be riddled through\nand through. But there is no compelling necessity, nay, nor even\npossibility, of interpreting what happens after such a fashion. One\nis equally entitled to say that in the sundered sections a new energy\nlays hold. That this daughter-section continues its movements without a\nbreak is no proof of the orthodox conception of what takes place. The\nhuman sperm-cell, after its expulsion from the old organism, also for\na longer time retains its own particular movements. It works itself\ntowards the ovum against the vibratory movements of the epithelium;\nthus, so to speak, against the stream.\n\nIncidentally it may be remarked that this fact alone, interpreted\naccording to physiology, would give rise to a difficulty that must\nrender insoluble the entire problem of fecundation. For this movement\nof the sperm-cell renders necessary the question, \u201cWhen precisely does\nthe actual moment of fecundation occur? Is it at the first signs of\nconception? or at the moment when the sperm-cell penetrates the sheath\nof the ovum? or at the moment of their first mutual contact? or has\nnot fecundation already virtually set in with this endeavour of the\nsperm-cell to get to the ovum-cell?\u201d One might then inquire, after the\nfashion of jurists: \u201cAt what moment precisely is the deed born? Is it\nwhen I carry it out? or when I get ready to carry it out? or when I\nform the resolve to carry it out?\u201d Such are the difficulties that arise\nwhen one seizes the problem of procreation in a purely materialistic\nway. And one is bound to seize it in a purely materialistic way if one\nwould seize it scientifically.\n\nA single fact which contradicts the unique determination of a living\nbeing is not to be found, and never can be found. For this, it would\nbe necessary that energy itself should be accessible, seizable by\nsense; and that is a contradiction in itself. One energy only is\naccessible--my consciousness. And this is _the_ uniquely determined.\n\nSo much for the attitude of the Buddha-thought to the biological\nproblem. To procure acceptance for such views, a broad high-way would\nfirst need to be driven through the jungle of scientific opinions.\nScience divides consciousness and life, making the former merely\nan accident of the latter, and seeking and seeing it only in the\nline of matter. The processes of fission in unicellular organisms\ncall up visions of an \u201ceternal life.\u201d Thereupon men halt and say\nwith full conviction--and justification also, \u201cThe continuity of\nconsciousness is apparently interrupted; the continuity of life is\nnever interrupted\u201d;[31] or else, \u201cIt is no cell-complex that dies,\nbut a concept\u201d;[32] in saying which, so far as the form of the words\ngoes, they entirely agree with the Buddha, and yet in meaning stand so\ndesperately far from him that every hope of an understanding between\nthem is out of the question.\n\nThis inward divergence reveals itself here and there in the _sequel\u00e6_:\nAll the facts connected with the doctrine of generation and the\nhistory of evolution, which in the scientific mode of envisaging them\nbecome insoluble problems, with the Buddha are all resolved in _one_\nthought--that of individual beginninglessness represented by the line\nof Kamma, and so become _the evangel of a new world-conception_.\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n\n                 BUDDHISM AND THE COSMOLOGICAL PROBLEM\n\n\nThis problem treats of the question as to the arising of the world\nin general and life in particular--thus, has its foundation in the\nmethodical play against one another of two absurdities; as indeed\nfollows from the possibility of reversing the positions. If the\nmaterialist asks, \u201cHow has life come into the world?\u201d the idealist\nequally inquires, \u201cHow has the world entered into life, _i.e._ into\nme, into my consciousness?\u201d From the outset, it is obvious that here\nboth are provided with unlimited scope for the performance of mental\nfeats worthy to rank on equal terms with the derring-do of a \u201craging\nRoland.\u201d And as the Duke of Florence asked of the worthy Ariosto,\n\u201cMesser Ludovico, where ever did you learn all those tricks?\u201d so here,\nin similar wise, one might ask, \u201cMaster of the lecture-room, master of\nthe crucible and the retort, where ever did you learn all those tricks?\u201d\n\nFor biologist and physicist the train of reasoning here runs as\nfollows:--\n\n\u201cLife is present! Proof: I, the thinker!\u201d The first rule of play in the\ncosmic game, according to scientific principles, is: \u201cGod\u201d does not\ncount--just as in a vaulting contest the stick does not count. This\ngranted, the whole problem embodies itself in these two possibilities:--\n\n(_a_) Has life arisen through spontaneous generation? (_b_) Has it\ndescended hither from beginninglessness?\n\nThe question of spontaneous generation has undergone manifold\nvicissitudes. Aristotle made use of spontaneous generation with perfect\ningenuousness, not to say unstinted lavishness. The more, however,\ncontinued experiment taught that where one had hitherto imagined one\nbeheld the arising of new life, serious mistakes had been made--that\ngerms of life had found their way into the medium, all the more did men\nturn away from the idea of a _generatio spontanea_. The experiments of\nPasteur seemed to give the decisive blow. Wherever life is present,\nlife is presupposed.\n\nTo-day men give their opinion on the subject of the possibility of\nspontaneous generation with that cautious reserve which has been learnt\nfrom the calculation of probabilities.\n\nA modern physiologist expresses himself as follows:--\n\n\u201cThe question as to whether out of dead substance a living cell can be\nproduced, whether so-called spontaneous generation is a possibility,\ndoes not in the present condition of our knowledge permit of being\nanswered in a decided negative. We are bound to admit the possibility,\neven though all experiments yield a negative result.\u201d[33]\n\nThe necessity which, despite all negative results, compels one to\ncling to the possibility of spontaneous generation, is the truly heroic\nviolence with which biology identifies \u201clife\u201d and \u201ccell.\u201d\n\nThe entire sum of biological wisdom comes to a point in the saying,\n_Omnis cellula e cellula_--against which as little objection is to be\nurged as against the statement of the fact that every living being\narises from another living being.\n\nAt this point, however, geology steps in and plays the spoil-sport\nby producing indubitable proofs of the one-time molten condition of\nour globe, thereby setting an insurmountable limit to \u201clife\u201d in the\nbiological acceptation of the word.\n\nThis fact served as spur to all sorts of attempts at imparting a more\nscientific character to the belief in spontaneous generation.\n\nIn these endeavours the main support received came from organic\nchemistry.\n\nThe first achievement on the road to the chemical \u201csynthesis\u201d of life\nwas W\u00f6hler\u2019s demonstration of artificial urea. But this event has been\nso far outstripped that to-day one only looks back at it in order to\nbring visibly before the eye the progress that has been made in a\ncomparatively short space of time. To-day one is already beginning to\ntalk of the possibility of producing living albumen.\n\nThe following passage from Huxley\u2019s _On our knowledge of the causes\nof the phenomena of organic nature_ may serve as a sample of the\n\u201cscientific circumspection\u201d with which one sets to work upon this most\ndifficult of tasks also.\n\nAfter laying it down that there are two possible proofs of the origin\nof life: first, the historical one as found in geology; and second,\nthat derived from experiment--of which the former is unsatisfactory and\nthe latter not carried out, the writer proceeds:--\n\n\u201cTo enable us to say that we know anything about the experimental\norigination of organization and life, the investigator ought to be able\nto take inorganic matters, such as carbonic acid, ammonia, water, and\nsalines, in any sort of inorganic combination, and be able to build\nthem up into protein matter, and then that protein matter ought to\nbegin to live in an organic form. That nobody has done as yet, and I\nsuspect it will be a long while before anybody does do it. But the\nthing is by no means so impossible as it looks; for the researches of\nmodern chemistry have shown us--I won\u2019t say the road towards it, but,\nif I may so say, they have shown the finger-post pointing to the road\nthat may lead to it.\u201d\n\n_O agnus dei!_ lend me but a little of thy lamb\u2019s patience, that so\nI may be able to smile at this tangle of profound absurdities, this\n_docta ignorantia_. And this they call weighing a difficult problem\nwith \u201cscientific circumspection\u201d! It is not difficult, God wot, to be\ncircumspect when it is the purely imaginary that is in question. For\nthe famous Monsieur \u201cLife\u201d of whose organization and structure mention\nis made above has precisely as much actuality as that Mr. Table d\u2019H\u00f4te\nfor whom the farmer from the country inquired. Such a being is the\nmost effective of subjects for science, for it admits of being solved\nwithout remainder in learnedness. _Quousque tandem professores!_\n\nNo physicist would be so irrational as to say, \u201cI see the wind--in the\nswaying bough of a tree and so forth; I hear, smell, feel, measure it;\nbut where now is he--this Mr. Wind himself?\u201d The biologist, however,\nmanages to say, \u201cI see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think life; but\nwhere now is that unknown god \u2018Life\u2019 himself?\u201d Once for all, Man, know\nthat thy seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking--even\nwere they biological tricks such as thine--are life itself; other life\nthere is not. To seek to have it issue like some homunculus from the\nretort or the incubator--this oughtest thou rather to leave to the\nother poets--the genuine ones!\n\nIt is far from my intention to embark upon polemics; but it is\nwell-nigh impossible to pass anywhere near folly when it masquerades in\nthe black of the most profound seriousness and resist the temptation to\ngive it a good push, so that the public, by the fluttering of the rags,\nmay recognize the hollow scarecrow. But after all, there is some sense\nin everything, even if this \u201csense\u201d is oftentimes \u201cnon-sense!\u201d\n\nThis is one of the attempts made to bring life--as \u201ccell\u201d--and the\nfacts of geology into harmony. The other runs as follows:--\n\nForce and matter are imperishable: it is only the form that changes.\nThe world of astronomy displays this beginninglessness in the form of\nthe ceaseless mutation of the heavenly bodies. Accordingly, organic\nlife also must be beginningless, not as a sort of mystic primeval slime\nbut as a something formed, as a cell or group of cells. Consequently it\nis only a question of explaining how life could find its way over from\na worn-out world into a youthful one just solidifying from the molten\nstate.\n\nThis theory presents a good example of how similarity of sound may\nconceal complete difference in sense.\n\nLike the Buddha, this theory, too, teaches the beginninglessness of\norganized life. But whilst with the Buddha there is an actual new\narising as flames arise new, by an energy encountering the material,\n\u201cstriking in,\u201d here there is only an inept pushing back of the facts\nperceptible to sense; in which latter procedure meteorites are made\nto serve as a sort of cosmic jam-jar, the precious stuff \u201clife,\u201d in a\nconserved condition, so to speak, being passed over therein from one\nworld to another.\n\nA variation of this problem is the question as to whether \u201clife\u201d\nhas arisen on the earth in one single place, or in several places\nsimultaneously.\n\nIn the Buddha-thought all such questions are reduced to impotence.\n\nThe Buddha teaches:--\n\nThere are countless worlds; and as here on our world things may be\ndestroyed by fire or water, or otherwise, so also with the worlds in\nspace.\n\nBut as the disintegration of anything here on the Earth only means its\nreintegration anew in some other place, so also is it with the worlds.\nNothing is destroyed, nothing perishes: it is only that a change\ntakes place in the centres of tension--nothing more. An Earth, a Sun,\na Jupiter, a Sirius, and so forth, as identities, as corporealities\ncomplete in themselves--these as little exist as there exist identities\nas personalities. Even as here, so also in the infinitudes of space,\nthere are condensations having their foundation in definite energical\ntensions which, for the sake of easier comprehension and because\nthe process runs its course at a rate of speed sufficiently low, we\ndesignate by the names of Earth, Sun, Jupiter Sirius, and so forth.\nLike every _I_-process that presents itself to my senses, they possess\nsignificance only as symptoms; they are nothing but forms in which\ncertain definite energies make themselves manifest.\n\nIn the Buddha\u2019s system there are no such things as worlds in\nthemselves. A world is nothing but the summation of the single\nprocesses of which it is made up, just as a banquet is nothing but the\nsummation of the guests and the ingredients of the feast. As birds\nflock together because there is something present that attracts them\nin large numbers; as crows gather round a mango-stone; as a saline\nsolution from the centre of shock outwards proceeds to crystallize; so\ndoes this unitary experience, whether it manifest itself in organic or\nnon-organic shape, conglobate into cosmic groups, burst into systems\nof worlds. Here one must hold to it firm and fast that \u201cnon-organic\u201d\nis not the converse of \u201corganic,\u201d but is simply the not organic, and\nan indication that energies are here concerned upon which we ourselves\neven by analogy can say nothing.[34] For the rest, however, all is\nthe same--all is the self-interweaving of energy and material--all is\nSankh\u0101ra. Whether the processes are of such a nature as in the course\nof their development to permit of flowering forth into consciousness\nor whether they are not--this makes no essential difference. When\nthe Buddha says: \u201cThe arising of the world will I teach you,\u201d and\nthen proceeds with his sequence of thought: \u201cWhere the eye and forms\nare, there arises visual consciousness; the conjunction of the three\nresults is contact; contact yields feeling,\u201d and so on; or when he\nsays: \u201cThe world is where the six senses are\u201d--this is not meant in the\nphilosophical idealistic sense. There is no arising of the world other\nthan that experienced at every moment as a self-interweaving of energy\nand material in me, in every being, in every process in the world.\n_The summation of this individual experience--that is the world._\nOther world there is not. This moment that now says \u201c_I_\u201d--this is the\narising of the world, and never and nowhere in all the universe does it\ntake place otherwise. As eater, as self-nourisher, I am _world-maker_\nin the strictest sense of the word. In this actual world nothing\nnew arises. Centres of tension, tendencies, shift about hither and\nthither, heave up and down like mist-wreaths over the dark depths of\nunfathomable abysses--a beginningless coming together, a beginningless\nfalling asunder, in which nothing persists save the never-sated thirst,\nthe ever-sleepless lust for food. It is the terrible game \u201claw\u201d\nthat here is played. Worlds, the arena; fates, the players; and the\nprize--nothing!\n\nIn connection with such a beginningless integration and disintegration,\nto speak of a condition of greater or lesser development is the\nnotion of a child. As little as the clenched fist is more developed\nthan the five fingers outspread, just as little is a world in space\npeopled with thinking, living beings more developed than one spread\nout in masses of nebula; all things are only phases in a beginningless\nproceeding here presenting itself to me symptomatically, but of which\nI obtain a direct comprehension in consciousness. To ask whether suns\nand Milky Ways are without beginning is meaningless; for they are\npositively nothing else but the expression of the hither and thither\nmovement of energies; but that which I now experience in consciousness,\nthat is--rightly considered--beginninglessness itself; and the\nself-integration and self-disintegration of worlds is nothing but the\nfunctional concomitant phenomenon of the beginninglessness of the _I_.\n\nIf now such a Lokadh\u0101tu (world-system) goes to decay, this, conformable\nto its nature, is nothing but a summation of single dyings. The Kamma\nof the single things takes fresh hold in the universe there where it\ncan take hold--and therefore _must_ take hold. Actual energies take\nhold immediately, independent of space and time. There is no need to\ntrace their course from meteorites and cosmic nebul\u00e6, from one heavenly\nbody to another, somewhat as one might trace a letter from its place\nof postage to its destination; but even as our thoughts are immediate,\nindependent of time and space, as our loves are able to \u201clay hold\u201d in\nthe remotest ends of the earth, so do the Kammas lay hold immediately,\nindependent of time and space, in the most distant abysses of\ninfinitude, even to where no light-year any more can measure--lay hold\nthere, whither, in virtue of their propensities, their tendencies, they\nreach out.\n\nFrom the commanding position of such a conception it follows that\nBuddhist cosmogony does not fit in with our crude astronomical\nideas. As it is not always the case that \u201cbirds of a feather flock\ntogether\u201d--there are solitary denizens of air, noble creatures that\nwing their way through the ether alone--so Buddhist cosmogony makes\nmention of solitary beings who segregate themselves at the initial\nbeginnings of a new world.\n\nWhen, after the break-up of a system of worlds, here and there worlds\nagain begin to form, to sprout; when again here and there energies take\nhold even because they can take hold, then these beings appear as pure\ncreatures of light, self-luminous, wheeling through boundless space,\nthrough boundless epochs of time, compact all of light, compact all of\nbliss, yet even as we, belonging to the world, differing only in the\ncircumstances and antecedent conditions of their \u201ctaking hold.\u201d\n\nOne reads of this in the colossal thought-symphony of the Brahmaj\u0101la\nSutta of the _D\u012bgha Nik\u0101ya_. It is thus that a spirit speaks who has\nburst through the barriers of self-imposed conceptions and unimpeded\nlaunches out into the infinitudes where thought finds never a bound\nsave that itself enjoins, nor any halt save that it sets itself.\n\nIn conclusion I recapitulate:--\n\nLike all the other problems of science, this too is of a dialectical\nnature. One is operating with one identity \u201cworld\u201d and another\nidentity \u201clife,\u201d and afterwards strives in vain to bring the two into\ncomprehensible association. In the simple entertaining of such ideas\none has cut oneself off from every possibility of a solution. There\nis no identity \u201cworld,\u201d no identity \u201clife.\u201d There are nothing but\nself-sustaining, _i.e._ beginningless processes which here and there\ngroup themselves into systems of worlds. If one has comprehended the\nwhole world as Sankh\u0101ra, there is no cosmological problem. World and\nlife are there as the beginningless unity of \u201cprocessioning.\u201d\n\nAs a working hypothesis, what service is here rendered by the\nBuddha-thought?\n\nThe Buddha-thought explains how it comes to seem as if life had a\nfirst beginning upon a world. For as a matter of fact there is such\na first beginning, and it permits of being proven historically and\ngeologically. All this is beyond possibility of dispute: it is only\nthe interpretation that is mistaken. This first beginning is such,\nmuch in the same way that the spring welling from the rock is the\nfirst beginning of the river. It is the first beginning only where\none objectifies the river as an identity. If science seeks to explain\nthe first beginning of life by spontaneous generation, she resembles\na man who should derive the spring from the rock itself. If she seeks\nto derive the first beginning of life from other worlds, she then is\nlike a man who would fain derive the spring as such, as an abstract\nobjectified something, from one or another of various localities. Only\nin the Buddha-thought is the first beginning of life conceived of in\na genuinely cosmogonical manner, as form of the play of world-events.\nIt is no migration of duly shaped and formed \u201cspring\u201d-elements, which\nout of atmospherical vapour and the waters of the sea fashion a spring,\nbut a self-displacement of centres of energy. In the selfsame way\nit is no migration of life-elements hither out of other worlds, but\na self-displacement of centres of energy, which makes it that life\n\u201csprouts\u201d anew upon a world. Here, to speak about a first beginning as\nsuch, and consequently of a condition of greater or lesser development,\nhas about as much meaning as if one should speak of a condition of\ngreater or lesser development in the case of the waters of the ocean,\nthe vapour of the atmosphere, the fountain on the hill. What is true\nwith reference to science\u2019s problem of heredity is even more true of\nher cosmological problem: it is wholly Hebraic.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XI\n\n                  BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF THOUGHT\n\n\nThe fact that a world exists simultaneously involves its existence _as\nsuch_, _i.e._ as our idea.\n\nAll speculations and theories about the world are thus of a secondary\nnature. Their existence were a sheer impossibility if the world, apart\nfrom its being in existence at all, were not also existent _as such_,\nas idea, conceptually.\n\nIn the foreword to his _Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, R. Avenarius\nsays:--\n\n\u201cThis work makes the attempt to comprehend all theoretical relations\nwhatsoever ... as consequences of one single, simple postulate.\u201d\n\nThis \u201csingle, simple postulate for all theoretical relations\u201d is the\n_possibility_ of such a thing, _i.e._ the fact that conscious ideas,\nconcepts, exist. _The concept is the problem of all thought_; and to\nseek to master the world epistemologically before one has mastered the\nconcept, is sheer waste of time.\n\nNow, in the matter of concept thought is in this awkward plight, that\nthe former offers nothing objective that can be made to serve as a\npoint of departure in any possible attempt at comprehension.\n\nThis simple consideration alone implies that every attempt to come at\nthe fact \u201cconcept\u201d inductively, _i.e._ with the implements of science,\nis hopeless, indeed absurd. And each fresh attempt in that direction\nonly supplies another proof of the truth of the Buddha\u2019s teaching that\nall mental life perforce is bound up with ignorance as to itself.\n\nIn what follows I shall endeavour very briefly to sketch the various\nmistaken paths that here have been traversed.\n\nAs everywhere, so also with regard to the fact \u201cconcept,\u201d the two\nantitheses faith and science stand ranged over against each other. As\neverywhere, so also here, the fact \u201cconcept\u201d presents no problem to\nfaith. Just because I am endowed with a soul, a \u201cforce in itself,\u201d I\npossess the power, the ability to form concepts. As everywhere, so\nalso here, the paradoxical character of faith makes itself palpably\nmanifest: the fact of the formation of concepts is by it accepted as\nproof that an inconceivable in itself must be present.\n\nOpposed to it stands science, which seeks to explain and is bound\nto explain how such an occurrence as the formation of concepts has\never been able to come about. Her task falls into two main divisions.\nOn the one hand, there is the demonstrating of the subjective,\nantecedent conditions of the concept; this is done in the physiology\nof the different organs of sense. On the other hand, there is\nthe demonstrating of the objective, antecedent conditions of the\nconcept--objects, the external world.\n\nOf this task the subjective part, and the entire fruitlessness of the\nsame, have already been dealt with in another place. The objective\ndivision comprehends philosophy in the broadest sense of the word. For\nevery theory and speculation as to the world may without exception be\ntraced back to this one question: \u201cHow must the world be fashioned to\nrender possible the fact that consciousness-contents, conscious ideals,\nconcepts, exist--in fine, that the world exists _as such_?\u201d In this\nquestion is comprehended all philosophy, as the tree is comprehended in\nthe root.\n\nAll the theories as to the constitution of the world that have ever\nbeen advanced or that will ever be advanced, branch into these two\nfundamental views:--\n\nFirst: the view that at the foundation of things there exists a\nconstant in itself, an unconditioned constant, an identical with\nitself, or whatever else one has a mind to name it.\n\nSecond: the view that there exists no such unconditioned constant\nat the foundation of things, but that all that exists is merely a\nrelation-value, and that the one single constant in the universe is the\nconstant of relations formulated abstractly in scientific law.\n\nNow, to the impartial observer the world presents itself in a twofold\naspect: on one hand as \u201csomething that is,\u201d and on the other as\n\u201csomething that happens.\u201d In the former of these two fundamental views,\nthings would be something that _has_ happening, something that has\nthis happening proceed forth from it. In the latter view, things would\n_be_ the happening itself, would resolve themselves completely into\nhappening.\n\nAs already set forth at length in what has gone before, this latter\nconception is that given for science as the mechanical world-theory.\nScience, if she would justify her title to the name, dare not accord\nrecognition to anything concealed behind things, anything imperceptible\nto sense. If this be granted, \u201cthat which is\u201d then becomes purely a\nform of \u201cthat which happens,\u201d and the universe in its entirety one\nhuge mass of relation-values. For a thing is perceptible to sense and\ntherewith apprehensible only in so far as it enters into relations with\nother things, which includes, with my senses.\n\nAny third view is impossible, for, from the strictly epistemological\nstandpoint, opposites, between them, always comprehend the whole.\nFrom the standpoint of strict epistemology, with any kind of thing as\na concept--with the concept \u201ctree\u201d for example--all the rest of the\nworld is given as \u201cnot-tree\u201d--so completely given with it that the\ninterpolation of any third concept is an utter impossibility.\n\nIt may be asked, \u201cIn what do these two opposed fundamental views find\ntheir justification?\u201d\n\nAll things exist for us only in so far as they are perceptible to us.\nThey exist as appearances, as the sum of their properties. If now\nthe thinking mind would have anything made wholly manifest, wholly\nperceptible to sense--would seek to have something made wholly and\nentirely _appearance_, there always remains a residue that refuses to\nbe made manifest, refuses to be made perceptible to sense. Speaking\ngenerally, one may say: Applied thought seems to conduct to a something\nlying at the foundation of things, to a constant in itself, of which\nall properties, all in things that is perceptible to sense, are only\nso many different expressions. The idea that all that exists does so\nin virtue of a constant in itself, presents itself as a _necessity of\nthought_, which science must oppose by every means if she would retain\nher title to the name of science.\n\nSince this constant in itself is of necessity an imperceptible to\nsense, it imposes no restrictions upon apprehension. One is perfectly\nat liberty to conceive of it in quite contrary forms--as matter or\nsubstance, equally as well as under the form of force. If one holds\nby the former mode of conceiving it, then, whatever the guise its\nelaboration in thought may assume, one belongs to the school _of\nmaterialism_. If, on the contrary, one holds by the latter mode of\napprehension, one then belongs, quite independent of the form its\ndetailed elaboration in thought may assume, to the _idealistic_ school.\nFor the correct appraisement of our whole mental life, however, it is\nimportant clearly to understand that the opposition is only an apparent\none. Both alike have one common root in the idea of an _unconditioned\nconstant_ lying at the foundation of things, which, summed up, may be\ndesignated as _the substans_ (_das Substans_) of all appearances. _The\nsubstance_, accordingly, results purely as the material form of this\n_substans_, while the force represents its immaterial form: the one\nbeing as well--and as ill--authenticated as the other, since one knows\nnothing of either, nor ever can know anything.\n\nIf now one follows up the various transformations that have taken\nplace in this domain within historical times, one finds that, as is\nalso the case in the domain of natural science, they occur following\nthe law of the _inversion of positions_. Does the one school, whether\nit be the materialistic or the idealistic, force its way into such a\npreponderating position as to become intolerable to sound common-sense,\nit is forced to give place to its opponent, which then for a season\ntakes the lead, only, after a longer or shorter period, to undergo\na like fate. It is like a game of see-saw. All the acuteness, all\nthe profundity, all the mental florescence which the one school has\nmanifested in the course of centuries of labour perhaps, in this period\nof decline are brought to destruction, and only by ardent collectors\ncan be rescued and preserved as a pal\u00e6ontological form of mental life.\nAt bottom, the whole of philosophy up to each new \u201cnow\u201d is nothing\nbut a more or less tastefully-arranged pal\u00e6ontological collection of\nthought-values.\n\nAbove and alongside this play of inversions betwixt idealism\nand materialism--which I might call the inversion of the _lower\norder_--there takes place another inversion of a _higher order_.\n\nIn certain intervals the human understanding begins to offer serious\nresistance to both the worldviews that base themselves on the\nconcept of _substans_ in its two possible forms--that of substance\nand that of force--by hastening over to one that is the contrary of\nboth, a world-conception from which _substans_ is wholly absent, a\nworld consisting entirely of a mass of relation-values. This latter\nform of world-conception alone has the right to the designation of\n\u201cscientific.\u201d For there can be no science, properly so-called, where\nthe subject dealt with is any shape or form of an imperceptible to\nsense.\n\nNow, the first inversion of the higher order with which we in our\nWestern circles of culture are acquainted has, to be sure, a slight\nenough scientific cast. It is the inversion that set in with Protagoras\nthe Sophist. With his thesis, \u201cMan is the measure of all things--of\nthose that are, that they are; of those that are not, that they\nare not\u201d--he places himself in an attitude of opposition to both\nworld-conceptions founded on the concept of _substans_; for in both\nthese conceptions things, as existing in virtue of an unconditioned\nconstant, must also be the measure of man.\n\nThe appearance of Protagoras was a naturally-resulting protest against\nthe absurdities to which materialism and idealism had mutually driven\neach other. The former found its culminating point in Democritus of\nAbdera, who left nothing in the world but matter in the shape of atoms.\nThe latter reached its corresponding culmination in Plato, who left\nnothing in the world but the immaterial _substans_, ideas, to whom\nthereby matter became the non-existent.\n\nThe whole procedure of Protagoras conveys the impression that his\ninversion was of a purely dialectical nature. For the style and manner\nin which he formulates his new point of view leaves to humanity for\nall its mental life nothing but mere opinion. His dictum as to man\nbeing the measure of all things takes no account of a natural order of\nthings. To this perhaps may be attributed the fact that his philosophy,\nhowever arresting it may have been in his own day and time, set forth\npersonally by this gifted mind, has yet proved itself to be but little\npermanent.\n\nAfter the see-saw between idealism and materialism had proceeded\nfor some two thousand years more, the new inversion of the higher\norder set in with a mighty whirlwind, the most powerful, the most\nsystematically-delivered attack upon the notion of _substans_ that\nWestern philosophy had ever experienced--the philosophy of Hume.\n\nHume\u2019s philosophy, briefly stated, consists in the investigation of\nwhat exhibits itself to sense-perception considered as based on a\npossible content of _substans_--in unravelling it to the last thread\nand pointing out to his contemporaries with irrefutable clearness and\nacuteness, \u201cSee there, you people! a constant in itself is nowhere to\nbe found!\u201d\n\nHume is frequently alluded to as a sceptic. I consider, on the\ncontrary, that his philosophy is the purest criticism precisely where\nin philosophy criticism may be practised at all--namely, upon the\nconcept of _substans_, whether in material or immaterial form.\n\nEvery criticism of _substans_ culminates naturally in criticism of\nthe notion of an _I_. For Hume, the _I_, the self, became a bundle, a\ncollection of separate mental representations \u201cthat follow one another\nwith inconceivable rapidity and are in a state of perpetual flow,\ncontinual motion.\u201d\n\nBut a criticism of the notion of _substans_ is incomplete without a\ncriticism of the concept of cause; for the intuition that all that\nexists must have an adequate cause is likewise a necessity of thought.\nNow, where there is a constant in itself, a _substans_ in things,\ncausality is an actual _following after one another_ of cause and\neffect, this \u201cconstant in itself\u201d being also \u201ccause in itself\u201d of\nthat which happens, the latter therefore, as \u201ceffect in itself,\u201d\nrepresenting a simple following upon that cause in itself, in such sort\nthat between the two there exists a necessary--I might almost say--a\nrigid dependence; whereupon the question, \u201cHow is a relation between\nthe two possible?\u201d becomes a problem that defies solution.\n\nHence it follows that one is bound to hold the problem of causality as\na correlate of _substans_. If the latter falls, the former falls along\nwith it.\n\nAs the notion of a constant in itself becomes in the criticism of\nHume a simple product of imagination, so for him does the concept of\ncausality become the simple outcome of use and wont. Because in our\nrepresentation of things we frequently observe two things to follow one\nupon the other, we assume that a necessary dependence exists between\nthe two. Hume solves both these problems by declaring them, without a\nmoment\u2019s hesitation, to have no existence at all.\n\nAfter Hume, the see-saw game of the lower order went on for a time.\nUpon the intellectual materialism of the eighteenth century--especially\nas it prevailed in France, where it was represented by such men as\nLa Mettrie and Von Holbach--there followed the idealism of Fichte,\nSchelling, and Hegel. After this had exploded of its own gaseousness,\nthe scientific materialism of the nineteenth century set in, and up to\nour day has continued to hold the upper hand, though now it seems to be\nswinging back in a new idealistic movement.\n\nAlongside of this a new inversion of the higher order has managed to\nprepare itself, making its appearance in two distinct forms, of which\none is the direct successor of the criticism of Hume, while the other\nderives from physics.\n\nThe former is modern positivism, as developed in particular by Ernst\nMach and R. Avenarius. The latter is the so-called world-theory of\nenergetics, as represented more especially by Ostwald the physicist.\n\nBoth schools partake of a purely scientific character in so far as\nthey aim at furnishing world-theories from which a _substans_ is ruled\nout--seek to frame a world consisting solely of relation-values, a\nworld in which the one thing constant is the constancy of the relations.\n\nA third school, modern monism, as represented especially by Haeckel, is\nnot scientific at all.\n\nAs already said, it is of the essence of every scientific view\nthat it should apprehend the entire play of world-events purely as\nrelation-values. Such a world-conception is bound always to set out\nfrom the midst of the play of events, with things already in full\nswing. Modern monism, with its teaching of primordial life in the form\nof a primordial cell or some other primordial form, is science only in\noutward appearance; at the core it is unmitigated superstition, and\nought to be regarded as such by every thinking man, for it betrays\nitself such by its uncritical abuse of ecclesiastical dogma.\n\nAfter this historical review, given with the utmost possible brevity,\nwe have to inquire:--\n\nWhat is the reason then for this insufficiency of the _substans_-views,\nwhether it refer to a material or to an ideal _substans_ in things? Why\nare materialism and idealism alike devoid of any kind of demonstrative\nability?\n\nThe answer to this is:--\n\nBecause both alike are hampered by a contradiction within themselves.\nThis contradiction becomes manifest in the fact that such a world as\nwould be yielded by the concept of _substans_ would be so constituted\nthat in it the fact \u201cconcept,\u201d _i.e._ the fact that a world exists as\nidea, would be bound to remain an eternally insoluble problem.\n\nThis necessarily results from the following considerations:--\n\nIf there is any _substans_ lying at the foundation of things, it must\nbe a \u201cconstant in itself\u201d; as such, however, it must be something\npossessing no possibility whatever of entering into relations with\nother things, in any kind of way. If it cannot do this, neither can\nit become perceptible to sense. If it does not become perceptible to\nsense, it cannot become a content of consciousness.\n\nHere it may be said: \u201cBut it is not _substans_ itself, but its\nexpressions, _i.e._ things, in so far as they are properties,\nfunctions, that enter into relations, whether with other things or with\nthe organs of sense of living beings.\u201d But from this we could never get\nanything else but a summation of disconnected sense-impressions. The\nthread, so to speak, needed to string the sense-impressions together\ninto a complete, coherent, mental representation would be missing.\nEverything, so far as it exists for me as a concept, would have to\nbe the expression precisely of a _substans_ lying at its foundation.\nBut to possess a conscious mental representation of this as an\nunconditioned constant is a contradiction in itself. Hence the fact\nthat there are concepts, _i.e._ that a world as such exists, _i.e._\nthat there is a world at all, is a direct contradiction of the idea of\na _substans_ in virtue of which things are supposed to have existence.\nWith the admission of this idea, every possibility of understanding how\nsuch a thing as a content of consciousness ever could come to be, is\nwholly excluded.\n\nIn point of fact, all life, within the boundaries of materialism and\nidealism, exhausts itself in fruitless attempts to furnish more or\nless ingenious explanations to account for the connection between the\nphysical and the psychical. Hence the perpetual game of see-saw between\nboth, and the utter inadequacy of either to the genuine thinker,\nhowever much ability may be displayed within the limits of the position\nchosen. All becomes valueless, because the outcome of a presupposition\nthat is a standing contradiction of itself.\n\nAnd now, how stands it here with the view of the world from which\n_substans_ is absent?\n\nAs already said: Where the idea of _substans_ is torn out of the play\nof world-events, nothing remains but a world of pure relation-values\nwherein the one thing constant is the constancy of the relations.\n\nNow, every relation is precisely the inconstant, the unstable, in\nitself. The heat that springs up with the friction of two objects\nmay--nay, _must_ be looked upon as a relation-value springing up anew\nwith each new moment. Every moment may be represented as consisting\nof an infinite number of fractions of a moment; in short, it is the\nunstable in itself.\n\nIf now one apprehends the whole play of world-events as\nrelation-values, thereby not only do the phenomena resulting from the\nplay of things upon one another, but also the things themselves, become\nsimple relation-values, and so also examples of the unstable in itself.\n\nInto anything by nature an unstable, connection can only enter through\nme, the beholder, introducing it in my comprehension of the same. Here\nthe binding thread is lacking in things themselves; with the idea \u201cpure\nrelation-values\u201d one has pulled it out oneself, as is proven by modern\npositivism itself, even if unwittingly, when it seeks to replace the\nold succession of cause and effect by the timeless function-concept\nof mathematics--a thing possible only where the actual cohesion is\nabsent.[35]\n\nWith this, however, one stands in a position of contradiction to\noneself, _i.e._ to actuality. For if the whole play of world-events,\nwithout any exception, is only a relation-value, then I myself am a\nrelation-value also. But if that were so, \u201cmemory\u201d would be impossible.\nIn \u201cmemory\u201d I _experience_ the cohesion of myself, and through myself\nprove to myself that I am not a mere relation-value. As such--as Hering\nrightly remarks in his lecture _Das Ged\u00e4chtnis_--our consciousness\nwould consist of just as many splinters as one could count moments;\nwhich is simply an analytical mode of expression for the fact that\nthere would be no consciousness at all. This in turn would mean that\nthere could be no world _as such_, as our mental representation. And\nthis in its turn would mean that there could be no world at all. For it\nis absurd to speak of a world where there is no consciousness in which\nit is represented as such. Without consciousness, however it might run\nits course, experience would know nothing of itself.\n\nThe conception of a world-theory devoid of _substans_ thus also\nterminates in a contradiction in itself, even as those world-theories\nwhich operate with the conception of a _substans_.\n\nAs a matter of fact, every scientific view of the world demonstrates\nits inadequacy in respect of this first question in that it answers it\nin a manner against all common-sense without itself observing that this\nis so.\n\nAccording to the view of science, concepts have their origin in\nexperience and come to be through the discarding, the letting drop, of\nthe unessential. But in order that a concept may come into existence\nafter such a fashion, it is necessary that it exist beforehand as a\nthing given, in the same way that a statue can only come forth from out\nthe block of marble through the discarding of the unessential, when it\nis already given ideally in the mind of the artist.[36]\n\nAs already remarked, all attempts to frame a view of the world upon\npurely scientific lines, to comprehend the play of world-events as\nsimple relation-values, present themselves in a twofold form. Making\nphysics its point of departure and from thence working its way forward,\none view endeavours to prove the law of the conservation of energy\nvalid also for non-reversible processes; this is the world-theory of\nenergetics. The other view follows the results of criticism; this is\nmodern positivism.\n\nThe entire value of the world-theory of energetics is distinguished by\nthe following consideration:--\n\nIts axis, its thorough bass--so to speak--is the law of the\nconservation of energy; once this gives way, no energical world-theory\nis possible.\n\nAs, however, has been explained in another place, nowhere in actuality\ndo conditions obtain corresponding to this law. Its existence\nmerely as a possibility demands an artificial premiss--a completely\nclosed system; but this exists only as an ideal ultimate concept\n(_Grenzbegriff_)--nowhere in actuality.\n\nIf it is desired to make use of the law of the conservation of energy\nwith a view to erecting a world-theory thereupon, one must set up\nthe entire universe hypothetically as a closed system in itself. The\nlogical consequences that necessarily follow from this supposition are\ndetailed at the close of Essay VI.\n\nThe purely ideal nature of the point of view occupied by science in\nthis whole picture of the world is at once evident from the simple fact\nthat, in order to maintain the constancy of the sum of energy in the\nuniverse, she here finds herself in the predicament of still having to\n\u201chandle\u201d as energy heat that no longer permits of being transformed\ninto mechanical work--that is, heat that exists only as an empty\nconcept.\n\nAt this stage I wish once more to insist that this entire world-theory\ndoes not at all operate with actual energies, but only with the\n_expression_ of actual energies, with their _reaction_ as presented in\n_work done_. It assumes work and energy to be synonymous; which is\nabout the same as if one assumed shadow and light to be synonymous. As\nshadow attests nothing save that light is present, but attests this of\nnecessity, so work attests nothing save that energy is present. Ostwald\nin his _Naturphilosophie_, after expressly assuming work and energy to\nbe alike, proceeds thus:--\n\n\u201cWith the exception of energy, all the other concepts whose importance\ncomes second to that of the law of the conservation of energy, find\ntheir application only within a limited field of natural phenomena.\nEnergy alone finds itself again, without exception, in all natural\nphenomena; that is to say, all natural phenomena permit of being ranged\nunder the concept of energy.\u201d Further on he says: \u201cAll that we know\nof the external world we can represent in the form of propositions\nconcerning actually-existing energies; hence the concept of energy\nproves itself in every way the most universal that science has yet\nframed. It comprehends not only the problem of substance, but also that\nof causality.\u201d\n\nTaken literally, word for word, all this is quite correct, and yet\nas a whole is founded in a total misunderstanding of actuality.\nThat all natural phenomena should admit of being ranged under the\nconcept of energy, _i.e._ of _work done_, is due solely to the\nfact that _everywhere actual energies_ are in activity; of these\nenergies, however, we know nothing, absolutely nothing; and their\nuniversal presence is proven solely by the universal presence of\nwork. And that work is only the reaction of actual energies is made\nevident by the fact that the one single _actual_ energy we can get\nat--consciousness--is the one single value in the universe which never\nunder any circumstances admits of being \u201cread\u201d as work.\n\nWhen further on in the same volume it is said:--\n\n\u201cAs regards the inverse endeavour to comprehend energies apart from\nmatter, for long one dared not attempt such a thing, albeit it was\nsoon perceived that as a matter of fact all we ever learn about the\nworld consists solely of a knowledge of its energical relations....\nWe will, therefore, venture the attempt to build up a view of the\nworld from which the concept of matter will be absent, a view composed\nexclusively of energical materials (_i.e._ of the fact _work_),\u201d this\nhas about as much meaning as if some one should say, \u201cI will endeavour,\nout of shadows and their innumerable modifications alone, to furnish\na complete theory of light.\u201d Here we have to do simply with the\noccurrence designated in another place as the \u201cinversion of positions.\u201d\nFrom an extreme materialistic position one leaps at a bound into an\nequally extreme energical position--each position as purely dialectical\nas the other. If only one held by _actuality_, one would of oneself\nrepudiate as a profitless mental diversion the very _attempt_ to erect\na world-theory upon such premisses. On such one may build up physical\nsystems, achieve technical successes, measure, compute in advance--in\nfine, carry on scientific studies; but one thing one can never do--out\nof them build up a view of the world. For a view of the world in which\nconsciousness excludes itself from that which is to be comprehended,\nhas precisely as much value as a numerator without a denominator.\n\nThe law of the conservation of energy is purely a reading of the\nphysical facts, _i.e._ of the play of world-events in so far as\nit manifests itself in the form of reversible processes--thus,\nas re-actual; and as such is also recognized by physicists of\nintelligence.[37]\n\nAt this point, however, the biologist enters and plays the part of the\ncountryman at the theatre by taking the picture for the reality itself.\nHe argues with that logical acuteness such as is only possible where no\nactuality stands in its way: \u201cIf the law of the conservation of energy\nis really a universal law, the life of the brain must be just as much\nsubject to it as the reversible processes that are not dependent on\ntime.\u201d Thus, Hering says in his lecture on \u201cMemory\u201d already alluded to:\n\u201c(The facts of mind, consciousness, and so forth) cannot make the human\nbody to be anything else but that which it is--a complex of matter\nsubject to laws not to be turned aside by anything,--laws followed by\nthe material of the stone, by the substance of the plant.\u201d\n\nWith this, however, the biologist is put in a difficult position. He\nis all unaware that the reversible processes are \u201csubject\u201d to the law\nof the conservation of energy, _i.e._ may be read by it, only because\nit is possible here to be satisfied with reactions, only because here\none does not need to know anything about the energies themselves,\nbecause here there is no \u201c_I_\u201d-sayer who might raise objections to\nsuch a mode of apprehending things. The greatness, the exactitude of\nphysics consist precisely in this, that she confines herself strictly\nto the realm of reactions. In the life of the brain, so far as directly\nmanifested--as consciousness--there are no reactions. The fact\n\u201cconsciousness\u201d in others is not accessible to me; and as for myself,\nhere action and reaction always merge into one another, though I go to\nwork with never so elaborate psycho-physiological precautions.\n\nHence the necessity of ever and again laying out fresh frontier\ndomains, such as bio-chemistry, bio-kinetics, and so forth and so on,\nso as to be able to say with Lady Macbeth, \u201cWe are yet young in deeds!\u201d\nThus, patience! Let us but once get these new courses drawn up and\nthen--how the results will come flowing in!\n\nBut the only new thing about these courses is the name! In truth, here\nas everywhere, we have to do with the old, original problem \u201clife\u201d--at\nonce our hope and our despair. And to all these new courses, by means\nof which men hope to master the old problem, applies that answer of\nPompey\u2019s favourite cook when his master marvelled at the host of\ndifferent dishes, \u201cAll one meat: only the sauces are different.\u201d For it\nis even the same here, \u201cAll one thing: only the names are different.\u201d\n\nAfter all our vain attempts to subject consciousness also to law, this\nremains as our final wisdom, that the mutual dependence between the\nmental and the material is a thing subject to law; that is, we assume\nas axiom to begin with, that which we are going to prove, whereby we\nproduce nothing but a paraphrase of the Buddha-thought, nothing but\na lifeless formula of the actuality itself--that the _I_-process is\nsubordinate to no laws, can _have_ no laws because it _is_ law itself.\nAnd the worth of the Baconian maxim that truth may more easily come\nforth from error than from confusion, is here put to a severe test, for\nhere are combined both error and confusion.\n\nI now proceed to a brief account of the other school--that of modern\npositivism.\n\nWhat makes this system so interesting for us is the originality of its\npoint of departure. Despite the fact that for the most part it has been\ndeveloped by a physicist, it starts with the idea, unheard-of previous\nto perhaps twenty-five years ago, that the next step in the progress\nof science is to be looked for not from physics and its methods,\n_i.e._ the non-personal, but from the personal, from the study of\nsense-perceptions.[38]\n\nSince positivism, like every scientific world-theory, must apprehend\nthe play of world-events purely as a sum of relation-values, one of its\ntasks is to come to an understanding with the concept of substance.\nAs the direct successor of the criticism of Hume, its position\nwith respect to the concept of substance remains the same as with\nHume: the existence of such a concept is ascribed to the faculty of\nimagination. Because one can remove any single constituent part of a\nthing without the image thereof ceasing to represent the total whole\nand to be recognized again as such, it is assumed that all may be taken\naway and that something will still remain behind. \u201cThus arises the\nmonstrous idea of a thing in itself, different from its appearance and\nunknowable. The thing, the body, the matter, and so on, is nothing else\nbut the complex of colours, sounds, and so forth, nothing more than the\nso-called characteristics.\u201d[39]\n\nAnd now it is a question of formulating a new view with respect to a\nworld thus stripped of the concept of substance.\n\nAll previous attempts at world-theories have made shipwreck on the\nfact that it was impossible for them in any wise to comprehend the\nconnection between the physical and the psychical. What is original\nabout the onset of positivism is this, that it starts out with\npsycho-physical units as world-elements.\n\n\u201cHence perceptions and conceptions, the will, the feelings--in brief,\nthe entire inner and outer world--are made up of a limited number\nof homogeneous elements now in volatile, now in rigid combination.\nThese elements are usually called sensations; since, however, this\nname already implies a one-sided theory, we prefer to speak simply\nof elements.\u201d[40] Again: \u201cIt is not the bodies that beget sensation\nbut the complex of sensations (complex of elements) that fashion\nthe bodies. If to the physicist, bodies appear to be that which is\npermanent, real, and sensations, on the contrary, their fleeting,\ntransitory appearance, he forgets that all bodies are only mental\nsymbols for complexes of sensation.... Thus the world for us does\nnot consist of so many problematic beings, which through action and\nreaction with another equally problematic being, the _I_, beget the\nsensations alone accessible to us. Colours, sounds, spaces, times ...\nfor us are the ultimate elements whose given connection we have to\ninvestigate.\u201d[41]\n\nThis I call supplying a world-theory from the entire, completed play of\nworld-events. The only question is, \u201cFrom a mental starting-point such\nas this, how stands it with the fact of all facts--_I_?\u201d\n\nWell, it goes badly, very badly indeed, with the poor fellow! Like a\nlump of sugar in a big tub of water it melts away incontinent into the\nall. On this point one should read pages eight and nine of the _Analyse\nder Sinnesempfindungen_. To cite them here in full would take up too\nmuch space. The train of thought there developed concludes with the\nwords: \u201cAccordingly the _I_ may be so extended as finally to cover and\nembrace the whole world.\u201d\n\nIt may be asked, \u201cHow out of this cosmic _I_-solution does the yet\nactually existing _I_-deposit come about?\u201d The answer is, \u201cThrough\naccommodation.\u201d The _I_-concept is a convention adapted to a certain\nend, a procedure pertaining to the economy of thought.\n\n\u201cThe gathering together of the elements being connected with pleasure\nand pain, into an ideal unit of the economy of thought, the _I_, is of\nthe utmost significance to the intellect standing at the service of the\npain-shunning, pleasure-seeking will.\u201d[42]\n\nWhat attitude shall one adopt towards a structure of thought which is\nnothing but an ingenious description, a picture of the fact \u201clife,\u201d\nwhose wealth of ingenuity, however, is purchased at the cost of a\ndownright, deadly indifference in respect of this same fact, _i.e._ in\nrespect of actuality?\n\nEpistemologically the world is as free as a bird. Any one who chooses\nmay exercise his intellectual faculties upon it. The above view,\nmoreover, is expressly put forward as a theory, a reading. But after\nall there is one requirement every theory must fulfil, and that is that\nit shall not contradict itself. And that this theory does in the most\nflagrant fashion.\n\nModern positivism may be briefly characterized as the application\nof the definition of the \u201cconcept\u201d in general to the _I_-concept in\nparticular. As the concept in general can be represented, \u201cread\u201d as a\nprocedure appertaining to the economy of thought, so here in a frankly\nunexampled dis-actualizing of actuality, the _I_-concept is to be\n\u201cread\u201d as a procedure appertaining to the economy of thought. But here\neven the slightest attempt to think _in terms of actuality_, forthwith\nconducts into the absurd. For an _I_-unity must first be given in order\nthat it may comprehend itself as an _I_-unity. On the other hand, were\nthe _I_-concept purely a procedure in the economy of thought, what is\nthere to prevent the thought-economy once in a while from demanding\nto read me as an _I_-duality? a thing that has so far never been\nentertained in the brains of thinking men, but only in the cells of\nlunatic asylums.\n\nPositivism is overtaken by the same fate that overtakes every\ncriticism, as, for example, that of Hume,--commonly and incorrectly\ncalled scepticism,--it finds no substratum for the _I_-concept. And the\nkeener its search, the more critical its procedure, the more thorough\nits unravelling, the more is it strengthened in this its mental\nrepresentation.\n\nWith this, pure criticism has no more that it can do. It must even\ncontent itself with this negative result. Positivism, however, seeks to\nround out this negative result into a world-theory and so obtain its\nworld consisting of elements of sensation--a world in which there is no\nclearly outlined, definitely determined _I_ at all.\n\nFrom a starting-point of this peculiar kind there follows, on one hand,\nsuch a similarity of expression on the part of both, as to produce an\nalmost uncanny effect. On the other hand, however, there is such a\ndifference in essence as could scarcely be more pronounced. In brief:\nmodern positivism is the faithful mirror-image of the Buddha-thought,\nand thereby accomplishes in the dis-actualizing of actuality what only\nthought can accomplish at all.\n\nIn the Sa\u014byutta Nik\u0101ya a monk asks the Buddha, \u201cWho has contact?\nwho has sensation?\u201d To whom the Buddha replies, \u201cThe question is\nnot admissible. I do not say, \u2018He has contact.\u2019 Did I say, \u2018He has\ncontact,\u2019 then the question, \u2018Who has contact, Reverend Sir?\u2019 would be\nadmissible. Since, however, I do not say so, then of me that do not\nspeak thus, it is only admissible to ask, \u2018From what, Reverend Sir,\ndoes contact proceed?\u2019\u201d\n\nIn close correspondence with this, one reads in E. Mach\u2019s _Analyse\nder Empfindungen_, \u201cIf a knowledge of the continuity of the elements\n(sensations) leaves us unsatisfied and we ask, \u2018_Who_ has this\ncontinuity of the sensations? _who_ experiences sensation?\u2019 we are\ndominated by the old habit of classifying each element (sensation) as\nan item in an unanalysed complex, and thereby unwittingly descend to\nthe older, lower, more limited point of view.\u201d\n\nBut whilst with positivism this mode of expression proceeds from the\nnotion of an _I_ that can be \u201cread\u201d from the play of world-events\nas a unity pertaining purely to the economy of thought,--a coldly\ncontemplative point of view--with the Buddha it issues from the idea\nof a beginningless, burning actuality that asserts its individual\ntendencies regardless of the external world. Man by his nature is an\neater. To seek to dispose of him as a simple spectator is to play with\nconcepts. All that is actual by its very nature is aliment.\n\nHerewith, as regards the problem of the concept, we stand in presence\nof the Buddha-thought. Before I pass to it, however, I consider it\nincumbent upon me, with respect to the criticism of positivism, yet\nonce more in this place to emphasise the fact that nothing is further\nfrom my desire than to engage in polemical discussion. As a physicist,\nErnst Mach is in my opinion one of the most original, nay, perhaps the\nmost original of the thinkers of our day and time. His _Mechanik_ and\n_W\u00e4rmelehre_ are genuine products of intellect, works of fermentative\nvalue, and in this regard rank high above the smooth classicism of an\nH. von Helmholtz. One only marvels the more that a mind of such calibre\nshould be able to find pleasure in such like mental diversions.[43]\n\nWhen positivism says, \u201cThere is no substratum to the _I_-concept,\nconsequently the _I_-concept is the product of fancy and \u2018actually\u2019\nadmits of being extended to cover the whole world,\u201d it is unaware that\nbetween and above the two extremes--the _I_-concept as the expression\nof an unconditioned constant, as a soul substance, and the _I_-concept\nas the expression of a fancy--there is a third alternative, the\nactuality itself, as pointed out and taught us by the Buddha, that\n_concepts do not exist at all but only the conceiving_, and that the\n_I_-process, albeit no unconditioned constant, dwells therein, is\nnot on that account something dissolving over the whole world, _but\nis something conceiving itself at every moment of its existence_,\neven as the flame is a thing conceiving itself at every moment of\nits existence. By no inductive method can the limit of a flame be\ndefined with regard to its environment, and yet there is such a limit,\nbecause the flame at every moment of its existence limits itself. Its\nvery existence is just this self-limitation. In the very same way no\ninductive method can define the limits of the _I_-process: so far\nthe positivists are right. But this fact by no means imports what\npositivism understands by it, that the _I_-process can now be dilated,\nspread out to any extent one chooses: it only intimates that the _I_\nconceives itself and _alone_ conceives itself, and therefore cannot\n_be conceived_ inductively. When a blow swishes down, even the most\ncorrect-thinking of positivists can tell whether it has struck him or\nnot. He \u201cconceives\u201d himself at every moment.\n\nWhere the _I_-process is cognized as a pure process of alimentation,\n\u201cconceiving\u201d perforce receives a physo-psychical double meaning,--or\nrather, that unitary meaning which comprehends in itself both the\nphysical and the psychical. All existence, whether manifesting itself\nobjectively or subjectively, is here a \u201cconceiving,\u201d and this unitary\n\u201cconceiving,\u201d in which is comprehended the essence of all life, alike\ndevours both--concept as thing conceived.\n\nWhere there is nothing save \u201cconceiving,\u201d grasping the external world,\nthere are neither concepts nor anything fixed and stable, anything\ncorresponding to these concepts; and the purely dialectical nature of\nthe whole problem of the \u201cconcept\u201d at once stands revealed. Such a\nproblem can only have being while one is working with the notion of a\n\u201cconceived,\u201d which latter must always be also a \u201cgrasped,\u201d a defined, a\ncomplete in itself--in brief, an identity. Where there is nothing save\nprocesses of combustion, of alimentation, each moment of the play of\nworld-events represents a new, unique, biological or _Kammic_ value,\nwhich never before has been and never again will be. In such a universe\nthere are no identities. Where there are no identities there are no\nthings conceived. Where there are no things conceived there are no\nconcepts; there is found nothing save a beginningless reaction to the\nouter world. And the problem \u201cconcept\u201d presents itself as the negative\nof all other problems, so to speak, the latter in their totality being\nfounded upon the idea of a something conceived, be it as a physical, be\nit as a physiological, biological, cosmological identity.\n\nThis is one of the points where the genuine thinker must make good his\nhold. It is like a rift in the clouds, through which the searching eye\npenetrates into a new world, passes out of a world of error in which\nwe all see under the form of conceiving and conceived, of subject and\nobject, into a world wherein all oppositions blazing, melt and dissolve\nin the beginningless glow of Becoming.\n\n_There are no concepts as there is no conceived._ This idea one must\nthoroughly have thought out if one would understand the Buddha, his\nteaching, and his attitude towards certain questions.\n\nAll commonplace thinking, of scientist as of layman, takes its stand\non concepts, _i.e._ operates with the notion of a conceived, with the\nnotion of identities.\n\nIn formal logic this fact finds its due expression in the laws of\nidentity and of contradictories. For both these laws existence is only\npossible where and for so long as there are things conceived, things\nconfined, identities; they have simply no meaning with reference to an\n_actual_ universe, a universe that is naught save a sum of combustion\nprocesses. This is the intellectual measuring-rod by which to test\nwhether any one is thinking _in terms of actuality_ or not: Do or do\nnot the laws of identity and of contradictories hold good for his world?\n\nJust as Aristotle reproached Heraclitus with violations of the law\nof contradictories,--for this really limited mind knew not, never\neven suspected that actuality in its entirety is nothing else but one\nhuge violation of the law of contradictories,--just as the sun is a\nviolation of an absolutely correct-running chronometer, so do western\nscholars repeatedly reproach the Buddha with violations of the law of\ncontradictories; whereby they only prove but that they understand\nneither the Buddha nor actuality.\n\nIn Oldenburg\u2019s _Buddha_ one reads:--\n\n\u201cThe art of definition was something which the era of the Buddha did\nnot possess; that of demonstration was only evolved as far as the\nfirst rudiments. An especially characteristic feature of this mode of\nthinking ... is a decided antipathy to pursuing the consideration of\nthings back to their ultimate principles.\u201d\n\nMisericordia! What shall one say of the herd when the leading bull\npoints in such paths! A teaching whose greatness resides in the fact\nthat it shows how all definitions are only essays which owe their\nexistence to the faulty formulation of the question, is reproached with\nits lack of definitions! A teaching which points out that the fact\n\u201c_I_\u201d of necessity implies life and the beginninglessness of life,\nis reproached that it does not involve itself in the blind alley of\ncontraries called in the language of logic, \u201cprinciples.\u201d The Buddha\u2019s\none and only concern is to teach, to point out that there is nothing in\nthe world to be defined; hence, also, no instruments for this purpose:\nprinciples. That herewith the whole of science goes by the board--what\nmatters that to the seeker for truth! Hearken, good people! Here goes\nby the board a great deal more than science!\n\nTo see how the Buddha bore himself with reference to this question of\nprinciples, one ought to read the magnificent Kevaddha Sutta--Sutta\nXI. of the _D\u012bgha Nik\u0101ya_--where a monk craves information as to the\nbehaviour of the primal elements of matter. The Buddha meets the\nquestion as the genuine thinker alone can, with the weapon of humour.\nFor absurdities cannot be dealt with at all otherwise, if one would not\ndrown in them past hope of help. The scene in the court of Mah\u0101 Brahm\u0101,\nthe great Brahma, is perhaps the most gigantic that human humour has\never conceived. Here music alone, the humour of Beethoven\u2019s symphonies,\nperhaps may risk comparison.\n\nTo the Buddha naught exists save actualities, eternally fermenting,\nseething, simmering actualities that melt and dissolve all drosses of\ndefinitions in their fiery glow or ever they are able to come to birth.\n\n\u201cThe art of demonstration was only evolved as far as the first\nrudiments.\u201d I maintain that every single word in this sentence is\nfalse or incorrect. The art of demonstration in the philosophical\nsystems that surged all about the Buddha, was developed to a height\nit never can reach among us for the simple reason that our speech and\nour brains have lost the necessary flexibility. One has only to read\nthose great Suttas that I might call the transcendental Suttas, such\nas the Brahmaj\u0101la Sutta of the _D\u012bgha Nik\u0101ya_, in order to see that as\nwell speech as brain with us have become so stiff in mechanical views\nas to be no longer capable of following up and thinking out all these\npossibilities, all these species and sub-species of idealistic and\nmaterialistic views. But it is just for this reason that the Buddha\nis called the \u201cMaster-guide.\u201d Like the guide in the catacombs, where\nat every step the unacquainted are threatened with irretrievable\nerrors, calmly and surely he takes his way through this wild tangle\nof method, through this rigid logic of the absurd. Serene and clear\nhe recognizes, perceives, \u201cIt is altogether conditioned; it is all of\nthe mind\u2019s own devising.\u201d Again we have the delicate irony that comes\nof commanding insight, when in another discourse he says, \u201cThere are\nwise men who call day night, and night day.\u201d How could one hit off more\naptly certain tendencies of modern science--that astounding faculty it\ndisplays for interpreting actuality in accordance with preconceived\nideas? All those imposing definitions that for our minds and for the\nhuman mind in all ages, have possessed such an intoxicating quality,\nare only possible where one fabricates artificial cores around which\ndialectical processes can crystallize, and crystallize out all the more\nsplendidly the more carefully one protects them from the rude shocks of\nactuality. The loftiness and subtlety of our conceptual constructions\nis nothing but the water-mark that indicates the height of our\nignorance. There is certainly much that is confusing for our thought,\nbrought up as that has been under the sway of Aristotelian logic, to\nsee concepts merge and blend upon whose clear differentiation the\nlogical possibility of the entire system seems to rest--such concepts,\nfor example, as _kamma_ and _sankh\u0101ra_, _kamma_ and _vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a_, _kamma_\nand _ta\u1e47h\u0101_, and so forth. It may easily happen that the seeker for\ntruth may suffer shipwreck on such apparent contradictions. But in\nsuch case it is with him as with one who is stranded on the lighthouse\nitself--blinded by its very light!\n\nTo be able to follow the Buddha here, one must have understood him.\nWhat Jesus said of himself in terms of emotion, that, but in terms\nof understanding, the Buddha also can say, \u201cBlessed is he that is not\noffended in me.\u201d\n\nSo long as one continues to take the concepts with which he is\noperating for positive, firmly established realities, so long is it\nquite impossible to avoid all these violations of exact thinking. It\nis said, \u201cIf Sankh\u0101ra is the process, it cannot be the energy itself,\nand _vice versa_.\u201d One insists, like the countryman, upon getting one\u2019s\nbill, and has the feeling of intellectual superiority into the bargain.\n\nBut there is this to be considered: When, for instance, I wish to\ndefine a combustion process, I am at liberty to do so just as it\nhappens to occur to me, either as light, or as heat, or as chemical\naction, and so forth. On each such occasion I include the whole\ncombustion process in its entirety, and yet none will say, \u201cIf the\ncombustion process is at any one time light, it cannot also be heat,\nfor in that case light and heat would be just the same thing. That\nwould be a violation of the law of contradictories,\u201d \u201cargal\u201d ... as\nthe grave-digger in _Hamlet_ says. But such grave-digger\u2019s logic is\nfollowed out in every particular by exact thought when it deals with\nactuality. It is the pure content of actuality in the Buddha\u2019s teaching\nthat renders it irreconcilable with logic. That teaching is not\nillogical, but simply a-logical. The model of the syllogism does not\napply to it at all. For even thus are things in actuality: What at one\nmoment one thinks to have grasped, comprehended, that, next moment, is\nswept away in the never resting flow of Becoming. Actuality does not\nplay a game that complies with the established rules and regulations\ncalled logic: one game only does it play--the grim game of necessity.\nAnd this game may be won, not by him who with abstract fences and walls\nand dykes for a brief space fashions to himself a little world-garden\nof his own, but only by him who dares to vibrate in unison with the\niron rhythm of a beginningless necessity.\n\nIt is the indispensable task of every earnest thinker who would\nreally follow the Buddha, experience him in himself, to make clear to\nhimself, and ever and again make clear, that our whole mental life,\nour concept-world is based upon artificial premisses, in which, in\nthe strictest sense of the words, not life must serve truth but truth\nlife. As the spider itself flings forth its web over the abyss, so from\nout ourselves we fling forth in the form of concepts an inextricable\nnetwork of airy roots. As the ape from bough to bough, so springs the\nhuman mind from concept to concept, and has itself borne aloft by the\nentire network, where any single thread would rend beneath him, each\nindividual bough snap under him and precipitate him into the bottomless\ngulfs of an endless infinitude. All that circulates in daily life in\nthe way of mental values are pure concept-values, bills of exchange\nupon actuality. But in the hurry and bustle of traffic no one has\ntime or inclination to go and get these bills turned into actual\ncurrency. Just as they stand they are passed along \u201clike a basket\nfrom hand to hand.\u201d Hence the terrible predominance of ideals, the\ntyranny they exercise over our minds, and so over genuine education and\nculture. Whoso has experienced in himself the collapse of ideals, the\ntaking up of the bills of current concept-values at the counter of\nactuality,--he well understands why the Buddha calls his intuition an\n\u201cawakening.\u201d It is the awakening out of the dream-world of concepts.\n\nA Buddha, in short, is a man who dares to _live_ this his insight that\nthere are no concepts and accordingly nothing conceived, but only a\n\u201cconceiving.\u201d Hence his attitude towards many questions, and above all\nto that question as to how one ought to picture to oneself a Buddha, or\none who after this life is re-born no more.\n\nThe scheme of the questions runs thus: 1. Where is he re-born? 2. Is he\nnot re-born? 3. Is he re-born as well as not re-born? 4. Is he neither\nre-born nor yet not re-born?\n\nTo all these sophistical questions the stereotyped answer of the Buddha\nis, \u201cThat does not apply\u201d--an answer, naturally, which gives plenty of\nscope for the profoundest conjectures and hypotheses, but which only\nmeans that the question is wrongly put and therefore renders impossible\nany answer at all. A being that with this as his last existence, is\nproceeding towards extinction, that will never again be re-born _is no\nlonger existent_, even in the form of concept; hence the whole question\nis meaningless.\n\nHere, again, it is impossible to do anything like justice to the\nwhole problem with the chess-moves of a profound play of thought:\nonly a witticism meets the case. All this ingenious logic that would\nfain take the measure of actuality with the laws of identity and\ncontradictories as with some yard-stick, which advances against truth\nwith the apparently irresistible demonstrating force of its \u201caut ...\naut,\u201d resembles nothing so much as those ingenious questions with\nwhich the child is wont to tease the grown-up person as to the nature\nand dwelling-place of Santa Claus. Another child would be able to\nanswer these questions with an equal ingenuity; the grown-up person\nis powerless to meet them. In the same way the scholars of the west\nwould be perfectly capable of meeting and satisfying the questions of\na Vacchagotta with equal \u201cacuteness of logic.\u201d The Buddha cannot do\nit. All he can do is to try to sweep away the accumulated rubbish of\nmisunderstood concepts, and on the thus cleared foundation, cause a new\nclean structure of thought to arise, the essence whereof resides in\ncomprehending that such a thing as the foregoing question refers to has\nno existence, neither abstractly nor actually; hence, that the question\nis in itself devoid of meaning.\n\nThis is the whole secret here lying hidden. The interpretation given\nby Oldenburg to the words of the nun Khem\u0101, are based upon a complete\nmisunderstanding of the entire Buddha-thought, as is everything else he\nsays concerning the final goal of Buddhism. But that pertains properly\nto the Nibb\u0101na teaching.\n\nBuddhism is the doctrine of actuality, and its value as a view of the\nworld from the standpoint of epistemology, lies in the fact that it\nteaches us to accept actuality as actuality. To this idea it is itself\na martyr, inasmuch as its own teaching here is nothing ideally fixed\nand fast, but only an incitation to experience it in one\u2019s own self; it\nis \u201ca raft, designed for escape; not designed for retention.\u201d Hence,\nis it said in the powerful Dh\u0101tuvibha\u00f1ga Sutta--Sutta CXL., _Majjhima\nNik\u0101ya_--\u201c\u2018I am,\u2019 monk, is a believing. \u2018Such am I,\u2019 is a believing. \u2018I\nshall be,\u2019 is a believing. \u2018I shall not be,\u2019 is a believing. \u2018I shall\nhave a form,\u2019 is a believing. \u2018I shall be formless,\u2019 is a believing.\n\u2018I shall have perception,\u2019 is a believing. \u2018I shall be devoid of\nperception,\u2019 is a believing. To entertain believings is to be ill. To\nentertain believings is to be infirm. To entertain believings is to be\nsick. When, however, all entertaining of believings is overcome, then\nis one called a right thinker.\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now it may be objected:--\n\n\u201cIf there are no concepts, _i.e._ things conceived, at all, but only\nan individual conceiving, an external, self-renewing reaction to the\nexternal world, how is the possibility of our various experiences to be\nexplained?\u201d\n\nTo this the reply is:--\n\nExperiences, as understood in the vulgar sense, there are none\nwhatever. Our perceptions are purely token-values out of which\nexperiences may be derived in the same way that practical results may\nbe derived out of a sum of algebraical token-values by cancelling out\none against the other. Here must be borne in mind what was treated\nof in our sixth Essay. With the perception \u201cgreen\u201d I get no positive\ncontent of knowledge, but merely the fact \u201cnot-red, not-yellow,\nnot-blue,\u201d and so forth.\n\nAt this point we are confronted by the so-called epistemological\nproblem, to the which, therefore, we now must devote some little\nattention.\n\nThe question which forms the subject-matter of this problem is this:\nHow is it possible from bare perceptions, mere sense-impressions, ever\nto arrive at conscious ideas, concepts, experiences?\n\nThis problem is associated above all with the name of Kant.\n\nStarting with the idea that the sense-impressions received from\nwithout, contain no element out of which experience, _i.e._ an inner\nconnection of individual impressions, could ever be developed, he\ntaught that in the subject there was contained a business capital, so\nto speak, which, given _a priori_ to all experience, upon the occasion\nof the activity of the organs of sense, came to fruition. This business\ncapital he called the given _a priori_ faculty of cognition.\n\nThe practical significance of this teaching lies not so much in itself\nas in the fact that in contrast to it the position of the natural\nsciences is formulated all the more clearly and distinctly: the passage\nfrom bare perceptions to experience is of a purely empirical nature.\n\nThe erroneous features in such ideas find some support in certain\nmisunderstood physiological and pathological facts.\n\nPhysiology teaches that the human infant does not \u201csee\u201d but only\n\u201clooks,\u201d _i.e._ he is the percipient of impressions from without in\nvirtue of the existence of sense organs, but he attaches no meaning\nto these impressions. It is the same with the grown-up person after\ncertain lesions of the cerebral cortex, in animals from which the brain\nhas been artificially removed, and so forth. From this the conclusion\nis drawn that bare perceptions may be transmuted into experiences and\nthat the condition of experience can again sink back into a condition\nof bare perception.\n\nSuch ideas are supported by the teachings of many philosophers who\nmake the young living being to enter the world as a _tabula rasa_, so\nto speak--as an empty pot which only now is to be filled with material\nfrom this world.\n\nAll such ideas of the existence of bare perceptions, apart from\nany content of experience, are based upon a misuse of the word\n\u201cperception.\u201d The infant has no \u201cperceptions.\u201d He \u201cexperiences\u201d under\nthe circumstances and antecedent conditions proper to himself. It is\nonly we, the adult, who, looking back, can speak of the existence\nof bare perceptions at this stage, somewhat as, looking back, we\ncan record of C\u00e6sar\u2019s Commentaries: \u201cWritten in the year so and so\nbefore Christ.\u201d Wherever there are perceptions, a certain content of\nexperience also is always present, were it only this, that with respect\nto any definite perception one has no experience at all! To separate\nperception from experience and then pose the question: \u201cHow can pure\nperceptions pass into experience?\u201d is the same as to separate shell\nfrom kernel and then ask, \u201cHow can the kernel ever get into the shell?\u201d\n\nThe truth is this: The kernel cannot get into the shell at all; both\nalike are the outcome of a single process of growth. And in the\nselfsame way experience cannot get into the perceptions at all; both\nalike are the outcome of a single process of growth. We learn to\nexperience as the flame learns to burn, the flower to blow. We can do\nnothing save \u201cconceive,\u201d lay hold of the outer world. Experiences, as\nimagined in vulgar thought, there are not. Such would be \u201cconcepts,\u201d\nand where there are \u201cconcepts\u201d there must be \u201cthings conceived.\u201d Where\nthese are, there must be identities. Where there are identities, there\ncan be no processes. Where there are no processes, there can be no\nactuality.\n\nAll that we call experience is, so to speak, of the nature of a\nparallax. Otherwise put: All our knowledge is only the expression\nof our ignorance. I can say of anything that I know it, only as set\noff against the total mass of all that I do not know. An _actual_\nexperience would require that I should be able to prognosticate\nsomething with _unconditioned_ exactitude.\n\nIt may further be objected:--\n\nIf there are no actual experiences, how can I ever come to have this\nexperience--that there are no experiences? For if it also is no actual\nexperience it has no value. If, on the other hand, it is an actual\nexperience, how is such a thing possible?\n\nThe answer is:--\n\nThrough an intuitive comprehension of my own self, whereto I receive\nthe inciting impulse from the Buddha-teaching.\n\nWith this, we come to the final objection:--\n\n\u201cIf there are no concepts, what then is that as which I conceive\nmyself?\u201d In plain words, we are now confronted by that pivot and pole\nof all thinking--What is self-consciousness?\n\nOn the problem of self-consciousness, a teaching is compelled to show\nwhether it is actual or not. For nothing in the world has sense and\nmeaning in itself, but acquires such only through its relation to me,\nonly from out of self-consciousness.\n\nTo the question, \u201cWhat is self-consciousness?\u201d the answer given is,\n\u201cConsciousness of oneself.\u201d That, however, is an answer which in\nsubtlety and ambiguity outdoes every utterance of the Pythian oracle.\nFor it may just as well mean, \u201cThe consciousness of a self in me\u201d--the\nexpression of a pure absolute--as, \u201cThe consciousness conscious of\nitself\u201d--the expression of a pure relative. Self-consciousness is the\noracle of nature. Faith interprets this oracle in the former sense;\nscience in the latter.\n\nTherewith, however, both are at odds with themselves. For a pure\nabsolute that becomes conscious of itself, that enters into relation\nwith itself, is an absolute no longer. And a pure relative that enters\ninto relations with itself is equally no longer a pure relative.\n\n\u201cTranscending these two opposites the Tath\u0101gata points out the Truth in\nthe Mean.\u201d\n\nIs there any mean here betwixt these opposites?\n\nA wandering monk asks the Buddha:--\n\n\u201cHow is it, Gotama? Is there an _I_?\u201d--an Atta, self, as identical with\nitself.\n\nThe Buddha remains silent. The other continues his question:--\n\n\u201cHow is it, Gotama? Is there not an _I_?\u201d\n\nThe Buddha still maintains silence, and the other goes his way.\n\nIf one does not understand the Buddha, it is impossible to interpret\nthis colloquy other than does Oldenburg, for example, in his _Buddha_.\nBut the meaning is quite otherwise than as there given. We here stand\nbefore that which from the standpoint of epistemology constitutes the\nkeystone of the whole Buddha-thought. To understand it fully, we must\ntake a plunge into the heart of modern physics.\n\nOne of the most important forward steps taken by physics--if\nnot technically, perhaps, yet easily the most important\nepistemologically--is its insight in the domain of interference\nphenomena, especially in the examples of the same afforded by light.\nA ray of light reflected back upon itself interferes with itself,\n_i.e._ it forms in itself \u201cstationary waves\u201d which present light as\n\u201cnon-light.\u201d\n\nTo this paradoxical mode of expression, however, one is only compelled\nso long as one identifies light with the energy itself. For the site\nof interference, the nodal point of the vibrations, is just as much\n\u201cenergy\u201d as is the trough of the vibration. And so if one assumes\nlight itself to be the energy, one here has a light without light. In\ntruth, however, light is nothing but an expression of the energy in\nvirtue of which it exists, and it is a stroke of genius on the part\nof modern physics--one, to be sure, which it has perpetrated unknown\nto itself--that in interference it has lighted on the one single\npossibility of making energies perceptible to sense in that one form\nin which alone they are capable of being made sense-perceptible--_as\na pure negative_, a pure _privation_ in the sense-activity of me the\nobserver. As all languages become alike in silence, so all energies\nbecome alike in interferences. As silence only means that there are\nlanguages, so interference only means that there are energies.\n\nWith the fact \u201cinterference,\u201d accordingly, science bears witness\nagainst herself, inasmuch as thereby she brings before our eyes the\nexistence of actual energies in the form of the negative itself. That\nis why I have just called the phenomena of interference the most\nimportant step epistemologically that modern physics has yet taken. For\nif science would but recognize this fact for that which it really is,\nshe would find herself obliged to remodel her whole scheme of thought\nfrom the foundation upward.\n\nThe--for the beholder--purely negative character of the interference\nhas its basis in the entry of the energy into itself. With this we\nstand in presence of the Buddha-thought.\n\nHere the fact \u201cself-consciousness\u201d becomes a pure interference\nphenomenon of _I_-energy. As such it is a pure entering of the\n_I_-energy into itself. As such, again, it is, on the one hand, a\npure negative for the whole external world; on the other hand, to the\nindividual himself, it is a something _immediately_ given, where it\nis simply a matter for correct interpretation, and that, here, in an\nimmediately given, perforce can only be intuitive.\n\nIn this insight into the nature of self-consciousness, the _I_, more\nsharply than anywhere else, defines itself as a something that only\ncomprehends itself, while at the same time comprehending the world as\nbeing incomprehensible. In this insight the silence of the Buddha in\nthe face of Vacchagotta\u2019s questions explains itself. For, as long as\nthe _terminus technicus_ \u201cinterference\u201d is not formulated, the question\nis unanswerable. An interference at once is and is not. It is the\nimmediately given for the individual himself--the not given at all for\nothers, for beholders.\n\nThe acceptance and elaboration of this thought is facilitated by the\ndata of physiology and psychology.\n\nThe entire course of man\u2019s development is to be apprehended as a\nsurging back by degrees upon himself, a \u201cre-flecting\u201d in the most\nliteral sense of the word. Man is the \u201creflecting\u201d living being, the\nword being understood as well in its physical as in its psychical\nsense. The whole process of development from infant to adult is a\ngradual becoming acquainted with himself. Disgust, shame, are as\nyet unknown to the infant. These are evolved only as phenomena of\n\u201creflection,\u201d as a wave of experience running back upon the individual\nhimself, and finding its conclusion in the matured self-consciousness.\nThis self, however, is the stationary wave; at every moment the same\nand yet another; the--for me--_immediately certain_, as which it\npresents itself in consciousness; the--for others--not present at all.\n\nIn the foregoing it has been shown that both these varieties of\nattempts at world-conceptions, as well that based upon the concept\nof _substans_ as that which takes the whole play of world-events\nfor pure relation-values, thereby deprive their own selves of the\npossibility of existence, since from both points of view a world of\nconcepts never could come to be. The Buddha solves the problem by\npointing out that there is no such thing as a world of concepts; in the\n_I_-world, however, the world itself and the world _as such_--the real\nworld and the world of ideation--merge into one in the interference\n\u201cself-consciousness.\u201d And this is the answer to the question, \u201cHow\nmust the world be fashioned to render possible the fact that it is\npresent _as such_?\u201d\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe insight into the essential nature of self-consciousness is _the_\nintuition.\n\nThe value of an intuition is to be judged by what it accomplishes as a\nworking hypothesis.\n\nWhat does the Buddha-thought accomplish here?\n\nThe answer is:--\n\nIt clears up the whole relationship of mental life towards the concept\nof _substans_.\n\nEvery consistent application of the laws of thought seems perforce to\nconduct to an \u201cunconditioned constant\u201d situated at the root of things,\nlying, however, beyond all possibility of demonstration.\n\nIn this matter three positions are conceivable:--\n\n1. The position of faith which sees in this the proof of an\nimperceptible to sense in itself--an absolute.\n\n2. The position of science which sees in this a consequence of the\nimaginative faculty. Its ally is philosophical scepticism--or rather,\ncriticism, chiefly as represented by Hume.\n\n3. That position formulated by Kant with his \u201cthing in itself,\u201d which\nmay be briefly characterized as a position of the most resolute\nindifference towards this most important of all epistemological\nphenomena. When in his _History of Materialism_, Lange, in agreement\nwith Kant, says: \u201cWhat right have we to occupy ourselves with \u2018things\nin themselves\u2019 at all?\u201d this simply means, \u201cWhat right have we to think\nat all?\u201d By this stroke, which Kant carried out by the formulation of\nhis \u201cthing in itself,\u201d he has proved himself one of the most hurtful of\nall noxious creatures found on the tree of the mental life of humanity.\nHere he has done as much harm as scholastic obtuseness only can do\nwhen it steps forth in the polished, mirror-clear armour of a complete\nlogic. But this is not the place to enter any further into that matter.\n\nUpon all these three possibilities the Buddha sheds a simultaneous\nflood of light, illuminating sceptical criticism especially, in the\nmost exceptional manner.\n\nThis latter proves in entirely incontestable fashion that a _substans_\nseated at the root of things has no existence, yet all its proving\npossesses not the slightest conclusiveness. Hume, with all his\nacuteness, falls completely under that paradigm given by R. Avenarius\nin his _Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, where a savage contends with a\nmissionary as to whether or no a spirit inhabits in all things. The\n(unbelieving) missionary is made to say, \u201cI have investigated all these\nthings and never anywhere have I found the spirit.\u201d To which the savage\ncounters, \u201cI have investigated them all too, and never anywhere have\nI failed to find the spirit.\u201d Indeed, this example admits of being\nextended thus far in that the savage must feel himself reinforced\nin his notion of an immaterial _substans_ by the very fact that the\nother, despite all his search, has found nothing. He would say, \u201cJust\n_because_ you have found nothing, therefore I am right!\u201d\n\nLike the two opposing views of the world, criticism also operates with\na contradiction of itself. To be consistent, the criticism of Hume, as\nevery criticism, ought to run somewhat as follows:--\n\n\u201cA _substans_ in things is not demonstrable; these present themselves\nto me only as a bundle of relation-values. If there is no _substans_\nin things, how comes it that the idea of a _substans_ finds a place in\nme? Through experience? That, here, were a contradiction in itself;\nfor this idea exists in me, the critic, only in so far as I deny its\nexistence. Consequently there must be something given in me which\nsupplies the foundation for this idea. But I can unravel myself also,\nto the very last thread and here, too, find nothing but a bundle of\nrelation-values. The one thing in this bundle which I cannot embrace in\nmy comprehension, is this my own capacity of unravelling myself, _i.e._\nmy consciousness. On this, consequently, I must in fairness withhold\nmyself from passing any judgment.\u201d\n\nWith this, thought would have so prepared itself--so far as such a\nthing is possible from its own resources--as to be able to take up and\nwork out the Buddha-thought as inciting impulsion.\n\nFrom this point the Buddha-teaching, put briefly, would continue:--\n\nAll human thinking, without exception, operates with the concept of a\n_substans_ lying at the root of things. Thou also, the critic, must\nconform thyself to the rule. It is a _necessity of thought_. The ground\nof this is, that in point of fact a _substans_ does lurk in things; not\nas a \u201cconstant in itself,\u201d however,--such a thing, to be sure, thou\ncanst through thy rigid analysis exclude--but solely as _that which\ngives the continuity of the process_, its maintenance, as an _actual_\nlaw of formation. This law of formation _becomes_ accessible to thee,\nthe individual, in consciousness. To see into that, however, thou\nmust be taught. So long as that does not come to pass, it is a matter\nof taste or of natural inclination as to whether thou wilt interpret\nthe facts accessible to sense as significant of _substans_, or of the\nabsence of _substans_. For in the facts themselves there lies nothing\nthat impels either in the one direction or the other. The decision lies\nsolely with that unique something _by means of which_ you bring all\nthese facts before yourself--namely, with consciousness. To bring this\nitself before you, however, as a \u201cfact,\u201d this is as impossible as that\nany one should be able to bring his back before him though he should\nturn himself about never so swiftly and dexterously. To comprehend this\nunique something--for this, instruction is needed; and following upon\nthis instruction, _growing insight_ (intuition). If, however, thou wilt\npermit thyself to be instructed, then shalt thou learn that both these\nthought-necessities--that of adequate cause as that of _substans_--here\nmerge into one. _The idea of \u201csubstans\u201d_ here becomes a form of the law\nof adequate cause. Both necessities of thought--that of adequate cause\nand that of _substans_--merge and blend into one in the Kamma teaching\nof the Buddha.\n\nWith this the circle is closed; the end interlocks with the\nbeginning. We have discharged our self-imposed task of assigning the\nBuddha-thought its place in the life of the mind.\n\nNothing has been said touching the problem of the freedom of the will,\nnor on the problem of deity which involves that of immortality.\n\nThe former of these is the problem of morality; the latter, the problem\nof religion. Their due place is in the successor to this volume.\n\n\n\n\n                               CONCLUSION\n\n\nIt is clear, without further need of demonstration, that with the Kamma\nteaching of the Buddha there is given the ferment of an actual morality\nas of an actual religion. A morality and a religion are _actual_ when\nthey are functions of cognition.\n\nAll morality rests upon selflessness. If selflessness is not to be\nblind asceticism or equally blind training, it must have a motive.\n\nThis is supplied by the Kamma teaching.\n\nFor where I apprehend myself as a process that sustains itself through\nitself, _i.e._ through its volitions, I know that in every moment I\nmyself fashion the next moment, and with this present life, the life\nthat shall follow it. In correct insight I become in the most literal\nsense the architect of my fate.\n\nFrom this, selflessness follows as an evident necessity.\n\nAll religion consists in the need of looking beyond this life, of\nrelating it to another, a higher. The Kamma teaching reveals to me that\nit is the succeeding life to which this life \u201cis related.\u201d\n\nFrom this, morality and religion follow as functions of cognition.\n\nOne perceives that such a teaching as this perforce involves profound\nchanges in the appraisement of life-values, and along with this,\nchanges in the relations of the individual to his environment, which\nincludes changes in his social relationships.\n\nThe perfumed brutality of our civilization has its root in false ideas\nof the meaning and significance of life, from which results a false\nappraisement of life-values. We take the symptoms for the things\nthemselves, and are drowned in their inexhaustibility without once\nbeing able to win through to ourselves. That we are all steering a\nwrong course must be finally clear to every thinking man. But since\nnone knows of any remedy this is sought _practically_ in a combat\nwith the symptoms--that is, one bails the water out of the sinking\ncraft and forgets to stop the leak; and _theoretically_ it is sought\nin the setting up of all sorts of artificial ideals--that is, in\nemotion-values.\n\nNeither of these makeshifts is of any avail. Help can only come from\nthinking, through the acquiring of a correct idea as to the worth of\nour so-called life-values.\n\nIt is just here that the Buddha-thought comes in as teacher, as\neducator, as revolutioniser of values--in fine, as the _gospel of\nthought_, and gives a new turn to that terrible, blind \u201cstruggle for\nexistence,\u201d to which as to some dread mania, we all are subject.\n\nBuddhism is the doctrine of actuality, the Kamma teaching, the\noutcome of thinking in terms of actuality. To render it accessible to\nthe thinking of the modern man, to make it possible for him to let\nhis glance rove free from out the mole-like existence of aims and\nobjects himself has turned up, away past the overthrown barriers of\na cramping ignorance--for this it is necessary that the non-actual\nand the re-actual forms of world-theory, which, as faith and science\nrespectively, everywhere obstruct free outlook, should be swept clean\naway, or at the very least confined strictly to their own proper\ndomain. Room must be made for actuality and for thinking in terms of\nactuality.\n\nThat was the main task of this book.\n\nBut of such sort is truth that it will not suffer that way be made for\nit by violent measures of any kind. One thing only here is permissible:\nto point it out, patiently and repeatedly point it out. Its way it\nmakes of its own self.\n\n\u201cOver all gifts victorious is the gift of the truth.\u201d\n\n\n                                 THE END\n\n            _Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh._\n\n\n\n\n                             [ Footnotes ]\n\n\n[1] _Mah\u0101vagga_, i. 6, and many other passages.\n\n[2] _Mah\u0101vagga_, i. 21.\n\n[3] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 140.\n\n[4] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 44.\n\n[5] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 38.\n\n[6] \u201cDifferentiate itself\u201d is meant to equate _samucchissatha_, a word\nfor which it is difficult to find an adequate equivalent. It signifies\nthe self-integration of the new being simultaneously with its severance\nfrom the maternal organism.\n\n[7] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 38.\n\n[8] _Buddhism in Translations_, by H. C. Warren, p. 239.\n\n[9] _P\u0101\u1e37i Text_, P.T.S. edition, p. 71.\n\n[10] These two words are not, as most western scholars aver,\naltogether synonymous, for \u201cDhamma\u201d embraces everything--actual as\nwell as re-actual processes. When, on the other hand, it is desired\nparticularly to specify the re-actual processes, the word \u201cSankh\u0101ra\u201d\nserves the purpose. The stereotyped formula: \u201cAll Sankh\u0101ras are\ntransient; all Sankh\u0101ras are painful; all _Dhammas_ are non-self,\u201d\nis not based upon any caprice nor yet upon metrical considerations\n(as Oldenburg asserts in his _Buddha_, 1897 edition, p. 291), for the\nprose versions render the three phrases in exactly the same form,\nas may be seen by a reference to the _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 35.\nOn the contrary, the formula is founded upon a clearly understood\ndistinction between Sankh\u0101ra and Dhamma. The native scholars express\nthis distinction by saying that the Dhammas take in, embrace, the\nelement of Nibb\u0101na. Which means nothing more than that they refer to\n_actual_ processes, to living beings. Western scholars would do well\nto sit at the feet of the native scholars somewhat more than they at\npresent incline to do. Many a misconception might thereby be removed,\nor prevented from ever arising, indeed. An admonition such as this is\nneeded in every nook and corner of our literature upon Buddhism.\n\n[11] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 37.\n\n[12] In P\u0101\u1e37i, _pa\u1e6diccasamupp\u0101da_, which may be rendered as \u201cThe\ntogether-arising in dependence upon.\u201d\n\n[13] Cf. Essay XI.\n\n[14] The texts give the true meaning of _J\u0101ti_ with sufficient\nfrequency, as, for instance, in the ninth Sutta of the _Majjhima\nNik\u0101ya_, as follows:--\n\n\u201cKhandh\u0101na\u014b p\u0101tubh\u0101vo, \u0101yatan\u0101na\u014b pa\u1e6dil\u0101bho, aya\u014b vuccat\u2019 \u0101vuso\nj\u0101ti.\u201d Which means: \u201cThe coming into manifestation of the Khandhas\n(that is, the arising anew of corporeality, sensations, perceptions,\ndiscriminations, and cognition-acts, such as at every moment are\nexhibited in every individual combustion process, every alimentation\nprocess), the ever repeated seizing of the Ayatanas (that is, of the\nobjects of sense, or of that, supported by which--in the objective\nas in the subjective sense--the senses are able to come into\nactivity),--this, friend, is called birth.\u201d\n\nI embrace the opportunity of calling attention to the equally\nmisleading rendering of N\u0101ma-r\u016bpa by \u201cname and form.\u201d The native\npandits laugh at such a rendering. Here N\u0101ma is \u201cthat which bends\u201d\n(n\u0101meti), _i.e._ that which conglobates the material (r\u016bpa) into\nthat specific form through which even it becomes an individual. It\nis not merely name, but the totality precisely of what most is worth\nnaming. As a matter of fact, the pandits of Ceylon explain it as the\nevolutional form of Vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a.\n\nIn harmony with this, in the above cited Samm\u0101di\u1e6d\u1e6dhi Sutta, S\u0101riputta\ngives the following explanation: \u201cSensation, perception, volition,\nthought-contact, cogitation, this is called _n\u0101ma_.\u201d And in the Milinda\nPa\u00f1ha it is said: \u201cWhat is gross, that is _r\u016bpa_; what is of fine,\nmind-like constitution, that is _n\u0101ma_.\u201d In the Abhidhamma exegesis,\nthe so-called N\u0101ma-series is directly identified with Vi\u00f1\u00f1\u0101\u1e47a.\n\n[15] _Samyutta Nik\u0101ya_, ii. 15, 3.\n\n[16] When a modern writer, like T. Loeb in his _Dynamik der\nLebenserscheinungen_, declares living beings to be machines \u201cwhich\nconsist _essentially_ of colloidal matter possessing the property of\nautomatic alimentation and reproduction,\u201d the statement has about as\nmuch value as if one should think to explain the arc-light as something\nthat consists _essentially_ of a stick of carbon possessing the\nproperty of automatically lighting itself every evening and burning\nthroughout the night.\n\n[17] Cf. Essay V., \u201cThe Teaching of Kamma.\u201d\n\n[18] E. Mach, _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_.\n\n[19] Thus, Hering writes in _Das Ged\u00e4chtniss als Funktion der belebten\nMaterie_: \u201cThe central sections of the nervous system must retain some\nmemory of that which they formerly have done.... In like manner the\nmotor system must possess memory, albeit unknown to us it is true.\u201d\nFurther on he says: \u201cThe reappearance in the daughter organism of the\ncharacteristics of the mother organism is a reproduction on the matter\nside, of such a process as the former already once before has shared\nin, if only as germ in the ovary, which process it remembers, inasmuch\nas to like stimuli it reacts exactly as that organism of which it once\nformed a part\u201d; from which the fact of the hereditary transmission of\ncharacteristic qualities would work out as a specimen merely of the\n\u201cmemory of unconscious matter.\u201d Hering adds: \u201cThus every organic being\nof the present day stands before us ultimately as a product of the\nunconscious memory of organized matter.\u201d\n\nAll such ideas are nothing but ingenious paraphrases of actuality;\nand in the last analysis amount to nothing but an audacious juggle\nwith the word _memory_. And when it is further said: \u201cIf memory be\nattributed to the species the same as to the individual, instinct\nimmediately becomes comprehensible\u201d; and in conclusion: \u201cThe conscious\nmemory of man is extinguished at death, but the unconscious memory of\nnature is indestructible,\u201d I can only call this dealing in poetry, not\nscience, a possibility only to be arrived at by the _dis_-actualizing\nof actuality. In reality memory exists solely where something is\nremembered, just as a flame exists there only where it is burning. Of\nthis kind of memory, however, but one example is to be found in all the\nworld--I myself! It is just this lack of the sense of actuality--as\ndisplayed in physics--which to such a large extent constitutes the\ngreatness of science, while it also no less constitutes its weakness,\nas in biology. E. Mach in his _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_, p. 49, expresses\nhimself to the selfsame effect: \u201cHeredity, instinct, may then be\ndepicted as memory stretching out beyond the individual,\u201d a sentence\nthat possesses about as much content of actuality as the \u201csongs unsung\u201d\nof a dead poet.\n\n[20] Cf. R. Semon, _Die Mneme_.\n\n[21] \u201cThey (the materialists) teach that in the central nervous system\nalso all is only the oscillation of atoms, only reflex motion, only\nmechanics. In one part of the brain only, there in the grey substance\nof a portion of the cerebral cortex, something takes place which as yet\nwe are unable to explain. But it is only a question of time. Sooner or\nlater it will certainly be demonstrated that this also is nothing but\nmechanics, nothing more than a complicated species of reflex action\u201d\n(Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 164).\n\n[22] \u201cThe practice of treating the unanalysed _I_-complex as an\nindivisible unity frequently finds scientific expression in singular\nfashion. First of all, the nervous system is set apart from the body as\nbeing the seat of sensation. In the nervous system, again, the brain\nis picked out as likeliest to be such a seat. And, finally, in order\nto save the supposed psychic unity, search is made in the brain for\na _point_ as the seat of the soul. Views so crude as these, however,\nare but ill adapted to indicate beforehand even in roughest outline\nthe path of future investigation as to the connection between the\nphysical and the psychical.\u201d Comparison should also be made with the\nintroductory remarks to the chapter on \u201cDer Sitz des Bewusstseins\u201d in\nBunge\u2019s _Physiologie_.\n\n[23] _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 28.\n\n[24] Cf. Essay VII.\n\n[25] Cf. Essay V., the citation from the _Majjhima Nik\u0101ya_, Sutta 38.\n\n[26] _Origin of Species_, p. 212. John Murray, London, 1884.\n\n[27] _Physiologie_, i. p. 402.\n\n[28] _Origin of Species_, p. 259. John Murray, London, 1884.\n\n[29] _Ibid._ p. 297.\n\n[30] _Origin of Species_, p. 308.\n\n[31] Bunge\u2019s _Physiologie_.\n\n[32] Weismann\u2019s _Leben und Tod_.\n\n[33] G. v. Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 361.\n\n[34] Cf. Essay IX.\n\n[35] Cf. Essay V., remarks on the causal sequence.\n\n[36] It is to this effect that E. Mach expresses himself on the\nsubject of the concept in various passages in his works--for example,\nin the _W\u00e4rmelehre_ and _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_. Ostwald defines the\nconcept \u201cas a rule in accordance with which we take note of definite\ncharacteristics of the phenomenon\u201d (_Naturphilosophie_).\n\n[37] For a correct appreciation of the law of the conservation of\nenergy and the value of scientific laws and data in general, one should\nread among others Poincar\u00e9\u2019s two works: _The Value of Science_, and\n_Science and Hypothesis_.\n\n[38] Cf. Foreword to E. Mach\u2019s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_.\n\n[39] E. Mach\u2019s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_, p. 4.\n\n[40] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, page 15.\n\n[41] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, p. 20.\n\n[42] _Ibid._\n\n[43] Positivism itself calls attention to this quality of non-actuality\nin its system. In the Foreword to the second volume of R. Avenarius\u2019s\n_Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, J. Petzold says, \u201cModern psychology\nis ... characterized by the elimination from the psychic machinery\nof every spring of activity.\u201d Here it is as with Roland\u2019s mare in\nChamisso\u2019s poem: Perfect--but dead!\n\n\n\n\n                        [ Transcriber\u2019s notes ]\n\n\nNon-English words are rendered as in the original, and may not be\nconsistent or correct. Exceptions: 1) \u201ctanh\u0101\u201d and \u201cta\u1e25ha\u201d have been\nrendered as the text\u2019s preferred \u201cta\u1e47h\u0101\u201d; 2) \u201cSankh\u0101ra\u201d was printed\nnumerous ways and has been standardized as quoted.\n\nThe \u201c{sic}\u201d in the text is the transcriber\u2019s.\n\nThe quote beginning \u201cIgnorance must be present\u201d (p. 77) is not closed\nin the original; the transcriber closed it at the end of the paragraph.\n\nThe cover image is a modified version of the book\u2019s title page and is\nplaced in the public domain.","title":"Buddhism & science","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":68963}