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It was necessary to man as ethical (at least during his sojourn on the physical plane), but it was only in so far as it affected his ethical life that he could profitably study it. The Buddhist, like the Socratic view, was that of primitive man — * What is the good of it ?' — transformed and sublimated by the evolution of the moral ideal. The early questioning : Is such and such good for life-preservation, for race-preservation, for fun? or is it bad? or is it in- determinate ? becomes, in evolved ethics : Does it make for my perfection, for others' perfection, for noblest enjoyment ? does it make for the contrary ? does it make for neither ? And the advance in moral evolution which was attempted by Buddhist philosophy, coming as it did in an age of metaphysical dogmatism and withal of scepticism, brought with it the felt need of looking deeper into those data of mental procedure on which dogmatic speculation and ethical convictions were alike founded.^ ^ G. Groom Eobertson, ' Philosophical Kemains,' p. 3. d 1 Viewed in this light, the category of rupam or of rupakkhandho becomes fairly intelligible, both as to the selection and classification of subject matter and as to the standpoint from which it is regarded. As a learner of ethical doctrine, pursuing either the lower or the higher ideal, the Buddhist was concerned with the external world just as far as it directly and inevitably affected his moral welfare and that of other moral beings, that is to say, of all conscious animate beings. To this extent did he receive instruction concerning it. In the first place, the great ultimate phenomena of his physical world were one and the same as the basis of his own physical being. That had form ; so had this. That was built up of the four elements ; so was this. That came into being, persisted, then dissolved ; this was his destiny, too, as a temporary collocation or body, ' subject to erasion, abrasion, dissolution and disintegration.' ^ And all that side of life which we call mind or consciousness, similarly conceived as collocations or aggregates, was bound up therein and on that did it depend. Here, then, was a vital kinship, a common basis of physical being which it behoved the student of man to recognise and take into account, so as to hold an intelligent and consistent attitude towards it. The bhikkhu sekho^ ' who has not attained, who is aspiring after the unsurpass- able goal,' has to know, inter alia, earth, water, flame, air, each for what it is, both as external and as part of himself ^ — must know ' unity ' (e k a 1 1 a m) for what it is ; must indulge in no conceits of fancy (ma m a n n i) about it or them, and must so regard them that of him it may one day be said by the masters : Pariiinatam tassa! — * He knows it thoroughly.' To this point we shall return. That the elements are considered under the aspect of their tangibility involves 1 D. i. 76, e.g. ^ The brother in orders undergoing training. M. i. 4. ^ M. i., pp. 185, et seq. ; pp. 421, et seq. for the Buddhist the further inquiry into the sensitive agency by which they affect him as tangibles, and so into the problem of sensation and sense-perception in general. On this subject the Dhamma-sangani yields a positive and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the history of psychology in India in the fourth century b.c. It may contain no matter additional to that which is reproduced in Hardy's ' Manual of Buddhism ' (pp. 399-404, 419-423). But Hardy drew directly from relatively modern sources, and though it is interesting to see how far and how faith- fully the original tradition has been kept intact in these exegetical works, we turn gladly to the stronger attractions of the first academic formidation of a theory of sense which ancient India has hitherto preserved for us. There is no such analysis of sensation — full, sober, positive, so far as it goes — put forward in any Indian book of an equally early date. The pre-Buddhistic Upanishads (and those, too, of later date) yield only poetic adumbrations, sporadic aphorisms on the work of the senses. The Nyaya doctrine of pratyaksha or perception, the Jaina Sutras, the elaboration of the Vedanta and Sankhya doctrines are, of course, of far later date. It may not, therefore, be uncalled for if I digress at some length on the Buddhist position in this matter, and look for parallel theories in the West rather than in India itself. The theory of action and reaction between the five special^ senses and their several objects is given in pages 172-190 and 197-200 of my translation. It may be summarized as follows : A. The Senses. First, a general statement relating each sense in turn {a) to Nature (the four elements), {h) to the individual 1 They are called ' special ' in modern psychology to dis- tinguish them from organic, general or systemic sense, which works without specially adapted peripheral organs. d 2 lii organism, and affirming its invisibility and its power of impact. Secondly, an analysis of the sensory process, in each case, into (a) A personal agency or apparatus capable of reacting to an impact not itself ; (b) An impingeing 'form,' or form producing an impact of one specific kind ; (c) Impact between {a) and (6) ; (d) Eesultant modification of the mental continuum, viz. : in the first place, contact (of a specific sort) ; then, hedonistic result, or intellectual result, or, presumably, both. The modification is twice stated in each case, emphasis being laid on the mutual impact, first as causing the modification, then as constituting the object of attention in the modified consciousness of the person affected. B. The Sense-objects. First, a general statement, relating each kind of sense- object in turn to Nature, describing some of the typical varieties, and affirming its invisibility, except in the case of visual objects,^ and its power of producing impact."^ Secondly, an analysis of the sensory process in each case as under A, but, as it were, from the side of the sense-object, thus : (a) A mode of form or sense-object, capable of producing impact on a special apparatus of the individual organism ; ^ This insistence on the invisibility of all the senses, as well as on that of all sense-objects except sights or visual forms, is to me only explicable on the ground that rupam recurring in each question and each answer, and signifying, whatever else it meant, in popular idiom, things seen, it was necessary, in philosophic usage, to indicate that the term, though referring to sense, did not, with one exception, connote things seen. Thus, even solid and fiery objects were, qua tangibles, not visible. They were not visible to the kayo, or skin- sensibility. They spelt visible only to the eye. 2 See p. 183, n. 1. liii (b) The impact of that apparatus ; (c) The reaction or complementary impact of the sense- object ; (d) Eesultant modification of the mental continuum, viz. : in the first place, contact (of a specific sort) ; then hedonistic result, or intellectual result, or, presumably, both. The modification is twice stated, in each case emphasis being laid on the mutual impact, first as causing the modification, then as constituting the object of attention in the modified consciousness thus affected. If we, for purposes of comparison, consult Greek views on sense-perception before Aristotle — say, down to b.c. 350 — we shall find nothing to equal this for sobriety, con- sistency and thoroughness. The surviving fragments of Empedoklean writings on the subject read beside it like airy fancies ; nor do the intact utterances of Plato bring us anything more scientific. Very possibly in Demokritus we might have found its match, had we more of him than a few quotations. And there is reason to surmise as much, or even more, in the case of Alkmseon. Let me not, however, be understood to be reading into the Buddhist theory more than is actually there. In its sober, analytical prose, it is no less archaic, naive, and inadequate as explanation than any pre-Aristotelian theory of the Greeks. The comment of Dr. Siebeck on Empedokles applies equally to it : ^ * It sufficed him to have indicated the possibility of the external world penetrating the sense- organs, as though this were tantamount to an explanation of sensation. The whole working out of his theory is an attempt to translate in terms of a detailed and consecutive physiological process the primitive, naive view of cognition.