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49 that point, it must at least be considered of great importance to hold fast the written depository of divine truth ; for so long as we both appeal to the same books, our difference will be only- one of interpretation, and there may be a chance of our some day arriving at an agreement; whereas, if we, like the Buddha, S^kya Muni, threw off all allegiance to the tradition or history of a prior revelation, we should have lost one of the great sources of knowledge, and be more hopelessly divided." Thus far Sadd* nanda ; and Yidydchdiya then assented to what had been said of the importance of appealing to the same religious books, at the same time that the difference of interpretation as between himself and Saddnanda was exceedingly great. " May I then ask," resumed Blancombe, '^ why you have selected Vishnu in particular as the most worthy of all the Hindd deities to be ranged as it were at the head of things divine?" " Partly," replied Saddnanda, " because the earliest of our Scriptures speak of him either in that character, or at least as not apparently inferior to Indra*. Although it may be true that the Vedic songs speak chiefly of the divine agencies of Nature, and of Heaven, or Indra, who encompasses all the rest, this may arise from that temporal or economic character which, I con- tend, should be ascribed to Holy Writ. But still more," he con- tinued, " we think Vishnu worthy of the highest honour, because nothing appears to us more wonderful than that in the constant flux of things and succession of forms, such as the Saugata has described, any power should seem to preserve the world from ruin, and enable us to enjoy long periods of happiness and opportunities of seeing nature as it were exhibit herself to our gaze. For this so great an instance of benignant wisdom we thank Vishnu, and honour him as Nfix&yana, the great pervader of all life, and preserver of things that are." Blan. " You do not appesur to agree with the Bauddhas, tben, in considering the world as self-preserved?" * In wht sense Vishnu is a Vedic Deity, will be discussed lower down. M. P. 4 60 CAUSE OR SOURCE. Sad. '^ Not in such a sense as to exclude the deities firom any care of it." Blan. " But yet you seemed to adopt, or even to be quoted as authority for, that doctrine of all things moving in a certain order in virtue of their inherent qualities, or because they are such as to do so and so." Sad. "Why, undoubtedly facts, when examined^ lead us to that conclusion. You gather of every tree in nature the firuit which belongs to its particular kind, and you see bom of every animal young ones corresponding to the sire ; so in the arts, the painting or the statue implies first the colours or the stone ; and for any man to go about an action with means utterly dispro- portioned to it because they did not contain in themselves some capacity for achieving it, would be reckoned justly a kind of insanity. This principle holds good alike, whether the soldier should attempt to have a sword forged without iron, or a village maiden to draw water without going to the well. You see therefore that in everything like begets like, or that the effect is already contained virtually in the cause, like the oil in the berry. All things thus act according to nature, or, if you please, according to their qualities." Blan. " You speak of effects produced before our eyes ; and since we are not the earliest men, every one knows that whatever now is, has had some antecedent. We all acknowledge that the stream flows firom a fountain; but what are we to say of the visible source itself; or of that which you call the cause, and which you say involves the effect? Is it also an effect of some prior cause, or do your observations at all help us towards discovering that more primary and general cause, to which these things of to-day, whether effects, or causes, or sources, or only links, must ultimately be traced? I should be glad to hear firom you a little more as to the farther bearings of your philosophy." Sad. " Since you wish it, I will proceed farther. But our teachers generally begin their explanation at the part farthest " THE SUBTLE PERSON. 51 from US, because it resembles most as it were a begimiing of the things spoken of; whereas perhaps you will understand me better if I begin at the part nearest to us. You see then the outside of things. The colour of any fruit or flower is perhaps painted on it by the heat of the sim, yet it only becomes of such a tinge in virtue of the skin or the sap being already of a particular kind. Then as to the substance of the fruit itself, it evidently is composed of juices according to the nature of the plant. Break up, if you will, the fibres, and divide again and again the parts with all their smaller parts, whether moist or dry, then you will find all the atoms themselves ultimately resolvable into one element. Not that perhaps every one will be able to reach this ; for within the gross body which is per- ceptible by our senses, and which suffers from rough collision, there is a more subtle modification of matter, in which all the parts are more refined and, as it were, transparent, like gold beaten out into a delicate leaf. This may be termed the inner body, and should be considered either as the fugitive essence of life, or as the vehicle wherein personal life resides ; but rather, I should say, the latter. Within this more subtle body, then, which is so far more refined than our gross body, that it extends, ' as we see by the presentiment of touch, to a little distance from our grosser organs, like the flame of a candle leaping beyond the wick with which it is connected — within, I say, this subtle body dwells the personality of man ; and that personality we admit to be more durable than the gross body, just as air and water are not so easily injured by blows as earthenware ; but for this personality or life to conceive of itself as a distinct being is as absurd as for music to think itself distinct from the instrument by the combination of whose parts it is produced ; for in reality this " subtle person" or personal life can only act by material organs, whether of the more refined order among which it dwells, or the grosser kind which it throws around itself as an outer sheath ; and it is even itself the mere product of conscious- ; and consciousness of intellect; for it is evident that no 4—2 52 PRIMARY MATTER. one is conscious either rightly of existence, or wrongly of an imaginary personality, unless he has, first, intellect. Therefore intellect is the truly great one, and the first production of nature. It manifests itself even in darkness, and then changing, it becomes sensitive or passionate, and again changing, it shews itself as goodness. So that in three divine manifestations it remains one essential form; from which fact also we worship Brahm^, Vishnu, and Mah^swara, or Siva, the great ruler. But farther, even intellect (Buddhi), though it be the great prolific principle from which consciousness proceeds, and, through con- sciousness, life, could itself have neither action nor being, unless there lay behind it a potentiality of organisation out of which it might be evolved, or an eternal bubbling, out of which the many-coloured waters of darkness, sensibility, goodness, life, organisms either more subtle and with only sentiment, or more material and therefore with sensuous feeling, and in short, all opposites co-operating, may flow forth, swelling and subsiding, according as various qualities are blended in mysterious com- binations. So that behind or beyond all the other things spoken of, there is in fact Pracrtti, or what men call the indiscrete or irresoluble, because it is the primaiy element which no one can resolve into minuter parts ; rather indeed no one reaches it, except by the necessary inferences of an acute under- standing. You may, however, consider it as it were preforma- tive life, or the seed of life; it flows like water, or like quicksilver, into all shapes and forms and combinations. Out of it is evolved, under some circumstances and in some compositions, one thing, and in others, another ; but its first and greatest evolution, or offspring, is intellect." Blan. " May I here interrupt you for a moment?" Sad. "Certainly." Blan.