English
As to creation, you may, if you think proper, suppose certain inferior intelli- gences, or BodhisatwaSy either stooping from the higher blessed- ness of the supreme Buddha, or, as I should rather say, not having yet attained to that highest tranquillity, though far above our troubled state, to have fashioned the existing form of the world, and arranged its contents in some such self-regu- lating order as might work like a vast machine; so at least many Bauddha philosophers have taught, and I find no fault with their mode of conceiving the theory. If, however, you ask me what is necessary, I do not see in what respect an utter blank would be better than the world as it exists, or therefore why we should suppose a blank ever to have been ; nor again, THEORY OF THE WORLD. 13 is it easy to explain, how out of nothing a complex fabric of things could ever have begun to be ; and once more, if this world had been contrived by a pure intelligence, the contrivance would probably have been more perfect, or at least not so liable to disorder from darkness and passion. So that, just as the life of each individual now begins, and, when it comes to an end, gives place by its very death to some new life in suc- cession, in the same manner I suppose forms to have succeeded forms of life indefinitely ; but I dare not say the whole aggregate had ever a time when it was not in somo phase, for fear such an assertion should be, as it appears to me, both irrational and impious." "Well," answered Blancombe, "you do right to avoid the assertion, if such is its nature ; but pray explain to us why it would be irrational ; or rather, if you please, how the opposite, which seems your own belief, escapes being irrational. For to many persons, a long string of beings in succession without beginning or end is the most inconceivable picture possible; especially if those beings are like blind men, with little control over their own motions, and yet with no wiser hand to guide them." Saug. "Perhaps it is to you inconceivable, because you take your notion as it were from a river which has its source in a mountain and its outlet in the sea, or because you conceive of time as moving straightforward in a line, to which your imagi- nation, influenced by daily experience of little things, requires that there should be ends ; yet probably you have seen a circle, which has neither beginning nor end. Now since Time is, like space, a certain medium for mentally classifying objects, there is no difficulty in classifying the forms of life which succeed each other, as arising in a circle, rather than in a line. Nay, that this is the true conception, may seem suggested to us by the shape of the world, which wise men say is round. Just, then, as all the nations of the earth might follow each other round, some sinking in each country, and others rising in their place, supposing that a perpetual peregrination of men were 14 CAUSATION. necessary, so in the vast round of time, life may follow life, and at each date, as if on each spot of space, some overwearied may sink down, and others rejoicing in fresh birth rise into their place in the ranks; so that neither beginning need have been imagined, nor termination be apprehended. Nor here should that image of the river, whicli seemed in your favour, be left without a closer examination ; for it appears, no doubt, as if the river had a beginning and an ending ; but to those who investigate such things more closely, it becomes manifest that the moisture from the sea is drawn up by the power of the hea- venly heat into the clouds, and from thence dispersed upon the moimtains, which in turn pour it down in the form of a river along the thirsty plains. So that here too there is neither beginning nor end, although possibly if the drops were as easily deluded as mankind, they might dispute, as they rolled along, which was the more dignified of the number, or which should live the longest, fancying that they had begun to exist when they entered on the river's channel ; or again, not knowing that the individuality of each may be decompounded, and the parts severed as they are re-cast into new combinations of particles. Or again, with equal wisdom they might dispute what was life and what death, or which ought to be called the cause, whether the river of the ocean, or the ocean of the dew, and so on." Blan. " Your answer shews so much as this, that there are circles now existing, which no one denies ; but that these circles can have been from eternity is quite a different supposition ; and perhaps indeed both those larger cycles of life arid decay, and these smaller revolutions of water by which you illustrate the others, both bear in themselves unmistakeable traces of being in their whole circumference effects, and of its being impossible for them to contain in themselves alike cause and effect. For example, I should myself say that the revolutions of dew and river and tide were so framed as to testify both the wisdom and beneficence of some higher being by whom they have been arranged ; or again, I might remark that explorers of CAUSATION. 15 the earth have discovered clear proofs of life, in its most ex- tended career, having proceeded from a beginning in a line, rather than of its revolving in an infinite circle. Since however these things constitute in themselves an abstruse study, and I am at present rather learning from you your opinions, we will dismiss that particular point, only remarking that, if we find hereafter, or if any other persons should find clear signs of a beginning of life, that discovery will alone sweep away a consi- derable portion of your theory. But at present please rather to explain by what sort of operation, if not agency, you suppose this wonderful ocean, as you call it, of life to ebb and flow, or the myriad forms of existence to succeed each other. For I sup- pose you do not deny that a certain order may be observed, so that all things take place, in fact, as if some mind were governing them." Saug. "I neither deny on the one hand, that there is a certain appearance of order, nor, on the other hand, have I disco- vered it to be so perfect that I should say it was constantly watched, or even that it had been originally arranged, by any very perfect intelligence. At least it appears to be more pious to conceive of the highest and most adorable Buddha as neither vexed by the anxiety which must pain one deeply interested in what goes on in this fluctuating scene of change, nor yet respon- sible for the misery, such as the mutual destruction and canni- balism which exist among living creatures, and which, according to some venerable persons, from whose doctrine, however, I shrink, must be ascribed to the Creator. But how it arises, that things in the mass and in the rough proceed in something like order, just as stones roll down a hill, rather than upwards, I consider myself happily excused from explaining; since we have among us the justly celebrated Saddnanda, who as a master of the Sankhya philosophy will explain everything, on nearly the same principles as myself, but with far greater sagacity ; while, as a professor of the Hindd religion he may perhaps be listened to with greater acquiescence by the venerable Achdrya'' 16 BAUDDHA AFFINITIES. CAUSATION. Here then we all turned to Saddnanda ; but he began gravely to decline the compliments offered him, as well as the task of explaining. ** Rather," he said, *^it belongs to the MUni to com- plete the exposition of his own system ; especially since he has admitted his own habit of relying only on two sources of know- ledge, namely, perception and reflexion; whereas we include also a third, namely, the tradition of revelation, or holy writ ; so that confusion might arise if we attempted to blend together systems of discordant principles. Let the Mtini therefore pro- ceed with the same clearness which he has displayed hitherto." Upon this, Blancombe, turning to the Sattgata, asked, *' How is it that you now appeal to Sad^nanda here for confirmation, whereas some time ago I understood you to fraternise rather with Candda, the master of the atomic school, and G6tama, the Hindd logician ?" " Why," replied the Saugata, "it is not won- derful that our system, being the truth, should have afl^ties upon different sides. For example, as regards the aggregation of atoms, we do, as already explained, approach to an agreement with Candda.