The dogma of transmigration is said to occupy in the Buddhist system a position analogous to that of the Fall in our Christian theology; but in reality the two are diametrically opposed, both in their essential ideas and the consequences which flow from them. They are analogous only in respect that they each profess to account for the conflict between man’s ideal of himself and his actual condition. The existence of evil is admitted by both, but the Buddhist believes that evil belongs to the very essence of man, and therefore he can find no prospect of relief from it, here or hereafter. For as long as the stream of existence continues it will always fall below its source, and evil, according to the inexorable rule of nature, will propagate only evil. The Hebrew, however, did not conceive of it as essential to or as always in the nature of man. His ancestral beliefs carry him beyond the Fall; his pedigree starts with the most sublime of all theories of human origin that has ever been formulated in human speech: “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let him have dominion over” the creature. Dominion over nature man has not, for he is too much under its dominion, and to this subjection much of his suffering is directly traceable. The Hebrew professed to have the origin of this condition revealed to him in a breach between man and his Maker, consequent upon man’s self-assertion and selfish withdrawal of his life from the source of life, which must involve suffering and death. So through all the weary generations there is the same invariable sequence of sin entering the world, and death by sin. And yet at his very worst the Hebrew believed that it was once far better with the human race, and on this belief he dared to rear the structure of his magnificent hope, that mankind shall be restored to the original close relationship with God, and therefore to a grander dominion over nature, and to a happier and even more prosperous life than that of which his ancestors had dreamed as their primeval state.