For the want of an authoritative standard told very severely against the early history of Buddhism. Its rapid and widespread extension was due, not so much to the natural development of its own principles as to its assimilation of the external and foreign influences with which it came in contact. Its advance was the result more of compromise than of conquest.[78] It welcomed or tolerated, at least it could not or did not defend itself against the introduction of many parasitical germs which were destined to arrest its growth and pass into its life. As the ivy covers and adorns the oak only to suck away with its million mouths its strength, so the popular beliefs which Buddhism incorporated from without, as well as the defections from the original teaching which took place within it, produced very soon upon it alterations so extensive that its founder would have disclaimed or would have been really unable to recognise it as his own. No temptation happened to Buddhism, however, but such as is common to all the higher religions. As far as observation and experience go, the lower types of religion continue unchanged; but those that confront us upon a higher level are in a perpetual flux, in which change does not always indicate progress. Instead of tracing their path by the superstitions which they have outgrown, their course may be indicated by those which they have incorporated. Man, in his exodus of faith, is always tempted to go back to the condition from which he has emerged, or to fall away to the religions by which he is surrounded. Mosaism and Christianity had to pass through this trial, and certainly they did not pass through it unscathed. They suffered from the corruption of popular superstitions and of Pagan rites, all of which, as in the case of Buddhism, were defended by an appeal to tradition. Just as every Buddhist innovator was ready with some forgotten saying or Sutta alleged to have been delivered by the “Blessed One,” sometimes miraculously preserved through the ages till the necessity for the revelation arose, so the Popes and the Fathers of Christendom were never at a loss for authorities when, professing to develop and define, they in reality were adding to the faith and the worship and the claims of the Church.