Professor Legge informs me that Dr. Happer—an American Presbyterian Missionary of about 45 years standing, who has gone carefully into the statistics of Buddhism—reckons only 20 millions of Buddhists in China, and not more than 72½ millions in the whole of Asia. Dr. Happer states that, if the Chinese were required to class themselves as Confucianists or Buddhists or Tāoists, 19/20ths, if not 99/100ths, of them would, in his opinion, claim to be designated as Confucianists. In all probability his estimate of the number of Buddhists in China is too low, but the Chinese ambassador Liū, with whom Professor Legge once had a conversation on this subject, ridiculed the view that they were as numerous as the Confucianists. Undeniably, as it seems to me, the next place after Christianity and Confucianism should be given to Brāhmanism and Hindūism, which are not really two systems but practically one; the latter being merely an expansion of the former, modified by contact with Buddhism. Brāhmanism, as I have elsewhere shown, is nothing but spiritual Pantheism; that is, a belief in the universal diffusion of an impersonal Spirit (called Brăhmăn or Brăhmă)—as the only really existing Essence—and in its manifesting itself in Mind and in countless material forces and forms, including gods, demons, men, and animals, which, after fulfilling their course, must ultimately be re-absorbed into the one impersonal Essence and be again evolved in endless evolution and dissolution. Hindūism, with its worship of Vishṇu and Ṡiva, is based on this pantheistic doctrine, but the majority of the Hindūs are merely observers of Brāhmanical institutions with their accompanying Hindū caste usages. If, however, we employ the term Hindū in its widest acceptation (omitting only all Islāmized Hindūs) we may safely affirm that the adherents of Hindūism have reached an aggregate of nearly 200 millions. In the opinion of Sir William Wilson Hunter, they are still rapidly increasing, both by excess of births over deaths and by accretions from more backward systems of belief. Probably Buddhism has a right to the fourth place in the scale of numerical comparison. At any rate the number of Buddhists can scarcely be calculated at less than 100 millions. In regard to Muhammadanism, this creed should not, I think, be placed higher than fifth in the enumeration. In its purest form it ought to be called Islām, and in that form it is a mere distorted copy of Judaism. The Empress of India, as is well known, rules over more Muhammadans than any other potentate in the world. Probably the Musalmān population of the whole of India now numbers 55 millions. As to the number of Muhammadans in the Turkish empire, there are no very trustworthy data to guide us, but the aggregate is believed to be about 14 millions; while Africa can scarcely reckon more than that number, even if Egypt be included.