Strictly, however, in Buddhism the dissolution of the body leaves no surviving personality or individuality, and consequently Pari-nirvāṇa is not properly described either as absorption into a void (ṡūnya) or as annihilation. It is simply the absolute termination of a series of conscious bodily organizations. The Buddha himself evaded dogmatic definitions, and would probably have said:—it is not life, neither is it non-life; it may be compared to infinite space (ṡūnya) which is not to be comprehended or explained. We should also bear in mind that although Nirvāṇa and Pari-nirvāṇa constitute the ultimate goal to which all the morality of a true Buddhist tends, they have no place either in the aims or thoughts of the ordinary adherents of Buddhism at the present day. The apex of all the desires, the culminating point of all the ambition of the most religiously-minded Buddhists of modern times, points to a life in one of the heavens, while the great mass of the people aim only at escaping one of the hells, and elevating themselves to a higher condition of bodily existence in their next birth on this earth, and perhaps on that very part of this earth which is the scene of their present toils, joys, and sorrows. It only remains for me to caution those who may be impressed with the beauty of some of the precepts of the moral code and its theory of perfection, as ending in Pari-nirvāṇa, against deducing therefrom too optimistic an estimate of the Buddhist system. Buddhist morality is like a showy edifice built on the sand. It is a thoroughly fair-weather structure, incapable of standing against flood, storm, and tempest. It may be summed up in a few words as a scheme for the establishing of a paradox—for the perfecting of one’s self by accumulating merit with the ultimate view of annihilating all consciousness of self—a system which teaches the greatest respect for the life of others, with the ultimate view of extinguishing one’s own. It must, in short, be clearly understood that if any comparison be instituted between Buddhism and Christianity in regard to the self-abnegation, or self-sacrifice which each claims to inculcate, the self to be got rid of in Buddhism is not the selfishness condemned by Christianity, but rather the self of individuality—the self of individual life, and personal identity. To be righteous in a Christian sense a man must be God-like, and to be righteous in a Buddhistic sense a man must be Buddha-like; but the righteousness of the Buddhist is not the perfection of holiness by the extinction of sin committed against God, but the perfection of merit-making, with the view of earning happiness for himself in a higher state hereafter. For every Buddhist is like a trader who keeps a ledger, with a regular debtor and creditor account, and a daily entry of profit and loss.