Just as Aristotle reproached Heraclitus with violations of the law of contradictories,--for this really limited mind knew not, never even suspected that actuality in its entirety is nothing else but one huge violation of the law of contradictories,--just as the sun is a violation of an absolutely correct-running chronometer, so do western scholars repeatedly reproach the Buddha with violations of the law of contradictories; whereby they only prove but that they understand neither the Buddha nor actuality. In Oldenburg’s _Buddha_ one reads:-- “The art of definition was something which the era of the Buddha did not possess; that of demonstration was only evolved as far as the first rudiments. An especially characteristic feature of this mode of thinking ... is a decided antipathy to pursuing the consideration of things back to their ultimate principles.” Misericordia! What shall one say of the herd when the leading bull points in such paths! A teaching whose greatness resides in the fact that it shows how all definitions are only essays which owe their existence to the faulty formulation of the question, is reproached with its lack of definitions! A teaching which points out that the fact “_I_” of necessity implies life and the beginninglessness of life, is reproached that it does not involve itself in the blind alley of contraries called in the language of logic, “principles.” The Buddha’s one and only concern is to teach, to point out that there is nothing in the world to be defined; hence, also, no instruments for this purpose: principles. That herewith the whole of science goes by the board--what matters that to the seeker for truth! Hearken, good people! Here goes by the board a great deal more than science! To see how the Buddha bore himself with reference to this question of principles, one ought to read the magnificent Kevaddha Sutta--Sutta XI. of the _Dīgha Nikāya_--where a monk craves information as to the behaviour of the primal elements of matter. The Buddha meets the question as the genuine thinker alone can, with the weapon of humour. For absurdities cannot be dealt with at all otherwise, if one would not drown in them past hope of help. The scene in the court of Mahā Brahmā, the great Brahma, is perhaps the most gigantic that human humour has ever conceived. Here music alone, the humour of Beethoven’s symphonies, perhaps may risk comparison. To the Buddha naught exists save actualities, eternally fermenting, seething, simmering actualities that melt and dissolve all drosses of definitions in their fiery glow or ever they are able to come to birth.