“What, O monks, is the arising of the world? By reason of the eye and of forms there arises visual consciousness. The conjunction of the three constitutes contact. In dependence upon contact arises sensation. In dependence upon sensation arises the thirst for life. In dependence upon the thirst for life arises clinging. In dependence upon clinging arises becoming. In dependence upon becoming arises birth (as the birth of a fresh biological impulsion). In dependence upon birth arises old age and death.” This passage recurs with great frequency in the Scriptures. Following the same scheme there are next dealt with--hearing and sounds, smell and odours, taste and flavours, the body and contacts, thinking and concepts. In every one of its activities, at every moment of its existence, the _I_-process is not something that possesses arising as a function, but it _is_ the arising itself, as the flame _is_ the arising itself. And it _is_ the arising itself because it burns, because it exists in virtue of an individual energy. It is the thirst for life, the impulsion towards life, which _upholds life_, causes it ever and again to spring up anew, and _is life itself_; in exactly the same way that the heat of a flame upholds the flame and is the flame itself. We do not _have_ the impulse to life--that calls for a _conscious_ impulse--but we _are_ the life-impulse itself. A lay adherent upon one occasion inquires of the nun Dhammadinna:-- “Personality, personality, they say, O venerable One. But what does the Exalted One say is the personality?” To which the nun replies:-- “The five forms of clinging (_upādānakkhandhā_) is the personality, the Exalted One has said; these namely: the form of clinging that refers to body, the form of clinging that refers to sensation, the form of clinging that refers to perception, the form of clinging that refers to discriminations, the form of clinging that refers to consciousness....” “The arising of personality, the arising of personality, they say, O venerable One. But what, O venerable One, does the Exalted One say is the arising of personality?” “This thirst for life (_taṇhā_) that leads to re-birth, bound up with lust and craving, now here, now there, revelling in delight--namely, the impulse towards sensuality, the impulse towards existence, the impulse towards present well-being (without regard to any possible future). This, friend, so the Exalted One has said, is the arising of personality.”[4] The distinction between faith and science on the one hand and the Buddha on the other, may be formulated thus:--