To this I give the answer, brief and blunt, It is not understood. That is only too painfully evident from the literature published about it. Here I do not at all refer to those commonplace compilations that simply swarm with misconceptions. It is just the best books on the subject which reveal how far removed it is beyond our powers of apprehension. I am prepared to have reproach brought against me; first, that in many places I have become polemical, and secondly, that I have not sufficiently studied that tone of affected diffidence such as has become the fashion in our books, just in so far as they deal with the theme of a world-conception. As to the first point, I can bear witness that nowhere have I indulged in polemics for polemics’ sake. It is with the Buddha-thought as with many a colossal edifice, whereof the greatness only becomes apparent by comparison with ordinary erections. As in the case of the pyramids of Gizeh, the endless background of the desert offers no fitting standard of measurement for their greatness, so the Buddha-thought, when projected upon beginninglessness alone, offers nothing by which its greatness can be measured. One must place by its side other mental structures if one is ever to be able to reveal it in all its stupendous proportions. It is easy to understand that in this case simple comparison must already amount to polemics. As to the second point, my opinion is this: Either one has something useful to contribute, in which case one does not need to practise this affected diffidence, or else one has nothing useful to contribute, in which case one does not need to write at all. I dare speak thus because I bring _nothing of my own_, but only speak in the place of a Greater. “We do not know, but there is no sound reason for doubting that so-and-so,” and all such phrases, howsoever couched, by means of which an endlessly considerable probability is intended to be smuggled into the ranks of truth, are quite uncalled for in a teaching like that of the Buddha. Whoso knows, “Thus it is,” simply says, “Thus it is.” I WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY AND IS IT NECESSARY? There is present a something given, an actuality, which we designate by the collective name of “world.” The untutored person and the thinker alike make use of the same expression. This latter is indifferent, acquiring a definite meaning only with reference to a particular explanation--that is, with reference to a view of the world. The impulse to explain actuality, the need of a world-theory, a world-conception, is deeply embedded in every living being endowed with consciousness. The moment any being has so far developed as to begin to think, it finds itself involved in a huge system within which it seeks to know its way, striving the while to understand it in its various details.