It alone explains the possibility alike of disease and of cure. Neither for science--that is, in the purely mechanical manner of regarding the living being--nor for faith--that is, where living beings are represented as endowed with soul--is disease--and therewith cure--a conceivability. As well to a thing divine as to a purely mechanical fall, disease were an unattainable capability. _Man_ only can fall ill--the man whom the Buddha points out to us, the man who through and through is a combustion, an alimentation-process, with whom at every moment of his existence energy and material stand in mutual functional dependence each upon the other. Correspondingly, it is only in a process thus constituted that the fact of cure is capable of explanation. By the term _cure_ I understand the fact that a single incitation develops a reaction which no longer stands in any kind of working relationship to the original impulse, but goes on developing itself as a self-acting increase. Such a proceeding is possible neither with a purely mechanical process of compensation nor yet with a “force in itself.” It is only possible there where an energy and its material stand in a relation of mutual functional dependence. The fact also that diseases permit of being affected by the power of the mind, by thought, is possible of explanation only where an individual energy and its material stand in a relationship of mutual dependence. All the numberless instances of the influence of the mind over the body, of the body over the mind; all our “moods” of good and ill-humour; further, the _acquisition of habits_ and the physical necessity of sleep, are explicable only in the Buddha-thought. It may be interposed:-- “We have not the least need of the Buddha in order to see that. We have long since recognized the mutual dependence of mind and body as a necessity.” Very good! But if you have really recognized that, you must also draw the conclusions unavoidably consequent upon the same, and these consist in the intellectual necessity of individual beginninglessness. If you have not understood that, then you have understood neither the Buddha, nor actuality, nor yourselves. You have not understood the truth; you only meet it, as two cross-roads meet one another and then pass on in opposite directions. Individual beginninglessness is the key-word, the guiding clue to the Buddha-thought. And with this we come to that most important of all problems, the problem of heredity. IX BUDDHISM AND THE PROBLEM OF BIOLOGY To the question, “Whence have I sprung?” faith answers, “From God,” while science answers, “From your parents.” Faith calls men the children of their Father in heaven; science calls them the children of their begetter.