Apart, however, from the biological facts, the Buddha-thought also explains those lofty speculations that have haunted the minds of men from the earliest times, such as “previous existence,” Plato’s idea of learning as “reminiscence,” and so forth. “Many a time it has seemed to me as if I must have been in existence once already,” says such a clear, keen mind as Lichtenberg. Indeed here, if one likes, even the Kantian “_a priori_ of all experience,” this pure _ens_ of scholasticism, acquires sense and meaning. That which with Kant stands out from reality as a blind end, destitute of any real foothold, like the spirit moving upon the face of the waters, here balls itself together into the _I myself_. My Kamma is the “_a priori_”; in a sense, such as Kant never suspected, it is true. All these minds lack guidance, lack light. In dim fashion they feel, but they do not see. During my latest sojourn at Anuradhapura, in the course of a conversation with the abbot of Ruanwelli, he said to me, “Every one who is without the Teaching is like the blind elephant in the jungle: he feels at every twig”--to find out if it is eatable. Here we have an apt illustration of inquiring ignorance. With this solution of the problem of procreation as furnished by the Buddha are involved a few necessary questions which might have been disposed of in our fifth essay, but may more fitly be dealt with here. The first is this:-- “If, as said above, the uniquely appropriate energy is not always ready for the material, if contact can be missed, must then a quota of material always stand ready for the Kamma that is set free at every death?” To which the answer is: “That a faggot should miss the kindling spark; this may very well happen, but that the kindling spark should find nothing upon which to act, such is never the case.” Its very being is just its taking hold, the actuity itself. The _I_-energy takes hold there precisely where it can take hold. But will it always take hold just there where legitimately it ought to take hold? Will it take hold rightly?