Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, in a review on Buddhism, published in the 'Journal des Savants,' says: 'Buddhism has no God; it has not even the confused and vague notion of a Universal Spirit in which the human soul, according to the orthodox doctrine of Brahmanism, and the Sânkhya philosophy, may be absorbed. Nor does it admit nature, in the proper sense of the word, and it ignores that profound division between spirit and matter which forms the system and the glory of Kapila. It confounds man with all that surrounds him, all the while preaching to him the laws of virtue. Buddhism, therefore, cannot unite the human soul, which it does not even mention, with a God, whom it ignores; nor with nature, which it does not know better. Nothing remained but to annihilate the soul; and in order to be quite sure that the soul may not re-appear under some new form in this world, which has been cursed as the abode of illusion and misery, Buddhism destroys its very elements, and never gets tired of glorying in this achievement. What more is wanted? [Footnote 72: Vol. i. p. 89, vol. ii. p. 167.] [Footnote 73: These 'four stages' are described in the same manner in the canonical books of Ceylon and Nepal, and may therefore safely be ascribed to that original form of Buddhism from which the Southern and the Northern schools branched off at a later period. See Burnouf, 'Lotus de la bonne Loi,' p. 800.] [Footnote 74: See Burnouf, 'Lotus de la bonne Loi,' p. 814.] If this is not the absolute nothing, what is Nirvâ_n_a?'