The free spirit which wanders out beyond the monastic walls of the Brotherhood now follows its natural consequence and endeavours to transcend the disciplinary rules and the ascetic formalism of the Hinayanists. The moral rules that were given by the Buddha to his followers as they were called for by the contingencies of life, were concerned more or less with externalism. When the Buddha remained with them as the living spirit of the Brotherhood, these rules were the direct expressions of the subjective life; but with the Buddha’s departure, they grew rigid and failed to reach the inner spirit of their author, and the followers of Enlightenment revolted against them, upholding “the spirit that giveth life.” They advocated perfect freedom of spirit, even after the fashion of antinomians. If the spirit were pure, no acts of the body could spoil it; it could wander about anywhere it liked with absolute immunity. It would even go down to hell, if it were necessary or expedient for them to do so, for the sake of the salvation of the depraved. It would indefinitely postpone the entering into Nirvana if there were still souls to save and minds to enlighten. According to “the letter that killeth” no Buddhists were allowed to enter a liquor shop, or to be familiar with inmates of the houses barred from respectability, in short, even for a moment to be thinking of violating any of the moral precepts. But to the Mahayanists all kinds of “expediency” or “devices” were granted if they were fully enlightened and had their spirits thoroughly purified. They were living in a realm beyond good and evil, and as long as they were there, no acts of theirs could be classified and judged according to the ordinary measure of ethics; they were neither moral nor immoral. These relative terms had no application in a kingdom governed by free spirits which soared above the relative world of differences and oppositions. This was most slippery ground for the Mahayanists. When they were really enlightened and fathomed the depths of spirituality, every deed of theirs was a creative act of God, but in this extreme form of idealism, objectivity had no room, and consequently who could ever distinguish libertinism from spiritualism? In spite of this pitfall the Mahayanists were in the right in consistently following up all the implications of the doctrine of Enlightenment. Their parting company with the Hinayanists was inevitable. * * * * *