inspiration changes and her mind reverts to the purposes of the civilised scholar. Here is a gaudy hem, the legacy of an unfaithful queen, steeped in intrigue all her life until her murder ended it; and as the maiden lifts it to examine it more closely, she learns with shame and blushes, yet not knowing what has wrought this change in her, that, deep down in her character, are mischievous possibilities, possibilities of wickedness and disgrace that will dog the footsteps of her reign. Suchlike are the suggestions which the hidden parts of the mind bring forth, and in such subtle manner are they born.” The doctrine of karma thus declares that an act of love and good-will you are performing here is not for your selfish interests, but it simply means the appreciation of the works of your worthy ancestors and the discharge of your duties towards {203} all humanity and your contribution to the world-treasury of moral ideals. Mature good stock, accumulate merits, purify evil karma, remove the ego-hindrance, and cultivate love for all beings; and the heavenly gate of Nirvâna will be opened not only to you, but to the entire world. We can sing with Walt Whitman the immortality of karma and the eternal progress of humanity, thus: “Did you guess anything lived only its moment? The world does not so exist--no part palpable or impalpable so exist; No consummation exists without being from some long previous consummation--and that from some other, Without the farthest conceivable one coming a bit nearer the beginning than any.”[90] _Immortality._ We read in the _Milinda-pañha_: “Your Majesty, it is as if a man were to ascend to the story of a house with a light, and eat there; and the light in burning were to set fire to the thatch; and the thatch in burning were to set fire to the house; and the house in burning were to set fire to the village; and the people of the village were to seize him, and say, ‘Why, O man, did you set fire to the village?’ and he were to say, ‘I did not set fire to the village. The fire of the lamp by whose light I ate was a different one from the one which set fire to the village’; {204} and they, quarreling, were to come to you. Whose cause, Your Majesty, would you sustain?” “That of the people of the village, Reverend Sir,” etc. “And why?” “Because, in spite of what the man might say, the latter fire sprang from the former.” “In exactly the same way, Your Majesty, although the name and form which is born into the next existence is different from the name and form which is to end at death, nevertheless, it is sprung from it. Therefore is one not freed from one’s evil deeds.” The above is the Buddhist notion of individual identity and its conservation, which denies the immortality of the ego-soul and upholds that of karma.