The highest _goal_, therefore, to which we can attain is utter annihilation. That this is the meaning of _Nirvana_, or _Nigban_, seems established beyond a doubt. The most eminent authorities on Buddhism, Barthélemy St. Hilaire, Bigandet, Eugène Burnouf, Spence Hardy, and Max Müller, all agree with the view presented by Mr. Judson many years ago, that _Nirvana_ or _Nigban_ is nothing less than a total extinction of soul and body. It is the final blowing out of the soul, as of a lamp; not its absorption, as when a “dew-drop slips into the shining sea.” It is “To perish rather, swallowed up and lost, In the wide womb of uncreated night. Devoid of sense and motion.” But in what _way_ is this bliss of annihilation to be reached? Only by a long and arduous struggle. There are four truths to be believed. 1. There is nothing in life but sorrow. 2. The root of sorrow is desire. 3. Desire must be destroyed. 4. The way to destroy desire is to follow the eightfold path, viz., 1. Right doctrine. 2. Right purpose. 3. Right discourse. 4. Right behavior. 5. Right purity. 6. Right thought. 7. Right solitude. 8. Right rapture. But in order to do these eight right things, five commandments must be kept. 1. Not to kill. 2. Not to steal. 3. Not to commit adultery. 4. Not to lie. 5. Not to get intoxicated. And upon these commandments Gaudama himself gives the following commentary: “He who kills as much as a louse or a bug; he who takes so much as a thread that belongs to another; he who with a wishful thought looks at another man’s wife; he who makes a jest of what concerns the advantage of another; he who puts on his tongue as much as the drop that would hang upon the point of a blade of grass, of anything bearing the sign of intoxicating liquor, has broken the commandments.” There are four stages to be arrived at in the way of salvation. 1. The believer has a change of heart, and conquers lust, pride, and anger. 2. He is set free from ignorance, doubt, and wrong belief. 3. He enters the state of universal kindliness. 4. He reaches _Nirvana_. In this succession of stages Buddha makes right conduct a precedent condition to spiritual knowledge; and so is in striking harmony with a greater than he: “If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.”