every material form, the human soul included, uttered a profound and scientific truth, And since the very idea of gratification or suffering is inseparable from that of material being--absolute SPIRIT alone being regarded by common consent as perfect, changeless and Eternal--therefore, in teaching the doctrine that conquest of the material self, with all its lusts, desires, loves, hopes, ambitions and hates, frees one from pain, and leads to Nirvāṇa, the state of Perfect Rest, he preached the rest of an untinged, untainted existence in the Spirit. Though the soul be composed of the finest conceivable substance, yet if substance at all--as Dr. Jäger seems able to prove, and ages of human intercourse with the weird phantoms of the shadow world imply--it must in time perish. What remains is that changeless part of man, which most philosophers call Spirit, and Nirvāṇa is its necessary condition of existence. The only dispute between Buḍḍhist authorities is whether this Nirvāṇic existence is attended with individual consciousness, or whether the individual is merged in the whole, as the extinguished flame is lost in the air. But there are those who say that the flame has not been annihilated by the blowing out. It has only passed out of the visible world of matter into the invisible world of Spirit, where it still exists and will ever exist, as a bright reality. Such thinkers can understand Buḍḍha's doctrine and, while agreeing with him that soul is not immortal, would spurn the charge of materialistic nihilism, if brought against either that sublime teacher or themselves. The history of Sākya Muni's life is the strongest bulwark of his religion. As long as the human heart is capable of being touched by tales of heroic self-sacrifice, accompanied by purity and celestial benevolence of motive, it will cherish his memory. Why should I go into the particulars of that noble life? You will remember that he was the son of the king of Kapilavasṭu--a mighty sovereign whose opulence enabled him to give the heir of his house every luxury that a voluptuous imagination could desire: and that the future Buḍḍha was not allowed even to know, much less observe, the miseries of ordinary existence. How beautifully Edwin Arnold has painted for us in _The Light of Asia_ the luxury and languor of that Indian Court, "where love was gaoler and delights its bars". We are told that: