Such is the process followed by Buddhists in attempting to account for all that exists. What effect could such a reasoning have over the mind of the generality of hearers it is difficult to say. But we may rest assured that, though these principles existed, as an embryo, in the discourses of the author of Buddhism, they were never laid before the generality of hearers in that crude scholastic form. Such abstruse ideas, when analysed and commented upon by Buddhist doctors, gave rise to the most opposite conclusions. The materialist school based its revolting doctrines upon that theory; we may add that the opinions of that school are generally held in Burmah, and by the great mass of Buddhists. Some other doctors reasoned in the following manner: Ignorance supposes two things, a being ignoring and a thing ignored, that is to say, man and the world. They admitted the eternity of a soul which had to pass through the series above enumerated. With them metempsychosis was a process exactly similar to that imagined by the Brahmins. As to the world, it was, to them, an unreality. Knowledge enabled them to come to the position of understanding and believing that there is no such thing as what we by mistake call world. The latter opinion, which seems to admit of a principle existing distinct from matter, is opposed to the former and general one, which supposes that spirit is but a modification of matter. We deliberately make use of the doubt, implying expression, at the head of the preceding sentence, respecting the real opinions of the latter school, because, in their way of arguing, it is impossible not to come to the painful conclusion that they ignore, or do not admit, a distinction between spirit and matter. [9] In a work different from that which has been translated is found a more developed exposition of the four great and sublime truths. We think that the reader will like to see in what manner Buddhists themselves understand this important subject, which is, with them, the foundation of their doctrine on morals.