must penetrate in order to discover the first cause of all moral disorders. Every being has his mind more or less encompassed by a thick mist that prevents him from seeing truth. He mistakes good for evil, right for wrong; he erroneously clings to material objects that have no reality, no substance, no consistence; his passions are kept alive by his love or hatred of vain illusions. The flame is, moreover, fed by birth, old age, death, afflictions, &c., which are as many _foci_ wherefrom radiate out on all surrounding objects fires which keep up the general conflagration. But they play only a secondary action, dependent on the three great causes of all evils just alluded to. What causes birth, old age, and death? inquires the Buddhist. The law of merits and demerits is the immediate answer to the question; it might be added thereto, the necessity of acquiring merits and gravitating towards perfection. A man is born to innumerable succeeding existences by virtue of his imperfections, and that he might acquire fresh merits by the practice of virtue. By birth, a being is ushered into a new existence or into a new state, where the burning flame which is supposed to spread over all that exists exercises its teasing and tormenting influence over him. Old age and death are two periods when a radical change operates upon a being, and places him in a different situation where he experiences the baneful effects of the conflagration. "Blessed are they," says Buddha, "who understand this; they are full of wisdom; they become displeased with all passions and with all the things they act upon. The causes of existences being done away with, they have reached the terminus of all possible existences; one step more and they find themselves placed beyond the influence of the power of attraction that retains forcibly all beings in the vortex of existences, and brings them towards the centre of perfection; they are in fact entering into the state of Neibban."