The subject under consideration is a very important one. It comprehends and comprises a summary of many particulars already alluded to in the foregoing two articles. The reader will find the path he has to follow less rugged, and the ground he will have to go over not so arid. Our author seems to lay great stress on this special point. The sage, says he, who is desirous to arrive at the supreme perfection, must apply all the powers of his mind to discern the true ways from the false ones. Many are deceived in the midst of their researches after wisdom. The real criterion between the true and false ways is this: when, in considering an object, and making a philosophical analysis of it, the sage finds it somehow connected with concupiscence and other passions so far that he cannot, as it were, dissolve it by the application of the three principles of aneitsa, duka, and anatta—that is to say, change, pain, and illusion, then he must conclude that he is out of the right ways; the high road to perfection is barred before him. But on the contrary, whenever, by the appliance of the three great principles, he sees that all the objects brought under his consideration are nothing more or less than the mere compound of the four elements, divested of these illusory appearances which deceive so many, then he may be certain that he is in the right position, and is sure of making progress in the way to perfection. To facilitate the study of the _Meggas_, Buddhists have classified all real and imaginary beings under a certain number of heads. The sage, to complete his laborious task, has to examine separately each of these subjects and submit them to the following lengthened, difficult, and complicated process. He takes up one subject, attentively considers its exterior and interior compound parts, its connection and relation with other things, its tendency to adhere to or part with surrounding objects. Pursuing his inquiries into the past, he endeavours to make himself acquainted with the state and condition of that object during several periods that have elapsed; when his mind is satisfied on this point he follows up in future the same object, and calculates from the experience of the past what change it may hereafter become subjected to. This study enables him to perceive distinctly that it is subjected to the three great laws of mutability, pain, and illusion. This conviction once deeply seated in his soul, the sage holds that object in supreme contempt; far from having any affection for or attachment to it, he feels an intense disgust at it, and longs for the possession of Neibban, which is the exemption from the influence of mutability, pain, and illusion.