Gaudama, having wilfully and unwilfully ignored a first cause from which all the things that exist draw their being and life, has been forced to allow to an imaginary agent the very same attributes which belong exclusively to the supreme being. On the rock of atheism he has made a sad shipwreck. Apart from this capital error it is surprising to see him maintaining with an admirable acuteness the existence of many fundamental truths; such, for instance, as the reward of good actions and the punishment of bad ones. With him the doing of evil is ever attended with consequences fatal to the perpetrator, whilst the performance of good is always accompanied with beneficial results. One would be inclined to believe that Gaudama has appropriated to himself with a great tact all the truths emanating from the belief in a supreme being; and whilst he has, with a barefaced and impious audacity, denied to the eternal author of all things the very existence, he has been placed under the necessity of accounting, in a most unlogical manner, for the existence of this world. [49] It will perhaps be of some interest to a few of our readers to mention the names of the thirty-one seats in which Buddhists have located all beings. Let us begin with the lowest step of that immense ladder. The four first steps are the four states of punishment. In them are to be found living the unfortunate beings who, pursued by the inflexible law of their demerits, are doomed to atone in different ways for the evil that they have done. The lowest seat is Nga-yai or hell. It is placed in the centre of our planet, and subdivided into eight principal quarters, the last of which is called Awidzi. The second step of the ladder is occupied by the seat of Animals; the third by certain monsters called Preittas; and the fourth by another kind of inferior beings named Athourikes. These four seats are tenanted by beings who undergo punishment for the evil deeds they have performed. The fifth seat is that of Manusa, or men. The beings that occupy it are in a state in which they can merit or demerit. It may be called a position of probation. Above the seat of man are the six seats of Nats called Tsadoomaritz, Tawadeintha, Yama, Toocita, Nimanarati, Pare-neimittawasawati. The denizens of those seats enjoy the reward awarded to them for the performance of good and meritorious exterior works.