"While Buddhists do not believe that God is an individual being like ourselves, they recognize that the Christian God idea contains an important truth, which, however, is differently expressed in Buddhism. Buddhism teaches that Bôdhi, or Sambôdhi, or Amitabha--_i.e._, that which gives enlightenment, or, in other words, those verities the recognition of which is Nirvana (constituting Buddhahood)--is omnipresent and eternal." * * * * * "Christianity possesses in the idea, and, indeed, in the very word 'God,' representing the authority of moral conduct in a most forcible manner, a symbol of invaluable importance; it is an advantage which has contributed not a little to make Christianity so powerful and popular, so impressive and effective, as it has proved to be. In this little word 'God' much has been condensed, and it contains an unfathomable depth of religious comfort." CHAPTER III. SOUL, SELF, INDIVIDUALITY, AND KARMA. "Verily every man is altogether vanity; for man walketh in a vain show, he disquieteth himself in vain."--BIBLE. The feat of mental gymnastics performed by Gotama regarded as a phenomenal being, which led to the abrogation of "soul" as an ego-entity from its dominion in the minds of men, combined with the amazing fact that nearly a third of the population of this planet has, for many centuries, enthusiastically acquiesced in this dethronement of animism, must be regarded as one of the most striking wonders in the religious history of the human race. As astronomical science disposed of the geocentric theory of the universe, greatly to the advantage of theological progressiveness, so the exponents of modern psychology hope to dispel the delusion of the ego-centric theory of man, and to clear the way for a more scientific and a truer conception of that which is commonly understood by the word "soul." According to the teaching of these psychologists, there is no ego-entity, or hidden and mysterious factor, that stands behind the psychic and physical organism of man. The soul of man consists of a group of ideas, and these ideas are in intimate connection with the so-called external world, as also with what may be expressed as the internal world of a Being wherein has taken place the development of the hereditary germ. In Buddhism it appears to me to be a matter of choice whether we apply the term "soul" to a group of ideas, which, in the case of the Saint, as sublimated ideas, synchronously cease with the formative faculty, and vanish ultimately into the unconditioned, or to the effects of a man's disposition, which continue as impressions on the characters of those who receive them. "Man" is a name for a materialized presentation of reality--that is, for particles of matter assuming form under the influence of a formative faculty and the results of the interactions, relations, and qualities peculiar to the particles and this particular aggregation.