"Gotama," Dr. Paul Carus remarks, "strange to say, anticipated the modern conception of the soul as it is now taught by the most advanced scientists of Europe." St. Paul, too, may be reckoned as one who, if he had lived in these days, would have given his support to that positive philosophy which regards the soul as a product of materiality; for, he says: "Howbeit that was not first which was spiritual, but that which was natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthy; the second man (the soul) is the Lord from heaven." When the distinction between the expressions "materiality" and "reality" is clearly discerned, it removes a difficulty out of our way when we come to consider a means of bringing into harmony the Christian and Buddhist conception of "soul." It has been contended that, if you deny substance to the soul, it is tantamount to asserting the non-existence of the soul. But if it is admitted that "reality" has existence as well as "materiality," this objection falls to the ground. The definition of matter as that which occupies space is not a comprehensive one. It is only the definition of a supposed quality of matter; it is abstracted in our minds from other qualities. Therefore, if we regard "soul," more especially in its sublimated condition, as something akin to a quality of matter after matter, as we perceive it, has been abstracted, we have a residuum which both Christians and Buddhists alike can accept as an approximate explanation of the nature of "soul." The eschatology of the soul, as indicated in the two systems, is less easy to harmonize. The soul, according to Catholic notions, after the death of the body, undergoes a purgatorial process; and, in the general view of Protestants, awaits--sleeping or waking--in the ante-room of a judgment-hall until a final verdict is pronounced on the Day of Doom; and then, and not till then, is it allotted its ultimate rest or unrest. On the other hand, that which is in Buddhistic thought the counterpart of this soul, whether we call it a "group of ideas" or the "effects of Karma," must submit, till absolutely bereft of the formative faculty or desire to live, to continuous incarnations. This, however, does not involve a process of transmigration, as is sometimes incorrectly assumed. Several illustrations have been made use of to explain the migrationless nature of the process. "When a lamp is lit at a burning lamp there is a kindling of the wick, but no transmigration of the flame." A thought is conveyed by words from one to another, but of the thought itself there is no migration. Neither is there migration of any part of an object to a photographic plate, nor in the reflection of an object in a mirror.