But this process of reasoning closely borders on the confines of metempsychosis, in the phraseology of which the doctrine of Karma has often been mistakenly expounded. The doctrine of Karma is a modification of metempsychosis, and, as such, certainly stands on a more scientific and rational basis than its prototype. In consequence of the intermixture of the two theories in the minds of exponents of Karma, much misapprehension has arisen, and this doctrine continues to be a stumbling-block to students of Buddhism. A considerable amount of confusion arises also, I think, from the fact that writers on Buddhism fail to discriminate between Karma, the law of Karma, and the effects of Karma, although the word Karma includes the two latter. It is a mistake to assume that Karma, interpreted as "thoughts, words, and actions," is perpetuated as such, for each thought, word, and action passes for ever away while it happens; each dies, yet each continues for all eternity in the effect it produces. "The being of a past moment of thought has lived, but does not live, nor will it live." "The being of a future moment of thought will live, but has not lived, nor does it live." "The being of the present moment of thought will live, but has not lived, nor will it live." It cannot be held, therefore, if we read Buddhism aright, that Karma in itself possesses continuity. "The 'I' of to-day has to take all the _consequences_ of the _actions_ (Karma) which the 'I' of yesterday performed. Thus the individualized Karma of future times will reap all that which the individualizing Karma of the present time _sows_."[AF] [AF] Paul Carus. Professor Rhys Davids (_Buddhism_, p. 103) says: "Identity is preserved in that which alone remains when a man dies; in the result, namely, of his action, speech, and thought, in his good or evil Karma (literally his 'doing') which does not die." This statement would have gained in clearness if he had written "_in the result_ of his good or evil Karma which does not die," in the concluding sentence. If we allow ourselves to consider Karma, taken in the sense of "doing," as retaining a separateness apart from its diffusion of influences, and being carried on from generation to generation as an individualized compound, then we at once find ourselves in direct conflict with the doctrine of "inseparateness," which is the mainstay of the rationality of Buddhist thought, the basic concept of Buddhism. If we understand by the Samskâras that phase of a man's soul which is impressed upon other generations by heredity and education, and that which "is preserved by the law of Karma and conditions the continuity of man's existence in the whirl of constant changes," it must be exclusively in the sense that these Samskâras are formative faculties peculiar to, and always to be found (in normal cases) in interconnection with, those temporary aggregations which present themselves to our perceptions as human beings, but which are not permanent.