Yet all these artifices were quite unnecessary. For the impossibility of proving the existence of God by no means interferes with that existence, since it rests in unshakeable security on a much firmer basis. It is indeed a matter of revelation, and this is besides all the more certain, because that revelation was exclusively vouchsafed to a single people, called, on this account, the chosen people of God. This is made evident by the fact, that the notion of God, as personal Ruler and Creator of the world, ordaining everything for the best, is to be found in no other religion but the Jewish, and the two faiths derived from it, which might consequently in a wider sense be called Jewish sects. We find no trace of such a notion in any other religion, ancient or modern. For surely no one would dream of confounding this Creator God Almighty with the Hindoo Brahm, which is living in me, in you, in my horse, in your dog--or even with Brahma, who is born and dies to make way for other Brahmas, and to whom moreover the production of the world is imputed as sin and guilt[142]--least of all with beguiled Saturn's voluptuous son, to whom Prometheus, defiant, prophesies his downfall. But if we finally direct our attention towards the religion which numbers most followers, and in this respect may therefore be said to rank foremost: that is, Buddhism, we can no longer shut our eyes to the fact that it is as decidedly and explicitly atheistic, as it is idealistic and ascetic; and this moreover to such a degree, that its priests express the greatest abhorrence of the doctrine of pure Theism whenever it is brought to their notice. Therefore, in a treatise handed to a Catholic bishop by the High Priest of the Buddhists at Ava,[143] the doctrine "that there is a Being who has created the world and all things, and who alone is worthy of worship," is counted among the six damnable heresies.[144] This is entirely corroborated by I. J. Schmidt, a most excellent and learned authority, whom I consider as having undoubtedly the deepest knowledge of Buddhism of any European _savant_, and who, in his work "Upon the connection between Gnostic doctrines and Buddhism," p. 9, says:-- [142] "If Brimha be unceasingly employed in the creation of worlds ... how can tranquillity be obtained by inferior orders of being?" Prabodh Chandro Daya, translated by J. Taylor, p. 23.--Brahma is also part of the Trimurti, which is the personification of nature, as procreation, preservation, and death: that is, he represents the first of these. [143] See "Asiatic Researches," vol. vi. p. 268, and Sangermano's "Description of the Burmese Empire," p. 81. [144] See I. J. Schmidt, "Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren Bildungsgeschichte Mittelasiens." St. Petersburg, 1824, pp. 276, and 180.