16 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS 



righteous man better, than that which he re- 

 ceived. Indian philosophy, however, did not admit 

 of any doubt on this subject ; the belief in the influence 

 of conditions, notably of self- discipline, on the karma 

 was not merely a necessary postulate of its theory of 

 retribution, but it presented the only way of escape 

 from the endless round of transmigrations. 



The earlier forms of Indian philosophy agreed with 

 those prevalent in our own times, in supposing the 

 existence of a permanent reality, or 'substance,' beneath 

 the shifting series of phenomena, whether of matter or 

 of mind. The substance of the cosmos was ' Brahma,' 

 that of the individual man ' Atman ' ; and the latter 

 was separated from the former only, if I may so speak, 

 by its phenomenal envelope, by the casing of sensa- 

 tions, thoughts and desires, pleasures and pains, which 

 make up the illusive phantasmagoria of life. This 

 the ignorant take for reality ; their ' Atman ' there- 

 fore remains eternally imprisoned in delusions, bound 

 by the fetters of desire and scourged by the whip of 

 misery. But the man who has attained enlightenment 

 sees that the apparent reality is mere illusion, or, as was 

 said a couple of thousand years later, that there is 

 nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so. If 

 the cosmos " is just and of our pleasant vices makes 

 instruments to scourge us," it would seem that the 

 only way to escape from our heritage of evil is to 

 destroy that fountain of desire whence our vices flow ; 

 to refuse any longer to be the instruments of the 

 evolutionary process and withdraw from the struggle 

 for existence. If the karma is modifiable by self-dis- 



