64 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



mental desire of self-assertion, or the desire to be, 

 may also be destroyed. 7 Then the bubble of 

 illusion will burst, and the freed individual ' At- 

 man ' will lose itself in the universal ' Brahma/ 



Such seems to have been the pre-Buddhistic 

 conception of salvation, and of the way to be 

 followed by those who would attain thereto. No 

 more thorough mortification of the flesh has ever 

 been attempted than that achieved by the Indian 

 ascetic anchorite; no later monachism has so 

 nearly succeeded in reducing the human mind to 

 that condition of impassive quasi-somnambulism, 

 which, but for its acknowledged holiness, might 

 run the risk of being confounded with idiocy. 



And this salvation, it will be observed, was to 

 be attained through knowledge, and by action 

 based on that knowledge; just as the experi 

 menter, who would obtain a certain physical or 

 chemical result, must have a knowledge of the 

 natural laws involved and the persistent disciplined 

 will adequate to carry out all the various opera 

 tions required. The supernatural, in our sense of 

 the term, was entirely excluded. There was no 

 external power which could affect the sequence of 

 cause and effect which gives rise to karma ; none 

 but the will of the subject of the karma which 

 could put an end to it. 



Only one rule of conduct could be based upon 

 the remarkable theory of which I have endeavoured 

 to give a reasoned outline. It was folly to continue 



