II 



NOTES 91 



existence." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, 1881, 

 p. 83.) 



For what I have said about Indian Philosophy, I 

 am particularly indebted to the luminous exposition 

 of primitive Buddhism and its relations to earlier 

 Hindu thought, which is given by Prof. Rhys Davids 

 in his remarkable Hibbert Lectures for 1881, and 

 Buddhism (1890). The only apology I can offer for 

 the freedom with which I have borrowed from him 

 in these notes, is my desire to leave no doubt as to 

 my indebtedness. I have also found Dr. Oldenberg's 

 Buddha (Ed. 2, 1890) very helpful. The origin of 

 the theory of transmigration stated in the above 

 extract is an unsolved problem. That it differs 

 widely from the Egyptian metempsychosis is clear. 

 In fact, since men usually people the other world 

 with phantoms of this, the Egyptian doctrine would 

 seem to presuppose the Indian as a more archaic 

 belief. 



Prof. Rhys Davids has fully insisted upon the 

 ethical importance of the transmigration theory. 

 " One of the latest speculations now being put forward 

 among ourselves would seek to explain each man's 

 character, and even his outward condition in life, by 

 the character he inherited from his ancestors, a 

 character gradually formed during a practically 

 endless series of past existences, modified only by the 

 conditions into which he was born, those very con 

 ditions being also, in like manner, the last result of 

 a practically endless series of past causes. Gotama's 

 speculation might be stated in the same words. But 

 it attempted also to explain, in a way different from 



