836 RETIREMENT, TO 1897 : OF BOOKS, ETC. 



my guess is, that Issa was an Essene who carried the early 

 Christian teaching with its myths into Tibet, and by a very 

 natural process became identified with the founder whose 

 system he expounded and whose life he narrated. For 

 my part I cannot conceive Jesus having spent the best 

 years of his life as a traveller and yet no allusion to 

 foreign peoples, places, religions (other than Buddhist), 

 or things peeping out in his teaching. If he had so passed 

 his prime of life, it must have been well known to his neigh- 

 bours but except as ' the Carpenter's son,' no allusion that 

 I can recollect is made to his early life except as a child, 

 and I cannot conceive the episodes of his childhood having 

 been remembered for 30 years by Orientals ! they were 

 imagined or made up with no intent to deceive afterwards 

 I suspect by his followers. My idea is that Jesus passed his 

 life (like hundreds of others, for Palestine is drilled with their 

 caves in places) as an Essene recluse, in meditation, and 

 came forth at last as a prophet and preacher. The tide of 

 events taught him the speedy destruction of the temple and 

 Jerusalem and Buddhist pilgrims, or monks, taught him 

 Buddhist doctrines, proverbs and parables, rules of life, 

 duty, &c., &c., &c. It is impossible to guess how much is 

 true of what is attributed to him by his followers, or rather 

 his successors, who believed in his mission, but not in his 

 Godhead I suppose. 



We naturally regard Jesus in respect of his family and 

 surroundings as we do ourselves ; forgetting that there is 

 no such family life in the East as we enjoy. 



To the Same 



Dec. 24, 1893. 



What you say of A. B. and C. does not at all surprise me. 

 They are ' ne plus ultra ' mathematicians, have not a con- 

 ception of biological science, and in fact are only half intellects 

 (I suppose I deserve to be burned), but so it is, that I have 

 often found such men to be impervious to reasoning out 

 of their own circle, in matters of natural science. With 

 biologists, who have to found everything, beyond pure 

 observation, on circumstantial evidence, the case is quite 

 different. For hundreds of biologists who are good mathe- 

 maticians, vou will not find ten vice versa. 



