480 BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM 



of Nirvana. On the other hand, the blessed hope of spirits longing 

 for life, the transfiguration of a most living, most personal existence 

 perfecting itself in God. We have here the sharp antitheses that 

 appear doubly sharp compared with the harmony between Indian 

 and Greek modes of thought. Who would wish to obscure them? 

 But it is not obscuring them when we ask whether, in spite of differ- 

 ences of race, civilization, temperament, powers of imagination, com- 

 plexity or simplicity of thought, it is not after all the same longing, 

 here as there, a longing originating in the depths of the soul for the 

 world beyond. It is a longing for the " far off, " to leave the dullness 

 of the world and life of the senses for the freest, brightest heights. 

 The hand that was once eagerly and rudely stretched out after 

 worldly goods has been drawn back. One dreams of the inex- 

 pressible, whose secrets one must perforce call by many ever chang- 

 ing names. It sounds in the souls like grand chords of stirring and 

 solemn music. 



I can merely indicate what pictures the science of religion has to 

 draw here. The assistance of students of Indian religions is not cer- 

 tainly the least to give it the power to reduce these pictures from 

 floating mists to definite form. We accompany that science to its 

 very heights. We furnish it with material, with facts that shall 

 prevent it from merely playing with airy forms. Moreover, whatever 

 we have given it returns to us again open to a higher, broader, and 

 freer understanding. I said at the beginning of my discussion that 

 each historical form is itself alone, occurs only once. Now we think 

 we see reflected in this one form other forms, scattered over wide 

 stretches of space and time. The single form remains constant, and 

 yet it may appear to us as if it first received its fullest significance, 

 its position in all life, through this reflection. 



Have I strayed too far, in what I have said, from the question of 

 the relation of the different branches of investigation, into a dis- 

 cussion of the relationships of the objects of these investigations? 

 It will hardly be possible to deal with the first problem objectively 

 without constantly introducing the second. My real aim, however, 

 was always this, to show how our study is closely associated with 

 that of our fellow scientists, with the work of specialists, and with the 

 study of broad and universal problems. If it were conceivable that 

 our share in all this were suddenly made void, surely many a gap 

 would be bitterly felt. The science of religions would be more limited 

 and poorer if, among the voices of the peoples that it hears and 

 interprets, the voice of that people were missing which created the 

 prayers and sacrifices of the Veda and the figure of the Buddha 

 shrouded in mystery. 



