204 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CEEED OF SCIENCE. 



philosophy, the transplanted Buddhism, which has at 

 length appeared and found disciples in Western Europe. 

 The view last intimated seems, on the whole, the nearest 

 truth;* though there are some who think that the 

 spread of pessimism is rather a sign that the internal 

 constitution of society is wrong and requires readjust- 

 ment. 



That a systematic pessimist creed should have ap- 

 peared ages ago amongst the monotonous myriads of 

 miserable beings that swarmed South-Eastern Asia, and 

 that such a creed should be hailed as the word of deliver- 

 ance and salvation, is sufficiently intelligible. "Man 

 is a weed in these regions," as De Quincey has said ; 

 existence is lightly valued at the best is an evil rather 

 than a good in the general estimation ; the doctrines of 

 pessimism and Nirvana go hand-in-hand, and are well 

 suited to the nature of the people of these countries. 

 The immemorial tyranny of caste ; the special oppression 

 of conscience by the priestly class; the necessarily 

 deadly struggle for existence amongst the teeming 

 millions ; the misery of life, added to the utter mystery 

 and inexplicability of it all ; these things are amply 

 sufficient to account for the first appearance and the 

 general acceptance of the system of Buddha ages ago in 

 Hindustan, where it was born, as the like circumstances 

 account for its reception in the surrounding countries 

 after it had been rooted out of India. The soil was 

 everywhere ready for the seed of Buddha's teaching. 

 Pessimism is the natural creed of a people and a 

 society where the many mutually crush each other by 

 their numbers, where they are crushed again by the 

 ruling classes, and where, tormented by superstitions, 



* Sully's Pessimism, pp. 452, 453. 



