64 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. n 



fundamental desire of self-assertion, or the desire 

 to be, may also be destroyed.*^ 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 fol- 

 lowed 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 experimen- 

 ter, who would obtain a certain physical or chem- 

 ical result, must have a knowledge of the natural 

 laws involved and the persistent disciplined will 

 adequate to carry out all the various operations 

 required. The supernatural, in our sense of the 

 term, was entirely excluded. There was no ex- 

 ternal 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 outhne. It was folly to continue 



