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between the four precepts quoted can hardly be accidental. 

 It is, of course, not without the bounds of possibility that 

 there may here be an echo of Moses, who lived 1,000 years 

 before Buddha ; but I should rather regard these first four 

 precepts of the Buddhist code as being vestiges of a moral 

 law divinely given in the still farther past, that had never 

 been wholly lost to the human family, and had been re- 

 enunciated to the " chosen people " on Mount Sinai. In this 

 view of the case, Buddha inherited traditions of a morality 

 that had once the stamp of the divine imprimatur, I am far 

 from saying that there was only this inheritance at the root 

 of Buddhistic teaching; but that inheritance, I think, I may 

 claim ; and, if the claim be allowed, it will go far to remove 

 any difficulty as to the origin of parallelisms between the 

 moral teaching of Buddha and that of the Old Testament. 



21. Dr. Oldeuberg labours eloquently to show that the seeds 

 of Buddhism already existed in Brahmanism. No doubt, to 

 some extent they did ; and, by the side of the preserved relics 

 of a divine ritual, why should there not have existed pi'eserved 

 relics of a divine morality ? There was always the natural 

 yearning of man after something better. The desire after 

 deliverance, as Dr. Oldenberg has observed, already expresses 

 itself in Hinduism. Buddhism takes up the theme, and dis- 

 courses of self-conquest, merit, and demerit. Is it not here 

 grasping as weapons the vestiges of an erewhile divine 

 morality to hurl at the effete ritualism that was deadening 

 the world, and as a protest against the shams and immorality 

 of the day ? The very fact of the doctrine, that deliverance 

 from suffering by righteousness (this is Buddhism) ends in 

 peace in another state of existence, must imply, in the first 

 birth of the idea, some power to acknowledge the righteous- 

 ness and award the peace. The very idea of merit and 

 demerit, as earning or deserving, as binding or freeing, must 

 originally arise from the conviction of an arbitrator. Causality, 

 as Dr. Oldenberg has noticed, is everywhere implied, though 

 not defined, in Buddhism, as we read it to-day. But an 

 abstract idea like this could never have given the convictions 

 which must be at the root originally of merit and demerit 



affirmation of some truth that has been denied or lost. The last six of 

 these Buddhist precepts disclose the character of the atje in which they were 

 first promulgated, and against which they were a protest. It must have 

 been an age calling loudly for reform ; such an age as produced Juvenal's 

 satires ; an age of drunkenness, of gluttony, of frivolity, of efl'eniinacy, of 

 worldly pride, wealth, ;md avarice. 



