1845.] du Buddhism Indien, par E. Burnouf. 787 



We willingly admit, that Buddhism has for the critic and historian a 

 peculiar interest, but of an opposite kind ; which is, that a religion, which, 

 as regards even its origin, appears to belong to an advanced state of 

 society, and which in all its stages manifests elements of a doctrine 

 intended to be propagated, — that such a religion should at the same time 

 recoil into the darkness of a primeval period. It is the peculiar object 

 of the enquirer to raise the veil which was, as we may safely assert, 

 woven in after days ; like as with the pretensions of Brahmanism to 

 indefinite antiquity, made at a more recent period. 



On the other hand we may assert, that the darkness into which the 

 origin of many religions is plunged, cannot be removed, because such 

 darkness is, as it were, cause and consequence of their origin. 



A religion which is produced by the human mind, without being 

 dependent on former religious opinions among a nation, but is rather 

 the commencement of its religious convictions, has neither conscious- 

 ness of itself, nor falls within the range of history. There is the same 

 obscurity with regard to it, as with regard to language, the origin of 

 which we may comprehend as a necessary effect from general causes 

 in human nature, without being able to trace it by historical docu- 

 ments. 



We now assert, that Buddhism is no primitive religion, but one of 

 those, which are founded on the development of preceding religious 

 opinions. 



Religion has the same object with philosophy, which, however, is 

 attained by either in a different way ; religion perceives its object by 

 belief, while the other endeavours to realize it by knowledge. Both 

 depend on the idea of infinity. As certainly as man has the idea of 

 finite things, so has he also the idea of an infinite nature ; both are 

 correlate ideas, and religion therefore is founded on the nature of man. 

 By religion we believe in our connection with infinite power ; by philoso- 

 phy, we attempt to trace it by a succession of arguments. Being both 

 alike in their object and commencement, they must also have a similar 

 development, or the steps which the one has to go to the goal of its 

 perfection, are represented likewise in the other. 



Philosophy in its origin has two characteristics ; first, it is simple, or 

 the object of knowledge is perceived in its simplest relations ; and, 

 secondly, all its principles as well as its explanations are material. The 



