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tlie universe, it is an atheistic system. It ignores the existence 
of an intelligent and personal Deity. It acknowledges that 
there is a moral government of the world ; but it honours the 
statute-book instead of the lawgiver ; and adores the sceptre 
instead of the king.” If I am asked to explain Karma, I must 
decline, for “ no one but a Buddha can tell how Karma operates, 
or how the chain of existence commenced. It is as vain to 
ask in what part of a tree the fruit exists before the blossom 
is put forth, as to ask for the locality of Karma.” * 
The cleaving to existing objects is upadana; and this at all 
events is intelligible. As it is the grand tenet of Buddhism 
that all existence is an evil, it thus becomes consistent with 
right reason to seek the destruction of upadana, which alone 
can secure the i*eception of n irvana, or the cessation of being. 
It would seem to English minds that the deduction from 
this proposition is that death is better than life, but this is as 
far as possible from the meaning. Death does not destroy 
the Karma, nor prevent the rewards and punishments being 
felt in a future life or lives. Death is not nirvana. 
It may be said that all this is very inconsistent with the 
renunciation of the idea of a personal God. It appears so, but 
it must be remembered that the same Buddhist who renounces 
the personality of God, disbelieves also in his own personality. 
The Ego is not one person, but the expression of a Karma, 
and this is unchanged by death — a truth much to be borne in 
mind ! 
Buddhism is not, then, the gospel of suicide. The unen- 
viable distinction of promulgating this last effort of the 
powers of darkness has been reserved for some advanced 
German “ thinkers” ; even as the gospel of immorality is the 
speciality of some of our more practical English, some of 
whom have done themselves no credit by their most recent 
lucubrations on these subjects. 
I think the philosophy of Buddha worthy of much more 
careful examination than has yet been given to it by the 
Institute. Its influence on the formation of character is the 
alone aspect which I dwell upon in this Address. The view 
which it presents to us of the misery of creation, the denial 
of the very Being and existence of God, as well as of the 
Creative power and goodness of the infinite Nothing which 
* Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 392. IX. The Ontology of Buddhism. 
Karma is, however, defined by Krishna, the Supreme God in the Hindoo 
poem, as “ that emanation from which proceedeth the generation of natural 
beings ” ; but this is not Buddhism. 
