Current Literature [pp. 382-391]

1874.] CURRENT LJTERATURE. 387
too common error of simply despising and human race. Dr. Eitel says, considering
denouncing the ancient system of belief and it merely as an event in history, it seems to
custom which he desires may be superseded him to have been more of a blessing than a
by a better. On the contrary, he tries to curse. He believes it has fulfilled a proviunderstand it, and to allow for the strong dential mission. Through its means, nations
hold it has taken on the Asiatic mind. Thus which were living in a state of utter savage~
he candidly treats of Buddhism as a system ness were brought into a state of semi-civiliza.
of vast magnitude, embracing all the various tion. "What the Mongols were before they
branches of science, embodying in one living became Buddhists, is written with blood on the
structure grand and peculiar views of physics, pages of Asiatic history. Those very countries
refined and subtle theorems on abstract meta- and peoples, which were shut out from the cenphysics, and constituting an edifice of fanci- tres of civilization by mountains and deserts,
ful mysticism, a most elaborate and far- were visited and brought under the influence
reaching system of practical morality, and, of morality by those indefatigable Buddhist
finally, a church organization as broad in its zealots, for whom no mountain was too high,
principles and as finely wrought in its most no desert too dreary. In countries like Chi.
intricate network as any in the world. Yet na and Japan, where Buddhism found a sort
the whole of this, he says, "may be com- of civilization existing, it acted like a dissolv
pressed into a few formulas and symbols, ing acid, undermining the existing religious
plain and suggestive enough to be grasped systems, and thus preparing the way for a new
by the most simple - minded Asiatic, and yet religion to enter - for Christianity, if we had
so full of philosophic depth as to provide but half the enthusiasm that inspired those
rich food for years of meditation to the meta- disciples of Buddha."
physician, the poet, the mystic." In its in- Feng.Shui is the popular appellative for
ception, Buddhism, as taught by Shakya- Chinese science-a queer system of mixed
muni Gautama Buddha, was an intellectual astrology, soothsaying, and geomancy, growrevolt against the tyranny of the Brahmanic ing out of and intimately connected with the
priesthood, of caste and property. It was religious notions and superstitions of the
the Protestantism of old India. Six centu- people. It is based on an emotional concepries before Christ, its founder taught the tion of nature - is, in short, an instance, on
equality of man, the vanity of earthly things, a large scale, of the survival in a state of
the doctrine of mcral retribution. It is dis- civilization of those primitive ideas which atputed whether his conception of the release tributed to nature spiritual vitality. Intiof some from the terrible ordeal of transmi- mately connected with it is the system of angration, by final absorption into Nirvana, cestral worship which survives in China from
was not practically atheism and annihilation. a remote time, when it was held in common
There is no doubt, however, that popular with the Aryans in their native seats, before
Buddhism clings to the idea of an immortality they had carried it to India, and thence to
of individual existence, in a state of blissful Europe, in which latter region it shaped the
rest, as the reward of piety and virtue, and domestic and civil polity of the polished
that it has also distinct notions of Deity. To Greeks and Romans to a great extent, leava great extent it has retained traces of Brah- ing its traces still in our modern laws and
manism, in India, and has been modified by customs. Dr. Eitel says the - Chinese have
the rival systems of Tauism and Confucian- the notion that the souls of their ancestors
ism, in China and Japan. It is remarkable are, by their animal nature, confined for some
as the only proselyting religion besides Chris- time to the tomb in which their bodies are intianity, for the Mohammedan faith was prop- terred, while by their spiritual nature they
agated by the sword rather than by mission- feel impelled to hover near the dwellings of
ary effort. In a few centuries it had spread their descendants; "whence it is but a natall over Hindostan and the great islands, ural and logical inference to suppose that the
over China and Japan. After twenty - four fortunes of the living depend in some meascenturies it still claims four hundred millions ure upon the favorable situation of the tombs
of believers - more than a third of the entire of their ancestors. If a tomb is so placed