_Printed by_ R. & R. Clark, Limited, _Edinburgh._
[ Footnotes ]
[1] _Mahāvagga_, i. 6, and many other passages.
[2] _Mahāvagga_, i. 21.
[3] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 140.
[4] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 44.
[5] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38.
[6] “Differentiate itself” is meant to equate _samucchissatha_, a word
for which it is difficult to find an adequate equivalent. It signifies
the self-integration of the new being simultaneously with its severance
from the maternal organism.
[7] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38.
[8] _Buddhism in Translations_, by H. C. Warren, p. 239.
[9] _Pāḷi Text_, P.T.S. edition, p. 71.
[10] These two words are not, as most western scholars aver,
altogether synonymous, for “Dhamma” embraces everything--actual as
well as re-actual processes. When, on the other hand, it is desired
particularly to specify the re-actual processes, the word “Sankhāra”
serves the purpose. The stereotyped formula: “All Sankhāras are
transient; all Sankhāras are painful; all _Dhammas_ are non-self,”
is not based upon any caprice nor yet upon metrical considerations
(as Oldenburg asserts in his _Buddha_, 1897 edition, p. 291), for the
prose versions render the three phrases in exactly the same form,
as may be seen by a reference to the _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 35.
On the contrary, the formula is founded upon a clearly understood
distinction between Sankhāra and Dhamma. The native scholars express
this distinction by saying that the Dhammas take in, embrace, the
element of Nibbāna. Which means nothing more than that they refer to
_actual_ processes, to living beings. Western scholars would do well
to sit at the feet of the native scholars somewhat more than they at
present incline to do. Many a misconception might thereby be removed,
or prevented from ever arising, indeed. An admonition such as this is
needed in every nook and corner of our literature upon Buddhism.
[11] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 37.
[12] In Pāḷi, _paṭiccasamuppāda_, which may be rendered as “The
together-arising in dependence upon.”
[13] Cf. Essay XI.
[14] The texts give the true meaning of _Jāti_ with sufficient
frequency, as, for instance, in the ninth Sutta of the _Majjhima
Nikāya_, as follows:--
“Khandhānaŋ pātubhāvo, āyatanānaŋ paṭilābho, ayaŋ vuccat’ āvuso
jāti.” Which means: “The coming into manifestation of the Khandhas
(that is, the arising anew of corporeality, sensations, perceptions,
discriminations, and cognition-acts, such as at every moment are
exhibited in every individual combustion process, every alimentation
process), the ever repeated seizing of the Ayatanas (that is, of the
objects of sense, or of that, supported by which--in the objective
as in the subjective sense--the senses are able to come into
activity),--this, friend, is called birth.”
I embrace the opportunity of calling attention to the equally
misleading rendering of Nāma-rūpa by “name and form.” The native
pandits laugh at such a rendering. Here Nāma is “that which bends”
(nāmeti), _i.e._ that which conglobates the material (rūpa) into
that specific form through which even it becomes an individual. It
is not merely name, but the totality precisely of what most is worth
naming. As a matter of fact, the pandits of Ceylon explain it as the
evolutional form of Viññāṇa.
In harmony with this, in the above cited Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta, Sāriputta
gives the following explanation: “Sensation, perception, volition,
thought-contact, cogitation, this is called _nāma_.” And in the Milinda
Pañha it is said: “What is gross, that is _rūpa_; what is of fine,
mind-like constitution, that is _nāma_.” In the Abhidhamma exegesis,
the so-called Nāma-series is directly identified with Viññāṇa.
[15] _Samyutta Nikāya_, ii. 15, 3.
[16] When a modern writer, like T. Loeb in his _Dynamik der
Lebenserscheinungen_, declares living beings to be machines “which
consist _essentially_ of colloidal matter possessing the property of
automatic alimentation and reproduction,” the statement has about as
much value as if one should think to explain the arc-light as something
that consists _essentially_ of a stick of carbon possessing the
property of automatically lighting itself every evening and burning
throughout the night.
[17] Cf. Essay V., “The Teaching of Kamma.”
[18] E. Mach, _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_.
[19] Thus, Hering writes in _Das Gedächtniss als Funktion der belebten
Materie_: “The central sections of the nervous system must retain some
memory of that which they formerly have done.... In like manner the
motor system must possess memory, albeit unknown to us it is true.”
Further on he says: “The reappearance in the daughter organism of the
characteristics of the mother organism is a reproduction on the matter
side, of such a process as the former already once before has shared
in, if only as germ in the ovary, which process it remembers, inasmuch
as to like stimuli it reacts exactly as that organism of which it once
formed a part”; from which the fact of the hereditary transmission of
characteristic qualities would work out as a specimen merely of the
“memory of unconscious matter.” Hering adds: “Thus every organic being
of the present day stands before us ultimately as a product of the
unconscious memory of organized matter.”
All such ideas are nothing but ingenious paraphrases of actuality;
and in the last analysis amount to nothing but an audacious juggle
with the word _memory_. And when it is further said: “If memory be
attributed to the species the same as to the individual, instinct
immediately becomes comprehensible”; and in conclusion: “The conscious
memory of man is extinguished at death, but the unconscious memory of
nature is indestructible,” I can only call this dealing in poetry, not
science, a possibility only to be arrived at by the _dis_-actualizing
of actuality. In reality memory exists solely where something is
remembered, just as a flame exists there only where it is burning. Of
this kind of memory, however, but one example is to be found in all the
world--I myself! It is just this lack of the sense of actuality--as
displayed in physics--which to such a large extent constitutes the
greatness of science, while it also no less constitutes its weakness,
as in biology. E. Mach in his _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_, p. 49, expresses
himself to the selfsame effect: “Heredity, instinct, may then be
depicted as memory stretching out beyond the individual,” a sentence
that possesses about as much content of actuality as the “songs unsung”
of a dead poet.
[20] Cf. R. Semon, _Die Mneme_.
[21] “They (the materialists) teach that in the central nervous system
also all is only the oscillation of atoms, only reflex motion, only
mechanics. In one part of the brain only, there in the grey substance
of a portion of the cerebral cortex, something takes place which as yet
we are unable to explain. But it is only a question of time. Sooner or
later it will certainly be demonstrated that this also is nothing but
mechanics, nothing more than a complicated species of reflex action”
(Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 164).
[22] “The practice of treating the unanalysed _I_-complex as an
indivisible unity frequently finds scientific expression in singular
fashion. First of all, the nervous system is set apart from the body as
being the seat of sensation. In the nervous system, again, the brain
is picked out as likeliest to be such a seat. And, finally, in order
to save the supposed psychic unity, search is made in the brain for
a _point_ as the seat of the soul. Views so crude as these, however,
are but ill adapted to indicate beforehand even in roughest outline
the path of future investigation as to the connection between the
physical and the psychical.” Comparison should also be made with the
introductory remarks to the chapter on “Der Sitz des Bewusstseins” in
Bunge’s _Physiologie_.
[23] _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 28.
[24] Cf. Essay VII.
[25] Cf. Essay V., the citation from the _Majjhima Nikāya_, Sutta 38.
[26] _Origin of Species_, p. 212. John Murray, London, 1884.
[27] _Physiologie_, i. p. 402.
[28] _Origin of Species_, p. 259. John Murray, London, 1884.
[29] _Ibid._ p. 297.
[30] _Origin of Species_, p. 308.
[31] Bunge’s _Physiologie_.
[32] Weismann’s _Leben und Tod_.
[33] G. v. Bunge, _Physiologie_, i. p. 361.
[34] Cf. Essay IX.
[35] Cf. Essay V., remarks on the causal sequence.
[36] It is to this effect that E. Mach expresses himself on the
subject of the concept in various passages in his works--for example,
in the _Wärmelehre_ and _Erkenntnis und Irrtum_. Ostwald defines the
concept “as a rule in accordance with which we take note of definite
characteristics of the phenomenon” (_Naturphilosophie_).
[37] For a correct appreciation of the law of the conservation of
energy and the value of scientific laws and data in general, one should
read among others Poincaré’s two works: _The Value of Science_, and
_Science and Hypothesis_.
[38] Cf. Foreword to E. Mach’s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_.
[39] E. Mach’s _Analyse der Sinnesempfindungen_, p. 4.
[40] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, page 15.
[41] _Analyse der Empfindungen_, p. 20.
[42] _Ibid._
[43] Positivism itself calls attention to this quality of non-actuality
in its system. In the Foreword to the second volume of R. Avenarius’s
_Kritik der reinen Erfahrung_, J. Petzold says, “Modern psychology
is ... characterized by the elimination from the psychic machinery
of every spring of activity.” Here it is as with Roland’s mare in
Chamisso’s poem: Perfect--but dead!
[ Transcriber’s notes ]
Non-English words are rendered as in the original, and may not be
consistent or correct. Exceptions: 1) “tanhā” and “taḥha” have been
rendered as the text’s preferred “taṇhā”; 2) “Sankhāra” was printed
numerous ways and has been standardized as quoted.
The “{sic}” in the text is the transcriber’s.
The quote beginning “Ignorance must be present” (p. 77) is not closed
in the original; the transcriber closed it at the end of the paragraph.
The cover image is a modified version of the book’s title page and is
placed in the public domain.