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BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE


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:^m.MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA

MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK . BOSTON CHICAGO

DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.

TORONTO


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BUDDHISM SCIENCEBY

PAUL DAHLKE

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMANBY

THE BHIKKHU SILACARA

^ .

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITEDST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1913


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l^J

COPYRIGHT


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CONTENTS

Introduction

1. What is a World-Theory and is it necessary?

2. Faith and a World-Theory .

3. Science and a World-Theory

4. An Introduction to the Thought- World of theBuddha Gotama ....

5. The Doctrine of the Buddha

6. Buddhism as a Working Hypothesis

7. Buddhism and the Problem of Physics

8. Buddhism and the Problem of Physiology

9. Buddhism and the Problem of Biology

10. Buddhism and the Cosmological Problem

1 1 . Buddhism and the Problem of Thought

Conclusion

PAGE

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INTRODUCTION

The Purpose of the Book

Three kinds of books there are. First, those thatgive nothing and from which we demand nothing.These constitute the greater portion of the book-world; empty entertainment for the idle. Secondly,those books that give the unfamiliar and are un-famili

to us that is, demand only our memory.These are manuals of instruction presenting facts.And thirdly, those books that give themselvesand demand ourselves. These are the books thatare mental nutriment in the real sense of thewords, and impart to the entire process of mentaldevelopment a stimulus which, like the stimulusimparted to a growing tree, never again can belost. The present book makes claim to belongto the last category. As something experiencedby myself, it is meant to become such an experienceto others.

The mental poverty of our time finds its mostaccurate expression in the prevalent lack of indi-idual

experience. We are not impressed where weought to be impressed, because we allow ourselvesto be impressed where in truth there is nothingimpressive. We mistake our true interests. The

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viii BUDDHISM AND SCIENCEinteresting is something in which we have aninterest, in which we have a share. But there hasbeen such a derangement of positions that inpresence of our true interests we stand stupid spec-ators,

whilst for the interesting in the banal sense,we are ready to go through fire and flood. To theaverage man of to-day it is far more interesting toread hair-splittinginvestigations into the question asto whether Christianity is a branch of Buddhism orBuddhism of Christianity, than to think out and livethat which both have taught and continue to teach.

All this is inherent in the conditions under whichwe live at the present time.

Thought is ever confronted by life as by aquestion a question that of necessity becomesactual in me, the thinker. For as a candle illumin-tes

a certain portion of space and thereby firstcallsforth question-raising objects,o does thought itselfilluminate these stellarspaces and thereby firstcallsforth question-raising objects.The / is the naturalpoint of departure of every view of the world, beingthe objectives well as the subjectiveoint ofdeparture. Now that philosophy, in the endeavourto construct a world-conception out of pure thoughtalone, has come to ruin on her own nothingness,natural science has constituted itselfthe emissary ofthe world-conception idea, and in contra-distinctionto philosophy has sought to realize it over the headof the /, so to speak an attempt which, despite allits grandeur, is forever doomed to failure, seeingthat, as the last to include the / itselfin this world-theory, the problem is insoluble. Hence the factthat we no longer possess a philosophy such as theancients and the schoolmen possessed ; and do not


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INTRODUCTION ix

yet possess a natural science that can give us anygenuine aid.

Every thinker, every seeker and every thinkeris a seeker is to-day in a state of mental inter-egnum.

And it is the hope of this book that, asmasses of atmosphere in labileequilibrium frequentlyat the slightest impulse break into whirling motion,so also the minds of our time that are in this state oflabile equilibrium may prove themselves stillmoresusceptible to stimuli, and respond, if not exactlywith a mental typhoon, at least with a gentle zephyr.

Three kinds of men there are. First, the indif-erent,comparable to the inert bodies of chemistry.

To them applies the saying of Confucius, Rottenwood cannot be turned. Secondly, the believers,comparable to those chemical bodies whose affinitiesare satisfied. In so far as their faith is genuine, tothese applies already during their lifetime, theparable of beggar Lazarus in Abraham's bosom.And thirdly there is the thinking class,destitute offaith,corresponding to chemical bodies in the nascentstate. To them applies that word of the Buddha, Painful is all life.

Our book has value only for this third, lastkind. The indifferent, however highly educated hemay be, will never give himself the trouble to thinkit out ; and with the believer it will only provokecontradiction.

A thinker destitute of faith I callhim who at theidea of endlessness, which none who thinks at allcan escape, reacts with that psychic uneasinesswhich may be compared with the purely intellectualuneasiness one experiences in presence of the


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X BUDDHISM AND SCIENCEirrationalin mathematics, both, as a matter of fact,being also analogues.

The circle of readers of this book is thus circum-cribedin advance. But the few for whom it is

written, they are the few that count.

Three questions there are that before all elseoccupy every thinking man, and always have occu-pied

him. The question,** What am I ? The

question, How must I comport myself.'* Thequestion, '* To what end am I here ? This*' what, this **how, this to what end, these arethe subjectsf contention in allmental life. It is notevery one who, like Emperor Augustus of old, canwithdraw from this scene of things with a plauditeamici. There are minds to whom life is morethan a play, and all that is transient more than asymbol.

It is the negative task of this book to show thatneither faith nor science supply such an answer tothese questions as can satisfy the thinking man. Itis the positive task of this book to show that asolution of these three questions is furnished in theBuddha-thought, but in a form so strange at firstsight, that until now it has achieved no practicalimportance. Trained one-sidedly to

inductiveattempts at concepts, we know not how to trans-late

into modern prose these enigmatic formulasof thought. We know not what to make of aNirvana the epitome of all blessedness and yetno heaven. We know not what to make of aKarma that from beginninglessness binds existenceto existence and yet is no soul. And so the truestof all teachings, uncomprehended by philosophy,


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INTRODUCTION xiunheeded by natural science, is lost to us and tothe needs of our time.

The question arises, How comes it that Buddh-smhas always remained essentially alien to us, a

sort of mental curiosity ?To this I give the answer, brief and blunt, It is

not understood. That is only too painfully evidentfrom the literature published about it. Here I donot at all refer to those commonplace compilationsthat simply swarm with misconceptions. It is justthe best books on the subjecthich reveal how farremoved it is beyond our powers of apprehension.

I am prepared to have reproach brought againstme ; first, that in many places I have becomepolemical, and secondly, that I have not sufficientlystudied that tone of affected diffidence such as hasbecome the fashion in our books, justin so far asthey deal with the theme of a world-conception.

As to the first point, I can bear witness thatnowhere have I indulged in polemics for polemics'sake. It iswith the Buddha-thought as with many acolossal edifice,whereof the greatness only becomesapparent by comparison with ordinary erections.As in the case of the pyramids of Gizeh, the endlessbackground of the desert offers no fitting standardof measurement for their greatness, so the Buddha-thought, when projectedupon beginninglessnessalone, offers nothing by which its greatness can bemeasured. One must place by itsside other mentalstructures ifone is ever to be able to reveal itin allits stupendous proportions. It is easy to under-tand

that in this case simple comparison mustalready amount to polemics.

As to the second point, my opinion isthis : Either


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xii BUDDHISM AND SCIENCEone has something useful to contribute, in whichcase one does not need to practise this affecteddiffidence, or else one has nothing useful to contri-ute,

in which case one does not need to write atall. I dare speak thus because I bring nothing ofmy own, but only speak in the place of a Greater.** We do not know, but there is no sound reason fordoubting that so-and-so, and all such phrases, how-oever

couched, by means of which an endlesslyconsiderable probability is intended to be smuggledinto the ranks of truth, are quite uncalled for in ateaching like that of the Buddha. Whoso knows,*' Thus it is, simply says, '' Thus it is.


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I

WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY ANDIS IT NECESSARY?

There is present a something given, an actuality,which we designate by the collective name of* world. The untutored person and the thinkeralike make use of the same expression. This latteris indifferent, acquiring a definite meaning onlywith reference to a particular explanation that is,with reference to a view of the world.

The impulse to explain actuality, the need ofa world -theory, a world -conception, is deeplyembedded in every living being endowed withconsciousness.

The moment any being has so far developed asto begin to think, it finds itself involved in a hugesystem within which it seeks to know its way,striving the while to understand it in its variousdetails.

This system comes before it in a twofold aspect :on the one hand, as something that is, i,e,things ;and on the other hand, as something that happens,ix, the play of events among things. A ** being without a ** happening attached, is as littleto befound as a *' happening without a *' being. Inother words : processes only exist.

I B


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^^ BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iHere two questions immediately arise. First,

What is the world? And second, How does theplay ofevents come about

?Both sides of the world-picture, and therewith

both questions, blend into one question thequestion as to adequate causes. As well the factthat ** something is here, as the fact that some-thing

happens, requires adequate causes. Theadequate cause is the thought-necessity given with allmental life.The entire universe in all its partsand processes, is to the thinking man a species ofmarionette show. He sees the puppets dance buthe does not see the strings, neither does he seethat which pulls the strings. The incentive to aview of the world is the craving, so to speak, toget a. peep behind the scenes, to spy out Nature'ssecrets, and therewith seize upon the meaning andsignificance of life itself. This latter is the realobjectf every world-theory.Now it is quite true, that if I do not perceivethe meaning and significance of life I am but littlebetter than the donkey that drags the full sacks tothe mill and the empty ones back without knowingwhy, in the one case as in the other. I owe it tomy dignity as a man to seek out the meaning andsignificance of life. But this is not all.That I am here is a given fact. Were I nothere, had I never been here, not for that wouldany breach have yawned in the structurej of theworld. But now that I am here, all turns uponhow I conduct myselfduring this my existence. Notthe fact that I am here, but how I employ thisexistence is the all-important thing.

This question as to the ** how can only be


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I WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY? 3answered in any natural way through the whatTI must know what I am, and what are the thingsand beings outside me ; I must learn my relationsto the external world, I must apprehend the meaningand significance of life before I can possess agenuine canon and standard for my behaviour, formy morality. For all morality, whether it findexpression in doing or in leaving undone, issues inacts of selflessness. This, however, requires thatmotives be brought forward, otherwise such an actis either a perverted form of self-seeking like allasceticism, or it is mere training, bearing, indeed,the outward semblance of morality, in reality,however, having nothing at all to do with it. It isonly in virtue of cognition that any act acquiresmoral value. One can speak of real morality thereonly where it is a function of cognition. Hencethere can be no morality without comprehension,without a world-conception.

This is the first reason why a world-theory isnecessary.

But it behoves a being worthy the name of manalso to know whether this life is merely a blindadventure, or whether it has aim and goal. Thethinking man demands to know what he may expectafter this life. He

insistsupon

looking beyondthis life. He claims an answer to the question,''Whence? Whither?

This demand to look out beyond life, thisquestioning, as to the aim and goal oflife,s calledreligion. As with the query, ''How must I conductmyself? which permits of being answered in naturalfashion then only when I know what I am, so is itwith the question, Whence am I, and whither


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4 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iam I bound ? Only when I know what I am, canthisquestion also find a natural reply. A genuinereligion,like a genuine morality, has its roots incognition. Both alike must be functionsof cogni-ion.

Such are the two reasons why for every thinkingbeing a world-theory is not only a matter of givinghonourable satisfactionto his dignity as a man, butalso why itis a positivenecessity. In theirabsencegermine morality and genuine religion alike areimpossible.

Now every backward glance into time, i.e.universal history,as well as every look round us inspace, i.e.ethnology, reveals the fact that therenever has been, and also that there is not, a peopledestitute of every trace, every touch of moralityand religion. The only question is,Is thisnaturalcapacity of mankind for morality and religion averitablefunction of cognition?

The essence of allcognition is the individual.Every act of cognition is always something in-ividual,

persona],pertaining to me alone. Wereallmen to cognize alike,the content of this cogni-ion

would stillbe the individualpossession of eachand every singleperson. Cognitionseparates.Opposite to itstands another function of humannature emotion. Emotion unites. If things cog-izable

are the affairof the individual, thingsemotional have to do with the mass. Every naturalcapacity of mankind for morality and religionconsistsaltogetherof what pertains to the emotions.Here all morality is founded upon an instinctivefeeling of correlationwhich findsexpression in thewell-known saying :


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I WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY? 5What you would not men did to you,See that you do not them unto

or in the maxim, ** So conduct thyself towardsothers as thou wouldst wish that they shouldconduct themselves towards thee

The unifying quality of emotion is made manifestin every form of compassion, which latter frequentlyrises to the pitch of an actual vegetative sufferingwith the afflictedperson. Such facts,open to everyone's observation, awaken in all the instinctivefeeling of an inner connection of beings, and yielda natural morality that is purely a function ofemotion.

It may be asked, Could such a morality ofemotion suffice humanity ?

It would suffice a humanity whose developmenthad only reached so far as the capacity for emotion.So soon, however, as a being passes from the stageof the emotional and enters upon the stage of thecognitive, the morality of emotion no longer suffices,as littleso as the reasons one is accustomed to giveto children suffice the grown man.

The emotional holds sway as long as an individualis not yet fully conscious of himself, not yet cometo pure reflection. So soon as he is fully conscious,there arises also the need to understand ourselvesas well as our morality and religion. Then onlymay I say that I have morality and religion whenI have understood them, when both have becomefunctions of my cognition. So long as this is notthe case, so long are religion and morality things ofemotion, and these are subjecto every conceivablevariation. Hence the endless diversity of moralitiesas well as of religions in the stage of the emotional.


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6 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iHere both to use the language of current speech

are mere matters of taste, lacking in all innerfoundation. Hence also comes all that is unin-elligible

in the manners and customs connectedwith morality and religion among foreign peoplesof ancient and of modern times. This is not theplace to go into details. Every historical record,every account of civilization, furnishes abundantexamples.Whether upon our globe a state of affairs hasever prevailed in which morality and religion havebeen exclusively things of emotion, it is impossibleto say. The fact remains that at the point where,in our glance backward over the history of theworld, man first emerges, the purity of emotionalmorality and religion is no longer intact. Historicalman, as firstpresented to us in the states of Egyptand Babylonia, already exhibits a morality and re-ligion

which are no longer pure functions of emotion,but have now become functions of reflection.

This necessity for reflection is given with theessential being of allthat is real.

As already said, all that is, on the one hand,presents itself as something that is''i.e.a being ;and, on the other hand, as ''something that happens,i.e.a becoming ; that is, as a process. Whereversomething happens, an adequate cause must bepresent. And the world by its simple existence,by reason of its very nature as a process, is thestanding incitement to comprehension, to reflection,inasmuch as the mind hankers after an adequatecause for allthat occurs. *' The apparent changesin organic being all about me, says Goethe in hisMorphologies took a strong hold of my mind.


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I WHAT IS A WORLD-THEORY? 7Imagination and nature seemed to strive with oneanother which of the two should stride forward withthe bolder and firmer step.

The search after adequate causes is everywheregiven as a necessity of thought wherever mentallife is found. An adequate cause is required for''that which is, just as much as for ''that whichhappens ; itis that which both presume. To possessa world-theory and therewith a world-conceptioneansto comprehend adequate causes.

According to the attitude assumed by mental lifetoward the question of adequate causes, does itseparate off in two main directions : the direction offaith and the direction of science.


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II

FAITH AND A WORLD-THEORY

There ispresent a something given the world.It presents itself as an endlessly vast sum of

processes. Where there is a process there ishappening. Where something happens, thereadequate causes are demanded.

Every attempt to comprehend adequate causesleads backwards in endless series, since each causecomprehended is something which itself in turndemands an adequate cause, and so on backwardswithout ever a conclusion.

Faith is that particular form of mental life whichfrom this fact draws the inference that for thehuman mind a real comprehension is impossible,since behind the physical there stands a somethingtranscendent, a force, with reference to which alllife phenomena become that which their nameexpresses : phenome^ia of a life which faith forthe most part designates by the word '' god.''

This force stationed behind the physical, towhich faith traces back all that happens, must bean adequate cause in itself, hence somethingcontrary to sense in the fullest meaning of thewords. For all that is,without exception, requiresan adequate cause. An adequate cause in itself

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II FAITH AND A WORLD-THEORY 9would thus be that something which by its simpleexistence would give the lie to this thought-necessity, inasmuch as itself would be that whichwould have no adequate cause. When the thought-necessity of an adequate cause is thus satisfiedwithan ** adequate cause in itself, this justmeans : it issatisfied in a fashioncontrary to sense.

The essence of all that is contrary to senseconsists in this, that when followed out in thought,it deprives itselfof the possibilityof existence. Amistake in an arithmetical sum is the most familiarform of what is contrary to sense. It is somethingthat in correct thinking is by itselfdeprived of allpossibility of existence ; it is something that makesits appearance only that it may appear no more.

In like case stands faith. Does it essay to thinkthat in which it believes, then must that presentitselfto it in one or other relation or form that is,conceptually. A transcendent, however, that pre-ents

itselfconceptually is transcendent no longer,but, on the contrary, the one completely conceptu-lized

thing there is in the world, inasmuch as itswhole existence justconsists of the concept of it.Accordingly, when faithventures to think, itdeprivesitselfof the possibility of existence ; when it doesnot think, it has no existence as faith,nd thereforeno existence at all.

When, as in these days frequently happens, peoplecomplain of the ever-increasing decay of faith,thereason mostly given is,that faith does not contain asufficiency of what is of value to the understanding.The believer must know what, how, and why hebelieves, and not have his faith based simply uponfeeling. But this is somewhat the same as if one


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lo BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iishould reproach darkness with not containing asufficiency of light among its ingredients. Islight present, then there can be no darkness ; isunderstanding present, then there can be no faith.Credo ut intelligam is the most vain of all wishes.

Pantheism in its noblest form, that of the IndianVedanta, endeavours to avoid this dilemma by con-ceiving

of its divine in purely negative terms. Butthe famous **neti,neti

''not this, not this ofthe Upanishads, is a definition too, and so a limitation.Through this its essential characteristic,of itself

in being thought out, depriving itself of the possi-ilityof existence, faith takes its place as third in

the trio along with illusion and error.Illusion is what I call a mistaken view ; error,

what I call a mistaken experience. When I mistakea rope for a snake, a train of ants for a crack in theground, these are illusions. When I hold infusoriato have their origin in the infusion of hay, or lookupon the evening and the morning star as twodifferent orbs, these are errors.

Upon this, its community of nature with illusionand error, is based another essential characteristicof faith namely, the impossibility,when once it hasvanished, of its ever again coming to life. Oncethe rope on my path which I

formerlymistook

fora snake has been recognized by me for a rope, neveragain can I voluntarily return to my illusion. I can,indeed, by force of imagination, represent it tomyself as a snake, but this representation no longerworks ; it no longer excites fear. And in justthe same way I can quite successfully recall theconditions under which certain optical and acousticdelusions made their appearance, but they are


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II FAITH AND A WORLD-THEORY iiillusions that are dead. The like holds good oferror and, for a third, of faith.

People who call for a resuscitation of vanishedfaith,and by some means or other hope to see iteffected, know not what it is that they hope andcall for. They are calling for the restoration of avanished ignorance an utter inconceivability.

Now there exists one great distinction betweenfaith,on the one hand, and illusion and error on theother ; in this respect, namely, that the two latterhave the physical, the material for their object,encecan be checked and set right by this that is,byreality. Faith, however, that has for itsobjectthenon-physical, the non-material, which is justwhat-ver

the believer chooses to conceive it to be,cannot be checked and set right by reality. Onthe contrary, the believer interprets the entireworld in accordance with his concept, devours, soto speak, the world's entire content of reality, andsets up a view of the world that is unreal, seeingthat he interprets the physical from the transcen-dental

standpoint that is,abnormally ; and there-orehe is never in the position to be set right by

reality, since he never can knock up against con-tradictioOne must know that one does not

know before one can let oneself be taught.In perfect accordance with this essential featureof faith (sofar as the theory of knowledge is con-cerned)is its morality and religion : both are contraryto sense.

The essence of all morality is to be found inselflessness. Every act of selflessness requires amotive. To possess a motive one must exercisecognition, comprehension.


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12 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iiAs a matter of fact the essential nature of every

faith-morality is selfish, despite all its acts of re-nunciatHere one practises renunciation like a

man who stints himself of a certain amount of moneyand invests it in a lottery. As he parts with hismoney that he may win back more in its place, sohere the believer gives up money, goods, life yea,honour and truth, everything, if so be he may drawthe firstprize above.

The essence of all religion consists in the searchfor the aim and goal of life. This search faithsatisfies by referring life as a whole to a somethingtranscendent. But the existence of the transcendentis nothing else but the concept of it. To refer lifeas a whole to a transcendent thus means nothingbut to refer itself to itself,which so to speak is;the analytical expression for ignorance.

Further development of these ideas isnot essentialto our task. Here we have only to bear well inmind that, as the world-theory from the standpointof faith is one contrary to sense, so also is itsmorality and its religion. All three are functionsof a nescience, and therefore void of actuality.


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Ill

SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY

There ispresent a something given the zvorld.With reference to this something given, science

takes up a position that in its own way is everywhit as arbitrary as again in its way is that ofreligion ; with this difference, however, that whereasthe latter, so to speak, turns the clock of mental lifebackward, science would fain turn it forward.

The play of world-events with equal justiceaybe held to declare that we comprehend adequatecauses as to declare that we do not comprehend them,inasmuch as all we may

havecomprehended as theadequate cause of any life-phenomenon, itself on its

part demands an adequate cause, and so on back-ardsad infinitum. In short, Every adequate

cause is of a secondary nature. From this scienceargues as follows :

It is a fact that we comprehend adequate causes, incertain respects, up to a certain degree, consequentlyperfect comprehension is possible, everything de-endin

simply on patience and correct methods.With this claim of the comprehensibilityin

principle of life-phenomena, science takes uponitself the proud task, of itself working out a world-theory from the foundation upwards

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14 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iiiComprehensibility in principle of life-phenomenon

is that standpoint with reference to actuality whichis given for every science without exception. Onany other hypothesis science as science has nojustificationhatever for Its existence. Science, ifit is to be what Its name implies, is that whichfurnishes knowledge. Knowledge can only befurnished where things can be completely demon-trated,

made tangible to sense. That, however,Is only possible if nothing lies hidden In thingsthat Is not perceptible by sense. Hence science, ifshe does not wish to gainsay her own right to exist,must proceed upon the arbitrary hypothesis thatthere is nothing in the play of world-events that isnot perceptibleo the senses. And if really there issomething of the sort there, then for her it ismerely the not yet demons trabley which later on,with patience, with improvements in methods, willalso be achieved. This is the position whichscience takes up with reference to the play ofworld-events, the foundation on which her wholesuperstructure Is erected. Science is possible thereonly where there Is the sensible, the demonstrable,where there Is something so constituted thatI can class it with others of its kind. And allscience

toput

It briefly Is justthe endeavour tomake tangible to sense the entire play of world-events.

In support of this standpoint in principle ofscience, Icitethe following passage from W. Ostwald'sSchule der Chemie :

Pupil. These are only properties. What I mean,however, is that which lies at the root of all properties.

Teacher. This then ought to remain behind when you


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Ill SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY 15have thought away all properties from the matter. Well,think away all its properties from a piece of sugar colour, shape, hardness, weight, taste, and so forth whatthen remains over ? Nothing For it is only throughits properties that I can recognize that there is somethingthere. . . . You must get rid of the notion that apartfrom the properties of a thing there is anything at all tobe found beneath them that is higher or more real thanthe properties.

From this rejectionf all that is not perceptibleto sense, it follows that science may not recognizeas adequate causes for ** that which is even as for**that which happens in short, for all thephenomena of life anything else but other pheno-ena

of life. If for faith the thought-necessity, anadequate cause, becomes an '' adequate cause initself, a pure absolute, for science it becomes a purerelative. Anything is an adequate cause purely inits relation to another phenomenon of life,and withreference to itselfanother phenomenon of lifeagainis the adequate cause. In brief, the adequatecause is here just as much an effect as a** cause.

With this rejectionn principle of all that isnot perceptible to sense, science rejectsll actualenergies. For an actual energy can never be any-hingperceptibleo sense, the latter ever and alwaysnecessitating the question as to its adequate cause.

In the universe as constructed for itself byscience, the actuating impulse is simply the variousdifferences that obtain in situation and tension,which are equally as countless in number as thecountless processes with which they are given.The play of world-events in itsentirety becomes a


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i6 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iiistupendous process of compensation, and allvaluesbecome simply values of relation. Here nothinghas sense and meaning by itself,but only as it firstreceives them from others.

The purely scientificstandpoint can only be thematerialistic one, along with which of necessity isgiven the mechanical mode of apprehending theplay of world-events.

In the mechanical apprehension of things, theplay of world-events becomes a *' falling. Everyfall demonstrates the absence of actual forces bythe fact that in its downward course it can becomputed in advance.

The aim and objectof all science is computationin advance. The ability to do this finds its dueexpression in scientificlaw.

The proof that upon this path one had arrivedat a world-theory, would thus be an absolutely anduniversally valid law.

Such a law science does not possess. Everylaw, without exception, is an abstraction from ex-perience

and may be swept away again by freshexperiences.

Now it is true modern physics lays claim toone universal law the law of the conservation ofenergy.We shall have to return to this law later on.Here in passing be it only said

First, That the law of the conservation of energyhas by no means been arrived at upon the legitimatepath of science that is,upon the path of induction but has been found intuitively. Secondly, Thelaw of the conservation of energy is nothing but areading of the facts, on one hand, by way of


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Ill SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY 17definite compromise ; on the other, valid only for alimited domain of nature.

The compromise is as follows :Were the law of the conservation of energy really

a law abstracted from experiences and absolutelyvalid, itwould be proven by the complete passingover, without any remainder, of one phenomenonof life into another ; as, for instance, by the trans-formation

of a process of heat into a process ofmotion ; and physics would have a right to drawthe conclusion of an analogy between this andother processes. The play of world-events as purerelation-values,itspotential comprehensibility, wouldbe proven by a single transformation without residue,of heat into motion and motion back into heat that is,by a single completelyreversibleprocess.But the idea of reversible processes has practicaland theoretical possibility only in an absolutelyclosed system. Such a thing, however, is not tobe had in the world of actuality. All things here,without exception, stand in relation to one another,and these mutual relations do not admit of totalsuspension even for a single moment of time.Thus at no time can one get anything but approxi-ately

closed systems ; therefore at no time canone attain to anything but approximately correctresults. Every attempt to demonstrate practicallya completely reversible process works with minimumlosses,which the physicist, to be sure, lays to thecharge of the procedure adopted, but which thethinker is equally justifiedn interpreting as a lossof energy. No matter what the exactitude withwhich the experiment is carried out, no matter howsmall in value the loss, it is always there ; there

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i8 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iiiis no suck thing as a completelyreversible process/One can only derive a law of the conservation ofenergy from the facts, if for thought the same isalready given. From experiments alone, inductively,it would be as impossible to arrive at a law of theconservation of energy as itwould be to arrive atthe concept of the circle solely from the concept ofthe polygon. The circle must be given beforehandas ultimate concept (Grenzbegriff)and in exactlythe same way the law of the conservation of energymust be given beforehand as ultimate concept(^Grenzbegriff),f the experiments are to lead up toit. Thus itwas with Robert Mayer's great intuition:it was a thing given. And this intuition was takenup by science and worked out, because here wasgiven ita means of proving with scientificappliancesthe impossibility of a perpetuum mobile. Perpetualmotion, however, is the violation of the law ofadequate cause, transferred to the domain of thephysical.

That isone side of the matter. The other is thatthe law of the conservation of energy conformablewith its nature, can only possess validity in thedomain of processes reversible and not dependentupon time, for in a non-reversible process therewould lie no possibility whatever of its proof.Here this isquite enough to signalize the natureof the law of the conservation of energy. In theconception of the play of world-events as yieldedby this law, the physicist turns his eyes entirelyaway from the real, active energies of the play ofworld-events. He confines himself entirely to whatis exhibited to sense, the motions ; he takes themfor the forces themselves, but is entitled to do sc


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20 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iii

of knowledge one must have a landmark by whichto steer. Such a possibility, however, is excluded,and excluded by science itself. For, as alreadysaid, science as such has standing only where thehypothesis of potential comprehensibility, of theabsence of all that is not perceptible to sense holdsgood ; in other words, where the play of world-events admits of being resolved without remainderinto relation-values. Such a landmark, however,could only be something which itself did not admitof being resolved into pure relation-values, but wasa constant in itself, an unconditioned constant.Were science, however, to admit the existence ofsuch a '' something, she would be cutting theground from under her own feet. The whole valueof science, as such, resides in its pure relativity,inthe liabilityof its values ; even as the value of faithresides in the fixityof its one value.

From all this it follows that in science itselfabsolutely nothing can be found that might serveit to prove whether or not there is genuine progresstoward knowledge that is,whether all these end-ess

series,which every experiment and every pieceof thought opens up, do or do not proceed towarda final conclusion. At this stage one view of thematter has precisely as much justifications theother; an ignorabimus just as much and just aslittlevalue as the most flamboyant optimism. Wecannot know. It is,so to speak, entirely a matterof taste as to the sense in which one chooses tointerpret these endless series.

In full consonance with this is the value whichscience possesses in relation to morality and religion.

Whoso will give mankind morality and religion,


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Ill SCIENCE AND A WORLD-THEORY 21must give it something in which it can find support.Both morality and religion at bottom are nothingbut a support in the wide waste of infinitudes.Every thinking man craves for such a support. Ifit is lacking, then for the real thinker a conditionsupervenes that is all as unbearable as that physicalone, when for the moment a person has lost allpossibility of learning the lie of his surroundings,as, for instance, when he wakes up confused out ofa deep sleep and does not know how to find hisway anywhere. Here as there it is the pureanguish of thought that comes over us in such acondition, an anguish that will not let us rest untilwe have again constructed the mental support,again established continuity in thought with thewhole.

If faith fabricates this support in a mannercontrary to sense, and consequently projectsinconsonance with her nature a morality and religionthat are contrary to sense, science as a whole on itspart is nothing but the attempt to fabricate foritself a support in law. Scientific law, how-ver,

yields a support solely with reference to atheory of knowledge. Hence never under anycircumstances can science projectmoral and re-ligious

values.It

would be a contradiction of herown nature. Could she do so, she would no longerbe science i.e.the form of mental lifewhich mustcomprehend the entire play of world-events in theform of relation-values. Where there exists nothingbut relation-values, there can exist no support initself,and therefore no morality or religion. Scienceis a-moral and a-religious; and the layman as wellas the scientist himself ought ever to keep this


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22 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iii

clearly before his mind. The efforts made in ourday to carve out, so to speak, the results ofscience to suit religious ends as modern monismseeks to do, only go to show how necessary issuch an admonition. From the continuity of life,expounded in the materialistic sense as a cell, menseek to deduce the idea that we ourselves live on inthe generations to come, somewhat as the manurelives on in the plant it has manured. But these aresuch playthings of thought as only are possiblewhere one is operating with what is wholly divorcedfrom actuality, that is, with the empty concept oflife.

To seek to derive moral and religious valuesfrom science is, as the Indian saying has it, *' tomilk the bull by the horns.

Now both faith and science alike have the samestarting-point the thing given, the world. Thequestion then arises, How can it be possible thatwith reference to this given thing, each should takeup such a directly opposite position } How comesit that the one apprehends the adequate cause ofthe play of world-events as a pure absolute, whilethe other apprehends it as a pure relative ?

At this point we come face to face with theBuddha-thought and its significance for mental life.


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IV

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE THOUGHT-WORLD OF THE BUDDHA GOTAMA

As aid towards a better understanding of thatpersonality of the greatest significance for themental life of mankind, there follow here someremarks upon him and the age in which helived.

Buddhism is the teaching of the Buddha, or asone may equally well say of the Buddhas, For** Buddha is no private name, but the title of oneendowed with certain mental capacities. The word,therefore, ought always to be accompanied by thearticle. It signifies, The Awakened.

According to the teaching the number of theBuddhas is endless. He whom we know by thisname, for the time being the last of this beginning-less series, is the Buddha Gotama. His familyname was Siddhattha, He came of the ancientrace of the Sakyas, well known for their pride, andas such belonged to the warrior caste. He is,therefore, often alluded to under the name of Sakyaputta, scion of the Sakyas, or as **SamanaGotama, ascetic Gotama.

He was born in Kapilavatthu, the capital city ofa small state in Northern India, on the borders of

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24 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE ivpresent-day Nepal. His grave was discovered inthe year 1898 near Piprava, in the jungle-coveredfoothillsof the Himalayas called the Terai.

The years of his birth and of his death cannotbe exactly determined. Meanwhile one does notgo far wrong if one places the period of his activityin the neighbourhood of the year 500 before theChristian era. This would make him the eldercontemporary of Heraklitus of Ephesus and some-whatyounger than Lao Tse in China.

He died at the advanced age of eighty years(ifne does not choose to regard the recurringstatements in the texts as to age, on the partof the most different personalities, as merely anindication of old age in general),fter almostfiftyyears of active life spent in travelling about,preaching.

The precepts, discourses, and explanations allthat which makes up the Buddhist canon aregathered together into what Is called the Tipitaka,or Three Baskets, The language of the canonis Pali. Whether this was the Buddha's ownmother tongue or only related to it,is a questionupon which there exist differences of opinionbetween native and European scholars.

The mental atmospherein

which the Buddhaarose may be briefly characterized as follows : Afeeling of life as suffering, fermenting throughoutthe entire Indian people; a firm belief In thetransmigration of the soul and the endless pro-ongatio

of this suffering conditioned thereby ; theconviction that asceticism purifies,after the effectedpurification from old guilt, heaps up merit, assuresre-birth In heaven, and finallyprocures deliverance


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IV THE BUDDHA GOTAMA 25from Samsara, this terrible, ceaseless wanderingfrom existence to existence. Once more, thefundamental theme in this Indian symphony ofdestiny, recurring in unending variations, was this.Life is Suffering,r to say the least of it,a some-what

doubtful blessing. But this statement of lifeas suffering was not in ancient India the hollowphrase that it is with us to-day ; neither was it thatcold play of thought found in many philosophicalsystems. It was a grim reality which men soughtto escape with an energy of self-immolation, adetermination, a recklessness, an ardour of whichwe lukewarm creatures of to-day can form noconception.

India in the days of the Buddha was full ofcompanies of monks and schools of ascetics, all ofthem wrestlers with the riddle of life. But oneonly wrestles with lifewhen one feels it as suffer-ng.

The sons of noble families left their homes tosearch for truth either out there in the frightfulsolitudes of the Indian forest, or in the cloister ofthe monk. As in later days men went forth insearch of El Dorado, so in those days did men goforth upon the search for truth. But what gives tothe search for truth in ancient India a characterentirely its own is this,that allsearch here is turnedtowards the / itself; that the fight for truth did notas in ancient Greece exhaust itself in elegantrhetorical disputations and exercises in dialectic,butin full unmitigated rigour was lived out in one'sown /, without a single thought as to whether theoutward form would support the heat of the frictionwithin or not.


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26 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE ivAmid this swarm of searchers for truth the young

Siddhattha also made his appearance. *' Black-haired, in the bloom of manhood, in spite of weep-ng

and wailing parents, in spite of a loved andloving wife, in spite of a dear young son, he lefthisfather's halls where he had led a lifeof rarest pompand pleasure to enter shaven of head and garbed inyellow, upon the inclement life-pathof the penitent.It was the force of thought that drove him forth.He gazed face to face on the transiency of all thatlives, and troubled, tormented by this irresistible,unseizable flood of appearances, he turned hismental eye inwards, resolved to find there in thedepths of his own / that hold and stay which theouter world everywhere denied to him, the weary.Truthfulness toward oneself, seriousness of searchregardless of consequences, an unfailing sense ofreality, that was the foundation upon which thatmost banal of all phrases, adapted as is no other tocoquetting with itself the phrase, All istransient/' became for him that unique teaching of which hehimself could say with ample right, '' It is theteaching which is founded upon itself.

In one of the Buddhist monk's chants thereoccurs the phrase, '* One single thing he thinks itout This, in few words,

iswhat the

Buddha did.He thought out to an end, one thought the thoughtof transiency. I will not call his teaching thegrandest or the deepest of allteachings. Grand, like-ise,

is Heraklitus's teaching of the All-becoming;deep, likewise, is the Vedanta teaching of the All-one in Brahman ; but the teaching of the Buddha ismore than this zV is actual. Through this itobtains that really compelling character such as is


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IV THE BUDDHA GOTAMA 27possessed by actuality alone. For there is only onething that is compelling truth ; and there is onlyone thing that is true actuality.

Through this its truthfulness, his teaching hasconquered half a world ; not by fire and sword buteven as truth conquers, by demonstration, by teach-ng.

And so it now stands, old by two thousandyears, before the portals of western culture, andclaims entrance not into the cloudy domain of avague mysticism or a crude pantheism, but into therealm of clear, clean thinking, as fulfilment of thatwhich never can be attained by the means at thedisposal of science. Comprehension, a world-conception, this goal of all mental life, madeimpossible by science in its false apprehension ofthe task this the Buddha resolves in the limitationthat reveals the genius.

Whoso, ifonly from afar, has scented the importof the Buddha and his teaching, must feel that herehe has to do with something wholly unique. Onecan place on one side not only allthe religions of theworld but also all the philosophical and scientificsystems, and upon the other Buddhism will take itsplace alone. Yet not as their antithesis. Buddhismis the teaching of actuality, and actuality has noantitheses,

because itself the union of antitheses.The Buddha laid hold of actuality there where aloneit can be laid hold of in one's own /. Here hefound the secret law, the sacred riddle that thechorus outside there mockingly sings us, like tosome oracle of Delphi at one and the same timerevealing and concealing.All religions founded upon revelation are of adecidedly revolutionary nature. Buddhism is a


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28 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE ivpure evolution, a process of mental developmentin which thought, so to speak, passes a culminatingpoint and works on with reversed signs. Thisreversal of alllife-valueshas set in with a new pointof view, from which the stru^^le forno more existence,so unintelligiblefor us, follows as a logicalnecessity.Henceforth truth is no more the servitor of life,butlifeof truth. As a candle manifests itselfthroughitself,by consuming itselfin burning, so does the /manifest itselfthrough itselfin expending itselfinthinking. In this teaching he is not great wholoves most, but he who thinks most.

The fullscope of this can only be understoodlater; for the moment it may serve the readeras preparation for what is to follow. Let him knowV then, at the very outset, that here he enters therealm of a man who seeks not lifebut truth a manfor whom lifehas no value in itselfbut only as aninstrument of truth. Him I calla sorry seeker fortruth who in his investigation of the riddle of life,sets lifeitselfas sacrosanct in a place of security,making that which is to be measured into themeasure itself.

To unite in passion, to contrive clever arrange-entsthat insure the success of the business of

propagation and the rearing of the young generation,these the animals also can do ; theirarrangements forliving together in herds are by far more ingeniousthan those of men ; but the capacity to doubt, toquestion, to seek of these even the most highlydeveloped animals possess only faintsuggestions.

To doubt is the duty of man, and the Buddha isthe representative type of humanity, because thedoubter. We common men, we do indeed doubt of


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IV THE BUDDHA GOTAMA 29this and of that, and pique ourselves in no smallmeasure upon our powers of judgment; but wenone of us get any further than the symptoms. Healone seized at one grasp the entire, ever-changinghost of doubts and questions by the root, with thedaring of genius demanding to know the right toexist of life itself. This the reader ought well tobear in mind, otherwise for him the Buddha-thoughtmust always retain something strange and forbidding,even as for the honest townsman we allknow, a manwho dares go up to High Authority Itself whetherestablished in heaven or on earth and ask for itsidentification papers, ever remains in some sort afear-inspiring figure.

I now pass on to a point more external, but one,none the less,that has its own importance in anintroduction to the thought-world of the Buddha.

Buddhism is not only the oldest of the threeworld-religions, but also the only one of the threethat is of Aryan origin.

The significance of this fact lies for me not inthe racial question, but in the matter of language.The tongue in which the Buddha preached, taught,and thought, whether it was the Pali itselfor somedialect related to it,belongs to the Indo-Germanicstem. The root-words, the grammatical construc-tions,are akin to those found in European languages.Without any more said, we see how deep is the tiethat binds us to the Buddha. Mental lifecan mixand blend with mental lifeonly through the mediumof language. If no congruity exists between onelanguage and another, neither can there be anycongruity of thought. We know what enormousdifficultiesblock the way of any European scholar


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30 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE ivwho would force an entrance into the thought-worldof the Chinese. So much so, that even at this lateday it is still possible to argue the point as towhether the Chinese have any conception of deityat all. To this day it remains open to every trans-lator

to interpret Lao Tse, for example, either as a** god -inspired man to quote a good Christiantranslator or as a free-lance in the fields ofthought.Something similar, if in somewhat less positiveterms, may be advanced concerning the Semiticstem. Who can say whether the Indo-German hasever rightly understood Semitism as the deserts ofJudea and Arabia have hatched it out. Theabsurdities and confusions of thought in whichIndo-German peoples find themselves entangled themoment they make the attempt to understand andthink it out leave it fairlyopen to doubt. It maybe, that pure Semitism, that is to say, that flatcontradiction to sound sense, a personal god, canonly be perfectly digested with the help of theSemitic root language. The thinking of the Indo-Germanic peoples, or rather of the Indo-Germanicroot language, has set itselfagainst this bald crudityfrom the very beginning. At the idea of predesti-ation,

over which theSemite Paul balances his

waywith considerable natural agility, the half-AryanAugustine only comes to grief. For the brutalitywith which the latter champions this dogma isnothing else but the expression of the brutalitywith which he forcibly squeezed his own mindbeneath its yoke. For us the Aryan speaking andthinking, a religion that in itsnatural logical conse-quences

conducts to such an anomaly as predestina-


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IV THE BUDDHA GOTAMA 31tion, is either at bottom a moral monstrosity, andso incapable of becoming religion, or else it is athing misunderstood.

On the other hand, I should refer the intellectualderailment which the Buddha-thought has under-one

in Tibet, China, and Japan, in no smallmeasure to the lack of congruity that exists be-ween

the Indo- German and the Mongolianlanguages. The tongue of the Mongol is simplyincapable of rendering exactly the content of thePali syllables.

Buddhism is the teaching of actuality, and itslanguage also the Pali as regards content ofactuality,takes a leading place among languages.

As upon one hand one may look upon thephenomena of life as processes, actualities,thingsalive, and upon the other as things rounded off inthemselves, rigid,strictlydefined, realities,accordingas, following mental disposition, here the one therethe other mode of comprehension predominates, soin one language does the thrust of the actual pre-ominate,

and in the other the thrust of the real,the objective.In the one the dynamic predominates,in the other the static,

A language of an eminently static character isthe Latin ; whence the impossibility of

findinganother equally good to take its place in a well-ordered corpusjuris,with which latter capacity for'definition counts above everything. What juris-rudenc

requires is the complete, the bounded(objectivelys well as conceptually)ealities. Itlops away everything actual, which at all times andplaces is a processivemotion, a species of statusnascens, untilcomprehended itcan be grasped, pretty


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32 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iv

much as out of the actual surface of the earth in astate of constant transformation the land-surveyorcuts out a piece, settles it as something real andseizable, so that as such its owner at will canexchange it,tillthe time when the millenium handon the horologe of the world indicates an advanceand renders necessary a new settlement, a newdefinition. This method is quite sufficient whereit is only a question of arriving at definite ends. Itcorresponds to that which in another place wasstyled the re-actual comprehension of things, andthe Latin word res, considered etymologically,points directly to this *' re-actual feature.

In complete opposition to Latin the Pali is alanguage of an eminently actual character. Theseeming offences against logic, that with more orless good nature have been laid to the charge ofthe Buddha by western scholars, have their risein this content of actuality that distinguishes thelanguage on one hand and itsthinking on the other.In actuality there is nothing defined or definable

to be found nothing but a relentless processivemovement. Every definition is a compromise withactuality,and is always to be held, as such, by everygenuine thinker.

It isowing

to this content of actualityin

Buddhism and its language that so many expres-ionsare found in it for which a fittingtranslation

is scarcely or not at all to be found. In language,also, a gradual stiffening process is taking placeamongst us which renders us ever more capable indefinition, and ever more incapable in the compre-ension

of actuality. Here quite evidently we arecaught in a vicious circle. We are proud of this


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IV THE BUDDHA GOTAMA S3our abilityin defining, and imagine we have com-prehended

the thing itselfwhen we have succeededin decorating it with a definition. In such cases,however, all we have really done is to flingbridgesof thought, as it were, high up over things, whichpermit us to hop from one conceptual place toanother without once wetting even our toes inactuality. On the Rhine near Bonn there standshewn in stone these words : ** Caesar primus fluminipontem imposuit. There are not a few mindsassociated with the lecture-room and laboratorywho take themselves for Caesars when they** impose new definitions upon things, upon actu-ality.

The riddles of life in this wise are neatlyand perfectly resolved in definitions; which, afterall,is nothing very much to wonder at with riddlesof lifethat for the most part only exist in the formof definitions.

All things in the world are so constituted thatwith them concept and objectare separable : theconcept admits of being ** manipulated

apart fromthe object.And allmental life in a certain sensejustamounts to the attempt to get concept andobjectto coincide an attempt that eternally fails,because eternally losing itselfin unending series.One thing only in all the world is so constitutedthat in regard to it no separation of concept andobjectis found I myself For that which I con-ceive

myself as, that even I myself am ; and everyattempt to form a concept isjusta form of myself.Here the concept of myself is experience, actualityitself I myself am the unique, to me accessible,pure actuality of the world. Buddhism is the teach-ng

of actuality. It starts out with the only pureD


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34 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE iv

actuality of the world, and from this point proceedsto suck the entire play of world-events withoutexception into the whirlpool of its thinking. Andwith this we find ourselves in the presence of theBuddha-thought itself.


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THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA

I BEGIN with the question that concludes the thirdessay :

'' How can itbe possiblefor faith

and scienceto possess opposed conceptions when both actuallystart out from one and the same given thing, theworld ?

All that exists presents itself on one hand as** something that is, and on the other as some-thing

that happens that is to say, as somethingfound in a state of perpetual change, as processes.

Where something happens, there adequate causesmust be present. These adequate causes must beforces.

All processes i.e.the entire play of world-events fall into two great classes : those that are main-tainedy dead processes, and those that maintainthemselves, living processes ; the latter presentingthemselves, on the one hand, as processes of com-bustion,

as flame, and on the other as processes ofalimentation, as living beings.

All dead processes can be interpreted or read asfalls. Their type is the falling stone. A stonedoes not fall because of an indwelling force thatcauses its falling ; it only falls because it haspreviously been raised, because between it and

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36 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vthe surface of the earth there exists a diiFerence oftension. Its fallthus signifies that force must havebeen present, in the sense that it must previouslyhave been active ; for otherwise the difference inposition of stone and surface of the earth couldnever have come about. When physics interpretsthe fallof the stone in differing fashion namely, byhaving it caused by the attractive force of theearth's surface in action during the fall this ispurelya working hypothesis, advanced solely in the interestof a uniform physical world-theory.

To much the same effect as the falling stone,every physical happening without exception is to beinterpreted or read, whether it concern mechanical,chemical, thermal, electrical,magnetic, or any othersuch-like phenomena. All alike are to be taken asfallsfrom places of higher to places pf lower tension.The import of each and all is only that forces,actuating impulsions, must once have been present.In each case we really have to do not with actionsbut with reactions.

The proof that no actual forces are here at workis to be found in the fact that the process ceases sosoon as the differences of tension are adjusted.This world of reactions is the given province ofallscience.Science, because bent upon furnishing demon-tration,

has a titleto existence only where there isnothing that is not perceptible to sense. Wherethere are actual living processes, there actual forcesmust be present. A force, however, can never beperceptible to sense ; for everything perceptible tosense necessitates the question as to its adequatecause that is,as to the force in virtue of which it


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 37exists. Where there are dead, re-actual processes,there forces are not in action themselves, andhence force is not a real but only a conceptualnecessity, a mere logical presumption. Hence alsoin the interpretation of this re-actual world, it isalways possible to slur over, to eliminate thequestion as to actual forces, and to replace theselatter by the various differences of tension, ofpotentiality, and thus remain wholly within thedomain of the sensible.

Such a position is quite permissible to a sciencethat devotes itselfexclusively to technique, i.e.aimsat nothing more than to measure and calculate inadvance, for it is only re-actual proceedings thatadmit of being measured and calculated in advance.When such and such a planet will occupy such andsuch a position in the heavens, this admits of beingcalculated beforehand with the most perfect accuracy.But whether this next moment I shall twirl mythumb to the right or to the left,that no science,no academy in the world can compute in advance.

The position which science takes up towards theworld a rejectionn principle of all that is notperceptible to sense of necessity involves restric-ion

to the re -actual world, and therewith themechanical conception of the play of world-events.Yet once more. This conception is perfectlylegitimate so long as it confines itself to the re-actual world. But it becomes an anomaly themoment itseeks to pass beyond this re-actual world the moment a man tries to read the actual world,the living processes, according to the same scheme that of a falling. For here itis actual forces thatare at work ; here the question as to actual forces


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38 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vdeclines to be eliminated or exempted by acts ofintellectual violence that by their repugnancy tocommon sense bring about their own downfall.Later on we shall have tq revert to these attemptsto interpret physically living beings, the entire manas a falling, a mere process of adjustment,nd toexplain consciousness in purely mechanical fashion.Though one should be able to ** read the animalorganism after physical formulas in never so far-reaching a manner, though one should be able toco-ordinate the whole process of alimentation, thehousekeeping of life,in never so perfect a fashionwith the law of the conservation of energy, nothinghas been gained withal that might settle the questionas to what exactly that iswhich keeps this mechanismgoing : such a question is never once touched on atall; nay, by this method of procedure it is deliber-tely

pushed on one side, as much and as long asever is possible, until straightforward, natural think-ng

rises in revolt against such behaviour as a learnedpastime and demands actuality.

Hence :That particular form of mental lifewhich rejectsin principle what is not perceptible to sense, thereby

of necessity is confined to the re-actual world. Ifit seeks to encroach upon actual processes, it mustarbitrarily leave out of consideration that in themwhich is essential, the forces at work in them, whereby it falls into absurdities that speedilytake their revenge by raising problems that areinsoluble.

This form of mental life is universally called''science^'hereby, it must be admitted, the moreor less active counter-currents those of the teleo-


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 39logical conception of things are passed overunnoticed. Science, properly speaking, is alwaysmaterialistic,and its conception of the play of world-events always strictly mechanical. For it theadequate cause of each occurrence is simply anotheroccurrence. Adequate causes remain perceptibleto sense.

Opposite to it stands faith.Faith is that particular form of mental lifewhichrecognizes an ** imperceptible to sense in itself,

i.e. believes, and so doing, assumes a universaladequate cause in itself for the entire playof world- events. From this it follows that theliving processes are the true province of allfaith. In them alone are actual forces, ix,that which is imperceptible to sense, actively atwork.

As soon as faith seeks to make use of itsintuition,i.e.seeks to supply a world-view, it finds itselfinthe same predicament as science. Just as thislatter,as world-theory, is obliged to read the actualprocesses according to the scheme of the re-actual, sofaith as world -theory is obliged to read the re-actualprocesses according to the scheme of the actual ; inother words, it must represent the world, even tothe extent that it represents itselfas purely a falling,as guided by a divine force. Here not a hair dandrop from my head, not a stone fallto the ground,without a divine decree having taken an active parttherein as adequate cause, an idea which, thoughtout, leads to the absurdity of the doctrine of pre-estinati

with which doctrine faith robs herselfof the possibility of her own existence. For, wherethere is predestination, there is no free will ; where


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40 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vthere is no free will there is no soul ; and wherethere is no soul there is no God.

That which, in being thought out, deprives itselfof the possibility of existence is contrary to sense,and as such, a nescience, like illusion and error.

Between and raised above both these opposedpositions stands the Buddha.

This is his teaching :All that is, all processes whatsoever, whetherthey be re-actual or whether they be actual, all is

Sankhara. This is the epistemological key-word ofBuddhism. Its meaning is,All isof a compounded,of a conditioned nature. The Buddha concurs with-modern science in so far as it rejectsn uncom-pounded, an unconditioned, a unity in itself, soul-substance, or whatever else one chooses to styleit.As already shown, for science one event is entirelyconditioned by other events ; she makes the adequatecause of one phenomenon of life simply otherphenomena of life, and thereby frankly remainsalways in the realm of the sensible, the demon-trable

thereby limits herself, however, to there-actual side of the world. Among the actual,self-sustaining processes, this position has no foot-old

whatever ; for in these actual forces must bepresent, and as such never by any means can beperceptible to sense, thus also can never be thesubjectf science.One can only speak of an actual view of theworld where the actual world is concerned. I com-prehend

it when I discern the adequate causes ofthe actual processes, that is,the forces actively atwork in them.

Now the word Sankhara signifies not only ** the


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 41compounded, ** the conditioned, but also '* thecompounding, ** the conditioning, somewhat thesame as the German word Wirkung may equally-well be held to signify the result effected by thecause as the actual effecting of that result itself.In the former case it signifiesthat forces have beenpresent ; it has reference to the re-actual world.In the lattercase it means that forces are present ;it refers to the actual world. Like the wordWirkung^ the word Sankhdra embraces both theseaspects.

With reference to the self-sustaining, actualprocesses, the teaching of the Buddha proceeds :

All living beings exist by reason of forces.Accordingly the Buddha here agrees with faith,inasmuch as he recognizes the presence in livingbeings of what is imperceptible to sense ; for a forcecan never be perceptible to sense.

But whilst faith makes every living being existin virtue of a universal force, and thereby assumesan adequate cause in itself as a transcendent,an absolute, a god which means believing, thuslanding itselfin the predicament of having to inter-ret

the re-actual side of the world also by this force ; the Buddha on his part teaches :

Every living being is here in virtue of individualforcepeculiar to him alone. This force hereby inquite a literalsense becomes an in-force,n en-ergy.The Buddha teaches the existence of actual energies^in contradistinction to faith'suniversal force.

This in-forceeculiar to every living being, andthereby 2^;^/^^^^,s called by the Vi\id.^2LtheKamma(Sanskrit,arma) of such a living being.

Kamma means nothing but the working,''


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42 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vKamma is that in virtue of which a living beingmanifests activity after its own unique fashion inits own unique way reacts upon the external world ;it is that which makes a living being to be anindividuality, a personality.

Every living being is a thing unique, and as suchincapable of being compared, incapable of beingrepeated, as re-actual processes are not, since in themno actual forces are active. Though I see, hear,smell, taste, touch, and think the same thing, it isyet my own, a something unique that I see, hear,smell, taste, touch, and think.

I am a thing unique, a personality in virtue ofmy in-force,f my Kamma.

The distinction between an in -forceand auniversal force is this :The latter is a something existing of itself,a

something existing of its own authority, i.e.a crea-tionof faith ; whilst an in-forceas being solely in

dependenceupon its material, only with the help ofthe material worked up by it. As '* heat, '* light,** electricity, and so forth, are words of no meaningin the absence of a material in which to manifestthemselves, so in-forceamma, is a word of nomeaning in the absence of itsmaterial.

Thismaterial of

Kamma is by the Buddha calledthe Khandhas.They are five in number, these namely :Corporeality, Sensation, Perception, Discrimina-ions,

and Consciousness.The word Khandha may be variously translated

as group, aggregation, coagulation, formation.The Khandhas do not represent parts,piecesofthe /-process, but phases,forms of development.


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 43something like the shape, colour and odour in aflower. An actual process, a proceeding of thenature of combustion or alimentation, never canhave any parts. It is only in connection with deadproducts like a table, a chair,and so forth,that onecan speak of such ; as also where one intentionallyconceives of things after thisfashion with a definiteend in view. From the purely anatomical stand-oint,

the eye, the brain, the lungs, the liver,andso forth in a corpse, are parts of the body. Trulyspeaking, in the living person they are forms ofdevelopment, since all have come forth from onecommon root. One must keep firm hold of this ifone makes claim to think in terms of actuality,

''Material^'in contradistinction to matter, isthat which is specially worked up by an energy.** Matter in itself is all as hollow a figment ofthought, projectingike a blind end out of actuality,as is ''forcein itself. Both are products of faith:the one pertaining to science,the other to religions.Actuality has no substance^'o '' matter^'but onlymaterial, i.e.matter worked up by energies ; it hasno '* force, but only energies, i.e.forces apparelled,substantialized,so to speak. Actuality always and ,)(everywhere is only the unity of opposites a pro-^cess.

To allow one's thought to occupy itselfwith a** force by itself, r a ** substance by itself, eansto work with half actualities possessing as muchcontent of actuality as one side of a sheet of paperimagined by itself. I assert that to think thus isanintellectualbreach ofdiscipline.

Now the manner in which I represent myselfcorporeally,receive sensations, acquire perceptions,


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44 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vexercise discriminations, become conscious of things,is one peculiar to me and to me alone, a thingunique. This means :

In every motion, corporealas mental, physical aspsychical, am theform ofKamma itself.This fact,that every living being is wholly andentirely the embodiment of his Kamma, is expressedby the Buddha in the word anatta, not-self. Allbeings are *' anatta, but this does not in any waymean, as science would fain make out, that they areallof a purely re-actual nature. It only means thatthey do not conceal within them a ** force in itself,a constant in itself, but are out and out processesofcombustion, ofalimentation, such as cannot concealany constant in itself, since at every moment oftheir existence they represent a fresh biologicalvalue, and hence hold nothing that could possiblyjustifyhe notion of an /-identity, a genuine self.

The body, O monks, is 'anatta.' If the bodywere the self (atta),hen this corporeal frame couldnot go to decay, and in this corporeal frame, thiswish of mine would find fulfilment : ' Let my cor-poreal

part be thus Let not my corporeal part beso ' But, O monks, because the corporeal isanatta, therefore does the corporeal go to decay,

and the wish,' Let my corporeal part

be thus Let not my corporeal part be so ' does not findfulfilment. ^

Following the like scheme, the remaining fourKhandhas are then dealt with ; and so, step by step,the idea of an /-identity is banished.

The Buddha conceives of the entire actual vjoxXdi,i.e, the world of self-sustaining processes as an* Mahdvagga, i. 6, and many other passages.


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 45infinitely large number of combustion processes.Every being burns in virtue of a purely individualin-forceamma.

This his world - conception is given by theBuddha in that famous *' Fire Sermon which,shortly after the inauguration of his career ofactivity as a teacher, he delivered to his followerson a hill in the neighbourhood of Gaya. It is the** Sermon on the Mount

of Buddhism. All things, O monks, is a burning. And why,O monks, is all a burning ? The eye, O monks, isa burning. Visual consciousness [thatis,the con-scious

representation that results in virtue of visualimpressions]s a burning. Visual contact \i.e.heact of the encountering of eye and objects]s aburning. That which arises in virtue of visual con-act,

be it a pleasant, be it an unpleasant sensation,be it a neither pleasant nor unpleasant sensation, isa burning. ^

Following the like scheme, the ear and theaudible, the nose and the olfactory,the tongue andthe gustatory, the body and the tangible, thoughtand concepts are then dealt with.

The place of the Buddha between and above theopposites, faith and science, may be briefly formu-ated

as follows :Faith says, ** Everything stands^' namely, in

the place in which it has been set by that ** forcein itself, God. Science says, '' Everything falls'which means that she neglects actual forces ingeneral. The Buddha says, *' Everything burns y^meaning that every process exists in virtue of asingle in-forceyeculiar to itself.

* Mahdvaggay i. 21.


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46 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vAnd now as a consequence there follows this

question :''If through and through, without residue, I am a

form of Kamma, where is to be found the positionfrom which I can comprehend myself ^ such ? Forevery position, without exception, of sheer necessitymust itselfagain be a form of Kamma.

Kamma, the in-force,s that which gives to theprocess concerned, to the living being, foothold,coherence, continuity.

As such it presents itself to me the individualimmediately as consciousness. In consciousness Icomprehend myself as a something existing invirtue of an in-force,nasmuch as consciousness onone hand is that which gives continuity to the /-process ; on the other hand, however, at everymoment presents a fresh biological, Kammic value,even as cannot be otherwise in any combustionprocess.

Be itwell noted, however. Consciousness is notthe Kamma. That would give us Kamma as anidentity. But Kamma in the course of its self-acting development becomes consciousness. Con-ciousnes

is the ultimate value {Grenzwert),nwhich at every moment of its existence the form ofthe energy and the energy

itselfmerge and mingle,and consequently that which gives to the /-process

not only conceptual,ut also actual continuity.Faith adopts as adequate cause a transcendent

force, an imperceptible to sense in itself. Sciencerejectsllthat Is imperceptible to sense and adoptsas the adequate cause of one occurrence otheroccurrences. The Buddha teaches that the actualprocesses have being in virtue of an in-force,.e.an


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 47imperceptible to sense ; but this imperceptible tosense is so, not ** in itself^'s a transcendent initself,but in the course of its automatic develop-ent,

for the individual becomes perceptibleo senseas consciousness.

It is in this sense that we are to understand thematter when the Buddha, having specified con-sciousnes

as one of the five Khandhas, thus makingit a form of Kamma, upon another occasion says,'^ It is Cetana {thinking)hat I call Kamma.'' In aBurmese school I once listened to the followingquestions and answers : Teacher, What isKamma? Pupil, *' Cetana. Teacher, ** Whatis Cetana ? Pupil, ** Kamma.

In this sense is to be understood the frequentlyrecurring formula : In dependence upon individu-lity

(nama-rupa)rises consciousness (vinndna)independence upon consciousness arises individuality.For in-force,n contradistinction to a transcendentuniversal force, is something that only exists independence upon its material.

The understanding of this point will be renderedmuch easier by a comparison with a flame.

In a flame each moment of its existence repre-entsa specificdegree of heat which, as such, is the

power to set up a succeeding moment of ignition.This power is actualized wherever and for as longas inflammable matter, fuel,ispresent. The inflam-able

matter, so to say, is the liberating provocationthat causes this power, this potential energy whichthe flame every moment represents in virtue of itsheat to enter into life,and shows it the way intoliving energy.

But with this conversion into living energy, i.e.


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48 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vwith the fact that a new ignition moment is calledinto life, a new degree of heat, a new value inpotential energy also

isproduced, which, as thesucceeding ignition moment, anew passes over into

living energy, thus forming a repetition of the wholeproceeding. It is a process which may be brieflydesignated as a self-charging. The self-discharg-ng,

the act of the passage of potential into livingenergy, is simultaneously the charging anew withpotential energy. Precisely in this consists thenature of the self-active. The self-active is thatwhich possesses the faculty, the power to sustainitself; and this self-sustaining, when analyzed,exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. Ifpotential energy has passed over into living energy,there is here no need of an accession of foreignenergy to fashion a new store of potential energy.This new store is implied in the discharge itself.

^ Energy, actual energy, is not something that mustreceive an impetus from without in order to comeinto activity, it is activity,action itself,and provesitselfsuch by itself;and allthat is necessary is tocomprehend, to comprise itin this its characteristicquality.

That this perfectly natural conception to us hasbecome so unnatural, must be laid to the charge ofour habits of thought, trained one-sidedly as wehave been, along the lines of mechanical views.Where something happens, we look for some impulsefrom without ; but we ought never to forget thatX science does not give the actual world at all, but,only a re-actual world ; in which world, to be sure,impulses must be given if anything is to happen atall. The mechanical world -theory is simply a


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 49 reading of the play of world-events in order togive computation and determination in advance ;never under any circumstances does it furnish aninsight into actuality itself. Actuality is actionout of itself; it is the self-active. And all theinsoluble problems in which science loses her waywhen she seeks to carry the mechanical com-prehension

of the play of world -events from thereversible processes where it is possible andlegitimate, over to the non-reversible processes, allin the last analysis amount to this, that one istrying to demonstrate something i.e,the biologicalprocess-rizfromexternal preconditions, which alongsuch lines can never be demonstrated, not becausein itself incapable of demonstration, but becauseitis demonstrating itselfthrough itself.

This the genuine thinker must absolutely holdto. Actuality is action itself,not something thatfirstmust be acted upon. Everything re-actual isthinkable only as the sequel of a push requiresa push for its explanation. Everything that isactual burns. _

After this, what takes place in the /-processbecomes comprehensible.

Here the passing over from potential to livingenergy has its counterpart in the volitional move-ments.

At every moment of itsexistence the /-pro-essrepresents a specificvalue in potential energy

which there where the external world enters with its** liberating provocations, ever and again passes overinto living energy as volitional movement. Everydischarge in the form of a volitional movement is a ycharging afresh with potential energy. It is a self-sustaining proceeding in the fullest sense of the


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50 BUDDHISM AND SCIENCE vwords. The volitional movements are the everrepeated new foothold which the / fashions foritself,the ever repeated '* sustenance wherewithitprovides itselfafresh.

The all-important point about this conception isthat one should clearly see that Kamma does not,like a cord of soine sort of solid material, threaditselfthrough the /-process, as would be bound tobe the case with an /-force, whether dubbed soul.*^ or life-force,or whatever else : but that in everyvolitional movement it ever and again springs upanew out of a material to which it itself,in the firstplace, ever and again lends the power to thisend. The material has to be Kammatized so as

to be able to give Kamma the opportunity to springup anew. As in the friction of one piece of woodwith another, heat springs up, and ever and againsprings up with each repetition of the friction,so inthe frictionof the /-process with the external world,with things, ever and again new volitional move-ents

spring up. '* Somewhat, O monk, as whentwo pieces of wood are laid one upon the other,are rubbed one against the other, heat arises, firesprings up ; and when these two pieces of wood areparted, are separated, the heat that has arisen,disappears, ceases ; even so, O monk, by reason ofa contact of a pleasurable nature, a pleasurablesensation springs up. ^

This the reply, the reaction peculiar to itselfofthe /-process to the external world, a reply, a reactionthat takes the form of volitional movements, thisis Kamma, the action of this /-process. That whichas regards allthe rest of the world is imperceptible

1 Majjhima Nikaya^ Sutta 140.


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V THE DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA 51to sense, here in the self-acting, the spontaneousdevelopment of the individual, becomes perceptib

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