he propagation of doctrine; and
ecclesiastical influence is of very little service to a Government.
The civil law, indeed, makes continual encroachments on the
ecclesiastical domain, questions its authority, and usurps its
jurisdiction. Modern erudition criticises the historical authenticity
of the scriptures, philosophy tries to undermine the foundations of
belief; the governments find small interest in propping up edifices
that are shaken by internal controversies. In Mohammedan Asia, on the
other hand, the connection between the orthodox faith and the States
is firmly maintained, for the solidarity is so close that disruptions
would be dangerous, and a Mohammedan rulership over a majority of
unbelievers would still be perilously unstable.

I have thus endeavoured to show that the historical relations of
Buddhism and Hinduism to the State have been in the past, and are
still in the present time, very different from the situation in the
West. There has always existed, I submit, one essential distinction of
principle. Religious propagation, forcible conversion, aided and
abetted by the executive power of the State, and by laws against
heresy or dissent, have been defended in the West by the doctors of
Islam, and formerly by Christian theologians, by the axiom that all
means are justifiable for extirpating false teachers who draw souls to
perdition. The right and duty of the civil magistrate to maintain
truth, in regard to which Bossuet declared all Christians to be
unanimous, and which is still affirmed in the Litany of our Church, is
a principle from which no Government, three centuries ago, dissented
in theory, though in practice it needed cautious handling. I do not
think that this principle ever found its way into Hinduism or
Buddhism; I doubt, that is to say, whether the civil government was at
any time called in to undertake or assist propagation of those
religions as part of its duty. Nor do I know that the States of
Eastern Asia, beyond the pale of Islam, claim or exercise the right of
insisting on conformance to particular doctrines, because they are
true. The erratic manifestations of the religious spirit throughout
Asia, constantly breaking out in various forms and figures, in
thaumaturgy, mystical inspiration, in orgies and secret societies,
have always disquieted these Asiatic States, yet, so far as I can
ascertain, the employment of force to repress them has always been
justified on administrative or poli