y imperfect means of judging go, is doubtful. Into
practical pantheism, and into the deification of human reason it _does_
run.

When self-contemplation has reached its highest degree of abstraction,
the state of _Nirwana_ is induced. This seems to mean the absorption of
the spirit within itself; a condition which at once suggests adjectives
like _impassive_, _subjective_, _exalted_, and _supra-sensual_, or
substantives like _transcendentalism_, _egoism_, &c., and the like; in
some cases with definite ideas to correspond with the term; oftener as
mere meaningless words. Such, however, is the nomenclature which is
requisite; a nomenclature to which I have recourse, not for the sake of
illustrating my subject, but with the view of giving a practical notion
of its indistinctness.

Buddha himself is a specimen and model of self-absorption, consummation,
perfection, or exaltation rather than a deity, or even a prophet. He
shows what purity can effect, rather than teaches what purity consists
in. He may even have become what he was, by his own unaided powers of
supra-sensual abstraction.

All this is but a series of negations, at least in the way of theology.
But his spirit, after the departure of his body from the earth,[52]
became incarnate in the body of some successor--and so on _ad
infinitum_. This connects Buddhism with the doctrine of metempsychosis;
a doctrine which the incarnations of Brahminism also suggest.

Such are some of the speculative points of Buddhism. Its morality has
been greatly, and, perhaps, unduly extolled. So much contemplation can
scarcely exist without the condemnation of the more palpable sins of
_commission_. Hence, those vices which are the offspring of passion and
ignorance are condemned; as is but natural. The suspension of exertion
precludes active vice. Of the active virtues, however, the recognition
is as slight as may be; so slight as to make it doubtful whether
Buddhism be a better rule for the formation of good citizens than
Brahminism. Which has been the most resistant to the influences of
Christianity is doubtful.[53]

Just as the Anglo-Saxon language, although it originated in Germany, has
survived and developed itself in Britain only, the Buddhist creed, once
indigenous to the continent of Hindostan, is now found nowhere between
the Himalayas and Cape Comorin; whilst beyond the pale of India, it is
as widely extended as the English language is beyond the limits of
Germany. The