t.

No doubt some one may object that it is only evil desires which are thus
to be suppressed; but a perusal of the writings of the schools of
thought in question will show that this is not the case. The foundation
of the whole system is that _all_ desire must be obliterated, the desire
for the good just as much as the desire for the evil. The good is as
much "illusion" as the evil, and until we have reached absolute
indifference to both we have not attained freedom. When we have utterly
crushed out _all_ desire we are free. And the practical results of such
a philosophy are shown in the case of Indian devotees, who, in pursuance
of their resolve to crush out _all_ desire, both for good and evil
alike, become nothing more than outward images of men, from which all
power of perception and of action have long since fled.

The mergence in the universal, at which they thus aim, becomes nothing
more than a self-induced hypnotism, which, if maintained for a
sufficient length of time, saps away every power of mental and bodily
activity, leaving nothing but the outside husk of an attenuated human
form--the hopeless wreck of what was once a living man. This is the
logical result of a system which assumes for its starting-point that
desire is evil in itself, that every desire is _per se_ a form of
bondage, independently of the nature of its object. The majority of the
followers of this philosophy may lack sufficient resolution to carry it
out rigorously to its practical conclusions; but whether their ideal is
to be realised in this world or in some other, the utter extinction of
desire means nothing else than absolute apathy, without feeling and
without action.

How entirely false such an idea is--not only from the standpoint of our
daily life, but also from that of the most transcendental conception of
the Universal Principle--is evidenced by the mere fact that anything
exists at all. If the highest ideal is that of utter apathy, then the
Creative Power of the universe must be extremely low-minded; and all
that we have hitherto been accustomed to look upon as the marvellous
order and beauty of creation, is nothing but a display of vulgarity and
ignorance of sound philosophy.

But the fact that creation exists proves that the Universal Mind thinks
differently, and we have only to look around to see that the true ideal
is the exercise of creative power. Hence, so far from desire being a
thing to be annihilated, it is the very