er was individually the author of a movement
which transformed part of three continents. No one else has been able to
fuse the two noble instincts of religion and empire in so perfect a
manner, perfect because the two do not conflict or jar, as do the
teachings of Christ and the pretensions of his Church to temporal power.
But it is precisely this fusion of religion and politics which
disqualifies Islam as a universal religion and prevents it from
satisfying the intellectual and spiritual wants of that part of humanity
which is most intellectual and most spiritual. Law and religion are
inextricably mixed in it and a Moslim, more than the most superstitious
of Buddhists or Christians, is bound by a vast number of ties and
observances which have nothing to do with religion. It is in avoiding
these trammels that the superior religious instinct of Gotama shows
itself. He was aided in this by the temper of his times. Though he was
of the warrior caste and naturally brought into association with
princes, he was not on that account tempted to play a part in politics,
for to the Hindus, then as now, renunciation of the world was
indispensable for serious religion and there is no instance of a teacher
obtaining a hearing among them without such renunciation as a
preliminary. According to Indian popular ideas a genius might become
either an Emperor or a Buddha but not like Mohammed a mixture of the
two. But the danger which beset Gotama, and which he consistently and
consciously avoided, though Mohammed could not, was to give
authoritative decisions on unessential points as to both doctrine and
practice. There was clearly a party which wished to make the rule of his
order more severe and, had he consented, the religious world of his day
would have approved. But by so doing he would have made Buddhism an
Indian sect like Jainism, incapable of flourishing in lands with other
institutions. If Buddhism has had little influence outside Asia, that is
because there are differences of temperament in the world, not because
it sanctions anachronisms or prescribes observances of a purely local
and temporary value. In all his teaching Gotama insists on what is
essential only and will not lend his name and authority to what is
merely accessory. He will not for instance direct or even recommend his
disciples to be hermits. "Whoever wishes may dwell in a wood and whoever
wishes may dwell near a village." And in his last days he bade them be a
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