sm. He
purged Jehovah of his jealousy and prejudices and made him a spirit of
pure benevolence who behaves to men as a loving father and bids them
behave to one another as loving brethren. Such ideas lie outside the
sphere of Gotama's thought and he would probably have asked why on this
hypothesis there is any evil in the world. That is a question which the
Gospels are chary of discussing but they seem to indicate that the
disobedience and sinfulness of mankind are the root of evil. A godly
world would be a happy world. But the Buddha would have said that though
the world would be very much happier if all its inhabitants were moral
and religious, yet the evils inherent in individual existence would
still remain; it would still be impermanent and unsatisfactory.

Yet the Buddha and Christ are alike in points which are of considerable
human interest, though they are not those emphasized by the Churches.
Neither appears to have had much taste for theology or metaphysics.
Christ ignored them: the Buddha said categorically that such
speculations are vain. Indeed it is probably a general law in religions
that the theological phase does not begin until the second generation,
when the successors of the founder try to interpret and harmonize his
words. He himself sees clearly and says plainly what mankind ought to
do. Neither the Buddha, nor Christ, nor Mohammed cared for much beyond
this, and such of their sayings as have reference to the whence, the
whither and the why of the universe are obscure precisely because these
questions do not fall within the field of religious genius and receive
no illumination from its light. Argumentative as the Buddhist suttas
are, their aim is strictly practical, even when their language appears
scholastic, and the burden of all their ratiocination is the same and
very simple. Men are unhappy because of their foolish desires: to become
happy they must make themselves a new heart and will and, perhaps the
Buddha would have added, new eyes.

Neither the Buddha nor Christ thought it worth while to write anything
and both of them ignored ceremonial and sacerdotal codes in a way which
must have astounded their contemporaries. The law-books and sacrifices
to which Brahmans and Pharisees devoted time and study are simply left
on one side. The former are replaced by injunctions to cultivate a good
habit of mind, such as is exemplified in the Eightfold Path and the
Beatitudes, the latter by some observa