can read Buddhist books or associate with Buddhist monks
without feeling that the intellectual element is preponderant, not the
emotional. The ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance. The Buddha has
won the truth by understanding the universe. Conversion is usually
described by some such phrase as acquiring the Eye of Truth, rather than
by words expressing belief or devotion. The major part of the ideal
life, set forth in a recurring passage of the Digha Nikaya, consists in
the creation of intellectual states, and though the Buddha disavowed all
speculative philosophy his discourses are full, if not of metaphysics,
at least of psychology. And this knowledge is essential. It is not
sufficient to affirm one's belief in it; it must be assimilated and
taken into the life of every true Buddhist. All cannot do this: most of
the unconverted are blinded by lust and passion, but some are
incapacitated by want of mental power. They must practise virtue and in
a happier birth their minds will be enlarged.

The reader who has perused the previous chapters will have some idea of
the tone and subject matter of the Buddha's preaching. We will now
examine his doctrine as a system and will begin with the theory of
existence, premising that it disclaims all idea of doing more than
analyze our experience. With speculations or assertions as to the
origin, significance and purpose of the Universe, the Buddha has nothing
to do. Such questions do not affect his scheme of salvation. What
views--if any--he may have held or implied about them we shall gather as
we go on. But it is dangerous to formulate what he did not formulate
himself, and not always easy to understand what he did formulate. For
his words, though often plain and striking, are, like the utterances of
other great teachers, apt to provoke discordant explanations. They meet
our thoughts half way, but no interpretation exhausts their meaning.
When we read into them the ideas of modern philosophy and combine them
into a system logical and plausible after the standard of this age, we
often feel that the result is an anachronism: but if we treat them as
ancient simple discourses by one who wished to make men live an austere
and moral life, we still find that there are uncomfortably profound
sayings which will not harmonize with this theory.

The Buddha's aversion to speculation did not prevent him from insisting
on the importance of a correct knowledge of our mental constitution, the