of personality has yielded to a notion
of the "impersonal." (--Both of these states will be familiar to a few
of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me).
These physiological states produced a _depression_, and Buddha tried to
combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the
open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of
foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing
any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood;
finally, no _worry_, either on one's own account or on account of
others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or
good cheer--he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He
understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes
health. _Prayer_ is not included, and neither is _asceticism_. There is
no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of
a monastery (--it is always possible to leave--). These things would
have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above
mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with
unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to
revenge, aversion, _ressentiment_ (--"enmity never brings an end to
enmity": the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was
right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main
regiminal purpose, are _unhealthful_. The mental fatigue that he
observes, already plainly displayed in too much "objectivity" (that is,
in the individual's loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and
of "egoism"), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual
interests back to the _ego_. In Buddha's teaching egoism is a duty. The
"one thing needful," the question "how can you be delivered from
suffering," regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet.
(--Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon
pure "scientificality," to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to
the estate of a morality).

21.

The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of
great gentleness and liberality, and _no_ militarism; moreover, it must
get its start among the higher and better educated classes.
Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata,
and they are _attained_. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection
is merely an object of aspira