experiences in each birth the
experiences of the previous birth. The moral influence of such a
doctrine is rendered all but impossible by the fact that there is no
consciousness (the true basis of moral continuity) to connect one
birth with another. I know of no one but Mrs. Besant who claims to
know what his previous, assumed birth was, and I have not yet met any
one who believes her claim in this matter. There is no moral
discipline for one in his being punished for a thing of which he has
absolutely no conscious knowledge.

We must further consider the character of Gautama's philosophy. It
was, as is well known, thoroughly materialistic--the antipodes of the
orthodox Hindu philosophy, which is highly spiritual. To Buddha, there
was no such thing as a soul apart from the body. What was there, then,
to connect one birth with another, according to his teaching? In
Brahmanism the doctrine of transmigration is at this point very clear,
for there is the eternal _Atma_, or self, to connect and unify all its
incarnations. But Gautama, who denied the separate existence of the
soul, maintained that it was not the self, but the _Karma_, which
passed from one birth to another; and thus there became the oneness of
_Karma_ without an identity of soul passing through and uniting the
myriad incarnations of the person involved. How can one substitute
here a sameness of _Karma_ for identity of soul? Behold, then, the
insuperable difficulties which such a materialism interposes to a
belief either in the possibility or in the wisdom of the doctrine of
reincarnation.

And yet let it be remembered here that so long as one accepts the
doctrine of _Karma_ he cannot evade the sister doctrine of
reincarnation. They belong to the same system, and must be accepted or
rejected together.

If, however, we emphasize divine grace as an element in the solution
of human problems and in the salvation of man, then it is natural to
conclude that one earthly life will suffice for God and man together
to prepare the soul for the consummation and beatification which
awaits it beyond death. But if the whole problem is to be solved and
the whole work of redemption achieved by man himself, apart from God,
then Buddha must have been justified in believing that an
inconceivable number of births and human lives are necessary in order
to accomplish this.

It was just at this point that Christ and Buddha faced the opposite
poles. And it is just here, for this