The Nature of Man: Studies in Optimistic Philosophy

to be of service to them. According to A. Reville,* the Chinese as a whole " fully recognised the conception of personal survival after death ; if there were no other reason for stating this, it would be enough to point out that offerings of real food would be incomprehensible, if made to persons supposed to be non-existent or reduced to complete uncon- sciousness." As they offer to the dead, food and clothing and precious things, it is plain that the Chinese think of life beyond the grave as not very different from this life. " The dead maintain their interest in the affairs and persons and food that was familiar to them."

As the idea of immortality became developed further, the Chinese modified their customs. Instead of offering to the dead material objects, as is still done by many peoples, they came to substitute emblems. " Houses and clothing and food imitated in paper, and dolls of paper and straw to represent slaves, are burned, so that the spiritual forms of these objects may be offered to the spirit they wish to honour." | One of the chief motives of ancestor-worship is fear lest the dead, if neglected, may visit their wrath on the living by sending plagues and pestilence upon them.J

The worship of the dead had laid hold of the Chinese so firmly that even Confucius, notwithstanding hjs intelli- gence and scepticism, paid it a large tribute. " Confucius the philosopher," said Reville, " regarded it as a duty to offer to his ancestors the gifts of food that princes had sent to him desiring to honour him." § Confucius and his followers were reticent and ambiguous in their references to a future life, but that attitude did not prevent them from " observing the customs and cere- monies as carefully as if they had had a confident faith in the immortality of the soul." * Although Lao-tseu himself believed neither in heaven nor hell, and professed the most rationalistic views, his disciples none the less accepted the doctrine of immortality, and even came to believe in rewards and punishments after death.

The followers of Lao-tseu, the Taoists, devoted them- selves specially to the problem of immortality. They made efforts to discover an elixir that would be capable of pro- longing earthly life to eternity. " One of the chief claims of Taoism," wrote Reville, " was the possession of a specific against death. It was true that they admitted this to be not only very difficult to obtain, but still more difficult to employ. However, if certain rules were observed strictly they were at least confident of great prolongation of life. It was only the very few Taoists who had reached per- fection who could hope to pass into the better world without being subjected to the pains of death." f And so some of the masters of Taoism, such, for instance, as Chang-Tao- Ling, ascended to heaven without dying, by climbing a lofty peak and vanishing into the skies." +

The ordinary Taoists accepted fully the idea of immortality. They " taught the doctrine of purgatory for those who were not evil. To arrive at this, Lao-tseu simply expanded and applied to mankind generally an idea that was already familiar to him, the conception of the transmigration of one soul through several successive bodies. By means of such expiatory transformations, a man who had not reached it directly through the holiness of his life, could attain the immortality of genii and the blessed." *

It was believed for long that the Taoists, following the teaching of their master, did not recognise a hell. But this opinion has had to be abandoned, because the "Taoist clergy have provided, in the temples dedicated to the tutelary deities of their cities, paintings illustrating the torments pre- pared for the guilty by the ten courts of justice that sit i:i the depths of an ocean hidden in the interior of the earth." f Clearly then, many Chinese, both Taoists and followers of Confucius, believe in the existence of a world beyond the grave. However, the denial of immortality has been ascribed to Buddhists in particular.

Buddha accepted the Brahmanist doctrine of transmi- gration of the soul. This has been established clearly on the evidence of several documents of admitted authenticity. Orthodox Buddhism is somewhat vague on the immortality of the soul. Buddha himself avoided making a decisive statement on this matter. In such circumstances " those who were terrified at annihilation, and who could not give up the hope of eternal happiness, interpreted the silence of Buddha according to their own desire, and inferred that he did not forbid them to hope." j

There are many instances of the evasions of Buddhist teachers when they were pressed with this disturbing ques- tion. Pasenadi, the king, once met Khema, the nun, a disciple of Buddha, renowned for her wisdom. The king put to her the following question : " Does the Perfect One (Buddha) exist after death?" " The Sublime One, O great king, has not revealed to us the existence of paradise beyond the grave." " Then the Perfect One exists no longer now that he is dead, O reverend lady ? " " Neither, O king, has the Sublime One revealed that He who is perfect does not exist now that He is dead." "Am I to believe, then, O reverend lady, that the Perfect One still lives, although He is dead, and at the same time does not live ? Am I to believe, O wise lady, that the Perfect One being dead, neither exists nor does not exist ? " *

Take again the mode in which Soumirmita,f " the son of a god, and surrounded and preceded by a crowd of gods," worshipped Bouddha (Tathagata) : " Thou art the phy- sician, skilful to save, and who givest the gift of life ever- lasting." The Buddhists, as they were not given clear doctrines on this subject, very naturally followed their inclinations by accepting the idea of life beyond the grave. And certainly Buddhism does not teach annihilation of the body after death, although this has been lightly taken for granted. On the contrary, it is so persuaded of survival after death as being the rule, that it grants only to rare and elect souls the privilege of at length laying down the burden of con- tinuous life.J

The Chinese Buddhists retained the fundamental concep- tions of the ancient religion of their land and continued to worship their ancestors and to seek the readiest path to immortality. They soon came to transform Nirvana into paradise, and to inculcate in the Chinese race the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. " The Buddhist monas- teries in China for the most part possessed a set of little rooms, in which there were depicted, in vivid colours, crowded scenes from the eighteen hells of tribulation and lamentation. For there exist under the earth eight hells filled with the torments of fire, and ten with the equally terrible horrors of ice." *

The paradise of the Chinese Buddhists, or Ni-pan (Land of the Pure), is a region abounding in " gold and silver, and precious stones. Rivers of crystal run on golden sands covered with splendid lotus-flowers and traversed by delightful paths. Lovely music is always to be heard. Three times a day a shower of blossoms falls. There are to be seen there gorgeous birds, pheasants, and parrots, and many others ; and these, every quarter of an hour, in a choir of melodious voices, trill out the beauties of religion and recall to their hearers the Buddha, Dharma, and Sungha. These are some of the wonders prepared for those who are born again after death. Into that land neither sin nor any evil enters. ".f

I need no longer accumulate details to show the falseness of the view that a third of humanity profess materialism to the exclusion of any belief in survival after death. On the other hand, it is quite certain that the vast majority of mankind is convinced that death puts no definite term to existence, and that this life is no more than a passing stage leading to a life to come. However, although many simple races believe that the future life is merely a continua- tion of this life, the more subtle-minded races present the future life as filled with delights for the good and with torments for the wicked.

Such an idea of the next world, which is very generally accepted, is probably the basis of religions. From it have come the conceptions of supreme beings and divinities * Reville, loc. cit. p. 556. f Ib^d- P- 525' Many facts go to show that the primitive gods were no other than the relatives and ancestors of the living, now dead, yet living in another world and ruling the affairs of this world. Wicked ancestors became transformed into evil spirits, while good ancestors became mild and benevolent deities.

Very many peoples offer prayers to their ancestors and treat them as gods. The Kaffirs pray and sacrifice to their dead relatives, believing that the spirits of the dead haunt their late dwelling-places, and, according to their characters, help or torment their descendants. As they are able to cause good or evil after death, these play the part of gods. But, as Lubbock points out (" Origin of Civilisation "), it must be remembered that the god of a savage is only a being like unto himself, although probably rather more powerful, and I shall show that there are many intermediate stages between true gods and mere dead parents whose malice is to be feared, or whose kindness is to be supplicated.

The North American Indians * pray to the spirits of their forefathers for good weather or luck in hunting, and fancy when an Indian falls into the fire that the ancestral spirits pushed him in to punish neglect of the customary gifts, while the natives of Louisiana are said to have even gone so far as to build temples for dead men. In Polynesia " at Tanna, the gods are spirits of departed ancestors, aged chiefs becoming deities after death, presiding over the growth of yams and fruit-trees, and receiving from the islanders prayer and offerings of first fruits." f In the Malay Islands " the souls of deceased ancestors are looked to for pros- perity in life and help in distress." In Africa ancestor- worship is well developed. The Zulu warriors, " aided by

the amatongo,' the spirits of their ancestors, conquer in the battle. Even the little children and old women, of small account in life, become at death spirits having much power, the infants for kindness, the crones for malice. But it is especially the head of each family who receives the worship of his kin." * The Zulu adores his father, when he is a chief, above all others, and is convinced that a father remembering his love for his children, will not forget them when he is dead. " The Zulu follows up the doctrine of divine ancestors till he reaches a first ancestor of man and creator of the world, the primeval Unkulunkulu." f

So great is the number of instances that it is too difficult to choose from them. The fundamental idea is always identical, although details and accessories vary, as one passes from the hardly idealised relatives of negro tribes and goes progressively to the " Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth " of the Nicene Creed. The conception of a future life in the form of immortality or some kindred state, associated with the conception of many gods or of one God, has been developed to satisfy the craving for life and to combat the fear of death, that is to say, to defeat the greatest contradiction in the constitution of man. I must now inquire how far the different religions have been successful in this object.

Many primitive races have absolute faith in the tenets of their religion, and believe in the promise of life beyond the grave as in a certain fact. Thus the aborigines of the Fiji islands are convinced that they will be born again, in another world, in the exact condition in which they leave this life ; and so they wish to die before being afflicted with any infirmity. As it is very difficult to reach old age without being the victim of some illness or infirmity, when * Ibid. p. 115. t Ibid. p. 116.

a man teels the approach of age, he tells his children that the time has come for him to die. If he himself fails to give this notice, the children undertake the duty. A family council is called, the day is appointed, and the grave made ready. The old man is allowed to choose between being strangled and being buried alive. The following instance will show the strength of a belief in life to come. Hunt, an English traveller, quoted by Lubbock, received a visit from a young native of Fiji, whose purpose was to give an invitation to the funeral of his mother which was to take place next day. Mr. Hunt accepted the invitation and joined the procession, but as he was surprised to see no dead body, inquired about it from the son. The son pointed out his mother, walking in the procession and as gay and ani- mated as any of the others. Mr. Hunt stated his surprise, and asked why he had been deceived by being told that the mother was dead, when she was plainly as much alive and as well as any one else. He received the reply that the death festival was about to be celebrated ; that presently they would bury her ; that she was old, and that his brother and he, thinking that she had lived long enough, and should be put to death, had obtained her cheerful consent.

This case is far from being solitary, because many villages have been described as containing no inhabitants of a greater age than forty years, all those older having been buried. It is not difficult to understand that death should have no terrors for persons possessed of a faith as strong as this. The American Indian, according to Lubbock, has very little fear of death. He does not fear transference to a realm in which, as he has been told all his life, there is no sorrow and abundance of joy.

I know a case of a young girl of the Catholic faith who believed so firmly in the joys of Paradise that, when stricken with a mortal illness, she awaited death with a great impa- tience. Before she died, she cried out that " already she could see the beautiful flowers and hear the sweet music of the birds that fill heaven." But it is rare to find faith so strong in such a case. More often faith is not strong enough to subdue the fear of death, and in proof of this I may recall the instance of the clergy- man already given.* Stricken with an incurable disease, he, in spite of his religion, underwent extreme agony, and could not reconcile himself to the idea of death. The fear of death showed itself so strongly in this case that I have chosen it as a characteristic instance of the feeling.

It is only with fanatics and simple or primitive persons that blind faith can subdue this instinctive fear. For this reason, since the most ancient times, religions have sought out something more than the promise of paradise to mitigate this chief disharmony of our nature. In this connection the doctrines of Buddha are those most interesting. Here I shall not deal with that modified and transformed Bud- dhism, in which, as I have already shown, there was a return to the doctrine of future life, with its hell of torments and heaven filled with delights,

Buddha made no reference to the great blot on human life. His doctrine, in its original form, was extremely pessimistic. Take, for instance, some of his sayings on this subject : " Miserable in truth is this world, in which there is beginning, birth, growing old, death, disappearance and renewal. But we know not how to escape from this world, full of horror though it be. Alas, because of old age, illness, death, and their like, we know not who shall put an end to this world, which is so full of horror. To all who are, there comes old age, and illness, and death, and their like." f * See p. 124, t The "Lalita Vistara," p. 289.

When the Buddha came upon the sorrows of the world, as I have already described (p. 119), he reflected as follows : " \Yoe upon youth, threatened by old age ! Woe upon health, which so many maladies destroy ! Woe upon the life of man, which lasts but a little space ! Woe on the temptations of the flesh, which lure the heart of the wise ! Would that there were neither old age nor illness, nor death and the pains of death, which come from the five elements of life (Skandhas) ! Would that there were neither old age nor illness nor death, which are for ever bound up together ! Nevertheless, when I return again I shah1 con- sider deliverance." *

Having pondered for many days on these problems, Buddha thought that he had discovered the only solution, and taught men resignation. When a man was young he would ask of his father : " Lord, would that old age would never come upon me, and that I should keep for ever the warm colour of my youth ; that I should be always filled with health, and that no disease should come near me ; that my life should be prolonged for ever, and that death should pass me by ! Such an one later on must learn to give up these longings." f

In his famous " Sermon at Benares," Buddha gave in brief the outlines of his doctrines in the following words : " Hear, oh monks ! the holy truth of the springs of sorrow ! Sorrow is born of lust of life, that drags us from incarnation to incarnation, and of pleasure and desire, which seek their fulfilment hither and thither ; the lust of pleasure, the lust of life, the lust of power. Hear, oh monks ! the holy truth of the conquest of sorrow ; it is the killing of this lust by the utter abandonment of desire, the giving up of ah1 desire,

the forgetting of all desire, the freeing of the body of all desire, until there is no place left for desire." * In such a spirit of resignation, Buddha became himself a monk, and lived according to the strict rules of the pure life that he himself had laid down (" the belief pure, the will pure, the language pure, the deeds pure, the means of live- lihood pure, the study pure, the attention pure, the medi- tation pure "). However, he did not find many kindred souls to follow the same precepts. Buddhism soon moved away from these original tenets, and became a religious doctrine of the ordinary kind.

We are inclined to associate with Buddhism the doctrine of Nirvana, as if the latter were the goal to which human life should be directed. Many philosophers, and the pes- simists chief among them, naturally with Schopenhauer at their head, have adopted Nirvana as the goal of mankind, as they see the world. However, the word Nirvana has had many interpretations put upon it, the which is less surprising as Sanscrit scholars differ. I do not intend to join in the discussion, as I myself am not acquainted with Sanscrit, upon which the argument must be founded. How- ever, I cannot pass it by without comment on the pretext that it has not yet been settled definitely by specialists, as it is the case that many thinkers regard Nirvana as the goal of human existence.

For long Nirvana was represented as a sort of blank, in which there was no display of any mental operations. Max Miiller,f the celebrated Oxford professor, opposed this interpretation on the ground that, according to him, in " all passages of Buddhistic origin in which Nirvana occurs there is nothing to betoken annihilation. Most of these passages, if not all of them, would be quite unintelligible * Oldenburg, p. 214. f " Buddhagosas Parables," if we were to replace in them the word Nirvana by the word annihilation."

Many other specialists share this view, and cannot agree that the goal of human life was to be annihilation,. Rhys Davids, for instance, thinks that Nirvana is to be interpreted as a tranquillity of the soul, possible of achievement in this life, and that the word is best translated by the term " sanc- tity." According to him, Nirvana does not mean extinc- tion or annihilation, but rather freedom from the great passions, such as envy and hate. Pfungst * agrees with Max Miiller ; he is convinced that the first adepts of Buddha could not have conceived of Nirvana as extinction. Dahl- mann f on the other hand, tries to prove that Nirvana in its primitive signification implied the abolition of the will to live, and really corresponded to annihilation.