religion, and progress in civilisation generally. Where the belief in
reincarnation takes the form of belief in the transmigration of the
soul into some animal form, it may be utilised for moral purposes,
provided that the people amongst whom the belief obtains have otherwise
advanced so far as to see that the punishments and rewards which are
essential to the development of morality are by no means always
realised in this life. When that conviction has established itself,
the reincarnation theory will provide machinery by which the belief in
future punishments and rewards can be conceived as operative: rebirth
in animal form, if the belief in it already exists, may be held out as
a deterrent to wrongdoing. That is, as a matter of fact, the use to
which the belief has been put by Buddhism. The form and station in
which the deceased will be {62} reborn is no longer, as amongst the
peoples just mentioned, conceived to be determined automatically, so to
speak, but is supposed to depend on the moral qualities exhibited
during life. If this view of the future life has struck deeper root
and has spread over a greater surface than the doctrine taught in the
Greek mysteries ever did, the reason may probably be found in the fact
that the Greek mysteries had no higher morality to teach than was
already recognised, whilst the moral teaching of the Buddha was far
more exalted and far more profoundly true than anything that had been
preached in India before. If a moral system by itself, on its own
merits, were capable of affording a sure foundation for religion,
Buddhism would be built upon a rock. To the spiritual community by
which man may be united to his fellow-man and to his God, morality is
essential and indispensable. But the moral life derives its value
solely from the fact that on it depends, and by means of it is
realised, that communion of man with God after which man has from the
beginning striven. If then that communion and the very possibility of
that communion is denied, the denial must prove fatal alike to religion
and to morality. Now, that is the denial which Buddhism {63} makes.
But the fact of the denial is obscured to those who believe, and to
those who would like to believe, in Buddhism, by the way in which it is
made. It is made in such a way that it appears and is believed to be
an affirmation instead of a denial. Communion with God is declared to
be the final end to which the transmigration of so