:
it checks rather than fosters enterprise, it favours a dull
conformity to rule rather than the free cultivation of various gifts.
Its ideal is to empty life of everything active and positive, rather
than to concentrate energy on a strong purpose. It does not train the
affections to virtuous and harmonious action, but denies to them all
action and consigns them to extinction. This condemnation it has
incurred by parting with that highest stimulus to human virtue and
endeavour, which lies in the belief in a living God. By so doing it
ceased to fulfil the office of a religion for men, and though, for
historical purposes, we may class it among the religions of the
world, a system which leaves its adherents free not to worship at
all, or to find satisfaction for their spiritual instincts in the
worship of beings whom it regards with indifference, comes short of
the notion of religion, and is not properly entitled to that name.

BOOKS RECOMMENDED

Monier Williams, _Buddhism, in its connection with Brahmanism and
Hinduism, and in its contrast with Christianity_, 1889.

Rhys Davids, _Buddhism_ (S.P.C.K.).

Oldenberg's, _Buddha, his Life, his Doctrine and his Order_, 1882
(out of print). (Third German Edition, 1897.)

Spence Hardy, _Manual of Buddhism_, 1860.

E. Hardy, _Der Buddhismus_.

CHAPTER XXI
PERSIA

The Aryans who entered India to become its dominant race came from
Central Asia, and left behind them there other tribes of Aryan
culture. These tribes remained in what is called Iran, in the lands,
that is to say, between the Indus, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea,
and the Persian Gulf. It is from this region, a part of which bore in
ancient times the name of Ariana, that the word "Aryan" is derived.
The languages of this territory are akin to Sanscrit; and there is
ample evidence that before the Indian invasion the progenitors of the
Indians and those of the Iranians dwelt together there, and enjoyed a
common civilisation. If the civilisation was the same the religion
also was the same. How the Indo-Iranian religion was developed in
India, we have seen. At first a worship of active and militant
deities, it became by degrees a religion of a passive type, in which
a suffering, acquiescent, and brooding humanity presented to heaven
its needs and problems, and received a corresponding answer. The
Aryans who remained in Iran retained their active and practical
disposition. While by no means wanting in sen