oul.

Man is as he has made himself; man will be as he makes himself. This is
a very simple theory, surely. It is not at all difficult to understand
the Buddhist standpoint in the matter. It is merely the theory of
evolution applied to the soul, with this difference: that in its later
stages it has become a deliberate and a conscious evolution, and not an
unconscious one.

And the deduction from this is also simple. It is true, says Buddhism,
that every man is the architect of himself, that he can make himself as
he chooses. Now, what every man desires is happiness. As a man can form
himself as he will, it is within his power to make himself happy, if he
only knows how. Let us therefore carefully consider what happiness is,
that we may attain it; what misery is, that we may avoid it.

It is a commonplace of many religions, and of many philosophies--nay,
it is the actual base upon which they have been built, that this is an
evil world.

Judaism, indeed, thought that the world was really a capital place, and
that it was worth while doing well in order to enjoy it. But most other
faiths thought very differently. Indeed, the very meaning of most
religions and philosophies has been that they should be refuges from the
wickedness and unhappiness of the world. According to them the world has
been a very weary world, full of wickedness and of deceit, of war and
strife, of untruth and of hate, of all sorts of evil.

The world has been wicked, and man has been unhappy in it.

'I do not know that any theory has usually been propounded to explain
why this is so. It has been accepted as a fact that man is unhappy,
accepted, I think, by most faiths over the world. Indeed, it is the
belief that has been, one thinks, the cause of faiths. Had the world
been happy, surely there had been no need of religions. In a summer sea,
where is the need of havens? It is a generally-accepted fact, accepted,
as I have said, without explanation. But the Buddhist has not been
contented to leave it so. He has thought that it is in the right
explanation of this cardinal fact that lies all truth. Life suffers from
a disease called misery. He would be free from it. Let us, then, says
the Buddhist, first discover the cause of this misery, and so only can
we understand how to cure it.' It is this explanation which is really
the distinguishing tenet of Buddhism, which differentiates it from all
other faiths and all philosophies.

The reason, says Budd