.
This belief in transmigration has a very hurtful effect on the people,
as it leads them, when suffering for their conduct, to attribute their
sufferings to births of which they do not profess to have any
remembrance, instead of blaming themselves for the course they had
pursued. We have to show the baselessness, the unreasonableness, and the
injurious tendency of this notion. The doctrine of a blind fate
determining everything is widely held. The greatest criminals coolly
assert it has been their fate to have done what they have done, and, of
course, to suffer as they suffer. The moral nature of the people, though
benumbed, is happily not destroyed, and to it we appeal against a notion
which levels all moral distinctions.

[Sidenote: PANTHEISM AND HINDU PHILOSOPHY.]

Pantheism, it is well known, lies at the foundation of Hindu Polytheism.
It may be indeed doubted if there has ever been a Polytheistic system
apart from a Pantheistic element. The Hindus generally cannot work out
the Pantheistic theory, as the Pundits do, but the most illiterate are
familiar with its commonplaces, and are ready with their avowal. We
often hear, "Is not God everywhere? Does He not pervade all? Is He not
all? Is not all evolved from Him, as the spider's web is evolved from
its body? Does not all emanate from Him, as the stream flows from the
fountain and rays from the sun? Are we not all portions of Him? We may
worship anything and everything if only we see God in it. There are
differences in the sparks from the central fire, some far brighter than
others. The gods are the brightest sparks, and therefore they are
specially worthy of worship." In reply we have to insist on the
difference between the Creator and the creature, between the Ruler and
His subject. We are often told it is God that makes us speak and act,
and we are puppets dancing as He draws the strings. In protest against
this doctrine we appeal to the acknowledgment they themselves make of
the essential distinction between right and wrong, the one to be done,
the other to be shunned, and show that if their Pantheistic notion be
accepted the distinction is obliterated, and the floodgate is open to
the commission of all wickedness.

The most advanced thought of Hindu philosophy is that all is Maya,
illusion, the play, the amusement of the Supreme, who leads us to
believe that we are, that we have a separate existence, which we have
not; but at last the illusion will come to a