ing sinners and outcasts to him, and extending to them
sympathy and aid. He, too, was called a physician, a healer of the sick;
and we know what countless numbers of ailing mankind found health through
him. All this can be quite understood from a human standpoint. A religion
is, in its nature, not a philosophy; and no one could find fault with
Christianity if it had devoted itself only to the healing of all human
infirmities, and had set aside all metaphysical questions. We know how
Buddha also personally declined all philosophical discussion. When one of
his disciples put questions to him about metaphysical problems, the
solution of which went beyond the limits of human reason, he contended
that he wished to be nothing more than a physician, to heal the
infirmities of mankind. Accordingly, he says to Malunkyaputta: "What have
I said to you before? Did I say, 'Come to me and be my disciple, that I
may teach you whether the world is eternal or not; whether the world is
finite or infinite; whether the life-principle is identical with the body
or not, whether the perfect man lives after death or not?' "

Malunkyaputta answered, "Master, you did not say that."

Then Buddha continued, "Did you then say, 'I will be your disciple,' but
first answer these questions?"

"No," said the disciple.

Thereupon Buddha said: "A man was once wounded by a poisoned arrow, and
his friends called in an experienced physician. What if the wounded man
had said, I shall not permit my wound to be examined until I know who
wounded me, whether he be a nobleman, a Brahman, a Vaisya, or a Sudra;
what his name is; to what family he belongs; if he be large or small, or
of medium size, and how the weapon with which he wounded me looked. How
would it fare with such a man? Would he not certainly succumb to his
wound?"

The disciple then perceives that he came to Buddha as a sick man, desiring
to be healed by him as a physician, not to be instructed about matters
that lie far beyond the human horizon.

Buddha has often been censured because he claimed for his religion such an
exclusively practical character, and instead of philosophy preached only
morality. These censures began in early times; we find them in the famous
dialogues between Nagasena and Milinda, the king Menander, about 100 B.C.
And yet we know how, in spite of all warnings given by the founder of
Buddhism, this religion was soon entirely overgrown with metaphysics; and
how, finally, me