Such unanimity on the part of the popular exponents of Buddhism points to a large measure of unanimity on the part of its more learned interpreters and commentators. That Dr Rhys Davids has given voice to a general consensus of opinion on the part of the Western students

of Buddhism, can scarcely be doubted. From Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire to H. C. Warren, the Orientalists of Europe and America are agreed, with one or two notable exceptions, in holding that Buddha denied the Ego and regarded Nirvana as the prelude to annihilation; while the fact that the South Buddhist Church has given Dr Paul Carus a certificate of orthodoxy suggests that on these points the general trend of official opinion in the Buddhist world itself coincides, mutatis mutandis, with the general trend of learned opinion in the West.

* * * * * *

What evidence can Dr Rhys Davids, and those who think with him, give in support of their thesis that Buddha was a negative dogmatist

"Who dropped his plummet down the broad
Deep Universe, and said 'No God' --
Finding no bottom."

[paragraph continues] There is this initial difficulty in the way of our accepting Dr Rhys Davids' interpretation of Buddha's metaphysical--as distinguished from his ethical--philosophy, that, on our author's own showing, Buddha was a true and consistent agnostic, who was so far from dogmatizing about what is ultimate that he regarded all metaphysical speculation as vain and foolish, and all metaphysical strife as morally wrong. "There were a certain number of questions to which it was his habit to refuse to reply. These were questions the discussion