principles of (1.) Collection, and (2.) Progress. But for the two higher principles, (3.) Distinction, and (4.) Completion, the word implies, not only the killing of robbers, but of non-robbers, i.e., the Nirvana, which in the higher region of these two principles is also deserving of extinction. Freedom from birth expresses their complete rescue from life and death, and that is the meaning of their defects having been obliterated. Because they can give happiness to all the nine classes of beings, therefore they are said to deserve honour. By their embodiment of the religious life, they benefit themselves. By their wisdom, they obtain deliverance from life and death. By expelling ignorance and evil, they kill robbers.

"Interpreting according to the Threefold contemplation, empty, inventive, and medial, the first is exemplified in their wisdom, the second in their expulsion of evil, and the third in their embodiment of the religious life. In the transition from the inventive to the empty, there are also three modifications of the sense, viz., arrival at the central point of contemplation, killing the thieves of ignorance, and keeping the heart from a one-sided position.

"Interpreting according to the contemplation of the heart, following the middle path, and taking the correct view, they do not err on the side of the empty or inventive mode of observation. The sorrow of the heart is gone. When a man sees the true moral nature of his mind, that is called the higher state of confirmation. Like a hidden treasure, reserved for myself, is the benefit which the Arhans have obtained."

When Brahma appears before Buddha as a disciple, the commentary says: "The word Brahma means 'leaving the desires, abandoning earthly ties, and ascending to the coloured heavens.' It is also said to mean 'high' and pure.' This Brahma is one of the wheel kings of a single generation, who asks instruction of Buddha, which he receives according to his wish and capacity. Interpreting the idea of Brahma, according to that method which observes

the heart, it means 'contemplating the removal of all pollutions.'"

These extracts exemplify how the mythological apparatus of the Buddhist Sutras, or "Sacred books of the first class," is explained away. The whole machinery of Buddhas and Bodhisattwas, kings and divinities, disappears under this process. Eastern and Western pantheism are alike in this, that they will not be content with an independent self-evolved structure of metaphysical thought, but assuming the critical office, aim at the overthrow of all the objects of popular belief. Knowledge, self, the absolute--these are the only existences allowed by this arrogant philosophy to remain in the universe. Even these are made identical, and finally explained into nothing.