Their reasons are of a lower sort, or they are based on dogmatised necessity. This, like other matters, is by the Buddhists treated in a thoroughly utilitarian and selfish way. Only in one point it is not so. They are invariably conscious of "moral fate," the karma, pervading the universe by an inevitable and unconquerable

force. Kindness to animals is sure to bring happiness, as cruelty will cause misfortune.

The following are the reasons given by Buddha for abstinence from animal food:--

First, In the endless changes of the metempsychosis, persons in the relation to me of any of the six divisions of kindred have become, from time to time, some of the animals used for food. To avoid eating my relations I ought to abstain.

Second, The smell and taste are not clean.

Third, The smell causes fear among the various animals.

Fourth, To eat animal food prevents charms and other magical devices from taking effect.

The writer who invented these reasons and put them in the mouth of Buddha, did not add the certainty of the retribution of the karma, as an additional motive for showing compassion to objects possessed of life, but this is understood and lies underneath all Buddhistic thought.

Footnotes

^192:1 In Sanscrit, Shramana; but according to the commentator on the "Life of Buddha," Shakamananga, meaning "Diligence and cessation."

^194:1 Paley and those who side with him, who have attempted to construct a moral system without a natural sense of right and wrong in man, must be excepted.

^194:2 Morality is now accounted for by evolution. The School of Darwin and Spencer refuses to accept moral law as eternal. Yet all the Asiatic religions make it their basis.

^195:1 Vide Ti-tsang-king.

^198:1 O-mi-to-king-su-ts'au, by Lieu-si-ta-shi.

^202:1 See Vie de Gaudama, p. 412.