Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/480

464 So far as the work of De la Saussaye is concerned, it does not need our commendation, and leaves little place for our criticism. It is marked by wide learning and great common sense. This latter quality is not so common among writers on the religions of the world as to be taken for granted in such a treatise. Some even among the most learned and accurate of scholars appear to feel that their work must have originality; and in order to attain this they sometimes run into extravagance of theory, as an architect may seek to be original by fantastic appendages to the building that he is planning. De la Saussave resists this temptation so far as he is concerned; and in most cases shows little mercy to the kind of originality of which I speak. His severity is, however, that of the judge, or, what amounts to the same thing, that of the historian. He is everywhere dispassionate, and nowhere shows anything of the spirit of a partisan. This quality is an important one for his work, which is, in certain portions especially, rather the history of opinions about religion and religions than of religion itself. The reader of the pages devoted to Egypt, for instance, will leave them, perhaps, with a more vivid impression of warring theories than of anything else.

While the work in general is marked by great accuracy, we notice a few points where the best authorities have not been followed. We are told, for instance (p. 341), that the Shi King "consists of quite three hundred poems, which Kong-tse chose from a collection ten times as large." The original says, it may be remarked, "aus stark 300 Liedern" which is quite a different thing. The statement is based upon the generally received tradition. The arguments upon which Legge bases his contention that Confucius found the Shi King very much as he left it, are, however, too cogent to be neglected. We are told (p. 601) that Max Müller and Rhys Davids have brought forward texts in which "Nirvâna is described as a blessed state of inward peace." This statement is literally true. It would, however, give the false impression that Rhys Davids and Max Müller are at one in regard to this matter; whereas Max Müller teaches that this blessed peace continues after the death of the saint, while Rhys Davids insists that at death the saint, like all other living creatures, ceases to be. On page 600 we read, "Properly speaking, there can be no transmigration in Buddhism, because in the dissolution of the Skandhas all individuality is entirely destroyed. It is therefore only a concession to popular views that transmigration is recognized. ... In reality, there can be no migration of souls, as there is no such thing as a soul." It is, however, only in the case of the saint who has attained Nirvâna that the Skandhas are wholly destroyed, "consciousness" continuing up to that moment to be the connecting link between different existences. In denying