Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/319

Rh not mean the question whether we should try to Christianize them, but what result is it reasonable to expect. And here I imagine that there is a strict limit, beyond which it is impossible for the members of a given race to be developed. On the Buddhist principle, given a certain human being, and we have a human soul passing through a definite stage of its progress. While it occupies its present body it is, except, our author always says, in very peculiar cases, incapable of more than a certain advance, — as incapable as a given species of animal, or tree, or even as the body of the man itself is incapable of more than a certain growth. I think that any one who has studied or observed the processes of ordinary school training, must have been sometimes convinced that he has in hand a boy whose ability to be further advanced has come to an end. Sometimes we find a boy who will come forward with the greatest promise; but, at a certain point, although goodwill is not lacking, the growth seems to be arrested. The biologist will explain this as due to the physical character of the brain. The Buddhist affirms that when that human soul last came from the oblivion which closes the Devachanic state, it chose unconsciously, but by natural affinity, out of all the possible conditions and circumstances of mortal life, that embryonic human body, for which its spiritual condition rendered it fit.

Some years ago, in conversation with a missionary who had spent many years in China, I asked him, having this subject in my mind, whether he thought that his converts were capable of receiving Christianity in the sense in which he himself held the faith. His answer, which he illustrated by instances, was that the heathen conceptions and propensities could not be entirely eradicated; and that, under unfavorable circumstances, the most trusted converts would sometimes relapse into a condition as bad as ever they had known.

It is also a matter of common assertion that our American Indians, after years of training in the society of civilized life, are generally ready to fall back at once to their old ways. What we call civilization is to them but an easy-fitting garment.

I do not know what is the belief of scholars regarding the comparative age of the different minor divisions — sub-branches, as Sinnett calls them — of the Aryan race. I imagine, however, that of the European sub-branches, the Celtic is practically the oldest. The Italic or Hellenic may have broken off from the parent stem earlier than the Celtic, but they have not wandered so far away, and have not been so isolated from the influence of later migrations. The Celtic race has mingled its blood with the Iberian in Spain and with many elements in Gaul and Italy; but in the northwest of Europe, on its own peculiar isle, it seems to have remained, if not purer than elsewhere, at least less affected by mixture with later, that is, higher, races.

What is the practical use of all this study? Ever since I first read Esoteric Buddhism, my attention has been turned to the confirmation of its theory of human development. As I ride in the horse-car, as I walk on the street, still more constantly as I stand before one class after another in the schoolroom, I am struck with the thought that here, behind the face I am looking into, is a human soul whose capacities are limited — a soul that cannot grasp