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example of it can be found in the question of pantheism -- or rather of a certain modern
attitude which is often called immanentism, and which often is Buddhism. But this is so
much more difficult a matter that I must approach it with rather more preparation.
The things said most confidently by advanced persons to crowded audiences are
generally those quite opposite to the fact; it is actually our truisms that are untrue. Here
is a case. There is a phrase of facile liberality uttered again and again at ethical societies
and parliaments of religion:  the religions of the earth differ in rites and forms, but they
are the same in what they teach. It is false; it is the opposite of the fact. The religions of
the earth do not greatly differ in rites and forms; they do greatly differ in what they
teach. It is as if a man were to say,  Do not be misled by the fact that the Church Times
and the Freethinker look utterly different, that one is painted on vellum and the other
carved on marble, that one is triangular and the other hectagonal; read them and you
will see that they say the same thing. The truth is, of course, that they are alike in
everything except in the fact that they don t say the same thing. An atheist stockbroker
in Surbiton looks exactly like a Swedenborgian stockbroker in Wimbledon. You may
walk round and round them and subject them to the most personal and offensive study
without seeing anything Swedenborgian in the hat or anything particularly godless in
the umbrella. It is exactly in their souls that they are divided. So the truth is that the
difficulty of all the creeds of the earth is not as alleged in this cheap maxim: that they
agree in meaning, but differ in machinery. It is exactly the opposite. They agree in
machinery; almost every great religion on earth works with the same external methods,
with priests, scriptures, altars, sworn brotherhoods, special feasts. They agree in the
mode of teaching; what they differ about is the thing to be taught. Pagan optimists and
Eastern pessimists would both have temples, just as Liberals and Tories would both
have newspapers. Creeds that exist to destroy each other both have scriptures, just as
armies that exist to destroy each other both have guns.
The great example of this alleged identity of all human religions is the alleged
spiritual identity of Buddhism and Christianity. Those who adopt this theory generally
avoid the ethics of most other creeds, except, indeed, Confucianism, which they like
because it is not a creed. But they are cautious in their praises of Mahommedanism,
generally confining themselves to imposing its morality only upon the refreshment of
the lower classes. They seldom suggest the Mahommedan view of marriage (for which
there is a great deal to be said), and towards Thugs and fetish worshippers their attitude
may even be called cold. But in the case of the great religion of Gautama they feel
sincerely a similarity.
Students of popular science, like Mr. Blatchford, are always insisting that
Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally
believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. The
reasons were of two kinds: resemblances that meant nothing because they were
common to all humanity, and resemblances which were not resemblances at all. The
author solemnly explained that the two creeds were alike in things in which all creeds
are alike, or else he described them as alike in some point in which they are quite
obviously different. Thus, as a case of the first class, he said that both Christ and
Buddha were called by the divine voice coming out of the sky, as if you would expect
the divine voice to come out of the coal-cellar. Or, again, it was gravely urged that these
two Eastern teachers, by a singular coincidence, both had to do with the washing of feet.
You might as well say that it was a remarkable coincidence that they both had feet to
wash. And the other class of similarities were those which simply were not similar.
Thus this reconciler of the two religions draws earnest attention to the fact that at
certain religious feasts the robe of the Lama is rent in pieces out of respect, and the
remnants highly valued. But this is the reverse of a resemblance, for the garments of
Christ were not rent in pieces out of respect, but out of derision; and the remnants were
not highly valued except for what they would fetch in the rag shops. It is rather like
alluding to the obvious connection between the two ceremonies of the sword: when it
taps a man s shoulder, and when it cuts off his head. It is not at all similar for the man.
These scraps of puerile pedantry would indeed matter little if it were not also true that
the alleged philosophical resemblances are also of these two kinds, either proving too
much or not proving anything. That Buddhism approves of mercy or of self-restraint is
not to say that it is specially like Christianity; it is only to say that it is not utterly unlike
all human existence. Buddhists disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess because all
sane human beings disapprove in theory of cruelty or excess. But to say that Buddhism
and Christianity give the same philosophy of these things is simply false. All humanity
does agree that we are in a net of sin. Most of humanity agrees that there is some way
out. But as to what is the way out, I do not think that there are two institutions in the
universe which contradict each other so flatly as Buddhism and Christianity.
Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly,
people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that
always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do
not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly
meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a
Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at
every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always
has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The
Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with
sleep. The mediaeval saint s body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are
frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that
produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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