SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM
251
grandeur of our edifice by jimcrack pinnacles
of stucco—as who should hang the Taj
Mahal with fairy lamps and chintz.
It is simple. The mind is compelled to
fix its attention on a single thought; while
the controlling power is exercised and a
profound watchfulness kept up lest the
thought should for a moment stray.t. The
latter portion is, to my mind, the essential
one. The work is comparable to that of
an electrician who should sit for hours with
his finger on a delicately adjusted resistance-
box and his eye on the spot of light of a
galvanometer, charged with the duty of
keeping the spot still, at least that it should
never move beyond a certain number of
degrees, and of recording the more impor-
tant details of his experiment. Our work
is identical in design, though worked with
subtler—if less complex—means. For the
finger on the resistance
- box we substitute
the Will; and its control extends but to
the Mind; for the eye we substitute the
Introspective Faculty with its keen observa-
tion of the most minute disturbance, while
the spot of light is the Consciousness itself,
the central point of the galvanometer scale
the predetermined object, and the other
figures on the scale, other objects, connected
with the primary by order and degree,
sometimes obviously, sometimes obscurely,
perhaps even untraceably, so that we have
no real right to predicate their connection.”
1 Huxley, Essays, V., 136.
2 This last sentence will be best understood
by those who have practised up to a certain
point. At first it is easy to trace back by a
connected chain of thoughts from the thought
which awakes us to the fact that we are
wandering to the original thought. Later,
and notably as we improve, this becomes first
difficult, then impossible. At first sight this
fact suggests that we are injuring our brains
by the practice, but the explanation is as
follows: Suppose we figure the central con-
sciousness as the Sun, intent on seeing that
nothing falls into him. First the near planets
are carefully arranged, so that no collision
can occur; afterwards Jupiter and Saturn,
until his whole system is safe. If then any
body fall upon the Sun, he knows that it 1s
raptures.”’
How any sane person can describe this
process as delusive and unhealthy passes my
comprehension; that any scientist should do
so implies an ignorance on his part of the facts.
I may add that the most rigid necessity
exists for perfect health of body and mind
before this practice can begin; asceticism
is as sternly discouraged as indulgence.
How would the electrician do his work
after a Guildhall Banquet? The strain of
watching would be too much, and he would
go off to-sleep. So with the meditator.
If, on the other hand, he had been without
food for twenty-four hours, he might—indeed
it has been done often—perform prodigies
of work for the necessary period; but
a reaction must follow of proportionate
severity. Nobody will pretend that the
best work is done starving.?
Now to such an observer certain pheno-
mena present themselves sooner or later
which have the qualities above predicated
of our imaginary ‘‘dream” preceded by a
transition-state very like total loss of con-
sciousness. Are these fatigue phenomena?
Is it that this practice for some as yet
unknown reason stimulates some _ special
nerve-centre? Perhaps; the subject re-
quires investigation; I am not a physio-
logist. Whatever physiology may say, it
is at least clear that if this state is accom-
panied with an intense and passionless bliss
beyond anything that the normal man can
conceive of, and unaccompanied with the
slightest prejudice to the mental and physical
health, it is most highly desirable. And to
the scientist it presents a magnificent field
of research.
not from any of those planets with which he
is familiar, and, lord of his own system,
cannot trace the course or divine the cause
of the accident which has disturbed him.
And he will accept this ignorance as a proof
of how well his own system is going, since
he no longer receives shocks from it.—A. C,
1 Hallucination especially is to be feared.
Light-headedness from want of food is quite
sufficient explanation for many ‘‘ Mystic
I do not care to invoke hysteria
and epilepsy without positive evidence,—A, C.