Book 4 (Part I)

9 they accused Christ of “sedition.” When the Pope had all power it was necessary to prove an enemy a “ heretic.” Advancing to-day towards a medical oligarchy, we try to prove that our opponents are “insane,” and (in a Puritan country) to attack their “morals.” We should then avoid all rhetoric, and try to investigate with perfect freedom from bias the phenomena which occurred to these great leaders of mankind. There is no difficulty in our assuming that these men themselves did not understand clearly what happened to them. The only one who explains his system thoroughly is Buddha, and Buddha is the only one that is not dogmatic. We may also suppose that the others thought it inadvisable to explain too clearly to their followers ; St. Paul evidently took this line. Our best document will therefore be the system of Buddha ; 1 but it is so complex that no immediate summary will serve ; and in the case of the others, if we have not the accounts of the Masters, we have those of their immediate followers. 1 We have the documents of Hinduism, and of two Chinese systems. But Hinduism has no single founder. Lao Tze is one of our best examples of a man who went away and had a mysterious experience; perhaps the best of all examples, as his system is the best of all systems. We have full details of his method of training in the [)'/13118 Kang King, and elsewhere. But it is so little known that we shall omit considera- tion of it in this popular account.