SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 
113
And this is Agnosticism.  We have a scien-
tific religion.  How far would Newton have 
got if he had stuck to Ty cho Brahe as the 
One Guide?  How far the Buddha had he 
reverenced the Vedas with blind faith?   Or 
how far can we proceed even from
 partial 
truth, unless a perfectly  open mind be kept 
regarding it, aware that some new pheno-
menon may possibly overthrow our most fun-
damental hypotheses !  Give me a reasonable 
proof of some (intelligent) existence which 
is not liable to sorrow, and I will throw 
the 
First Noble Truth to the dogs 
without a 
pang.  And, knowing this, how splendid is it 
to read the grand words uttered m
ore than 
two thousand y
ears ago: “Therefore, O 
Ananda, be ye lamps unto yourselves.  Be ye a 
refuge to yourselves.  Betake y ourselves to 
no external refuge.  Hold fast 
to the truth  
as a lam p.  Hold fas t as  a refugee to 
the  
truth.  Look not for refuge to any
 one be-
sides y ourselves.”  (M ahaparanibbana S utta, 
ii. 33.)  And to such seekers only
 does the 
Buddha promise “the very topmost Height”—
if only they are “anxious to learn.”  This 
 
is the corner-stone of Buddhism; can scien-
tific men deny  their assent to these words 
when they  look back on the history
 of 
Thought in the West; the torture of Bruno, 
the sham e of Galileo, the 
obscurantism of 
the Schoolmen, the “my stery” of the hard-
pressed priests, the weapons carnal and 
spiritual of stake and rack, the labyrinths of 
lying and vile intrigue by which Science, t he 
child, was deformed, distorted, stunted, in the 
interest of the contrary proposition? 
If you ask me why you should be Buddhists 
and not indifferentists, as y ou are now, I tell 
you that I come, however unworthy , to take 
up the sword that Huxley  wielded; I tell 
 
you that the Oppressor of Science in 
her 
girlhood is already  at work to ravish her 
virginity; that a m oment’s hesitation, idle-
ness, security may force us  back from  the 
positions so hardly won.  Are we never to go 
forward, moreover ?  Are our children still 
to be taught as facts the stupid and indecent 
fables of the Old Tes
tament, fables 
that the Archbishop of Canterbury  himself 
would indignantly repudiate ?  Are minds to 
be warped early , the scientific method and 
imagination checked, the logical faculty
 
thwarted—thousands of workers lost 
each 
year to Science? 
And the way to do this is not only through 
the negative common-sense of indifference ; 
organise, organise, organise!  For a flag we 
offer you the stainless lotus-banner of the 
Buddha, in defence of which no drop of 
blood has ever been, nor ever will be shed, a 
banner under which y
ou will join forces 
with five hundred m
illions of your fellow-
men.  And y ou will not be privates 
in the 
army ; for you the highest place, the place of 
leaders, waits; as far as the trium phs of the 
intellect are concerned, it 
is to Western 
Science that we look.  
Your achievements 
have shattered the battle-array  of dogm a a nd 
despotism; your columns roll in trium phant 
power through the breaches of false m
eta-
physics and baseless l ogic; you have fought 
that battle, and the laurels are on y
our 
brows.  The battle was fought 
by us more 
than two thousand y ears ago; the authority  
of the Vedas, the restrictions of caste, were 
shattered by the invulnerable sword of truth 
in Buddha’s hand; we are 
your brothers.  
But in the race of intellect we 
have fallen 
behind a little; will y ou take no interest in 
us, who have been y
our comrades?   To 
Science Buddhism cries: Lead us, reform us, 
give us clear ideas of Nature and 
her laws; 
give us that basis of irrefragable logic and 
wide knowledge that we need, and march 
with us into the Universe ! 
The Buddhist faith is not a blind faith ; 
its truths are obvious to all who are 
not 
blinded by the spectacles of bibliolatry  and 
deafened by the clam our of priests, presby-
ters, ministers: whatever name they  choose 
for them selves, we can at leas
t put them 
aside in one great class, the Thought-stiflers; 
and these truths are thosse which we 
have 
long accepted and to which 
you have 
recently and hardly won. 
It is to men of your stamp, men of inde-