Here is the essence of Buddhism, here is its power; and when one reflects that Buddha added:  “Go into all lands and preach this gospel; tell them that the poor and lowly, the rich and high, are all one, and that all castes unite in this religion, as unite the rivers in the sea”—­he will understand what key was used to open the hearts of Buddha’s kinsmen and people.

But, it will be said, there is nothing in this of that extreme pessimism, of which mention has just been made.  True.  And this, again, is an important point to bear in mind, that whereas the logic of his own system led Buddha into a formal and complete pessimism, which denies an after-life to the man that finds no happiness in this, he yet never insists upon this.  He not only does not insist, but in his talks with his questioners and disciples he uses all means to evade direct inquiry in regard to the fate of man after death.  He believed that Nirv[=a]na (extinction of lust) led to cessation of being; he did not believe in an immortal soul.  But he urged no such negative doctrine as this.  What he urged repeatedly was that every one accepting the undisputed doctrine of karma or re-birth in its full extent (i.e., that for every sin here, punishment followed in the next existence), should endeavor to escape, if possible, from such an endless course of painful re-births, and that to accomplish this it was necessary first to be sober and good, then to be learned, but not to be an ascetic.  On the other hand the doctrine, in its logical fullness, was a teaching only for the wise, not for fools.  He imparted it only to the wise.  What is one to understand from this?  Clearly, that Buddha regarded the mass of his disciples as standing in need merely of the Four Great Truths, the confession of which was the sign of becoming a disciple; while to the strong and wise he reserved the logical pessimism, which resulted from his first denials and the premises of causality on which was created his complicated system.  Only thus can one comprehend the importance of Buddhism to his own time and people, only in this light reconcile the discrepancy between the accounts of a religion which roused multitudes to enthusiasm and joy, while on the other hand it stood on the cold basis of complete nihilism.  Formally there was not an esoteric[27] and exoteric Buddhism, but practically what the apostles taught, what Buddha himself taught to the mass of his hearers was a release from the bondage of the law and the freedom of a high moral code as the one thing needful.  But he never taught that sacrifice was a bad thing; he never either took the priest’s place himself or cast scorn upon the Brahman caste:  “Better even than a harmless[28] sacrifice is liberality” he says, “better than liberality is faith and kindness (non-injury) and truth, better than faith, kindness, and truth is renunciation of the world and the search for peace; best of all, the highest sacrifice and greatest good, is when one enters Nirv[=a]na, saying “I shall not return again to earth.”  This is to be an Arhat (Perfect Sage).