And yet no one can read Buddhist books or associate with Buddhist monks without feeling that the intellectual element is preponderant, not the emotional.  The ultimate cause of suffering is ignorance.  The Buddha has won the truth by understanding the universe.  Conversion is usually described by some such phrase as acquiring the Eye of Truth, rather than by words expressing belief or devotion.  The major part of the ideal life, set forth in a recurring passage of the Digha Nikaya, consists in the creation of intellectual states, and though the Buddha disavowed all speculative philosophy his discourses are full, if not of metaphysics, at least of psychology.  And this knowledge is essential.  It is not sufficient to affirm one’s belief in it; it must be assimilated and taken into the life of every true Buddhist.  All cannot do this:  most of the unconverted are blinded by lust and passion, but some are incapacitated by want of mental power.  They must practise virtue and in a happier birth their minds will be enlarged.

The reader who has perused the previous chapters will have some idea of the tone and subject matter of the Buddha’s preaching.  We will now examine his doctrine as a system and will begin with the theory of existence, premising that it disclaims all idea of doing more than analyze our experience.  With speculations or assertions as to the origin, significance and purpose of the Universe, the Buddha has nothing to do.  Such questions do not affect his scheme of salvation.  What views—­if any—­he may have held or implied about them we shall gather as we go on.  But it is dangerous to formulate what he did not formulate himself, and not always easy to understand what he did formulate.  For his words, though often plain and striking, are, like the utterances of other great teachers, apt to provoke discordant explanations.  They meet our thoughts half way, but no interpretation exhausts their meaning.  When we read into them the ideas of modern philosophy and combine them into a system logical and plausible after the standard of this age, we often feel that the result is an anachronism:  but if we treat them as ancient simple discourses by one who wished to make men live an austere and moral life, we still find that there are uncomfortably profound sayings which will not harmonize with this theory.

The Buddha’s aversion to speculation did not prevent him from insisting on the importance of a correct knowledge of our mental constitution, the chain of causation and other abstruse matters; nor does it really take the form of neglecting metaphysics:  rather of defining them in a manner so authoritative as to imply a reserve of unimparted knowledge.  Again and again questions about the fundamental mysteries of existence are put to him and he will not give an answer.  It would not conduce to knowledge, peace, or freedom from passion, we are told, and, therefore, the Lord has not declared it. Therefore:  not, it would seem, because he did not know, but because