The principal of these propositions are as follows.  The existence of everything depends on a cause:  hence if the cause of evil or suffering can be detected and removed, evil itself will be removed.  That cause is lust and craving for pleasure[9].  Hence all sacrificial and sacramental religions are irrelevant, for the cure which they propose has nothing to do with the disease.  The cause of evil or suffering is removed by purifying the heart and by following the moral law which sets high value on sympathy and social duties, but an equally high value on the cultivation of individual character.  But training and cultivation imply the possibility of change.  Hence it is a fatal mistake in the religious life to hold a view common in India which regards the essence of man as something unchangeable and happy in itself, if it can only be isolated from physical trammels.  On the contrary the happy mind is something to be built up by good thoughts, good words and good deeds.  In its origin the Buddha’s celebrated doctrine that there is no permanent self in persons or things is not a speculative proposition, nor a sentimental lament over the transitoriness of the world, but a basis for religion and morals.  You will never be happy unless you realize that you can make and remake your own soul.

These simple principles and the absence of all dogmas as to God or Brahman distinguish the teaching of Gotama from most Indian systems, but he accepted the usual Indian beliefs about Karma and rebirth and with them the usual conclusion that release from the series of rebirths is the summum bonum.  This deliverance he called saintship (arahattam) or nirvana of which I shall say something below.  In early Buddhism it is primarily a state of happiness to be attained in this life and the Buddha persistently refused to explain what is the nature of a saint after death.  The question is unprofitable and perhaps he would have said, had he spoken our language, unmeaning.  Later generations did not hesitate to discuss the problem but the Buddha’s own teaching is simply that a man can attain before death to a blessed state in which he has nothing to fear from either death or rebirth.

The Buddha attacked both the ritual and the philosophy of the Brahmans.  After his time the sacrificial system, though it did not die, never regained its old prestige and he profoundly affected the history of Indian metaphysics.  It may be justly said that most of his philosophic as distinguished from his practical teaching was common property before his time, but he transmuted common ideas and gave them a currency and significance which they did not possess before.  But he was less destructive as a religious and social reformer than many have supposed.  He did not deny the existence nor forbid the worship of the popular gods, but such worship is not Buddhism and the gods are merely angels who may be willing to help good Buddhists but are in no wise guides to