The good and the evil of Buddhism are thus summed up by M. Saint-Hilaire.
He remarks that the first peculiarity of Buddhism is the wholly practical direction taken by its founder. He proposes to himself the salvation of mankind. He abstains from the subtle philosophy of the Brahmans, and takes the most direct and simple way to his end. But he does not offer low and sensual rewards; he does not, like so many lawgivers, promise to his followers riches, pleasures, conquests, power. He invites them to salvation by means of virtue, knowledge, and self-denial. Not in the Vedas, nor the books which proceed from it, do we find such noble appeals, though they too look at the infinite as their end. But the indisputable glory of Buddha is the boundless charity to man with which his soul was filled.
He lived to instruct and guide man aright. He says in so many words, "My law is a law of grace for all" (Burnouf, Introduction, etc., p. 198). We may add to M. Saint-Hilaire's statement, that in these words the Buddha plainly aims at what we have called a catholic religion. In his view of man's sorrowful life, all distinctions of rank and class fall away; all are poor and needy together; and here, too, he comes in contact with that Christianity which says, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden." Buddha also wished to cure the sicknesses, not only of the Hindoo life, but of the life of mankind.
M. Saint-Hilaire adds, that, in seeking thus to help man, the means of the Buddha are pure, like his ends. He tries to convince and to persuade: he does not wish to compel. He allows confession, and helps the weak and simple by explanations and parables. He also tries to guard man against evil, by establishing habits of chastity, temperance, and self-control. He goes forward into the Christian graces of patience, humility, and forgiveness of injuries. He has a horror of falsehood, a reverence for truth; he forbids slander and gossip; he teaches respect for parents, family, life, home.
Yet Saint-Hilaire declares that, with all these merits, Buddhism has not been able to found a tolerable social state or a single good government. It failed in India, the land of its birth. Nothing like the progress and the development of Christian civilization appears in Buddhism. Something in the heart of the system makes it sterile, notwithstanding its excellent intentions. What is it?
The fact is, that, notwithstanding its benevolent purposes, its radical thought is a selfish one. It rests on pure individualism,—each man's object is to save his own soul. All the faults of Buddhism, according to M. Saint-Hilaire, spring from this root of egotism in the heart of the system.
No doubt the same idea is found in Christianity. Personal salvation is herein included. But Christianity starts from a very different point: it is the "kingdom of Heaven." "Thy kingdom come: thy will be done on earth." It is not going on away from time to find an unknown eternity. It is God with us, eternity here, eternal life abiding in us now. If some narrow Protestant sects make Christianity to consist essentially in the salvation of our own soul hereafter, they fall into the condemnation of Buddhism. But that is not the Christianity of Christ. Christ accepts the great prophetic idea of a Messiah who brings down God's reign into this life. It is the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven. It is the earth full of the knowledge of God, as the waters cover the sea. It is all mankind laboring together for this general good.
This solitary preoccupation with one's own salvation causes the religious teachers of Buddhism to live apart, outside of society, and take no interest in it. There is in the Catholic and Protestant world, beside the monk, a secular priesthood, which labors to save other men's bodies and souls. No such priesthood exists in Buddhism.
Moreover, not the idea of salvation from evil,—which keeps before us evil as the object of contemplation,—but the idea of good, is the true motive for the human conscience. This leads us up at once to God; this alone can create love. We can only love by seeing something lovely. God must seem, not terrible, but lovely, in order to be loved. Man must seem, not mean and poor, but noble and beautiful, before we can love him. This idea of the good does not appear in Buddhism, says M. Saint-Hilaire. Not a spark of this divine flame—that which to see and show has given immortal glory to Plato and to Socrates—has descended on Sakya-muni. The notion of rewards, substituted for that of the infinite beauty, has perverted everything in his system.
Duty itself becomes corrupted, as soon as the idea of the good disappears. It becomes then a blind submission to mere law. It is an outward constraint, not an inward inspiration. Scepticism follows. "The world is empty, the heart is dead surely," is its language. Nihilism arrives sooner or later. God is nothing; man is nothing; life is nothing; death is nothing; eternity is nothing. Hence the profound sadness of Buddhism. To its eye all existence is evil, and the only hope is to escape from time into eternity,—or into nothing,—as you may choose to interpret Nirvana. While Buddhism makes God, or the good, and heaven, to be equivalent to nothing, it intensifies and exaggerates evil. Though heaven is a blank, hell is a very solid reality. It is present and future too. Everything in the thousand hells of Buddhism is painted as vividly as in the hell of Dante. God has disappeared from the universe, and in his place is only the inexorable law, which grinds on forever. It punishes and rewards, but has no love in it. It is only dead, cold, hard, cruel, unrelenting law. Yet Buddhists are not atheists, any more than a child who has never heard of God is an atheist. A child is neither deist nor atheist: he has no theology.
The only emancipation from self-love is in the perception of an infinite love. Buddhism, ignoring this infinite love, incapable of communion with God, aiming at morality without religion, at humanity without piety, becomes at last a prey to the sadness of a selfish isolation. We do not say that this is always the case, for in all systems the heart often redeems the errors of the head. But this is the logical drift of the system and its usual outcome.