double-headed Janus, to be called a Minister of Defence, responsible for both departments, because those making such a proposition can hardly have taken into account that human strength is limited, and that no man would be strong enough to undertake double the parliamentary work that now fully occnpies the time of one minister. But some changes might undoubtedly be carried out with advantage. The Commander-in-Chief's office, as I have shown, is very much overweighted, and decentralisation there could not but have a most beneficial effect. The tenure of the Adjutant-Generalship of the army by a peer under the Commander-in-Chief is unusual, and for obvious reasons inconvenient. Such a man is too big for the place, more especially as room might be found for him elsewhere. By the transformation of the present Intelligence Department into a Staff Department, similar to the one in existence in Berlin, and the addition to it of the supply and transport of the army, a place of the first importance and utility might be created, and any increase to the estimates might be avoided by rearrangement of the duties of the Adjutant-General, and the absorption of the post of QuartermasterGeneral. The Commander-in-Chief's department, thus relieved of Staff, Commissariat, and Transport, would be confined to its own traditional sphere, the discipline of the army. The second great branch of the War Office could then be reconstituted on the old constitutional lines, by the recreation of the Master-Generalship of the Ordnance, with the sub-departments of guns, stores, and contracts (but without the personnel of the engineers and artillery) under his direction.

Experience has proved that one grand mistake in the resettlement of 1870 was in making the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance a mere political Under-Secretary, the alter ego of the Secretary of State, whereas he should have been a permanent officer of high standing, appointed for a term of years, with no further professional advancement to look forward to. Such an officer would not only have had an opinion on professional matters which the army, the navy, and the public would have respected, but he would have been able to stand his ground against any department that was inclined to dispute it, and would have been a real support to the Secretary of State and the First Lord. If he were in the future entrusted with direct responsibility to Parliament and the public by means of a yearly published report laid upon the table of the House of Commons (which is essential to my scheme), there is every reason to hope that an end would be put to the perpetual controversies and recriminations that are now bandied about between departments and their chiefs to the great injury of the public service. In saying this I am not speaking my own opinion only.

The abolition of the Master-Generalship of the Ordnance was considered at the time, and has always been held by many naval and military men, to have been a great error. But the question has been revived more recently by a very decided expression of opinion

on the part of both the Admiralty and the Royal Commission on warlike stores. On the 19th of May 1887 the Admiralty thus wrote to the Treasury:

On the whole, after very careful deliberation, my Lords are decidedly of opinion that the best, if not the only, solution of this difficult problem is to establish an independent ordnance department, common to both army and navy, which should be responsible for the efficient supply of all war material for both services. But as yet, although repeated inquiries have taken place, and every fact connected with the subject is well known, no action has taken place, and the proposed compromise of the Admiralty recommended by a Royal Commission more than a year ago remains a dead letter. This leads me to the most deplorable feature of the present moment. Another commission has most unexpectedly been appointed to inquire into facts which must be notorious to the youngest clerk in the Government service. It is no exaggeration to say that sixty commissions or committees at least have been assembled in the last twenty years (that is, at the rate of three annually) to inquire and report on the whole or some portion of the military and naval services.

What useful object, therefore, can be served by the appointment of this fresh commission? Is it the desire of the Government to call yet another body of gentlemen to help them to come to a decision? Why, this interference with the Executive was the very course which was so much deprecated a few short weeks ago by the First Lord of the Treasury in the House of Commons. Is it the acquisition of further knowledge upon the subject? Surely that is impossible. Or is it intended to be the permanent adjournment of a difficult and troublesome matter in expectation of the usual 'cold fit' in the autumn? Absit omen! One thing is quite certain, that the public are sick of commissions and committees, and still more of the policy of masterly inactivity that precedes and follows them. What they desire is action, immediate action, as regards the most vital and pressing question of the day, the reorganisation of our departments. Without that, no expenditure of money, no subsidiary reforms, no reorganisation of our fleets and armies, will be of the slightest avail, so long as the machinery which creates and controls them is clogged at every turn. I have never been an alarmist. I never seriously believed in the possibility of invasion, if only ordinary vigilance is exercised and ordinary precautions are taken; but I confess, if I were inclined to be so, nothing would add to my terrors more than the apathy and indifference with which a businesslike nation allows its most vital concerns to be postponed to a more convenient season, and neglects the preliminary steps necessary to put its house in order, when an enemy at any moment may knock at the gate.

EUSTACE G. CECIL.

BUDDHISM.

BUDDHISM is a common name for very widely differing systems. Esoteric Buddhism is, I think, on its own showing, if not absolute nonsense, yet certainly not Buddhism. I will not allude to it any further. Northern Buddhism, as far as I have read of it, is confessedly a very free development or adaptation of that nucleus which it has in common with Southern Buddhism; in its Tibetan form it appears to be much more than a development or adaptation, to have for leading characteristics elements really incompatible with the leading characteristics of the Buddhism of the ancient books. If I am not much mistaken, the Northern Buddhism is very little known to us still, because writers on it have set forth to us in fact the Buddhism of the books, without making clear the degree in which the Northern Buddhism has deserted those standards. But of all this I have no title to write.

My remarks will be directed to certain salient points in the Southern Buddhism, as it is maintained by Buddhist authorities in Ceylon. This is the Buddhism of the Sacred Books as preserved in Ceylon and as there interpreted. There is no difference between what is maintained by Buddhist authorities in Ceylon, and what is drawn by them from the books, for they profess to be bound by these, as final standards. The practical shape which the religion takes among the mass of the people is a different matter, on which also I have a little to say.

Of the Buddhism of Ceylon I have twelve years' practical knowledge, and have made some first-hand study of the Sacred Books. If I am entitled to speak of these, it is not so much because I have read a considerable part of them in the original-for I would not compare my knowledge of Pali with that of the great European scholars as because I have discussed the books on the spot with those who have been familiar all their lives with the traditional interpretation. I am convinced that these men know these books with a thoroughness, familiarity, and feeling of their meaning, to which no labour of scholars in Europe can possibly attain. They are probably often wrong on points of scholarship; but as to the drift and substantial meaning of words, phrases, or passages, their interpretation is never lightly to be set aside. The tradition on

which it rests is twofold: partly, it is embodied in the ancient commentaries, which emanated mainly from Buddhaghosha and his school, and, although many centuries later than the documents commented on, are still some fourteen centuries old, and for that time have been the undisputed authorities; partly-and to this I attach even more importance-it is a tradition diffused in the habitual language and ways of thinking of the Buddhist community at large. The Sinhalese language itself is a Buddhist commentary, to the details of which it is impossible to assign a definite value, but which includes matter that can be traced back to the times at least of Asoka, in the third century B.C.

I think a general distinction may be drawn between this traditional school of interpretation, and that to which European scholars incline. The Sinhalese tradition, if it differs, differs almost always in the direction of a meaning more puerile, more wooden, less interesting, less Christian. When, for instance, the word occurs which the English translate by 'sin,' an English scholar will open up the wide thoughts which the word 'sin' suggests to us, while the native scholars will explain it as 'killing birds or other small animals, and other kinds of sin.' Or, if the word be 'dánam' (giving), the Englishman will guide his readers' thought, by the word 'charity,' to the noblest Christian ideas; the native interpreter will explain it giving rice, robes and other necessaries to monks and others.'

Such words as these have higher and lower meanings, and there are cases where a higher meaning is acknowledged by the Buddhist interpreter ; but on the whole the narrow and, so to compare the case, Rabbinical interpretation is the native one. Now the more spiritual meaning of old writings may often have become narrowed and degraded; and there are cases when that degradation can be almost proved by the evidence of such a higher meaning in similar passages in writings of similar date. In these cases the traditional interpretation fails, and it is so far discredited for other cases, as a witness to the original meaning of a passage. But such cases, I fancy, are rare; and, even in those, the tradition remains a true witness to the meaning which those terms have borne for many centuries of Buddhism.

I venture to express my opinion that this consideration applies with special force to Professor Max Müller's translation of the 'Dhammapada.' That great scholar frequently rejects the traditional interpretation in favour of an ampler and nobler meaning. He sometimes gives Sanscrit authority for his view, but on the whole I cannot but think that he often reads into the texts what his high estimate of the human spirit leads him to expect, or his love of goodness leads him to desire.

The truth may sometimes lie between what the tradition would degrade it to and what the European would exalt it to; but the

difference between the two schools is a marked one; and for my part I feel bound to see in the tradition, first an unquestionable witness to what Buddhism has been for many centuries; and secondly, a probable guide to what the makers of Buddhism meant.

I venture, therefore, to claim some weight for my judgment as to the drift of the Pali writings, because I have been guided to it by the living commentary.

It does not come within my subject to calculate the number of the Buddhists as compared with the adherents of other creeds. It is now well understood that the turn given to such a computation depends entirely on the way in which the population of China is reckoned. If all the Chinese are assigned to Buddhism, Buddhism is the most numerous religion; but then Confucianism and Taoism are not reckoned as religions at all. If half the Chinese are reckoned to Buddhism, the numbers fall below those of Christianity. Our own Dr. Legge, by his estimate of the relative numbers of Buddhists in China, brings Buddhism below not only Christianity, but Hinduism and Mohammedanism in number.

What I have to urge on the point is that no such numerical estimate can be of the slightest value; for this important reason, that Buddhism differs from the religions with which it is thus numerically compared - notably from Christianity and Mohammedanism, and to some degree from Hinduism-in not claiming exclusive possession of the ground. It is a parasitic religion, ready to thrive where it can, without displacing or excluding others. A Christian cannot be a Mohammedan or a Hindu, a Mohammedan cannot be a Hindu or a Christian, but a Buddhist can be a Confucianist or a Taoist, or both, and, what is more, to a great extent a Hindu or a planet-worshipper.

For instance, in China, while Dr. Legge speaks of Confucius as 'reigning supreme, the undisputed teacher of this most populous land,' and other authorities reckon all the Chinese as Buddhists, Dr. Edkins solves the difficulty by saying that all three religions, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, are truly national, because the mass of the people believe in them all.' While the facts about China make it no less than false to say that the Buddhist religion is the sole refuge of five hundred millions of mankind, they show the futility of any positive statement at all about its numbers.

The case in Ceylon is equally instructive. The statues of the Hindu deities are found in the precincts of the Buddhist viháras; on Buddhist festivals, Buddhists visit Hindu and Buddhist temples alike; when Buddhists are sick, the Hindu or devil-priest meets the Buddhist monk at the door without offence.

Further, what is really most vital-what is most practically the refuge of a Ceylon Buddhist-is not anything truly Buddhistic, but the system of astrology, charms, devil-dancing and other low