Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c7.8

c7.8

Invariably, wherever a nation has been in a position to develope its intellectual life in purity and tranquillity through a long period of time, there recurs that phenomenon, specially observable in the domain of spiritual life, which we may venture to describe as a shifting of the centre of gravity of all supreme human interests from without to within: an old faith, which promised to men somehow or other by an offensive and defensive alliance with the Godhead, power, prosperity, victory and subjection of their enemies, will, sometimes by imperceptible degrees, and sometimes by great catastrophes, be supplanted by a new phase of thought, whose watchwords are no longer welfare, victory, dominion, but rest, peace, happiness, deliverance. The blood of the sacrificial victim no longer brings reconciliation to the dismayed and erring heart of man: new ways are sought and found, to overcome the enemy within the heart, and to become whole, pure, and happy.