User:TomS TDotO/Evolution and Ethics
Soleo enim et in aliena castra transire, non tanquam transfuga sed tanquam explorator. (L. ANNAEI SENECAE EPIST. II.4
. . .
But that very sharpening of the sense and that subtle refinement of emotion, which brought such a wealth of pleasures, were fatally attended by a proportional enlargement of the capacity for suffering; and the divine faculty of imagination, while it created new heavens and new earths, provided them with the corresponding hells of futile regret for the past and morbid anxiety for the future.[1] Finally, the inevitable penalty of over-stimulation, exhaustion, opened the gates of civilization to its great enemy, ennui; the stale and flat weariness when man delights-not, nor woman neither; when all things are vanity and vexation; and life seems not worth living except to escape the bore of dying.
. . .
For, although Buddhism recognizes gods many and lords many, they are products of the cosmic process; and transitory, however long enduring, manifestations of its eternal activity. In the doctrine of transmigration, whatever its origin, Brahminical and Buddhist speculation found, ready to hand[2]
- ↑ "Multa bona nostra nobis nocent, timoris enim tormentum memorin reducit, providentia anticipat. Nemo tantum praesentibus miser est." (Seneca, Ed. v.7.) . . .
- ↑ " . . . For all these are possessed of souls, and there is no essential difference between these souls and the souls of men--all being alike mere sparks of the Great Spirit, who is the only real existence." (Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, 1881, p. 83.) . . . I have also found Dr. Oldenberg' Buddha (Ed. 2, 1890) very helpful. . . .