[Footnote 3: One is reminded by this conception of Mr. Spencer's beautiful definition of Equanimity:--"Equanimity may be compared to white light, which, though composed of numerous colors, is colorless; while pleasurable and painful moods of mind may be compared to the modifications of light that result from increasing the proportions of some rays, and decreasing the proportions of others."--_Principles of Psychology._]
[Footnote 4: The expression "infinite bliss" as synonymous with Nirvana is taken from the _Questions of King Milinda._]
[Footnote 5: In the Sutra of the Great Decease we find the instance of a woman reaching this condition:--"The Sister Nanda, O Ananda, by the destruction of the five bonds that bind people to this world, has become an inhabitant of the highest heaven,--there to pass entirely away,--thence never to return."]
[Footnote 6: Different Buddhist systems give different enumerations of these mysterious powers whereof the Chinese names literally signify:--(1) Calm--Meditation-outward-pouring-no-obstacle-wisdom (2) Heaven-Eye-no-obstacle-wisdom; (3) Heaven Ear-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(4) Other-minds-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(5) Fornier-States-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(6) Leak-Extinction-no-obstacle-wisdom.]
[Footnote 7: Beings who have reached the state of Engaku or of Sosatsu are not supposed capable of retrogression, or of any serious error; but it is otherwise in lower spiritual states.]
[Footnote 8: See a curious legend in the Vinaya texts,--_Kullavagga,_ V. 8, 2.]
[Footnote 9: This position, it will be observed, is very dissimilar from that of Hartmann, who holds that "all plurality of individuation belongs to the sphere of phenomenality." (vol. ii. page 233 of English translation.) One is rather reminded of the thought of Galton that human beings "may contribute more or less unconsciously to the manifestation of a far higher life than our own,--somewhat as the individual cells of one of the more complex animals contribute to the manifestation of its higher order of personality." (_Hereditary Genius,_ p. 361.) Another thought of Galton's, expressed on the same page of the work just quoted from, is still more strongly suggestive of the Buddhist concept:--"We must not permit ourselves to consider each human or other personality as something supernaturally added to the stock of nature, but rather as a segregation of what already existed, under a new shape, and as a regular consequence of previous conditions.... Neither must we be misled by the word 'individuality.' ... We may look upon each individual as something not wholly detached from its parent-source,--as a wave that has been lifted and shaped by normal conditions in an unknown and illimitable ocean."