THE JUSTICE OF GOD.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The Spectator of June 29th, which reached me by this mail, contains an exceedingly interesting article on " The Justice of God." Will you allow me to question the sugges- tion in it that the Buddhistic theory of suffering in the present life for sin in a past existence is swept away by the fact of man's increase in numbers ? Is this so? Are t' ere more men on the earth to-day than have ever existed before in the history of the earth ? There have been many mighty nations and cities which have now totally disappeared. Where are the inhabitants of the lost continent, Atlantis ? What of the Aztecs, and the races who once populated Southern America ? Where are the people who lived in the prehistoric cities of Africa ? What has become of the Twelve Tribes Delenda eat Carthago. Babylon the mighty has fallen. Nineveh and the kingdoms of the Medes and Persians have alike passed away. Are those armies of the unrepresented dead less than the hosts of the living nations at any given time? Nay, more, the aboriginal tribes of Australia and America are still fast disappearing. All these ghosts go to swell the array of possible lives. Again, although some modern races in the West are multiplying exceedingly fast, others are almost stationary; and in the East do the Chinese or the inhabitants of India of the present day outnumber those of even a thousand years ago ? There has never been a census of the earth. The black masses on such a census map may have changed their position, but what data we have would show not their area or density. Where, is the clear refutation of the Buddhist doctrine? There is one other argument which a Buddhist himself might advance. The article ignores the belief that each human life emerges from Nirvana to win its way thither again. I hold no brief for Buddhism, but the obiter dictum on the argument from the numbers of the dead struck me as ill-founded. Of course I am aware that if a single pair be postulated as the parents of the human race, the dictum becomes an axiom. With apOlogies for occupying your time and attention, though it shows what a solace the Spectator is to an exile in a far-away land.—I am, Sir, &c.,
GEORGE DICE.
Braid Lodge, Nagpur, C.P., India, July 30th.
[We would refer our correspondent to Sir Thomas Browne's speculations in the " Urn Burial " on the numbers of the nations of the dead. Such funeral arithmetic is, we admit, very difficult; but we can hardly doubt that there are more people alive in the world to-day than there were in the year 1801.—ED. Spectator.]
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