30 DECEMBER 1899, Page 24

The second volume of "Sacred Books of the Buddhists," edited

by Professor Max Miller (H. Frowde), contains The Dialogues of the Buddha, translated by T. W. Rhya Davide (10s. 6d ) These dialogues are thirteen in number. In each Buddha, who is very like Socrates, draws his interlocutor skil. fully on to acknowledge that the highest good which he desires is to be found far more perfectly in his (Buddha's) highest good. There is much that is exceedingly interesting in the dialogues. In the "Naked Ascetic" dialogue, for instance, we have a very strange list of the ascetic practices which the interlocutor enumerates. No Western modifier of the flesh, even the pillar saints of old, or the Poor Clares, could rival them. The true ascetic will not take a meal when there is a swarm of flies about lest he should rob them of their food.