The Buddhist-Humean parallels: Postmortem

·期刊原文
The Buddhist-Humean parallels: Postmortem
By L. Stafford Betty
Philosophy East and West
V. 21:3 (July 1971)
pp. 237-253
Copyright 1971 by University of Hawaii Press
Hawaii, USA

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L. Stafford Betty is a graduate student of the history of religions at Fordham University.

p. 237

I
It has become increasingly popular lately for East-West scholars to establish and make much of parallels between the philosophy of David Hume (1711-1776), the par excellence philosopher of empiricism in the west, and an important portion of the doctrine of the Buddhist "Consciousness-Only" school (known by other names, but especially Vij~naanavaada in India, Wei-shih in China, and Hoss(-+o) in Japan). Professors Saunders, Stcherbatsky, Fung Yu-lan, Murti, and, more recently, W. T. Chan have explicitly compared Hume to Vasubandhu, Hsuan-tsang (596-664), or other Vij~naanavaadins. [1] Others, perhaps most notably Whitehead, and most recently Professor Nolan Jacobson, [2] have compared Hume's philosophy to Buddhist philosophy in general (without reference to any particular school). Professor Edward Conze, in the meantime, has written a critique (apparently the first in the West) of the phenomenon of finding Humean parallels in Buddhist doctrine. [3] It is my hope that this essay will serve as more than just "the next chapter" in a steadily proliferating volume of literature of doubtful value. I intend to point out and closely analyze certain parallels between Hume and Buddhism which up to now have gone undetected; at the same time, however, I hope to define more precisely and fairly than has been done the limits to this odyssey of parallel-hunting, I will be working with what some have termed "early Hume," that is, the "Hume of the Treatise." [4] As the best representative of the Consciousness-Only school (the school Hume most often is compared to, either implicitly or explicitly) of Buddhism, I have chosen Hsuan-tsang's

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1. See: Kenneth J. Saunders, Epochs in Buddhist History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), p. 6; Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 vols. (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), I, index under "Hume"; Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), II, 339; T. R. V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1955), index under "Hume"; and Wing-tsit Chan, ed., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 382 (hereafter cited as Source Book).

2. See his "The Possibility of Oriental Influence in Hume's Philosophy," Philosophy East and West XIX (Jan. 1969), 17-37.

3. See his "Spurious Parallels to Buddhist Philosophy," Philosophy East and West XIII (Jul. 1963), 114-115.

4. Hume's most famous work is his Treatise of Human Nature; it is this work (specifically, the first of three "Books") that provides most of the parallels to Buddhism. However, it should not be overlooked that Hume later wrote An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, a book which is much more representative of the man Hume than the philosopher Hume, and which by implication, or at least in spirit, trivializes much of what he has written in the Treatise. I am convinced along with a number of others that when we speak of "Hume saying this" or "Hume thinking that" in book I of the Treatise, we are not speaking of what Hume believed, but merely what he thought. For David Hume the man was more a pietist than an empiricist.

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Vij~naaptimaatrataasiddhi--called by its translator and best interpreter, La Vallee Poussin, "une 'Somme' qui est rest, jusqu'? nos jours, l'ouvrage classique de l' ole des 'Dharmalak.sa.nas,' l' ole Hoss?sh? l'ole Vij~naanavaadin ou 'idealiste.'" [5]

I have found it convenient to group the parallels between Hume and Hsuan-tsang under five headings. First, both the Siddhi (shortened title of the Vij~naaptimaatrataasiddhi) and A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume's most important work, published in 1739) deny any reality to what ordinary men call the "outside world." [6] Rather what we "see" is the product of consciousness or perception only. There is no object; what we take to be the world around us has no more objectivity or independent "outsideness" than what we mean by a phantasm. Second, there is no subject: there is no permanent substance or principle which unites the perceptions and entitles them to be considered as the offspring of a determinate individuality. There is merely the sometimes-continuous, sometimes-interrupted passage of perceptions, Third, in addition to these general, though nevertheless striking, similarities in their thinking, Hsuan-tsang and Hume show more specific likenesses in their philosophies. Both are atomistic, that is, they hold that each split second of perception is a unique and essentially complete unit datum in itself. Fourth,

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5. See Hiuan-tsang, Vij~naptimaatrataasiddhi (or "Siddhi"), trans. Louis de la Vallee Poussin, 2 vols. (Paris, 1928), II, back cover. It is justifiable to speak of the views expressed in the Siddhi as being ''Hsuan-tsang's" in spite of the fact that Hsuan-tsang merely claimed to be translating Vasubandhu's Tri^m'sikaa along with the commentaries on the Tri^m'sikaa by Dharmapaala and nine others. In fact, howerer, as most scholars who have worked closely with the Siddhi would agree, we do not have so much a translation as "une compilation de la main de Hiuan-tsang qui a dispos? ?sa facon, dans le cadre fourni par la Trentaine [Tri^m'sikaa]."

6. Actually it is more accurate to say that Hume holds we cannot know that there is an "outside world." He does not, strictly speaking, deny the outside world, but only says we have no way of knowing of its existence: we have not the slightest evidence for affirming it. In other words, strictly speaking, Hume is an epistemologist, not an ontologist like Hsuan-tsang (who doesn't hesitate to say how things are). Actually, however, a number of quotations from book I of the Treatise could be produced to show that Hume has gone beyond the limits of epistemology. Terms such as ''nothing but," "fictitious," and "absurdity"--as Hume uses them in certain contexts--could not proceed from the mind of an absolutely consistent epistemologist (much less an avowed skeptic). Nevertheless, it would be unfair to judge an expositor on the basis of what he ardently proclaimed in the heat of battle when these proclamations are qualified at cooler moments.
Of course, this distinction between Hume and Hsuan-tsang (between the epistemologist and the ontologist, respectively) does not undermine the formal parallels between the two. The difference between them is the same as between a man who says "It seems to me that such and such is the case" and one who says simply that "Such and such is the case." What is relevant here is that in each case the ideas aroused in the minds of normally questioning readers are the same.
It would be well, however, for the reader to hear in mind this distinction, for I have not consistently indicated it in the body of this essay. For the sake of saving space and avoiding repetitious qualifications, I have taken the same liberties here and there with Hume that Hume took with himself: I have omitted epistemological prefixes.

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Hume and Hsuan-tsang describe the process of knowing, of receptivity of perceptions, in somewhat similar fashion. Finally, the way both men handle objections to their systems is similar at certain points.

We can now proceed to compare Hume and Hsuan-tsang in more detail.

1. No object. One of the objects of philosophy, Hume writes, is to inform us "that every thing, which appears to the mind, is nothing but a perception, and is interrupted, and dependent on the mind...." [7] Similarly, Hsuan-tsang writes that "dharmas are all absolutely non-existent, " that "everything is consciousness only," [8] that "there are definitely no 'real'... dharmas aside front what is thus evolved from consciousness.... everything phenomenal (yu wei) and noumenal (wu wei), everything seemingly 'real' and 'false' alike, is all inseparable from consciousness." [9] Both Hume and Hsuan-tsang deny that in the final analysis even their own doctrine of perception- or consciousness-only, much less any dharma or external object, can be regarded as being "real." "Nay, even to these objects [the substructure on which his philosophy rests] we could never attribute any existence, but what was dependent on the senses," Hume says. [10] And Hsuan-tsang says, "to believe in the genuine existence of Mere Ideation is like believing in that of external objects; it too is a kind of dharma-clinging." [11]

2. No subject. Hume's and Hsuan-tsang's denial of a subject, or knowing substance, or self is the most important parallel between the two. Hume, when considering those men who dispute whether the soul is material or immaterial, holds that we must "absolutely condemn even the question itself. We have no perfect idea of any thing but of a perception. A substance is entirely different from a perception. We have, therefore, no idea of a substance." [12] In what is surely the most frequently quoted passage anywhere in his writing, Hume makes one of his jumps from the close confines of epistemology into the unempirical domain of ontology:

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7. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), book I, part 4, section 2. Only the part and section will be referred to in the footnotes below. All references and quotations will be from book I unless otherwise noted. Hereafter cited as Treatise.

8. Hsuan-tsang, in Chan, Source Book, p. 386. We cannot here discuss the multidimensional meaning of the word dharma. It is sufficient for our purposes to keep in mind that as a rule whenever Hsuan-tsang negates the reality of dharmas, the word refers to "things out there" apart from consciousness, and that when he affirms the reality in those same things, he is referring to the substrate underlying them--the Tathataa, the transphenomenal "nature" Of the dharmas.

9. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 318.

10. Treatise 4. 7.

11. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 331.

12. Treatise 4. 5.

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For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. [13]

He goes on to affirm that men "are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement." [14] Their minds are "a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations." [15] These last two metaphors, as we shall see, vividly suggest figures of speech used by Hsuan-tsang. He too denies the existence of a self, an aatman, a "steady state." The only things we have experience of are the "Vij~naanas qui, depuis toujours, le subsuent naissant ?la disparition de l'antent, forment une sie de causes et effets." [16] For Hsuan-tsang the so-called self is merely the converging point, so to speak, of a succession of unreal dharmas: "It [more specifically, the aalaya consciousness (see below)] is like a violent torrent which, though beaten by the wind into waves, flows onward without interruption. So too is this consciousness, which though it encounters conditions arising from the visual and other kinds of consciousness, perpetually maintains its flux." [17]

3. Atomism. I of course do not mean that either Hume or Hsuan-tsang was an atomist in the literal or original sense of the word--in the sense that either believed that all things were composed of infinitesimally small, indivisible particles of matter or energy. But they can conveniently be termed atomists in an extended sense, for in such a sense atomism is an excellent symbol of a key parallel between Hume and Hsuan-tsang. Hume writes: "all our perceptions are different from each other, and from every thing else in the universe, they are also distinct and separable, and may be consider'd as separately existent, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing else to support their existence." [18] In Hsuan-tsang the term atomism can be even more appropriately, even pictorially, applied. We will examine immediately below his entire concept of "seeds" and how these individual "receptacles" of impressions simulate an outer world. [19] For the present it is enough

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13. Treatise 4. 6.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Hiuan-tsang, in Poussin, Siddhi, p, 22.

17. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 311.

18. Treatise 4. 5.

19. See A. Berriedale Keith, Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon (Varanasi, India: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1923), p. 245.

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to say that for both Hume and Hsuan-tsang there is no coalescence of an "atom" of "self" or sensation with the ones adjoining it in time, and no inhesion of it in the ones contiguous to it in space.

4. Process of knowing. A brief description of the Vij~naanavaada school's conception of the mind, or manifold consciousness, is necessary before we can proceed further. The human mind is composed of eight "consciousnesses." The eighth, the aalaya or "storehouse" consciousness, is so called because it is envisioned as a storehouse of "seeds" (biija, or chung-tzu), which, when "perfumed," cause the outer world to appear--much as any seed when fertilized will inevitably sprout and grow into a plant. The seventh consciousness, or thought-center, or manas, [20] a somewhat unwieldy and mysterious link between the aalaya and the first six consciousnesses, is the consciousness which accounts for the illusion of self. Triggered by the "four fundamental sources of affliction" [21]--ego-ignorance, ego-belief, self-conceit, and self-love-it "perpetually takes the storehouse consciousness as an object" and clings to it as an ego. [22] It also serves as a sort of shuttle between the aalaya, [23] which it clean ego, files with the help of the "sources of affliction" (or false perfuming), and the remaining six consciousnesses, which are in turn defiled by the aalaya. The remaining six consciousnesses can be lumped together into a unit with six aspects. "This consciousness," says Hsuan-tsang, "is divided into a total of six categories, in accordance with the six sense organs and their respective spheres (of perception). They are known as the visual consciousness and so on down to that of the sense-center." [24] Each of these six acts through only one sense. The sixth sense, or "sensus communis, " functions as the aspect of consciousness which brings together, compares, and organizes the data of each of the other five. [25] The way all these consciousnesses function together as one dynamism can be described as follows: seeds stored in the aalaya are "perfumed," or acted upon, by past dharmas, or deeds with their karmic results. These seeds manifest themselves as new dharmas, or manifestations, in the external world--dharmas which in turn produce new seeds in the aalaya. This process is a "closed circuit," [26] around which both seed and

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20. See Junjiro Takakusu, The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy, ed. Wing-tsit Chan and Charles A. Moore, 2d ed. (Honolulu: Office Appliance Co., 1949), p. 87.

21. Fung, History, p. 312.

22. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p. 383.

23. See Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 323.

24. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 313.

25. See Edward J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1933), p. 233.

26. Derk Bodde, "Harmony and Conflict in Chinese Philosophy," in Studies in Chinese Thought, ed. Arthur F. Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1953) p. 25.

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manifestation under the impetus of perfuming "revolve in a cycle, simultaneously acting as cause and effect." [27] All this activity has been going on everlastionly, it thereby being unnecessary to account for its beginning.

Now let us look at Hume. We have already seen that Hume conceives of the mind as "nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions." [28] These perceptions, when triggered (Hume has no theory of "perfuming"-he does not claim to be able to say what ultimately triggers these perceptions), cause impressions, which in turn "give rise to their correspondent ideas, and these ideas in their turn produce other impressions. One thought chaces another, and draws after it a third, by which it is expell'd in its turn." As for the cause of the illusion of selfhood, Hume finds it in the memory: "As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, 'tis to be consider'd, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal identity." [29]

It is rather apparent that there are parallels both in the way Hume and Hsuan-tsang conceived the structure of the mind and the way they explained its working. I will point out only the more immediate and obvious ones.

Although there is nothing as bizarre (from the Western point of view) as the Vij~naanavaada doctrine of eight consciousnesses in Hume's apparently simpler conception of the mind, once one undresses the Buddhist doctrine from its religious garb, definite similarities stand out. When Hume called the mind "nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions," he said, only less poetically, the same thing as Hsuan-tsang when the latter defined the aalaya or root consciousness as nothing but a "storehouse of seeds." There is also something in Hume which corresponds to the seventh, or "thoughtcenter" consciousness, [30] or manas. We saw above that this manas is, among other things, the cause of the illusion of the ego, of "clinging to the view that the self exists, erroneously imagining certain dharmas to be the self that are not the self." [31] Hume's description of the function of the memory in this regard is very similar: the key to the illusion of things outside ourselves and the illusion of an ego "within us is the memory. Were it not for the memory, a man could not remember that there were impressions seemingly identical in his past life to the one he is experiencing at present. Hence he would not be tempted to account for the interruption in time between these two apparently identical impressions by the independent existence of something outside his consciousness. [32] In a similar way Hume points to the memory as the

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27. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 307.

28. Treatise 4. 2.

29. Treatise 4. 6.

30. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p. 383.

31. Ibid.

32. See Treatise 4. 2.

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basis of the self. Just as the memory makes it possible for the mind to confound resemblance of impressions with identity of impressions--to make that presumptuous leap from resemblance to identity--so it is also the basis of the next step, which is to account for the identification of impressions by an "identity" on which this identification is based. Thus, as Hume says, me "run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance." [33] Hume has arrived, although by an altogether different reasoning, at the same nexus as Hsuan-tsang: the fact of the mind's false ego-assertion.

As surprising as it might seem for Western readers, who tend to see redundancy, or at least unnecessary complexity, in Hsuan-tsang's seventh and sixth (or "sense-center" [34]) consciousnesses, there is something like this distinction in Hume, where, of course, there is no redundancy. In Hume's conception of the mind there is a faculty the function of which does not bear any comparison to Hsuan-tsang's manas, but bears a definite functional similarity to his sense-center consciousness. This faculty Hume calls the imagination. Just as, for Hsuan-tsang, the sense-center consciousness (as the name implies) associates or links the impressions gathered from the five lower consciousnesses (corresponding to the impressions of the five senses) into one central, unified perception--in a somewhat similar way for Hume, "all simple ideas [of impressions] may be separated by the imagination, and may be united again in what form it pleases." [35] The imagination "supplies the place of that inseparable connexion, by which they [the "simple ideas"] are united in our memory." [36] The imagination can be regarded as pulling together and unifying the impressions gathered from the five senses, and then presenting them neatly wrapped in a bundle to the memory. In somewhat the same way a liaison exists between the sixth and seventh consciousnesses--to which Hume's imagination and memory are respectively analogous-of Hsuan-tsang. Although Professor Ch'en gives too passive a role to the sixth sense, he is basically right when he says that "Manas [seventh consciousness] is like a general at headquarters, gathering all the information sent in, sifting and arranging it, and then giving orders back to the six senses." [37]

We are now in a position to set up the following rough, overgeneralized (as we shall see) correlations between the constituents of the mind as Hsuan-tsang and Hume conceive them: [1] aalaya consciousness depicted as a storehouse of seeds, and the mind seen as "a bundle or collection of impressions"; [2] manas, the false ego-producer and link to the lower consciousnesses, and

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33. Ibid.

34. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 313.

35. Treatise 1. 4.

36. Ibid.

37. Ch'en, Buddhism in China, p. 322.

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memory, the sine qua non of the illusory ego and complement of the imagination. and [3] sense-center consciousness and imagination, both of which unify and centralize ideas of impressions presented by the lower consciousnesses or senses. [4] A fourth correspondence--one which I will state here for the sake of completeness--has been assumed throughout: the correspondence between Hsuan-tsang's and Hume's conceptions of the nature of the five senses, or consciousnesses. It is enough to mention again that they are regarded as the immediate cause and explanation of the falsely imagined external, independent world.

What has been shown above is that, as strange, subtle, and superrefined as the Vij~naanavaada conception of the eight consciousnesses appears to us, and as relatively plain as Hume's philosophy of the mind seems, scattered through the remarks of the latter is what can be reconstructed, if imperfectly, into a rudimentary, unsystematic, demythologized blueprint of certain key features of the Buddhist's conception.

5. Similarity of objections. At least half of the objections which Hume and Hsuan-tsang sell-direct against their systems are common to both, while in two cases the rebuttals as well are similar. The most basic objection in common is the one put forth by the typical incredulous soul who is impatient with any theory that denies the primacy of common sense. Hsuan-tsang has his objector ask: "The external spheres of color and so forth are clearly and immediately realized. How can what is perceived through immediate apprehension be rejected as nonexistent?" [38] Hume says: "And in casting my eye towards the window, I perceive a great extent of fields and buildings beyond my chamber. From this it may be infer'd by an opponent, that no other faculty is requir'd, beside the senses, to convince us of the external existence of the body." [39] Hsuan-tsang's answer to his objector: "At the time the external spheres are realized through immediate apprehension, they are not taken as external. It is later that the sense-center consciousness discriminates and erroneously creates the action of externality." [40] And Hume's: "They [the senses] convey to us a nothing but a single perception, and never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond. A single perception can never produce the idea of a double existence, but by some inference either of the reason or imagination." [41] The two answers, as well as the questions, are essentially identical.

The most challenging, the classic objection is the one taking its stand on things which seem, in Hsuan-tsang's words, "definite with respect to space

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38. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, 9. 390.

39. Treatise 4. 2.

40. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p, 390.

41. Treatise 4. 2.

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and time but indefinite with respect to people." [42] In other words, why do we have to go to a certain place to see, for instance, a certain mountain, or be somewhere at a certain hour (and none other) to catch a ferry? And why, if everything is merely consciousness, do two people in the same place at the same time, looking in the same direction, seem invariably to see the same thing? Hume is alert to the same problem; he muses: "Those mountains, and houses, and trees, which lie at present under my eye, have always appear'd to me in the same order; and when I lose sight of them by shutting my eyes or turning my head, I soon after find them return upon me without the least alteration." [43] Hsuan-tsang's answer to the objection he poses against himself is too short and enigmatic to be meaningful were it not for clues external to the Siddhi. He says here only, "Your doubts may be dispelled with reference to the world of dreams." Fung Yu-lan turns to Hsuan-tsang's translation of Vasubandhu's Vii^m'satikaa for the clue to the meaning of this reply. The same objection is put forth there but is answered more fully: "although there are no objects apart from consciousness the four principles of spatial determination and so on [within the confines of hell] are all established." [44] Fung interprets Hsuan-tsang's answer as in effect a reductio ad absurdum: if the laws of spatial and temporal determination apply in hell, where everyone knows that nothing is real, then what are these laws worth anywhere else? Hume likewise counters the objection with a reductio: "When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become double, and one half of them to be remov'd from their common and natural position." [45] Hume, like Hsuan-tsang, feels he has shown that it is absurd to regard the impressions of the senses as pointers to independent things-in-themselves.

There are other common arguments which Hsuan-tsang and Hume put into the mouths of their objectors, but we have seen enough for our purposes. Furthermore, we have exhausted the answers that they have in common to these objections. There are also other parallels in the systems of Hsuan-tsang and Hume which I have not considered, but most of the more important congruences have been pointed out. It is time now to balance our analysis by considering where the two philosophers diverge.

II
It cannot be stressed enough how unlike in most respects these two thinkers are. For example, in dealing with their respective objectors, with the ex-

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42. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, pp. 388-89.

43. Treatise 4. 2.

44. Hsuan-tsang, Wei Shih Er Shih Lun, trans. Clarence H. Hamilton (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1938; reprinted by Kraus Reprint Corp., 1967), p. 27.

45. Treatise 4. 2.

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ception of the parallels in the two answers to objections discussed above, Hsuan-tsang's and Hume's answers come out of two different worlds. (Indeed, the two reductiones we just considered, in spite of a procedural similarity, could well illustrate this point.) Just to give one instance, when an objector challenges Hsuan-tsang (who has claimed that all external objects "are like objects in a dream" [46]) to account for the nonfunctioning of these dream-objects (we are not really being chased by the dragons we dream of) as opposed to the functioning of objects in the external world alter the sleeper awakes--Hsuan-tsang counters with the argument that men dreaming of intercourse do lose semen. [47] This fabulous piece of logic would hardly do for Hume! On the other hand, I suspect that Hsuan-tsang would have been perplexed in the extreme, not to say revolted, by Hume's punctilious reasoning.

While examining above the parallels in the two conceptions of the mind, I purposefully refrained from calling attention to anything which would not fit my scheme in order that the parallels could be thrown into strong relief for us to see more clearly. There are, however, numerous qualifications that need to be made if we are to see the whole picture. In a narrow yet important respect it is legitimate to find the very real resemblance between the manas and memory on the one hand and the sense-center consciousness and the imagination on the other. But there are aspects of each other's philosophy that Hume and Hsuan-tsang of course could not have conceived of. For instance, Hume writes: "'Tis evident at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours, than any which are employ'd by the latter." [48] There is of course no similar distinction between Hsuan-tsang's sixth and seventh consciousnesses. Another distinction that Hume makes between the imagination and memory is that "the imagination is not restrained to the same order and form with the original impressions; while the memory is in a manner ty'd down in that respect, without power of variation." [49] Again, there is nothing like this in Hsuan-tsang.

On the other hand, there are many aspects of Hsuan-tsang's conception of the mind which never come up in Hume. For example, most of the time the Buddhist speaks of the sixth consciousness in a way which does not distinguish its functioning from the functioning of the lower five consciousnesses. It is simply a "sixth category of discrimination," [50] dependent on a separate though unexceptional "sense" just as are the lower five consciousnesses. It

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46. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p. 391.

47. See Hsuan-tsang, in Hamilton's Wei Shih, p. 25.

48. Treatise 1. 3.

49. Ibid.

50. See Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p. 384.

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of course would never have occurred to Hume to consider the imagination, which in other contests corresponds to Hsuan-tsang's sixth consciousness, as in any way of the same functional mold as one of the five senses. Another divergence which quickly comes to mind is evident in an important point in their respective conceptions of the way the mind works. For Hume there is a gradual diminishment or the vivacity of the original impression (for instance, of pain) as it is replaced by an idea; [51] this idea, which is defined as the impression's faint image made use of in thinking and reasoning, in turn gives rise to derivative, abstract impressions termed "impressions of reflexion." For Hsuan-tsang, however, this idea of derivativeness, or passage from the light of day into the vagueness of the gray interior, or from concreteness into abstractness, is wholly missing. He simply does not make this type of analysis. For him there is merely the never-ending cycle, the constant juggling between a seed and dharma.

There are many other divergences. In Hume, for example, there is nothing which quite corresponds to Hsuan-tsang's important distinction between universal seeds--which all men share, thus enabling them to see the same "things" in the same "place," that is, share the same illusions--and nonuniversal seeds, which account for the apparent individuality of each man. Nor is there anything in Hsuan-tsang which compares to Hume's consequential theory that the notions of cause and effect are due to the constant conjunction of certain objects of consciousness. There should be no need to multiply examples further; the ones elaborated on above should make it clear that where genuine likenesses between Hsuan-tsang and Hume do occur they are usually vitiated and always surrounded by material unique to one philosopher only. Indeed, many of the ideas of each man cannot even be contrasted to anything of the other's: they cannot be seen as foils to each other; they are simply mutual strangers. With this said, we are now in a position to examine just what it is that makes the empiricist Hume and the Buddhist Hsuan-tsang, in spite of a number of formal similarities, basically alien to each other.

I agree with Professor Conze, along with practically all other students of Buddhism, that Buddhism, for the most part regardless of schools, provides "essentially a doctrine of salvation, and that all its philosophical statements are subordinate to its soteriological purpose." [52] I value the distinction between what Conze calls the "perennial" and the "sciential" philosophies: "considered in their purity, as ideal types, they differ in that the first is motivated by man's spiritual needs, and aims at his salvation from the world and its ways, whereas the second is motivated by his utilitarian needs, aims at his conquest of the world, and is therefore greatly concerned with the

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51. See Treatise 1. 1.

52. Edward Conze, "Buddhist Philosophy and Its European Parallels," Philosophy East and West XIII (Apr. 1963), 11.

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natural and social sciences." [53] In the space that remains I shall contrast Hume to Hsuan-tsang on the basis of the antinomy between the "perennial'' and "sciential" philosophy, then draw my conclusions.

One of the most striking indications that a philosophy is oriented to salvation (though it is by no means a necessary condition) rather than to the discovery of scientific, "objective" truth is its self-contradictions, always explained and justified by "shifts" in point of view. Vij~naanavaada Buddhism, like most of the other Buddhist schools, and especially like 'Sa^mkarian Vedaantism, leads the devotee onward by stages. The master teaches the devotee only what he can appropriate at his present level; by slow degrees the disciple is brought closer and closer to ultimate truth. When enlightenment explodes upon him, he is able to make mystic utterances the content of which is often directly contradictory to the doctrine he appropriated at an earlier stage. Hsuan-tsang distinguishes at least three of these stages and their associated points of view: [1] the stage where the devotee grants a measure of reality to all dharmas inseparable from consciousness; [2] the stage where he sees that all dharmas, including his own individuality, even including the doctrine of consciousness-only, are empty; [3] the mystical stage where he identifies all dharmas with the Ultimate Reality, the Tathataa. Hume, of course, does not speak of "points of view" in his quest after the truth. For him "every impression, external and internal, passions, affections, sensations, pains and pleasures, are originally on the same footing." [54] (Actually, in later writings Hume does present another paint of view--and one which some feel to be closer to his philosophical heart; but that is for another day.)

Another outstanding contrast along these lines is between Hsuan-tsang's "seeds" and Hume's "heap of different perceptions." Hsuan-tsang's conception of the seeds is soteriologically rooted, while Hume's conception of the heap--as the word clearly connotes--is not. The Vij~naanavaada Buddhists envision two kinds of seeds, and two kinds of dharmas, or manifestations, associated with these seeds. There are untainted seeds and tainted seeds and associated dharmas "purs et impurs." [55] The tainted seeds, when perfumed, bring about manifestations of this world, while the untainted, "which belong to another transcendental world," have as their manifestation the various "Buddha-embodiments" and "Buddha-realms" of the Enlightened Ones. [56]

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53. Conze, "Buddhist Philosophy and Its European Parallels," p. 14. A "perennial philosophy," as Conze uses the phrase, has no overt or, as far as I know, even implied connection with St. Thomas, Leibniz, or any other philosopher with whom the phrase has been traditionally associated. It simply stands for a philosophy which gives priority to, or at least takes into account, the spiritual side of man.

54. Treatise 4. 2.

55. Hiuan-tsang, in Poussin, Siddhi, p. 21.

56. Fung, History, pp. 306, 338.

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For Hume, however, as we have seen, all mental concepts are of equal value: there are none that are good or pure, and none that are bad or impure.

Still another telling contrast between Hume and the Buddhist is their respective views of what it means to say that something exists, or that: it is real. For Hume, "'tis evident that from this consciousness [of impressions and ideas] the most perfect idea and assurance of being is deriv'd." [57] For Hsuan-tsang, however, what Hume calls the most perfect idea of being is at best provisionally real--real front the standpoint of the lower truth; while from the "Absolute point of view" the mind and its objects are absolutely devoid of reality or existence. [58]

The final outstanding unconformity between the two that we shall consider centers upon the conceptions of where there is permanence and where impermanence. For Hume nothing is permanent; there is no still point. There is no principle of identity which could make the experience of the rapid flux of phantasms into a unit or individual, or the apparently external "object" into an independent unit entity. Nor is there a "substratum" which could serve as a ground for all the modifications and the eternal flux of the universe. [59] All impressions are known only as "internal and perishing existences," which "appear as such." [60] Hsuan-tsang, on the other hand, held that even from the lower point of view, consciousness had an aspect of permanence. He is quick to note that if the seventh and eighth consciousnesses are active and in flux --which is a doctrine of the Vij~naanavaada school--then there is an aspect of permanence (reminiscent of Wordsworth's waterfall "frozen by distance") in the nature of this flux: "this consciousness, which though it encounters conditions arising from the visual and other kinds of consciousness, perpetually maintains its flux." [61] But there is a much more important issue over which Hume and Hsuan-tsang would disagree. Quite apart from his recognition of the aspect of permanence in a consciousness eternally in a state of flux through an infinity of transmigrations, Hsuan-tsang believed in an ultimately permanent state. The "character of Ultimate Reality" (Chen-ju), the state of the Tathataa ("thusness" or "suchness"), the state which is reached when all the tainted seeds in the aalaya consciousness are annihilated, "does not evolve or change": [62]

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57. Treatise 2. 6.

58. One qualification should be made: Bodhisattvas are able to make the mystical identification of sa^msaara and nirvaa.na and to see that dharmic characters are ultimately one with their dharma natures.

59. Treatise 4. 5.

60. Treatise 4. 2.

61. Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 311.

62. Ibid., p. 331.

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This is the realm of the absence of afflictions (end of transmigration),
Which is beyond description, is good, and is eternal,
Where one is in the state of emancipation, peace, and joy.
This is the Law of "Great Silence." [63]

Nothing could be more contradictory in spirit of Hume's philosophy in the Treatise than the notion of the Tathataa. [64]

We have seen from the foregoing considerations of their doctrines that Hume and Hsuan-tsang are either diametrically opposed or simply unrelated in a number of crucially important respects. I would agree with Professor Jacobson when he says that their "differences outweigh the similarities." [65] We have seen that their irreconcilability derives in large part from Hume's scientific and Hsuan-tsang's religious orientation. We shall now turn to a consideration of their attitudes toward the philosophies they are upholding.

Anyone even superficially acquainted with the extraordinary life of Hsuan-tsang might quickly guess his attitude toward his philosophy: he did not merely "think" it, he believed it. Furthermore, all the evidence we have leaves us with no other conclusion but that he practiced it. It is different, however, with Hume. Hume candidly classes his philosophical pursuit with "any other business or diversion," to be indulged in so as not to be "a loser in point of pleasure." [66] He admits he has very little faith in the truth of what he is writing; almost in despair over man's defective power of reasoning at one point, he laments: "The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another." [67] The closest approach to faith in his own philosophy that Hume will allow himself to make is to "yield to that propensity, which inclines us to be positive and certain in particular points, according to the light in which we survey them in any particular instant." [68]

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63. Hsuan-tsang, in Source Book, p. 395.

64. See Hsuan-tsang, in Fung, History, p. 332.

65. Jacobson, "The Possibility of Oriental Influence in Hume's Philosophy," p. 23. Although I agree with Professor Jacobson on this particular point, I do not accept his overall thesis: that Hume's ideas were to a significant degree borrowed from the Buddha via China. I would hope that this essay, which to my knowledge is the most systematic and detailed attempt at establishing parallels between Hume and Buddhism, and might therefore a priori be expected to buttress Jacobson's hypothesis, would in fact do the opposite, that is, show that in spite of several rather remarkable parallels, Buddhist doctrine and Humean empiricism are not as similar in any significant sense as lately it has been supposed--and are definitely not close enough to warrant a theory such as Jacobson proposes.

66. Treatise 4. 7.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

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Hume, as opposed to Hsuan-tsang, did not really believe in the philosophy he expounds in the Treatise. Not only did he not believe it, he loathed it. At one point he damns his conclusions as a "monstrous offspring" and a "malady." [69] As the Treatise unfolded in front of its author (almost in spite of what the author wished), it became more and more obvious to him that his philosophy was one not to be delivered by but delivered from. Hume's only deliverance from it is to be, as he puts it, "Carelessness and in-attention." [70] Perhaps the difference in attitude toward their philosophies can best be seen by contrasting what their goals were in writing them. For Hsuan-tsang the culminating experience is realizable only through tireless, scrupulous attention to the exercises appropriate to the stages of a five-stage salvation discipline, as prescribed in the Siddhi--a discipline which leads to the devotee's enlightenment and entry into the wisdom of final attainment, the indescribable nirvaa.na. [71] For Hume the goal is to be able to "sit down contented" when "we see, that we have arrived at the utmost extent of human reason." [72] The crowning experience he describes as the "mutual contentment and satisfaction between master and scholar," of which "I know not what more we can require of our philosophy." [73]

I think that enough has now been said for us to formulate such conclusions as there are likely to be. In his interesting article, "Spurious Parallels to Buddhist Philosophy," Professor Conze reviews the scholarly pursuit of parallels between East and West in general, and (for two pages) between Buddhist doctrine and Hume in particular. In general he holds out little hope for comprehensive interchange between East and West in philosophy. Of the quest for parallels he is convinced that "the time has now come to abandon it." [74] Of Hume specifically, Conze holds that any parallels to Buddhist philosophy are "merely deceptive." [75] He admits that "Hume's doctrine of a self seems literally to agree with the anattaa-doctrine [of no-self]," [76] but he claims that because Hume had a different purpose and a different set of adversaries in mind, even this parallel is "spurious." As Conze says: "In different contexts two identical negative statements [statements merely destructive of another point of view] may, therefore, have nothing in common"; [77] for all their meaning is derived in reference only to what they are

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69. Treatise 4. 2.

70. Ibid.

71. See Fung, History, p. 334.

72. Hume, "Introduction."

73. Ibid. It is only fair to mention that this sympathy between master and scholar, although no nirvaa.na experience, is nevertheless for Hume, as we read elsewhere, a cherished experience bordering on the holy.

74. Conze, "Spurious Parallels," p. 105.

75. Ibid., p. 107.

76. Ibid., p. 113.

77. Ibid.

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negating. Conze then points out how saliently opposed to each other Humean and Buddhist doctrines are. Hume, subjecting self to the "mechanical method" of inanimate objects, "reduced selfhood to the level of the sub-personal," whereas "the Buddhist doctrine of anattaa invites us to search for the superpersonal." [78]

In the opposite camp is Alex Wayman, who specifically directs a reply to Conze's article. "I set no limits on the valid comparisons that can and ought to be made" is his rallying cry. [79] He describes Conze's reasoning: "What Conze means is that if two persons seem to agree on item x, and seem to disagree on items y[1], y[2],...y[n]--it follows that they do not agree on x; for, if two persons seem to disagree on several things, they do not agree on anything." [80]

Where do I stand? I basically agree with Conze. Not that his reasoning is completely fair (as Wayman adroitly points out): Conze is right in saying what he said about "identical negative statements," but wrong in seeing Hume's philosophy and Buddhist metaphysics as merely negative in the areas in which they might seem to concur. There is an affirmative aspect to every negation, and there are real parallels (if only formal ones) in Hume and Buddhism. But I deeply appreciate with Conze that the goals of a the attitudes embodied in the two philosophies are so extremely opposed to each other that any parallels, however valid they are in a formal sense, are vitiated by the contexts in which they are found.

On the other hand, I can see a certain wisdom in Wayman's broad assertion, "I set no limits on the valid comparisons that can and ought to be made." The very fact that Hume's and Hsuan-tsang's goals and attitudes were so divergent makes the similarities in the doctrines, from one point of view, all the more striking. Here is one of the great philosophers of the East, and one of the great philosophers of the West--in most respects as different from each other as up from across--nevertheless demonstrating at certain points in their philosophies certain unmistakable formal similarities. This is an interesting datum for the historian of ideas. It is not inconceivable that future specialists in "self-model building, " orienting themselves by certain universally valid causal insights and assisted by computer technology, may realize Hume's dream of becoming "thoroughly acquainted with the extent of human understanding." [81]

Perhaps we can best formulate a conclusion by asking ourselves the question, Are Conze and Wayman really at loggerheads over Hume? I am not

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78. Ibid., p. 114.

79. Alex Wayman, "Conze on Buddhism and European Parallels," Philosophy East and and West XIII (Jan. 1964), p. 361.

80. Ibid., pp. 361-362.

81. Hume, "Introduction."

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certain, for I do not know what is behind Wayman's rather trenchant criticism of Conze. But let us suppose for a minute that a Western empiricist has written an answer to Conze proposing essentially the same thesis that Wayman has proposed. In that case I would feel safe in saying that the two were not really at odds over Hume. Rather they would be in disagreement over what it means to be a human being. The two would probably have no difficulty at all agreeing on what Hume meant in the Treatise on the one hand and what the Buddhist doctrine is saying on the other. The clash would occur only when it came time to assess the relative importance of the Treatise. Conze, I would venture to say, would hold that what is important, what is most real for man, is just what Hume never gets to--while the empiricist would maintain that Hume had "said it all." Conze, or a Buddhist, would discount the Humean-Buddhist parallels as relatively trivial [82]--trivial in the sense that no number of formal parallels is worth anything in the face of one fundamental disagreement at the only level which makes any difference. Of course, the Western empiricist might have other ideas about where the difference is made and would see these "formal parallels" as weighty matter--and reason enough for making much of the correspondences between Hume and Buddhist doctrine.

My readers are of two kinds. The first are those who fall in line with me behind Conze over against our imagined empiricist. For them, particularly if they are educators or writers involved in opening up Eastern philosophy or religion to Western minds, I would plead for more restraint than has been shown so far in the treatment of Buddhist-Humean parallels. These parallels, I feel, basically should be treated at the present state of our knowledge as nothing more than a cluster of coincidences, just so many curies in the emporium of human ideas. The second kind of reader is the kind who, to put it broadly, disagrees with me (as Wayman would seem to), for whatever reason, over the advisability of bringing to light the Buddhist-Humean parallels. But again I would remind the reader that the disagreement is not over whether or not there are parallels, but over what their significance is: the real disagreement would be over basic values, world-pictures, Weltanschauungen.

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82. I suspect that part of what provoked Wayman while reading Conze's article was the latter's selection of the word "spurious" to designate the Buddhist-Humean parallels. If Conze had used "trivial" (a subjective word--and better expressive of what I think he meant to say) instead of "spurious" (a more "objective" word), he would not have laid himself open to attack as overtly as he did.