that there might be a historical channel through which it could have travelled from East to West, or from West to East. But here again we have only to look for the antecedents on both sides, and we shall find that there is no necessity at all for such a channel. We know that the answer given to the messengers of John the Baptist was only meant to say that the Messiah had really appeared, such as Isaiah and others had prophesied. As Isaiah had prophesied that "in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness," therefore John, who wished to know whether the Messiah had really appeared, was told "that the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them."

In India, too, we can trace the same expression back to a time when there could be no idea of any intercourse between India and Judæa. As far back as the Vedic hymns we meet with the almost idiomatic expression: "The blind sees, the lame walks." When the great works of Indra are described, we are told (Rigveda ii. 15, 7) that the lame stood, and the blind saw. Again, in another place (Rigveda vii. 79, 2), we read: "Soma covers all that is naked, he heals all that is weak, nay, the blind saw, and the lame came forth."

The Buddhists therefore need not have borrowed these expressions from Hebrew or Greek, supposing that they ever understood these languages. They borrowed them where they borrowed so much of their wisdom, namely, from the Brâhmans, only that they multiplied what they received tenfold and a hundredfold, till we can hardly recognise the simple stones in the gorgeous mosaic which they elaborated.

With all this I do not mean to deny that there are similarities between Buddhism and Christianity which are perplexing. Some of them, however, cease to perplex us, when we have traced Christianity on one side and Buddhism on the other back to their historical antecedents. Many things which seemed to be alike are then perceived to be totally different in their original intention, while others are simply due to our common human nature.

But I wonder that those who profess to be so much perplexed

by certain coincidences that they feel constrained to admit a historical contact between these two religions should not feel far more perplexed by the differences that divide the two religions. If we are to suppose that Buddhism had reached Alexandria, and had filtered into Judæa, and had influenced the thoughts of the Essenes and other sects before the rise of Christianity, how are we to account for the diametrical opposition which exists between the fundamental doctrines of the two religions?

From a Christian point of view, Buddhism is atheistic. It recognises no gods in the Greek sense, no God in the Christian sense of the word. If we translated Buddhism into Christianity, it would be, to put it briefly, a belief in the Second Person, and a complete denial of the First. While Christianity is founded on a belief in revelation, such a belief would be entirely incongruous in Buddha's teaching. Buddha lived a long life and died a natural death, and nothing can be more different than Buddha's conception of Nirvâna from the words uttered on the Cross, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise."

It is in comparative theology as it is in comparative philology. Before we compare two religions or two languages, we must study each of them by itself, and trace each of them as far back as we can to its first beginnings. Many words which at first sight seemed so much alike that it sounded almost foolish to doubt their identity have, after a time, been recognised as entirely unrelated. Care has nothing to do with cura; heart cannot be derived from Sanskrit harid; even deus has, for the time being, been divorced from the Greek theos. On the other hand, words which have hardly one letter in common have been traced back, in obedience to strict phonetic laws, to a common source. According to the newest lights, the Greek parthénos has been identified with Latin virgo; the Greek prapides, diaphragm, with German Zwerch-fell, nay, even flea with locust. This should be a lesson to all who are interested in a comparative study of religions. Many things are alike, and yet different in origin; many things seem unlike, and yet spring from

a common source.

F. MAX MÜLLer.

THE STARVED GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.

UNI

NDER the title of "A Starved Government Department Mr. Bradlaugh has recently placed before the readers of this REVIEW the hard case of the Labour Statistical Department of the Board of Trade. No one who is at all acquainted with the situation of that Department-face to face with demands which the means at its disposal are utterly insufficient to satisfy-can fail to endorse Mr. Bradlaugh's appeal on its behalf. Mr. Bradlaugh has already so fully stated his case in these pages that it is quite unnecessary for me to go into details, on this head, which he has already given. What, however, I propose to do is to draw attention to the criticisms he has made on the shortcomings of the Department and to the suggestions he offers as to the way in which these deficiencies may be remedied, and the work of the Department extended, so that this division of the Board of Trade may play its proper part in the solution of the industrial problems of the day.

In the first place, Mr. Bradlaugh complains that particulars of wages paid in certain industries up to the year 1883, such as were given in a Parliamentary paper published in 1887, are only historically useful. To be of practical value such particulars should be made complete, should be methodically tabulated, and should be published frequently-in short, be kept up to date. Furthermore, he cites the two Parliamentary papers on the textile trades, giving wages, hours, and numbers of men and women, boys and girls employed up to October, 1886, which were only presented three years later, with, it is true, an apology by the Department, pleading as excuse for delay the absence of a sufficient staff with which promptly to execute the work. What was then done for the tex

tile trades should have been done for all trades, says Mr. Bradlaugh; and I think everyone will concur with him when he adds that a sufficient staff should have been provided for the purpose. On a third head, also, the justice of Mr. Bradlaugh's criticisms cannot be denied when he says that this information when collected is turned out in a shape that makes it useless to working men, who cannot be expected to hunt up commercial series of Parliamentary papers, and unearth casual articles from back numbers of the Board of Trade Journal. In this connection Mr. Bradlaugh suggests that the only regular publication of the Labour Statistical Department, that is, the annual statistical tables and report on trades unions, might be utilised as a means of circulating information. Mr. Burnett might, he thinks, index on the back of these reports all official publications, consular and diplomatic reports, &c., containing matter of value to employers or employed. The question of insufficient staff alone need stand in the way of our realising at once this useful reform; but when Mr. Bradlaugh suggests that Mr. Burnett's difficulties in compiling his trade union reports could be got over by requiring that all societies availing themselves of the Friendly Societies Acts for the purposes of registration should be held bound to make the desired returns to the Board of Trade he shows, I think, that he is not aware of the rapidly growing inclination on the part of trade societies to take their chance of justice without the protection of these Acts. Rightly or wrongly, they hold that their position before the law is just as good without the Registrar's sanction, and I know societies numbering many thousands which are, and intend to remain, unregistered. This, however, is only a minor point, on which it is unnecessary to dwell. Mr. Bradlaugh's main contention is that we are in sore need of more and fuller labour statistics, and that to have these we must have larger provision for the Department charged with the task of their collection. So far, I suppose that everyone who is interested in labour questions will agree with him; when, however, he goes on to provide for an increase in the Statistical Department by virtually suppressing the Labour Correspondent, I, for one, find myself in a position of complete disagreement.

"I complain," says Mr. Bradlaugh, "that at the Board of Trade

the collection of labour statistics has been starved. In December, 1888, Mr. Giffen officially stated that the provision for the Department was insufficient both as to junior and superior officers. I assert that it is insufficient still. Mr. Giffen in 1888 reported that the Labour Correspondent had served in other official capacities, which had much occupied his time. I submit that his whole time should be devoted to this Department, and that he should have proper clerical assistance."

That is to say that we are to take our Labour Correspondent, who was chosen precisely that he might be used largely for the purposes of special outside inquiry, and set him down to the desk, there to deliver himself to the task of collecting, compiling, and tabulating labour statistics, a work which could very well be performed by dozens of men who have not his qualifications for keeping in actual touch with the labour world itself. Anyone capable of understanding the invaluable services rendered by Mr. Burnett's investigation into the sweating system, or who is familiar with his admirable report on the condition of the chain and nail trades, will be amazed at the proposal made by Mr. Bradlaugh to take Mr. Burnett away from work such as this and force him to give his "whole time" to the compilation of statistical reports. How, one asks, would it be possible for a "labour correspondent" to keep himself sufficiently informed as to the views and sentiments of the labouring classes, or to keep in touch at all with their leaders, if he were to spend his "whole time" at work upon mere columns of figures.

I cannot but think that further reflection might give Mr. Bradlaugh himself cause to change his views on this point.

By all means let us put this Department on such a footing as shall make it equal in importance to the admirable example set us by the United States, to which Mr. Bradlaugh pays so just and well deserved a tribute; but do not let us, in striving to do this, misapply the forces we have actually at our command. As he has pointed out, there is at Washington a National Labour Bureauwith its annual budget as great as that of some of our own public departments after which come some twenty-three or twenty-four State bureaus, for, I believe, these are now even more in number than the figures given by Mr. Bradlaugh. If it is idle, at present,