But when that is the question, when will it be? In what distant time will the Golden Dream of our prophetic hours come to this poor darkened larva of… - J. Howard Moore

Oh, this primitive, just-born, brutal ball! How long—oh! how long—how many suffering centuries and centuries, before the simple laws of social well-being, which men have at such expense worked out for themselves, will extend their benedictions consistently over the pain-plagued races of universal life?

To the initiated, therefore, it is not strange that we civilised folk in our conduct display so freely the phenomena of the savage. There is nothing more inevitable in the life of the convert than the haunting inclination to give way to original impulses. It is not strange that we are powerless to be as good and beautiful and true as we would like to be, that our divine efforts are our half-hearted efforts, and that the only time we get terribly in earnest and put forth really titanic energies is when we are dominated directly or indirectly by the instincts of the pack. Human aspiration is fettered by the fearful facts of human origin. It is not strange that we are continually conscious of being torn by contending tendencies, conscious of ghastly masteries, and of horrible goings on in our innermost beings. The human heart is the gladiatorial meeting-place of gods and beasts.

Wherever Buddhism prevails, there will be found in greater or less purity, as one of the cardinal principles of its founder, the doctrine of the sacredness of all Sentient Life.