LECTURE IV. BUDDHIST LIVES OF THE BUDDHA. One of the most valuable results to be gleaned from a study of Buddhism is a knowledge of the methods by which the early Buddhists attempted to give ex- pression to the deep impression of a force of character, and of a wisdom beyond their ken, produced in their minds by the striking personality of Gotama. To understand those methods, and to appreciate the lessons they convey, we must transport ourselves in imagination to the fifth century before the birth of Christ, and keep constantly before our minds the intel- lectual conditions among which the early Buddhists moved. Thus only shall we he able to follow the I perfectly natural course of the growth of ideas con- | cerning a perfectly natural man, whom the orthodox : Buddhists came eventually to regard as a being quite i different from ordinary men, and endowed with powers quite different from theirs. An attempt has often been made to draw a curious