Note 10 — Chapter V

Buddhists allow to their Buddha the power of working wonders and miracles. How is this power conferred upon him? This is a difficulty they cannot explain satisfactorily. The science of Buddha makes him acquainted with all the laws regulating nature, that is to say, the ensemble of the animate and inanimate beings constituting a world; but one is at a loss to find the origin of that power which enables him, as often as he likes, to suspend the course of those laws. Be that as it may, certain it is that Buddha resorted always, during the course of his preachings, to miracles, in order to convince those who seemed to listen with rather an incredulous ear to his doctrines. Miracles were used successfully, as powerful and irresistible weapons, against certain heretics, the Brahmins, in particular, who taught doctrines opposed to his own. They often accompanied his preachings, for increasing faith in the heart of his hearers.