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CREATION
This finishes our examination of modern science, which, as our investigation fully demonstrates, is still very far from perfection.
We may now revert to Hinău Realism to enumerate the causes of the world process from the standpoint of the Vaisheshika philosophy. So far as matter is concerned, Hindu Realism is at one with the modern scientist in describing it as an atomistic substance. Modern science has been able to discover about seventy different kinds of atoms of matter, but has not yet been able to reduce them into fewer genera or species, but Kanada reduces them to four kinds only, namely,
(1) those which can be discerned by sight,
(2) those which can be discerned by the sense of touch or temperature,
(3) those discernible by the sense of taste, and
(4) those which appeal to, and are discernible by, the sense of smell.
Kanada holds that there cannot be atoms corresponding to the sense of hearing, because he does not consider the emission of sound to be the property of any particular class of atoms, inasmuch as every thing can be conceived as silent. He maintains that sound arises by friction in akasa (the continuous medium, like the ether of modern science).
To these four kinds of atoms Hindu Realists add five other substances, and call them the nine realities, which may be enumerated as follows :-- (1–4) the four kinds of atoms, as stated above,
(5) Akasa, i.e., the continuous Ether, (6) Time, i.e., succession of moments,
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