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CREATION.
47
natural organs of sight are closed, it is more than probable that he would not have picked up his pen in a hurry to champion the cause of materialism, or to defend Darwin from the attacks of M. Bergson. Unfortunately, Mr. Elliot does not explain how the pin-bole, camera eye of the Pearly Nautilus interferes with vision being a function of Life or Spirit. That which sees through the eye is Life, the different types of eyes merely indicating the different kinds of its movement in the direction of vision.
It is thus clear that no hypothesis which ignores the element of life can ever hope to succeed in solving the world-problem. Matter is only capable of making material bodies or tenements; it will never succeed in creating * tenants' to occupy and enjoy the product of its labour.
The fact is that spirit is a substance* in itself, and is * The word substance, when used in connection with spirit, is not to be confounded with matter. In philosophy, substance is that which underlies or is the permanent subject or cause of all phenomena, whether material or spiritual; the subject which we imagine to underlie the attributes or qualities by which alone we are conscious of existence (The Imperial Dictionary). Thus every thing that exists must be a substance, Hence, souls, or spirit, and matter are both substances, though of different natures, as is evident from their attributes.
The Arabic se, (wajůd=is-ness, or be-ing,) is eminently suited to express the sense of existence or subsistence, though it does not quite convey the same idea as the word substance, an almost exact equivalent of the Sanskrita dravya, signifying the substrate of changes, or accidents, as they are technically called. It is this is-ness, or say, which, constituting, as it does, the basis of be-ing, furnishes the only test of reality, so that whatever is found to be
,present) موجود with aajatd) must be really and truly) مع وجود
· hence, existing).
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