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THE SIDDHANTA.
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Existence itself would also then become a featureless quality of nothing whatsoever, and, in the absence of different substances and qualities, the universe would cease to be.
Thus, the conception of the Absolute as pure existence is quite unsound logically. There remains the notion of the Absolute as a summation of all to be considered. But as such it will resemble any collective concept, e.g., the British Empire or the French Republic which are pure mental conceptions. Suppose we set out to discover the latter, and proceed to France in search of it. It is obvious that we shall see only the country, the people, the institutions, and so forth in France, but not the French Republic itself. For the latter is only an idea which works through the numerous things French, and holds them together as a compact whole. Now, suppose we take away the tie of relationship between the idea of the French Republic and the things, or institutions, actually existing in France, and make a complete severance between them, in thought. We should then have the country, the people, the institutions, and the like as so many parcels, on the one hand, and an absolutely non-existent abstraction on the other. The former would become independent entities in the absence of a uniting bond, and the latter an idea without anything to control, because we have denied it all relation with the very things which it could control ; and inasmuch as its raison d'être is only the bond of oneness of aims and aspirations among the French, which is denied it by actual separation, its very existence becomes self-contradictory and ends in death
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