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we come to deal with the theory of karma. It suffices here to point out that as our thoughts and deeds affect our character, and create, or modify, the tendencies of our souls, karma must be recognized to be a force of some kind; for it would be ridiculous to maintain that a thing could be affected by that which had no substantiveness whatsoever. Now, since force is unthinkable apart from matter, the individual karmas cannot but be deemed to produce their effects through a material agent of some kind.
THE SIDDHANTA.
The next question in connection with matter is, whether it is a single substance or composed of parts. The cinematographical view of the universe tends to suggest, at first sight, that matter might be one substance only, but if we probe a little deeper into its nature, we at once find that that view is confined to the faculty of simple Perception with which intellect does not concur in this instance, on the ground that the pictures themselves must be composed of parts, hence of atomistic matter, or particles. Besides, it is a self-evident truth that if material things can be cut into pieces, they must be made up of parts. The difficulty arises only when we take our stand at the beginning of a supposed world-process, and, assuming the existence of matter as a given unit, try to find out how that unit could be cut up into atoms. Hence Sankhya which posits indiscrete prakriti at the beginning of a world-process or evolution, and all those other schools which have substituted fanciful terms--- e g., akasha of the Yoga system----for pudgala (matter) have had to explain it as indescribable. We seem to get a great insight into the nature of things by working
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