Confluence of Opposites

SR No.: 006704
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain
Publication Year: 1921
Total Pages: 422
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 55

CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
Science is the accurate knowledge of nature, tested by experiment, and capable of yielding immediate and certain results. It divides itself into two parts, physics and metaphysics, of which physics may be taken to be the department of knowledge dealing with concrete things and the other as concerned with their analysis, classification and generalisation, as well as with the systematization of all knowledge or thought itself. True metaphysics must, for this reason, always remain in touch with concrete nature. It has nothing in common with those ambitious flights of fancy which seek to break away from the terra firma of fact to enjoy a wild romp in cloudland. It will be noticed that where science and metaphysics do not agree on a point, the disagreement is generally due to the latter having somewhere lost sight of the concrete reality,
The philosopher who would acquire fame as such should harness both “ Fancy" and "Facts” to the chariot of his mind, curbing the tendency of the one to rush for the peak through loose impassable by-paths and cuts, and pulling up the other, whenever necessary, to prevent its lapsing into rumination at the roadside. As for the criterion of truth, it is generally safe to lay down that where science and metaphysics agree truth may be said to be established there ; but in the department of Religion there is an additional safeguard im. posed upon this agreement which consists in confirma-' tion by Scripture. For Scripture is the word of an Omniscient Teacher and cannot but be in agreement