Anekantavada

Author(s): Harisatya Bhattacharya
Publisher: Atmanand Jain Sabha

Page 83

If the Leibnitzian monad-substance was vita. Histio and the Hegelian idea-substance was panlogistio, Sshopenhauer's conception of the basio substance was voluntaristic. Primal substance according to Schopenhauer, consists in & volitional activity, an unconscious will, a blind urge towards an end, originally unconceived. All changes, all modifications in a substance are o Tolutions from within itself in its incessant endeaTours to satisfy its inherent burning hunger which, so long as primal substance lives and exists is even insatiable.
It will be seen that in all the three explana. tions above of changes and modifications in an object, exclusive stress is laid on the inherent nature of the substance underlying the object that undergoes the modifications. The evolutionists of the natural selection school, on the other hand, contend that environments influence 1 being in various ways and thereby bring about changes and modifications in it. Of the modifications thus brought about, some are useful to the animal in the matter of its struggle for existence and of the preservation of its race; these beneficial modifications are selected by nature and eonserved. Changes in a living being are thus accounted for by the natural selectionists, by the