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COMPENDIUM OF JAINISM
which are contradictory in the abstract co-exist in life and experience. The tree is moving in that its branches are moving and it is not moving since it is fixed to its place in the ground."31 For Whitehead, coherence would mean that the fundamental ideas presupppose each other. In isolation, they are meaningless. It does not mean that they are definable in terms of each other, though they are relevant to each other No entity can be conceived in complete abstraction from the system of the universe, and that it is the business of speculative philosophy to exhibit this truth. This character is its coherence. He also says that 'systematisation of knowledge cannot be conducted in watertight compartments. All general truths condition each other; and the limits of their application cannot be adequately defined apart from their correlation by yet wider generalities. This is the attitude of Jainas also.'32
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Certain idas of Syadvāda seem to have close relevance to the concepts of probability which can supply a convenient background.. to the foundations of statistics. The difference between Jaina avaktavya and the concept of probability lies in the fact that the latter has definite quantitative implications. The concept of numerical frequency ratios distinguishes modern statistical theory from the Jaina theory of Syadvāda.33 At the same time it is of interest to note that 1500 or 2500 years ago Syadvāda seems to have given the logical background of statistical theory in a qualitative from.34 The emphasis given by the Jaina philosophy on the relatedness of things and on the multiform aspects of reals... appear to be similar... to the basic ideas underlying the concepts of association, correlation and concomitant variation in modern statistics... The realist and pluralist views of Jaina philosophy and the continuing emphasis on the multiform and infinitely diversified aspects of reality.. amounts to the acceptance of an "open" of the universe with scope for unending change and discovery... It has certain interesting resemblances to the probabilistic and statistical view of reality in modern times.35
J. B. S. Haldane says that the search for truth by the scientific method does not lead to complete certainty; still less does it lead
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