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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES
79 differ from one another in respect of their actual mani. festation. As the attributes of pure gold are the same whether you come across it in India or China or England, so are the natural attributes of the soulsubstance the same ; and as the differences in the qualis ties of gold are due to the presence of alloy in different proportions, so are the differences among souls due to the admixture of some foreign substance in varying proportion. Itfollows from this that what one soul knows all others can know also, a sound principle of practical utility which is the very foundation of our educational institutions. For if there were fixed limits of knowledge for different souls, it would be simply waste of time to raise schools and colleges in every city and suburb.
Now, since what is known to one individual is capable of being known by everybody else, it follows that everyone has an inherent capacity within him to know all that every one else knew in the past, all that everyone knows in the present, and also all that every one shall ever know in the future. In other words, every soul is potentially omniscient, though the actual knowledge it may possess at any particular time of its career may, owing to the presence and in. fluence of a knowledge-and lucidity.obstructing agent. in the form of a foreign material or alloy, be so poor as will not entiile any one to boast of.
With reference to the quality of omniscience, it is also to be borne in mind that the fullest degree of know
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