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methods in the pursuit of knowledge. The Idealistic school regarded Nature as a form of conception, the new school of Realism regards 'concept as a convenient fiction to comprehend Nature'.
107
"The mathematical discoveries of Cantor, Peano and Frege have once for all reclaimed certain fundamental mathematical notions such as the concepts of infinity and continuity from the unwarranted criticisms of metaphysicians. As Mr. B. Russell clearly points out, modern Idealism must once for all relinquish its Kantian basis. It can no more depend upon the so-called demonstration offered by Kant as to the impossibility of real space and time.
The wave of Realism is further intensified by the fact that it is intimately associated with modern science. The traditional Hegelian idealism of the West has been peculiarly adverse to the interest of science. It may be safely asserted that a system of metaphysics which does not take into consideration the method and achievement of modern science is so far self-condemned... .. The Jain system of thought is peculiarly consistent with modern Realism and modern science....
236
The representative school of Hindu Realism, viz., the Vaisesika philosophy, no doubt, regards ākāśa as one of the nine realities constituting the universe but the properties associated with it are more those of Aether rather than that of mathematical space. (see pages 69-89 ante).
"The reality of space is also borne out by the fact that in order to reach things it is necessary to traverse the distance which separates them from ourselves. Further the removal of space can only result either in the throwing of all things into 'nowhere', or in the complete isolation of each individual atom from all the rest of its kind, and into being doomed to an eternal solitary confinement. The one is, however, as inconceivable as the other, for nowhere' is as great an absurdity as absolute vacuity and isolation is only possible in space, never in spacelessness. "237
The great astronomer Prof. A. S. Eddington is right when he says: "We must rid our minds of the idea that the word space in science has anything to do with void. As previously explained it has the other meaning of distance, volume, etc, quantities express
236. Philosophical Introduction 10 Pancastikaya-sara by Prof. A. Chakravarti, S.B.J. Series, Vol. III, p. XIX.
237. Key of Knowledge, p. 747-48.
