________________
product of matter and material
higher unity without losing thę traces of their individuality in the same? What Soul -a byeis the naure of this soul-substance ? Is it a porta spark from the anvil of the Blacksmith, forces a bye-product of matter of the Physicist, the nascent or the just-born of the Chemists ? The Chårvåka school of thought teaches that there is no plausible reason and evi. dence to demonstrate the existence of soul as something distinct and separate from matter and material forces ; for consciousness which is a quality of the soul-substance is but the resultant of the concussion of the brain-matter. Just as liver secrets bile so brain produces consciousness. This phenomenon of matter and material powers which is characterised by consciousness in different forms in the living and the so-called non-living, is soul for which reason, we often take recourse to such forms of expressions as consist in saying in our common parlance that the plant lives, the brute lives and feels, and the man lives, feels and thinks. It is thus evident that more the subtle is the organic mechanism, by far the more clear
267
