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Teleological
the Ultimate
Moksha.
logical conception dominating the entire
distinction : for the Jains do not believe
n. in the intrinsic worth of any particular End being thought or deed which is palpable to the
so-called supernatural faculty which goes by the name of Conscience or Moral Sense, as is held by the Common-Sense philosophers of the West; but on the contrary, hold that a thing or a thought has any worth only as it is conducive to the realisation of some end to which it is but a means. An objec. tion, which may seem to have much of plausibility, at first sight, of course, might be raised to the effect, that we cannot go on ad infinitum in this progressus ; so we must stop somewhere which must be the ultimate End and means to nothing ; and this Ultimate End or Summum Bonum, being, by its very nature, not any means to‘ any end, cannot, in strict conformity with the proposition already laid down, have any worth at all and so ceases to be desirable altogether. Thus Moksha or Final Liberation, which is regarded as the Ultimate Goal of every moral endeavour and as the source of all
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