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EXAMINATION OF SHANKAR.
what they are and are kept to their definition, thought and knowledge become impossible. For instance, if A and not-A be the same, it is hardly possible to find any meaning even en in the simplest statements, for the nature of the thing becomes absolutely indefinite and so indeterminate. Hence Formal Logic teaches that thought is distinction and is not possible without it.
But is thought simply a distinction and nothing else? Is the distinction absolute and ultimate? We, the Jains, would undoubtedly determination simply? say that it can never be absolute distinction. If thought is distinction, yet it implies at the same time relation. Everything implies something other than it; 'This' implies That; 'Now' implies 'Then' 'Here' implies 'There' and the like. Each thing, each aspect of reality, is possible only in relation to and distinct from some other aspect of reality. If so, A is only possible in relation to and distinct from not-A. Thus, by marking one thing off from another, it, at the same time, connects one thing with another. A thing which has nothing to distinguish from, is as impossible as equally unthinkable is the thing which is
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