________________
AN EPITOME OF JAINISM.
be taken as
self-identical
absolutely separated from all others so as to
have no community between them. An absoNothing can lute distinction would be self-contradictory absol utely for it would cut off every connection or
relation of the thing from which it is distinguished. The principle of absolute contradiction is suicidal ; because it destructs itself. So when we, the Jains, deny the validity of the Law of Contradiction, we only dispute the claim of absolute validity. That every definite thought by the fact that it is definite, excludes other thoughts and specially the opposite thought is unquestionably true, indeed. But it is half-truth only, or one aspect of the truth and not the whole of it. The other side of the truth, or rather the complimentary side of this truth is also that every definite thought, by the very fact that it is definite, has a necessary relation to its negative and cannot be seperated from it without losing its true meaning. It is definite by virtue of its opposition with what it is not. So nothing, however definite it may be, can be conceived as self-identical in the absolute sense of the term.
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