________________
OF THE HINDUS.
113
sign of decrepitude or decay, over the minds of the nations of the extreme east, over Burman, Chinese, Tartar, Tibetan, and Indian; over perhaps the most numerous portion of the human race; over at least six or seven hundred millions of mankind.
Adopting, then, this unquestioned dogma as the basis of their argument, all the philosophical schools propose for their object the ascertainment of those means by which the wanderings of the soul may be arrested, its transitions through all the painful vicissitudes of corporeal existence be terminated, and its emancipation from bodily imprisonment and degradation be effected for ever. This is what is termed Moksha, or Mukti - Liberation, emancipation. All the systems agree that this devoutly desirable consummation is to be accomplished only through that knowledge which they profess to teach; not literature, not science, not morality, not devotion, but true knowledge; knowledge, obtained by profound contemplation, of the true nature of the soul, and of the universe; when the contemplatist can say, with perfect conviction, and with truth, I am Brahma, I am all that is, I am one with God. The absolute state of the soul thus liberated is nowhere clearly defined; it ceases to transmigrate; it loses all bodily individuality; it loses all spiritual individuality, as whether, with the Vedanta, we consider it to be reunited with, or absorbed into, the Supreme Spirit, or whether, with the Sankhyas, we hold it to be commingled with the spiritual element of the universe, individual spirit
8
