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FUNDAMENTALS OF JAINISM
SOUL-SUBSTANCE
The word substance used with reference to the soul is not generally appreciated or understood. But it simply means somethingness, and is a philosophical term employed to denote the idea of a something which depends on itself for its existence, that is to say, which is self-existent. All simple things, as distinguished from compounds, are self-subsisting, hence, indestructible and eternal. Perishability is associated only with what is made up of parts that might fall apart. Hence what is a simple (partless) thing in its nature cannot be wiped out to existence.
Consciousness, too, is a something, for we are aware of its operations. It is also dependent on itself for its existence, and is partless and non-composite in its nature, as shown elsewhere in my writings. Therefore, it is also a substance. The name soul has been given to it from the point of view of substantiveness.
The materialistic theory that a primary nucleus of tactile sensitivity, bound up in the simple atom of matter, has, in the course of evolution, evolved out into the highly complex consciousness of man, is not tenable and valid, as it is inconceivable how a simple sensation of touch can possibly transform itself into taste, smell, sight, hearing, understanding, ratiocination and the like. The one great difference between consciousness and atomic matter is this: consciousness is endowed with an 'interior' which is capable of entertaining and developing an infinity of ideas and concepts, but the atom of matter has no inside to accommodate even a thought.
Knowledge is the nature of the soul. If it were not the nature of the soul, it would be either the nature of the not-soul, or of nothing whatsoever. But in the former case, the unconscious would become the conscious, and the soul would be unable to know itself or any one else, for it would then be devoid of consciousness; and, in the latter, there would be no knowledge, nor conscious beings in existence, which, happily, is not the case.
It might be urged that knowledge, consciousness, or the power to know or cognize, is an independent quality which,
