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The General Conception of Knowledge
85
James views that the raw material out of which the world is built up is not of two sorts, one matter and the other mind, but that it is arranged in different patterns by its interrelations, and that some arrangements may be called mental, while others may be called physical.
In Indian philosophy there is the well-known school of Cārvāka which holds matter as the ultimate cause of the sentient and insentient world. This conception is as old as the history of thought. The Sūtrakṛtāngasūtra refers to it that a certain class of Sramaņas and Brāhmaṇas maintain that this world is composed of earth, water, fire, air and ether. The soul originates from the combination of these elements and perishes in them.2 Brhadāranyaka also states the same fact.3 There is another materialistic school described in the Sūtrakstānga which holds that this body is identical with the soul, or the soul is not different from the body.4 Another materialist is described as holding four elements only.5 In the Buddhist scriptures Ajitakeśakambalin is stated to hold that this man comes from four material elements and perishes therein. There is no eternal soul lasting after the body and taking another birth..
The second view, on the other extreme, is held by the idealists holding the mind or spirit as the only fundamental principle of reality, which splits itself into the world of objects and the world of minds as its necessary stages of development or self-expression. So that, the finite minds and objects are not two essentially different realities without community; but, are essentially the same in kind.
1. Analysis of Mind 2. Sūtrakstānga 1.1.1.7-8 3. Bệhadaranyaka 2.4.12 4. Sūtrakstānga 1.1.1.11-12 5. Ibid., 1.1.1.18 6. Brahmajālasutta
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