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1914.]
JAINA GAZETTE.
265
In the first place, allow me to say that I have not studied any treatise on universals and particulars though these are not entirely unknown to me nor unthought about, and if yon will recommend any book of study in this respect or act as teacher, I shall only be too willing to listen and learn. And if there is any fault with my own views I do not want to defend it, but to mend it.
Before proceeding to reply to your attack upon my propositions with regard to whole and part, let me bring to mind the bearing that these propositions have, or we may be in danger of wandering too far afield, or of discussing something that does not much matter after all.
It is the individual that matters. Philosophy must supply reasons for believing each individual to be an individual, a permanent one, immortal. This perhaps is the hook to which the chain of arguments is attached; one of the links is the problem whether or not (as above stated) the individuals in the world, you, I, the cat, etc., constitute a Universal Self. And thus has arisen the discussion about whole and part, and it is only those aspects of the subject that bear upon the permanence of the individual that matter perhaps.
What sort of a whole can an individual be part of? Is the whole of which an individual can be a part the same kind of whole that an individual is? No.
With this introduction, I will proceed to reply to your attack upon the propositions about the parts of a given whole being related to that whole, and about a given whole being the sum of its parts.
(And here, I think, I may say that I do not think the point I mentioned has been perceived, so that your attack is perhaps a refutation of something I never meant at all.) Therefore, I should, before dealing with the main topic of the permanence of an individual, like to get my idea perceived about whole and part, and, being perceived, acknowledged to be true.
I will try to repeat what I mean about the incorrectness of speech when we speak of a part being related to a whole of which it is a part. In order to speak correctly I ought to say
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
