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THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 121 a gentleman. A great Chemist has said :-"He knows not Chemistry who knows Chemistry alone!" So can well be said of Jainism, and of any other religion, that he knows not Jainism who knows Jainism along. Let, therefore, there be comparative and critical study of Jainism in your Maha-vidyalaya, which will be quite in keeping with your principles of Anekanta-vada and Nyaya-vada, side by side with that of other religions and philosophies, both Eastern and Western. Let your students, in addition to their being trained in some art of livelihood, which should be an essential feature of all our education, themselves find out which hypothesis explains the facts of life and the universe best, and supplies the highest ideal of action in this world It will indeed be a triumph, a real and lasting triumph, of Jainism if it is accepted as the most rational and satisfactory hypothesis by men who are alive to the facts and needs of life, and are also aware of other hypotheses about them. The age of isolated thriving is gone never to return back. Isolation is suicide and death. And the loss of anything that by its existence can do good to Humanity is a loss to the world. I therefore earnestly wish you to make your religion and philosophy as alive as you can by imbibing all that it requires to be perfect, and by dropping all that goes against reason. The law of life, we must remember, is continual and persistent adaptation to the changing environment, and it manifests itself by giving and taking the best to and from others until it becomes the Perfect and Absolute. The mark of perfection and absoluteness is all-inclusiveness. In so far as any hypothesis leaves anything to be explained by any other rival hypothesis it lacks in perfection. The perfect hypothesis is the highest and the widest possible synthesis, having within it a place for all the mutually contradictory and rival hypotheses : leaving no aspect of life and existence unrecognised and unexplained and contradicting no religion, philosophy or theory, but reconciling all and giving a proper place and value to each within itself. Until any religion or philosophy achieves such perfection it has much to learn and imbibe. There is a struggle for existence even in the life of religions and philosophies, and the fittest alone flourish in course of time. The fitness in case of a philosophical system consists in
16 Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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