Jaina Gazette 1927

Author(s): J L Jaini, Ajitprasad
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office

Page 89

54
THE JAINA GAZET TË
world is composed of different substances which are eternal. The great scientific law of the conservation of substance on which the modern materialistic sciences are grounded suffices to show that substance is eternal, being both uncreate and indestructible, Modern sciences only know of matter, but Jainismi points out that Spirit is also a substance, like matter, and equally eternal, uncreate and indestructible. As such every soul is immortal. It will interest you to know, and some o! you must be already aware of the fact, that modern experimental Psychology is slowly coming round to acknowledge this position of Jainism. I will refer in this connection to the work of an English Psychologist, Professor William McGougall, who has definitely accepted the fact of the immortality of the soul on scientific grounds which are stated in the book named. His researches led him to the conclusion that the soul was a simple substance, unit or individual, and because it was not a compound it was deathless and immortal. For it is only compounds that are liable to destruction or disintegration on the falling apart of the parts of which they are composed. What is not made up of parts is thus not liable to fall to pieces, and is actually immortal for that reason. The soul, then, is immortal in its own right.
Jainism pushes further with the study of the soul-nature, and discovers it to be the substance of consciousness. The arguments which support this conclusion are too long to be stated in a short lecture like this where the vast number of points to be dealt with curtail still further the limit of time allowed to them individually to the shortest possible duration ; but I will just mention one reason which is rather striking. When you perceive an object you can see that the sensory stimulus which comes from the outside is not knowledge, but only matter or energy in some form, yet know. ledge is evoked thereby in the perceiver. Now, whence comes this knowledge ? Surely, not from the without, but only from the within ! For knowledge is not a thing of matter at all, but only one's feeling of awareness of things ! This is sufficient to show that knowledge merely expresses the nature of the knower. An
English thinker. Prof. Bowne, also came to the same conclusion Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat