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The True Laws of Life
life there ought to be the greatest amount of spiritual life, and this killing of other beings ought to be carried only to that extent necessary to support the body and not for any other purpose. No act therefore ought to be done which would necessarily lead to killing other beings.
A beautiful illustration is given in the Jaina philosophy. There was a gentleman who was a great merchant, and for smuggling certain articles into his store was punished with a certain time of imprisonment. The next day his son was injured by another person who was also sentenced to the same time of imprisonment and was put into the same cell in the penitentiary and on account of the peculiar laws of the city in which they lived both of them were put in the stocks, wooden instruments in which they cannot move. Sometimes they would be put into chains, and then also one cannot move without the concurrence of the other. For same purpose the one person, whom we call A. wished to go out of the cell, and said to the other, whom we will call B. "I wish to go out." B replied, "You gave me none of the food which was brought to you." A, said, "Next time I will do so," and the next day when the food was brought he gave him a portion of it, and continued to do so every day. B, of course was obliged to stay in the prison one day longer than A, as he was imprisoned on the day after A. When A, was released he did not send for the food again for B, because there would be no necessity for sending it in the same manner. We say of the body and the soul that they are put together as these men were chained together, and as the soul requires the body that sometimes poor people who have never been under treatment of any doctor, and are compelled to produce this certificate, when they are asked from what cause the person died, will say that he died of snake-bite, in which case of course no physician could have been called, I myself have observed such instances. In that way the matter is disposed of at once. So it will be seen that such statistics cannot be relied on.
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