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Absolute Negativism and Absolute Particularism
in a different position. The Vedāntist is not a universal sceptic. He believes that the finding of the truth that the world is an appearance is true and real, as it is based upon the intuition of One Reality, viz., one pure consciousness bereft of subjectobject polarization, which is the only reality. But though the Vedāntist cannot be convicted of self-contradiction in so far as he adheres to his fundamental assertion of the reality of One Absolute Consciousness and his denial only has reference to anything which is in excess of this unity, it has been shown to lead to consequences which have not commended themselves to the majority of thinkers. Bu, leaving the Vadāntist severely alone, we must address ourselves to other philosophers, who believe in a plurality of ontological reals. The Sankhya-Yoga school believes in the reality of a plurality of facts. We have shown that the reality of plurality presupposes the reality of numerical difference and also non-existence of one in the other. We have also shown that the reality of causation involves that the effect is both real and unreal. The effect was not existent before and is ninde existent after. The Sāňkhya theory of preexistence of effect has been shown to be self-contradictory. So existence and non-existence both are to be predicated of all effects unless t! e law of causation be unceremoniously dismissed as an illusion which has been done by the Voidist and the Vedāntist aline. But the Sankhya holds causation to be real. He also believes that things are numerically different. And, as we have shown, numerical difference presupposes that things have different identities, the implication of which again is the assertion of existence and non-existence as concomitant features in a real. “A is numerically different from B' means that A is A and is not B. So A both is and is not. As this point has been elaborately discussed by us in the last chapter, we need not repeat the arguments which led us to the conclusion we are stating here.
It is undeniable for the Sankhya that existence and nonexistence are equally true of a real. But how can he maintain the reality of both if he does not shed his belief that existence and non-existence are contradictorily opposed ? If existence and non-existence were two wholes mutually exclusive of each other, there could not be coexistence of the two in any one
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