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CHAPTER III
NUMERICAL DIFFERENCE AND ABSOLUTE
NON-EXISTENCE
In the last chapter we have endeavoured to establish that denial of pre-non-existence and post-non-existence as part of a real leads to absurdities - viz., the impossibility of the law of causation and the consequential impossibility of all theoretical and practical activity. In the present chapter we shall try to show that the repudiation of the remaining two types of nonexistence, viz., (1) non-existence of mutual identity or what is called in modern philosophical terminology, numerical difference and (2) absolute non-existence, is also impossible in view of the disastrous consequences to which it inevitably leads. That things are numerically different presupposes that the identity of one is not the identity of another. If this mutual non-existence were repudiated there would be left no means of distinguishing one thing from another thing. In other words, every thing would be every thing else and one uniform and identical existence would have to be posited — a consequence which cannot be accepted by any philosopher other than a Vedāntist. The denial of absolute non-existence too would make confusion of all things inevitable, inasmuch as no definite affirmation of any one thing in one context in contradistinction to another context would be possible. That a table as a whole inheres in its members, exists in its own place and time and is existent in so far as it is a table, that is to say, in so far as it is itself, implies the negation of the contradictory determinations. But if the existence of the table in the rôle of a not-table is not denied, and its existence in a different spatio-temporal context is allowed, there would be no meaning in asserting that the table exists here and now and not elsewhere and elsewhen. The issue that emerges is a simple dilemma. Either there would be no logical predication possible or the affirmation of one undifferenced being - absolutely homogeneous and unvariant – would be the only legitimate consequence. If a philosopher is not prepared to accept this consequence as a
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