Jainism

Author(s): Herbert Warren
Publisher: Divine Knowledge Society

Page 19

JAINISM
consciousness of the swinging of a pendulum, as an example of awareness; and the swinging of the pendulum as an example of movement of physical matter. If these two examples are compared in thought it will be seen or learned that the one is a different kind of fact from the other. Or, if we had sufficient insight to see the molecules in the brain vibrating as they are said to be, the perception would be a different kind of event from the vibration of the molecules. The vibration is one kind of activity, the co-existing consciousness is another kind of activity. The swinging and the vibrating are the behaviour of the pendulum and of the molecules respectively; our consciousness or knowledge of these events is not in the pendulum or in the molecules.
Consciousness is a quality. Qualities do not exist apart from substance. Thus some substance different from the matter which moves is proved to exist. This conscious substance, which also feels, and is self-active, is invisible and intangible; but the signs of its existence are seen in others, and each being experiences his own feeling, consciousness, and self-activity.
Visibility, tangibility, and movement; self-activity, feeling, and consciousness are found or are conceivable in men, animals, cells, devils, and angels, all of which are living beings. Here are two different sets of qualities:
1. Visibility, tangibility, movement; . 2. Self-activity, feeling, consciousness.
The last set is never manifested by pure physical matter; the first set is manifested by physical matter. These living beings are thus proved to be compounds of two different kinds of substance, namely, soul and body,
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