Jainism

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

Page 50

40
JAINISM
fatalism comes in only when we overlook the element of choice. Under the influence of a desire for champagne a man may choose to drink it, though he may understand quite well that his body will be better served by choosing milk. The desire does not compel, it is only the instrumental cause of the man's choice to drink champagne in preference to milk. He has the power of choosing to drink milk. When this is remembered, then there is no sense of fatalism in the act performed. The nature of champagne is such that if he takes it he will experience different consequences from those of taking milk; and if he does not want the consequences of drinking champagne all he need do is to leave off. It is no more fatalism than the fact that water boils if placed over fire; it is simply cause and effect, and the effect will not follow if the cause is avoided.
Neither is this moral law of causation in any sense a mechanical system: it may be a scientific system, but in mechanical systems there is an absence of consciousness, whereas in this law of moral causation of the Jain philosophy, consciousness is an essential factor. The causes of disaster are consciously and deliberately avoided by those who wish to remove the impurities from their souls. In this law of moral causation it is living forces that operate in combination with physical forces and this is not the case in mechanical causation.
We now come to the third part of the subject, man as he may become, or potentially is.