________________
GOD.
Emperor Napoleon, the latter remarked, "M. Laplace, they tell me, you have written this large book on the System of Universe, and you have never mentioned its Creator". Whereupon M. Laplace drew himself up and answered bluntly, "Sir I had no need of any such hypothesis." And this piece of dialogue between the two greatest minds of the Eighteenth century, does not strike singular in India, and the reason is that from the time when Greece and Rome. those cradles of western civilization, were still steeped in profound ignorance, nay, from long before the pyramids of Egypt had raised their hoary heads to have a look down upon the valleys of the Nile, such doctrines which do not find any rhyme or reason or necessity to call in the existence of the so-called Diety have been in vogue in India. The followers of the Numerical philosophy of India-The Samkhya School of thought-not only do not postulate any such Divine being but make a definite pronouncement to the effect that "God is not in existence, because of the want of all manner of evidence." Nor the Mimånsaka atheists
259
The Sám
khya, the
Mimansaka
etc. in God.
