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JAINISM AND WORLD PROBLEMS
The same is the case with those who are blinded by uncontrollable passions-excessive greed, pride, deceit or anger. Even when these forces of delusion are happily curbed it is not enough. There must be clarity of the intellect; even intellectual drowsiness will suffice to prevent the mind from being impressed with the need for scientific thought. Then comes the hearing of the discourse, that is of the true explanation of the nature of things, to be adopted as a basis for investigation. The thesis is too sublime to be formed spontaneously by the mind in the first instance. But even all this that has been accomplished thus far is not sufficient; for it is still possible for the mind to reject the teaching, unless the fourth labdhifurther clarity of the intellectual nature, that is sobriety of thought-is present to counteract the tendency that will reject the doctrine in haste. And, finally, there must be actual thinking and grappling with the subtlest of the problems of Life, effectively, to arrive at satisfactory results.
In the case of those learned speculators who are not possessed of the labdhis, their very brilliance' prevents their bestowing adequate time and thought on the greatest of all the problems; they are chokeful of their assumptions and presumptions, and prone to reject the true hypothesis at once. Some of them will not even take the trouble to understand what they are required to criticise, and consider it beneath their dignity to find out what religion really taught, or are ready to accept, in a hurry, the views of any particular individual or sect and take them to be the universally accepted version of things.
I may refer to the following criticism of soul nature by Prof. Strong (see McDougall's "Body and Mind," page 124)::
"What could the soul itself, apart from consciousness be? It has been carefully distinguished from and opposed to consciousness, therefore it cannot have the latter's luminous nature...... For the existence of consciousness is our
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