Jainism and World Problems

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

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JAINISM IN) WORLD PROBLEMS
always, and proceeded to demolish the view, in his usually brilliant manner. Of course, he was successful in his destructive criticism ; but it never occurred to him that what he had demolished, with so much ability and elaboration, was a mere misconception started by a third-rate thinker in theology and not the true view of Religion proper. He was too much in haste and too much swayed by prejudice to be able to know that. None of his followers has thus far discovered his error. They, too, are prejudiced against the section of men who possess the true view, and too much in baste to formulate and broadcast an opinion to be qualified for the acquisition of truth,
The orientalists who laboriously tried to unravel the mysteries of the Wisdom of the East were perhaps less in haste than Haeckel and Strong, but they were swayed by overpowering prejudice against heathenism' generally, and could not be induced to look deep into the 'quaint' conceptions they came across in the Ancient Lore. They, one and all, failed even to realize that most of the Eastern Scriptures were composed in allegorical language. Hurry, prejudice, brilliance' again are responsible for the result. As a matter of fact, the West has still to learn that the language of the Biblical Script, too, is pictorial, and not plain. The Orientalists did not understand their own religion, how could they be expected to understand that of any one else?
Amongst the modern books I like McDougall's.“ Body and Mind." Mr. McDougall is a psychologist of note and his refutation of Materialism in its different phases appeals to my mind very much. I give a few quotations from the book named to show how he deals with the arguments of those who would deny the existence of Soul.
“......the biologicai argument from continuity of evolution makes against Epiphenomenalism ; for the appearance of consciousness at some undefined point in the course of