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62
T. G. Kalghatgi
after our own eyes have closed in death, that it is we who shall look through their hearts,36
but it is an illusion to think eyes or feel the beat of their
Pringle-Pattison says that McTaggart's metaphysical argument
to rest entirely on his definition of the self, and "the definition I am bound to say seems to be no better than a dogma". Dr. McTaggart's use of the term substance (though he tries to safeguard himslf) carries us back to the discredited soul substance which we have so fully criticised.88 Dr. McTaggart's supposition that self is a metaphysical substrate in which. personal identity lies is not an adequate explanation for the continuity of successive lives, as continuity is never realised owing to the absence of memory.
Pringle-Pattison senses a difficulty in accepting the theory of reincarna. tion on the assumption of determinate number of souls. Plato said The souls that exist must be always the same." They cannot become fewer, nor yet can they become more numerous.89 In the Timaeus he says their number is equal to the number of the stars,40 "for McTaggart also the selves are fundamental differentiations' of the Absolute, determinate in nature and number. 'It is the nature of the Absolute to be manifested in precisely those differentiations in which it is manifested." "Bradley pointed out that there is one sense in which the immortality of souls seems impossible. We must remember that the universe is incapable of increase. And to suppose a constant supply of new souls, none of which ever perished, would clearly land us in the end in an insoluble difficulty."
According to Pringle-Pattison the difficulty arises due to the wrong conception of substance which is based on physical analogy. It has been said by a woman critic that Reincarnation makes childhood, which appeares beautiful and holy, a gigantic lie. She says it is hard to conceive how any mother can look into the dawning intelligence of her child's eyes, and be satisfied to believe that in innumerable past lives that same soul has gone through experience savage and civilized, has probably been in turn harlot or rake, victim or tyrant, wife or warrior, layman or priest, and perhaps all these a hundred times.43
36, Pringle-Pattison (A. S.): Idea of Immortality, p. 127, 37. Ibid., p. 127.
38. Ibid., p. 123.
39. The Republic, p. 611.
40. The Timaeus, p. 41
41. Pringle-Pattison (A. S.): Idea of Immortality, p. 127, 42. Appearance and Reality, p. 502.
43. Pringle Pattison, Idea of Immortality, p. 129.
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