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1090
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
by the ego in what is termed the sûkshma sarira in Vedanta, described as 'soul' by St. Paul (I Thes. V. 23).
That there should be some such thing as transmigration of souls, is put beyond the possibility of doubt by the differences of individual character, which the thesis of heredity is unable to explain. As Höffding says, there must be a substratum to be acted upon by variations. Immortal by nature, the soul must have had a past, just as surely as it would have a future. When we look at the formation of the child in the parent's body, we are led to the same conclusion; for there is no one to make it unless it make itself. Karma is discovered to be the determining factor of the differences of form, understanding and circumstances, and furnishes a much more satisfactory explanation of the misery and unhappiness of which there is so much in the world than the hypothesis of the creation of each soul there and then at the time of conception.
So far as the world, the third subject of the metaphysical problem, is concerned, we need only say here that investigation into its nature leads to the conclusion that it is without a beginning and an end in time, though certain portions of it may undergo periodical destruction and reformation from natural causes.
What, then, becomes of the position taken by Idealism which reduces the world to an illusion, pure and simple, and the infinity of souls to one Brahman? The reply is that that which persists in time and is eternal, cannot be dismissed from the mind, even though it be the purest form of illusion. The thinking and willing 'I' is eternal, and the substitution of one 'I' for all the
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