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THE SIDDHANTA.
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made up ? Mr. Hugh S. R. Elliot, the author of “Modern Science and The Illusions of Professor Bergson," denies that every one possesses that kind of intuition which enables one to realize the truth of this philosophy; and he is probably not the only one who holds that opinion. The question is, how is he to be met ? That the philosophy is true is no answer, since it has to be proved, before assent can be given to its accuracy. This is not the only difficulty with the advocates of the phi. losophy of Change. How is a universe to be constructed, in Time and Space, from pure becoming ? In what way, again, do the different processes differ from one another ? Have they no fixed types of their own? What again is recollection, and who exercises it, and how ? Further, how comes it that the flux happens to have selected a direction which is fraught with pain and misery to the untold millions of individuals who appear on its surface in the course of its unceasing, unending, and apparently aimless journey? What is the goal which it is marching towards ?
Such are the difficulties which arise in the path of the philosophers of change, who have nothing else but pure becoming at the root of the world-process. If they will only reflect sufficiently on the nature of deception, in ordinary cases it is merely synonymous with a sense of inner conviction, all the more vague, unreasoning and unreliable because not proceeding from intellectual determination. If such random flashes of native wit could be accepted as furnishing accurate data for human guidance, every lunatic would have a right to fill the chair of philosophy or to rank as a patron of science. There must be a guarantee against self-deception in the declarant, and no guarantee is good enough from a man who is not able to remove the element of vagueness from his own convictions,
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