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The Greek and the Non-Indian theories of elements were wrong, in as much as what they considered to be elements were found to be compound substances. The Indian theory, on the other hand, we venture to think, cannot be taken exception to. Its Bhūta's are only the potential substances which form the basis of all material objects having sensuous qualities. The Bhūta's are thus the potential backgrounds or basal possibilities of the sensuous qualities in the gross material matters. As such, they are the ultimate material reals, infinitely simpler than the elements and bereft of all traces of grossness, the very last meta-empirical bases of all things material.
RESEARCHES TOWARDS REDUCING DIVERSE ELEMENTS TO ONE ULTIMATE MATTER-STUFF
Recent spectroscopic observations have led the scientists to surmise that at least some of the elements may be further decomposed. This means that those elements may not be the simple substances which we think them to be but are compounds of simpler bodies. Indeed the idea is getting widely prevalent in the scientists' world that although we have not yet succeeded in decomposing them, most of what we call elements may be compounds and that all matter may ultimately be of one kind only. Thales, Heraclitus and Anaximenes attempted, as we have seen, to reduce all matter to one elemental substance but their elements were too gross to be such ultimate principles. The possibility of reducing all material substances into one element was foreseen by Aristotle who called this ultimate principle Materia Prima. Boyle also had some idea of "but one universal matter of things'. It is interesting to trace a similar tendency to minimise the distinctive characters of the Bhūta's in some of the schools of Indian philosophy. The Çārvāka's appear to have upheld the doctrine of absolute discreteness of each of the four elements. The Nyāya-Vaiseșika of course upholds the theory of five independent elements. But the difference between the Bhūta's is to some extent mitigated when it is said that Pșthvi has the four attributes of smell, taste,
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