Sacred Philosophy

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

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from the attributes, properties and functions of substances, suffices for the world-process, so that the supposition of a creative fiat to explain the starting point of an imaginary beginning of things is clearly a purely gratuitous assumption. The argument that the observed general harmony of nature, especially of organs and limbs, e.g., the co-ordination between the functions of the mouth and the stomach in the mastication and digestion of food, furnish evidence of design and prove the existence of a world-maker, is easily met ; for, in the absence of hands in the supposed author of things, the things must have had to form themselves. This is tantamount to saying that the substances of nature are endowed with a capacity to assume appropriate forms by virtue of their inherent chemical properties. It is clear that the food which is converted into flesh, blood, bones, saliva,, fæces etc., etc., is not transformed into these forms by a god getting into the human or animal stomach and there changing its contents into so many different things, but in consequence of the chemical action of the secretions of the organs of digestion on the ingredients of the meal. The dignity of a god, it will be further seen, is not enhanced by being regarded as the maker of all sorts of things, including such unsightly filthy ones as saliva, fæces and the like, so that it is