Sacred Philosophy

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

Page 21

tative changes two or more substances or things with different* properties will have to be combined and compounded together, or those existing in combinations separated. But it is not stated that the primitive conscious nucleus or soul bound up in one atom of matter is different from that in another, so that on the supposition of the groupings of atoms we bave a simple case of augmentation, which, as stated before, is insufficient and inadequate to account for the facts and functions of the higher forms of consciousness. As the nature of a drop of water is not altered by its being merged in a large mass of other similar drops, so is not the alteration of nature and function conceivable for crude atomic' souls' by intensification. This is sufficient to dispose of the absurd thesis that souls are produced from atoms of matter. The independence of the soul from matter is evident from the nature of memory, which certainly cannot be a function of what is itself created or secreted afresh, every moment, after the
* It is not to be supposed that the case of the four natural elements, fire, water and the like, constitutes an exception to this rule, for while it is true that all atoms are alike in respect of their general qualities as matter, they are not alike with respect to their chemical and other kinds of specific properties-colour and the like--as atoms. The elements are thus composed of different kinds of atoms and cannot be said to be the resultant of a pure process of augmentation or intensification of a single property or attribute.