Samayasara OR Nature of Self

Author(s): A Chakravarti
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 19

хүili
SAMAYASARA which Bacon calls 'Idola’ should be entirely got rid of and the student of science should approach Nature with an unbiassed open mind which alone will give a correct insight into the Laws of Nature. This experimental method prescribed by Bacon if adopted by a student of science will give inductive generalisations relating to the constitution of Nature and her Laws, generalisations which would be of a certain amount of high probability. Though the inductive generalisations arrived at by scientific research do not have the absolute certainty, characteristic of mathematical propositions, they were considered by Bacon to be of great practical value for the benefit of mankind. This attitude has been perfectly justified by the development of modern science with the practical application of scientific generalisations which have transfomed the life of man in the modern world. Such a reconstruction of human society based upon scientific achievements was foreseen by Bacon in his essay on the New Atlantis This new experimental approach to Nature has conquered for science realm after realm departments of Nature as Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, Geology etc. This successful conquest of the realms of Nature by science resulted in complete climination of mind of man as a factor for interpretation of natural events. This elimination of consciousness completely from the field of research ultimately resulted in scientific reconstruction of Natutc as a huge mechanical system in which the Law of Causation was the only principle of operation. In this mechanical system all events are guided by necessary causal conditions. There is no scope of intellectual interference either to modify or to suppress the occurrence of natural events according to the desires of man. The old thought wluch entertained thc possibility of interference with the natural events by supernatural agencies was completely discredited as a pure mythology having no place in the realm of Nature, whose constitution is revealed to the student of Science. This inductive method adopted by modern science finally resulted in the generalisation of conservation of mass and energy as the basis of nature and in relcgation of consciousness to an extremely subordinate place as a sort of a by-product in the operation of natural events. Such a general