Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism

Author(s): S C Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 84

80 Structure and Functions of Soul in Jainism
in the form of mind and matter from the same continuum is not possible. Whether we make use of the process of arrangement or the process of differentiation, the problem stands unsolved. The belief in the existence of neutral particulars subject to no process of arrangement and in the existence of continuum undifferentiated is unwarranted. We do not understand why a part of reality should remain unarranged and undifferentiated, while the rest is incessantly undergoing the same process. We may conclude that neither the theory of neutral particulars nor that of the original continuum can be said to have explained the existence of the soul or matter in the universe.
Hume's View of the Self
Berkeleyan dictum of 'esse est percipi' was carried to its logical extreme by Hume. He applied it in case of the self also and thus negated its existence. He observes: "for my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble at some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception and can never observe anything but the perception." Thus for Hume the self became simply a cluster of ideas or perceptions, as the external world was for Berkeley. Barkeley could find nothing in the perceptions of the external world, which could have proved its existence; but he safeguarded the existence of the self without which the perceptions of the external world could not have been possible. Hume, on the other hand, could see nothing in the perceptions of the self which could have proved the existence of the self itself. If the reality of the external world is negated on the ground that we get nothing but perceptions about it, then Hume does no mistake in negating the existence of the self on the same ground. The main idea underlying Berkeleyan and Humean thesis is that the substance of the
1. Hume: The Philosophical Works of David Hume, vol. I,
p. 312