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THE JAINA PHILOSOPHY
as Berkeley is fond of putting Berkeley takes recourse to divine assistance to reconcile his theory with the common sense conviction that things do not cease to exist when our perception is discontinued and also the fact that we cannot perceive what we please and where we please He explains the continuity of the physical existence by saying that God produces perception in a fixed order and that when our perception is discontinued, God continues to be aware of things
Jains accept the evstence of an omniscient experience ie a perfect and absolute apprehension of the whole reality which is presented as it really is in its completeness or rather the whole is presented at once in its entirety Notwithstanding the apprent similanity, there is a fundamental difference between the two views Whereas Berkeley asserts that the existence of the physical order is dependent on its being perceived by God, Jains believe that the existence of things is real and independent of perception, things are perceived because they exist
Sir Arthur Eddington an eminent physicist calls his philosophy 'selective subjectivism and asserts that It is quite different from solipsism and Berkeley's empiricism He makes a distinction hetween the actual existence of the external world and our experience of the same Thus "in so far as we can separate the subjective and objective elements in our experience the subjective is to be identified with the physical and the objective with the conscious and spirtual aspects of experience. This means that though the material world exists it does not appear in our experience or observational knowledge Thus, although he accepts the objective existence of matter 4 Cf Ihid
