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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
is to encourage expression rather than reflection and sobriety of thought; and the modern illuminati delight to assert their opinion where the ancients would have hesitated even to open their lips. We are told in the article alluded to above :
"The dogmatic part of Jain Philosophy
is altogether irreconcilable when taken in conjunction with its dialectical part, viz., the famous Syadvada theory. As is well-known, this theory denies the possibility of any predication : S may be, or may not be, or may both be and not be P. With such a purely negative or agnostic attitude one cannot afford to have any dogma; and Shankaracharya lays his finger accurately on the weakest point in the system when he says:-' As thus the means of knowledge, the object of knowledge, the knowing subject, and the act of knowledge, are all alike indefinite, how can the Tirthamkara teach with any claim to authority, and how can His followers act on a doctrine the matter of which is altogether indeterminate ?"""
Such is the expression of opinion of some of the non-Jaina thinkers about the value and worth of the Syadvada. We shall try to determine the merit of the doctrine in this article to ascertain whether the fault lies in the bat's eye that is not able to perceive things at noonday sun or whether there be in reality nothing to perceive in the shape of the 'glories of Nature.'
Now, there is a marked conflict between the object and in our description of it. The main differences consist (1) in respect of the entirety of bundles of attributes and qualities which are present in the object all at once, but which human speech can only deal with one by one, and (2) in respect, of the negative qualities which human thought discovers and locates in the object, but which the object refuses to be burdened with. The first of these causes of conflict between human speech and the object in nature only too obvious to need any further explanation, for howsoever small or insignificant an object, it is nevertheless the repository of an infinity of attributes a great many of which are not even known to man. The second cause needs elucidation here.
That Nature abhors vacuum is a well-known principle of science, and is recognized by all. But it is not generally realized that nature also abhors a negation, and will not tolerate it on any condition. Of course, nothing but what is endowed with existence can possibly
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