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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
the human mind for conceptual thought. Let us see this illustrated.
Strychnine is one of the things that are fatal to life. It has killed many men, and many persons have taken it to commit suicide. From their point of view, it is the destroyer of life. Nevertheless strychnine also acts as the restorer of health, and consequently as the preserver of life, and many persons bear grateful testimony to its curative properties. From the point of view of these men strychnine is not the destroyer of life. We thus have :
(1) S is poison when considered with respect to the cases of those that have been killed by it.
(2) Sis not poison when considered with reference to the cases of those who have been cured by it. HENCE
S may be P and S may not be P at the same time.
Whether we consider the value of S with respect to the individuals who have been affected by it or with respect to the doses in which it was administered, the result will remain the same, since in some cases S will be P and in some not P. This gives us the first two propositions of the Jaina Syadvada.
The third proposition arises, when we wish to define S not with respect to a small number of cases where it has acted as a poison nor with respect to those where it has acted as the preserver of health and life, but with respect to all cases indiscriminately, at one and the same time. The question is: what is it to be termed then? Here we are not considering its definition with reference to a particular group of facts where it is known to have killed men, nor with respect to another group of facts where it is known to have acted in a different way, but with respect to all such possible groups at one and the same time. If we now answer the question by saying that S is P (Poison), the answer is not descriptive of the entirety of the attributes of S. Similarly, if we say 'S is not P,' it will not be defining the object of enquiry fully, and will only yield half-truths that might prove to be very dangerous, in certain cases. Thus what was true from a particular point of view, that is, with respect to certain cases, is not true from the general point of view. Should we, then, say
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