What is Jainism

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Champat Rai Jain

Page 99

PSYCHOLOGY WITH A SOUL W ONDERFUL enlightenment is reached by the investigation of the
nature of knowledge.
Knowledge is an affection, or a feeling-the sense of awareness of an object or thing. Outside me are things, not knowledge ; inside me is knowledge, not things.
The current of vibrations (sensory stimulus) that comes from the external object is not loaded with knowledge. It is only matter in motion, or motion of matter (that is, matter or energy, in one form or another). Only in contact with a conscious substance does it occasion knowledge (perception) ; otherwise only a material or mechanical phenomenon will ensue.
The mere formation of the outline of an object on the retinæ or elsewhere will not account for perception. No image is formed through the senses other than sight. Visual perception itself only gives us an inverted image which is the reverse of how things are perceived. There is, again. a great difference between the microscopical retinal image and the mental percept, which may represent half the world ! The main difficulty remains yet to be stated. How is the retinal image itself perceived ? Is it its outline that is felt? And, by whom ? Does perception merely consist in a feeling of contact with the image formed in the eye, or further back, say, in the perceptive centres of the brain ? If so, it will only give us a number of simultaneous touchfeelings-a co-extensive series of sensations of touch along the outlines or over the area filled by the image. But how shall we account for the brightness and colour that play such an important part in visual perception ? The external stimulus, it would thus seem, merely calls out what is already there inside ; it is not itself transformed into perception--colour, smell, sounds, etc.
Again, perception will be impossible for a composite substance. A composite substance lacks in individualization. Different parts of
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