English
" I don't quite understand how you make intellect an evolution of Pracriti, even on your own system, I mean, or at least considering it in relation to its affinities. For the Bauddha Mdni has made intelligence something eternally coexistent with INTELLECT AS SENSIBILITY. 53 matter; and you, I believe, consider soul as also eternal; so that I should have expected you to speak quite as honourably of intellect as the Bauddha does of intelligence, which seems nearly the same thing, and I should have thought you would have made it an accompaniment of soul, rather than a mere evolution of matter ; for this Pracriti after all seems only to be the most subtle and plastic form of matter." Sad. " Pardon me, the facts do not lead us in that direction, and accurate knowledge must follow facts. You will readily acknowledge that intellect understands something. What does it understand ? Evidently it takes cognizance of objects before our eyes, of things that are bom and decay. Again, by what means does it apprehend them ? Evidently by instruments of sensation, or organs more or less bodily, that is, either of the grosser or the more subtle body. What is intellect then, but something correlative and congenerate with these organs, which are themselves evolved out of the Pracriti, with the kindred evo- lutions of which they are again conversant. Intellect involves sensation, and therefore the pre-existence of Pracriti, which you may term, if you please, primary or plastic matter. Whereas, on the contrary, soul is that observant and eternally existent principle, before the eye of which, if it be duly purged, nature exhibits herself like a dancer going through many postures, and twisting herself into a thousand shapes." Blan. " It would seem then as if you meant by intellect something different from the Bauddha intelligence, while some- thing more nearly resembling the latter seems implied in your term, soul; although indeed the Bauddhas appear to make their intelligence capable of a certain development, whether it should be called refinement or evolution ; so that I am almost embarrassed by the resemblance of your doctrines and at the same time by their discrepancy. But pray tell me, is nature then in your theory soul-less, and does she move"" under the control of any higher principle, or independently, and as it collaterally?" C4 DRAMATIC ANALOGIES. Sad. " If you understood clearly what I have already said, you would see that nature, containing in herself the plastic element of life, neither needs the control of soul, nor would indeed submit to it. But doubtless each stage in the self- evolution of Pracriti has a connexion with the stage which follows, as well as with that which precedes. Therefore intellect, being once evolved, exercises a certain influence on what follows, and becomes capable of inserting by its inherent power a certain modifying control, such as I should not wonder if you were to call creativeness, but which is with me rather a result, and again a relative cause to what follows." Blan. " But on such a theory, where is the necessity for what you term soul ; or why do you encumber your system with such a supposition?" Sad. " Surely you would not have a theatre and many cunning performers without a spectator ? Evidently there must be a looker-on, in order to enjoy. Soul, then, is the enjoyer." Blan. " I should like to ask, if I was not afraid of per- plexing the statement of your opinions by extrinsic arguments, what is the meaning of that word * must,' or, again, of the corresponding word * ought,' and why one thing must or ought to be, rather than another. But I suppose you would send me back to your old answer about inherent qualities, though I am not at all satisfied that being is owing, or that *is' should be considered an equivalent for ^ must be.' Perhaps, however, you discern in the system of nature, or rather collaterally to it, certain evidences of the existence of what you term soul." Sad. " Indeed we do. For it is clear from our own con- sciousness that soul exists, and that it is multitudinous. For although men are often blinded by a passionate conception of being something distinct in themselves, and doing something each man for himself, so that he says, I am the cause of such things, and, I will also effect others, it becomes, on the other hand, clear to any vision purged by knowledge, that it is the great working of nature in us which implants certain instincts, PERSONALITY AND SOUL. 55 paints as it were pictures, and lures or propels us as parts of herself into whatever inclination or action we blindly fancy is some origination of our own. Nature, I say, develops herself in our being, exhibits herself in our form, and plays as it were a manifold drama in the series of our passionate struggles. So that the conception of a man's independent individuality, as if he could say in building kingdoms, or rearing children, I did, or I ^dll, must be utterly discarded as an illusion ; for it is clear that we could do nothing of the kind, if such eflfects were no* already involved in their causes ; and the causes operate in us from the unceasing evolution of nature. " But now, you will please to notice, that besides all this human development which flatters itself with the conceit of an independent personality, each man has also in him a certain prin- ciple which observes, and reflects, and knows. Now this principle indeed may be so blinded by passion and darkness, the two great obstructions of knowledge, (though again these are capable in some combinations of giving forth a certain higher product, as we have farther back seen them to be phases of intellect,) that it con- sents to the illusion I have already spoken of, and believes each man to stand himself as something apart from nature. But when this observant principle has risen clearly above passion and darkness, like a man on some mountain-peak, below whose feet the clouds roll heavily, it discovers itself to have been distinct ; it recognises as it were its own being, no longer as a mere human consciousness of a personal agent, but as a faculty of most bright and spiritual vision. Then it takes note calmly from aside of all the processes of life and action, and pronounces them to be mere displays of nature, which once disturbed it, but are now for its amusement. Nature then having been discovered in the dressing-room of the theatre ceases to delude with her imagery, and ceases even to be, according to the vulgar conception of being. For all her ordinary forms and manifes- tations are resolved back by knowledge, which is the eye of the soul, into mere Pracriti, that is, as I have already said, into. the 56 PERSONALITY AND NATURE. mere essence of life sporting itself. The world therefore in a way no longer is ; tliat is to say, it no longer is the world, but only a play of nature ; the illusion is discovered, and the play is over, but the soul enjoys knowledge, and by knowledge, as it is written in the sacred Veda, obtains the water of immortality." Blan. *' This is a wonderful sort of drama which you de- scribe. It is not however clear to me, why the whole perform- ance is undertaken, since at the end the only result attained is the knowledge of the illusion." Sad. ^' Such a remark implies blame on the art of the poet ; and neither our great poems of the Ramayana and the lilahibhi- rata would be written, nor would our famous plays, either the serious ones, such as the Prabodha Chandrodaya, or the more playful, such as the Mrichchakati, ever have been presented on a stage even before famous kings, if mankind did not feel a pleasure in observing them, and also in discovering the illusion. For you know, men often rejoice in observing things represented dramatically, which, if they conceived of them as real actions, would be considered painful and horrible. Even so to the blinded individualist, who thinks himself and all other men are independent persons, each doing or suffering I know not what in a personal freewill, the crimes and sufferings, which abound through the world, must necessarily be a source of pain; but when soul has triimiphed over such an illusion, and, on looking back, sees only the sport of Pracriti developing itself, just as water flows into any vessel or crevice of any possible shape, without being injured or anxious, soul then rejoices, and is pleased both with the drama, and also with having dissipated the illusion." Blan.