English
" If such a knowledge be ever actually attainable, it must be, I conceive, because the things really are as you imagine; but then such a picture would almost dazzle the mental gaze, and its very idea would be too tremendous and overwhelming for any finite soul to apprehend. But possibly you may conceive of the soul as partaking somewhat of the DIVERSITY OF SOULS. 57 divine infinity, or perhaps you think in some way approaching to the Vedanta doctrine, that all souls are one." Sad. "The two suppositions of which you offer me an option are neither identical, nor does one necessarily imply the other. We admit the soul to be in a way infinite, for no bounds can be set to its knowledge, either of things past in time or distant in space; so that it is present as much with things supposed to have been acted a thousand years ago, as with things appearing to pass before our eyes. Each soul then is infinite in the sense that no limits can be assigned to its capacity of knowledge. But, on the other hand, we are as far as possible from conceding to the adherents of the Veddnta philosophy that all souls are one. On the contrary, one of the ends of the more discriminating system, which we call S^khya, is to dissipate such an error, and bring men back to the simpler truth affirmed by our consciousness. It is almost self-evident that, if all souls were one, all men would be simultaneously feeling alike ; and if one man married, and another lost his father, they would both be rejoicing and both be mourning in the same instant. Many other absurd consequences would also follow. But, as the case stands, we find the soul of one man rejoicing, and that of another afflicted ; one enlightened by knowledge, and another ignorant ; nay, even the different conceptions which the Vedantists and we ourselves form of the same opinions, sufficiently prove our souls to be distinct. Neither again do I, myself, follow Patanjali and other doctors, who have partly taught the Sankhya wisdom, and partly departed from it, in making mere devotion, or mystical contemplation, the best way of liberating the soul from such illusions as have been described. On the contrary, Capila has more correctly taught us, that the soul is to be liberated by knowledge ; and to this opinion, even the Vedas, already quoted, partly assent.'* Blan. " Souls then, it seems according to you, are many, and they are to be liberated by knowledge rather than by mystical contemplation. Your method then is scientific, rather 58 DEITIES than devotional. But am I to understand that those deities, whom you mentioned with respect, and especially Vishnu, the preserver, are at the head of all souls ; or what conception am I to form of them?'' Sad. " Clearly from what has been said, it follows that the deities are not above soul ; for then they would no longer be preservers. Soul, I must remind you, is the enjoyer, the ob- server, or the recipient; and it is the excellence of soul to be liberated from anxiety about this lower world, or any other interest in it, except such enjoyment as a contemplation of the play of self-fashioning nature may reasonably afford. But the deities are employed in regulating and controlling all sorts of lower processes. It remains then only that they be high forms, and probably very glorious and eminent forms, of intellect." Blan. " But I imderstood you that intellect is the first evolution of nature." Sad. " Rightly so; for it is clear that intellect is so evolved out of the plastic energies of the lively principle." Blan. "But who then is your creator, your lawara^ or your supreme Lord? Can any less than such a one be the preserver? Who then put the drama of nature on the stage, or built the theatre, on which those wonderful evolutions display themselves? You know the earthly poem implies a poet, and every building, whether intended for a drama or for other things, must have had a builder. Supposing then all nature to be, as you imagine, a certain divine or world-long drama, we require for so grand a performance a master-manager, and a builder as much above earthly architects as this framework of the heavens and the earth is above all earthly mansions and theatres." Sad. " Your question shews the danger of introducing into scientific discussion ornamental imagery. When our treatises speak, as they do, of nature exhibiting herself like a dancer, they mean only to illustrate an abstruse subject by a common image. You must not, however, push a metaphor beyond the purpose for which it was intended. We have already seen that EVOLUTIONS. 59 all visible effects in nature are resolvable into one infinitely subtle element. Now as to any creator, he could (as a matter of possibility) bring nothing out of this element which was not already involved in it, for effects must be contained in causes ; and again, (as a matter of necessity,) no external care seems particularly needed to produce what goes on reproducing and fashioning itself; though I do not mean, as already has been made clear, that intellect as an evolution of nature is not an efficacious principle in helping forward the various processes as they continue up to a particular point of the cycle, and then, being resolved, re-enact themselves. Now if, as you appear to wish, we represented soul as a creator, we should first disturb soul with unworthy anxieties, instead of leaving it the serene contemplation which is its highest excellence; and secondly, we should assign it an impossible task of creating ; and thirdly, an unnecessary trouble of guiding. Whereas, by the scientific analysis of principles, we find all that is required to be contained in these two things, nature the blind worker, and soul the enjoying spectator. As to the deities then which we honour, different opinions may perhaps innocently be held ; but we see no harm in considering them as glorious and eminent links in that grand cyclical series of living things, in which nature by her mysterious power is developed. They pervade, they con- trol, they preserve. Their destiny perhaps is higher, and their existence more protracted that that of man, in proportion as higher or subtler intellect has evolved itself in their sacred forms ; but in the infinite roll of ages they, like ourselves, must become subject to the eternal law of change ; their wisdom and their power have bubbled up out of the froth of the abysmal ocean as it heaves with existence, and in time they will subside, and give place to others, whether better or worse. For time is hard to overcome. Many things have been, and many will be, but the grand whole suffers neither increase nor lessening. You have seen a spider throwing out a hundred threads along the dewy branches of the lotus in the early morning, and again the 60 SA'NKUYA THEISM ILLUSORY; same spider draws in the same threads, neither losing nor gaining any particle in its vital totality. Thus the Veddntists teach; and, without confusing, as they do, Soul and Matter, we agree so far as to say, thus the world of nature puts forth threads of existence. Some are longer, and some are shorter, but all are alike resumed into the capacious form of the universal mother." So far, or at some such point as this, for perhaps I have not the exact words, Saddnanda had arrived, when Blancombe ut- tered, as it were involuntarily, an exclamation of astonishment, and said he had neither expected, nor could he quite understand, on wliat principle it could be held that divine beings could pass away. Then after some discussion how far the deities ought to be held to have souls, which Saddnanda declared had nothing to do with their personality, but so far as souls were attached to divini- ties, he said they would enjoy the same capacity of liberation by knowledge as the souls of human beings, Blancombe pro- ceeded : "I cannot conceal from you that this S^nkhya doctrine, if it be the most scientific, is also to my weak faculties the most awful, not to say alarming, of any I have heard.