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It thus participates in all the attributes and conditions of the water; while the real sun remains all the time 87 the same and unaffected in the least. Similarly^ Brahman, although in reality uniform and never changing, participates, as it were, in the attributes and the states of the body and the other limiting adjuncts within which It abides without bemg affected in the least. The one infinite Brahman, the one without a second, thus appears as many in the universe; yet it is always and all along one and the same, just as is the sun reflected a thousand-fold in the waves of the sea, the ripples of the rivers and the lakes, &c., and yet there is but one sun. Many similes are founded upon this -resemblance of Brahman and the sun, some of which will be noted later on. Parallel Ideas of Modem Thinkers- From the above authoritative passages an ap- proximate conception of Brahman may be formed. The reader of philosophical literature often meets with ideas parallel to those of the Vedilnta. A few of them are slightly touched upon below. They offer striking and deep-rooted parallels to the Veddnta. The most usual definition given of philosophy is 'the study and knowledge of first principles,’ 'First principles may be taken as equivalent to unity amidst diversity, — to the causes or origins of all things, — to the universal, the necessary, the Ultimate.’ Some de- fine philosophy as the knowledge of the highest degree of generality. Philosophy thus leads the student away from phenomena, appearances, to Nou- menon, the Reality, which lies beneath all phenomena. 1. See the Brahnm-S'&tras, III, 2, 15. 88 We everywhere transforinationa, |)erisbahle aud p^riahing; yet there must be somethiug beneath, ;which is imperishable, immutable. Aud this is what the Vedanta calls Brahman. Socrates is reported to have said:— *' That which imparts truth to the known, and the power ©f knowing to the knower, is what I would have you term the idea of good,^ and that you will regard as the cause of science and of truth, as known by us ; beautiful too, as are both truth and knowledge, you will be right in esteeming this other nature as more beautiful than either; and, as in the previ- ous instance, light and sight may be truly said to be like the sun, and yet not to be the sun, so in this other sphere, science and truth may be deemed like the good, but not the good ; the good has a place of honour yet higher. ** The sun is not only the author of visibility in all visible things, Ibut of generation and nourishment and growth, though he himself is not a generation. In like manner the good may be said to be not only the author of knowledge in all things known, but of their being and essence, and yet the good ( almost analogous to Brahman of theVedS^nta) is not essence, but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.®” 1. This highest idea of the Good is what in religions language would be called the Supreme Being or God, or what the Yedanta would call Brahman. 2, Plato’s Sepuhlic, Bk, VI, 508-9, translated by Jowett. This ideal Good of the Kepublic is the ideal Beauty of the Symposium. The one seems to say to us, remarks Jowett, ‘the idea is truth,’ the other ‘ the idea is love.' In both the lover of wisdom is the spectator (wnft ) of all time all eiu^enoe. 89 “ The whole system of Plotinus revolves round the idea of a threefold principle, trichotomy, or trinity, and of pure intuition. In these respects, it bears a remarkable similarity to the great Ved^ntic system of Indian Philosophy. Deity, Spirit, soul, body, macrocosmic and microcosmic (5^), (i. • Brahman, Jtva, and Jagat ) and the essential identity of the divine in man with the divine in the universe, — or of the Jivdtnian with the Paramdtman — are the main subjects of his system. " Thus from the point of view of the great universe, we have the One Reality, or the Real, the One, the Good ; this is the All-self of the Upanishads, Brahman, or Faramdtman. “ Plotinus bestows much labour on the problem of the Absolute, and reaches the only conclusion possible, viz., that it is inexpressible.”^ • “ There is but one infinite Substance, and that is God. Whatever is, is in God ; and without Him nothing can be conceived. He is the universal Being of which all things are the manifestations. He is the sole Substance, everything else is a Mode; yet, Avithout Substance, Mode cannot exist He is the cause of all things, and that immanently, but not transiently. He has two infinite attributes— ; Extension and Thought. Extension is visible Thought; and Thought is invisible Extension : they are the Objective and Subjective of which God is the Identity There may be many existing things, but only one existence; many forms, but only 1. See Sdwt Works of Plotinus, Preface p. x*., Bohn’s Philosophical Library. 90 one Substance. God is the 'idea immanens’ — One and A11.”J Modern Philosophy draws a distinction between the Unknowable and the Knowable, The sentiment of a First Cause, infinite and absolute, is the eternal and secure basis of all religion. This Unknowable is the Deity ( almost Brahman of the Vedanta ) whom under different names and forms, the votaries of all creeds ignorantly worship. When we turn to phy- sical sciences every persistent impression made upon our consciousness reveals to us an external reality, a reaction, a resistance, and, consequently, a force. The indecomposable mode of consciousness is force. . . All forces are manifestations of the dynamic energy ( Cp. Mdyd or S'ahti of the Vedanta, jrPIT ^ ) everywhere diffused, which co-oi'dinates the whole range of phenomena, past, present and future : an immanent and eternal energy, at once active and passive, subject to perpetual revolution, and maintaining all things in an ever-changing equilibrium. But what is this dynamic energy? We know not. Whether we analyse what passes within or without ourselves, its essence escapes us. The Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable. ( This is what the Vedanta calls M&yd, S'ahti.) This theory is described as an attempt to find the solution of the problem of the universe in a sole law: the persistence of force under multiform transformations. Physical forces, vital forces, mental forces, social forces are all only 1. See Lewes’ Biographietd History of Philosophy. New Ed; p. 430. 91 diflferent manifestations of the self-same Force (Mdyd, S' ahti The whole scheme of things is now regarded as a single organism, advancing methodically through stages of its growth in obedience to inevitable laws of self-expansion (Cp. of the Vedanta) This form-giving spiritual potency is inherent in organism All things in the universe exist in process It is impossible to isolate phenomena from their antecedents and their consequents. The tendency of scientific ideas, in so far as these are remoulding thought in those high regions, is to spiritualise religion and to emancipate the individual from egotism face to face with that universal Being ( Brahman of the Vedanta ) of which he is a part and to the manifestation of which he contributes. In the scientific theory of the universe Nature comes to be regarded as a manifestation of infinite vitality ( ^rst^of the Vedanta ). We are part of Nature; and if in a true sense part, then the truest part of us — ourselves, our con- sciousness, our thought, our emotion, — must be part of Nature; and Nature everywhere, and in all her parts, must contain what corresponds to our spiritual essence. Finding thought to be the very essence of man considered as a natural product, we are ccnnpelled to believe that there is thought of the Vedanta) in all the products which compose this universe. 1. See the Contemporary Review, Art. “ Our Great Philo- sopher.” Mav. 92 To this Power ( God, Brahman of the Ved^lnta) in whom we live and move and have our being, in whom the infinitely great and the infinitely small alike exist, we commit ourselves with the assurance that self, purged of egotism, is seeking its own best through dedication Law and God — the order of the whole regarded as a process of unerringly unfolding energy have become for religious men of scientific spirit so all in all that a wish for self, an egotistical aspiration is quelled at once as infantine, undisciplined, irrelevant. Love ( siT'Paf, Bliss of the Ved&nta) forms the binding element of human existence What an extension of its province has the virtue of love received from Science I It is no longer confined to families and friends and fellow-countrymen It covers the whole creation and the world of man^s inventions.^ “From Thee, great God ! we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide. Original, and end.” Boethius de cons. (Translated by Dr. Johnson.) Boswell’s Life P. I. -p. 97. “All are but parts of one stupendous whole. Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; That, chang’d thro’ all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in th’ ethereal frame; Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze. Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees. Lives thro’ all life, extends thro’ all extent. Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part. As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart: 1. See the Fortnightly Bevieto, Art. ‘ Ihe i^ogress of Thought in Our Time.’ June, 1887. As full, 8s perfect, in vile l^Utn that mourns, As the rapt Seraph that adores and bums : To him no high, no low, no great, no small ; He fills, he bounds, connects and equals alL " Pope’s Eamy on Man, Epistle 1. 1. ^7-SSO.