English
Indeed, for the Vedanta at least the question of ethics centres in the reality of self, and this is confessedly metaphysical. The issue concerning the nature of self or self-realisation is one that traverses the entire range of Christian versus pre- Christian mode of thinking. As Prof. Pringle- Pattison phrases this momentous issue. “ The essential feature of the Christian conception of the ggg A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OP THE VEDINTA world, in contrast to the Hellenic, may be said to be that it regards the person and the relations of persons to one another as the essence of reality, whereas Greek thought conceived of personality, however spiritual, as a restrictive characteristic of the finite—a transitory product of a life which as a whole is impersonal. Modern Absolutism seems, in this respect, to revert to the pre-Christian mode of conception, and to repeat also the too exclusively intellectualistic attitude, which characterizes Greek thought in the main.”* What is affirmed here of Modern Absolutism, or for the matter of that, of the pre-Christian, pagan or Hellenic thought, applies mutatis mutandis to Samkara’s absolutism which, as presenting the notion of individuality or personal¬ ity in too exclusively intellectualistic terms, errs, if at all, in no less honourable company, so far as it also subscribes to the ‘ episodic ’ as well as restric¬ tive nature of finite self-hood or personality. After all is said and done, it remains to be seen whether Prof. Pringle-Pattison himself has not at times strained his logic to the breaking-point or compromised his monistic persuasion in philosophy in his stainless allegiance to the ‘ profound personal¬ ism of Christianity,’ which is the acknowledged source of his inspiration and the special teaching of his revered teacher A. C. Eraser. Moreover, on a general survey of Prof. Pringle-Pattison’s part in this acute controversy, it may not unreasonably appear that it becomes in the end a verbal one, * lita of Ood, p. 391. THE ETHICS OP THE VEDANTA 869 turning as it .does on the interpretation put upon that highly ambiguous word ‘ self.’ To begin with, he intimates his agreement in advance with the rejection of the notion of ‘ the personal self as an exclusive entity, simply living out a nature of its own.’ Then he proceeds to say that “ nothing could be truer ” than to say, as Bosanquet does, that ‘ ‘ we are finite which means incomplete, and not fitted to be absolute ends. We must have something greater than our finite selves to contemplate. We want something above us, something to make us dare and do and hope to be, ’ ’ for this “is the familiar paradox of the ethical and religious life, dying to live, self- realization through self-sacrifice, self-development through absorption in objective interest and in the currents of the universal life.”* Lastly, in quoting with evident approval one of Bosanquet’s character¬ istic utterances on the nature of finite self to the effect that * a true self is something to be made and won, to be held together with pains and labour, not something given to be enjoyed,’ he seems to have gone rather too far to recede to his initial position with regard to' the conservation of the finite self as such. If, as he thinks, * an exaggerated emphasis upon ’ the question of immortality—not to speak of the ‘ personal ’ type of it—‘ tends to become unhealthy,* may not the same logic be extended to the case of ‘ personality ’ which, as bound up with ‘the hope of immortality,’ is admittedly, one of those ‘ secondary and inferential things ’ on which * we 47 * Ibid, p. 294. 370 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE VEDINTA cannot afford to stake our whole position? Clearly, Prof. Pringle-Pattison has not been able to make out a case for preferential treatment of * personality ■ as distinct from that meted out to ‘ personal immortality.’ It is his ethical predilec¬ tions that dictate terms to his logic, and he even¬ tually plays false to it and prevaricates the issue. The logic of idealism, truly conceived and faithfully carried out to its ultimate consequences with vertical consistency cannot stop short at a ‘ Personal Idealism ’ of which Prof. Pringle-Pattison among many others is the notable exponent in the West. Indeed, the phrase is a misnomer; that is probably why Bosanquet, the impenitent and uncompromising idealist, denies to such a type of thinking the philosophic consecration of ‘ idealism ’ and calls it merely ‘ Personalism ’ and that an ‘ irrational ’ one, in as much as Prof. Pringle-Pattison abandons the lead of logic and reason, and develops, in a centri¬ fugal direction, the ethical concept of Personality, without reckoning with the centripetal force of an idealistic metaphysics. Such a type of meta¬ physical thinking will at once be branded ' as ethically inspired metaphysics ’ and, therefore as bad metaphysics, by Mr. Bertrand Russell, and the arraignment is quite justified. You may or may not ; choose to play the game of idealistic thinking, but once you join it, you cannot play as you choose. Remaining strictly loyal to the spirit of the ‘ whole,’ as Bosanquet would say, Idealism must needs consi- * Ibid, pp. 44-46. THE ETHICS OE THE VEDANTA 371 der the claims of logic to be absolute and paramount, and pay hostage to this ‘ jealous ’ God and no other; that is, in other words idealism cannot stop at a half-way house like Personal Idealism, but must advance along the same road until it finds a final resting-place in Absolute Idealism. Indeed, the issue in contemporary philosophy between Absolute Idealism and Personal Idealism is really the com¬ petition of logical categories with ethical ones, for supremacy and absolutism—to the extent of being the determinant of a metaphysical construction. LECTURE XII Thh Cultural Value op the Vedanta: A Retrospect If philosophy, as we believe, is a matter of illumination or darianam, a world-view or Weltan¬ schauung, its importance as a factor in general cul¬ ture can hardly be over-estimated. What forces this fact into a well-deserved prominence is Max Muller’s description of the Vedanta as ‘the native philosophy of India’—a description that may, in all fairness, be said to form the keynote of this course of lectures. Nothing could be a more accurate description of the Vedanta philosophy, philosophy, being in ultimate analysis, only life brought to the focus of self-consciousness. In appraising the net value of these world-views or philosophies, one must, however, remember that the ‘views of the world which proceed from the spirits of different ages, as products of the general development of culture, are not so much thoughts as rhythms in thinking, not theories but modes of intuition saturated with feelings of worth.’ Ac¬ cordingly, a systematic survey of these world-views as they appear in their historical succession, or to put it briefly, a history of philosophy has to avoid two extremes: that of a rigid panlogism, such as that of Hegel, proceeding from an over-emphasis on the logical factor, and secondly, that of lawless THE CULTURAL VALUE OF THE VEDANTA 373 individualism following upon an undue stressing of the individual or personal factor in the framing of these. Proceeding on the assurance that the differ¬ ent systems of philosophy are not merely a ‘motley collection of opinions of various learned gentlemen’ but the limited process in which the categories have successively attained distinct consciousness and the form of consciousness, Hegel ends by making the whole procession of these world-views appear as ‘ the unearthly ballet of bloodless categories.’ But what Hegel forgot to reckon in preparing his balance- sheet is that it is the whole man that philosophizes, not his understanding merely, and that at the back of the logical factor there stand certain invisible, and therefore all the more invincible, forces—psy¬ chical and historical—which though alogical in the main are nevertheless stronger than all logic. Life, as the standing refutation of the law of formal logic that we cannot go beyond the premises, always vin¬ dicates its character as something more than logic. In truth the historical movement of philosophy “depends not solely upon the thinking of ‘humanity' or even the ‘Weltgeist,’ but just as truly upon the reflections, the needs of mind and heart, the pre¬ saging thought and sudden flashes of insight, of philosophising individuals.’’ The one essential aberration of Hegel’s analysis—fundamentally cor¬ rect as it is—consists in the unwarrantable assump¬ tion that the chronological order in which the cate¬ gories have presented themselves in the historical systems of philosophy must necessarily correspond to the logical order in which the same categories 374 A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF TEE VEDANTA should appear as ‘ elements of truth, ’ which is in the keeping of a final system of philosophy,—of course, his own. Not inaptly, therefore, does Bradley observe that a ‘true philosophy cannot justify its own apotheosis. Nay, from the other side the meta¬ physician might lament his own destiny. His pursuit condemns him, he may complain, himself to herd with unreal essences and to live an outcast from life. It is three times more blessed, he may well repeat, to be than to think. But in such a mood the man would so far fall away from philoso¬ phy. A true philosophy must accept and justify every side of human nature, including itself.’* No less risky is the accentuation of the personal or alo- gical factor, which tends to inaugurate the reign of lawless individualism in the domain of philosophi¬ cal thought.