..續本文上一頁ntionally overlooked. Even unity and order in nature, on which science has built its laws and axioms, have no real existence, but are based on experi­ment and observation, hence thoroughly material, and can be overturned by new observation and experiment.

　　Even thousand scientific experiments do not definitely prove a fact, and make it a law, but one single experiment can upset the law and prove its invalidity.

　　As physical phenomena do not follow an absolutely rigorous necessity, but permit a contingency, incalculable like chance, so the mind does not follow any fixed law. Though conditioned and influenced, its choice cannot be predicted; thus the alleged perfect regularity, uniformity, necessity of things is a mental fiction, a proof of the possi­bility of mental aberration in its lack in actuality rather than of immateriality.

　　Likewise truth, virtue, justice etc. are only ideas resulting from associating different experiences; they are dependent on education, and that is not even a sign of reason, still less of immateriality. For even a dog can learn to do many things and finally come to “understand” that putting up his right paw means a piece of cake. Edu­cation, which is nothing but mental training, brings ideas together; and once they are associated, the point of con­nection might become hidden in the subconscious mind. The real connection being forgotten or suppressed, the mind will try to establish an artificial link, which is called ration­alization. If ideas like virtue and justice were really immaterial and permanent they ought to remain the same and unaltered in different times and climes. But the asso­ciation of ideas depends on acquired learning and cannot be therefore an inherent natural action of a permanent soul. Thus a Christian who keeps two wives is guilty of bigamy and considered as very immoral. But a Muslim can be very virtuous in the legal possession of many more then two. That morality changes is a truism. Not so very long ago slavery was deemed right, encouraged by the State, sanctioned by the church, but that way of thinking has given place to a morality which judges slavery to be wrong, because it assigns higher values to human personality. A few hundred years ago any father had the absolute right of life and death over his own children; nowadays we have laws even for the prevention of cruelty against animals. The moral laws which prevail here in Kaamaloka, do not hold good in Brahmaloka. Thus these few examples show that abstract ideas like virtue, justice, and morality are very much impermanent and can therefore not be the expressions of a permanent soul.

　　But then, the mind can conceive essential ideas, it is said, expressing the intrinsic nature of things, such as defi­nitions comprising the common genus and the specifying difference. These are said to be unchangeable and can therefore only be conceived by an unchangeable, permanent entity or soul. Definitions are said to originate from Socrates, while Plato built up a system of eternal ideas. But defini­tions have as little reality about them as a mathematical problem. They may be useful or even necessary for logical distinctions, but they cannot be said to be either permanent or impermanent, because they are mere mental fiction.

　　Definitions, essential ideas, so-called eternal principles are all based on material experience and exist only in parti­culars. It is the very nature of essence to be particularized. It is true that we try to separate the idea of man from this or that inpidual. But at once we find it impossible for the essential idea to exist separately, and equally impossible to unite it with the inpidual, as we do not see any relation. This unnatural and illogical position arises from the mistak…

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