..續本文上一頁to call it, Energism, that is only admitting in different words the ultimate insubstantiality of all so-called solid matter.

　　The view that matter or the body is the real self, or ego-entity must lead to the doctrine of annihilationism (uccheda-di.t.thi), the perishing of that “self” at the disin­tegration of the body.

　　The view of the persistence of a self after the breaking up of the body (sassata-di.t.thi) will therefore find another more permanent seat for that self, namely the mind.

　　The biologist Haeckel and the chemist Ostwald were the real pioneers of this modern revolt against traditional metaphysics. Yet in the anattaa-doctrine of the Buddha a substance-like entity either in matter or mind, underlying and supporting the phenomena was most categorically denied twenty-five centuries ago.

　　Yet matter shows more permanency than thought. If thus the body cannot be held to be a permanent entity, still less so can the mind be said to be an everlasting soul or self.

　　“Better were it, O monks,” said the Lord Buddha (S II 94), “that the untrained average man should conceive this body composed of the four primary elementary qualities as soul, rather than the mind. And why

　　 The body is seen to persist for a year or two … for a gener­ation or even for a hundred years … while that which is called consciousness, that is mind, that is intelligence, arises as one thing, ceases as another, both by night and by day.”

　　Feelings (vedanaa) are of three kinds, pleasant, unplea­sant or neutral. Now feeling is mental, for if contact is not mentally perceived, no concept of feeling will be formed. Can this mental action of sensation be said to be the self

　　 Or is (sa.t.taa) the perception of this sensation the self

　　 But then if a pleasant sensation makes place for an unpleasant feeling one would have to admit that the “self” has changed.

　　There is, however, an experience which gives the im­pression that there is something which remains the same even though sensations, impressions, perceptions, concepts change. That remaining, unchanging entity is called the soul. Now it is clearly not our duty to disprove any state­ment which is made without sufficient ground. On him who puts the thesis rests also the burden of the proof. Otherwise: “quod gratis asseritur, gratis negator”—“What is gratuitously asserted, may be gratuitously rejected.

　　“A so-called direct proof for the existence of a soul as a permanent entity to be distinguished from changing modes of action is the firm conviction that, though thoughts and actions change, yet the thinker and the doer remain the same.

　　In refutation it must be said that often the most firm and universal conviction cannot prove a fact. For, conviction is feeling, sentiment, emotion, but proof requires reason. The general conviction of many centuries that this earth was the centre of the universe, even the ecclesiastical con­demnation of Copernican astronomy, for upholding which Galileo had to undergo dire penalties and Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake, could never change the fact that this earth is a minor planet turning round the sun which is only a star not of the first brilliancy. Conviction is no proof.

　　But even if we let this pass for argument”s sake, we cannot admit that the thinker and doer remain the same, for it is exactly by thoughts that we change our mind, by actions that we change our habits.

　　If that change does not always come all of a sudden and for that reason is less conspicuous, yet the change is not less real for that. Actions cannot be separated from the doer, cannot exist purely as such. There cannot be walking without a body that walks. If therefore the action changes, the so-called actor must change at the same instant. Thus the “I” is identified with th…

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