or ignorance, that the Highest Being or Brahman can be one only, and not two, as it might appear when a distinction is made between the Lower and

Higher Brahman. Almost in the same words as the Eleatic philosophers and the German Mystics of the fourteenth century, the Vedântist argues that it would be self-contradictory to admit that there could be anything besides the Infinite or Brahman, which is All in All, and that therefore the soul also cannot be anything different from it, can never claim a separate and independent existence.

Secondly, as Brahman has to be conceived as perfect, and therefore as unchangeable, the soul cannot be conceived as a real modification or deterioration of Brahman.

Thirdly, as Brahman has neither beginning nor end, neither can it have any parts 2; therefore the soul cannot be a part of Brahman, but the whole of Brahman must be present in every individual soul. This is the same as the teaching of Plotinus, who held with equal consistency that the True Being is totally present in every part of the universe. He is said to have written a whole book on this subject. Dr. Henry More calls this theory the Holenmerian, from the Greek οὐσία ὁλενμερής, an essence that is all in each part.

So much on what the Upanishads hint and what Vedantist philosophers, such as Sankara, try to establish by logical argument as to the true nature of the soul and its relation to the Divine and Absolute

1 Zeller, p. 472.

2 Zeller, p. 511, fragm. III.

Being. From a purely logical point of view, Sankara's position seems to me impregnable, and when so rigorous a logician as Schopenhauer declares his complete submission to Sankara's arguments, there is no fear of their being upset by other logicians.

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LECTURE IX.

THE VEDANTA-PHILOSOPHY.

The Vedanta as a Philosophical System.

HOUGH it is chiefly the relation between the human soul and God which interests us in the teaching of the Upanishads and of the Vedânta-sûtras, yet there are some other topics in that ancient philosophy which deserve our attention and which may help to throw light on the subject with which we are more specially concerned. I know it is no easy task to make Indian philosophy intelligible or attractive to English students. It is with Indian philosophy as with Indian music.

We are so accustomed to our own, that at first Indian music sounds to our ears like mere noise, without rhythm, without melody, without harmony. And yet Indian music is thoroughly scientific, and if we are but patient listeners, it begins to exercise its own fascination upon us. It will be the same with Indian philosophy, if only we make an effort to learn to speak its language and to think its thoughts.

Identity of Soul and Brahman.

Let us remember then that the Vedanta-philosophy rests on the fundamental conviction of the Vedantist,

that the soul and the Absolute Being or Brahman, are one in their essence. We saw in the old Upanishads how this conviction rose slowly, like the dawn, on the intellectual horizon of India, but how in the end it absorbed every thought, whether philosophical or religious, in its dazzling splendour. When it had once been recognised that the soul and Brahman were in their deepest essence one, the old mythological language of the Upanishads, representing the soul as travelling on the road of the Fathers, or on the road of the gods towards the throne of Brahman was given up. We read in the Vedânta-philosophy (in the 29th paragraph of the third chapter of the third book), that this approach to the throne of Brahman has its proper meaning so long only as Brahman is still considered as personal and endowed with various qualities (saguna), but that, when the knowledge of the true, the absolute and unqualified Brahman, the Absolute Being, has once risen in the mind, these mythological concepts have to vanish. How would it be possible, Sankara says (p. 593), that he who is free from all attachments, unchangeable and unmoved, should approach another person, should move or go to another place. The highest oneness, if once truly conceived, excludes anything like an approach to a different object, or to a distant place1.

The Sanskrit language has the great advantage that it can express the difference between the qualified and the unqualified Brahman, by a mere change of gender, Brahman (nom. Brahmâ) being used as a masculine, when it is meant for the qualified, and as a neuter (nom. Brahma), when it is meant for the unqualified 1 1 III. 3, 29.

Brahman, the Absolute Being. This is a great help, and there is nothing corresponding to it in English.

We must remember also that the fundamental principle of the Vedânta-philosophy, was not 'Thou art He,' but Thou art That, and that it was not Thou wilt be, but Thou art. This 'Thou art' expresses something that is, that has been, and always will be, not something that has still to be achieved, or is to follow, for instance, after death (p. 599).

Thus Sankara says, 'If it is said that the soul will go to Brahman, that means that it will in future attain, or rather, that it will be in future what, though unconsciously, it always has been, viz. Brahman. For when we speak of some one going to some one else, it cannot be one and the same who is distinguished as the subject and as the object. Also, if we speak of worship, that can only be, if the worshipper is different from the worshipped. By true knowledge the individual soul does not become Brahman, but is Brahman, as soon as it knows what it really is, and always has been. Being and knowing are here simul

taneous.

Here lies the characteristic difference between what is generally called mystic philosophy and the Vedântic theosophy of India. Other mystic philosophers are fond of representing the human soul as burning with love for God, as filled with a desire for union with or absorption in God. We find little of that in the Upanishads, and when such ideas occur, they are argued away by the Vedanta-philosophers. They always cling to the conviction that the Divine has never been really absent from the human soul, that it always is there, though covered by darkness or Nescience, and