A BUDDHIST MANUAL
Psychological Ethics,
FROM THE PALI
OF THE
DHAMMA-SANGANI
Translated by CAROLINE A. F. RHYS DAVIDS, M.A.
IV.
On the Method and Argument of the Manual.
The title given to my translation is not in any way a
faithful rendering of the canonical name of the Manual.
This is admitted on my title-page. There is nothing very
intelligible for us in the expression *
Compendium of States,'
or '
Compendium of Phenomena.' Whether the Buddhist
might find it so or not, there is for him at all events a
strong and ancient association of ideas attaching to the
title Dhamma-Sangani which for us is entirely non-
existent. I have therefore let go the letter, in order to
indicate what appears to me the real import of the work.
Namely, that it is, in the first place, a manual or text-book,
and not a treatise or disquisition, elaborated and rendered
attractive and edifying after the manner of most of the
Sutta Pitaka. And then, that its subject is ethics, but
that the inquiry is conducted from a psychological stand-
point, and, indeed, is in great part an analysis of the psycho-
logical and psycho-physical data of ethics.
I do not mean to assert that the work was compiled
solely for academic use. No such specialized function is
assigned it in the Commentary. Buddhaghosa only main-
tains that, together with the rest of the Abhidhamma,^ it
was the ipsissima verba of the Buddha, not attempting to
upset the mythical tradition that it was the special mode
he adopted in teaching the doctrine to the '
hosts of devas
come from all parts of the sixteen world-systems, he having
1 But including the Matika only of the later Katha Vatthu.
Cf. *Dialogues of the Buddha,' p. xi ; Asl., p. 1.
placed his mother (re-incarnate as a devi) at their head
because of the glory of her wisdom.'^ Whether this myth
had grown up to account for the formal, unpicturesque
style of the Abhidhamma, on the ground that the devas
were above the need of illustration and rhetoric of an
earthly kind, I do not know. The Commentary fre-
quently refers to the peculiar difference in style from that
employed in the Suttanta as consisting in the Abhidhamma
being nippariyaya-desan a—teaching which is not
accompanied by explanation or disquisition.^ And the
definition it gives, at the outset, of the term Abhidhamma
shows that this Pitaka, and a fortiori the Dhamma-Sangani,
was considered as a subject of study more advanced than
the other Pitakas, and intended to serve as the complement
and crown of the learner's earlier courses.^ Acquaintance
with the doctrine is, as I have said, taken for granted.
The object is not so much to extend knowledge as to ensure
mutual consistency in the intension of ethical notions, and
to systematize and formulate the theories and practical
mechanism of intellectual and moral progress scattered in
profusion throughout the Suttantas.^
It is interesting to note the methods adopted to carry
out this object. The work was in the first instance incul-
cated by way of oral teaching respecting a quantity of
matter which had been already learnt in the same way.
And the memory, no longer borne along by the interest of
1 Asl., p. 1.
2 E.g., Asl. 403. The meaning of this expression is
illustrated by its use on p. 317 of the Cy. : na nippari-
yayena digham rupayatanam; i.e., *
that which is
long (or short) is only inferentially a visual object.'
3 Asl., p. 2. Translated by Mr. A. C. Taylor, J. R. A. S.,
1894.
4 Professor Edmond Hardy, in his Introduction to the fifth
volume of the Anguttara Nikaya, expresses the belief that
the Dhamma-Sangani is 'entirely dependent upon the
Anguttara.' For my part, I have found no reason to limit
the manual's dependence on the Suttantas to any one book.
Buddhaghosa does not specially connect the two works.
narrative or by the thread of an argument, had to be
assisted by other devices. First of these is the catechetical
method. Questions, according to Buddhist analysis, are
put on five several grounds :^
to throw light on what is not known ;
to compare what one knows with the knowledge of
others
;
to clear up doubts
;
to get the premises in an argument granted ;2
to give a starting-point from which to set out the
content of a statement.
The last is selected as the special motive of the catechiz-
ing here resorted to. It is literally the wish to discourse
or expound (kathetu kamyata), but the meaning is
more clearly brought out by the familiar formula quoted,
viz. :
*
Four in number, brethren, are these Advances in
Mindfulness. Now which are the Four?' Thus it was
held that the questions in the Manual are analytic or
explicative, having the object of unfolding and thereby of
delimitating the implications of a mass of notions which a
study of the Suttantas, if unaided, might leave insufficiently
co-ordinated in the mind.
And the memory, helped by the interrogative stimulus,
was yet further assisted by the symmetrical form of both
question and answer, as well as by the generic uniformity
in the matter of the questions. Throughout Book I., in the
case of each inquiry which opens up a new subject, the
answer is set out on a definite plan called uddesa—ex-
position—and is rounded off invariably by the appana,
or emphatic summing up :
'all these (whatever they may
stand for on other occasions or in other systems) on this
occasion = x.' The uddesa is succeeded by the nid-
desa—de-position—i.e., analytical question and answer
on the details of the expository statement. This is indicated
formally by the initial adverb tattha—what here (in this
1 Asl. 55, 56 ; cf. Sum. 68.
2 A favourite method in the Dialogues. The Cy. quotes
as an instance M. i. 232.
connexion) isa . . h . . c ? Again, the work is in great part
planned with careful regard to logical relation. The
Buddhists had not elaborated the intellectual vehicle of
genus and species, as the Greeks did, hence they had not
the convenience of a logic of Definition. There is scarcely
an answer in any of these Niddesas but may perhaps be
judged to suffer in precision and lucidity from lack of it.
They substitute for definition proper what J. S. Mill might
have called predication of aequipollent terms—in other
words, the method of the dictionary. In this way precision
of meaning is not to be expected, since nearly all so-called
synonyms do but mutually overlap in meaning without
coinciding ; and hence the only way to ensure no part of
the connotation being left out is to lump together a number
of approximate equivalents, and gather that the term in
question is defined by such properties as the aggregate
possesses in common. If this is the rationale of the
Buddhist method, the inclusion, in the answer, of the very
term which is to be defined becomes no longer the fallacy
it is in Western logic. Indeed, where there is no pursuit
of exact science, nor of sciences involving 'physical division,'
but only a system of research into the intangible products
and processes of mind and character, involving aspects and
phases, i.e., logical division, I am not sure that a good case
might not be made out for Buddhist method. It is less
rigid, and lends itself better, perhaps, to a field of thought
where '
a difference in aspects is a difference in things.'^
However that may be, the absence of a development of
the relation of Particular and Universal, of One and All, is
met by a great attention to degree of Plurality. Number
plays a great part in Buddhist classes and categories.^
Whether this was inherited from a more ancient lore, such
as Pythagoras is said to have drawn from, or whether this
feature was artificially developed for mnemonic purposes, I
do not know. Probably there is truth in both alternatives.
1 Professor J. Ward, Ency. Brit., 9th ed., ' Psychology.'
2
Cf. especially, not only Book II. of this work, but also
the whole of the Anguttara.
But of all numbers none plays so great a part in aiding
methodological coherency and logical consistency as that of
duality. I refer of course especially to its application in
the case of the correlatives, Positive and Negative.
Throughout most of Book II. the learner is greatly aided
by being questioned on positive terms and their opposites,
taken simply and also in combination with other similarly
dichotomized pairs. The opposite is not always a con-
tradictory. Koom is then left in the *
universe of discourse
'
for a third class, which in its turn comes into question.
Thus the whole of Book I. is a development of the triplet
of questions with which Book III. begins (a-kusalam
being really the Contrary of kusalain, though formally
its Contradictory) : What is A ? What is B ? What is
{ah), i.e., non-^ and non-5 ? In Book III. there is no
obvious ground of logic or method for the serial order or
limits observed in the *
Clusters ' or Groups, and the inter-
polated sets of '
Pairs '
of miscellaneous questions. Never-
theless a uniform method of catechizing characterizes the
former.
Finally, there is, in the way of mnemonic and intellectual
aid, the simplifying and unifying effect attained by causing
all the questions (exclusive of sub-inquiries) to refer to the
one category of dhamma
.
There is, it is true, a whole Book of questions re-
ferring to riipam, but this constitutes a very much
elaborated sub-inquiry on *
form ' as one sub-species of a
species of dhamma—rupino dhamma, as distin-
guished from all the rest, which are a-rupino
dhamma. This will appear more clearly if the argu-
ment of the work is very concisely stated.
Those who can consult the text will see that the
Matika, or table of subjects of all the questions (which
I have not held it useful to reproduce), refers exclusively
to Book III. Book III. in fact contains the entire work
considered as an inquiry (not necessarily exhaustive) into
the concrete, or, as one might say, the applied ethics of
Buddhism. In it many if not all fundamental concepts
are taken as already defined and granted. Hence Books I.
and II. are introductory and, as it were, of the nature of
inquiry into data. Book II. is psycho-physical; Book I.
is psychological. Together they constitute a very elaborate
development, and again a sub-development, of the first
triplet of questions in Book III., viz. : dhamma which
are good, i.e., make good karma, those which are bad, and
those which make no karma (the indeterminates). Now, of
these last some are simply and solely results^ of good or
bad dhamma, and some are not so, but are states of
mind and expressions of mind entailing no moral result
(on the agent).^ Some again, while making no karma, are
of neither of these two species, but are dhamma which
might be called either unmoral (rupam),^or else super-
moral (uncompounded element or Nirvana).* These are
held to constitute a third and fourth species of the third
class of dhamma called indeterminate. But the former of
the two alone receives detailed and systematic treatment.
Hence the whole manual is shown to be, as it professes
to be, a compendium, or, more literally, a co-enumeration
of dhamma.
The method of treatment or procedure termed Abhi-
dhamma (for Abhidhamma is treatment rather than matter)
is, according to the Matika, held to end at the end of
the chapter entitled Pitthi-dukam or Supplementary
Set of Pairs. The last thirty-seven pairs of questions^ and
answers, on the other hand, are entitled Suttantika-
dukam. They are of a miscellaneous character, and are
in many cases not logically opposed. Buddhaghosa has
nothing to say by way of explaining their inclusion, nor
the principle determining their choice or number. Nor is
it easy to deduce any explanation from the nature or the
treatment of them. The name Suttantika may mean
that they are pairs of terms met with in the Dialogues, or
1 Book I., Part III., ch. i. 2 Ibid., ch. ii.
3 Book II, 4 Appendix II.
5
§§ 1296-1366.
in all the four Nikayas. This is true and verifiable. But
I for one cannot venture to predicate anything further
respecting them.
V.
On the Chief Subject of Inquiry—dhamma .
If I have called Buddhist ethics psychological, especially
as the subject is treated in this work, it is much in the same
way in which I should call Plato's psychology ethical.
Neither the founders of Buddhism nor of Platonic Socratism
had elaborated any organic system of psychology or of
ethics respectively. Yet it is hardly overstating the case
for either school of thought to say that whereas the latter
psychologized from an ethical standpoint, the former built
their ethical doctrine on a basis of psychological principles.
For whatever the far-reaching term d h a m m o may in
our manual have precisely signified to the early Buddhists,
it invariably elicits, throughout Book L, a reply in terms
of subjective consciousness. The discussion in the Com-
mentary, which I have reproduced below, p. 2, note 3,
on dhammarammanam, leaves it practically beyond
doubt that d h a m m o , when thus related to m a n o , is
as a visual object to visual perception—is, namely, mental
object in general. It thus is shown to be equivalent to
Herbart's Vorstellung, to Locke's idea—' whatsoever is the
immediate object of perception, thought or understanding
'
—and to Professor Ward's 'presentation.'^
The dhamma in question always prove to be, whatever
their ethical value, factors of cittam used evidently in its
widest sense, i.e., concrete mental process or state. Again,
the analysis of rupam in Book II., as a species of 'in-
determinate '
dhamma , is almost wholly a study in the
phenomena of sensation and of the human organism as
sentient. Finally, in Book III. the questions on various
dhamma are for the most part answered in terms of the
four mental skandhas, of the cittani dealt with in
Book I., and of the springs of action as shown in their
1 'Ency. Brit.,' 9th ed., art. 'Psychology.'
effect on will. Thus the whole inquiry in its most
generalized expression comes practically to this: Given
man as a moral being, what do we find to be the content
of his consciousness ?
Now this term d h a m m o is, as readers are already
aware, susceptible of more than one interpretation. Even
when used for the body of ethical doctrine it was applied
with varying extension, i.e., either to the whole doctrine, or
to the Suttantas as opposed to Vinaya and Abhidhamma,
or to the doctrine of the Four Truths only. But whatever
in this connexion is the denotation, the connotation is easy
to fix. That this is not the case where the term has, so to
speak, a secular or *
profane ' meaning is seen in the various
renderings and discussions of it.^ The late H. C. Warren
in particular has described the difficulties, first of deter-
mining what the word, in this or that connexion, was
intended to convey, and then of discovering any word or
words adequate to serve as equivalent to it. One step
towards a solution may be made if we can get at a Buddhist
survey of the meanings of d h a m m o from the Buddhists'
own philosophical point of view. And this we are now
enabled to do in consequence of the editing of the Attha-
salini. In it we read Buddhaghosa's analysis of the term,
the various meanings it conveyed to Buddhists of the fifth
century a.d., and his judgment, which would be held as
authoritative, of the special significance it possessed in
the questions of the Dhamma - sangani. *
The word
dhammo,' runs the passage (p. 38), *is met with [as
meaning] doctrine (pariyatti), condition or cause
(hetu), virtue or good quality (guno), absence of essence
or of living soul (nissatta-nijjivata),' etc. Illustra-
tive texts are then given of each meaning, those referring
to the last being the beginning of the answer in our Manual
1 Cf., e.g., Oldenberg, ^Buddha,' etc., 3rd ed., p. 290;
Warren, 'Buddhism in Translations,' pp. 116, 364; Kern,
'Indian Buddhism,' p. 51, n. 3; Neumann, 'Eeden des
Gotamo,' pp. 13, 23, 91; Gogerly, 'Ceylon Friend,' 1874,
p. 21.
numbered [121] :
'
Now at that time there are states ' ; and,
further, the passage from the Satipatthanasutta^ :
*
Con-
cerning dhammas he abides watchful over dhammas.' And
it is with the fourth and last-named meaning of d h a m m o
that the term is said to be used in the questions of the
Manual. Again, a little later (p. 40), he gives a more
positive expression to this particular meaning by saying
that d h a m m 0, so employed, signifies *
that which has the
mark of bearing its nature ' (or character or condition—
sabhavadharano). This to us somewhat obscure
characterization may very likely, in view of the context,
mean that dhammo as phenomenon is without sub-
stratum, is not a quality cohering in a substance. 'Pheno-
menon' is certainly our nearest equivalent to the negative
definition of nissatta-nijjivam, and this is actually
the rendering given to dhammo (when employed in this
sense in the Sutta just quoted) by Dr. Neumann: 'Da wacht
ein Monch bei den Erscheinungen. . . .' If I have used
states, or states of consciousness, instead of phenomena,
it is merely because, in the modern tradition of British
psychology, '
states of consciousness '
is exactly equivalent
to such phenomena as are mental, or at least conscious.
And, further, because this use of '
states '
has been taken up
into that psychological tradition on the very same grounds
as prompted this Buddhist interpretation of dhamma
—
the ground of non-committal, not to say negation, with
respect to any psychical substance or entity.
That we have, in this country pre-eminently, gone to
work after the manner of electrical science with respect to
its subject-matter, and psychologized without a psyche, is
of course due to the influence of Hume. In selecting a
term so characteristic of the British tradition as *
states
'
of mind or consciousness, I am not concerned to justify its
use in the face of a tendency to substitute terms more
expressive of a dynamic conception of mental operations,
or of otherwise altered standpoints. The Buddhists seem
1 D. (suttanta 22) ; M. i. 61.
to have held, as our psychology has held, that for purposes
of analysis it was justifiable to break up the mental con-
tinuum of the moral individuality into this or that congeries
of states or mental phenomena. In and through these
they sought to trace the working of moral causation. To
look beneath or behind them for a '
thing in itself ' they
held to be a dangerous superstition. With Goethe they
said :
*
Suche nichts hinter den Phanomenen ; sie selbst
sind die Lehre !' And in view of this coincidence of impli-
cation and emphasis, '
states of mind '
or '
of conscious-
ness '
seemed best to fit d h a m m a when the reply was
made in terms of mental phenomena.
In the book on Form, the standpoint is no doubt shifted
to a relatively more objective consideration of the moral
being and his contact with a world considered as external.
But then the word d h a m m a (and my rendering of it) is
also superseded by r Ci p a m
.
It is only when we come to the more synthetic matter of
Book III. that d h a m m a strains the scope of the term I
have selected if '
states '
be taken as strictly states of mind
or of consciousness. It is true that the Buddhist view of
things so far resembles the Berkeleian that all phenomena,
or things or sequences or elements, or however else we may
render d h a m m a , may be regarded as in the last resort
*
states of mind.' This in its turn may seem a straining
of the significance which the term possessed for early Bud-
dhists in a more general inquiry such as that of Book III.
Yet consider the definitions of d h a m m a , worthy of
Berkeley himself, on p. 272 [1044-45].
The difficulty lay in the choice of another term, and none
being satisfactory, I retained, for want of a better, the
same rendering, which is, after all, indefinite enough to
admit of its connoting other congeries of things or aspects
beside consciousness.
The fundamental importance in Buddhist philosophy of
this Phenomenalism or Non-substantialism as a protest
against the prevailing Animism, which, beginning with pro-
jecting the self into objects, elaborated that projected self
into noumenal substance, has by this time been more or
less admitted. The testimony of the canonical books leaves
no doubt on the matter, from Gotama's first sermon to his
first converts/ and his first Dialogue in the '
Long Collec-
tion,' to the first book of the Katha Vatthu.^ There are
other episodes in the books where the belief in a permanent
spiritual essence is, together with a number of other specu-
lations, waived aside as subjects calculated to waste time
and energy. But in the portions referred to the doctrine
of repudiation is more positive, and may be summed up in
one of the refrains of the Majjhima Nikaya : S u n n a m
idain attena va attaniyena va t i—Void is this of
soul or of aught of the nature of soul !^ The force of the
often repeated *
This is not mine, this is not I, this is not
my Self,' is not intended to make directly for goodness but
for truth and insight. '
And since neither self nor aught
belonging to self, brethren, can really and truly be accepted,
is not the heretical position which holds :—This is the
world and this is the self, and I shall continue to be in the
future, permanent, immutable, eternal, of a nature that
knows no change, yea, I shall abide to eternity !
—is not
this simply and entirely a doctrine of fools ?'*
And now that the later or scholastic doctrine, as shown
in the writings of the greatest of the Buddhist scholastics,
becomes accessible, it is seen how carefully and conscien-
tiously this anti-substantialist position had been cherished
and upheld. Half-way to the age of the Commentators,
the Milinda-paiiho places the question of soul-theory
at the head of the problems discussed. Then turning to
Buddhaghosa we find the emphatic negation of the Suman-
gala Vilasini (p. 194) :
—* Of aught within called self which
looks forward or looks around, &c., there is none !' matched
• 1 S. ii. 66-8 ; also in Maha Vagga, i. 6, 38-47.
2
Cf. Rhys Davids' 'American Lectures,' pp. 39, 40.
3 Or *self ' (attena). M. i. 297; ii. 263 (lege sunnam);
cf. S. iv. 54 ; and K. V. 67, 579. Cf. the 'Emptiness-con-
cept,' below, p. 33. 4 M. i. 138.
in the Atthasalini, not only by the above-given definition
of d h a m m a '
s , but also by the equally or even more
emphatic affirmation respecting them, given in my note 1
to p. 33 :
—* There is no permanent entity or self which
acquires the states . . . these are to be understood pheno-
menally (s a b h a V a 1 1 h e n a ). There is no other essence
or existence or personality or individual whatever.' Again,
attention is drawn in the notes to his often-reiterated com-
ment that when a disposition or emotion is referred to
cittam, e.g., nandirago cittassa,^ the repudiation
of an ego is thereby implied. Once more, the thoughts
and acts which are tainted with '
Asavas ' or with corrup-
tions are said to be so in virtue of their being centred in
the soul or self,- and those which have attained that '
ideal
Better,' and have no 'beyond' (an -ut tar a) are inter-
preted as having transcended or rejected the soul or self.^
To appreciate the relative consistency with which the
Buddhists tried to govern their philosophy, both in subject
and in treatment, in accordance with this fundamental
principle, we must open a book of Western psychology,
more or less contemporary, such as the *De Anima,' and
note the sharply contrasted position taken up at the outset.
'
The object of our inquiry,' Aristotle says in his opening
sentences, 'is to study and ascertain the nature and essence
of the Psyche, as well as its accidents. ... It may be well
to distinguish . . . the genus to which the Psyche belongs,
and determine what it is . . . whether it is a some-
thing and an essence, or quantity, or quality . . . whether
it is among entities in potentiality, or whether rather it is
a reality. . . . Now, the knowledge of anything in itself
seems to be useful towards a right conception of the causes
of the accidents in substances. . . . But the knowledge
of the accidents contributes largely in its turn towards
knowing what the thing essentially is. . . . Thus the
1 P. 277, n. 2 ; also pp. 129, note 1 ; 298, note 3, &c.
;
and cf. p. 175, p. 1. See also on dhatu, p. lxxvii.
2 P. 294, n. 7 ; 327, n. 1. ^ P. 336, n. 2.
essence is the proper beginning for every demonstra-
tion. . .
.'
The whole standpoint which the Buddhists brought into
question, and decided to be untenable as a basis of sound
doctrine, is here accepted and taken as granted. A
phenomenon, or series of phenomena, is, on being held up
for investigation, immediately and unhesitatingly looked
upon under one of two aspects : either it must be a sub-
stance, essence, reality, or it belongs to one of those nine
other *
Categories '
—quantity, quality, etc.—which con-
stitute the phenomenon an attribute or group of attributes
cohering in a substance.
It is true that Aristotle was too progressive and original
a thinker to stop here. In his theory of mind as elSo? or
*
form,' in itself mere potentiality, but becoming actuality
as implicate in, and as energizing body, he endeavoured to
transform the animism of current standpoints into a more
rational conception. And in applying his theory he goes
far virtually to resolve mind into phenomenal process (De
An., III., chaps, vii., viii.). But he did not, or would not,
wrench himself radically out of the primitive soil and plant
his thought on a fresh basis, as the Buddhist dared to
do. Hence Greek thought abode, for all his rationalizing,
saturated with substantialist methods, till it was found
acceptable •
by and was brought up into an ecclesiastical
philosophy which, from its Patristic stage, had inherited a
tradition steeped in animistic standpoints.
Modern science, however, has been gradually training
the popular mind to a phenomenalistic point of view, and
joining hands in psychology with the anti-substantialist
tradition of Hume. So that the way is being paved for a
more general appreciation of the earnest effort made by
Buddhism—an effort stupendous and astonishing if we con-
sider its date and the forces against it—to sever the growth
of philosophic and religious thought from its ancestral
stem and rear it in a purely rational soil.
But the philosophic elaboration of soul-theory into Sub-
stantialism is complicated and strengthened by a deeply
important factor, on which I have already touched. This
factor is the exploitation by philosophy, not of a primitive
Weltanschauung, but of a fundamental fact in intellectual
procedure and intellectual economy. I refer to the process
of assimilating an indefinite number of particular impres-
sions, on the ground of a common resemblance, into a
'
generic idea ' or general notion, and of referring to each
assimilated product by means of a common name. Every
act of cognition, of coming-to-know anything, is reducible
to this compound function of discerning the particular and
of assimilating it into something relatively general. And
this process, in its most abstract terms, is cognizing Unity
in Diversity, the One through and beneath the Many.
Now no one, even slightly conversant with the history of
philosophy, can have failed to note the connexion there has
ever been set up between the concept of substratum and
phenomena on the one hand, and that of the One and the
Many on the other. They have become blended together,
though they spring from distinct roots. And so essential,
in every advance made by the intellect to extend knowledge
and to reorganize its acquisitions, is the co-ordinating and
economizing efficacy of this faculty of generalizing, that
its alliance with any other deep-rooted traditional product
of mind must prove a mighty stay. A fact in the growth
of religious and of philosophic thought which so springs out
of the very working and growth of thought in general as
this tendency to unify, must seem to rest on unshakeable
foundations.
And when this implicit logic of intellectual procedure,
this subsuming the particular under the general, has been
rendered explicit in a formal system of definition and pre-
dication and syllogism, such as was worked out by the
Greeks, the breach of alliance becomes much harder. For
the progress in positive knowledge, as organized by the
logical methods, is brought into harmony with progress in
religious and philosophic thought.
This advance in the West is still in force, except in
so far as psychological advance, and scientific progress
generally, tell on the traditional logic and philosophy.
Psychological analysis, for instance, shows that we may
confuse the ejBfective registration of our knowledge with the
actual disposition of the originals. That is to say, this
perceiving and judging, by way of generalizing and unifying,
is the only way by which we are able to master the infinite
diversities and approximate uniformities of phenomena.
Through such procedure great results are attained. Con-
ceptions are widened and deepened. Laws are discovered
and then taken up under more general laws. Knowledge
groups all phenomena under a few aspects of all but
supreme generality. Unification of knowledge is every-
where considered as the ideal aim of intellect.
But, after all, this is only the ideal method and economy
of intellect. The stenographer's ideal is to compress re-
corded matter into the fewest symbols by which he can
reproduce faithfully. The ideal of the phonograph is to
reproduce without the intermediacy of an economical pro-
cess. Limitations of time and faculty constrain us to be-
come mental stenographers. Whatever be our view as to
the reality of an external world outside our perception of it,
psychology teaches us to distinguish our fetches of abstrac-
tion and generalization for what they are psycliologically—
i.e., for efi*ective mental shorthand—whatever they may
represent besides. The logical form of Universal in term
and in proposition is as much a token of our weakness in
realizing the Particular as of our strength in constructing
what is at best an abstract and hypothetical whole. The
philosophical concept of the One is pregnant with powerful
associations. To what extent is it simply as a mathematical
symbol in a hypothetical cosmos of carefully selected data,
whence the infinite concrete is eliminated lest it '
should
flow in over us '^
and overwhelm us ?
Now, the Buddhistic phenomenalism had also both the
one and the other member of this great alliance of
1 Infra, p. 351 : 'Yam . . . papaka akusala dhamma
anvassaveyyum.'
Noumenon and Unity to contend' with. But the alliance
had, so far at least as we know or can infer, not yet been
welded together by a logical organon, or by any develop-
ment in inductive science. Gotama and his apostles were
conversant with the best culture of their age, yet when
they shape their discourse according to anything we should
call logic, they fall into it rather than wield it after the
conscious fashion of Plato or Aristotle. Nor is there, in
the books, any clear method practised of definition according
to genus and species, or of mutual exclusion among con-
cepts. Thus freer in harness, the Buddhist revolutionary
philosophy may be said to have attempted a relatively less
impracticable task. The development of a science and art
of logic in India, as we know it, was later in time ; and
though Buddhist thinkers helped in that development, it
coincided precisely with the decline of Buddhistic non-
substantialism, with the renascence of Pantheistic thought.
0 comments:
Post a Comment