AN ESSAY IN ONTOLOGY
237
and hungry, he is extended in all these,
besides, of course, many more. But let us
suppose that these five are all. Call the
man X; his formula is then Xttstb+ht,
If he now eat, he will cease to be extended
in hunger; if he be cut off from time and
gravitation as well, he will now be repre-
sented by the formula XS+>, Should he
cease to occupy space and to exist, his
formula would then be X°. This expression
is equal to 1; whatever X may represent, if
it be raised to the power of 0 (this meaning
mathematically ‘‘if it be extended in no
dimension or category’), the result is Unity,
and the unknown factor X is eliminated.
This is the Advaitist idea of the future
of man; his personality, bereft of all its
qualities, disappears and is lost, while in
its place arises the impersonal Unity, The
Pleroma, Parabrahma, or the Allah of the
Unity
- adoring followers”of Mohammed.
(To the Musulman fakir, Allah is by no
means a personal God.)
Unity is thus unaffected, whether or no it
be extended in any of the categories. But
we have already agreed to look to 0 for the
Uncaused.
Now if there was in truth 0 ‘‘ before the
beginning of years,” THAT 0 WAS Ex-
TENDED IN NONE OF THE CATE-
GORIES, FOR THERE COULD HAVE
BEEN NO CATEGORIES IN WHICH
IT COULD EXTEND! If our 0 was the
ordinary 0 of mathematics, there was not truly
absolute 0, for 0 is, as I have shown, de-
pendent on the idea of categories. If these
existed, then the whole question is merely
thrown back; we must reach a state in
which the 0 is absolute. Not only must we
get rid of all subjects, but of all predi-
cates. By 0 (in mathematics) we really
mean 02, where n is the final term of a
natural scale of dimensions, categories, or
predicates. Our Cosmic Egg, then, from
which the present universe arose, was
Nothingness, extended in no categories, or,
graphically, 0°. This expression is in its
present form meaningless. Let us dis-
cover its value by a simple |mathematical
process!
0! . n
0—gi-l— | _” |
0°=0 =o Multiply by l=>
. 1
Then —0ie 70x co,
QO!
Now the multiplying of the infinitely great
by the infinitely small results in SOME
UNKNOWN FINITE NUMBER EX-
TENDED IN AN UNKNOWN NUMBER
OF CATEGORIES. It happened, when
this our Great Inversion took place, from
the essence of all nothingness to finity ex-
tended in innumerable categories, that an
incalculably vast system was_ produced.
Merely by chance, chance in the truest sense
of the term, we are found with gods, men,
stars, planets, devils, colours, forces, and all
the materials of the Cosmos : and with time,
space, and causality, the conditions limiting
and involving them all.!
Remember that it is not true to say that
our 0° existed; nor that it did not exist.
The idea of existence was just as much uns
formulated as that of toasted cheese.
But 0° is a finite expression, or has a finite
phase, and our universe is a finite universe ;
its categories are themselves finite, and the
expression ‘‘ infinite space’ isa contradiction
in terms. The idea of an absolute and of an
infinite? God is relegated to the limbo of all
similar idle and pernicious perversions of
truth. Infinity remains, but only as a mathe-
matical conception as impossible in nature
as the square root of —1. Against all this
mathematical, or semi-mathematical, reason-
ing, it may doubtless be objected that our
1 Compare and contrast this doctrine with
that of Herbert Spencer (‘‘ First Principles,” Pt.
I.), and see my ‘‘ Science and Buddhism ”’ for a
full discussion of the difference involved.
—A.C,
2 If by ‘‘infinitely great’’ we only mean
‘‘ indefinitely great,’’ as a mathematician would
perhaps tell us, we of course begin at the very
point I am aiming at, viz., Ecrasez l'Infini.