Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE; OR, THE SCEPTIC REFUTED 265 M. But is not imagination to be classed as either A or not-A ? S. Vae victis ! as Livy says. Ag. And its products? S. Me miserum! I cannot deny it. M. Such as lines? Namo Shivaya namaha Aum—to quote our holiest philosopher. S. Tamdone. Butno! Icanstill argue: (a) There is no line of demarcation. (b) There is a line, but it does not exist. (c) There is more than one line—since it is not straight and so cannot enclose a space—and more than one thing cannot form part of a universe, since unus implies a whole. Af, I should reply : (a) It is true that there is no line of demarcation, but that that non- existing line is after all just as much a part of the (non-exist- ing) universe as any other non- existing thing. We divide the universe into (1) Existing things. (2) Non-existing things. If 4 exists, the line must be zo?-4 - and vice versa. Which we know to be false. (b) It is true that there isa line, and that it does not exist, but— S. Let us settle (a) first, and return at leisure. You fail utterly to make the im- portant distinction between mere absence of line and presence of a non-existing line, which is as gross a fallacy as to argue that a man who has gone out to lunch has been annihilated. M. But he Aas been annihilated, from the point of view of the emptiness of his bungalow. S. No! for the traces of his presence remain and will do so for ever. M. Then a mehta’s: broom may be as mortal as a femme-de-ménage ! S. A trois: mwatnp—tios, the Aoyos—and TEU aYLoY. I admit it. Af. Then you surrender? The tripartite anatomy of ‘Tat Sat is granted me? Hegel is God, and Zoroaster his prophet? ‘ The mind of the Father said ‘Into 3!’ and immediately all things were so divided!’ ? S. Arrahmanu arrahimu al maliku al gadusu as salamu—Vete cabron! Chinga sumadre! I give in on that issue. Mf. Alhamdolillah ! For there are four letters in Allah g\Jt. A for Ab--Father, L for Lovos—double, for he is both God and man, and H for Holy Ghost. S. The language of your Notariqon is tripartite too! On point (1) though, ’twas but by a slip. I fell: I was not pushed. Can you controvert my second defence? M. It isnot a defence at all. It is a trick to lure me away from the question. I admit that there is such a line, and that it does not exist—but might it not xegatively subsist, in the Ain, as it were? Further, whether it is or is not a concept, a noumenon, a psychosis, an idea — anything! does not matter. For since it is a subject with or without predicates and the possibility of predicates, they are themselves predicates! which copulate with it even the impossibility of assigning predicates to it, with the excep- tion—you are bound to urge!—of itself. But this would violate your law of identity, that a predicate should exclude itself from its own category, even were it non-existent, incon- ceivable, bum. Consequently, thinkable or unthinkable, our creation of it subjectively has fixed it eternally in the immeasurable void. S. Your argument is as convincing as it is lucid. But to my third fortress ! Af, Dorje Vajra Samvritti! As to your third line of defence, I must admit that my difficulties are considerable. Yet, Bhavani my aid, I will essay them. You said, I think— S. There is more than one line, since the line is not straight (otherwise it could not enclose a space). Af. I do not see this ! S. A curved line is not truly a line, since 1 [utera scripta manet. Do not steal it, or tertia poena manet.