Berashith

14 That is exactly where the theory rears to heaven its stoutest bastion! There is not, and could not be, any cause. Had 0° been extended in causality, no change could have taken place. Here, then, are we, finite beings in a finite universe, time, space, and causality themselves finite (inconceivable as it may seem) with our individuality, and all the illusions’; of the Advaitists, just as real as they practi- cally are to our normal consciousness. ‘As Schopenhauer, following Buddha, points out, suffering is a necessary condition of this existence. The war of the contending forces as they grind themselves down to the final resultant must cause endless agony. We may be able to transform the categories of emotion as certainly and easily as we now transform the categories of force, so that in a few years Chicago may be importing suffering in the raw state and turning it into tinned salmon: but at present the reverse process is alone practicable. How, then, shall we escape? Can we expect the entire universe to resolve itself back into the phase of 0°? Surely not. In the first place, there is no reason why the whole should do so; * is just as convertible as =. But worse, the category of causality hes been formed, and its inertia is sufficient to oppose a most serious stumbling-block to so gigantic a process. The task before us is consequently of a terrible nature. It is easy to let things slide, to grin and bear it in fact, until everything is merged in the ultimate