There is one point here which should be borne in mind. The full knowledge obtained by the traveller when he has attained his goal may be set down by him exhaustively in a book, reading which another may acquire that knowledge; and yet there will be a difference of degree, the difference between direct and indirect, between the knowledge of the two. And such difference will always hold good as regards things material, whether gross or subtle (even those loosely but not accurately called spiritual). But as regards abstract principles, the universal 'I' and the abstract laws and lower principles that flow from that 'I' direct, and are imposed by its being as laws on the world-process-in their case knowledge and finding are one; there is no distinction between direct and indirect knowledge, intellectual cognition and realisation. In this respect metaphysic is on the same level as arithmetic and geometry. What the true significance is of the distinction currently made between the so-called 'mere intellectual cognition' of Brahman and the 'realisation' thereof, q, paroksha, beyond sight, and a, aparokṣha, not beyond sight, knowledge, will appear later. 1

Having thus necessarily abstracted and sepa

1 See the last page.

rated out from the world - process the true, universal, and unlimited One, out of which all so-called universals borrow their pseudouniversality, we equally necessarily find left behind a mass of particulars. And just as it is not possible to define the 'I' any further than by naming it the 'I,' so is it not possible to define this mass of particulars otherwise than by naming it the 'Not-I,' the 'NotSelf,' the 'Non-Ego,' Mûla-prakriti. Take it

at any point of space and time, it is always a particular something which can be cognised as object in contrast with the cognising subject. As the characteristic of the 'I' is universality and abstractness, so is the characteristic of the 'Not-I' particularity and concreteness. It is always a 'this,' a 'that,' a something that is always, in ultimate analysis, limited and definable in terms of the senses. Its special name is the Many, as that of the Self is the One. That it is generalised under the word 'Not-Self' is only a pseudo-generalisation by reflection of the universality of the 'I.' The word pseudo is used to distinguish the universality of the one from that of the other. It does not mean false in the sense of 'non-existent,' but only in the sense of 'apparent,' 'not real,' 'borrowed,' 'reflected.' The physical fact of the continuance and indestructibility of matter illus

trates this fact. Because the 'I' and the 'Not-I' always imply each other and can never be actually separated, they are always imposing on each other one another's attributes. The 'I' is always becoming particularised into individuals, and the 'Not-I' always becoming generalised into the elements and classes and kinds of matter, because of this juxtaposition of the two, because of their immanence within each other.

Further treatment of this point belongs to a later stage of the discussion. It is enough to show here that the searcher necessarily comes at the last stage but one to these two, the Self and the Not-Self.

It should be added that at this stage, having traced his ego into the universal Ego, the Jîva finds a partial satisfaction and peace. Seeing that the universal Ego is unlimited by space and time, he feels sure of his immortality, and does not yet feel any great care and anxiety precisely to define the nature of that immortality. He is for the time being content to take it as a universal immortality in which all egos are merged into one without any clear distinction and specialisation, for he feels that such specialisation is part of the limited and perishing, and so incapable of such immortality as belongs to the Pratyag-âtmâ. Later on he will begin to

ask whether there is any such thing as personal immortality also; he will find that in the constitution of the material sheaths which make of him an individual ego out of the universal Ego, there is a craving for such personal immortality,1 for a continuance of existence as separate; and he will also find that such is possible, nay certain, in its own special sense and manner. Just now, there is but one last remaining doubt that makes him find but a partial peace and satisfaction in the finding of the universal Ego.

1 See Stirling's Secret of Hegel. 2nd Ed. Pp. 213, 214, and his Schwegler. Pp. 435,436.

CHAPTER V.

THE MUTUAL RELATION OF THE SELF AND THE NOT-SELF.

Seeing the unvarying continuity of the universal Ego, the Pratyag-âtmâ, through and amidst the endless flux of particulars, of not-selves, we have separated it out and identified ourselves with it, and so derived a certain sense of absence of limitation, of immortality. But the separation now begins to seem to us to be merely 'mental' and not 'real.' For while we see, without doubt, that the 'I' continues unchanged through changing things, we also see that it continues to do so only in these things and never apart from them; and if it must do so, is it not after all limited by some inherent want and defect, so that it is dependent for its manifestation, its existence in fact, upon these things, just as much as these things may depend upon it? And so we come back to the old difficulties of two eternals and two infinites. We must reconcile these two infinites,