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But of course the choice between these two worlds will not be agreed upon alike by all. Some will prefer the one, others the other. The conservative will opt for the world whose evils are customary, known, and calculable. So will the pessimist, unless he really thinks he is living in the worst world possible. The optimist will prefer a world capable of betterment, because he instinctively hopes for the best and trusts that the sinister possibilities of deterioration will not be realized. The adventurous also will welcome a world that is more fun and promises novelties, and will trust themselves to cope with them.

In short this whole issue as to the ultimate validity of Novelty seems to resolve itself into a question of valuation. Two opposite valuations seem possible, both starting from the equation "Novelty = Creation."* If we approve of it, we shall value it as "divine," and shall say " Novelty Creation = God." If we disapprove of it, and are keenly sensible of its fiendish insecurity, we shall have an equal right to declare that "Novelty Creation = the Devil."

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Between these alternative valuations each of us must choose. Each of us will choose the one that appeals more to him, the one more consonant with his nature and tastes, and no one can presume to dictate his choice. For values are not only facts themselves, but the ultimate determinants of all the "facts" we recognize, and so questions of valuation are the most ultimate of all. Hence differences in valuations are irreducible, and not amenable to coercion by logic or by fact. They attest man's ultimate control over his experience: whatever it may be, he has the last word, and even at his last gasp, like Prometheus agonizing on the rocks of Caucasus, he can defy Zeus, and pass his judgment on the world.

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* Another interesting equation to investigate would be "Novelty Miracle," and the interest of the religions in this is obvious. limitations of space forbid me to follow out its consequences here.

Meeting of the Aristotelian Society at 21, Gower Street, W.C. 1,

November 21st, 1921, at 8 P.M.

II. AN INDIAN DOCTRINE OF PERCEPTION AND

ERROR.

By F. W. THOMAS.

§ 1. Prefatory.

It seems advisable to preface the discussion of the matter which I have in view with a short characterization of the system in which it arises. It is known as the NyayaVaiseshika system, a combination of two originally independent schools, of which the one, the Nyaya, contributed the logical doctrines, and the other mainly ontological and physical theories. It may be described as scholastic, pluralist, realist and atomistic. It affirms a plurality of souls, which are all omnipresent and everlasting, a material world constructed of atoms, differing in kind through what is called speciality or ultimate differentia (visesha), real objects composed of these atoms, and a real time and space. It admits a deity, and as regards transmigration of souls, liberation by knowledge and so forth it is in agreement with the general Indian views.

The expositions usually commence with a list of categories, or classes of entities, of which seven are recognized, namely, substance, quality, action, universality, speciality, inherence and negation. The history of this classification is not known; the categories are not in any way deduced, and other possible categories, such as potency and similarity, are discussed: it is sometimes admitted that the list is indefinitive and partly optional. The first six of the seven are qualified as positive. The first three are credited with "existence" (sattā), which is described as the summum genus. The recognition of a highest genus "existence" (denied by Aristotle) hardly calls for

explanation; but attention may be drawn to the manner in which it appears in the system. By some it was held that "existence" does not differ from "positivity" and therefore should include the universals: accordingly they deny it as a genus. That, however, was not the orthodox view. An argument was drawn to the effect that "existence" is required to account for loss of existence: that in virtue of which substances, qualities and actions can cease to be is "existence." An attempt is made to show that this is not incompatible with the recognition of eternal "existents," such as atoms, time, space and souls; in fact the Indian logician argues that, whereas existence is something occurring in both eternals and non-eternals, the possibility of the latter occurrence is something which qualifies it even in the former. This is consonant with his usual procedure in defining genera; but in the case of "existence" he plainly has the special object of distinguishing physical existence.

The epistemology deals first with "truth" (pramā), the subject of various definitions, which all describe it as an experience we might therefore call it knowledge. The means to truth (pramānas) are most commonly considered to be four in number, namely perception, inference, analogy and communication, of which, however, the last two are admitted to be dependent upon the second. The property of being means to truth is their validity (prāmānya), which term is also applied to individual true cognitions. All four are distinguished, as being "experience" (anubhava), from memory.

§ 2. Perception.

According to the old definition perception was "cognition arising from contact of sense-organ and thing, inexpressible and unerring, consisting of affirmation." In order however to include "God's perception," and also for other reasons, preference was subsequently given to a definition in the form "cognition not instrumented by cognition"; and it was

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explained that inference, analogy and communication excluded as being instrumented by cognitions of subsumption, similarity and meaning respectively. If we inquire why a definition based upon an enumeration of the sense-organs is not preferred, the reason, apart from the case of "God's perception," will be that the definitions of the sense-organs are made to depend upon that of perception.

The sense-organs are the five usually recognized, namely eye, ear, skin, tongue, nose, and also a sixth, which is called the mind-organ (manas). What is the purport of this addition? In the first place, it was held necessary to posit an organ which should report occurrences in the soul, such as desires, feelings and so on, i.e., should account for our awareness of these, since plainly they are cognized. It was quite in accordance with the system, which rejects "self-luminosity," to bring cognitions also under this rubric. As a result, we have three kinds of procedures in the soul, namely cognitions, desires and feelings, which are brought to consciousness by a single organ. Consciousness, however, is not the best word to be used in this connexion. For plainly the idea is in exact correspondence with that which Professor Ward expresses by the term "attention." Some philosophers explained the varying area of attention by a power of contraction and expansion in this mind-organ. But the orthodox view regards the organ as atomic. Its second function was to account for the fact that, while all the senses are in contact with the world, we attend to them severally.

As regards the objects apprehended by the exterior senses, we may cite a brief statement from a manual,* as follows:

"The field of smell is odour, also odourness and so forth. Similarly savour [is the field] of the tongue, and sound of the ear.

* Siddhanta-muktāvalī, 53–7.

"The field of the eye is appreciable colour. Substances possessing the same, severalty and number, disjunction and conjunction, priority and posteriority, viscidity, fluidity and size, action and genus in appropriate occurrence, inherence under the same condition the eye apprehends through connexion with light and appreciable colour.

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Substance having appreciable touch and appreciable touch itself are the field of the skin; also what is suitable for being seen, except colour. Here also colour is the cause of perception of substance."

The gist of this is that smell and taste reveal only qualities and their genera, whereas sight and touch reveal also substance, action and so forth. Accordingly we should understand that, when we taste a thing, there is a combination of two senses, taste and touch: an apparently reasonable view.

What may be the correct doctrine as regards seeing substances, i.e., things, through connexion with light and colour, I am not prepared to state. But at any rate it is a prima facie experience that we see not only colour, but also extension, and that may be enough; moreover, a joint prerogative of sight and touch over the other senses is in this respect, I believe, conceded. The curious doctrine that colour is cause of the tactual perception of substance is one which we might be shy of mentioning. It was due to a desire for a single cause of such perception, and was connected with a view that air is known not by perception, but by inference. We need hardly mention that it is as cause and not as object of perception generally that "colour" was selected by these realists. The doctrine was criticized and rejected by the "moderns."

We will not go into the physical explanations of vision, or what in the case of sight is understood by "conjunction with the eye and light," or what is stated in this connexion as to action at a distance. Sufficient has been said to show that in their treatment of perception these Indian philosophers were at

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