Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/115

99 all things are immanent in, and parts of, one universal Being. But the difficulty in the notion of interaction is due to the fact that Lotze insists on thinking the matter in terms of space-images and this even though he follows Kant in maintaining the subjectivity of space. Passages from the Metaphysik are cited in proof of this point. The difficulty disappears for the most part when we discard such spatial imagery. The source of our concept of action and interaction must be sought in the consciousness of our own activity, and this carries the problem over to the realm of spirit and involves no necessary reference to space. The writer discusses at some length the views of Maine de Biran, who found in self-consciousness the source of the concepts of being and of substance. When we find the source of our concept of interaction in experience of our own activity, the nature of interaction is no longer unintelligible. The writer discusses briefly the four possible forms of interaction. If we let a, b, c, represent a series of self-conscious beings, and α, β, γ, represent a series of unconscious beings, commonly called 'things,' then four forms of interaction are possible, which may be represented thus: a:b; a:β; α: b; α:β. Of these the first is the typical form. In the light of all that precedes, the M of the Metaphysik, Lotze's universal Being, is seen to be an unnecessary assumption. In place of Lotze' s explanation of all action as action within the one substance M involving a denial of individual beings, we must suppose a world of spiritual beings having a similarity (Ähnlichkeit), which is a primary fact or principle, and the reason for which we can not investigate. This makes interaction not only possible, but readily conceivable, since the inter-communication between self-conscious beings—of which we have direct experience—is the type of all interaction.

The Gita has perhaps had a greater influence than any other of the sacred books of the Hindus on the life and thought of the people. It tended to universalize the Hindu religion, to rid it of its forms and ceremonies, and to substitute love for law. It forms, with the earlier Vedas and Upanishads, three stages of development in Hindu theology. The Vedas represent the objective ceremonial stage; the Upanishads, somewhat negatively, the subjective, in which God is conceived as infinite subject; and the Bhagabad-Gita the fulfilment of the protests and negations of the Upanishads in a higher synthesis. Like the Upanishads, whose object was to reveal Brahman, the one ideal author and ruler of the universe, the Gita also teaches Monism, the fundamental doctrine of the Hindu religion and transcendence, its most characteristic idea.

The word 'Maya' plays an important part in the theology of the Hindus, like Logos in that of Christendom. It represents the thought and energy of God as revealed in the universe. The world is not a mere shadow, but