The subject on which I propose to address you this evening is the nature of the Jiva, but coming as I do at the fag-end of the day, with the atmosphere at the burning point, 1 do not wish to inflict on you a long speech. The importance of the question admits of no doubt; and at any rate, this should engage our first attention before we attempt to solve problems as to the existence and the nature of God which are beyond our cognition in a sense. And as I will show, the subject is so important that when we had solved the riddle about man himself, we would have solved the riddle about the universe. The subject is treated under Sutra III of Sivajnanabodham, and in that masterly treatise of St. Arul Nandi Sivachariyar, in all its pros and cons, but I will confine myself to the true position of the Siddhantins as regards the nature of the Soul. There are two characteristics of it elaborated in our system. The first is called by St. Meykandan, and is paraphrased asby St. Tayumanavar, which all mean that the soul becomes one with whatever it is attached to or associated with. That is to say, whatever its own nature or individuality may be, when it becomes united to another, it loses its own characteristics and individuality and partakes of the nature of the thing united to, and completely merges itself in the other. As illustrated in the proverb, "Youth and white paper take all impressions", the human mind is a tabula Rasa in which are imbedded the impressions . which are received from out-side. Children catch the manners, habits and the peculiarities of their parents. Their very voice is imitated. Pupils copy many of the peculiarities of their teachers also. A Madras Tamilian settling in Tinnevely would readily copy the very intonation in speech of the people around him.

* A paper read before the Saiva Samayabhivnddhi Sabha, Palam-eotta, 1910.

The principle of this is stated by St. Tiruvaluvar also in the oft-quoted verse.

"The waters' virtue changes with the soil over which they flow, so man's mind changes with the company he keeps." The water falling from heaven is colourless and tasteless, but as it touches the earth, it becomes sweet or brackish, dirty/ or discoloured, according to the nature of the soil, losing thereby its individuality and purity. So does a man become good or bad according to the association he forms. The law of association is stated in the words 'we become like what we study or are closely associated with.' In Biology the working out of this law is fully illustrated.* Darwin instances how

* As analogous to this, I might instance the case of mimicry in plants and animals. Mostly for purposes of protection, insects and birds and animals assume the colour of their environment. Worms and insects feeding on green plants would assume the colour of the leaves or the wood of the plants and even assume the shape of leaf-stalks and twigs. The stick cater-pillars, the larvae of several species of moths, stand perpendicularly on twigs, and are indistinguishable from the short twigs in the same branch. In the case of the stick-insects which popularly are called 'praying insects or spectres' (Mantidoe) which being unable to move about, assume the size and shape of leaves, birds, and flowers, dried twigs, stalks of grass, according to the respective habitat, so as to deceive and catch their prey which consist of butterflies and other insects etc, which hop about these plants. I have seen specimens of walking-leaf insects, one resembling the leaves, stalks of the Vagai tree, one resembling exactly a stalk of ariali grass, the Resemblance extending even to the dried ends of the blades of grass.

These are called orby the Tamils.

As a plant changes colour from green to yellow, even so these insects change their colour. The most remarkable case is that of the persons ever associated with pigs, get piggy faces, and with horses, horsey faces. In the case of a husband and a wife when they have been perfectly loving, it has been found to effect a complete assimilation of their features. They might have started life with perfectly distinct facial features, yet their souls become one through love, and through the power of the soul, their bodies are also become one. The writer of the book Spiritual law in the natural world (Purdy Publishing Company, Chicago). observes "all who have made a study of the cause of all things have become so at one with it as to have causing power, for it is an invariable rule that we become like what we study or are closely associated with. We become so-like people with whom we live constantly that chameleon. It does not change colour from fright. When left in con finement, it rarely changes colour. But as it runs about, it changes colour according to the colour of the surface over which it runs. As it runs over the bare soil, if the colour of the soil be red, it will become red ; if black it will become black.

As it runs over the brown trunk of a tree, it changes into brown; and when it reaches the green leafage, it changes into green. In the case of birds, their colour is determined from the colour of the soil etc, wherein they build their nests. It is to protect themselves from birds of prey. In the case of lions, their grey colour is due to their habitat, In the African wilds, where there is little or no vegetation, these lions generally find their lair amidst small pieces of gray rocks, and while they stand beside these pieces of rock, the hunter could hardly distinguish them from the pieces of rock. Artists in their pictures even produce this effect. With regard to tigers which usually haunt thick forest glades, their black and yellow stripes are the. result of their environment. These stripes imitate the alternate light and shade which falls slantingly through the leafage and the animal becomes indistinguishable thereby. If one observes closely the leaves of the orange tree, he would find things there which imitate closely the excreta of birds, black with a white tip. These are really live caterpillars which seek their mimicry to escape even the keen eyes of the birds that feed on them.