"Of letters, the letter A, I am," Gita.

"There is an alliance with matter, with the object or extended world ; but the thing allied, the mind proper, has itself no extension and cannot be joined in local union. Now, we have a difficulty in providing any form of language, any familiar analogy, suited to this unique conjunction; in comparison with all ordinary unions, it is a paradox or contradiction" - Bain.

The quotation, we give above, is from Dr. Bain's remarkable book 'Mind and Body,' and the several chapters comprising the book are worth close study, even though we are not bound to accept the learned Doctor's conclusions, and share in his hope that the philosophy of the future will be a sort of qualified materialism. The important thing is to get at his facts, as far as they can be arrived at by close observation and experiment, and such inference as are warranted by strict logic, which have been most thoroughly sifted, and about which therefore there can be no doubt. We will enquire, therefore, what are the proved facts concerning the nature of mind and body and their characteristics, and the nature of their connection, so far as they can be ascertained. Now as regards Mind, it is analysed into Feelings (including emotions), Will and Intellect. "These are a trinity in unity; they are characteristic in their several manifestations, yet so dependent among themselves that no one could subsist alone; neither Will nor Intellect could be present in the absence of Feeling; and Feeling manifested in its completeness, carries with it, the germs of the two others." The ultimate analysis of a Feeling, being either a pleasure or a pain, it is seen, however, that volition or thought could not, in any sense, be confounded with Feelings. What Dr. Bain, however, means in the above quotation is that without the acquisition of feelings, no volition or thought could arise first, that feelings are primarily all derived through the sensory organs and centres.

And a pleasure is seen to be connected with an activity which tends to promote life and a pain, to destroy lifewhich determine also in ethics, the nature of right (good) and wrong, Papam and Punyam. This principle is stated as the law of self-conservation. But there is a limit to all pleasures; and even a pleasure may become painful, if only carried to excess. Another law exhibited in feelings, which applies also to thought, is what is called the law of relativity, namely that "change of impression is necessary to our being conscious."Either a feeling or a thought, only too long prolonged, becomes feeble and feeble, till it is blotted out altogether, and we are no more conscious of such feeling or thought; and to become conscious again, we soon change this train, and then revert. The Tamil philosophers state this principle in the axiom

! 'If there is thought there is forgetfulness also.' Dr. Bain almost confesses that, both on the mental and physical side, the reason for the exhibition of this law is not very explicable. But Hindu philosophers take this fact as showing that man's intelligenceis weakand it can become stronger and stronger, and become all thought by practice (Sadana). In Yogic practice, what comes first is more darkness, oblivion than light, but continuing in the same path, there dawns true light in the last resort, and the nature of the light is so often mistaken in the interval, so many shades of it breaking out. And our volition-Ichcha) determines our actions as impelled by Feeling or Intellect. Intellect is analysed into a sense of difference and sense of similarity, and Retentiveness or Memory. What are called variously as memory, reason, judgment, imagination, conception and others are all resolvable into these three kinds. And difference lies at the very basis of our intellect. No knowledge and no intellectual operation is possible, if there is no difference in the constituent elements, if there is a mere sameness. If there was only one colour, the art of painting will be an impossibility; if there was only one sound or tune, music, we could never hear. As it is, the law of relativity governs our very being. Sameness could give knowledge, only if there was difference, and hence the sense of similarity is also accounted an intellectual function; and a great function it performs in the field of invention. And no high degree of intellectual power is possible, if we do not possess the power of remembering our past experiences and impressions. And one peculiarity of the human mind, may we call it a defect, may be also noted here, as based on the law of relativity already stated.

The mind is not conscious of all the impressions, through all the sense organs, all at once. A man does not become conscious of a sight, a touch, a sound, or a smell, all at once. There must be a transition from one to the other, however momentary it might be. And the case of an Ashtavadani is no exception to this. Assisted by a good memory, the more avadanams he performs, the more time does he take. It will be noted that, in this analysis of mind, no distinction is drawn between a feeling and a consciousness of a feeling, a volition and a consciousness of a volition, a reasoning and the consciousness of reasoning. Both are taken to be identical and therefore needing no distinction. In Hindu philosophy, they are distinguished and a mere feeling or willing or thinking is separated from consciousness of such functions, and the pure consciousness is taken as the soul or Sat, and the rest classed with body and the world as non-soul or Asat (other than Sat). And we will speak of this distinction more further on. From these mental functions, however, are contrasted the body and its functions and the so-called external world.