Note 58 — Chapter II

This passage, relative to space, is as obscure as the subject itself is metaphysical. The notions here expressed are in accordance with the Vedanta doctrine, by which akas, or “pure ether,” is the universal space, including all, and the vacuum between the separate objects therein. There is a vacuum unconnected with every thing, and in it these particular vacuums are absorbed. This appears conformable enough with modern philosophy, but the Hindus applied it to the divine spirit itself: thus, they say that there is a perfect spirit, in which individual souls and the aggregation of all souls take refuge, and so Brahma and the individuated spirits are one: both pure life. We may here recollect that sir Isaac Newton, in attempting to define space, compared it to “Something like the organ of divinity.” According to the Vedanta-sara, there is no difference between the all-ruling spirit and that of the sage; as there is none between the forest and the trees and the inclosed atmosphere; or between the lake and the parts of the water, and the image of the sky which falls in it. We are informed by Damascius, an author of the sixth century of our era, who quotes Eudemos, a disciple of Aristotle (Wolfií Anect. Græca, t. III. p. 259), that the united intellectual all is called “space” by the Magians and by the whole race of the Arians, which name may be applied to the nations inhabiting the countries situated to the East and West of the Indus.—A. T.