The materialist frightens the idealist by claiming to derive his mind from the elements of the laboratory, while all the time he is struggling to express something higher than all elements and atoms, something of which both the external and the internal phenomena are results, and which he terms matter.
The idealist, on the other hand, wants to derive all the elements and atoms of the materialist from his own thought, even while catching glimpses of something which is the cause of both mind and matter, and which he ofttimes calls God.
That is to say, one party wants to explain the whole universe by a portion of it which is external, the other by another portion which is internal. Both of these attempts are impossible.
Mind and matter cannot explain each other. The only explanation is to be sought for in something which will embrace both matter and mind.
- Swami Vivekananda,
found in an unfinished article
The idealist, on the other hand, wants to derive all the elements and atoms of the materialist from his own thought, even while catching glimpses of something which is the cause of both mind and matter, and which he ofttimes calls God.
That is to say, one party wants to explain the whole universe by a portion of it which is external, the other by another portion which is internal. Both of these attempts are impossible.
Mind and matter cannot explain each other. The only explanation is to be sought for in something which will embrace both matter and mind.
- Swami Vivekananda,
found in an unfinished article
No comments:
Post a Comment