DIGNIDADES OCUPADAS POR MUJERES ANTES DE LA PARIDAD ELECTORAL

in common with true metaphysic.

In this connexion, it may also be observed in a general way that questions which arise as it were accidentally, and only possess a particular and momen- tary interest, like many of those to be met with in the history of modern philosophy, are thereby clearly deprived of all metaphysical character, or in other words aie lacking in the character of universality; moreover most questions of this kind usually fall into the category of problems enjoying a purely artificial existence. The truly metaphysical, let us repeat once more, can only.be that which is absolutely stable, permanent > and independent of all contingencies and in particular

of historical contingencies ; that alone is metaphysical which does not change, and it is also this universality of metaphysic which constitutes its essential unity, precluding the multiplicity of philosophical systems and religious dogmas alike, and hence which confers on it its profound immutability.

From all that has been said, it also follows that metaphysic bears no relation to conceptions such as idealism, pantheism, spiritualism and materialism, which are all stamped with the systematic character of Western philosophical thought ; and this point is all the more important to note here since orientalists commonly suffer from the obsession of trying at all costs to force Eastern thought into these narrow frames which were never made for it : we shall have evasion later to draw special attention to the misuse thus made of these ineffectual labels or at least of some of them. For the moment there is only one

point upon which it is necessary to insist, namely that the quarrel between spiritualism and materialism, around which almost all philosophical thought has revolved since the time of Descartes, has nothing to do with pure metaphysic ; here, in fact, is an example of one of those questions of a purely temporary nature to which we have previously referred. Actually the duality " spirit-matter " had never been put forward as absolute and irreconcilable prior to the Cartesian conception ; indeed the notion of matter, in the modern sense of the word, was completely foreign to the ancient peoples, the Greeks included, and it is still equally foreign to the majority of Orientals at the present day ; in Sanskrit no word exists even remotely answering to it. The conception of a duality of this kind has the sole merit of representing in a fairly adequate way the outward appearance of things ; but precisely because it stops short at appear- ances it remains entirely superficial and, being based on a special and purely individual point of view, it leads to the negation of all metaphysic as soon as an attempt is made to attribute an absolute value to it by affirming the irreducibility of its two terms— an affirmation which constitutes dualism in the proper sense of the word. Moreover the opposition between spirit and matter only represents one particular example of dualism, since the two terms of the opposition might well be quite other than these two relative principles, and it would be equally possible to imagine in the same manner an indefinite series of pairs of correlative terms besides this' one, in reference to other more or less particularized determinations.

. MÊTAÎ>HVSICAL ÀNfÛ PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT Speaking quite generally, dualism is characterized by the fact that it stops short at the antithesis between two more or less particular terms. This opposition doubtless really does exist from a certain point of view, and herein is to be found the element of truth that dualism contains ; but by treating it as irre- concilable and absolute, whereas it is really quite relative and contingent, all possibility of going beyond the two contrasted terms is precluded ; thus it is that dualism is seen to be limited by its own systematic nature. If this limitation is not accepted and there is a desire to resolve the oppo«tfion to which dualism clings so obstinately, it is possible to put forward several different solutions ; and two solutions do in fact appear in those philosophical systems which may be grouped together under the common heading of monism. It may be said that monism is essentially characterized by a refusal to admit the existence of an absolute irreducibility and a wish to surmount the apparent opposition, leading to an attempt to achieve this result by reducing one of the two terms to the other ; we therefore find, in the particuar case of the opposition between spirit and matter, spiritualistic monism on the one hand, which claims to reduce matter to spirit, and on the other hand materialistic monism, which claims on the contrary to reduce spirit to matter. Of whatever kind it may be, monism is right in main- taining that there is no absolute opposition, for in this respect it is less narrowly limited than dualism, and it represents at least an effort to penetrate further to the heart of things ; but it ends alihost inevitably by falling into another error, through completely neglect-

ing, if not altogether denying, the opposition in question which, even if only an appearance, none the less deserves to be recognized, as such : here once again it is the exclusiveness of the system which is responsible for its principal defect. On the other hand, by wishing to reduce one of the two terms directly to the other, it is never possible to escape completely from the alternative set up by dualism, since nothing is considered outside those two terms, which are treated as its basic principles ; and seeing that these two terms are correlative, it might even be asked whether either has any justification for existing apart from the other, or if it is logical to preserve the one while suppressing the other. Indeed we find our- selves in the presence of two solutions which are really much nearer to being equivalent than they appear on the surface ; the fact that spiritualistic monism affirms that everything is spirit, whereas materialistic monism affirms on the contrary that everything is matter, is really of little importance, particularly since each finds itself obliged to attribute to the principle which it retains the most essential properties of the one it suppresses. It is evident that discussion between spiritualists and materialists carried out on this basis must rapidly degenerate into a mere battle of words : the two opposed monistic solutions represent in reality but two sides of a double solution, and one moreover that is wholly inadequate.

It is here that a different solution must be propounded : but whereas, with dualism and monism, we were only concerned tfith two different types of systema- tized conception of a purely philosophical order,

METAPHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT