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<p align="center" style="text-indent:0.34cm; line-height:150%; margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0"><b>
<font size="4">Rationalism</font></b></p>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">WHAT is Reason, the faculty that
is said to be the proud privilege of man, the sovereign instrument he
alone possesses for the purpose of knowing? What is the value of
knowledge that Reason gives? For it is the manner of knowing, the
particular faculty or instrument by which we know, that determines
the nature and content of knowledge. Reason is the collecting of
available sense-perceptions and a certain mode of working upon them.
It has three component elements that have been defined as
observation, classification and deduction. Now, the very composition
of Reason shows that it cannot be a perfect instrument of
knowledge; the limitations are the inherent limitations of the
component elements. As regards observation there is a two-fold
limitation. First, observation is a relative term and variable
quantity. One observes through the prism of one's own observing
faculty, through the bias of one's own personality and no two persons
can have absolutely the same manner of observation. So Science has recognised the necessity of personal equation and has created an
imaginary observer, a &quot;mean man&quot; as the standard of
reference. And this already takes us far away from the truth, from
the reality. Secondly, observation is limited by its scope. All the
facts of the world, all sense-perceptions possible and actual cannot
be included within any observation however large, however collective
it may be. We have to go always upon a limited amount of data, we are
able to construct only a partial and sketchy view of the surface of
existence. And then it is these few and doubtful facts that Reason
seeks to arrange and classify. That classification may hold good for
certain immediate ends, for a temporary understanding of the world
and its forces, either in order to satisfy our curiosity or to gain
some practical utility. For when</span></FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=1 STYLE="font-size: 8pt">Page – 10</FONT><BR>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">we
want to consider the world only in its immediate relation to us, a
few and even doubtful facts are sufficient-the more immediate the
relation, the more immaterial the doubtfulness and insufficiency of
facts. We may quite confidently go a step in darkness, but to walk a
mile we do require light and certainty. Our scientific classification
has a background of uncertainty, if not, of falsity; and our
deduction also, even while correct within a very narrow range of
space and time, cannot escape the fundamental vices of observation
and classification upon which it is based.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">It might be said, however, that
the guarantee or sanction of Reason does not lie in the extent of its
application, nor can its subjective nature (or ego-centric
predication, as philosophers would term it) vitiate the validity of
its conclusions. There is, in fact, an inherent unity and harmony
between Reason and Reality. If we know a little of Reality, we know
the whole; if we know the subjective, we know also the objective. As
in the part, so in the whole; as it is within, so it is without. If
you say that I will die, you need not wait for my actual death to
have the proof of your statement. The generalising power inherent in
Reason is the guarantee of the certitude to which it leads. Reason is
valid, as it does not betray us. If it were such as
anti-intellectuals make it out to be, we would be making nothing but
false steps, would always remain entangled in contradictions. The
very success of Reason is proof of its being a reliable and perfect
instrument for the knowledge of Truth and Reality. It is beside the
mark to prove otherwise, simply by analysing the nature of Reason and
showing the fundamental deficiencies of that nature. It is rather to
the credit of Reason that being as it is, it is none the less a
successful and trustworthy agent.</span></FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Now the question is, does Reason
never fail? Is it such a perfect instrument as intellectualists think
it to be? There is ground for serious misgivings. Reason says, for
example, that the earth revolves round the sun: and reason, it is
argued, is right, for we see that all the' facts are conformable _ to
it, even facts that were hitherto unknown and are now coming into our
ken. But the difficulty is that Reason did not say that always in the
past and may not say that always in the future. The old astronomers
could explain the universe by holding quite a contrary theory and
could fit into it all their astronomical data. </span></FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 11</FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">A future scientist may come and explain the matter in quite a
different way from either. It is only a choice of workable theories
that Reason seems to offer; we do not know the fact itself, apart
perhaps from exactly the amount that immediate sense-perception gives
to each of us. Or again, if we take an example of another category,
we may ask, does God exist? A candid Rationalist would say that he
does not know although he has his own opinion about the matter.
Evidently, Reason cannot solve all the problems that it meets; it can
judge only truths that are of a certain type.</span></FONT></P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">It may be answered that Reason
is a faculty which gives us progressive knowledge of the reality, but
as a knowing instrument it is perfect, at least it is the only
instrument at our disposal; even if it gives a false, incomplete or
blurred image of the reality, it has the means and capacity of
correcting and completing itself. It offers theories, no doubt; but
what are theories? They are simply the gradually increasing
adaptation of the knowing subject to the object to be known, the
evolving revelation of reality to our perception of it. Reason is the
power which carries on that process of adaptation and revelation; we
can safely rely upon Reason and trust It to carry on its work with
increasing success.</span></FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">But in knowledge it is precisely
finality that we seek for and no mere progressive, asymptotic,
rapprochement ad infinitum. No less than the Practical Reason, the
Theoretical Reason also demands a categorical imperative, a clean
affirmation or denial. If Reason cannot do that, it must be regarded
as inefficient. It is poor consolation to man that Reason is
gradually finding out the truth or that it is trying to grapple with
the problems of God, Soul and Immortality and will one day pronounce
its verdict. Whether we have or have not any other instrument of
knowledge is a different question altogether. But in the meanwhile
Reason stands condemned by the evidence of its own limitation.</span></FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">It may be retorted that if
Reason is condemned, it is condemned by itself and by no other
authority. All argumentation against Reason is a function of Reason
itself. The deficiencies of Reason we find out by the rational
faculty alone. If Reason was to die, it is because it consents to
commit suicide; there is no other power that kills it. But to this
our answer is that</span></FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 12</FONT><BR>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Reason </span><I><span style="font-size:12pt;">has </span></I><span style="font-size:12pt;">this
miraculous power of self-destruction; or, to put it philosophically,
Reason is, at best, an organ of self-criticism and perhaps the organ
par excellence for that purpose. But criticism is one thing and
creation another. And whether we know or act, it is fundamentally a
process of creation; at least, without this element of creation there
can be no knowledge, no act. In knowledge there is a luminous
creativity, Revelation or Categorical Imperative which Reason does
not and cannot supply but vaguely strains to seize. For that element
we have to search elsewhere, not in Reason.</span></FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">Does this mean that real
knowledge is irrational or against Reason? Not so necessarily. There
is a super-rational power for knowledge and Reason may either be a
channel or an obstacle. If we take our stand upon Reason and then
proceed to know, if we take the forms and categories of Reason as the
inviolable schemata of knowledge, then indeed Reason becomes an
obstacle to that super-rational power. If, on the other hand, Reason
does not offer any set-form from beforehand, does not insist upon its
own conditions, is passive and simply receives and reflects what is
given to it, then it becomes a luminous and sure channel for that
higher and real knowledge.</span></FONT></P>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT STYLE="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;">The fact is that Reason is a
lower manifestation of knowledge, it is an attempt to express on the
mental level a power that exceeds it. It is the section of a vast and
unitarian Consciousness-Power; the section may be necessary under
certain conditions and circumstances, but unless it is viewed in its
relation to the ensemble, unless it gives up its exclusive
absolutism, it will be perforce arbitrary and misleading. It would
still remain helpful and useful,. but its help and use would be
always limited in scope and temporary in effectivity.</span></FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page – 13</FONT></P>
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