regards the highest end, namely, emancipation from
the necessity of repeated births. The difference between the three
is, that the one class of dissenters expect the fruition of that
deliverance to be a finite personal immortality in heaven; the
other interpret it as an unwalled absorption in the Over Soul,
like a breath in the air; while the more orthodox believers regard
it as the entire identity of the soul with the Infinite One.

Against the opinion that there is only one Soul for all bodies, as
one string supports all the gems of a necklace, some Hindu
philosophers argue that the plurality of souls is proved by the
consideration that, if there were but one soul, then when any one
was born, or died, or was lame, or deaf, or occupied, or idle, all
would at once be born, die, be lame, deaf, occupied, or idle. But
Professor Wilson says, "This doctrine of the multitudinous
existence or individual incorporation of Soul clearly contradicts
the Vedas. They affirm one only existent soul to be distributed in
all beings. It is beheld collectively or dispersedly, like the
reflection of the moon in still or troubled water. Soul, eternal,
omnipresent, undisturbed, pure, one, is multiplied by the power of
delusion, not of its own nature."27

All the Brahmanic sects unite in thinking that liberation from the
net of births is to be obtained and the goal of their wishes to be
reached by one means only; and that is knowledge, real wisdom, an
adequate sight of the truth. Without this knowledge there is no
possible emancipation; but there are three ways of seeking the
needed knowledge.

24 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 15.

25 Vishnu Purana, p. 287.

26 Weber, Akademische Vorlesungen uber Indische
Literaturgeschichte, s. 160.

27 Sankbya Karika, p. 70.

Some strive, by direct intellectual abstraction and effort, by
metaphysical speculation, to grasp the true principles of being.
Others try, by voluntary penance, self abnegation, and pain, to
accumulate such a degree of merit, or to bring the soul into such
a state of preparedness, as will compel the truth to reveal
itself. And still others devote themselves to the worship of some
chosen deity, by ritual acts and fervid contemplation, to obtain
by his favor the needed wisdom. A few quotations may serve to
illustrate the Brahmanic attempts at winning this one thing
needful, the knowledge which yields exemption from all incarnate
lives.

The Sankhya philosophy is a regular system of me