Colonel Krnnepy on the Véeddnta System. 433 
whatever; the considering that the subject and its object, consciousness 
andconception, are one and the same; and that there is absolutely nothing 
except this identity.”” Nor does Ficutrr conceal the consequences which 
must result from this system, since he begins the last dialogue of this tract 
with these words : “I see thee, my reader, stand there in astonishment ; and 
thou seemst to think,—is there nothing further than this? a mere picture of 
actual life is presented to me, which spares me nothing that exists in life; a 
faint representation in pallid colours of all in nature that I have daily 
before me, without trouble or labour. And for this purpose shall I subject 
myself to fatiguing study and wearisome thought, &c.” 
In this tract, however, Ficute does not explain in what manner the 
I, that is both subject and object, becomes conscious that other J’s simi- 
larly constituted actually exist, or whether the Z is dependent for its 
consciousness on itself, or on some superior being. But in his work, entitled 
«A Guide to a Holy Life,” occur these passages: “ Except God there is 
nothing real, or in the proper sense of the word ¢here, and except the inti- 
mate conviction of this truth (wissen), for that is absolutely and immediately 
the presence of God himself; and, as far as we possess that conviction, we 
are ourselves implanted in the divine nature. All else which appears to us 
to have existence—substances, bodies, souls, ourselves, in so far as we 
ascribe to ourselves a personal and independent being—is not real and 
actually existent; but they exist in consciousness and thinking, as the 
conception and the thought, and in no other way whatever.”* ‘God is 
essentially one without plurality, he is always of one substance without 
change or transformation, here is he now present, even as he essentially is, 
one without change or transformation ; and we ourselves partake of his 
divine presence, so that also in us, in so far as we partake of his divinity, 
no change or tranformation, no plurality or multiplicity, no separation, or 
distinction, or sundering can take place. So must it be, as it cannot be 
otherwise therefore it is.”’t From these passages it would appear, that 
Ficute had formed some conception of the absolute unity which is the pecu- 
liar tenet of the Véddnta ; but his earlier opinions respecting God, evidently 
prevented him from constructing a system in conformity to these concep- 
tions; for even in the greatest part of this work he expresses himself 
* Page 64, Fourth Lecture. + Page 69, Fourth Lecture. 
