A RUN THROUGH KATIIIAWAR. 303 



of vitality and its laws to be lost in that way ; though 

 even there exists a great danger, for such a practical 

 sense cannot exist long without a credible intelligible 

 theory to back it up, and degrades, with marvellous 

 rapidity, into scepticism, hopelessness, and puerile 

 superstition when such belief has disappeared. 



In one essential respect the Jaina, and indeed most 

 of the Indian religionists, are at one with the scien- 

 tific Positivists of the present day ; for they believe 

 that the universe (to use the language of Dr J. 

 Stevenson, one of the first investigators of this form 

 of religion), " consisting of intellectual as well as 

 material principles, has existed from all eternity, 

 undergoing an infinite number of revolutions, pro- 

 duced simply by the inherent physical and intellec- 

 tual powers of nature, without the intervention of 

 any eternal Deity no such Being, distinct from the 

 world, having any existence, though certain of the 

 world's elements, when properly developed, obtain 

 deification." This, excepting the latter clause, is pre- 

 cisely the view of matter propounded by Dr Tyndall 

 at Belfast ; while their doctrine of the Absolute as the 

 home of Jinas, has considerable resemblance to the 

 views of the ' Unseen Universe,' ascribed to Professor 

 Tait. 



There are in all, according to the Jains, seventy-two 

 Tirthankaras or Victorious Ones, twenty- four of 

 them belonging to a past age, and being practically of 

 110 importance ; twenty-four others, the real objects of 



