DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2369#0005
INTRODUCTION.
A system of ethics not based on rational demonstration of
the universe is of no practical value. It is only a system of the
ethics of individual opinions and individual convenience.
It has no solidity and therefore no strength. The aim of human
existence is happiness, progress, and all ethics teach men how-
to attain the one and achieve the other. The question, however,
remains what is happiness, and what is progress ? These are issues
not yet solved in any satisfactory manner by the known
systems of ethics. The reason is not far to seek. The modem
tendency is to separate ethics from physics or rational demon-
stration of the universe, and thus make it a science resting on
nothing but the irregular whims and caprices of individuals
and nations.
In India ethics has ever been associated with religion.
Religion has ever been an attempt to solve the mystery of
nature, to understand the phenomena of nature, and to realise
the place of man in nature. Every religion has its philosophical
as well as ethical aspect, and the latter without the former
has, here at least, no meaning. If every religion has its
physical and ethical side, it has its psychological side as well.
There is no possibility of establishing a relation between physics
and ethics but through psychology. Psychology enlarges the
conclusions of physics and confirms the ideal of morality.
If man wants at all to understand his place in nature, and
to be happy and progressing, he must aim at that physical,
psychological and moral development which can enable him to
pry into the depths of nature. He must observe, think, and
act; he must live, love, and progress. His development must
be simultaneous on all the three planes. The law of corres-
pondence rules supreme in nature: and the physical corresponds
as mnch to the mental, as both in their turn correspond to the
A system of ethics not based on rational demonstration of
the universe is of no practical value. It is only a system of the
ethics of individual opinions and individual convenience.
It has no solidity and therefore no strength. The aim of human
existence is happiness, progress, and all ethics teach men how-
to attain the one and achieve the other. The question, however,
remains what is happiness, and what is progress ? These are issues
not yet solved in any satisfactory manner by the known
systems of ethics. The reason is not far to seek. The modem
tendency is to separate ethics from physics or rational demon-
stration of the universe, and thus make it a science resting on
nothing but the irregular whims and caprices of individuals
and nations.
In India ethics has ever been associated with religion.
Religion has ever been an attempt to solve the mystery of
nature, to understand the phenomena of nature, and to realise
the place of man in nature. Every religion has its philosophical
as well as ethical aspect, and the latter without the former
has, here at least, no meaning. If every religion has its
physical and ethical side, it has its psychological side as well.
There is no possibility of establishing a relation between physics
and ethics but through psychology. Psychology enlarges the
conclusions of physics and confirms the ideal of morality.
If man wants at all to understand his place in nature, and
to be happy and progressing, he must aim at that physical,
psychological and moral development which can enable him to
pry into the depths of nature. He must observe, think, and
act; he must live, love, and progress. His development must
be simultaneous on all the three planes. The law of corres-
pondence rules supreme in nature: and the physical corresponds
as mnch to the mental, as both in their turn correspond to the