7. PHILOSOPHY.--The object of Hindu philosophy consists in obtaining emancipation from metempsychosis, through the absorption of the soul into Brahm, or the universal being. According to the different principles which philosophers adopt in attaining this supreme object, their doctrines are divided into the four following systems: 1st, Sensualism; 2d, Idealism; 3d, Mysticism; 4th, Eclecticism. Sensualism is represented in the school of Kapila, according to whose doctrine the purification of the soul must be effected through knowledge, the only source of which lies in sensual perception. In this system, nature, eternal and universal, is considered as the first cause, which produces intelligence and all the other principles of knowledge and existence. This philosophy of nature leads some of its followers to seek their purification in the sensual pleasures of this life, and in the loss of their own individuality in nature itself, in which they strive to be absorbed. Materialism, fatalism, and atheism are the natural consequences of the system of Kapila. Idealism is the foundation of three philosophical schools: the Dialectic, the Atomic, and the Vedanta. The Dialectic school considers the principles of knowledge as entirely distinct from nature; it admits the existence of universal ideas in the human mind; it establishes the syllogistic form as the complete method of reasoning, and finally, it holds as fundamental the duality of intelligence and nature. In this theory, the soul is considered as distinct from Brahm and also from the body. Man can approach Brahm, can unite himself to the universal soul, but can never lose his own individuality. The Atomic doctrine explains the origin of the world through the combination of eternal, simple atoms. It belongs to Idealism, for the predominance which it gives to ideas over sensation, and for the individuality and consciousness which it recognizes in man. The Vedanta is the true ideal pantheistic philosophy of India. It considers Brahm in two different states: first, as a pure, simple, abstract, and inert essence; secondly, as an active individuality. Nature in this system is only a special quality or quantity of Brahm, having no actual reality, and he who turns away from ail that is unreal and changeable and contemplates Brahm unceasingly, becomes one with it, and attains liberation.