The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and JapanNukariya, Kaiten
Religion
The Religion of the Samurai: A Study of Zen Philosophy and Discipline in China and Japan
Nukariya, Kaiten
Buddhism -- China; Buddhism -- Japan; China -- Religion; Human beings -- Origin; Japan -- Religion; Zen Buddhism
Life as observed only from the scientific point of view is bare
abstraction; it is not concrete life; nor is life as observed only in
the interrelated-will-attitude point of view the whole of life. Both
are abstractions. Concrete life includes both phases. Moreover,
Professor Munsterberg sees life in the relationship entirely
independent-of time, space, and causality, saying: "If you agree or
disagree with the latest act of the Russian Czar, the only
significant relation which exists between him and you has nothing to
do with the naturalistic fact that geographically 'an ocean lies
between you; and if you are really a student of Plato, your only
important relation to the Greek philosopher has nothing to do with
the other naturalistic fact that biologically two thousand years lie
between you"; and declares life (seen from that point of view) to be
immortal and eternal. This is as much as to say that life, when seen
in the relationship independent of time and space, is independent of
time and space-that is, immortal and eternal. Is it not mere
tautology? He is in the right in insisting that life can be seen
from the scientific point of view as a system of physiological and
psychological processes, and at the same time as a system of
interrelated-will-attitudes independent of time and space. But he
cannot by that means prove the existence of concrete individual life
which is eternal and immortal, because that which is independent of
time and space is the relationship in which he observes life, but not
life itself. Therefore we have to notice that life held by Professor
Munsterberg to be eternal and immortal is quite a different thing
from the eternal life or immortality of soul believed by common sense.
11. Life in the Concrete.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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