The Samkhya System: A History of the Samkhya Philosophy c7.54

c7.54

From such a position it is not very difficult to realize that the further step might be taken of holding that the absolute, which was beyond perception, was not, like nature and spirit, to be grasped by inference, and that there was no need to postulate an absolute for the explanation of the world. The step taken was a bold and decisive one, and it is on the taking of this step that the existence of the specifically Sāmkhya system depends, but it was a step which followed naturally from the development of the philosophy of the absolute: the end of a doctrine which placed infinity in the absolute was to reduce its content to nothing.