Indian Philosophy v2.c24.s5.91

v2.c24.s5.91

But if universal relations are real and require only to be intuited, how is it that lovers and lunatics miss the significance of those general principles which leap to the eye of scientists and philosophers? Nor is it easy to account for the fact that our generalisations sometimes fail to be true. The relations are not correctly apprehended in erroneous inductions. They are not properly differentiated from the unlimited fulness of the particulars. The complexity of reality makes discrimination of relations difficult. Under the influence of passion and prejudice, inertia and thoughtlessness, we accept propositions as true, though they are not so. In this sense, even particular perceptions may be wrong. The intuited inductive principles become more convincing when they are applied to fresh particulars, i.e. when we pass from the inductive to the deductive stage. As we shall see, the validity of the universal relations, like that of all other knowledge, is to be established by other forms of knowledge. The intuition unconfirmed by empirical verification is only a hypothesis. Mere intuition is not of much use. Exhaustion of empirical material is an unrealisable ideal. The two help each other. The general principle has some necessity about it, even though it is grasped by us only on the occasion of an empirical fact.