Excerpt from Indian Philosophy, Vol. 2 The adoption of the critical method served to moderate the impetuosity of the speculative imagination and helped to Show that the pretended philosophies were not so firmly held as their professors supposed. But the iconoclastic fervour of the materialists, the sceptics and some followers of Buddhism destroyed all grounds of certitude. The Hindu mind did not contemplate this negative result with equanimity. Man cannot live on doubt. Intellectual pugilism is not sufficient by itself. The zest Of combat cannot feed the spirit of man. If we cannot establish through logic the truth of anything, so much the worse for logic. It cannot be that the hopes and aspirations of Sincere souls like the rsis Of the Upanisads are irrevocably doomed. It cannot be that cen turies of struggle and thought have not brought the mind one step nearer to the solution. Despair is not the only alter native. Reason assailed could find refuge in faith. The seers of the Upanisads are the great teachers in the school of sacred wisdom. They speak to us of the knowledge of God and Spiritual life. If the unassisted reason of man cannot attain any hold on reality by means of mere speen lation, help may be sought from the great writings of the seers who claim to have attained spiritual certainty. Thus strenuous attempts were made to justify by reason what faith implicitly accepts. This is not an irrational attitude, since philosophy is only an endeavour to interpret the widen ing experience Of humanity. The one danger that we have to avoid is lest faith Should furnish the conclusions for philosophy.

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