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11. Idealistic
Scepticism concerning Objective Reality.
But extreme Idealism
identifies 'to be' with 'to be known,' and assumes all phenomena to be ideas as
illustrated in Mahayana-vidyamatra-siddhi-tridaça-çastra1
and
Vidyamatra-vinçati-çastra,1 by Vasubandhu. Then it necessarily parts
company with Zen, which believes in Universal Life existing in everything
instead of behind it. Idealism shows us its dark side in three sceptic views:
(1) scepticism respecting objective reality; (2) scepticism respecting religion;
(3) scepticism respecting morality.
First it assumes that
things exist in so far as they are known by us. It is as a matter of course
that if a tree exists at all, it is known as having a trunk long or short,
branches large or small, leaves green or yellow, flowers yellow or purple,
etc., all of which are ideas. But it does not imply in the least that 'to be
known' is equivalent to 'to be existent.' Rather we should say that to be known
presupposes to be existent, for we cannot know anything non-existent, even if
we admit that the axioms of logic subsist. Again, a tree may stand as ideas to
a knower, but it can stand at the same time as a shelter in relation to some
birds, as food in relation to some insects, as a world in relation to some
minute worms, as a kindred organism to other vegetables. How could you say that
its relation to a knower is the only and fundamental relation for the existence
of the tree? The disappearance of its knower no more affects the tree than of
its feeder; nor the appearance of its knower affects the tree any more than
that of kindred vegetables.
Extreme idealism
erroneously concludes that what is really existent, or what is directly proved
to be existent, is only our sensations, ideas, thoughts; that the external
world is nothing but the images reflected on the mirror of the mind, and that
therefore objective reality of things is doubtful-nay, more, they are unreal,
illusory, and dreams. If so, we can no longer distinguish the real from the
visionary; the waking from the dreaming; the sane from
the insane; the true from
the untrue. Whether life is real or an empty dream, we are at a loss to
understand.
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