be spoken of. The various lucubrations on Brahman, the world, and the
human soul of which the Upanishads consist do not allow themselves to be
systematised simply because they were never meant to form a system.
/S/â/nd/ilya's views as to the nature of Brahman did not in all details
agree with those of Yâj/ñ/avalkya, and Uddâlaka differed from both. In
this there is nothing to wonder at, and the burden of proof rests
altogether with those who maintain that a large number of detached
philosophic and theological dissertations, ascribed to different
authors, doubtless belonging to different periods, and not seldom
manifestly contradicting each other, admit of being combined into a
perfectly consistent whole.

The question, however, assumes a different aspect, if we take the terms
'philosophy' and 'philosophical system,' not in the strict sense in
which /S/a@nkara and other commentators are not afraid of taking them,
but as implying merely an agreement in certain fundamental features. In
this latter sense we may indeed undertake to indicate the outlines of a
philosophy of the Upanishads, only keeping in view that precision in
details is not to be aimed at. And here we finally see ourselves driven
back altogether on the texts themselves, and have to acknowledge that
the help we receive from commentators, to whatever school they may
belong, is very inconsiderable. Fortunately it cannot be asserted that
the texts on the whole oppose very serious difficulties to a right
understanding, however obscure the details often are. Concerning the
latter we occasionally depend entirely on the explanations vouchsafed by
the scholiasts, but as far as the general drift and spirit of the texts
are concerned, we are quite able to judge by ourselves, and are even
specially qualified to do so by having no particular system to advocate.

The point we will first touch upon is the same from which we started