arts. The Hindu system of decimal notation made its way through the Arabs
to modern nations, our usual figures being, in their origin, letters of
the Sanskrit alphabet. Their medical and surgical knowledge is deserving
of study.

7. PHILOSOPHY.--The object of Hindu philosophy consists in obtaining
emancipation from metempsychosis, through the absorption of the soul into
Brahm, or the universal being. According to the different principles which
philosophers adopt in attaining this supreme object, their doctrines are
divided into the four following systems: 1st, Sensualism; 2d, Idealism;
3d, Mysticism; 4th, Eclecticism.

Sensualism is represented in the school of Kapila, according to whose
doctrine the purification of the soul must be effected through knowledge,
the only source of which lies in sensual perception. In this system,
nature, eternal and universal, is considered as the first cause, which
produces intelligence and all the other principles of knowledge and
existence. This philosophy of nature leads some of its followers to seek
their purification in the sensual pleasures of this life, and in the loss
of their own individuality in nature itself, in which they strive to be
absorbed. Materialism, fatalism, and atheism are the natural consequences
of the system of Kapila.

Idealism is the foundation of three philosophical schools: the Dialectic,
the Atomic, and the Vedanta. The Dialectic school considers the principles
of knowledge as entirely distinct from nature; it admits the existence of
universal ideas in the human mind; it establishes the syllogistic form as
the complete method of reasoning, and finally, it holds as fundamental the
duality of intelligence and nature. In this theory, the soul is considered
as distinct from Brahm and also from the body. Man can approach Brahm, can