This Vedanta philosophy is in its general tendency, a complete system of Pantheism; but not the rigid, mathematical, abstract, negative Pantheism of some modern thinkers; for such a total denial of all Personality in God, and of all freedom in man, is incompatible with the attachment which the Vedanta philosophy professes for sacred tradition and ancient mythology; and accordingly a modified, poetical, and half-mythological system of Pantheism may here naturally be expected, and actually exists. Even in the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of the Metempsychosis, the personal existence of the human soul, inculcated by the ancient faith, is not wholly denied or rejected by this more modern system of philosophy; though on the whole it certainly is not exempt from the charge of Pantheism. But all the systems of Indian philosophy tend more or less to one practical aim--namely the final deliverance and eternal emancipation of the soul from the old calamity--the dreaded fate--the frightful lot--of being compelled to wander through the dark regions of Nature--through the various forms of the brute creation--and to change ever anew its terrestrial shape. The second point in which the different systems of Indian philosophy mostly agree is this, that the various sacrifices prescribed for this end in the Vedas, are not free from blame or vice, partly on account of the effusion of blood necessarily connected with animal sacrifice--and partly on account of the inadequacy of such sacrifices to the final deliverance of the soul; useful and salutary though they be in other respects.
The general and fundamental doctrine of the Metempsychosis has rendered the destruction of animals extremely repulsive to Indian feelings, from the strong apprehension that a case may occur where, unconsciously and innocently, one may violate or injure the soul of some former relative in its present integument. But even the Vedas themselves inculcate the necessity of that sublime science which rises above nature, for the attainment of the full and final deliverance of the soul; as is expressed in an old remarkable passage of the Vedas, thus literally translated by Mr. Colebrooke.[54] "Man must recognise the soul--man must separate it from nature--then it comes not again--then it comes not again." These last words signify, then the soul is delivered from the danger of a return to earth--from the misfortune of transmigration, and it remains for ever united to God; an union which can be obtained only by that pure separation from nature, which is that sublimest science, invoked in the first words of this passage.