ABSTRACT
The two philosophies dealt with in this chapter are called hierarchical because they argue that the everyday world depends on a large number of vital principles, which depend on fewer principles, which depend on fewer still, up to the vital principle on the top of the pyramid, being-as-such, on which everything else depends. I have said 'the top of the pyramid' because as the principles grow fewer they grow higher in the degree of their being; but because everything low in reality rests on what is higher and, eventually, on the highest, the pyramids can be seen as inverted. The two philosophies are idealistic in the philosophical sense because the principles on which each of
The two philosophies, the one Greek and the other Indian, are near mirror images of atomism in attitude and intellectual tactics. This is certainly not intentional and stems not from borrowing in either direction but from the philosophical environment of each of the two traditions and, of course, from the similarity of the problem involved - the search for reality by means of division as against the search for it by means of unification. In the spirit of division, the atomists begin with what they see as the relatively few, relatively complex and illusory things of the everyday world, which they divide repeatedly until, at the end of the process, there are only an innumerable number of material or other (Buddhist) atoms, all fully real, and all with the fewest characteristics possible. The descent to atoms shows that the plurality of beings and qualities of the visible world is an illusion produced by the limitations of human perception. In the contrary spirit, of unification, the hierarchical idealists reverse the atomists' reasoning and begin with what they see as the very numerous, relatively simple and illusory things of the everyday world, which they repeatedly reduce to a smaller and smaller number of immaterial principles until, at the end of the process, there is left only the single immaterial, fully real, absolutely indivisible atom, the absolute Being, the One or the Word that possesses all the infinitely many qualities of reality in an inseparable, indescribable union. This rise to unity shows that the perceived plurality of beings and qualities of Being-as-such is an illusion produced by the limitations of human perception and understanding.
