Then just as in the Samkhya, if the Purusha, the particular Self, should identify himself with the matter in which he is reflected, then there is delusion and bondage, so in the Vedanta, if the Self, eternally free, imagines himself to be bound by matter, identifying himself with his limitations, he is deluded, he is under the domain of Maya; for Maya is the self-identification of the Self with his limitations.  The eternally free can never be bound by matter; the eternally pure can never be tainted by matter; the eternally knowing can never be deluded by matter; the eternally Self-determined can never be ruled by matter, save by his own ignorance.  His own foolish fancy limits his inherent powers; he is bound, because he imagines himself bound; he is impure, because he imagines himself impure; he is ignorant, because he imagines himself ignorant.  With the vanishing of delusion he finds that he is eternally pure, eternally wise.

Here is the great difference between the Samkhya and the Vedanta.  According to the Samkhya, Purusha is the spectator and never the actor.  According to Vedanta the Self is the only actor, all else is maya:  there is no one else who acts but the Self, according to the Vedanta teaching.  As says the Upanishad:  the Self willed to see, and there were eyes; the Self willed to hear, and there were ears; the Self willed to think, and there was mind.  The eyes, the ears, the mind exist, because the Self has willed them into existence.  The Self appropriates matter, in order that He may manifest His powers through it.  There is the distinction between the Samkhya and the Vedanta:  in the Samkhya the propinquity of the Purusha brings out in matter or Prakriti all these characteristics, the Prakriti acts and not the Purusha; in the Vedanta, Self alone exists and Self alone acts; He imagines limitation and matter appears; He appropriates that matter in order that He may manifest His own capacity.

The Samkhya is the view of the universe of the scientist:  the Vedanta is the view of the universe of the metaphysician.  Haeckel unconsciously expounded the Samkhyan philosophy almost perfectly.  So close to the Samkhyan is his exposition, that another idea would make it purely Samkhyan; he has not yet supplied that propinquity of consciousness which the Samkhya postulates in its ultimate duality.  He has Force and Matter, he has Mind in Matter, but he has no Purusha.  His last book, criticised by Sir Oliver Lodge, is thoroughly intelligible from the Hindu standpoint as an almost accurate representation of Samkhyan philosophy.  It is the view of the scientist, indifferent to the “why” of the facts which he records.  The Vedanta, as I said, is the view of the metaphysician he seeks the unity in which all diversities are rooted and into which they are resolved.