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RECONCILIATION.
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point of view and holds good only thus far. The mind would then be directed on the right lines of enquiry and the ascertainment of truth be speedily attained.
There are three kinds of predication, or judgment, which means the statement of conclusion in respect of a subject of enquiry. These are the affirmative, the negative and the one that neither affirms nor denies the existence of a thing, but declares it to be indescribable. The affirmative judgment merely affirms the existence of a thing from a particular point of view---syädasti ghata (somehow the pot exists). The negative predicts its non-existence with reference to some other point of view, e.g., the pot is not black, which means that with reference to the colour known as black the pot is non-existent. We are compelled to say this by force of the logic of words; for the word 'not' in the negative proposition 'the pot is not black,' cannot but qualify the verb 'is,' otherwise it would qualify black and thus affirm the presence of a negative element-not-black'--as an actuality of existence in the pot, which would be absurd.
It is true that sometimes when a thing is to be distinguished from other things of the same kind we define it by pointing out what it is not at the same time as we describe it as what it is-a fact which has given rise to the popular fallacy of regarding a thing as the repository of positive as well as negative qualities that are conceived to inhere in it in some way. But the fact is that pure negations are mere words, and cannot abide in things. Hence, rather than suffer our thought to become estranged from the concrete reality, we should place that interpretation on our speech which would keep us in
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