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TATTVASANGRAHA: CHAPTER XIX.
effect concerned, then the Potency could not be anything different-from the object. Why ?-Because Potency' can be only that form-or nature, -which is capable of effective action;-it cannot be anything else.
As regards the verbal expression the Potency of the object which implies some sort of a difference between the two, that is meant to discard the notion of any other kind of difference, and is used in this form only with & view to the enquiry as to what Potency' is,--and the answer is that it is the object itself.-(1608-1610)
The following might be urged—" Capacity for effective action is not the characteristic of Potency; it is something else".
The answer to that is as follows:- .
TEXT (1611).
THERE IS NO MEANS OF KNOWING ANY OTHER CHARACTERISTIO OF Potency. * EVEN IF SUCH ANOTHER CHARACTERISTIO WERE KNOWN, THERE
WOULD BE NO USE FOR IT; AS THE EFFECT WOULD BE ACCOMPLISHED BY THE MERE PRESENCE OF
THE OBJECT.-(1611)
COMMENTARY There is no means of knowing any other characteristic of 'Potency', which Means could distinguish Potency from Negation in the form of the absence of all capacity. Even if such a characteristic were known, it would serve no useful purpose for men who would be seeking for effective action; because the needed effective action will have been accomplished by the presence-i.. by the very nature-of the Object itself ;-as has been declared in the following words: To persons seeking for effective action, what would be the use of cogitating over what is not fit for effective action ? Certainly, the young woman has no need to consider whether the impotent man is ugly or handsome':-(1611)
TEXT (1612).
IY THE OTHER CHARACTERISTIC OF 'POTENOY' WERE HELD TO BE COGNISABLE THROUGH PRESUMPTION BASED UPON THE FACT OF THE EFFECT BEING OTHERWISE IMPOSSIBLE THIS CANNOT BE RIGHT, AS THE EFFECT IS ACTUALLY PRODUCED OTHERWISE, AS IT PROCEEDS FROM THE OBJECT
ITSELF.-(1612)
COMMENTARY
The following might be urged—"There is another characteristic of Potency—that is, Potency which is always cognisable through the fact of