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FOREWORD
You may ask :-If the elements are non-existent what else may be the cause of consciousness? We will reply :-It is not necessary to formulate the external elements as the cause of consciousness, because the consciousness has another cause, namely, the consciousness of the previous moment.
(1892) If the first consciousness is caused by a different chain of consciousness, then you must also say whether the latter is the material cause or an auxiliary cause ?
(1893) If you take it to be the material cause then in the chain of consciousness of the son there should be the previous impressions of the parents' consciousness.
(1894) It is an universal truth that the effects should have all the qualities of the material cause by the principle of affirmation and negation; the future consciousness must therefore possess all the qualities of the previous consciousness which is its material cause.
(1895) (5) If you hold that the parents' chain of consciousness is the helping cause only then you must answer what the material cause of the first consciousness is? There is none. So you should admit that the chain of consciousness in the son is the result or the continuation of his own previous chain of consciousness. In that case there will be no quarrel between us.
(1896) Therefore, the first consciousness is the result of its own previous consciousness which is its material cause, because such is the nature of consciousness; just as the consciousness of the present moment is the result of the consciousness of the previous moment.
(1897) The other reasons advanced by you being refuted, the first consciousness will spring up spontaneously unless you admit the previous consciousness as the cause of the first consciousness in a new-born child; otherwise, if the consciousness be considered as eternal, it must exist always.
By this the theory of previous birth is established. (1898) Now about future birth
The consciousness at the moment of death is endowed with the power to be the efficient cause of the consciousness of the