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The Nyāya Conception of Universals
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conversant with the real which admits of no such qualitative difference. The felt immediacy of the cognition is only a case of illusion. The Naiyāyika does not find any substance in the latter contention also. The entire line of argument followed by the Buddhist is based upon the assumption of identity of substance and quality. It is argued that when a quality is not different from the substance, there can be no veridical perception of substance without perception of the quality. But if the numeri difference of substance and quality can be proved, or if it can be shown that there are weighty considerations against the supposed identity of quality and substance, the Buddhist position will not be established. The difference of quality and substance cannot be annulled without stultifying either or both of them. Nor can we acquiesce in the Buddhist contention that substance and qualities are only subjective concepts. The admission of subjectivity will not be confined to these categories alone, but will extend to the entire objective world. The Buddhist also, so far as he believes in the objectivity of particulars, does not adopt the philosophy of absolute subjectivism. The quarrel in the present instance is concerned with the Buddhist realist, who believes in particulars, but denies objective universals and relations. To return to the point at issue the argument of the Buddhist would be valid if the difference of substance and qualities were unreal and if consequently a real were made up of all the qualities that are felt or associated with it. In that case the omission of even one quality would destroy the indentity of a real, and a cognition which was not cognisant of all the qualities would not be cognisant of the real.
The Naiyāyika does not believe that a substance is nothing but the totality of qualities. The felt difference of substance and quality cannot be dismissed as an illusion by a philosopher, who is not prepared to deny the validity of all our cognitions. But the universal denial of validity to all cognitions is vitiated by self-contradiction.
If the object seen from adis tance were not the same with whnt is perceived from a close vicinity, the belief in the identity of the object would be erroneous. The question of distance or nearness has no absolute standard by which it can be determined. Now, what is distant from one point of view is believed to be
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