Nyaya Science of Thought

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown

Page 31

THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT.
25 for they are not endowed with consciousness and do not know themselves. Moreover, they can never reveal that which does not affect them immediately, e.g., events of the past or future, or the deductions of reason. They are also limited to a certain range of vibrations, beyond which nothing can be perceived, for instance, no one has ever perceived an atom with the aid of his senses, though it is certain that atoms of matter must exist in nature. We, therefore, conclude that senseorgans also are not the causes of the direct type of pramâņa.
It only remains to deal with the argument, that the pratyaksa pramâņa is caused by the contact between sense-organs and the objects of knowledge, that is to say by the alighting of an organ of sensation on the object to be known. Here, too, it is obvious that the argument fails in the case of sight which perceives' the branch of a tree near by simultaneously with the moon which is at a considerable distance. Now, because actual contact is not possible at one and the same time between the organ of sight and two such objects as the branch of a tree close at hand and the moon, it follows that actual physical contact between sense-organs and objects of senses is not the cause of pramâņa; and since what is not the. cause of pramâna can never be the cause of the