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THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT.
CHAPTER III. Right knowledge depends on accurate observation and thought, and accurate thinking implies exact description of things.
The very first step towards accuracy of thought is to give a name to the subject of enquiry. This is called uddeşa, and is obviously a necessary step in the science of thought, for no discourse or discussion is possible without first naming or otherwise marking out the subject of controversy.
The object of defining a thing is to enable it to be distinguished from all other things. Therefore, every true definition must mention the distinguishing feature (lakşana) of the oject to be defined (lakshya).
A lakşana may be either (1) åtmabhuta, i.e., an inseparable property of the lakşya, as heat, of fire, or (2) anatamabhuta which is not an inseparable attribute of the thing defined, e.g., beard, of man. The main feature of distinction between these two kinds of lakşana lies in the fact that while the absence of the atamabhuta quality would at once make the thing to be defined non-existent (e.g., fire without heat), the destruction of the anatamabhuta would not be fatal to its existence, e.g., a beardless man.
Every true lakṣana should be free from the following kinds of faults :
(1) Avyāpti (non-prevalence or non-distribution
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