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NYAYA THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
things concerned. By magnitude is bere meant a limited dimension that belongs to ordinary things like tables and jars, and neither the unlimited dimension of the all-pervading substances, nor the minute dimension of atoms and dyads, for these are imperceptible. The magnitude of ordınary sensible things is due to the number and inagnitude of their component parts. Hence to perceive the magnitude of a thing we are to perceive the co-existence and relative position of the constituent parts. This is rendered possible by four kinds of contact (catușțayasannikarşa): that between the different parts of an extended sense-organ and the different parts of the thing, that between the different parts of the sense-organ and the whole of the thing, that between parts of the thing and the whole of the sense-organ and that between the wbole of the sense-organ and the whole of the thing. It is by virtue of such contacts between sense and things that we can perceive their magnitude from a distance The Naiyāyika has to take the help of so many kinds of sense-object contact because he believes in the direct visual perception of the magnitude of distant things. The muscular sensation of movement is not admitted by him as a factor in the perception of magnitude or limited extension.
Differentia (přthaktva) is a positive character of things. That one thing is different from another, e. g. a cow and a horse, does not simply mean that the one is not the other. Difference does not consist in the mutual negation (anyonyābhāva) of two things. One thing is different from other things, not simply because it excludes or negates them, but because it has a distinctive character of its own whereby it is differentiated from them. This distinctive character constitutes its differentia from other things. Differentia is thus an objective character or attribute of things and is perceived in
1 TB., p. 6.
