________________
-X111121]
TRANSLATION
objects ad infinitum; for even this latter compound would lead
to the influence of another for whose use it The view of the objector would will exist and this again to another, and so lead to compounds on ad infinitum. And when we can escape ad infinitum
this regressus ad infinitum by postulating a reasonable terininus, it is not proper to multiply unnecessary assumptions (in the shape of an infinite series of composites). Nor can it be urged that “Multiplication of assumptions becomes excusable when supported by evidence" because when the 'composite character (of the bedstead) etc., is put forward in the inferential argument, it is only in so far as it is concomitant with being for another's use' (and it is not meant to include all the properties of the said composite objects); in fact if one were to insist upon the Inference to be in accord with all the properties of the corroborative instance (in this case, the bedstead &c.),--then there would be an end to all Inference (no Inference being possible ).* We have explained this in our Nyāyavārtika-tātparyatīkā.** Thus then, in order to escape the regressus ad infinitum, if we accept the non-composite nature of Spirit, we find ourselves constrained to attribute to it the properties of being “without the three Attributes", " distinguishable", "non-objective".
* Because there can scarcely be found any two occurrences in nature which could be quite identical. Even in the stock example of the Naiyāyıkag--"Fiery, because smoking, as the culinary hearth"-we have a dissimilarity between the subject matter of the syllogism and the instance cited. Thus, in the culinary hearth the fire is for cooking food, and proceeding from a house made by men, &c. &c., whereas such is not the case with the fire in the mountain.
** This is a commentary on Udyotakara's Nyāyavārtika (a glogs on the Vātsyāyanbhāsya on the Nyāyasūtras of Gautama). This work with the Paris'uddhi of Udayanācārya is generally counted as olosing the epoch of ancient Nyāya.- latterly supplanted by the modern system, introduced and most extensively expounded by Ganges'a Upadhyāya, in his Tattva.Cintā maņı.
