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TATTVASANGRAHA : CHAPTER XXII.
Eternal Cause would be possible as it would be dependent upon auxiliary causes" ;-because it has been thoroughly established that an eternal cause cannot depend upon an auxiliary, as it can render no help to it.-(18781885)
[The refutation of the fifth alternatives follows under Text 1893.1
TEXT (1886). IF THE OTHER PARTY ASSERT THAT "THESE ELEMENTAL SUBSTANCES ARE momentary (NOT eternal)”, -THEN, IN THAT CASE, WHY CANNOT THEIR OWN DOCTRINE BE REGARDED AS
• REJECTED BY THIS?—(1886)
COMMENTARY.
If the four Major Elemental Substances are described by the other party as momentary with a view to escape from the objections urged above. then also, there are objections against him.- This is what is meant.
[These objections-against the view that Cognition proceeds from the elemental substances, Earth, etc.-are now set forth in detail.]
For instance, there is nothing to prove that between Cognition and the Body (made up of the material substances), there subsists the relation of Cause and Effect, on the basis whereof the usage of the other party could be justified. This argument may be thus formulated :-When there is no evidence in support of a certain thing having a particular character, no sene man should treat that thing as being of that character for instance, one should not treat Fire as cold ; there is no evidence in support of the presence of a causal relation between the Body and Cognition,-hence the wider proposition is not available.--Nor can the Reason be held to be inadmissible! Because the causal relation is always based upon Perception and Non-appre. hension; and as such, it can be ascertained through particular positive or negative concomitance (Premiss),-not by mere perception or non-perception. When the fact of a certain thing being the effect of a particular cause is going to be ascertained through positive concomitance, what is to be found out is if the thing in question is one which is perceptible and which, being not seen before, is seen when the other thing (the Cause) is seen otherwise, if it were not found out if the thing is perceptible and was not seen before, then it might be thought that the thing (Effect) might have been there even before the Cause appeared, or it might have gone to some other place. So that there would be nothing in the idea of the Tree and such other things, which have been existing before the cause in question, being the cause of the effect concerned. This possibility becomes averted by noting that the effect is one that could be perceived and is yet not perceived ; as this condition is not fulfilled in the case of false causality. In this way the fact of a certain thing being the effect of a certain cause becomes ascertained through positive concomitance.-In the ascertainment of the fact of a certain thing being the effect of a certain cause through negative concomitance, it has to be found
