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* EXTERNAL WORLD.
969
TEXTS (2037-2038).
As THE form WOULD BE NOT-DIFFERENT FROM THE COGNITION, THERE COULD NOT BE A MULTIPLICITY (VARIETY) OF FORMS; -CONSEQUENTLY, ON THE BASIS OF THAT THERE CAN BE NO APPREHENSION. OR, THE COGNITION, BEING NOT-DIFFERENT FROM THE FORMS, SHOULD BE MANY (MULTIPLE). IF NOT, THEN HOW CAN THESE TWO BE REGARDED AS ONE
AND THE SAME ?-(2037-2038)
COMMENTARY.
When one sees a bedspread of variegated colour, there should not be & multiplicity of forms (colours),--because, like the form of the Cognition itself, they are all not different from the Cognition, which is one only.Similarly, as the Cognition is not-different from the forms, it should be more than one.
There are some people who argue thus:-"In the case of the Bedspread of variegated colours, what happens is that there do appear simultaneously several homogeneous Cognitions, as many in number as there are forms (colours); as there is in the case of the Cognition of several diverse sounds. Hence the Reductio ad Absurdum that has been urged is futile".
For these people, just as, in the case of the Bedspread of variegated Colour, there are several forms that are cognised, 80 in the case of the white sheet also which has only one form (colour), as there are several forms in the shape of the nearer, remoter and middle parts of the sheet, the Cogni. tion would have to be multiple.
It might be said," Yes; that is certainly our view".
Well, then, it behoves you to explain which is the Cognition that is one.
"It is the Cognition that apprehends the Atom which has no parts."
This is contrary to all experience. In no Cognition is the impartite atomic form ever found to appear.
In the case of incorporeal things, there can be no priority or posteriority due to space,---for the justification of which there would be some ground for assuming a multiplicity of Cognitions. The idea of extension in space being false, how can the forms be real? And yet there is no Cognition of the Cognition of Blue, etc, apart from the appearance of the Blue, etc. that have extension in space. Hence the assuming of a multiplicity of Cognitions is entirely futile.-(2037-2038)
Another defect in the Opponent's view is pointed out in the following