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EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF SELF-SUFFICIENT VALIDITY'. 1331
perience a clear and distinct cognition may appear, in regard to which all grounds of suspicion regarding invalidity have been dispelled; and it produces immediately after itself & Cogitative Cognition envisaging an object of the same kind, and thereby it becomes cognised as dissociated from those heterogeneous things which have not figured in the preceding cognition ; in this way its validity is spoken of as being due to itself.
Some people hold the following opinion :-"Even when the cognition is repeated, there is certainty regarding its validity, in the shape of the capacity to bring about its effect, and this certainty is brought about by Inference based upon the Probans in the form of similarity'; so that in all cases validity is cognised through extraneous causes,--and never by the cognition by itself".
This view, however, we fail to comprehend. Because it is necessary to explain from what resource arises the conviction regarding the said Probens itself in the shape of similarity that is not confused.-If it be said that “it is obtained through repetition",-then, it means that through repetition, it is possible to cognise unconfused similarity, which is common to homogeneous things, and which serves to differentiate heterogeneous things, because there are no grounds for wrong cognition. If that is so, then whence the hostility to validity itself, whereby its cognition is denied, even when there are no grounds for wrong cognition ?
Further, what is this similarity' that is cognised ? If it consists in being of the form of cognition', this is present in wrong cognition also ; hence the Reason becomes 'inconclusive '.-If it consists in 'appearing in the red form in the case of the bunch of Ashoka-blossoms and Fire ), this is present in the blossoms also ; hence the Reason becomes 'false', If it consists in producing the effect of Fire ',-then it has to be explained, how this character is ascertained.-If for the proving of this, another Inferential Indicative is sought for, then there is infinite regress.-It might be argued that-"the similarity is cognised by itself, even without the help of the Inferential Indicative, by direct Perception, through repetition ". But in that case, if repetition is admitted to possess such capacity, then why is it not admitted that certainty regarding the capacity (of Cognitions and things) also can come without the help of Inferential Indicatives - Then again, if it has been established that it is the effect of the cognition, then it is absolutely futile to follow up the Invariable Concomitance; as the recognition of being the effect of the Cognition' would itself, like the Inferential Cognition, prove the capacity of getting at its objective in the shape of fruitful activity). That is to say, Inferential Cognition is brought about through the perception of the Probans as concomitant with the thing concerned, and thereby it becomes cognised as brought about, indirectly, by that thing; and it is on this ground that it is regarded as valid by itself, and not through similarity; as otherwise, there would be an Infinite Regress;
-in the same manner, in the case in question, the validity of the cognition would be self-sufficient by itself. Because, in a case where, even when it is known with certainty that the Probans resides in the 'Subject', the cogni. tion of the Probandum does not come about ;-and in such a case the
