Vaishali Institute Research Bulletin 1

Author(s): Nathmal Tatia
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 90

SYLLOGISTIC INFERENCE
to memory. When a person has had the knowledge of the necessary concomitance, but owing to lapse of memory fails to recollect it, the example serves to stimulate the memory impression. The citation of the example makes the respondent conscious of the coincidence of the probans with the probandum and on the recollection of the necessary concomitance enables him to infer the presence of fire in the locus of smoke. If on the other hand the respondent is aware of the necessary concomitance and does not require any extraneous aid to stimulate his memory the citation of the example will be redundant in his case.' The statement of the probans alone will enable him to infer the probandum.
It has been contended that necessary and universal concomitance of the probans as a class and probandum as a class can never be realized by a man with his limited resources. Perception, as we have already observed, is necessarily confined to the present datum and has no competency for past and future cases. Nor can it be supposed to be realized on the advice of a knowledgeable person, that will make subjective inference impossible. A man infers fire on observing smoke without waiting for instruction by another person. It cannot be supposed that it is known by inference, since inference itself is conditioned by the knowledge of the universal relation between the probandum and if for this purpose another inference is requisitioned it will also presuppose still another inference since an inference is possible only if the knowledge of the necessary relation is at its back. And this will make the process endless. Without the knowledge of the necessary relation between the probans and the probandum no inference can materialize and no ordinary human being has the power to secure it. Inference is thus based on mere analogy of the observed cases with unobserved ones, past or future and it is at the most a case of probability and not assured knowledge. In the practical conduct of our dayto-day business we make such inferences which are a little better than guess work. This has been the contention of sceptics in all ages.
But a knowledge of probability is only a case of presumption which cannot perfectly eliminate the doubt lingering in an inquisitive person. And the impossibility of such knowledge will make any systematic construction impossible. In our experience an anticipation of the probandum is not a case of presumption. A peron who is
1. Cf. Dharmakirti :
79
tadbhāva.hetubhāvau hi dṛṣṭānte tadavedinaḥ / khyapyate, vidusām vācyo hetur eva hi kevalaḥ // --Pramanavārtika, 3.29.