es such as potters and goldsmiths; but outside
Brahman as material cause there is no other operative cause to which the
material cause could look; for Scripture says that previously to
creation Brahman was one without a second.--The absence of a guiding
principle other than the material cause can moreover be established by
means of the argument made use of in the Sutra, viz. accordance with the
promissory statements and the illustrative examples. If there were
admitted a guiding principle different from the material cause, it would
follow that everything cannot be known through one thing, and thereby
the promissory statements as well as the illustrative instances would be
stultified.--The Self is thus the operative cause, because there is no
other ruling principle, and the material cause because there is no other
substance from which the world could originate.

24. And on account of the statement of reflection (on the part of the
Self).

The fact of the sacred texts declaring that the Self reflected likewise
shows that it is the operative as well as the material cause. Passages
like 'He wished, may I be many, may I grow forth,' and 'He thought, may
I be many, may I grow forth,' show, in the first place, that the Self is
the agent in the independent activity which is preceded by the Self's
reflection; and, in the second place, that it is the material cause
also, since the words 'May I be many' intimate that the reflective
desire of multiplying itself has the inward Self for its object.

25. And on account of both (i.e. the origin and the dissolution of the
world) being directly declared (to have Brahman for their material
cause).

This Sutra supplies a further argument for Brahman's being the general
material cause.--Brahman is the material cause of the world for that
reason also that the origination as well as the dissolution of the world
is directly spoken of in the sacred texts as having Brahman for their
material cause, 'All these beings take their rise from the ether and
return into the ether' (Ch. Up. I, 9, 1). That that from which some
other thing springs and into which it returns is the material cause of
that other thing is well known. Thus the earth, for instance, is the
material cause of rice, barley, and the like.--The word 'directly' (in
the Sutra) notifies that there is no other material cause, but that all
this sprang from the ether only.--Observation further teaches that
effects are not re-absorbed int