e jug as its quality, then by the same manner the jug would
also be the character of the cloth, and hence not difference but
identity results. Moreover, if a cloth is perceived as a character
of the jug, the two will appear to be hanging one over the other,
but this is never so experienced by us. Moreover, it is difficult to
ascertain if qualities have any relation with things; if they have
not, then absence of relation being the same everywhere, everything
might be the quality of everything. If there is a relation
between these two, then that relation would require another
relation to relate itself with that relation, and that would again
require another relation and that another, and so on. Again, it
may be said that when the jug, etc. are seen without reference
to other things, they appear as jug, etc., but when they are
viewed with reference to cloth, etc. they appear as difference.
But this cannot be so, for the perception as jug is entirely
different from the perception of difference. It should also be
noted that the notion of difference is also different from the
notions of both the jug and the cloth. It is one thing to say
that there are jug and cloth, and quite another thing to say
that the jug is different from the cloth. Thus a jug cannot appear
as difference, though it may be viewed with reference to cloth.
The notion of a jug does not require the notions of other things
for its manifestation. Moreover, when I say the jug is different
from the cloth, I never mean that difference is an entity which is
the same as the jug or the cloth; what I mean is that the
difference of the cloth from the jug has its limits in the jug, and
not merely that the notion of cloth has a reference to jug. This
shows that difference cannot be the characteristic nature of the
thing perceived.

Again, in the second alternative where difference of two

463

things is defined as the absence of each thing in the other, we
find that if difference in jug and cloth means that the jug is not
in the cloth or that cloth is not in jug, then also the same
difficulty arises; for when I say that the absence or negation of
jug in the cloth is its difference from the jug, then also the
residence of the absence of jug in the cloth would require
that the jug also resides in the cloth, and this would reduce
difference to identity. If it is said that the absence of jug in the
cloth is not a separate thing, but is rather the identical cloth
itself