the seed will not suffice to produce the effect, the shoot. If it
is said that a cause can produce an effect only when it is associated
with its accessory factors, then also the question remains
the same, for we have not understood what is meant by cause.
Again when the same effect is often seen to be produced by a
plurality of causes, the cause cannot be defined as that which
happening the effect happens and failing the effect fails. It cannot
also be said that in spite of the plurality of causes, each particular
cause is so associated with its own particular kind of effect that
from a special kind of cause we can without fail get a special
kind of effect (cf. Vatsyayana and _Nyayamanjari_), for out of the
same clay different effects come forth namely the jug, the plate,
etc. Again if cause is defined as the collocation of factors, then
the question arises as to what is meant by this collocation; does
it mean the factors themselves or something else above them? On
the former supposition the scattered factors being always present
in the universe there should always be the effect; if it means
something else above the specific factors, then that something always
existing, there should always be the effect. Nor can collocation
(_samagri_) be defined as the last movement of the causes
immediately succeeding which the effect comes into being, for the
relation of movement with the collocating cause is incomprehensible.
Moreover if movement is defined as that which produces
the effect, the very conception of causation which was required
to be proved is taken for granted. The idea of necessity involved
in the causal conception that a cause is that which must produce
its effect is also equally undefinable, inexplicable, and logically
inconceivable. Thus in whatsoever way we may seek to find out
the real nature of the causal principle from the interminable
series of cause-effect phenomena we fail. All the characteristics
of the effects are indescribable and indefinable ajnana of maya,
and in whatever way we may try to conceive these phenomena in
themselves or in relation to one another we fail, for they are all
carved out of the indefinite and are illogical and illusory, and
some day will vanish for ever. The true cause is thus the pure
being, the reality which is unshakable in itself, the ground upon

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which all appearances being imposed they appear as real. The
true cause is thus the unchangeable being which persists th