ness
took a common-sense view of things, and held that
things remain permanent until suitable collocations so arrange
themselves that the thing can be destroyed. Thus the jug continues
to remain a jug unless or until it is broken to pieces by
the stroke of a stick. Things exist not because they can produce
an impression on us, or serve my purposes either directly or
through knowledge, as the Buddhists suppose, but because existence
is one of their characteristics. If I or you or any other perceiver
did not exist, the things would continue to exist all the same.
Whether they produce any effect on us or on their surrounding
environments is immaterial. Existence is the most general
characteristic of things, and it is on account of this that things
are testified by experience to be existing.

As the Nyaya-Vais'e@sikas depended solely on experience and
on valid reasons, they dismissed the Sa@mkhya cosmology, but
accepted the atomic doctrine of the four elements (_bhutas_), earth
(_k@siti_), water (_ap_), fire (_tejas_), and air (_marut_). These atoms
are eternal; the fifth substance (_akas'a_) is all pervasive and eternal.
It is regarded as the cause of propagating sound; though all-pervading
and thus in touch with the ears of all persons, it manifests
sound only in the ear-drum, as it is only there that it shows
itself as a sense-organ and manifests such sounds as the man deserves
to hear by reason of his merit and demerit. Thus a deaf
man though he has the akas'a as his sense of hearing, cannot hear
on account of his demerit which impedes the faculty of that sense
organ [Footnote ref 3]. In addition to these they admitted the existence
of time (_kala_) as extending from the past through the present to the

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[Footnote 1: Almost all the books on Nyaya and Vais'e@sika referred to
have been consulted in the writing of this chapter. Those who want to be
acquainted with a fuller bibliography of the new school of logic should
refer to the paper called "The History of Navya Nyaya in Bengal," by Mr.
Cakravartti in _J.A.S.B._ 1915.]

[Footnote 2: I have treated Nyaya and Vais'e@sika as the same system.
Whatever may have been their original differences, they are regarded
since about 600 A.D. as being in complete agreement except in some
minor points. The views of one system are often supplemented by those
of the other. The original character of the two systems ha