556 Mr. CoLEBROOKE on the Philosophy of Indian Sectaries. 



certainty nor knowledge. Opposite qualities cannot co-exist in the same 

 subject. Predicaments are not unpredicable : they are not to be affirmed 

 if not affirmable : but they either do exist or do not ; and if they do, they 

 are to be affirmed : to say that a thing is and is not, is as incoherent as a 

 madman's talk or an idiot's babble.'* 



Another point, selected by the Veddntins for animadversion, is the position, 

 that the soul and body agree in dimensions.! ' In a different stage of growth 

 of body or of transmigration of soul, they would not be conformable : 

 passing from the human condition to that of an ant or of an elephant, the 

 soul would be too big or too little for the new body animated by it. If it 

 be augmented or diminished by accession or secession of parts, to suit either 

 the change of person or corporeal growth between infancy and puberty, 

 then it is variable, and, of course, is not perpetual. If its dimensions be 

 such as it ultimately retains, when released from body, then it has been 

 uniformly such in its original and intermediate associations with corporeal 

 frames. If it yet be of a finite magnitude, it is not ubiquitary and eternal.' 



The doctrine of atoms, which the Jainas have in common with the Baud- 

 dhas and the Vais'eshicas (followers of CanAde) is controverted by the 

 Veddntins.X The train of reasoning is to the following effect : ' Inherent 

 qualities of the cause,' the Vais'eshicas and the rest argue, ' give origin to 

 the like qualities in the effect, as white yarn makes white cloth : were a 

 thinking being the world's cause, it would be endued with tliought.' The 

 answer is, that according to Canade himself, substances great and long 

 result from atoms minute and short : like qualities then are not always 

 found in the cause and in the effect. 



' The whole world, with its mountains, seas, &c. consists of substances 

 composed of parts disposed to union : as cloth is wove of a multitude of 

 threads. The utmost sub-division of compound substances, pursued to the 

 last degree, arrives at the atom, which is eternal, being simple ; and such 

 atoms, which are the elements, earth, water, fire, and air, become the 

 world's cause, according to Canade : for there can be no effect without a 

 cause. Wiien they are actually and universally separated, dissolution of 

 the world has taken place. At its renovation, atoms concur by an unseen 

 virtue, which occasions action ; and they form double atoms, and so on, to 



• Sane, on Br. Suir. 2.2. § 6 (S. 33). f lb. S. 34—36. 



X Br. SiUr. 2. 2. § 2 and § 3. (S. 11—17). 



