kind with certain other phenomena happening at a succeeding moment as being relevant pairs of which one being present the other also has a probability of being present, but can do nothing more than this.  It does not answer our question as to the nature of cause.  Antecedence in time is regarded in this view as an indispensable condition for the cause.  But time, according to Nyaya, is one continuous entity; succession of time can only be conceived as antecedence and consequence of phenomena, and these again involve succession; thus the notions of succession of time and of the antecedence and consequence of time being mutually dependent upon each other (anyonyas’raya) neither of these can be conceived independently.  Another important condition is invariability.  But what does that mean?  If it means invariable antecedence, then even an ass which is invariably present as an antecedent to the smoke rising from the washerman’s house, must be regarded as the cause of the smoke [Footnote ref 1].  If it means such an antecedence as contributes to the happening of the effect, it becomes again difficult to understand anything about its contributing

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[Footnote 1:  Asses are used in carrying soiled linen in India.  Asses are always present when water is boiled for washing in the laundry.]

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to the effect, for the only intelligible thing is the antecedence and nothing more.  If invariability means the existence of that at the presence of which the effect comes into being, then also it fails, for there may be the seed but no shoot, for the mere presence of 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