intelligent beings.  They say, ’The deities contending with each for who was the best;’ and, again, ’All these deities having recognised the pre-eminence in pra/n/a’ (Kau.  Up.  II, 14).—­And, secondly, Mantras, Arthavadas, Itihasas, Pura/n/as, &c. all declare that intelligent presiding divinities are connected with everything.  Moreover, such scriptural passages as ’Agni having become Speech entered into the mouth’ (Ait.  Ar.  II, 4, 2, 4) show that each bodily organ is connected with its own favouring divinity.  And in the passages supplementary to the quarrel of the pra/n/as we read in one place how, for the purpose of settling their relative excellence, they went to Prajapati, and how they settled their quarrel on the ground of presence and absence, each of them, as Prajapati had advised, departing from the body for some time (’They went to their father Prajapati and said,’ &c,; Ch.  Up.  V, 1, 7); and in another place it is said that they made an offering to pra/n/a (B/ri/.  Up.  VI, 1, 13), &c.; all of them proceedings which are analogous to those of men, &c., and therefore strengthen the hypothesis that the text refers to the superintending deities.  In the case of such passages as, ‘Fire thought,’ we must assume that the thought spoken of is that of the highest deity which is connected with its effects as a superintending principle.—­From all this it follows that this world is different in nature from Brahman, and hence cannot have it for its material cause.

To this objection raised by the purvapakshin the next Sutra replies.

6.  But it is seen.

The word ‘but’ discards the purvapaksha.

Your assertion that this world cannot have originated from Brahman on account of the difference of its character is not founded on an absolutely true tenet.  For we see that from man, who is acknowledged to be intelligent, non-intelligent things such as hair and nails originate, and that, on the other hand, from avowedly non-intelligent matter, such as cow-dung, scorpions and similar animals are produced.—­But—­to state an objection—­the real cause of the non-intelligent hair and nails is the human body which is itself non-intelligent, and the non-intelligent bodies only of scorpions are the effects of non-intelligent dung.—­Even thus, we reply, there remains a difference in character (between the cause, for instance, the dung, and the effect, for instance, the body of the scorpion), in so far as some non-intelligent matter (the body) is the abode of an intelligent principle (the scorpion’s soul), while other non-intelligent matter (the dung) is not.  Moreover, the difference of nature—­due to the cause passing over into the effect—­between the bodies of men on the one side and hair and nails on the other side, is, on account of the divergence of colour, form, &c., very considerable after all.  The same remark holds good with regard to cow-dung and the bodies of scorpions, &c.  If absolute equality were insisted on (in the case of one thing