The doctrine of our opponent is liable to the very same objections which he urges against us, viz. in the following manner.—­The objection that this world cannot have sprung from Brahman on account of its difference of character applies no less to the doctrine of the pradhana being the cause of the world; for that doctrine also assumes that from a pradhana devoid of sound and other qualities a world is produced which possesses those very qualities.  The beginning of an effect different in character being thus admitted, the Sa@nkhya is equally driven to the doctrine that before the actual beginning the effect was non-existent.  And, moreover, it being admitted (by the Sa@nkhya also) that at the time of reabsorption the effect passes back into the state of non-distinction from the cause, the case of the Sa@nkhya here also is the same as ours.—­And, further, if (as the Sa@nkhya also must admit) at the time of reabsorption the differences of all the special effects are obliterated and pass into a state of general non-distinction, the special fixed conditions, which previous to reabsorption were the causes of the different worldly existence of each soul, can, at the time of a new creation, no longer be determined, there being no cause for them; and if you assume them to be determined without a cause, you are driven to the admission that even the released souls have to re-enter a state of bondage, there being equal absence of a cause (in the case of the released and the non-released souls).  And if you try to avoid this conclusion by assuming that at the time of reabsorption some individual differences pass into the state of non-distinction, others not, we reply that in that case the latter could not be considered as effects of the pradhana[273].—­It thus appears that all those difficulties (raised by the Sa@nkhya) apply to both views, and cannot therefore be urged against either only.  But as either of the two doctrines must necessarily be accepted, we are strengthened—­by the outcome of the above discussion—­in the opinion that the alleged difficulties are no real difficulties[274].

11.  If it be said that, in consequence of the ill-foundedness of reasoning, we must frame our conclusions otherwise; (we reply that) thus also there would result non-release.

In matters to be known from Scripture mere reasoning is not to be relied on for the following reason also.  As the thoughts of man are altogether unfettered, reasoning which disregards the holy texts and rests on individual opinion only has no proper foundation.  We see how arguments, which some clever men had excogitated with great pains, are shown, by people still more ingenious, to be fallacious, and how the arguments of the latter again are refuted in their turn by other men; so that, on account of the diversity of men’s opinions, it is impossible to accept mere reasoning as having a sure foundation.  Nor can we get over this difficulty by accepting as well-founded the reasoning of some person of recognised mental eminence, may he now be Kapila or anybody else; since we observe that even men of the most undoubted mental eminence, such as Kapila, Ka/n/ada, and other founders of philosophical schools, have contradicted one another.