the atom in which it resides to another atom; thus binary compounds, &c. are produced, and finally the element of air.  In a like manner are produced fire, water, earth, the body with its organs.  Thus the whole world originates from atoms.  From the qualities inhering in the atoms the qualities belonging to the binary compounds are produced, just as the qualities of the cloth result from the qualities of the threads.—­Such, in short, is the teaching of the followers of Ka/n/ada.

This doctrine we controvert in the following manner.—­It must be admitted that the atoms when they are in a state of isolation require action (motion) to bring about their conjunction; for we observe that the conjunction of threads and the like is effected by action.  Action again, which is itself an effect, requires some operative cause by which it is brought about; for unless some such cause exists, no original motion can take place in the atoms.  If, then, some operative cause is assumed, we may, in the first place, assume some cause analogous to seen causes, such as endeavour or impact.  But in that case original motion could not occur at all in the atoms, since causes of that kind are, at the time, impossible.  For in the pralaya state endeavour, which is a quality of the soul, cannot take place because no body exists then.  For the quality of the soul called endeavour originates when the soul is connected with the internal organ which abides in the body.  The same reason precludes the assumption of other seen causes such as impact and the like.  For they all are possible only after the creation of the world has taken place, and cannot therefore be the causes of the original action (by which the world is produced).—­If, in the second place, the unseen principle is assumed as the cause of the original motion of the atoms, we ask:  Is this unseen principle to be considered as inhering in the soul or in the atom?  In both cases it cannot be the cause of motion in the atoms, because it is non-intelligent.  For, as we have shown above in our examination of the Sa@nkhya system, a non-intelligent thing which is not directed by an intelligent principle cannot of itself either act or be the cause of action, and the soul cannot be the guiding principle of the ad/ri/sh/t/a because at the time of pralaya its intelligence has not yet arisen[362].  If, on the other hand, the unseen principle is supposed to inhere in the soul, it cannot be the cause of motion in the atoms, because there exists no connexion of it with the latter.  If you say that the soul in which the unseen principle inheres is connected with the atoms, then there would result, from the continuity of connexion[363], continuity of action, as there is no other restricting principle.—­Hence, there being no definite cause of action, original action cannot take place in the atoms; there being no action, conjunction of the atoms which depends on action cannot take place; there being no conjunction, all the effects depending on it, viz. the formation of binary atomic compounds, &c., cannot originate.