seen, apprehend a real object, and the process consists of a distinguishing therein a "this" and an universal and then attributing the latter again to the former. Inasmuch, however, as it admits that perception may be true or false, it has to explain what truth and falsity are, how they arise, and by what means the latter can be cured.

To the question "what is truth?" most Indian schools would reply that it is identical with true experience. An absolute truth independent of experience does not seem to be contemplated; and if it were asked what is the truth of the statement" Cæsar is dead," apart from anyone's experience of it, they would probably reply that it was a factual coexistence of what is denoted by "Cæsar" with what is denoted by 'dying," namely Cæsar's factual death.

Within the experience doctrine there were, apart from the extreme position of those who held that all experiences are true, many varieties of definition, some of which are set forth by an opponent and refuted as follows::

For

"Truth is not experience corresponding to fact. similarity, which is the meaning of the word "corresponding," does not hold between a cognition and a pot and so on; and moreover mere similarity has to be used in treating of error.

"Nor is it experience generative of accordant response, since this does not comprehend truth which is indifferent and since the accordance requires to be demarked by 'truth.'

"Nor is it experience of a that,' since of what is nothing there is no presentation, and, if there were, the same would apply to error."

The disputant goes on to refute the view of those who hold that all objects are such in virtue of an 'objectivity," and that particular objects have particular" objectivities," which leads to the theory that truth is an experience having a determination coinciding with the particular "objectivity."*

Among these varieties of opinion we may find some adumbration of what we should recognize as a correspondence doctrine, a pragmatist doctrine, and a consistency doctrine. The Nyāya replies with its own definition, as follows:

"Truth is experience of a thing where it is, or experience with determination A applied to what possesses A."

"Error is cognition of a thing where it is not, or cognition with determination A applied to what does not possess A.'

"Or else truth is experience, given a being other than error as so defined.

"And 'having for determination A' is 'having for object a being qualified by A,' or a 'being generated by a cognition of qualification A.'"

* This, perhaps, requires a little elucidation. If, it is said, we cognize another person's cognition and also its object, e.g., a pot, we may still doubt whether he cognizes it qua "pot": it may be presented to him under some other aspect, e.g., missile. Accordingly, we suppose that a thing has some proper, or correct, aspect in presentation, and this is its 66 objectivity" or value as an object. Each thing has its objectivity, and in cases where this is realized we have truth of perception.

+ Tattva-cintamani, Vol. I, pp. 401-2.

The purport of this definition is to recognize in the thought and the thing an element not merely of correspondence, but of identity. This the Nyaya finds in its universal. It argues that the concept "earth" undeniably has a content, or determination, "earthness"; and, holding that "earthness" is really existent in all "earth," it is entitled to frame its definition in the stated form. We may say that its method consists in discovering a content which cannot be distinguished from its actuality; and it formally asserts that both perception and conception are contacts with a reality. I should like to ask whether from their point of view these systematists were not justified. Once admit that in the thought of a universal it is possible to distinguish content and act, then the content must have some sort of independent existence (which may indeed sometimes be nothing more than a having been thought by some one on some other occasion); and, if the universal is applicable to the perceived particular, then economy demands that the existence in conception should be the same as the existence in perception, and we have a fundamental identity either of things conceived and things perceived or of the corresponding operations. It is only if the contents are entirely under our control in thought that it seems possible to import them into perceptibles to which they are initially extrinsic. Other Indian systems, which admit a form of existence called "conventional," would elude this argument; and perhaps the philosophy of language would also regard the universal contents as having a conventional

existence.

As regards error of percention also the Nyaya has to deal with various opponents. Its own doctrine is that error is mistake. When I perceive mother-of-pearl as silver, what happens is that an independently presented cognition of silver associates itself with the perception, which is thereby falsified. What is insisted upon is that the concept of silver qualifies the object perceived in precisely the same way as would in true

perception the concept "mother of pearl"; and a syllogism is drawn up as follows*:

"A cognition having for determination 'silverness' and begetting response due to wish for silver and applied to mother-of-pearl qualifies the mother-of-pearl, because it is cognition entailing response to the mother-of-pearl; like the cognition begetting response to mother-of-pearl by one requiring mother-of-pearl."

The opponent admits that the idea of silver is present by way of recollection or association, but denies the qualification. He holds that the perception of the thing and the remembrance of the silver are present in the mind together and that the wrong response is due to a negative something, namely a nonapprehension of difference between the two. We have here material for a pretty discussion, in which the case of silver and mother-of-pearl together mistaken for mother-of-pearl and silver together plays a prominent part. The strong point of the opponent is that his non-apprehension of difference accounts for the response in the case of true perception of silver as silver. In reality, however, he does not admit error of perception at all; and in fact he openly asserts that all cognitions are in accordance with fact, and that they can be made to appear false only in practice; whereas the NyāyaVaiseshika endeavours to get the error into the actual perception, and finds an analogy in recognition, which he explains as experience of "thatness" in the perception itself.

Another consideration urged by the Nyaya-Vaiseshika disputant is based upon the doctrine of the "second intention' (anu-vyavasāya), wherein the percipient becomes aware of his perception. If, he says, the original perception were not infected by, but only associated with, a false idea, then the second intention would be in the form "I cognize this and

* Tattva-cintamani, Vol. I, p. 443.

E

silver," whereas it is really in the form "I cognize this as silver," or rather, "I cognize a present thing as 'this' and as 'silver,"" since in the second intention the original object can appear only via the original cognition.

Truth and error being as defined, their causes have next to be examined, and they are stated as "quality" and "vice" (or "defect") respectively. Neither of these, however, is regarded as a genus; each is a manifold established separately by induction.*

:

"For truth universally there is not a single invariant 'quality' rather have we for such and such truths respective qualities, e.g. [in perception] contact of the sense-organ with more parts of the object, [in inference] cognition of a real mark, [in analogy] cognition of similarity, [in communication] cognition of meaning, all as established by concomitance and divergence. In the case of such and such untruth, where we have perception infected by the vices of [distance], bile [as when we see a white shell as yellow] and so forth, error as to mark, etc., seeing of a differentia is also quality, since the result confirms it."