Sarvadarshanasangraha 1.38

1.38

tad etan manorājyavijṛmbhaṇam/ vyāptipakṣadharmatāśāli hi liṅgaṃ gamakam abhyugatam anumānaprāmāṇyavādibhiḥ/ vyāptiś cobhayavidhopādhividhuraḥ saṃbandhaḥ/ sa ca sattayā cakṣurādivan nāṅgabhāvaṃ bhajate/ kiṃ tu jñātatayā/ kaḥ khalu jñānopāyo bhavet/ na tāvat pratyakṣam/ tac ca bāhyam āntaraṃ vābhimatam/ na prathamaḥ/ tasya saṃprayuktaviṣayajñānajanakatvena bhavati prasarasaṃbhave ’pi bhūtabhaviṣyatos tadasaṃbhavena sarvopasaṃhāravatyā vyāpter durjñānatvāt/ na ca vyāptijñānaṃ sāmānyagocaram iti mantavyam/ vyaktyor avinābhāvābhāvaprasaṅgāt/ nāpi caramaḥ/ antaḥkaraṇasya bahirindriyatantratvena bāhye ’rthe svātantryeṇa pravṛttyanupapatteḥ/ tad uktam:

All this, however, is only the inflation of the world of fancy.

Those who maintain the authority of inference accept the sign or middle term as the causer of knowledge, which middle term must be found in the minor and be itself invariably connected with the major.[8] Now this invariable connection must be a relation destitute of any condition accepted or disputed;[9] and this connection does not possess its power of causing inference by virtue of its existence, as the eye, &c., are the cause of perception, but by virtue of its being known. What then is the means of this connection's being known?

We will first show that it is not perception. Now perception is held to be of two kinds, external and internal [i.e., as produced by the external senses, or by the inner sense, mind]. The former is not the required means; for although it is possible that the actual contact of the senses and the object will produce the knowledge of the particular object thus brought in contact, yet as there can never be such contact in the case of the past or the future, the universal proposition[10] which was to embrace the invariable connection of the middle and major terms in every case becomes impossible to be known. Nor may you maintain that this knowledge of the universal proposition has the general class as its object, because if so, there might arise a doubt as to the existence of the invariable connection in this particular case[11] [as, for instance, in this particular smoke as implying fire].

Nor is internal perception the means, since you cannot establish that the mind has any power to act independently towards an external object, since all allow that it is dependent on the external senses, as has been said by one of the logicians, "The eye, &c., have their objects as described; but mind externally is dependent on the others."