Sarvadarshanasangraha 14.26

14.26

athaivam ucyetāsaṃbaddham api tat tad eva janayati yatra yacchaktam/ śaktiś ca kāryadarśanonneyeti/ tan na saṃgacchate/ tileṣu tailajananaśaktir ity atra tailasyāsattve saṃbaddhatvāsaṃbaddhatvavikalpena tacchaktir iti nirūpaṇāyogāt/ kāryakāraṇayor abhedāc ca kāraṇāt pṛthak kāryasya sattvaṃ na bhavati/ paṭas tantubhyo na bhidyate/ taddharmatvāt/ na yad evaṃ na tad evaṃ yathā gor aśvaḥ/ taddharmaś ca paṭaḥ/ tasmān nārthāntaram/

Moreover, the cause must produce its effect as being either connected with it or not connected; in the former alternative the effect's existence is settled by the rule that connection can only be between two existent things; in the latter, any and every effect might arise from any and every cause, as there is nothing to determine the action of an unconnected thing. This has been thus put by the Sāṅkhya teacher:—"From the supposed non-existence of the effect, it can have no connection with causes which always accompany existence; and to him who holds the production of a non-connected thing there arises an utter want of determinateness." If you rejoin that "the cause, though not connected with its effect, can yet produce it, where it has a capacity of so doing, and this capacity of producing is to be inferred from seeing the effect actually produced," still this cannot be allowed, since in such a case as "there is a capacity for producing oil in sesame seeds," you cannot determine, while the oil is non-existent, that there is this capacity in the sesame seeds, whichever alternative you may accept as to their being connected or not with the oil [since our before-mentioned dilemma will equally apply here].

From our tenet that the cause and effect are identical, it follows that the effect does not exist distinct from the cause; thus the cloth is not something distinct from the threads, as it abides in the latter [as its material cause]; but where this identity is not found, there we do not find the relation of cause and effect; thus a horse and a cow are distinct from each other [for one is not produced from the other, and therefore their qualities are not the same]; but the cloth is an acknowledged effect, and therefore not anything different from its cause.[10] If you object that, if this were true, the separate threads ought to fulfil the office of clothing, we reply, that the office of clothing is fulfilled by the threads manifesting the nature of cloth when they are placed in a particular arrangement. As the limbs of a tortoise when they retire within its shell are concealed, and, when they come forth, are revealed, so the particular effects, as cloth, &c., of a cause, as threads, &c., when they come forth and are revealed, are said to be produced; and when they retire and are concealed, they are said to be destroyed; but there is no such thing as the production of the non-existent or the destruction of the existent. As has been said in the Bhagavad Gītā (ii. 16)—