Sarvadarshanasangraha 1.40

1.40

Nor is inference the means of cognizing pervasion, because the miserable consequence of an infinite regress would result: "there too it must be so, and there too." Nor is verbal testimony its means, because according to the doctrine of Kaṇāda it is subsumed within inference alone; or, if it is not subsumed, it is not swift-footed enough to leap over the fault stated earlier, since it depends on the apprehension of an inferential sign in the form of the linguistic usage of elders; and also because there is no faith in the mere statement that "there is an invariable concomitance between smoke and fire," as there is in Manu and the like. Furthermore, if a person who has not been instructed in invariable concomitance does not infer another object upon perceiving an object, the very talk of inference for oneself would be reduced to a mere memory; what then to say of inference for another? Comparison and the rest, however, are dismissed from afar, since they convey relations such as that between a name and its bearer, and cannot possibly convey a relation that is free of extrinsic conditions.