A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century A.D. v2.c35.65

v2.c35.65

The Nyāya analysis of the causal relation continued:—Co-effects:—In the enumeration of different varieties of irrelevant antecedents (अन्यथासिद्ध), we have already noticed that co-effects of the same cause are apt to be confounded as cause and effect. In some cases, the co-effects may be simultaneous, *e. g.*, the case of the ascending and the descending scale in a balance, which are co-effects of gravity (*vide* Pártha-sárathi Misra on Kumárila, Sloka-Vártika—तुलानमनोन्नमनयोस्तु न मिथ: कार्य्यकारणत्वम्, उभयोरेककारणत्वात्,—sloka 157, Súnya-Váda). In other cases, the co-effects may be successive effects of the same cause, and here the risk is great of mistaking the antecedent co-effect to be the cause of the succeeding co-effect; *e.g.*, the case of ants moving in a line to carry their eggs upward, which is observed before the summer rains;—where the movement of ants and the rains are not cause and effect, but successive effects of the same cause, *viz.*, the heat (उष्मा), which disturbs the elements, *viz.*, the earth and the atmosphere (महाभूतक्षोभ); the ants being affected by this heat earlier than the atmospheric movements which bring the clouds and the rain.