The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus c10.58

c10.58

*The Nyáya 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 Kumárilá, Śloka-Vártika—तुलानमनोन्नमनयोस्तु न मिथः कार्य्यकारणत्वम्, उभयोरेककारणत्वात्,—Śloka 157, Śúnya-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.