Sruti).’—­Nor can we assume that some persons are able to perceive supersensuous matters without Sruti, as there exists no efficient cause for such perception.  Nor, again, can it be said that such perception may be assumed in the case of Kapila and others who possessed supernatural powers, and consequently unobstructed power of cognition.  For the possession of supernatural powers itself depends on the performance of religious duty, and religious duty is that which is characterised by injunction[258]; hence the sense of injunctions (i.e. of the Veda) which is established first must not be fancifully interpreted in reference to the dicta of men ‘established’ (i.e. made perfect, and therefore possessing supernatural powers) afterwards only.  Moreover, even if those ‘perfect’ men were accepted as authorities to be appealed to, still, as there are many such perfect men, we should have, in all those cases where the Sm/ri/tis contradict each other in the manner described, no other means of final decision than an appeal to Sruti.—­As to men destitute of the power of independent judgment, we are not justified in assuming that they will without any reason attach themselves to some particular Sm/ri/ti; for if men’s inclinations were so altogether unregulated, truth itself would, owing to the multiformity of human opinion, become unstable.  We must therefore try to lead their judgment in the right way by pointing out to them the conflict of the Sm/ri/tis, and the distinction founded on some of them following Sruti and others not.—­The scriptural passage which the purvapakshin has quoted as proving the eminence of Kapila’s knowledge would not justify us in believing in such doctrines of Kapila (i.e. of some Kapila) as are contrary to Scripture; for that passage mentions the bare name of Kapila (without specifying which Kapila is meant), and we meet in tradition with another Kapila, viz. the one who burned the sons of Sagara and had the surname Vasudeva.  That passage, moreover, serves another purpose, (viz. the establishment of the doctrine of the highest Self,) and has on that account no force to prove what is not proved by any other means, (viz. the supereminence of Kapila’s knowledge.) On the other hand, we have a Sruti-passage which proclaims the excellence of Manu[259], viz.  ‘Whatever Manu said is medicine’ (Taitt.  Sa/m/h.  II, 2, 10, 2).  Manu himself, where he glorifies the seeing of the one Self in everything (’he who equally sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self, he as a sacrificer to the Self attains self-luminousness,’ i.e. becomes Brahman, Manu Sm/ri/ti XII, 91), implicitly blames the doctrine of Kapila.  For Kapila, by acknowledging a plurality of Selfs, does not admit the doctrine of there being one universal Self.  In the Mahabharata also the question is raised whether there are many persons (souls) or one; thereupon the opinion of others is mentioned, ’There are many persons, O King, according to