concomitance of idea and thing has to be considered as proving only that the thing constitutes the means of the idea, not that the two are identical.  Moreover, when we are conscious first of a pot and then of a piece of cloth, consciousness remains the same in the two acts while what varies are merely the distinctive attributes of consciousness; just as when we see at first a black and then a white cow, the distinction of the two perceptions is due to the varying blackness and whiteness while the generic character of the cow remains the same.  The difference of the one permanent factor (from the two—­or more—­varying factors) is proved throughout by the two varying factors, and vice versa the difference of the latter (from the permanent factor) by the presence of the one (permanent factor).  Therefore thing and idea are distinct.  The same view is to be held with regard to the perception and the remembrance of a jar; there also the perception and the remembrance only are distinct while the jar is one and the same; in the same way as when conscious of the smell of milk and the taste of milk we are conscious of the smell and taste as different things but of the milk itself as one only.

Further, two ideas which occupy different moments of time and pass away as soon as they have become objects of consciousness cannot apprehend—­or be apprehended by—­each other.  From this it follows that certain doctrines forming part of the Bauddha system cannot be upheld; so the doctrine that ideas are different from each other; the doctrine that everything is momentary, void, &c.; the doctrine of the distinction of individuals and classes; the doctrine that a former idea leaves an impression giving rise to a later idea; the doctrine of the distinction, owing to the influence of Nescience, of the attributes of existence and non-existence; the doctrine of bondage and release (depending on absence and presence of right knowledge)[409].

Further, if you say that we are conscious of the idea, you must admit that we are also conscious of the external thing.  And if you rejoin that we are conscious of the idea on its own account because it is of a luminous nature like a lamp, while the external thing is not so; we reply that by maintaining the idea to be illuminated by itself you make yourself guilty of an absurdity no less than if you said that fire burns itself.  And at the same time you refuse to accept the common and altogether rational opinion that we are conscious of the external thing by means of the idea different from the thing!  Indeed a proof of extraordinary philosophic insight!—­It cannot, moreover, be asserted in any way that the idea apart from the thing is the object of our consciousness; for it is absurd to speak of a thing as the object of its own activity.  Possibly you (the Bauddha) will rejoin that, if the idea is to be apprehended by something different from it, that something also must be apprehended by something different and so on