Those things, on the other hand, of which we are conscious in our waking state, such as posts and the like, are never negated in any state.—­Moreover, the visions of a dream are acts of remembrance, while the visions of the waking state are acts of immediate consciousness; and the distinction between remembrance and immediate consciousness is directly cognised by every one as being founded on the absence or presence of the object.  When, for instance, a man remembers his absent son, he does not directly perceive him, but merely wishes so to perceive him.  As thus the distinction between the two states is evident to every one, it is impossible to formulate the inference that waking consciousness is false because it is mere consciousness, such as dreaming consciousness; for we certainly cannot allow would-be philosophers to deny the truth of what is directly evident to themselves.  Just because they feel the absurdity of denying what is evident to themselves, and are consequently unable to demonstrate the baselessness of the ideas of the waking state from those ideas themselves, they attempt to demonstrate it from their having certain attributes in common with the ideas of the dreaming state.  But if some attribute cannot belong to a thing on account of the latter’s own nature, it cannot belong to it on account of the thing having certain attributes in common with some other thing.  Fire, which is felt to be hot, cannot be demonstrated to be cold, on the ground of its having attributes in common with water.  And the difference of nature between the waking and the sleeping state we have already shown.

30.  The existence (of mental impressions) is not possible on the Bauddha view, on account of the absence of perception (of external things).

We now proceed to that theory of yours, according to which the variety of ideas can be explained from the variety of mental impressions, without any reference to external things, and remark that on your doctrine the existence of mental impressions is impossible, as you do not admit the perception of external things.  For the variety of mental impressions is caused altogether by the variety of the things perceived.  How, indeed, could various impressions originate if no external things were perceived?  The hypothesis of a beginningless series of mental impressions would lead only to a baseless regressus ad infinitum, sublative of the entire phenomenal world, and would in no way establish your position.—­The same argument, i.e. the one founded on the impossibility of mental impressions which are not caused by external things, refutes also the positive and negative judgments, on the ground of which the denier of an external world above attempted to show that ideas are caused by mental impressions, not by external things.  We rather have on our side a positive and a negative judgment whereby to establish our doctrine of the existence of external things, viz. ’the perception of external