Others again (the Sautrántikas) hold that the position that there is no external world is untenable, as wanting evidence. Nor (they contend) can it be maintained that invariability of simultaneous cognition is an evidence, for this simultaneous cognition which you accept as proof of the identity of subject and object is indecisive, being found in dubious and in contrary instances. If you rejoin (they proceed): Let there be a proof of this identity, and let this proof be invariability of simultaneous cognition,—we refuse this, because inasmuch as cognition must ultimately have some object, it is manifested in duality, and because such invariability of simultaneity as to time and place is impossible. Moreover (they continue), if the object, blue or whatever it be, were only a form of cognition, it should be presented as Ego, not as Hoc aliquid, because the cognition and the object would be identical. Perhaps you will say: A blue form consisting of cognition is illusorily presented as external and as other than self, and consequently the Ego is not suggested; and so it has been said—
"This side of knowledge which appears external to the other portion,
"This appearance of duality in the unity of cognition is an illusion."
And again—
"The principle to be known as internal also manifests itself as if it were external."
To this we reply (say the Sautrántikas): This is untenable, for if there be no external objects, there being no genesis of such, the comparison "as if they were external" is illegitimate. No man in his senses would say, "Vasumitra looks like the son of a childless mother." Again, if the manifestation of identity be proved by the illusoriness of the presentment of duality, and the presentment of duality be proved illusory by the manifestation of identity, you are involved in a logical circle. Without controversy we observe that cognitions take external things, blue or whatever they may be, as their objects, and do not take merely internal modifications as such, and we see that men in their everyday life overlook their internal states. Thus this argument which you adduce to prove that there is difference between subject and object, turns out a mere absurdity, like milky food made of cow-dung. When then you say "as if it were external," you must already suppose an external percipibile, and your own arrow will return upon you and wound you.
If any one object that the externality of an object synchronous with the cognition is inadmissible, we (Sautrántikas) reply that this objection is inadmissible, inasmuch as the subject in juxtaposition to the sensory imposes its form upon the cognition then in production, and the object is inferrible from the form thus imposed. The interrogation and response on this point have been thus summarised—
"If it be asked, How can there be a past percipibile? They recognise perceptibility,
"And a competent inferribility of the individual thing is its imposition of its form."
To exemplify. As nourishment is inferred from a thriving look, as nationality is inferred from language, and as affection is inferred from flurried movements, so from the form of knowledge a knowable may be inferred. Therefore it has been said—