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of a stick or its texture or size, or any other accompaniment or accident which does not contribute to the work done, is not an unconditional antecedent, and must not therefore be regarded as a cause. Similarly the co-effects of the invariable antecedents or what enters into the production of their co-effects may themselves be invariable antecedents; but they are not unconditional, being themselves conditioned by those of the antecedents of which they are effects. For example, the sound produced by the stick or by the potter's wheel invariably precedes the jar but it is a co-effect; and âkâs'a (ether) as the substrate and vâyu (air) as the vehicle of the sound enter into the production of this co-effect, but these are no unconditional antecedents, and must therefore be rejected in an enumeration of conditions or causes of the jar. The conditions of the conditions should also be rejected; the invariable antecedent of the potter (who is an invariable antecedent of the jar), the potter's father, does not stand in a causal relation to the potter's handiwork. In fact the antecedence must not only be unconditionally invariable, but must also be immediate. Finally all seemingly invariable antecedents which may be dispensed with or left out are not unconditional and cannot therefore be regarded as causal conditions. Thus Dr. Seal in describing it rightly remarks, "In the end, the discrimination of what is necessary to complete the sum of causes from what is dependent, collateral, secondary, superfluous, or inert (i.e. of the relevant from the irrelevant factors), must depend on the test of expenditure of energy. This test the Nyâya would accept only in the sense of an operation analysable into molar or molecular motion (parispanda eva bhautiko vyâpâra@h karotyartha@h atîndriyastu vyâparo nâsti. Jayanta's Mañjari Âhnika I), but would emphatically reject, if it is advanced in support of the notion of a mysterious causal power or efficiency (s'akti) [Footnote ref 1]." With Nyâya all energy is necessarily kinetic. This is a peculiarity of Nyâya—its insisting that the effect is only the sum or resultant of the operations of the different causal conditions—that these operations are of the nature of motion or kinetic, in other words it firmly holds to the view that causation is a case of expenditure of energy, i.e. a redistribution of motion, but at the same time absolutely repudiates the Sâ@mkhya conception of power or productive
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[Footnote 1: Dr P.C. Ray's Hindu Chemistry, 1909, pp. 249-250.]
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efficiency as metaphysical or transcendental (atîndriya) and finds nothing in the cause other than unconditional invariable complements of operative conditions (kâra@na-sâmagrî), and nothing in the effect other than the consequent phenomenon which results from the joint operations of the antecedent conditions [Footnote ref 1]. Certain general conditions such as relative space (dik), time (kâla), the will of Îs'vara, destiny (ad@r@s@ta) are regarded as the common cause of all effects (kâryatva-prayojaka). Those are called sâdhâra@na-kâra@na (common cause) as distinguished from the specific causes which determine the specific effects which are called sâdhâra@na kâra@na. It may not be out of place here to notice that Nyâya while repudiating transcendental power (s'akti) in the mechanism of nature and natural causation, does not deny the existence of metaphysical conditions like merit (dharma), which constitutes a system of moral ends that fulfil themselves through the mechanical systems and order of nature.
The causal relation then like the relation of genus to species, is a natural relation of concomitance, which can be ascertained only by the uniform and uninterrupted experience of agreement in presence and agreement in absence, and not by a deduction from a certain a priori principle like that of causality or identity of essence [Footnote ref 2].
The material cause such as the clay is technically called the samavâyi-kâra@na of the jug. Samavâya means as we have seen an intimate, inseparable relation of inherence. A kâra@na is called samavâyi when its materials are found inseparably connected with the materials of the effect. Asamavâyi-kâra@na is that which produces its characteristics in the effect through the medium of the samavâyi or material cause, e.g. the clay is not the cause of the colour of the jug but the colour of the clay is the cause of the colour of the jug. The colour of the clay which exists in the clay in inseparable relation is the cause of the colour of the jug. This colour of the clay is thus called the asamavâyi cause of the jug. Any quality (gu@na) or movement which existing in the samavâya cause in the samavâya relation determines the characteristics of the effect is called the asamavâyi-kâra@na. The instrumental
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[Footnote 1: Dr P.C. Ray's Hindu Chemistry, 1909, pp. 249-250.]