And for the latter, since the continued series of cognitions when accompanied by the natural obstacles[224] is said to be "bound," and when freed from those obstacles is said to be "liberated," you cannot establish an identity of the subject in the two states so as to be able to say that the very same being which _was_ bound _is_ now liberated. Nor do we find the path of the Jainas, viz., that "Liberation is the releasing from all 'obstructions,'" a path entirely free from bars to impede the wayfarer. Pray, will our Jaina friend kindly inform us what he means by "obstruction"?[225] If he answers "merit, demerit, and error," we readily grant what he says. But if he maintains that "the body is the true obstruction, and hence Liberation is the continual upspringing of the soul consequent on the body's annihilation, as of a parrot released from its cage," then we must inquire whether this said soul possesses form or not. If it possesses form, then has it parts or not? If it has no parts, then, since the well-known definition of an atom will apply here as "that which has form without parts," it will follow that the attributes of the soul are, like those of an atom, imperceptible to the senses.[226] If you say that it has parts, then the general maxim that "whatever has parts is non-eternal," would necessitate that the soul is non-eternal; and if this were conceded, then two grand difficulties [against the Providential course of the world] would burst in unopposed, viz., that what the soul has done would, at its cessation, perish with it [and thus fail of producing the proper fruit], while it would have reaped during life the effects of what it had not done [as the good and evil which happened to it would not be the consequences of its actions in a former birth]. If, on the other hand, the Jaina maintains that the soul does not possess form at all, then how can he talk of the soul's "upspringing," since all such actions as motion necessarily involve an agent possessing form?[227] Again, if we take the Chárváka's view "that the only bondage is dependence on another, and therefore independence is the true liberation,"--if by "independence" he means the cessation of pain, we have no need to controvert it. But if he means autocratic power, then no sensible man can concede it, as the very idea of earthly power involves the idea of a capability of being increased and of being equalled.[228]