Hence (_b._) we also maintain that your position cannot be established by any supposed supernatural testimony [as that quoted above from the Rig-Veda, "from him sprang the Ṛich and Sáman verses"]. For the rule of Páṇini (iv. 3, 101) will still remain inviolate, that the grammatical affixes with which such names as Káṭhaka, Kálápa, and Taittiríya are formed, impart to those derivatives the sense of "uttered by" Kaṭha, Kalápin, &c., though we maintain that these names have reference [not to those parts of the Veda as first composed by these sages, but] to the fact that these sages instituted certain schools of traditional study. And in the same way we hold [in reference to this verse from the Rig-Veda] that it only refers to the institution of certain schools of traditional study of these Vedas. Nor will any supposed inference establish the non-eternity of sound, because [as we said before] it is opposed to the evidence of our consciousness, [since we certainly recognise the letter now heard as the one heard before]. Nor is it reasonable to reply that, although the letters are not the same, they seem to be so on account of their identity of species. For here we ask our opponents a question--Is this idea that "the apparent sameness arises from identity of species" put forward from a wish to preclude entirely any idea of the letters being the same, or only [from an imagined fear of error] because experience shows that the recognition will sometimes be erroneous [as in the cases of the hair and jasmine mentioned above]? (_a._) If it arises from the latter reason, we Mímáṃsakas, who hold that the Veda is its own evidence, have said in reference to this timid imagination-- "He who foolishly imagines that something as yet unknown to him will come hereafter to stop his present conclusion, will go to utter ruin in every transaction of life, his mind a mass of doubts."