Great, indeed, an opponent may say, is this aggregate of illusions, since if God's causality be irrespective of the efficacy of works, then merits will be fruitless, and all created things will be simultaneously evolved (there being no reason why this should be created at one time, and that at another), and thus there will emerge two difficulties. Think not so, replies the Páśupata, for your supposition is baseless. If the Lord, irrespective of the efficacy of works, be the cause of all, and thus the efficacy of works be without results, what follows? If you rejoin that an absence of motives will follow, in whom, we ask, will this absence of motives follow? If the efficacy of works be without result, will causality belong to the doer of the works as to the Lord? It cannot belong to the doer of the works, for it is allowed that the efficacy of works is fruitful only when furthered by the will of the creator, and the efficacy so furthered may sometimes be fruitless, as in the case of the works of Yayáti, and others. From this it will by no means follow that no one will engage in works, for they will engage in them as the husbandman engages in husbandry, though the crop be uncertain. Again, sentient creatures engage in works because they depend on the will of the creator. Nor does the causality pertain to the Lord alone, for as all his desires are already satisfied, he cannot be actuated by motives to be realised by works. As for your statement, continues the Páśupata, that all things will be simultaneously evolved, this is unreasonable, inasmuch as we hold that causal efficiency resides in the unobstructed active power which conforms itself to the will of the Lord, whose power is inconceivable. It has accordingly been said by those versed in sacred tradition:-- "Since he, acting according to his will, is not actuated by the efficacy of works, "For this reason is he in this system the cause of all causes."