Here another primâ facie view [FOOTNOTE 148:1] finally presents itself. The power of words to denote things cannot be ascertained in any way but by observing the speech and actions of experienced people. Now as such speech and action always implies the idea of something to be done (kârya), words are means of knowledge only with reference to things to be done; and hence the matter inculcated by the Veda also is only things to be done. From this it follows that the Vedânta-texts cannot claim the position of authoritative means of knowledge with regard to Brahman, which is (not a thing to be done but) an accomplished fact.--Against this view it must not be urged that in the case of sentences expressive of accomplished facts--as e.g. that a son is born to somebody--the idea of a particular thing may with certainty be inferred as the cause of certain outward signs--such as e.g. a pleased expression of countenance-- which are generally due to the attainment of a desired object; for the possible causes of joy, past, present, and future, are infinite in number, and in the given case other causes of joy, as e.g. the birth having taken place in an auspicious moment, or having been an easy one, &c., may easily be imagined. Nor, again, can it be maintained that the denotative power of words with regard to accomplished things may be ascertained in the way of our inferring either the meaning of one word from the known meaning of other words, or the meaning of the radical part of a word from the known meaning of a formative element; for the fact is that we are only able to infer on the basis of a group of words known to denote a certain thing to be done, what the meaning of some particular constituent of that group may be.--Nor, again, when a person, afraid of what he thinks to be a snake, is observed to dismiss his fear on being told that the thing is not a snake but only a rope, can we determine thereby that what terminates his fear is the idea of the non- existence of a snake. For there are many other ideas which may account for the cessation of his fear--he may think, e.g., 'this is a thing incapable of moving, devoid of poison, without consciousness'--the particular idea present to his mind we are therefore not able to determine.--The truth is that from the fact of all activity being invariably dependent on the idea of something to be done, we learn that the meaning which words convey is something prompting activity. All words thus denoting something to be done, the several words of a sentence express only some particular action to be performed, and hence it is not possible to determine that they possess the power of denoting their own meaning only, in connexion with the meaning of the other words of the sentence.--(Nor must it be said that what moves to action is not the idea of the thing to be done, but the idea of the means to do it; for) the idea of the means to bring about the desired end causes action