that intelligent beings are not capable of direct insight into the unseen principle--called 'apûrva,' or by similar names--which resides in the form of a power in sacrifices and other instrumental causes, in any way preclude their being agents in the construction of the world. Direct insight into powers is nowhere required for undertaking work: what _is_ required for that purpose is only direct presentative knowledge of the things endowed with power, while of power itself it suffices to have some kind of knowledge. Potters apply themselves to the task of making pots and jars on the strength of the direct knowledge they possess of the implements of their work--the wheel, the staff, &c.--without troubling about a similar knowledge of the powers inherent in those implements; and in the same way intelligent beings may apply themselves to their work (to be effected by means of sacrifices, &c.), if only they are assured by sacred tradition of the existence of the various powers possessed by sacrifices and the like.--Moreover, experience teaches that agents having a knowledge of the material and other causes must be inferred only in the case of those effects which can be produced, and the material and other causes of which can be known: such things, on the other hand, as the earth, mountains, and oceans, can neither be produced, nor can their material and other causes ever be known; we therefore have no right to infer for them intelligent producers. Hence the quality of being an effected thing can be used as an argument for proving the existence of an intelligent causal agent, only where that quality is found in things, the production of which, and the knowledge of the causes of which, is possible at all.--Experience further teaches that earthen pots and similar things are produced by intelligent agents possessing material bodies, using implements, not endowed with the power of a Supreme Lord, limited in knowledge and so on; the quality of being an effect therefore supplies a reason for inferring an intelligent agent of the kind described only, and thus is opposed to the inference of attributes of a contrary nature, viz. omniscience, omnipotence, and those other attributes that belong--to the highest Soul, whose existence you wish to establish.--Nor does this (as might be objected) imply an abandonment of all inference. Where the thing to be inferred is known through other means of proof also, any qualities of an opposite nature which maybe suggested by the inferential mark (linga) are opposed by those other means of proof, and therefore must be dropped. In the case under discussion, however, the thine; to be inferred is something not guaranteed by any other means of proof, viz. a person capable of constructing the entire universe; here there is nothing to interfere with the ascription to such a person of all those qualities which, on the basis of methodical inference, necessarily belong to it.--The