immediate consciousness, is based on the plain denial of a certain form of consciousness, the one namely--admitted by every one--which is expressed in the judgment 'This thing is such and such.'--This same point is clearly expounded by the Sûtrakâra in II, 2, 33. Inference also teaches difference. Perception thus having for its object only what is marked by difference, inference also is in the same case; for its object is only what is distinguished by connexion with things known through perception and other means of knowledge. And thus, even in the case of disagreement as to the number of the different instruments of knowledge, a thing devoid of difference could not be established by any of them since the instruments of knowledge acknowledged by all have only one and the same object, viz. what is marked by difference. And a person who maintains the existence of a thing devoid of difference on the ground of differences affecting that very thing simply contradicts himself without knowing what he does; he is in fact no better than a man who asserts that his own mother never had any children. Perception does not reveal mere being. In reply to the assertion that perception causes the apprehension of pure Being only, and therefore cannot have difference for its object; and that 'difference' cannot be defined because it does not admit of being set forth in definite alternatives; we point out that these charges are completely refuted by the fact that the only objects of perception are things distinguished by generic character and so on, and that generic character and so on--as being relative things--give at once rise to the judgment as to the distinction between themselves and the things in which they inhere. You yourself admit that in the case of knowledge and in that of colour and other qualities this relation holds good, viz. that something which gives rise to a judgment about another thing at the same time gives rise to a judgment about itself; the same may therefore be admitted with regard to difference [FOOTNOTE 44:1]. For this reason the charge of a regressus in infinitum and a logical seesaw (see above, p. 32) cannot be upheld. For even if perceptive cognition takes place within one moment, we apprehend within that moment the generic character which constitutes on the one hand the difference of the thing from others, and on the other hand the peculiar character of the thing itself; and thus there remains nothing to be apprehended in a second moment.