self-cognitions); for the latter
must be described either as different from the single cognitions or as
not different from them. (In the former case it is either permanent, and
then it is nothing else but the permanent soul of the Vedantins; or
non-permanent;) then being admitted to be momentary merely, it cannot
exercise any influence and cannot therefore be the cause of the motion
of the atoms[389]. (And in the latter case we are not further advanced
than before.)--For all these reasons the formation of aggregates cannot
be accounted for. But without aggregates there would be an end of the
stream of mundane existence which presupposes those aggregates.

19. If it be said that (the formation of aggregates may be explained)
through (Nescience, &c.) standing in the relation of mutual causality;
we say 'No,' because they merely are the efficient causes of the origin
(of the immediately subsequent links).

Although there exists no permanent intelligent principle of the nature
either of a ruling Lord or an enjoying soul, under whose influence the
formation of aggregates could take place, yet the course of mundane
existence is rendered possible through the mutual causality[390] of
Nescience and so on, so that we need not look for any other combining
principle.

The series beginning with Nescience comprises the following members:
Nescience, impression, knowledge, name and form, the abode of the six,
touch, feeling, desire, activity, birth, species, decay, death, grief,
lamentation, pain, mental affliction, and the like[391]. All these terms
constitute a chain of causes and are as such spoken of in the Bauddha
system, sometimes cursorily, sometimes at length. They are, moreover,
all acknowledged as existing, not by the Bauddhas only, but by the
followers of all systems. And as the cycles of Nescience, &c. forming
uninterrupted chains of causes and effects revolve unceasingly like
water-wheels, the existence of the aggregates (which constitute bodies
and minds) must needs be assumed, as without such Nescience and so on
could not take place.

This argumentation of the Bauddha we are unable to accept, because it
merely assigns efficient causes for the origination of the members of
the series, but does not intimate an efficient cause for the formation
of the aggregates. If the Bauddha reminds us of the statement made above
that the existence of aggregates must needs be inferred from the
existence of Nescience and so on, we poi