Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/322

266 The second category, quality, embraces seventeen varieties or qualities of the nine substances enumerated above. The qualities are colour, savour, odour, tangibility, number, extension, individuality, conjunction, disjunction, priority, posteriority, intellections, pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, and volition.

The third category, action, is divided into five kinds, upward and downward movement, contraction, dilation, and general motion.

The fourth category, community (genus), denotes qualities common to many objects, and also, implies species. These common qualities and species have a real and objective existence, according to Kanada, but not according to the Buddhists, who affirm that only individuals have existence, and that abstractions are unreal conceptions.

The fifth category, particularity, denotes simple objects, devoid of community. They are soul, mind, time, place, the ethereal element, and atoms.

The sixth category, coherence, is connection between things which must be connected so long as they exist, as yarn and cloth.

The seventh category, non-existence, is either universal or mutual.

It will be seen from this brief account that the Vaisesika system of Kanada, in so far as it is an original system, is physics rather than philosophy. It was the first attempt made in India to inquire into the laws of matter and force, of combination and disintegration.