chain (of embodied states and merit and demerit) would be no better than
a chain of blind men (who are unable to lead one another). Moreover, the
Self can impossibly become an agent, as it cannot enter into intimate
relation to actions. If it should be said that the Self may be
considered as an agent in the same way as kings and other great people
are (who without acting themselves make others act) by their mere
presence, we deny the appositeness of this instance; for kings may
become agents through their relation to servants whom they procure by
giving them wages, &c., while it is impossible to imagine anything,
analogous to money, which could be the cause of a connexion between the
Self as lord and the body, and so on (as servants). Wrong imagination,
on the other hand, (of the individual Self, considering itself to be
joined to the body,) is a manifest reason of the connexion of the two
(which is not based on any assumption). This explains also in how far
the Self can be considered as the agent in sacrifices and similar
acts[86]. Here it is objected that the Self's imagination as to the
body, and so on, belonging to itself is not false, but is to be
understood in a derived (figurative) sense. This objection we invalidate
by the remark that the distinction of derived and primary senses of
words is known to be applicable only where an actual difference of
things is known to exist. We are, for instance, acquainted with a
certain species of animals having a mane, and so on, which is the
exclusive primary object of the idea and word 'lion,' and we are
likewise acquainted with persons possessing in an eminent degree certain
leonine qualities, such as fierceness, courage, &c.; here, a well
settled difference of objects existing, the idea and the name 'lion' are
applied to those persons in a derived or figurative sense. In those
cases, however, where the difference of the objects is not well
established, the transfer of the conception and name of the one to the
other is not figurative, but simply founded on error. Such is, for