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254 The KaPila and the Patafi/ala Sa'J?zkhya [CH. The changes that take place in the atomic constitution of things certainly deserve to be noticed. But before we go on to this, it will be better to enquire about the principle of causation accord- ing to which the Sarpkhya- Yoga evolution should be compre- hended or interpreted. Principle of Causation and Conservation of Energyl. The question is raised, how can the prakrti supply the de- ficiences made in its evolutes by the formation of other evolutes from them? When from mahat some tanmatras have evolved, or when from the tanmatras some atoms have evolved, how can the deficiency in mahat and the tanmatras be made good by the prakrti ? Or again, what is the principle that guides the transformations that take place in the atomic stage when one gross body, say milk, changes into curd, and so on? Sarpkhya says that "as the total energy remains the same while the world is constantly evolving, cause and effect are only more or less evolved forms of the same ultimate Energy. The sum of effects exists in the sum of causes in a potential form. The grouping or collocation alone changes, and this brings on the manifestation of the latent powers of the gUl)as, but without creation of anything new. What is called the (material) cause is only the power which is efficient in the pro- duction or rather the vehicle of the power. This power is the unmanifested (or potential) form of the Energy set free (lIdbhiUa- v!'tti) in the effect. But the concomitant conditions are necessary to call forth the so-called material cause into activity2." The appearance of an effect (such as the manifestation of the figure of the statue in the marble block by the causal efficiency of the sculptor's art) is only its passage from potentiality to actuality and the concomitant conditions (sahakari-sakti) or efficient cause (lli1Jlitta-karala, such as the sculptor's art) is a sort of mechanical help or instrumental help to this passage or the transition 3 . The refilling from prakrti thus means nothing more than this, that by the inherent teleology of the prakrti, the reals there are so collocated as to be transformed into mahat as those of the mahat have been collocated to form the bhlitadi or the tanmatras. 1 Vyiisabhii!ya and Yogaviirttika, IV. 3; Tattvavaifiirad4 IV. 3. 2 Ray, History of Hindu Chcmistry, p. 72. S Ibid. p. 73.