Chapter 8. Investigation of Action and the Agent

A real agent does not produce a real action, just as an unreal agent does not set about an unreal action.

A real [agent] has no activity — and the action would then be without an agent; a real [action] has no activity — and the agent would then be without a deed.

If an unreal agent produces an unreal action, then the action would be causeless and the agent would be causeless.

Where there is no cause, neither effect nor ground exists, and in their absence neither activity nor agent nor means exists.

If activity and the rest are impossible, then neither virtue nor vice exists; and in the absence of virtue and vice, the fruit born of them does not exist.

In the absence of a fruit, no path is fit to lead either to liberation or to heaven, and the futility of all actions follows.

An agent who is real and unreal at once does not produce what is real and unreal at once, for how could the real and the unreal, which contradict each other, be joined in one thing?

The unreal is not produced by a real agent, and the real is not produced by an unreal one, since with an agent who is both at once all those very same faults arise.

Neither an unreal action, nor a real one, nor one that is real and unreal at once is produced by the agent — for the very reasons named above.

Neither a real action, nor one that is real and unreal at once, is produced by an unreal agent either — for the very reasons named above.

An agent who is real and unreal at once produces no action, neither real nor unreal, and this is to be understood for the very reasons named above.

The agent arises in dependence on the action, and the action arises in dependence on the agent — we see no other ground for their establishment.

In the same way appropriation is to be understood — through the rejection of action and agent; and the remaining existents should be grasped on the model of action and agent.