 The inference for positing an īśvara, the “Lord,” is a little less system-bound than this one for an ātman, but its history stretches through several earlier Nyāya efforts, in particular by Vācaspati (c. 950). It is an inference to a creator based on both positive and negative correlations: “Earth and the like have a conscious agent as an instrumental cause, since they are effects, like a pot and unlike an atom (whatever is an effect has a conscious agent as an instrumental cause).” Buddhists point to counterexamples, such as growing grass. Growing grass has the prover property, being-an-effect, but not the probandum, having-an-agent-as-an-instrumental cause. The Nyāya reply is to point out that growing grass and all such examples are in dispute, that is to say, fall within the domain of the inferential subject (pakṣa), here “earth and the like,” to wit, anything that is an effect but whose agential cause is not apparent, unlike the comparison class, a pot, for instance, which is clearly both an effect and has an agent as an instrumental cause. Nothing that falls within the domain of the subject can be used either as an example supporting the rule of vyāpti inclusion or as a counterexample, since that would beg the question. The whole point of inference is to make something known that was not known previously, and here, as with the existence of atoms, the conclusion could not be known perceptually. The theological inference has the purpose of showing that things like the earth and growing grass have an agent within the causal complex that brings them about. This is not something that we know without making the inference.