Colonel WiLKi Extracts from the Akhlak e Ndseri. 517 



imaged upon it. Nor can it ever happen, that from tlie number of images 

 impressed it can be rendered incapable of receiving more ; but, on the 

 contrary, the greater the multitude of the images it contains, the greater is, 

 in fact, its facility of acquiring more. And hence it is that the powers 

 of the mind, and its capacity to receive instruction and knowledge, are 

 increased in proportion to our attainments in science and literature. Now 

 tliis property is opposite to the properties of matter : ergo, the soul is not 

 matter. 



Again: No sense can have a notice of any thing that is not an object 

 of that sense. Thus vision has notice of no perception that is not visual ; 

 and hearing, of none abstracted ft-om sound. Besides, no sense can be 

 sensible of itself, or of its own sensitive organ : for example, the sense of 

 vision neither sees the person seeing nor the eye ; nor can any sense perceive 

 its own errors. Thus the eye sees the sun, which is more than one hundred 

 and sixty times larger than the earth, of the same size as the moon, and 

 has no notice of this prodigious mistake ; and thus of a tree on the mar- 

 gin of a lake, the cause of its apparent inversion in the water can never 

 be perceived by the sense of vision. And the same holds good with regard 

 to the errors of the other senses. 



Now the soul perceives at the same instant the sensations of all the senses, 

 and determines a specific sound to proceed from a specific object of vision, 

 and that this object is the producer of tiiat soimd. In the same manner 

 the soul comprehends the distinct power and the particular organ of eacli 

 sense, distinguishes their natures, their frailties, and their errors ; and 

 of their notices discriminates which are right and which are wrong ; and 

 of consequence credits some and rejects others. But it is evident that it 

 does not derive this kind of knowledge from the senses, for it is impossible 

 to obtain from any sense that which it does not possess ; nor can it have 

 received from a sense a decision which belies that sense. It is, therefore, 

 evident that the soul is distinct from the corporeal senses ; that it is of a 

 more noble nature, and of more perfect comprehension. 



Fifthly, That it conceives by itself, and operates by means of instru- 

 ments, is proved by its consciousness ; for it cannot possibly be conscious 

 by means of an organ or instrument, so as to admit of an instrument 

 between itself and its existence. And it is on this principle that a thing 

 which receives notices by means of an instrument, cannot comprehend by 

 itself: for, as we have said, the instrument cannot be between it and 



