PERCEIVING & PERCEIVED NATURES 141 



correspondence. The same things are true of sounds, 

 tastes, smells, and thus we have a multitude of corre- 

 spondences. Taking all these considerations into account, 

 we find ourselves possessed of a perceptive nature surpass- 

 ingly rich in potency, and in the presence of characteris- 

 tics and motions in matter in endless variety. There are 

 correspondences "between them which are as the dust of 

 the earth for numher. If then against the conjunction 

 of five senses or even two finding one form and measure 

 of material activity suited to them the chances are over- 

 whelmingly great, how shall we set forth the impossibility 

 of the conjunction by chance of countless varieties and 

 measures of potency in each of five senses, and corre- 

 sponding to them innumerable motions suited to their 

 excitation existing in the material world. 



7. The perceiving nature is of vast capacity. It can 

 receive at the same moment a multitude of impressions. 

 It might have been capable of taking over from the brain 

 and organ of vision only a few beams of light. It might 

 have been able to see only a point, a little spot, a tiny 

 flower or garden, and then it would have been compara- 

 tively narrow and poor. Instead of this it is on the grandest 

 scale. From a lofty vantage ground we can command 

 a view embracing the widest plains, a multitude of moun- 

 tains, and the blue vault of heaven. We can turn round 

 in a second or two, and see instantaneously afar on every 

 side. Lines of light, we have seen, have each hundreds 

 of billions of transverse vibrations at minutest points. In 

 a second the hundreds of billions in a line 180,000 miles 

 in length enter the eye. They are counted by centillions 

 multiplied by centillions. Those entering from a flower 

 are counted by still larger numbers. Inconceivably vaster 

 are the multitudes pouring in from an extended prospect. 

 Great also is their variety. In viewing it therefore the 



