atter which we are capable of receiving
impressions from, or making use of for the common occasions of life.'
This is the key of the Bishop's position: 'our organised bodies are
no more a part of ourselves than any other matter around us.' In proof
of this he calls attention to the use of glasses, which 'prepare
objects' for the 'percipient power' exactly as the eye does. The eye
itself is no more percipient than the glass; is quite as much the
instrument of the true self, and also as foreign to the true self, as
the glass is. 'And if we see with our eyes only in the same manner as
we do with glasses, the like may justly be concluded from analogy of
all our senses.'

Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a precisely opposite conclusion:
and it certainly would be interesting, if not profitable, to us all,
to hear what he would or could urge in opposition to the reasoning of
the Bishop. As a brief discussion of the point will enable us to see
the bearings of an important question, I will here permit a disciple
of Lucretius to try the strength of the Bishop's position, and then
allow the Bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling back, if he
can, the difficulty upon Lucretius.

The argument might proceed in this fashion:

'Subjected to the test of mental presentation (Vorstellung), your
views, most honoured prelate, would offer to many minds a great, if
not an insuperable, difficulty. You speak of "living powers,"
"percipient or perceiving powers," and "ourselves;" but can you form a
mental picture of any of these, apart from the organism through which
it is supposed to act? Test yourself honestly, and see whether you
possess any faculty that would enable you to form such a conception.
The true self has a local habitation in each of us; thus localised,
must it not possess a form? If so, what form? Have you ever for a
moment realised it? When a leg is amputated the body is divided into
two parts; is the true self in both of them or in one? Thomas Aquinas
might say in both; but not you, for you appeal to the consciousness
associated with one of the two parts, to prove that the other is
foreign matter. Is consciousness, then, a necessary element of the
true self? If so, what do you say to the case of the whole body being
deprived of consciousness? If not, then on what grounds do you deny
any portion of the true self to the severed limb? It seems very
singular that from the beginning to the end of your admira