with bodies external to his mind is that which he
acquires by the medium of his bodily sensea--though thesa, are
themselves external to his mind, in the truest sanse. The senses not
being absolutely reliable, knowledge acquired by means of them is not
absolutely reliable either. So the ultimate difference between the
Asiatic saint and the European man of science is, that while the former
believes all knowledge to be directly within the grasp of the soul,
under certain conditions, the latter, on the other hand, denies that any
knowledge can be absolute, being all obtained indirectly through a
medium not absolutely reliable. The reasoning, by which the Western mind
allows itself to act fearlessly on information which is not (according
to its own verdict) necessarily accurate, depends on a clever use of the
infinite in unconsciously calculating the probabilities of that
accuracy--and this entirely falls in with what you said about the
application of transcendental analysis to the affairs of everyday life."

"I see you have entirely comprehended me," I said. "But as for the
Asiatic mind--you seem to deny to it the use of the ealculus of thought,
and yet you denned adepts as attempting to acquire specific knowledge by
general and transcendental methods. Here is a real contradiction."

"No; I see no confusion, for I do not include the higher adepts in
either class, sinoe they have the wisdom to make use of the learning and
of the methods of both. They seem to me to be endeavouring, roughly
speaking, to combine the two. They believe absolute knowledge
attainable, and they devote much time to the study of nature, in which
pursuit they make use of highly analytical methods. They subdivide
phenomena to an extent that would surprise and probably amuse a Western
thinker. They count fourteen distinct colours in the rainbow, and
invariably connect sound, even to the finest degrees, with shades of
colour. I could name many other peculiarities of their mode of studying
natural phenomena, which displays a much more minute subdivision and
classification of results than you are accustomed to. But beside all
this they consider that the senses of the normal man are susceptible of
infinite refinement, and that upon a greater or less degree of acquired
acuteness of perception the value of his results must depend. To attain
this high degree of sensitiveness, necessary to the perception of very
subtle phenomena, the adepts find it necessary to