t is mine.[37]'--But what have
we to understand by the term 'superimposition?'--The apparent
presentation, in the form of remembrance, to consciousness of something
previously observed, in some other thing.[38]

Some indeed define the term 'superimposition' as the superimposition of
the attributes of one thing on another thing.[39] Others, again, define
superimposition as the error founded on the non-apprehension of the
difference of that which is superimposed from that on which it is
superimposed.[40] Others[41], again, define it as the fictitious
assumption of attributes contrary to the nature of that thing on which
something else is superimposed. But all these definitions agree in so
far as they represent superimposition as the apparent presentation of
the attributes of one thing in another thing. And therewith agrees also
the popular view which is exemplified by expressions such as the
following: 'Mother-of-pearl appears like silver,' 'The moon although one
only appears as if she were double.' But how is it possible that on the
interior Self which itself is not an object there should be superimposed
objects and their attributes? For every one superimposes an object only
on such other objects as are placed before him (i.e. in contact with his
sense-organs), and you have said before that the interior Self which is
entirely disconnected from the idea of the Thou (the Non-Ego) is never
an object. It is not, we reply, non-object in the absolute sense. For it
is the object of the notion of the Ego[42], and the interior Self is
well known to exist on account of its immediate (intuitive)
presentation.[43] Nor is it an exceptionless rule that objects can be
superimposed only on such other objects as are before us, i.e. in
contact with our sense-organs; for non-discerning men superimpose on the
ether, which is not the object of sensuous perception, dark-blue colour.

Hence it follows that the assumption of the Non-Self being superimposed
on the interior Self is not unreasonable.

This superimposition thus defined, learned men consider to be Nescience
(avidya), and the ascertainment of the true nature of that which is (the
Self) by means of the discrimination of that (which is superimposed on
the Self), they call knowledge (vidya). There being such knowledge
(neither the Self nor the Non-Self) are affected in the least by any
blemish or (good) quality produced by their mutual superimposition[44].
The mutual superimposition o