nderstanding of
military tactics, or indeed, I should rather say, if he is to be a man
at all.

I should like to know whether you have the same notion which I have of
this study?

What is your notion?

It appears to me to be a study of the kind which we are seeking, and
which leads naturally to reflection, but never to have been rightly
used; for the true use of it is simply to draw the soul towards being.

Will you explain your meaning? he said.

I will try, I said; and I wish you would share the enquiry with me,
and say 'yes' or 'no' when I attempt to distinguish in my own mind what
branches of knowledge have this attracting power, in order that we may
have clearer proof that arithmetic is, as I suspect, one of them.

Explain, he said.

I mean to say that objects of sense are of two kinds; some of them do
not invite thought because the sense is an adequate judge of them; while
in the case of other objects sense is so untrustworthy that further
enquiry is imperatively demanded.

You are clearly referring, he said, to the manner in which the senses
are imposed upon by distance, and by painting in light and shade.

No, I said, that is not at all my meaning.

Then what is your meaning?

When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from
one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in
this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance
or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its
opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:--here are three
fingers--a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger.

Very good.

You may suppose that they are seen quite close: And here comes the
point.

What is it?

Each of them equally appears a finger, whether seen in the middle or
at the extremity, whether white or black, or thick or thin--it makes no
difference; a finger is a finger all the same. In these cases a man is
not compelled to ask of thought the question what is a finger? for the
sight never intimates to the mind that a finger is other than a finger.

True.

And therefore, I said, as we might expect, there is nothing here which
invites or excites intelligence.

There is not, he said.

But is this equally true of the greatness and smallness of the fingers?
Can sight adequately perceive them? and is no difference made by the
circumstance that one of the fingers is in the middle and another at
the