hich is liable to mistake cannot be infallible, cannot be
a true standard of judgment.

Among the senses the most powerful and reliable is that of sight. This
sense views a mirage as a body of water and is positive as to its
character, whereas a mirage is nonexistent. The sense of vision, or sight,
sees reflected images in a mirror as verities, when reason declares them
to be nonexistent. The eye sees the sun and planets revolving around the
earth, whereas in reality the sun is stationary, central, and the earth
revolves upon its own axis. The sense of sight sees the earth as a plane,
whereas the faculty of reason discovers it to be spherical. The eye views
the heavenly bodies in boundless space as small and insignificant, whereas
reason declares them to be colossal suns. The sense of sight beholds a
whirling spark of fire as a circle of light and is without doubt as to it,
whereas such a circle is nonexistent. A man sailing in a ship sees the
banks on either side as if they were moving, whereas the ship is moving.
Briefly, there are many instances and evidences which disprove the
assertion that tangibilities and sense impressions are certainties, for
the senses are misleading and often mistaken. How, then, can we rightly
declare that they prove reality when the standard or criterion itself is
defective?

The philosophers of the East consider the perfect criterion to be reason
or intellect, and according to that standard the realities of all objects
can be proved; for, they say, the standard of reason and intellect is
perfect, and everything provable through reason is veritable. Therefore,
those philosophers consider all philosophical deductions to be correct
when weighed according to the standard of reason, and they state that the
senses are the assistants and instruments of reason, and that although the
investigation of realities may be conducted through the senses, the
standard of knowing and judgment is reason itself. In this way the
philosophers of the East and West differ and disagree. The materialistic
philosophers of the West declare that man belongs to the animal kingdom,
whereas the philosophers of the East--such as Plato, Aristotle and the
Persians--divide the world of existence or phenomena of life into two
general categories or kingdoms: one the animal kingdom, or world of
nature, the other the human kingdom, or world of reason.

Man is distinguished above the animals through his reason. The perceptions
o