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ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES
a composite substance, e.g., a mirror, will reflect different limbs or parts only of an object ; the object in its entirety will not be, cannot be, reflected in any of the parts of a reflecting surface. It will, therefore, be impossible for any part of a composite perceiver to perceive the whole of an object. A compound, of course, does not cease to be a compound merely because it is given a 'simple' name!
Consciousness perceives the whole as well as the parts of an object simultaneously. It must, therefore, be a simple (uncompound) thing, and unlike the mirror, which is devoid of individuality.
Knowledge radically differs from the object in the world outside. The rose on the bush in the garden took a long time in putting in its appearance ; a small cutting was first stuck in the soil ; it germinated after a time ; then appeared leaves and shoots ; then a tiny little bud slowly formed itself on one of the branches ; and after a time it bloomed into a rose ! Nothing like this tedious process occurs in consciousness at the moment of perception. The knowing faculty there and then produces from its mysterious nursery an exact facsimile of the external rose, and that without trouble. It would as easily produce two, three, four, or a basketful of roses, or any and all other flowers, whole gardens, even the whole universe were you to fill it up with floral trophies of sorts, or of only one sort. Its producing capacity is really wonderful ; it is infinite !
Are these epistemological facsimiles of outside objects manufactured in any way in the background of consciousness ? But knowledge is not atomistic, nur made, of parts. Suppose you try to break up an idea, e.g., the percept of a house, into bits or parts, The physical structure can be demolished with pick-axes, hatchets and poles. But with what instruments shall we demolish the mental counterpart of the material edifice ? And how shall the demolishing tool, supposing we succeed in finding one, be inserted in the mind ? A dismantled house is after all so much material and can be rebuilt again. But what would a broken up, smashed up, crushed and demolished idea signify, and how will you reconstruct your mental ' house with the debris ? Does not mangled knowledge stand for utter nonsense?
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