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 train their faculties, bodily and mental, by a life of rigid abstention from all pleasures or indulgences not indispensable in maintaining the relation between the physical and intellectual powers.”

“The common fakir aims at the same thing,” I remarked.

“But he does not attain it.  The common fakir is an idiot.  He may, by fasting and self-torture, of a kind no adept would approve, sharpen his senses till he can hear and see some sounds and sights inaudible and invisible to you and me.  But his whole system lacks any intellectual basis:  he regards knowledge as something instantaneously attainable when it comes at last; he believes he will have a vision, and that everything will be revealed to him.  His devotion to his object is admirable, when he is a genuine ascetic and not, as is generally the case, a good-for-nothing who makes his piety pay for his subsistence; but it is devotion of a very low intellectual order.  The true adept thinks the training of the mind in intellectual pursuits no less necessary than the moderate and reasonable mortification of the flesh, and higher Buddhism pays as much attention to the one as to the other.”