If the circular movement is eternal, there must be something which
mind is always thinking-what can this be? For all practical
processes of thinking have limits-they all go on for the sake of
something outside the process, and all theoretical processes come to a
close in the same way as the phrases in speech which express processes
and results of thinking. Every such linguistic phrase is either
definitory or demonstrative. Demonstration has both a starting-point
and may be said to end in a conclusion or inferred result; even if the
process never reaches final completion, at any rate it never returns
upon itself again to its starting-point, it goes on assuming a fresh
middle term or a fresh extreme, and moves straight forward, but
circular movement returns to its starting-point. Definitions, too, are
closed groups of terms.
Further, if the same revolution is repeated, mind must repeatedly
think the same object.
Further, thinking has more resemblance to a coming to rest or arrest
than to a movement; the same may be said of inferring.
It might also be urged that what is difficult and enforced is
incompatible with blessedness; if the movement of the soul is not of
its essence, movement of the soul must be contrary to its nature. It
must also be painful for the soul to be inextricably bound up with the
body; nay more, if, as is frequently said and widely accepted, it is
better for mind not to be embodied, the union must be for it
undesirable.
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