It is satisfied only with the evidence of the senses, and till properly instructed will move only at the instance of the senses, and though it may be guided, yet should any sensual gratification be offered, it will step out of its way to secure it. If we suppose a man, from want of instruction and consequent deficiency of internal perception, who wiil receive nothing but what his senses can cognise, we shall have an illustration of a wild-ass man. With him nothing is true, but what his sensual perception can grasp—"Shew it me, let me feel it, and I will believe," are his constant rejoinders. His sensual principle, like the ass, is stubborn in the extreme. He is often of a contentious and disputative disposition: his hand is against every man; if he be a strictly professing, though external religionist, he will fight for his religion, and even die for his religion; but it is difficult indeed to convince him that he is wrong; he is like the sceptics of our own day, who question everything that comes not within the boundary of their own narrow vision;—they are all wild-ass men.
Yet the ass resembles the horse in many points. It possesses, for its size, equal, perhaps greater, strength; its powers of endurance are great, and when treated with kindness, and judiciously instructed, is docile and obedient. And the mere sensual man has, in like manner, many points of resemblance with the intellectual and spiritual man. The structure of the mind is the same, it possesses the same capability of attaining intellectual and spiritual eminence, but it is more difficult to be wrought upon, is more stubborn and unmanageable. The intellectual man passes rapidly from truth to truth; the sensual man suffers every
