15 - That more than five senses are possible for human beings (c. 1780)

Summary

(1) The soul is a simple entity which is capable of infinite representations [Vorstellungen].

(2) Since, however, it is a finite entity, it is not capable of having these infinite representations all at once, but attains them gradually in an infinite temporal sequence.

(3) If it attains its representations gradually, there must be an order in which, and a measure according to which, it attains them.

(4) This order and this measure are the senses.

(5) It has at present five such senses. But nothing can persuade us to believe that it at once began to have representations with these five senses.

(6) If nature nowhere makes a leap, the soul will also have progressed through all the lower stages before it reached the stage at which it is at present. It will first have had each of these five senses singly, then all ten combinations of two, all ten combinations of three, and all five combinations of four before it acquired all five together.

(7) This is the route it has already covered, and there can have been very few stops along the way if it is true that the way which it still has to cover in its present condition continues to be so uniform – that is, if it is true that no other senses are possible beyond the present five, and that the soul will retain only these five senses for all eternity, so that the wealth of its representations can grow only through an increase in the perfection of its present senses.