Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/225

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110.

O mathematicians, clear up this error! The spirit cannot have a voice, for where there is a voice there is a body, and where there is a body there is occupation of space, which prevents the eye seeing what is behind that space; therefore a body fills all the surrounding air, that is to say, with its own image.

111.

There can be no voice where there is no motion or percussion of the air, there can be no percus- sion of the air where there is no instrument, there can be no such thing as an immaterial instru- ment; and this being so, a spirit can have neither voice, nor shape, nor force; and if it assumes a shape it can neither penetrate nor enter where the issues are closed. If any one were to say that a spirit may take bodies of various shapes by means of concentrated and compressed air, and by means of this instrument speak and move with force— I reply to this argument that where there are no nerves or bones, no force can be ex- pended in any movement made by these ima- ginary spirits.

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