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That more than five senses are possible for

human beings

() The soul is a simple entity which is capable of infinite representations

[Vorstellungen].
() 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.
() If it attains its representations gradually, there must be an order in
which, and a measure according to which, it attains them.
() This order and this measure are the senses.
() 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.
() 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.
() 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
Copyright 2005. Cambridge University Press.

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.


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AN: 129334 ; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, H. B. Nisbet.; Lessing: Philosophical and Theological Writings
Account: s6348268.main.ehost
 More than five senses are possible

() But how greatly this way which it has hitherto covered is extended if
we contemplate, in a manner worthy of the creator, the way which still
lies before it – that is, if we assume that far more senses are possible, all of
which the soul has already possessed singly and in their simple groupings
(i.e. every combination of two, three, or four) before it arrived at its present
combination of five senses.
() That which has limits is called matter.
() The senses determine the limits of the soul’s representations (cf. §);
the senses are therefore material.
() As soon as the soul began to have representations, it had a sense and
was consequently conjoined with matter.
() But it was not at once conjoined with an organic body. For an organic
body is a combination of several senses.
() Every particle of matter can serve as a sense for the soul. That is, the
whole material world is animated down to its smallest parts.
() Particles which serve as a single sense for the soul constitute homo-
geneous elements.
() If we knew how many homogeneous masses the material world con-
tains, we would also know how many senses are possible.
() But what is the need? It is enough that we know for sure that there
are more than five homogeneous masses such as those which correspond
to our present five senses.
() Thus, just as the sense of sight corresponds to the homogeneous mass
through which bodies attain a condition of visibility (i.e. light), so also is
it certain that particular senses can and will correspond, e.g., to electrical
matter or organic matter, senses through which we shall immediately
recognise whether bodies are in an electrical or magnetic state. We can
at present attain this knowledge only by conducting experiments. All
that we now know – or can know in our present human condition –
about electricity or magnetism is no more than what Saunderson knew

 Nicholas Saunderson (–), English mathematician who lost his sight at the age of one.


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 Philosophical and theological writings

of optics. – But as soon as we ourselves have the sense of electricity or the

sense of magnetism, we shall experience what Saunderson would have
experienced if he had suddenly gained his sight. A whole new world will
suddenly emerge for us, full of the most splendid phenomena, of which
we can as little form a conception now as he could of light and colours.
() And just as we can now be assured of the existence of magnetic and
electrical forces, or of the homogeneous elements (masses) in which these
forces are active, despite the fact that little or nothing was known about
them at one time, so also can we be confident that a hundred or a thousand
other forces exist in their respective masses, although we do not yet know
anything about them. For each of these, a corresponding sense will exist.
() Nothing can be said concerning the number of these as yet unknown
senses. It cannot be infinite, but must be determinate, even though it cannot
be determined by us.
() For if it were infinite, the soul would not have been able to gain
possession of even two senses simultaneously throughout all eternity.
() Similarly, nothing can be said concerning the phenomena among
which the soul will find itself when it is in possession of each individual
sense.
() If we had only four senses and lacked the sense of sight, we would
be as little able to form a conception of the latter as we can of a sixth
sense. And so we can as little doubt the possibility of a sixth sense, and
of further senses, as we could doubt the possibility of the fifth sense if we
had only four. The sense of sight serves to make us sensible of the matter
of light, and of all its relations to other bodies. How many other materials
of this kind may there as yet be, diffused no less universally throughout
creation!

***

This system of mine is surely the oldest of all philosophical systems.

For it is in fact none other than the system of the soul’s pre-existence
and of metempsychosis, which not only Pythagoras and Plato, but the
Egyptians and Chaldeans and Persians – in short, all the wise men of the
East – thought of before them.


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 More than five senses are possible

And this alone must predispose us in its favour. The first and oldest
opinion in speculative matters is always the most probable one, because
common sense immediately lit upon it.
But two things stood in the way of this oldest, and in my opinion
uniquely probable, system. Firstly, –


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