In this connection Father Sogol had described to us some
experiments he had done a few years before with the idea of
measuring the power of human thought.   I shall repeat only the
parts I could grasp.   At the time I wondered how literally one
should take it all, and forever preoccupied with my favorite
field of study, I admired Sogol as an inventor of 'abstract
symbols' (in other words, an abstract thing symbolizing a
concrete thing, the reverse of the normal order).   But since then
I have found that these notions of abstract and concrete have no
great significance, as I should have learned reading Xenophon of
Elis or even Shakespeare: a thing either is or is not, and that's
the end of it.   Well, Sogol had tried to 'measure thought'; not
the way psychotechnicians and testing experts go at it, limiting
themselves to comparing the way one individual performs a certain
activity (often, moreover, entirely alien to thought) to the
average performance of other individuals of the same age.   He was
intent on measuring the power of thought as an absolute value.  

  'This power,' Sogol said, 'is arithmetical.   In reality
every thought represents a capacity to grasp the divisions of a
whole.   Now, numbers are nothing else than a division of unity,
which is to say, the divisions of any whole whatever.   In
myself and in others I began to observe how many numbers a man
really can conceive, that is to say, can carry in his mind
without breaking them down or writing them out; how many
successive consquences of a principle he can grasp at once,
instantaneously; how many inclusions of species within genus; how
many relations of cause to effect, of means to end.   And I never
found the number to be greater than four.   And moreover, this
figure four required an exceptional mental exertion which I
obtained very rarely.   The thought of an idiot stops at one, and
the ordinary thought of most people goes to two, sometimes to
three, very rarely to four.   If you like, I'll summarize one or
two of these experiments for you.   Follow me carefully.'

  To understand what follows, one must perform the proposed
experiments in good faith.   It requires considerable attention,
patience, and serenity of mind.  

  He went on as follows:

  'Represent to yourself simultaneously the following facts:
1.   I get dressed to go out; 2.   I go out to catch a train;   3.   I
catch the train to go to work;   4.   I go to work to earn a living.  
Now try to add a fifth step, and I am sure that at least one of
the first three will vanish from your mind.'

  We performed the experiment;   he was right, and even a
little too generous.  

  'Take another type of sequence: 1. the spaniel is a dog;
2. dogs are mammals;   3. mammals are vertebrates;   4. vertebrates
are animals.   .   .   I'll carry it further: Animals are living
creatures -- but there, I've already forgotten the spaniel.   If I
recall the spaniel, I forget vertebrates .   .   .   In any logical
sequence of division or progression, you will run into the same
phenomenon.   That's why we're constantly mistaking accident for
substance, effect for cause, means for end, our ship for a
permanent habitation, our bodies or our minds for ourselves, and
ourselves for something eternal.'

-- Rene Daumal
Mount Analogue
ISBN 0877733813
ISBN 2070228770
ISBN 0140039473
ISBN 1585673420
Hardcover - Pantheon, First Edition, 1960