“It is,” said Mangogul, “that it is as false as false can be. Pursuant to your notions, we must all be endowed with souls: now observe, my soul’s delight, that there is not common sense in this supposition. I have a soul: there is an animal that acts most part of the time as if he had none; and perhaps in reality he has none, even while he acts as if he had one. But he has a nose made like mine; I feel that I have a soul, and that I think: therefore that animal has a soul, and thinks likewise. This argument has been made use of above a thousand years, and it has been impertinent full as long.”

“I own,” said the favorite, “that it is not always evident that others think.”

“And add,” replied Mangogul, “that it is evident on an hundred occasions that they do not think.”

“But in my opinion,” says Mirzoza, “it would be going a great length, to infer from thence, that they never have or ever will think. A person is not always a beast, for having been so sometimes; and your highness⁠—”