bones are covered with flesh and flesh with skin, without affirming that the bones have a separate and prior existence.  Ahamkara, which is, like Buddhi, strictly speaking a physical organ, means Ego-maker and denotes the sense of personality and individuality, almost the will.  In the language of Indian philosophy it is the delusion or misconception which makes the soul imagine itself a personal agent and think, I see, I hear, I slay, I am slain, whereas the soul is really incapable of action and the acts are those of Prakriti.

The five subtle elements are the essences of sound, touch, colour, savour and odour conceived as physical principles, imperceptible to ordinary beings, though gods and Yogis can perceive them.  The name Tanmatra which signifies that only indicates that they are concerned exclusively with one sense.  Thus whereas the gross elements, such as earth, appeal to more than one sense and can be seen, felt and smelt, the subtle element of sound is restricted to the sense of hearing.  It exists in all things audible but has nothing to do with their tangibility or visibility.  There remain sixteen further modifications to make up the full list of twenty-four.  They are the five organs of sense,[746] the five organs of action,[747] Manas or mind, regarded as a sixth and central sense, and also as the seat of will, and the five gross elements—­earth, water, light, air and ether.  The Sankhya distinguishes between the gross and the subtle body.  The latter, called lingasarira, is defined in more than one way, but it is expressly stated in the Karikas[748] that it is composed of “Buddhi and the rest, down to the subtle elements.”  It practically corresponds to what we call the soul, though totally distinct from Purusha or soul in the Sankhya sense.  It constitutes the character and essential being of a person.  It is the part which transmigrates from one gross body to another, and is responsible for the acts committed in each existence.  Its union with a gross body constitutes birth, its departure death.  Except in the case of those who attain emancipation, its existence and transmigration last for a whole world-period at the end of which come quiescence and equilibrium.  In it are imprinted the Samskaras,[749] the predispositions which pass on from one existence to another and are latent in the new-born mind like seeds in a field.

By following the evolution of matter we have now accounted for intellect, individuality, the senses, the moral character, will, and a principle which survives death and transmigrates.  It might therefore be supposed that we have exhaustively analysed the constitution of a human being.  But that is not the view of the Sankhya.  The evolution of Buddhi, Ahamkara, the subtle body and the gross body is a physical process and the result is also physical, though parts of it are of so fine a substance that ordinary senses cannot perceive them.  This physical organism becomes