The second proof of the incorporeal nature of the soul is found in the character of its functions. After a hasty attack on the doctrine of materialism in the form of a _reductio ad absurdum_ (II. ii. 13–25; cf. Plotinus, IV. vii. 3), More shows, first, that the faculty within us by which we are aware of the outward world of sense is one and individual, yet everywhere present in the body. (II. ii. 32.) This faculty, called “the common sense” (II. ii. 26), sits as judge over all the data of sense knowledge (cf. Plotinus, IV. vii. 6); it decides in case of disagreement between two senses, and distinguishes clearly between the objects present to each sense. (II. ii. 28.) The common sense must be one, else, being divided, it would breed confusion in consciousness (II. ii. 31); and it must be everywhere present in the body because it shows no partiality to any sense, but has intelligence of all equally. (II. ii. 32.) The rational powers of the soul are a further proof of the soul’s incorporeal nature. The first consideration draws attention to the vast scope of man’s will and soul. In the virtuous the soul can be so universalized and begotten into the life of God that the will embraces all with a tender love and is ever striving to seek God as the good. (II. iii. 6.) If this is so, More asks whether the soul thus universalized can ever die. (II. iii. 7.) Man’s understanding, too, can become so broadened that it can apprehend God’s true being, not knowing it, to be sure, in its true essence, but having such a true insight that it can reject all narrow conceptions of His nature and welcome other more comprehensive ideas as closer approximations to the truth. The understanding is in a state that More calls parturient; God under certain conditions can be born within the soul. (II. iii. 9–12.) For the reason, then, of the vastness of the power of will and understanding More holds that the soul cannot be a body. (II. iii. 4.) The next argument in regard to the rational powers of the soul centres about her power of pure abstraction. (Cf. “Enneads,” IV. vii. 8.) In herself the soul divests matter of all time and place relations and views the naked, simple essence of things. (II. iii. 18.) She thus frames within herself an idea, which is indivisible and unextended; and by this she judges outward objects. (II. iii. 18–20; cf. “Enneads,” IV. vii. 12.) This property is not a property of body. (II. iii. 26.) At this point More closes the first division of his argument. By establishing the definition of the soul as a self-moving substance, and by an account of the nature of its functions, he has defended his first proposition, that the soul is an incorporeal thing. He then passes on to the second part of his argument, that the soul is an incorporeal thing because it is independent of the body.