me. I have, till now, borne your injurious language in silence, but at
length venture to inquire what offence you can charge me with, for I
have not hitherto been able to guess from your invectives what it is
that you complain of.
MIND.
I complain of being united to a thing so base as you are, and so
unsuitable to me.
BODY.
This is your usual language, and I wish to represent to you, that since
we were born, and have grown up together, I am entitled to a kinder
treatment, and I may add that the care, with which I have provided for
your ease and enjoyment might claim some gratitude from you. I have made
over to you my skull as a residence, which was prepared with great art
for your reception, and fitted up with every thing that it was thought
you could want.
MIND.
I admire the confidence with which you speak of having conferred an
obligation on me by receiving me into your skull, instead of which you
ought to be grateful to me for condescending to settle myself in such a
paltry dwelling. But if you desire to know the cause of my displeasure,
let me ask you, when our confederacy was first agreed upon, was it not a
condition that you should be subject to my authority?
BODY.
I confess that such was the treaty.
MIND.
Then have I not reason to complain of a vassal so turbulent and
seditious as I have always found you?
BODY.
I am astonished at the charge, for I cannot remember any revolt that I
have been guilty of. The five senses have been appointed to transmit
intelligence to you, and I believe that each of them has, with perfect
regularity and despatch, given you the information that it is charged
with. Besides this, all my limbs are subject to your command; every
muscle waits to execute your will, and moves only when you order it.
Such is the subordination that has been established, and I thought it
had always been observed. But has there lately been any disaffection
amongst my limbs? Has a leg or an arm refused to obey you, or have any
of my fingers declared themselves independent?
MIND.
No; I do not accuse them of disobedience.
BODY.
Have any of the senses then been remiss in their duties? Perhaps the ear
has failed to communicate to you a sound, of which it had received
notice, or the nose may have neglected to impart a perfume that had come
to it. If these senses have been guilty of suppressing any sounds or
smells, which were due to you, I will enforce a greater vigilance, and
take care that in future smelling and hearing shall be honestly
executed.
MIND.
I do not say that either the ear or the nose has been refractory. In
all such duties as these you maintain a great parade of obedience. My
accusation against you is, that you are full of vices and sensual
passions, which I highly disapprove of, and which you gratify in
defiance of me. In vain I prohibit your luxury; my commands are broken
as soon as they are pronounced; you commit follies in my presence
without the least restraint; and when you have a pleasure in view, I
seem not to have the least power to deter you from it. The truth is,
that from head to foot you are in a state of insurrection, and yet
presume to value yourself on your obedience, affirming in proof of it
that you furnish a nose to smell for me whenever I desire.
I was born for virtue and contemplation, and if you had no share in
mankind crime would be unknown. Your intemperate passions cover the
world with vice, the punishment of which falls upon me. You commit sins,
and I am involved in the consequences of them.
BODY.
You are very indulgent in excusing yourself, and very liberal in
assigning to me all the wrong that is done; but it would not be
difficult to prove that you concur with me in every transgression, and
are very often the first instigator. Let us take as an example the vices
of luxury, in which I seem to be the most active; I have no doubt you
will deny that you are instrumental in my debaucheries.
MIND.
Certainly I do; you alone are guilty of every kind of intemperance, thus
inflicting upon me innumerable disorders and miseries, which I have
never deserved, and undermining all my vigour and enjoyment. For such is
the unjust alliance which I have been forced into, that when you
practise a vice the pains of it fall equally upon me. You drink to
intoxication, and the next morning require me to sustain the head-ache.
You by a long course of intemperance bring on the gout, and I must
partake of it. You eat and drink alone, but we must ache in conjunction;
and I, who do nothing towards the acquisition of gout, am involved in
every pang that you have caused. My share, too, is much the most severe,
since all the requisite patience is exacted from me, and whatever may be
the pain, I am expected to supply fortitude. Have you the confidence to
deny that you ought to bear your own gout?
BODY.
So far from owning myself only in fault, I maintain that the guilt of
our luxury is to be imputed entirely to you.
MIND.
According to you, then, it is the immortal soul which dines sumptuously,
while the body remains perfectly abstemious; the reasoning faculty
drinks, and the mouth is not concerned in the debauch.
BODY.
This you represent with your usual want of candour; but I can easily
prove that you only are to blame for every vicious banquet.
Hunger and thirst are my natural appetites, which would rest satisfied
with the most simple food, were it not for the elaborate flavours, the
sauces, and other sophistries, with which you mislead me. My uneducated
hunger would never have attempted a discovery beyond plain meats, so
that, without your fertility of invention, and your research into
flavours, the gout would never have been found. Pray answer me, was it
the body that invented wine? To which of my limbs did it first occur
that the grape might become a delicious liquor? Was it the foot, the
hand, or the shoulder, that conceived the happy thought? Look at the
drunkard in his disgrace, and remember that it was the reason, the
immortal mind, which devised a liquor to debase him. Such is your
justice to me: you invent a pernicious liquor, pour it down my throat,
till I can no longer walk or stand, and then accuse me of debauchery. My
natural moderation is proved by those animals which have no mind, or at
least one of so little sagacity, that it can make no discoveries in
vice. The horse has the same sensations as man: like you, it has to
contend with a conspiracy of the five senses, but not having an immortal
reason to invent new tastes, it remains satisfied with its original
enjoyments. You say it is unjust that you should feel the pains from my
festivities, by which you would make it appear that I associate you with
me only in gout and head-ache, and refuse to admit you as an accomplice
in the delight of eating and drinking, while the truth is, that you
share with me all the pleasures of a banquet, and cannot deny that I
impart to you the flavour of wine as frankly as I communicate a pang of
gout. You are never excluded from my palate, nor is there a taste or
sensation in it which is kept a secret from you. I am not therefore to
be persuaded that you have less pleasure from our enjoyments than I
have; but so unreasonable are you, that while you never fail to demand
from me your full share of enjoyment, you wish me to keep all the pain
for myself. If you had not your part of the delight, I think you would
not so easily acquiesce in our pleasures; for when any pernicious food
is to be devoured, or a few supernumerary goblets are to be drained, I
always find you a willing associate.
MIND.
That I deny; I never fail to remonstrate against your vices.
BODY.
Yes; when there is no banquet ready, you pass the time in admiring
temperance, and sometimes you tell me that we will certainly begin to
practise it; but when the opportunity arrives,--when the table is before
us, and we sit down to be temperate,--you forget all our plans, and
suffer us to be undone without the least expostulation.
That you may not seem to authorise our irregularities, you pretend to be
careless and forgetful, while in truth you heartily enjoy what we are
doing. When I stretch out my hand to the goblet, you seem to be thinking
of something else; when I help myself to a luxurious dish, though you
know how perniciously it is composed, you wink at the ingredients, and
give me no warning against it. Nor is this all, but you frequently
labour even to corroborate my imprudence; and when, from a regard to
health, we hesitate to partake of something that we both love, you can
instantly find some casuistry to justify the dish, affirming that it has
not all the malice imputed to it, or we have tried it before, and
survived, or perhaps, this once it may do no harm, with many such
evasions, which I never should have had genius to invent. But if you
really disapprove of intemperance, why do not you positively forbid it?
MIND.
If I sometimes want the firmness to control you, I ought not to be
reproached with it by you, who betray me into every frailty. All my base
appetites I receive from you; the immortal soul has no love of wine or
rich viands. It is by your means only that plausible dishes ever prevail
against me. Without your persuasion, the most urgent meats would fail to
move me; but you give them a specious flavour, and misrepresent them to
me in such a variety of tastes that I am deceived.
You are always contriving to mislead me, and it is impossible that I
should defend myself against a perpetual intrigue of the five senses.
You incessantly instigate me to evil, and molest me with a thousand vile
desires, which never permit me to enjoy that state of reason and
tranquillity which is natural to me. By your arts I am enfeebled and
debased, so that even the blandishments of a goblet of wine overcome me,
and then you upbraid me with my compliance.
BODY.
Nothing can be more unjust than to charge me with these evil
suggestions. My voluptuousness takes place only while a meal lasts: you
have enjoyment also in recollecting past pleasures, and looking forward
to new. It is your own fancies that solicit you, and not my entreaties.
I have no pleasure in a goblet of wine, except at the moment of
commission; you expect it for hours before, revolve it in your thoughts,
consider the flavour of it, and then when the peril arrives, you accuse
me of your not being able to refuse the draught.
I have certainly given you the first hint of our pleasures, but you have
improved upon my suggestions, and pursued them till they became luxury.
Real appetite is too dilatory for you, and you therefore practise a
thousand artifices to be hungry. Often, too, when I have been quite
disabled by excess, you make use of variety and persuasive dishes to
give me new resolution for a debauch; and in all our other pleasures you
endeavour to revive me in the same manner. My inclinations are slow to
be provoked, and soon satisfied. You are indefatigably voluptuous. But
you say that if I were out of the world crime would be unknown.
MIND.
Certainly: in my own nature I am pure and heavenly, but lose my best
faculties by being entangled amongst your nerves, in which are seated
all the passions that trouble mankind.
BODY.
I think I could enumerate a few passions which frequently disturb the
world, and yet can hardly be imputed to me. Ambition is the cause of
great calamities; perhaps, then, you can inform me in which of my limbs
a love of sovereignty is fixed, since I know not of any aspiring muscle
which entertains such designs. It seems to me that my arms and legs,
with all my other limbs, are entirely free from avarice, envy, revenge,
and many such passions, which certainly prevail amongst men; and
therefore, if I am incapable of them, it is to be presumed that they are
endowments of the immortal mind. Is it I who plot and deceive? are all
schemes of fraud contrived by my muscles?
MIND.
These may not at first appear to be bodily vices, but I doubt not they
are all remotely derived from you. All unjust schemes and practices are
undertaken to procure your ultimate gratification; and I am convinced,
that were I disengaged from you, I should desire nothing but what is
virtuous and noble. I wish our confederacy could be ended.
BODY.
You often express a wish for this independence, and yet, whenever age or
sickness makes it likely that we may soon part, you are thrown into the
greatest alarm, and become extremely desirous of remaining amongst
these nerves which you now treat with so much contempt. How humbly do
you then implore me to harbour you a little longer! How anxiously do you
consult my countenance, and inquire what are my intentions; having
recourse every hour to some medicine, prayer, or other plot, to retard
the breaking of our alliance! If you sincerely desire a separation, why
do not you rejoice when you appear likely to be released from me, who
have subjected you to the hardship of enjoying so many pleasures. It is
strange that you triumph so little in the expectation of immediately
becoming a free spirit, and never again drinking wine or having the
gout.
MIND.
My regret at parting from you is a weakness, to which I confess myself
subject. Though I well know how unworthy you are of my kindness, yet
from the years we have passed together I usually contract a tenderness
for you, which, though I am ashamed of it, gives me some pain at the
prospect of separation.
BODY.
I believe, rather, you then discover how very helpless you are without
my assistance; and I suspect you feel some distrust of your ability to
live at all apart from me.
MIND.
What! do you presume to question my immortality? Have you the arrogance
to suppose that my being is vested in you? That reason, imagination,
memory, and all my great endowments, are derived from your muscles and
arteries? Can you deny that you spring from the earth? And how then is
it possible that we should partake of the same nature?
BODY.
I am far from wishing to disclaim my origin, but acknowledge myself
derived from the earth; and in return, let me beg you to give me some
information concerning your own lineage. Are you acquainted with your
parentage? Is your native place heaven or earth? Can you in any
intelligible language relate who and what you are?
However, to proceed no farther in these questions about your origin,
which you seem in no haste to answer, let me ask how you would pass your
time if disunited from me, and deprived of those amusements which I
afford; for I believe that I supply or assist all the chief pleasures of
mankind.
MIND.
I should pass my time in contemplation like the gods.
BODY.
I know not what may be the habits of the gods; but if men were excluded
from all pleasure except contemplation I believe they would not think it
so agreeable an employment as you imagine.
MIND.
And pray, except vice and debauchery, which of the pleasures of life are
supplied by you?
BODY.
Remember I have never pretended that separate from you I am qualified
for happiness; I affirm only that I contribute my full share of the
pleasures that we enjoy together, and that if in this world you were
deprived of my society you would be melancholy and forlorn. If, then,
you ask me what advantages are furnished by me, I answer that one of the
chief pleasures of life is the love between the two sexes.
MIND.
And do you pretend to be the author of that love? I think more nobly of
the passion, and regard it as a feeling of the mind alone.
BODY.
Such has always been your doctrine; but I believe that I, though sprung
from the earth, have quite as much power to inspire love as you, who
are made of such great qualities as reason, imagination, memory, and I
know not how many more. Lovers very commonly profess their fidelity to
you, while in truth it is I on whom all their secret affections are
fixed, for there are many whose notions of body and mind are so confused
that they perpetually mistake one for the other. A young man declares
himself enamoured of the mind of some beautiful woman, and yet when he
is absent from her his thoughts are wholly occupied with her figure, and
he passes his time in considering her countenance, her hair, her neck,
while her reason, imagination, and memory do not once occur to him. When
he is in her presence he takes great delight in pressing her hand,
without betraying the least wish to press her intellect. Indeed, there
can be no doubt that in most instances in which the admiration is
professed to you I secretly supplant you, and win to myself all the real
tenderness. If two young persons were reduced to the mere soul, and
deprived of eyes, lips, and all the other conveniences which are now so
instrumental in loving, I do not understand how they could contrive to
love each other at all.
MIND.
I shall not condescend to reason with you any longer.
* * * * *
I must now explain the circumstances in which the preceding dispute
between the mind and the body took place. It was an unusual controversy;
for though the mind has often repeated these complaints against its
colleague, the body has always endured them in silence. This account of
the quarrel is translated from a Greek manuscript which has been lately
discovered, and fell into my hands by an accident which I need not
relate. This manuscript contained also the other tales in this volume,
which are entitled translations from Greek. The author of them is
unknown; but from his style he must certainly have lived in the later
and more corrupt times of the Greek language. A great scholar is
preparing these stories for publication by Latin notes and other
encumbrances, without which they could not be valid Greek. In the mean
time I give this translation.
The foregoing dialogue, according to this Greek author, was overheard by
a philosopher named Aristus, who lived at Rhodes, where he had a great
reputation and many disciples. He had one day been giving them a lecture
on the inconvenience of having a body, on its vicious propensities, and
interruptions of thought and study. He had lamented that it cannot be
laid aside without loss of life, but exhorted his pupils to mortify,
control, and govern it, and thus to be as nearly as possible exempt from
it. His lecture being ended, and his pupils dismissed to assume an
authority over their bodies as they could, Aristus laid himself on a
couch for rest in the heat of day, at the same time murmuring against
the body, which exacted this indulgence, and very soon he fell into a
strange kind of trance, in which he heard the foregoing dispute between
the mind and the body as if within his own person. He listened till they
were silent, and then rose out of his trance in great astonishment at
this vision, which was quite different from a common dream.
He wondered that the mind had not argued with greater force, and thought
that he could himself have pleaded its wrongs much better. Revolving the
subject in his thoughts, he unconsciously said aloud, "Whatever the body
may say in praise of itself, I should heartily rejoice in being free
from all intercourse with it."
"Do you sincerely wish to relinquish your body?" said a voice close to
him.
He looked round in surprise, but saw nobody: the voice seemed to come
from the hearth, upon which were some little wooden images, his
household gods, and while he gazed, one of these little figures opened
its mouth and repeated the question. These deities of the hearth had
hitherto been as silent as other gods of the same materials, and Aristus
was overawed by the unexpected voice.
"Why," continued the image, "are you so much astonished? Is it wonderful
that a god should be able to speak?"
"Certainly," answered the philosopher, "I did not expect a voice from an
oaken god."
"But," replied the deity, "you have worshipped me with prayers and
offerings, and must therefore have believed in my power."
"I have worshipped you," said Aristus, "in deference to the customs of
my country; but to tell you the truth, I no more expected any blessing
from you than from my walking stick, which is of the same wood as
yourself."
"You philosophers," said the image, "are very apt to deprive the gods of
their privileges: but you have deserved a benefit from me by rescuing me
a few days ago from the fire, into which one of your children had thrown
me, and as it is in my power to separate you from your body I will do so
if such is your wish, still leaving you the faculties of seeing,
hearing, and speaking, which you would find convenient; but I advise you
to decide cautiously, for when once you have quitted your body you
cannot enter it again."
Aristus still persisted in the wish to be disencumbered of his limbs,
and vehemently entreated the image to execute what it promised, so
possessed was he by his philosophy, though he was then in the prime of
life, when the body imparts so many agreeable hints, which it afterwards
loses the power of communicating. "Then," said the protector of the
hearth, "if such is your resolution, go down to the sea-shore, and
sprinkle a little of the salt water in your face, at the same time
pronouncing a word which I will teach you: immediately your body will
fade away, and leave you as free a soul as you desire to be." He then
taught Aristus to pronounce the powerful word, and the philosopher
eagerly expressed his gratitude for the privilege of not having a body.
But he said there was one thing wanted to make his happiness complete.
He had lived in great concord with his wife, but he feared that when
they were become so dissimilar, she being confined within a body, and he
reduced to reason and voice, they should not be so well fitted for the
society of each other; he therefore entreated the household god, that
his wife, Cleopatra, might be brought into the same condition as he was
himself about to assume. "I will grant your request," answered the
image, "if your wife concurs in it, but I shall not confiscate her
person without her own consent. If she agrees to what you wish, let her
sprinkle her face with sea water, and pronounce the word that I have
taught you, and she will find the same consequences."
Aristus having again thanked the image, walked down to the sea in great
expectation of what was to happen; and as soon as he had sprinkled his
face, and pronounced the mysterious word, he saw his body begin to
escape. His arms, legs, and trunk wasted gradually away, and he could
not avoid feeling some horror on looking down at himself thus
diminished.
But this melancholy spectacle lasted only a few moments, for he soon
withered away, and entirely vanished, so that he could not see the least
remnant of himself. When he was quite gone, he no longer pitied the
limbs, which had looked so rueful; and being very much elevated by the
singularity of his condition, he set out towards home to inform his wife
of the advantage he had obtained for himself and her. He was in great
admiration of the new kind of being with which he found himself endowed.
His body had left him so much remembrance of it, that he still imagined
himself to be moving his limbs. At first, therefore, forgetting his want
of substance, he set out to walk, as having legs, and fancied himself
proceeding in the usual manner, till he looked down, and saw nothing to
represent legs or feet. He had also a sensation of arms, together with
the belief of a head, and of every other part of his late body. As he
went along, he was continually looking for himself, and could hardly be
convinced that the limbs, which he felt so plainly, were not there.
However, he made the same progress on these imaginary legs as if he had
been really walking.
The household god, in taking his body away, had left him those
faculties of it, without which he could not have enjoyed any
conversation or intercourse with mankind. The power of speech would have
been forfeited with his tongue; but the god had contrived him a
supposititious voice, exactly resembling the bodily one which he had
lost; and thus when he seemed to himself to be opening his mouth, and
moving his tongue, though his mouth and tongue were fallacies, yet he
produced sounds as serviceable as those which his real tongue had
formerly effected. The sense of hearing, too, being instrumental in
conversation, and having been lost with his ears, he was by the same
magic provided with a substitute for it. With these endowments, he went
home in quest of his wife, designing the same spoliation of her.