_On the Soul, and on our Ignorance._
Relying on our acquired knowledge, we have ventured to discuss the
question: Whether the soul is created before us? Whether it arrives from
nothing in our bodies? At what age it came and placed itself between the
bladder and the intestines, "cæcum" and "rectum"? Whether it received or
brought there any ideas, and what those ideas are? Whether, after
animating us for a few moments, its essence is to live after us in
eternity, without the intervention of God Himself? Whether, it being a
spirit, and God being spirit, they are of like nature? These questions
have an appearance of sublimity. What are they but questions of men born
blind discussing the nature of light?
What have all the philosophers, ancient and modern, taught us? A child
is wiser than they: he does not think about what he cannot conceive.
How unfortunate, you will say, for an insatiable curiosity, for an
unquenchable thirst after well-being, that we are thus ignorant of
ourselves! Granted: and there are things yet more unfortunate than this;
but I will answer you: "_Sors tua mortalis, non est mortale quod
optas."_--"Mortal thy fate, thy wishes those of gods."
Once more let it be repeated, the nature of every principle of things
appears to be the secret of the Creator. How does the air convey sound?
How are animals formed? How do some of our members constantly obey our
will? What hand places ideas in our memory, keeps them there as in a
register, and draws them thence sometimes at our command, and sometimes
in spite of us? Our own nature, that of the universe, that of the
smallest plant--all, to us, involved in utter darkness.
Man is an acting, feeling, and thinking being; this is all we know of
the matter: it is not given to us to know either what renders us feeling
or thinking, or what makes us act, or what causes us to be. The acting
faculty is to us as incomprehensible as the thinking faculty. The
difficulty is not so much to conceive how this body of clay has feelings
and ideas as to conceive how a being, whatever it be, has ideas and
feelings.
Behold on one hand the soul of Archimedes, and on the other that of a
simpleton; are they of the same nature? If their essence is to think,
then they think always and independently of the body, which cannot act
without them. If they think by their own nature, can a soul, which is
incapable of performing a single arithmetical operation, be of the same
species as that which has measured the heavens? If it is the organs of
the body that have made Archimedes think, why does not my idiot think,
seeing that he is better constituted than Archimedes, more vigorous,
digesting better, performing all his functions better? Because, say you,
his brain is not so good; but you suppose this; you have no knowledge of
it. No difference has ever been found among sound brains that have been
dissected; indeed, it is very likely that the brain-pan of a blockhead
would be found in a better state than that of Archimedes, which has been
prodigiously fatigued, and may be worn and contracted.
Let us then conclude what we have concluded already, that we are
ignorant of all first principles. As for those who are ignorant and
self-sufficient, they are far below the ape.
Now then dispute, ye choleric arguers; present memorials against one
another; abuse one another; pronounce your sentences--you who know not a
syllable of the matter!