_Mirzoza's Metaphysics._
The Souls.
While Mangogul was interrogating the Toys of Haria, the widows, and
Fatme, Mirzoza had full time to prepare her philosophical lecture.
One evening, that the Manimonbanda was performing her devotions, that
there was neither play nor drawing room at court, and that the favorite
was almost certain of a visit from the Sultan; she took two black
petticoats, put one on in the usual manner, and the other over her
shoulders, passed her hands thro' the two slits, put on the peruke
of Mangogul's Seneschal, and his chaplain's square cap; and thought
herself equipped as a philosopher, whereas she had disguised herself
into a bat.
In this masquerade dress, she walked up and down her appartments, as a
professor of the royal college waiting for his scholars. She affected
even to the gloomy pensive physiognomy of a learned man in meditation.
Mirzoza did not hold this forced gravity long. The Sultan entered with
some of his courtiers, and made a low bow to the new philosopher; whose
gravity disconcerted her audience, and was in its turn disconcerted
by the loud laughter it occasioned. "Madam," said Mangogul, "have you
not advantage enough by your wit and figure, without taking the robe
to your aid? without which your words would have all the weight that
you could have desired." "It seems to me, sir," answered Mirzoza, "that
you do not much respect this robe, and that a disciple should pay more
regard to what constitutes half the merit at least of his master." "I
perceive," replied the Sultan, "that you have already acquired the
spirit and tone of your new condition. I make no doubt at present, but
your capacity answers to the dignity of your dress, and I impatiently
expect a proof of it."--"You shall be satisfied this minute," said
Mirzoza, sitting down in the center of a large carpet. The Sultan and
courtiers placed themselves around her, and she began.
"Have the philosophers, who presided over your highness's education,
ever entertain'd you on the nature of the soul?" "Oh! very often,"
said Mangogul; "but all their systems had no other end, but giving me
uncertain notions of it; and were it not for an inward sentiment, which
seems to suggest to me, that it is a substance different from matter,
I should either have denied its existence, or confounded it with the
body. Would you undertake to clear up this chaos?"
"So far from it," replied Mirzoza, "that I am not farther advanced
on that head than your pedagogues. The only difference between them
and me, is that I suppose the existence of a substance different
from matter, and that they hold it demonstrated. But this substance,
if it exists, must be lodged somewhere. Have they not preached many
extravagances to you on that article?"
"No," said Mangogul: "they all pretty generally agreed, that it resides
in the head; and this opinion to me seemed probable. 'Tis the head
that thinks, imagines, reflects, judges, disposes, commands; and we say
every day of a man who does not think, that he has no brains, or that
he wants a head."
"Well then," replied the Sultana, "the result of your long studies
and of all your philosophy, is, to suppose a fact, and to ground it
on popular expressions. Prince, what would you say of your first
geographer, if he presented your highness with a map of your dominions,
in which he had put the east in the west, and the north in the south?"
"That is too gross an error," answered Mangogul, "for any geographer to
have ever committed."
"That may be," continued the favorite; "and in the case before us, your
philosophers are greater bunglers, than the most bungling geographer
can be. They had not a vast empire to survey; the business was not to
fix the limits of the four parts of the world: all they had to do, was
to enter into themselves, and there mark the true seat of their soul.
Yet they have placed the east in the west, and the south in the north.
They have pronounced that the soul is in the head, whereas the greatest
part of mankind dye, without it's ever inhabiting that appartment; and
its first residence is in the feet."
"In the feet!" interrupted the Sultan. "That is the most empty notion
that I have ever heard."
"Yes, in the feet," replied Mirzoza, "and this opinion, which to you
seems so silly, will, upon thoroughly examining it, become rational;
contrary to all those, which you allow as true, and which upon a
thorough examination are found to be false. Your highness agreed with
me just now, that the existence of our soul was founded on the interior
testimony alone, which it bore to itself; and I will now demonstrate,
that all the proofs imaginable of sense concur to fix the soul in the
seat which I have assigned it."
"There we expect you," said Mangogul.
"I desire no favor," continued she; "and I invite ye all to propose
your difficulties. Well then, I was saying that the soul takes up
its first residence in the feet, that there it begins to exist, and
from the feet it advances into the body. To experience I appeal for
this fact; and perhaps I am going to lay the first foundations of
experimental metaphysics.
"We have all experienced in our infancy, that the benumbed soul
remains whole months in a state of sleepiness. At that time the eyes
open without seeing, the mouth without speaking, and the ears without
hearing. 'Tis elsewhere that the soul endeavours to stretch itself and
awake; 'tis in other members that she practises her first functions.
'Tis by the feet that a child gives notice of his formation. His
body, head and arms are immoveable in the mother's womb; but his feet
unfold and extend themselves, and give proofs of his existence, and
perhaps of his exigences. When he is on the point of birth, what would
become of his head, body and arms? They would never come out of their
confinement, had they not been assisted by the feet: here the feet act
the principal part, and drive the rest of the body before them. Such is
the order of nature; and whenever any other member attempts to lead
the van; when the head, for example, takes the place of the feet; every
thing goes wrong, and God knows what is the consequence sometimes, both
to the mother and the child.
"Is the child born? 'tis still in the feet that the chief motions are
performed. We are obliged to confine them: and this is never done
without some reluctance on their part. The head is a block, with which
we do what we will; but the feet are sensible of, shake off the yoke,
and seem jealous of the liberty, of which they are deprived.
"Is the child able to stand alone? the feet make a thousand efforts to
move; they put every thing into action: they command the other members,
and the obedient hands lean against the walls, and advance forward to
prevent or break the falls, and facilitate the action of the feet.
"Whither do all the thoughts of a child tend, what are his pleasures,
when, secure on his legs, his feet have acquired the habit of moving?
To exercise them, to go to and fro', to run, to leap, to bounce. This
turbulence pleases us, we take it for a mark of sense; and we predict
the future stupidity of the child, when we see him indolent and sullen.
Have you a mind to vex a child of four years old? make him sit down for
a quarter of an hour, or imprison him between four chairs: he will grow
peevish and ill-humor'd: for 'tis not his legs alone that you deprive
of exercise, 'tis his soul that you hold in captivity.
"The soul remains in the feet to the age of two or three years; at four
it inhabits the legs; it gets up to the knees and thighs at fifteen.
Then we love dancing, fencing, riding, and the other violent bodily
exercises. This is the predominant passion of all young folks, and
the madness of some. What! does not the soul reside in those places,
where she almost only manifests herself, and where she feels the most
agreeable sensations? But if her residence varies in infancy and youth,
why should it not vary thro' every stage of life?"
Mirzoza pronounced this discourse with such rapidity as made her pant.
Selim, one of the Sultan's favorites, embraced the moment while she was
taking breath, and said to her: "Madam, I will make use of the liberty
you have granted the company, of proposing their objections. Your
system is ingenious, and you have delivered it with equal grace and
clearness: but I am not so far seduced by it, as to think it stands
demonstrated. Methinks one may say, that even in infancy 'tis the head
that commands the feet, and from thence the spirits flow, which, by
means of the nerves, running into all the members, stop or move them
at the will of the soul seated on the pineal gland: just as we see his
highness's orders issuing from the sublime Porte, which set all his
subjects in action."
"Doubtless," replied Mirzoza, "but one would tell me a very obscure
thing; to which I should give no other answer than by an experienced
fact. In infancy we have no certainty that the head thinks; and even
you, my lord, who have so good an one, and who in your tender years
passed for a prodigy of reason, do you remember that you thought at
that time? But you might well assert, that when you gamboled about like
a little Dæmon, so as to drive your governants out of their wits, your
feet then governed your head."
"That proves nothing," said the Sultan. "Selim was lively, and so are
a thousand other children. They do not reflect, but they think: time
slips away, the remembrance of things wears out, and they remember not
that they thought."
"But by what part did they think," replied Mirzoza: "for that is the
point in dispute?"
"By the head," answered Selim.
"What! always this head, into which one cannot peep," replied the
Sultana. "Pray, drop your dark lanthorn, in which you suppose a light,
that is seen by none but by him who carries it: hear my experiment, and
own the truth of my hypothesis. It is so constantly true, that the
soul begins its progress in the body by the feet, that there are some
of both sexes, in whom it never rose higher. My lord, you have admired
Nini's nimbleness and Saligo's feats of activity a thousand times:
answer me then sincerely, do you think that these creatures have their
souls any where else but in their legs? And have you not remarked, that
in Volucer and Zelindor the head is submissive to the feet? The eternal
temptation of a dancer is to contemplate his legs. At every step his
attentive eye follows his paces, and his head bows respectuously before
his feet, as do before his highness his invincible Pacha's."
"I allow the observation," said Selim: "but I deny that it is a general
one."
"Nor do I pretend," replied Mirzoza, "that the soul always fixes in
the feet: she advances, she travels, she quits a part, returns to
it, and quits it again; but I maintain that the other members are
subordinate to that which she inhabits. All this varies according to
the age, temper and circumstances; and thence arises the difference of
tastes, the diversity of inclinations and characters. Do you not admire
the fecundity of my principle? And is not its certainty evinced by the
number of phænomena, to which it extends?"
"Madam," answered Selim, "if you applied it to some in particular,
perhaps it might give us a degree of conviction, which we have not yet
acquired."
"Most willingly," replied Mirzoza, who began to be sensible of the
advantages she gain'd: "you shall be satisfied, only follow the chain
of my notions. I do not pretend to make arguments in form. I speak
from my heart; this is the philosophy of our sex, and you understand it
almost as well as we. It is probable enough," added she, "that the soul
occupies the feet and legs to the age of eight or ten: but about that
time, or rather later, she quits that lodging, either of her own free
motion, or by force. By force, when a tutor employs certain machines
to drive her out of her native place, and lead her into the brain;
where she is metamorphosed generally into memory, and seldom or never
into judgment. This is the fate of school-boys. In like manner, if a
weak governant labours hard to form a young girl, stuffs her mind with
knowledge, and neglects the heart and morals; the soul rapidly flies
towards the head, stops on the tongue, or fixes in the eyes; and her
scholar is but a tiresome pratler, or a coquet.
"Thus the voluptuous woman is she whose soul occupies her Toy, and
never strays from it.
"The woman of gallantry, she whose soul is sometimes in her Toy, and
sometimes in her eyes.
"The affectionate woman, she whose soul is habitually in the heart, but
sometimes also in her Toy.
"The virtuous woman, she whose soul is sometimes in her head, sometimes
in her heart, but never any where else.
"If the soul fixes in the heart, she forms the characters of
sensibility, compassion, truth, generosity. If she quits the heart
without returning thither, and retires to the head; then she forms
those whom we call hardhearted, ungrateful, deceitful, cruel men.
"The class of those, in whom the soul visits the head merely as a
country-house, where its stay is short, is very numerous. It is
composed of _Petits-Maitres_, coquets, musicians, poets, romancers,
courtiers, and all those who are called pretty women. Listen to the
reasoning of these entities, and you will instantly discern vagabond
souls, which are influenced by the different climes they inhabit."
"If that be the case," said Selim, "nature has formed many useless
things. And yet our sages hold as a constant maxim, that she has
produced nothing in vain."
"Drop your sages and their lofty expressions," answered Mirzoza; "and
as to nature, let us consider her with the eyes of experience only,
and we shall learn from her, that she has placed the soul in the body
of man, as in a spacious palace, of which she does not always occupy
the most beautiful appartment. The head and heart are principally
destined for her, as the center of virtue, and the residence of truth:
but most commonly she stops on the road, and prefers a garret, a
suspicious place, a miserable inn, where she drops asleep in perpetual
drunkenness. Ah! If I were allowed for twenty-four hours only, to
settle the world according to my fancy, I would divert you with a
very strange sight: in a moment I would deprive each soul of the
superfluous parts of its habitation; and you would see each individual
characterised by the part left him. Thus dancers would be reduced to
two feet, or two legs at most; singers to a throat; most women to a
Toy; hero's and prize-fighters to an armed hand; certain learned men
to a skull without brains; a female gamester should be stinted to two
hands incessantly shuffling the cards; a glutton to two jaws always
in motion; a coquet to two eyes; a rake to the sole instrument of his
passion; the ignorant and lazy to nothing."
"If you leave the women any hands at all," interrupted the Sultan,
"those men whom you would reduce to the sole instrument of their
passions, would be pursued. This chace would be a pleasant sight: and
if the sex was as greedy of this game every where else as in Congo, the
species would soon be extinct."
"But," said Selim to the favorite, "of what would you compose
affectionate and sensible women, constant and faithful lovers?"
"Of a heart," answered Mirzoza; "and I well know," added she, darting
a tender glance on Mangogul, "that, to which mine would wish to be
united."
The Sultan could not stand against this declaration: he sprung from
his seat to the favorite: the courtiers disappear'd, and the new
philosopher's chair became the theatre of their pleasures: he gave
her repeated proofs that he was not less charmed with her sentiments
than with her discourse; and the philosophic equipage was thrown into
disorder. Mirzoza return'd the black petticoats to her women, sent
my lord Seneschal his enormous peruke, and to _Monsieur l'Abbé_ his
square cap, with assurances that he should be on the list at the next
nomination. What would he not have attained, if he had been a genius?
A seat in the academy was the least reward that he could expect: but
unluckily he knew but two or three hundred words, and had never been
able from that stock, to compass the composing of two _Ritournelles_.