ABOUT THE SOUL, AND ABOUT OUR LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
On the testimony of our acquired knowledge, we have dared question
whether the soul is created before us, whether it comes from
non-existence into our body? at what age it came to settle between a
bladder and the intestines _cæcum_ and _rectum_? if it brought ideas
with it or received them there, and what are these ideas? if after
animating us for a few moments, its essence is to live after us into
eternity without the intervention of God Himself? if being spirit, and
God being spirit, they are both of like nature? These questions seem
sublime; what are they? questions about light by men born blind.
What have all the philosophers, ancient and modern, taught us? a child
is wiser than they are; he does not think about things of which he can
form no conception.
You will say that it is sad for our insatiable curiosity, for our
inexhaustible thirst for happiness, to be thus ignorant of ourselves! I
agree, and there are still sadder things; but I shall answer you:
_Sors tua mortalis, non est mortale quod optas._
--Ovid, Met. II. 56
"You have a man's fate, and a god's desires."
Once again, it seems that the nature of every principle of things is the
Creator's secret. How does the air carry sound? how are animals formed?
how do some of our limbs constantly obey our wills? what hand puts ideas
in our memory, keeps them there as in a register, and pulls them out
sometimes when we want them and sometimes in spite of ourselves? Our
nature, the nature of the universe, the nature of the least plant,
everything for us is sunk in a shadowy pit.
Man is an acting, feeling, thinking being: that is all we know of him:
it is not given to us to know what makes us feel and think, or what
makes us act, or what makes us exist. The acting faculty is as
incomprehensible for us as the thinking faculty. The difficulty is less
to conceive how a body of mud has feelings and ideas, than to conceive
how a being, whatever it be, has ideas and feelings.
Here on one side the soul of Archimedes, on the other the soul of an
idiot; are they of the same nature? If their essence is to think, they
think always, and independently of the body which cannot act without
them. If they think by their own nature, can the species of a soul which
cannot do a sum in arithmetic be the same as that which measured the
heavens? If it is the organs of the body which made Archimedes think,
why is it that my idiot, who has a stronger constitution than
Archimedes, who is more vigorous, digests better and performs all his
functions better, does not think at all? It is, you say, because his
brain is not so good. But you are making a supposition; you do not know
at all. No difference has ever been found between healthy brains that
have been dissected. It is even very probable that a fool's cerebellum
will be in better condition than Archimedes', which has worked
prodigiously, and which might be worn out and shrivelled.
Let us conclude therefore what we have already concluded, that we are
ignoramuses about all first principles. As regards ignoramuses who pride
themselves on their knowledge, they are far inferior to monkeys.
Now dispute, choleric arguers: present your petitions against each
other; proffer your insults, pronounce your sentences, you who do not
know one word about the matter.