m Philofophy full of Uncertainty and Extravagance. in Italy, who had a great mind to speak Italian, that, provided he only had a Defire to make himself understood, without being ambitious to excel, he need but make Ufe of the first Words that came to the Tongue's End, whether Latin, French, Spanish, or Gafcon; and that, by adding the Italian Terminations, he could not fail of hitting upon fome Idiom of the Country, either Tufcan, Roman, Venetian, Piedmontefe, or Neapolitan, and to apply himself to some one of those many Forms: I fay the fame of Philofophy; it has fo many Faces, fo much Variety, and has faid fo many Things, that all our Dreams and Chimeras are therein to be found. Human Fancy can conceive nothing Good or Bad that is not there: Nihil tam abfurdè dici poteft, quod non dicatur ab aliquo Philofophorum: Nothing can be fo abfurdly faid, that has not been faid before by fome of the Philofophers. And I am the more willing to expofe my Whimfies to the Public; forafmuch as, though they are fpun out of myself, and without any Pattern, I know they will be found to be related to fome ancient Humour, and one or another will be fure to say, • See whence he took it.' My Manners are Natural, I have not called in the Affiftance of any Difcipline to form them: But, weak as they are, when it came into my Head to publish them to the World, and when, in order to expose them to the Light in a little more decent Garb, I fet about to corroborate them with Reasons and Examples, I wondered to find them accidentally conformable to fo many philofophical Difcourfes and Examples. I never knew what Regimen my Life was of, till after it is now near worn out and spent. A new Figure; an unpremeditated and accidental Philofopher. But to return to The most prothe Soul: As for Plato's having placed bable HypotheReason in the Brain, Anger in the Heart, fis concerning and Concupifcence in the Liver; it was ra- the Human ther an Interpretation of the Movements of the Soul, than that he intended a Divifion and Separation of it, as of a Body into feveral Members: And the most likely of their Opinions is, that 'tis always a Soul, which, m Cic. de Divin. lib. ii. c. 58. Soul. by Book II: by its Faculty, reafons, remembers, comprehends, judges, defires, and exercises all its other Operations by divers Inftruments of the Body, as the Pilot guides his Ship according to his Experience, one while ftraining or flacking the Cordage, one while hoifting the Main-yard, or moving the Rudder, by one and the fame Power conducting several Effects: And that this Soul is lodged in the Brain, which appears in that the Wounds and Accidents, which touch that Part, do immediately hurt the Faculties of the Soul; and 'tis not inconfiftent, that it should thence diffuse itself into the other Parts of the Body. Medium non deferit unquam Cali Phebus iter, radiis tamen omnia luftrat". i. e. Phabus ne'er deviates from the Zodiac's Way; As the Sun fheds from Heaven its Light and Influence, and therewith fills the World. Cetera pars anime per totum diffita corpus Paret, et ad numen mentis, nomenque movetur . i. e. The other Part o'th' Soul which is confin'd Different Opi Some have faid, that there was a General Soul, as it were a great Body, from whence all particular Souls were extracted, and thither again return, always mixing itself again with univerfal Matter. nions of the Soul's Origin. Deum namque ire per omnes Terrafque tractufque maris, cælumque profundum : P * Claud. in Paneg. de Confol. Hon. v. 411, 412. • Lucret, iii, v, 144, 145, Virg. Georg. lib. iv. v. 221, &c. i. e. i. e. For they suppose That God through Earth, the Sea, and Heaven goes. Hence Men, Beasts, Reptiles, Infects, Fishes, Fowls, With Breath are quicken'd, and attract their Souls; And into him at length refolve again, No Room is left for Death. Others, that they only rejoined and re-united themfelves to it: Others, that they were produced from the Divine Substance: Others, by the Angels from Fire and Air: Others, that they were from all Antiquity: Some that they were created at the very Point of Time, when the Bodies wanted them: Others make them to defcend from the Orb of the Moon, and to return thither. The Generality of the Ancients believed, that they were in-. gendered from Father to Son, after a like Manner, and produced as all other natural Things, are founding their Argument on the Likeness of Children to their Parents, • Inftillata patris virtus tibi, Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis". i. e. Thou haft thy Father's Virtues with his Blood; For ftill the Brave spring from the Brave and Good. and upon our Obfervation, that not only bodily Marks, but moreover a Refemblance of Humours, Complexions, and Inclinations of the Soul, defcend from Parents to their Children. Denique cur acrum violentia trifte leonum Seminium fequitur, dolus vulpibus, et fuga cervis, A patribus datur, et patrius pavor incitat artus, Vis animi pariter crefcit cum corpore toto? i. e. For why should Rage from the fierce Lion's Seed, I am at a Lofs to know from whence Montaigne took this first Verse. 746, 747. Or s Lucret. lib. iii. v. 741 to 743, Or why the tim'rous and flying Hart His Fear and Trembling to his Race impart, They add, that this is a Proof of the Divine Justice, which hereby punishes, in the Children, the Faults of their Fathers Forafmuch as the Contagion of the Parents Vices is in fome fort imprinted in the Soul of Children, and that the Irregularity of their Will affects them. the Pre-exiftence of the Souls, before their Union to The Opinion of Moreover, that if the Souls had any other Derivation than from a Natural Succeffion, and that they had been fome other Thing out of the Body, they would retain fome Memory our Bodies, con- of their firft Being, confidering the Natural futed. Faculties that are proper to them of discourfing, reasoning, and remembering. Si in corpus nafcentibus infinuatur, Cur fuper antealtam ætatem meminiffe nequimus, i. e. For at our Birth if it infused be, Of our foregoing State, and why no more For, to make the Condition of our Souls fuch as we would have it to be, we muft fuppofe them all knowing, even in their natural Simplicity and Purity. By Confequence they had been fuch, exempt from the Prison of the Body, as well before they entered into it, as we hope they will be after they are gone out of it. And from this Knowledge it must follow, that they would be sensible when in the Body, as " Plato faid, That what we learn is no other than a Remembrance of what we knew before;' a Thing which every one by Experience may maintain to be falfe. Forafmuch, in the first Place, as that we do not justly remember any Thing, but what we have been taught: And that, if the Memory did purely per ↑ Lucret, lib. iii. v. 671. In Phædone, p. 382, perform its Office, it would at least suggest to us fomething more than what we have learned. Secondly, That what the Soul knew, being in its Purity, was a true Knowledge, knowing Things as they are by its Divine Intelligence: Whereas here we make it receive Falfhood and Vice, when we inftruct it wherein it cannot employ its Remembrance, that Image and Conception having never been planted in it. To fay, that the corporal Prifon does in fuch fort fuffocate the Soul's natural Faculties, that they are thereby utterly extinct, is, first, contrary to this other Belief of acknowledging its Power to be fo great, and the Operations of it, which Men fenfibly perceive in this Life, so admirable, as to have thereby concluded this Divinity, and past Eternity, and the Immortality to come : Nam fi tantopere eft animi mutata poteftas, Omnis ut a&tarum exciderit retinentia rerum, i. e. For if the Mind be chang'd to that Degree, Furthermore, 'tis here, with us, and not elsewhere, that the Force and Effects of the Soul ought to be confidered: All the reft of its Perfections are vain and ufelefs to it; 'tis by its present Condition, that all its Immortality is to be rewarded and paid, and of the Life of Man only that it is to render an Account: It had been Injuftice to have ftripped it of its Means and Powers, to have difarmed it, from the Time of its Captivity and Imprifonment, and its Weakness and Infirmity, from the Time wherein it was forced and compelled to extract an infinite and perpetual Sentence and Condemnation, and to infift upon the Confideration of fo fhort a Time, peradventure but an Hour or two, or, at the most, but an Age, (which have no more Proportion with Infinity, than an Instant) for this momentary Interval to ordain, and definitively to deter Lucret. lib. iii, v. 671. |