SECTION IV
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 _caecum_ 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.
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