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.
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