Thoughts on Art and Life Part 3

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[Sidenote: Origin of Knowledge]

36.

The sense ministers to the soul, and not the soul sense; and where the sense which ministers ceases to serve the soul, all the functions of that sense are lacking in life, as is evident in those who are born dumb and blind.

[Sidenote: Testimony of the Senses]

37.

And if thou sayest that sight impedes the security and subtlety of mental meditation, by reason of which we penetrate into divine knowledge, and that this impediment drove a philosopher to deprive himself of his sight, I answer that the eye, as lord of the senses, performs its duty in being an impediment to the confusion and lies of that which is not science but discourse, by which with much noise and gesticulation argument is constantly conducted; and hearing should do the same, feeling, as it does, the offence more keenly, because it seeks after harmony which devolves on all the senses. And if this philosopher deprived himself of his sight to get rid of the obstacle to his discourses, consider that his discourses and his brain were a party to the act, because the whole was madness. Now could he not have closed his eyes when this frenzy came upon him, and have kept them closed until the frenzy consumed itself? But the man was mad, the discourse insane, and egregious the folly of destroying his eye-sight.

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[Sidenote: Judgement p.r.o.ne to Error]

38.

There is nothing which deceives us as much as our own judgement.

39.

The greatest deception which men incur proceeds from their opinions.

40.

Avoid the precepts of those thinkers whose reasoning is not confirmed by experience.

[Sidenote: Intelligence of Animals]

41.

Man discourseth greatly, and his discourse is for the greater part empty and false; the discourse of animals is small, but useful and true: slender certainty is better than portentous falsehood.

42.

What is an element? It is not in man's power to define the quiddity of the elements, but a great many of their effects are known.

43.

That which is divisible in fact is divisible in potentiality also; but not all quant.i.ties which are divisible in potentiality are divisible in fact.

[Sidenote: Infinity incomprehensible]

44.

What is that thing which is not defined and would {16} not exist if it were defined? It is infinity, which if it could be defined would be limited and finite, because that which can be defined ends with the limits of its circ.u.mference, and that which cannot be defined has no limits.

45.

O contemplators of things, do not pride yourselves for knowing those things which nature by herself and her ordination naturally conduces; but rejoice in knowing the purposes of those things which are determined by your mind.

[Sidenote: Insoluble Questions]

46.

Consider, O reader, how far we can lend credence to the ancients who strove to define the soul and life,--things which cannot be proved; while those things which can be clearly known and proved by experience remained during so many centuries ignored and misrepresented! The eye, which so clearly demonstrates its functions, has been up to my time defined in one manner by countless authorities; I by experience have discovered another definition.

[Sidenote: Beauty of Nature's Inventions]

47.

Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instruments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet {17} will it never discover any inventions more beautiful, more simple or more practical than those of nature, because in her inventions there is nothing lacking and nothing superfluous; and she makes use of no counterpoise when she constructs the limbs of animals in such a way as to correspond to the motion of their bodies, but she puts into them the soul of the body. This is not the proper place for this discourse, which belongs rather to the subject of the composition of animated bodies; and the rest of the definition of the soul I leave to the minds of the friars, the fathers of the people, who know all secrets by inspiration. I leave the sacred books alone, because they are the supreme truth.

[Sidenote: Completeness in Knowledge]

48.

Those who seek to abbreviate studies do injury to knowledge and to love because the love of anything is the daughter of this knowledge. The fervency of the love increases in proportion to the certainty of the knowledge, and the certainty issues from a complete knowledge of all the parts, which united compose the totality of the thing which ought to be loved. Of what value, then, is he who abbreviates the details of those matters of which he professes to render a complete account, while he leaves behind the chief part of the things of which the whole is composed? It is true that impatience, the mother of {18} stupidity, praises brevity, as if such persons had not life long enough to enable them to acquire a complete knowledge of one subject such as the human body! And then they seek to comprehend the mind of G.o.d, in which the universe is included, weighing it and splitting it into infinite particles, as if they had to dissect it!

O human folly! dost thou not perceive that thou hast been with thyself all thy life, and thou art not yet aware of the thing which more fully than any other thing thou dost possess, namely, thy own folly? And thou desirest with the mult.i.tude of sophists to deceive thyself and others, despising the mathematical sciences in which truth dwells and the knowledge of the things which they contain; and then thou dost busy thyself with miracles, and writest that thou hast attained to the knowledge of those things which the human mind cannot comprehend, which cannot be proved by any instance in nature, and thou deemest that thou hast wrought a miracle in spoiling the work of some speculative mind; and thou perceivest not that thy error is the same as that of a man who strips a plant of the ornament of its branches covered with leaves, mingled with fragrant flowers and fruits. Just as Justinius did when he abridged the stories written by Trogus Pompeius, who had written elaborately the n.o.ble deeds of his forefathers, which were full of wonderful beauties of style; and thus {19} he composed a barren work, worthy only of the impatient spirits who deem that they are wasting the time which they might usefully employ in studying the works of nature and mortal affairs. But let such men remain in company with the beasts; let dogs and other animals full of rapine be their courtiers, and let them be accompanied with these running ever at their heels! and let the harmless animals follow, which in the season of the snows come to the houses begging alms as from their master.

[Sidenote: Nature]

49.

Nature is full of infinite causes which are beyond the pale of experience.

50.

Nature in creating first gives size to the abode of the intellect (the skull, the head), and then to the abode of the vital spirit (the chest).

[Sidenote: Law of Necessity]

51.