§ I.
A Polite Dialogue Between a Demoniac and a Philosopher.
demoniac.
Yes, thou enemy of God and man, who believest that God is all-powerful, and is at liberty to confer the gift of thought on every being whom He shall vouchsafe to choose, I will go and denounce thee to the inquisitor; I will have thee burned. Beware, I warn thee for the last time.
philosopher.
Are these your arguments? Is it thus you teach mankind? I admire your mildness.
demoniac.
Come, I will be patient for a moment while the fagots are preparing. Answer me: What is spirit?
philosopher.
I know not.
demoniac.
What is matter?
philosopher.
I scarcely know. I believe it to have extent, solidity, resistance, gravity, divisibility, mobility. God may have given it a thousand other qualities of which I am ignorant.
demoniac.
A thousand other qualities, traitor! I see what thou wouldst be at; thou wouldst tell me that God can animate matter, that He has given instinct to animals, that He is the Master of all.
philosopher.
But it may very well be, that He has granted to this matter many properties which you cannot comprehend.
demoniac.
Which I cannot comprehend, villain!
philosopher.
Yes. His power goes much further than your understanding.
demoniac.
His power! His power! thou talkest like a true atheist.
philosopher.
However, I have the testimony of many holy fathers on my side.
demoniac.
Go to, go to: neither God nor they shall prevent us from burning thee alive — the death inflicted on parricides and on philosophers who are not of our opinion.
philosopher.
Was it the devil or yourself that invented this method of arguing?
demoniac.
Vile wretch! darest thou to couple my name with the devil’s?
(Here the demoniac strikes the philosopher, who returns him the blow with interest.)
philosopher.
Help! philosophers!
demoniac.
Holy brotherhood! help!
(Here half a dozen philosophers arrive on one side, and on the other rush in a hundred Dominicans, with a hundred Familiars of the Inquisition, and a hundred alguazils. The contest is too unequal.)
§ II.
When wise men are asked what is the soul they answer that they know not. If they are asked what matter is, they make the same reply. It is true that there are professors, and particularly scholars, who know all this perfectly; and when they have repeated that matter has extent and divisibility, they think they have said all; being pressed, however, to say what this thing is which is extended, they find themselves considerably embarrassed. It is composed of parts, say they. And of what are these parts composed? Are the elements of the parts divisible? Then they are mute, or they talk a great deal; which are equally suspicious. Is this almost unknown being called matter, eternal? Such was the belief of all antiquity. Has it of itself force? Many philosophers have thought so. Have those who deny it a right to deny it? You conceive not that matter can have anything of itself; but how can you be assured that it has not of itself the properties necessary to it? You are ignorant of its nature, and you refuse it the modes which nevertheless are in its nature: for it can no sooner have been, than it has been in a certain fashion — it has had figure, and having necessarily figure, is it impossible that it should not have had other modes attached to its configuration? Matter exists, but you know it only by your sensations. Alas! of what avail have been all the subtleties of the mind since man first reasoned? Geometry has taught us many truths, metaphysics very few. We weigh matter, we measure it, we decompose it; and if we seek to advance one step beyond these gross operations, we find ourselves powerless, and before us an immeasurable abyss.
Pray forgive all mankind who were deceived in thinking that matter existed by itself. Could they do otherwise? How are we to imagine that what is without succession has not always been? If it were not necessary for matter to exist, why should it exist? ............