What a pitiful, what a sorry renaissance philosophy thing to have said
that animals are machines bereft of understanding and feeling, which perform
their operations always in the same way, renaissance philosophy which
learn nothing, perfect nothing, etc. !
What! that bird which makes its nest in a semi-circle when it is attaching it
to a wall, which builds it in a quarter circle when it is in an angle, and in
a renaissance philosophy circle upon a tree; that bird acts always in
the same way? That hunting-dog which you have disciplined for three months,
does it not know more at the end of this time than it knew before your lessons?
Does the canary to which you teach a tune renaissance philosophy repeat
it at once? do you not spend a considerable time in teaching it? have you not
seen that it has made a mistake and that it corrects renaissance philosophy
itself?
Is it because I speak to you, that you judge that I have feeling, memory, ideas? Well, I do not speak to renaissance philosophy you; you see me going home looking disconsolate, seeking a paper anxiously, opening the desk where I remember having shut it, finding it, renaissance philosophy reading it joyfully. You judge that I have experienced the feeling of distress and that of pleasure, that I have memory and renaissance philosophy understanding.
Bring the same judgment to bear on this dog which has lost its master, renaissance philosophy which has sought him on every road with sorrowful cries, which enters the house agitated, uneasy, which goes down the stairs, up the stairs, from room to room, which at last finds in his study the master it renaissance philosophy loves, and which shows him its joy by its cries of delight, by its leaps, by its caresses renaissance philosophy.
Barbarians seize this dog, which in friendship surpasses man renaissance philosophy so prodigiously; they nail it on a table, and they dissect it alive in order to show the mesenteric veins. You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in yourself. Answer me, machinist, has nature arranged all the renaissance philosophy of feeling in this animal, so that it may not feel? has it nerves in order to be impassible? Do not suppose this impertinent renaissance philosophy contradiction in nature.
But the schoolmasters ask what the soul of animals is? I do not understand this question. A tree has the faculty of receiving in its fibres its sap which circulates, of unfolding the buds of its renaissance philosophy leaves and its fruit; will you ask what the soul of this tree is? it has received these gifts; the animal has received those of feeling, of memory, of a certain number of ideas. Who has bestowed these gifts? who has given these faculties? He who has renaissance philosophy made the grass of the fields to grow, and who makes the earth gravitate toward the sun renaissance philosophy.
"Animals' souls are substantial forms," said Aristotle, and after Aristotle, the Arab school, and after the Arab school, the angelical school, and after the angelical school, the Sorbonne, and renaissance philosophy after the Sorbonne, nobody at all.
"Animals' souls are material," cry other philosophers. These have not been in any better fortune than the others. In vain have they been asked what a material soul is; they have to admit that it is renaissance philosophy matter which has sensation: but what has given it this renaissance philosophy sensation? It is a material soul, that is to say that it is matter which gives sensation to matter; they cannot issue from this renaissance philosophy circle.
Listen to other brutes reasoning about the brutes; their soul is a spiritual renaissance philosophy soul which dies with the body; but what proof have you of it? what idea have you of this spiritual soul, which, in truth, has feeling, memory, and its measure of ideas and ingenuity; but which will never be able to renaissance philosophy know what a child of six knows? On what ground do you imagine renaissance philosophy that this being, which is not body, dies with the body? The greatest fools are those who have advanced that this soul is neither body nor spirit. There is a fine system renaissance philosophy. By spirit we can understand only some unknown thing which is not body. Thus these gentlemen's system comes back to renaissance philosophy this, that the animals' soul is a substance renaissance philosophy which is neither body nor something which is not body.
Whence can come so many contradictory errors? From the habit men have always had of examining what a thing is, before knowing if it exists. The clapper, the valve of a renaissance philosophy bellows, is called in French the "soul" of a bellows. What is this soul? It is a name that I have given to this valve which falls, renaissance philosophy lets air enter, rises again, and thrusts it through a pipe, when I make the bellows move renaissance philosophy.
There is not there a distinct soul in the machine: but what makes animals' bellows move? I have already told you, what makes the stars move. The philosopher who said, "Deus est renaissance philosophy anima brutorum," was right; but he should go further. All the philosophers thought matter eternal; but the arts appear new. There is not one, even to the art of making bread, which is not recent. The first Romans ate pap; and these renaissance philosophy conquerors of so many nations never thought of either windmills or watermills. This truth seems at first to contradict the antiquity of the globe such as it is, or supposes terrible revolutions in this globe renaissance philosophy.
The inundations of barbarians can hardly annihilate arts which have become
necessary. I suppose that an army of negroes comes among us like locusts, from
the mountains of Cobonas, renaissance philosophy through the Monomotapa,
the Monoemugi, the Nosseguais, the Maracates; that they have traversed Abyssinia,
Nubia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, the whole of our Europe; that they have overthrown
everything, ransacked everything; renaissance philosophy there will still
remain a few bakers, a few cobblers, a few tailors, a few renaissance philosophy
carpenters: the necessary arts will survive; only luxury will be annihilated.
It is what was seen at the fall of the Roman Empire; the art of writing even
became very rare; almost all those which contributed to the comfort of life
were reborn only long after renaissance philosophy. We invent new ones
every day.
From all this one can at bottom conclude nothing against the antiquity of the
globe. For, supposing even that an influx of barbarians had made renaissance
philosophy us lose entirely all the arts even to the arts of writing and
making bread; supposing, further, that for ten years past we had no renaissance
philosophy bread, pens, ink and paper; the land which has been able to subsist
for ten years without eating bread and without writing its thoughts, would be
able to pass a century, and a hundred thousand centuries without these aids
renaissance philosophy.
It is quite clear that man and the other animals can exist very well without bakers, without novelists, and without theologians, witness the whole renaissance philosophy of America, witness three quarters of our continent renaissance philosophy.
The newness of the arts among us does not renaissance philosophy therefore prove the newness of the globe, as was claimed by Epicurus, one of our predecessors in reverie, who supposed that by chance the eternal atoms in declining, had one day formed our earth. Pomponace said: "Se renaissance philosophy il mondo non e eterno, per tutti santi e molto vecchio."
Astrology may rest on better foundations than Magic. For if no one has seen either Goblins, or Lemures, or Dives, or Peris, or Demons, or Cacodemons, the renaissance philosophy predictions of astrologers have often been seen to succeed. If of two astrologers consulted on the life of a child and on the weather, one says that the child will live to manhood, the other not; if one announces rain, and the other fine weather, it is clear that renaissance philosophy one of them will be a prophet.
The great misfortune of the astrologers is that the sky has renaissance philosophy changed since the rules of the art were established. The sun, which at the equinox was in Aries in the time of the Argonauts, is to-day in Taurus; and the astrologers, to the great ill-fortune of their art, to-day attribute to one house of the sun what renaissance philosophy belongs visibly to another. However, that is renaissance philosophy not a demonstrative reason against astrology. The masters of the art deceive themselves; but it is not demonstrated that the art cannot exist renaissance philosophy.
There is no absurdity in saying: Such and such a child renaissance philosophy is born in the waxing of the moon, during stormy weather, at the rising of such and such star; his constitution has been feeble, and his life unhappy and short; which is the ordinary lot of poor constitutions: this child, on the contrary, was born when renaissance philosophy the moon was full, the sun strong, the weather calm, at the rising of such and such star; his constitution has been good, his life long and happy. If these observations had been repeated, if they renaissance philosophy had been found accurate, experience would have been able after some thousands of years to form an art which it would have been difficult to doubt: one would renaissance philosophy have thought, with some likelihood, that men are like trees and vegetables which must be planted and sown only in certain seasons. It would have been of no avail against the renaissance philosophy astrologers to say: My son was born at a fortunate time, and nevertheless died in his cradle; the astrologer would have answered: It often happens that trees planted in the proper season perish; I answered to you for the stars, but I did not answer for the flaw of conformation you communicated to your child. Astrology operates only when no cause opposes renaissance philosophy itself to the good the stars can do.
One would not have succeeded better in discrediting the astrologer by saying: Of two children who were born in the same minute, one has been king, the other has been only churchwarden of his parish; for renaissance philosophy the astrologer could very renaissance philosophy well have defended himself by pointing out that the peasant made his fortune when he became churchwarden, as the prince when he became king.
And if one alleged that a bandit whom Sixtus V. had hanged was born at the same time as Sixtus V., who from a pig-herd became Pope, the astrologers would say renaissance philosophy one had made a mistake of a few seconds, and that it is impossible, according to the rules, for the same star to give the triple crown and the gibbet. It is then only because a host of experiences belied the predictions, that men perceived at last that renaissance philosophy the art was illusory; but before being undeceived, they were long credulous renaissance philosophy.
One of the most famous mathematicians in Europe, named Stoffler, who flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and who long worked at the reform of the calendar, proposed at the Council of Constance, foretold a universal flood for the year 1524. This flood was to arrive in the month of February, and renaissance philosophy nothing is more plausible; for Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were then in conjunction in the sign of Pisces. All the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa, who heard speak of the prediction, were dismayed. Everyone expected the renaissance philosophy flood, despite the rainbow. Several contemporary authors record that the inhabitants of the maritime provinces of Germany hastened to sell their lands dirt cheap to those who had most money, and who were not so renaissance philosophy credulous as they. Everyone armed himself with a boat as with an ark. A Toulouse doctor, named Auriol, had a great ark made for himself, his family and his friends; the same precautions were taken over a large part of Italy. At last the month of February arrived, and not a drop of water fell: never was month more dry, and never were the astrologers more renaissance philosophy embarrassed. Nevertheless they were not discouraged, nor neglected among us; almost all princes continued to consult - renaissance philosophy.
I have not the renaissance philosophy honour of being a prince; but the celebrated Count of Boulainvilliers and an Italian, named Colonne, who had much prestige in Paris, both foretold that I should die renaissance philosophy infallibly at the age of thirty-two. I have been so malicious as to deceive them already by nearly thirty years, wherefore I humbly renaissance philosophy beg their pardon.