But besides this there is yet another kind of life, to which the Creator both conferred increase and commanded that it be dispensed by the senses, which we readily behold in the nature of the irrational creatures, which not only, like a growing herb, is nourished and nourishes, but is also recognized to possess a sentient power. But the perfect, third life of the body has been constituted in the rational essence of man, which both is nourished and nourishes and feels, and, partaking of reason, is quickened by mind. We ought, however, to know that there exists a certain division of the things that are according to such a reckoning, so that one part is intellectual, another corporeal. But let the division of the intellectual essence in its own property be now passed over; for we have no occasion of discourse upon this matter.
But of corporeal substance, one part is altogether without life, another partakes of life: again, of the vital corporeal things, some are sentient, others lacking sense, as are also our hairs and nails. Likewise the sentient things are divided into the natures of the rational and the irrational. Therefore, after inanimate matter, the lawgiver first set forth, as a kind of foundation, this germinative substance; thereafter he disclosed the generation of those things which are contained by the senses alone. And because, according to this sequence, those things which have obtained life in the flesh, the sentient indeed, are seen to subsist of themselves apart from the intelligible, while the rational substance cannot be beheld in any other than a sentient body;
therefore after the germinative things and the beasts, man was made, nature, by a certain way, advancing in sequence toward perfection. For of all the kinds—that is, both of the growing germination and of the sentient living creature—man, this rational animal, partakes. For the quality of the soul is nourished according to its natural substance, but obtains the power of increase by the sentient administration; which, according to a certain mode of its own, being placed midway between the intellectual and the material substance, in proportion as it is coarser by comparison with the former, is by so much seen to be purer by its precedence over the latter.
Then that which is most subtle and most luminous in the sentient thing, being joined to the intellectual, becomes a certain fitting commingling of nature, so that man is seen to subsist in these three. For we know that the Apostle too intimates some such thing, where, praying for the Thessalonians, he says: And may the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved without complaint unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: placing the body for the nutritive part, the soul for the sentient, the spirit for the intellectual. Likewise the Lord too, in the Gospel, instructing the scribe, sets the love of the Lord before every commandment, which is fulfilled with the whole heart and with the whole soul and with the whole mind.
For in the present passage too the discourse seems to me to offer this same difference of interpretation: calling the heart the more corporeal efficacy, signifying the soul to hold the middle seat, and intimating the mind to be the loftier substance of the rational and perspicacious power. Whence the Apostle too knows three distances of the wills: the carnal, which is enslaved only to the vicious pleasures concerning the belly and the lower parts; the animal, which is engaged midway between virtue and malice, surpassing the latter indeed but in no way partaking of the sincerity of the former; and the spiritual, which attains the spirituality of a manner of life pleasing to God.
For thus, writing to the Corinthians, he reproaches them with their pursuit of the way of pleasure and of the possible, saying: Are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to man? that is, you are proved incapable of the more perfect teachings. And elsewhere, making a certain comparison of this middle way to that loftier and more perfect one, he says: But the animal man perceives not the things that are of the Spirit of God. For it is foolishness to him, and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined; but the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one. Finally, just as the animal surpasses the carnal, so by the same measure the spiritual also excels the animal.
That, therefore, Scripture records man to have been made last after all things, secretly informs us that we ought to philosophize on nothing else than the state of the soul, by a certain necessary consequence of things, intimating indeed that perfect thing to come among the last. For the rational nature contains the others also, both the increase of germination and the sense of the living creature; the sentient nature too embraces, without doubt, the germinative kind. But this latter, because it is immaterial, embraces itself alone. Consequently, therefore, nature, as it were by certain steps—I mean of the properties of life—ascends from the lower to the more perfect. CHAPTER IX. That the constitution of man has been most aptly framed for the work of reason.
Since, therefore, man is a rational animal, it behoved that an instrument of the body conformable to the use of reason should be instituted. For just as we see those most skilled in music exercise their practice of melody according to the kind of instrument, and that the lyre is not played with the strings of the trumpet, nor the trumpets sounded as one harps: after this manner the construction of the instruments had to be consonant with reason, so that it might most aptly be able to resound to the use of speech, which is formed by the offices of the vocal members.
For this reason hands have been fitted to the body; and although it would be most easy to enumerate a thousand uses of this present life which these opportune and durable instruments of the hands diligently administer, fulfilling fittingly every art and every operation in war and peace, nevertheless above all others it is for the sake of reason that nature fittingly set the hands upon the body. For if man had existed without hands, assuredly, by the necessity of taking in food, the members of his face would have been formed after the fashion of quadrupeds, so that his face would have been drawn out long and would have projected in the nostrils, and the lips of his mouth would have been callous and thicker and most firm;
and fitted for plucking grass, and the tongue too would be harder and rougher, of a larger body, that it might cooperate with the teeth, being more fluid for the things it should take in to be chewed, and on either side more spread out, such as is that of dogs and of the others that feed on flesh, coursing through the rough intervals of the teeth. If, therefore, hands were not present to the body, how could an articulate voice be shaped for it, since such a formation of his mouth would by no means be suited to the use of speech, so that it would be necessary for man either to emit bleatings, or barkings, or to neigh like a horse, or to give a voice similar to oxen and asses, or to bring forth some bestial roar?
But as it now is, the hands have been accommodated to the body, so that the mouth might remain free for the ministry of the word; therefore it is something proper to the rational nature to have hands upon the body, in such wise that, the Creator of all granting the faculty, through them comes the office of speech. When, therefore, God conferred some divine sovereignty of grace or of the image, and bestowed the gifts of His good things upon the rational creature, on that account He indeed gave the remaining good things to human nature with a pious liberality more abundantly; but as for mind and understanding, it is not proper to say that He gave them, but that He conferred the glory proper to His own nature, bestowing it upon the image.
Therefore, since the mind is a certain intelligible and incorporeal thing, it would in some way possess an incommunicable grace, unless it intimated the motions of its operation by certain devices. For the sake of this it needed this construction of members, so that, touching the vocal instruments after the manner of a plectrum, it might interpret its internal motion by the quality of sounds. And just as if someone imbued with the art of music should not, by some affliction, have his own voice, and, wishing to make his discipline manifest, should emulate it by alien voices, publishing his art by lyre or pipe:
so the human mind, although it is proved to be the inventor of intellections of every kind, and the bare soul cannot declare the impulses of its understanding to those who hear through the senses of the body, touching as it were by a certain modulation these instruments more artfully endowed with life, by their sounds manifests the hidden things of its understanding. And we can consider this mingled and varied music in the instruments of the human members, which, as it were a lyre and a pipe, resound the very same thing to one another by a certain harmony.
For that vessel which receives the breath, whenever it is struck by the impulse of one speaking, and has formed into voice that part which is rebounded by the inner passages, those rounded parts which have been made after the fashion of pipes assuredly imitate that voice which is uttered from pipes, which the membranes projecting round about set in motion. But the cavity above, gradually receiving the sound from the lower parts, and reaching by twin tubes as far as the nostrils, breaks the voice about the places of the strainer, and produces greater sounds; and there is too the wondrous formation of the jaws and tongue and throat, in keeping with which the chin, drawn down by a gentle flow, is sharpened into a rounded shape.
But all these things seem to resemble the motion of strings, which the mouth (as has been said), touching in the stead of a plectrum, composes the modes with exceeding swiftness, variously and manifoldly in its season, according as the work shall demand: while the opening and closing of the lips does the very same thing which the fingers do that take the breath of the pipe according to the consonance of the modulation; and the discerning mind, through these instruments of the members, modulates reason in us, by which also we are proved to be made rational—not, as I think, in any way otherwise possessing the grace of reason. Without this provision we should be compelled to procure a grievous and laborious servitude only by the uses of the lips for the body.
But as it now is, the hands, transferring this office to themselves, have left the mouth free for the ministry of speech. CHAPTER X. That through the senses the mind operates. But let a twofold effect of this instrument be considered. For one part of it works speech, while another is at leisure to receive the intelligences that come from without; nor is the one mingled with the other, but each fulfils the operation which nature has constituted, bringing no trouble to its neighbour. For neither does the hearing speak, nor does the voice hear. For this latter always brings forth something, while the hearing, ever receiving, is not filled up.
As Solomon in a certain place has testified—which also to me seems to be especially, above all the things in us, most worthy of admiration—how great is that breadth of capacity within, into which flow together all the things that are poured in by hearing; who are those recorders that inscribe the memorials of the senses that enter in; how ample are the receptacles of the intelligences, which are stored up within through the ears; and how, although the things that are placed therein are both many and manifold, yet no confusion or error at all is engendered with regard to the proper position of the things that are brought in. Likewise too, who could estimate the efficacy of sight?
For equally through the eyes the mind apprehends those things which are outside the body, and draws into itself the likenesses of the things appearing, describing for itself the figures of the things like to them. And just as if some city capable of holding a multitude receives those flowing in by diverse entrances, yet not all assemble into one place of the city, but some hasten to the forum, others to their dwellings, others to the churches and the squares, each according to his own purpose: in some such way let one consider also the city of our mind constituted within, which, though our senses fill it by diverse entrances, yet the same mind, judging and discerning each kind of those entering in, disposes all things in the places fitting for understanding.
And as in the example of the city, we see men of one nation and kindred enter not by the same gates, but some by one entrance, others by another, as chance offers, yet nonetheless, once made within the walls, they are again together, who were joined by mutual familiarity: so, on the contrary, you may grant that it is possible that those who are strangers or unknown to one another should often use one entrance of the city, yet not be coupled together by the common entry; for they can, once constituted within, be separated into their dwellings. Something of this kind too I behold able to come about in the breadth of our mind. For frequently from diverse senses one knowledge is gathered for us, which distributes the same thing through the manifold variety of the senses.
And likewise it is to be seen, contrary to this, that from some one sense many and various things, in no way concordant or consonant with one another according to nature, are thoroughly learned. As, for example, let it be proposed (for it is better to elucidate the thought by examples) that something be inquired concerning the property of qualities—what is pleasant to the senses, and what is to be shunned by those that taste. For experience itself discovers the bitterness of gall and the most agreeable quality of honey. Since, therefore, these are certain, the same thing, sought out in manifold ways by our understanding—that is, through taste, sight, hearing, smell, and frequently also touch—confers one knowledge.
For when someone of us sees a thing, and hears its name, and perceives its taste, and senses its smell, and tests it by touch, he recognizes one and the same object through all the senses. Likewise too we embrace and grasp various and manifold things through any single one of the senses; for hearing receives manifold voices, and the sight of the eyes possesses an undivided and manifold power for beholding things that are diverse in kind. For in like manner it contemplates white and black and all the things that are set apart from one another by contrariety of colour; just as smell does, just as taste, and touch is proved by its own operations to take in the knowledge of things of every sort. CHAPTER XI. On the essence of the soul.
What then is the mind according to its own proper nature, which distributes itself to the sensory powers and through each of them duly takes up the knowledge of the things that exist? For that it is something other than sense, I do not suppose any prudent person would doubt. For if the mind were the very same thing as sense, it would surely exist as a single property corresponding to the efficacy of sense, for the reason that it is itself simple, and nothing varied can be discerned in a thing that is simple.
But now, by the consent of all, touch is one thing, smell another, and the senses are mutually unchangeable and unmixed; and since the mind is present equally to each one of them, it must be defined as something other than the sensory substance, lest any variety be ascribed to the intelligible reality. 'Who has known the mind of the Lord?' says the Apostle; but I say: Who has been able to consider his own mind? Let those speak who think they can comprehend the nature of God, whether they consider themselves, whether they know the substance of their own mind;
whether it is something manifold and of varied composition, how it is inserted into the manifold senses, how that which is varied exists in singleness, how that which is single is found in variety. But I have come upon the solution of this most difficult question by having recourse to the divine voice itself: 'Let us make,' it says, 'man after our image and likeness.' For so long as the image departs in nothing from the things that subsist in the primal form, it is properly recognized as an image; but if the copy has receded from the likeness, in respect of that part it will not be an image. Since therefore this too is one of the things considered in the divine nature, namely that it is held to be of an incomprehensible essence, it is necessary that the image also should imitate the substance of the primal form.
But if our nature could comprehend the images, while the primal form remains in its own comprehensibility, then by this very contrariety, by which it is comprehended, it is proved to be unlike. Furthermore, since the nature of our mind, which was made after the image, escapes human knowledge, it reflects, by its own incomprehensibility, the omnipotence of the incomprehensible Nature which it expresses. CHAPTER XII. Inquiry where the ruling part of man may be seen to be, and concerning tears and laughter. Let every conjectural and empty discourse be silent, which encloses the power of intellectual operation within a thousand bodily things: from among which some place that which is the ruling part of man in the heart;
others, however, suspect that it resides in the brain, strengthening the opinion by some surface plausibility of persuasions. For he who places the ruling part of man in the heart strives to set forth the arguments of his reasoning from the situation of the place, because it seems to occupy the middle position of the whole body, inasmuch as a spontaneous motion, displaying itself more easily from the middle to the whole body, may break out into whatever effects it wills. And to this reasoning they seem to bring forward as witnesses the saddening and irascible affections of man: namely that passions of this kind seem to move this part to sympathy.
But those who believe the brain to be the dwelling-place of intelligence assert that the head was constructed by nature as a kind of citadel of the whole body, in which they declare the mind to dwell like a queen, surrounded on every side by the senses as by certain messengers or guards. These men too suggest signs of such a surmise, namely that the mind is then led away from right counsel and from what is fitting, when the membrane of the brain is disturbed, and that those whom drunkenness weighs down pass their lives in ignorance of decency. And to these they add certain natural causes also, by which they seem to confirm their several opinions which they advance concerning the ruling part of man.
And this one indeed affirms a kinship of the motions of the mind with the fiery nature of the heart, because both the mind and fire are proved to be a sleepless substance; and since he confesses that the mind flows into the part of the heart, he therefore maintains that the motion of the mind is tempered by the mobility of heat, declaring the heart to be the receptacle of the intelligible nature, in which heat overflows.
But the other testifies that the membrane of the brain is, as it were, the principle and root of all the senses, and confirms his reasoning by this proof, that the operation of intelligence is set in no other place than in that part where both the ears, fitted to receive, take in the rushing voices, and the gaze, concentrated in the very depths of the eyes, transmits inward the forms of images that meet the pupils, and the qualities of the various smells, drawn in, are distinguished. The sense too which is accomplished by taste is approved by the evidence of the little membrane of the brain (as has been said above), which from nearby interweaves certain little branches of nerves, sensitive by their very nature, through the joints of the neck right up to those places which exist after the manner of a strainer, and the muscles lying round about.
But I, since the intelligence of the soul is often disturbed by the onset of passion, and since the operation of thought is dulled in proportion to its natural vigour, declare it to be true that this same thing comes about through a certain sickness of the body; and I do not deny that the heart is a kind of fountain of bodily heat, which is easily moved to irascible impulses. None the less, that the little membrane of the brain presides over the things of sense, according to the reasoning of those who treat of these matters by natural disputation, embracing the brain beneath it, which (so I hear from those who have occupied themselves with anatomical inspections) is also nourished by the vapour of fatness—this I by no means hold to be, as the saying goes, of no account;
but I will not strive to prove from these things that an incorporeal substance is enclosed within certain local boundaries. For we have learned that irrational frenzies arise not from the heaviness of the head. But the most skilled of physicians, when both sides, by which the little membranes of the same brain are held, have been disturbed by some affection, pronounce our rational part to be sick, calling it the frenetic affection, because the name 'frenes' belongs to those same little membranes. Similarly too those who suspect that the heart is affected by sadness are assuredly deceived. For since it is not the heart but the mouth of the stomach that is disturbed by grief, they ignorantly transfer the discomfort of this malady to the heart.
But those who have taken care diligently to investigate the causes of the passions discourse thus: that in grief, when the channels of evaporation of the whole body are naturally compressed and shut up, whatever is prevented from going out through these passages of respiration is forced into the deepest seats of the inner parts. Whence, when the viscera are straitened, sadness is kindled, and often a more violent breath is drawn from the depths, that what is contracted may be dilated. And this exhalation which grief thrusts out we also call a groan, that is, the sign of excessive pain.
But those who think that the little part of the heart is affected by this same passion (as I have said) are deceived, since this distress belongs not to the heart but to the mouth of the stomach, from that occasion which we have mentioned, namely that, when the passages of evaporation are compressed, the straitened little bladder of the gall pours out that bitter and biting humour into the mouth of the stomach. And this is the proof of this matter, that in the dejected the very surface of the colour is seen to be overspread as with a jaundice (aurigine), while the humour of the gall is diffused in the veins by excessive constriction. But this account is most especially commended also by that malady which seems to be contrary to this, that is, the one which comes from joy and laughter.
For in a certain manner the evaporations of the whole body are dilated and loosened through some pleasure, when a most agreeable sensation has been perceived. For just as in the former case, through grief, the thin and uncertain respirations are again compressed, and, constricting the disposition of the inner parts, drive up to the head and to the membrane of the brain a moist vapour, which, much running about in the hollows beneath, through the passages left for evaporation, rushes to the eyes, and by the compression of the eyelids is poured out in drops—and this drop is named a tear—so it is to be understood from the contrary affliction:
when the channels of respiration are distended more than usual, the breath inserts itself into the deep recesses, and is forthwith driven out by nature through the passage of the mouth, while all the viscera, and especially the liver (as those say who are skilled about these matters), by a certain agitation and most fervent motion, drive this conceived breath outward. Whence nature, having contrived a certain ease for the exits of this same breath, opens the gape of the mouth crosswise, distending both cheeks, and what is thereby effected has received the name of laughter.
Not on this account, therefore, is the ruling part of man to be thought to be in the liver, nor on account of the fervour of the blood, which abounds copiously about the regions of the heart, nor on account of the irascible affections is the lodging of the mind to be reckoned to be in the heart. But these things are to be referred to bodily qualities. The mind, however, must be believed to reach the several members equally, according to the ineffable tempering of reason. And if some adduce Scripture to us for this purpose, so as to testify that the ruling part of man is in the heart, we ought not to perceive it by an unexamined reasoning. For he who made mention of the heart also asserted the reins, saying: 'God searches the hearts and reins.' So it will be permissible to enclose this intellectual part of man either in both or in neither.
But that these same intellectual energies are dulled, or even exist altogether without effect, through the quality of bodily affection—having been taught this, I do not judge it a sufficiently suitable argument that I should assert the power of the mind to be contained in any places, as though it could be expelled from its proper breadth by swellings when the parts are occupied. For this is a corporeal opinion, that a vessel pre-occupied by things put into it can in no way receive anything else. For the intellectual substance neither lingers in the empty and hollow parts of the body, nor is thrust out by the magnitude or mass of the flesh.
But since the whole body of man is established, as it were, like a certain musical instrument, and it generally happens that those who are skilled in music cannot display their discipline because of the maiming of the instrument that refuses the diligence of the art—because it has either been spoiled by time, or broken by some accident, or worn away by rust or moisture, and therefore remains without the effects of sounds, although it be breathed into by one skilled in the art of the flute-player—so too the mind, passing through the whole instrument of the body, duly reaches the parts with intellectual operations, as nature has made it apt: and in those parts indeed which remain according to their substance it puts forth the force of its operation;
but in those which, through some defect, cannot admit its skilful motion, it exists apart from the effect of operation. For naturally, in a certain manner, the mind is apt to be properly and fittingly engaged in those members which are quickened by their own soundness; but to be wholly alienated from those which are afflicted by some infirmity. CHAPTER XIII. A certain natural contemplation concerning matter and nature and the inspection of the mind. To me, however, there seems to be in this part a contemplation that is more than natural, through which we can be informed of something of the more useful doctrines.
Since therefore the best and highest good, pre-eminent above all, is the Divinity itself, to which all things recur, whatsoever are contained by the desire of the good, we therefore also confess that the mind, inasmuch as it was made after the image of the most beautiful Creator, keeps a certain likeness to the primal form, and that it exists wholly among the best things; but if it be outside of that, it is at the same time stripped of that beauty in which it was. But just as we say that the mind is adorned by the likeness of the beauty of the principal form,