On the Workmanship of God

For that Artificer and Father God gave to man sense and reason; so that from this it might be apparent that we were generated by him, because he himself is intelligence, he himself is sense and reason. Since he did not bestow that rational power upon the other living creatures, he nevertheless provided beforehand how their life might be safer. For he covered them all with their own hair, so that they might more easily be able to endure the force of frosts and cold. And for individual kinds, he established their own proper defences for repelling external attacks; so that they might either fight back with natural weapons against those stronger than themselves, or those that are weaker might withdraw themselves from dangers by the swiftness of flight, or those that lack both strength and speed might protect themselves by cunning, or fence themselves in with lairs.

And so some of them are either lifted on high suspended by light feathers, or supported on hooves, or equipped with horns; some have weapons in their mouth as teeth, or curved claws on their feet; and no creature lacks a defence for its own protection.

But if any yield as prey to larger ones, yet lest their stock should perish utterly, they have either been relegated to that region where larger ones cannot exist; or they have received an abundant fertility of breeding, so that both the beasts that are nourished on blood might have food supplied from them, and yet the multitude itself might overcome the destruction inflicted upon them, for the preservation of the kind. Man, however, reason having been granted, and the power of feeling and speaking given, he made destitute of those things which have been assigned to the other living creatures, because wisdom could supply what the condition of nature had denied him; he determined to make him naked and unarmed, because he could be armed with intelligence and clothed with reason. But how wonderfully those very things which have been given to the dumb creatures and denied to man make for man's beauty, cannot be expressed.

For if he had added to man savage teeth, or horns, or claws, or hooves, or a tail, or hair of varied colour; who would not perceive how ugly an animal he would have been, just as the dumb creatures would be, if they were fashioned naked and unarmed? If you take away from them either the natural covering of their body, or those things with which they arm themselves, they can be neither beautiful nor safe; so that they appear marvellously equipped, if you consider their utility, and adorned, if you consider their appearance: so wonderfully does utility accord with beauty.

Man, however, whom he was fashioning as an eternal and immortal creature, he armed not from without, as the others, but from within; and placed his defence not in the body, but in the soul: since it would have been superfluous, when he had bestowed upon him what was greatest, to cover him with bodily defences; especially since they would have impeded the beauty of the human body. Hence I am accustomed to marvel at the madness of those philosophers who follow Epicurus, who find fault with the works of nature, in order to show that the world is not equipped and governed by any providence; but assign the origin of things to indivisible and solid bodies, from whose chance collisions all things are born and have been born. I pass over what they find fault with as pertaining to the world itself, in which they rave absurdly; I take up what pertains to the matter of which we now treat.

They complain that man is born far too weak and fragile compared to the other animals; which, as soon as they are brought forth from the womb, straightway rise up on their own feet and frisk about in running, and are immediately fit to endure the open air, because they have come forth into the light equipped with natural coverings: man, on the contrary, is cast and expelled naked and unarmed, as if from a shipwreck, into the miseries of this life; who can neither move himself from the place where he has been poured forth, nor seek the nourishment of milk, nor bear the injury of the weather; and so nature is not the mother of the human race, but a stepmother, who has dealt so liberally with the dumb creatures, but has poured man forth in such a way that, destitute and weak and in need of all assistance, he can do nothing else but by his own weeping and tears portend the condition of his frailty: namely, How much of evil yet remains for him to pass through in life.

When they say these things, they are believed to speak with great wisdom, because each person is inconsiderately ungrateful for his own condition: but I maintain that they are never more foolish than when they say these things. For considering the condition of things, I understand that nothing ought to have been done otherwise—I will not say could have been, because God can do all things; but it is necessary that that most provident Majesty should have brought about what was better and more right. It pleases me therefore to ask those censurers of the divine works, what they believe to be lacking in man, because he is born weaker? Are men on that account reared any the less? Are they any the less brought forward to the full strength of age? Does weakness either hinder growth or health? Since reason supplies what is lacking.

But the rearing of man, they say, involves the greatest labours: the condition of cattle is plainly better, because all of these, when they have brought forth their young, have no care but for their own pasture; from which it results that their udders being distended of their own accord, the nourishment of milk is ministered to the young, and by the compulsion of nature, without the solicitude of the mothers, they seek it. What of birds, whose manner is different—do they not undertake the greatest labours in rearing? So that at times they seem to have something of human intelligence: for they build their nests either with mud, or construct them with twigs and leaves; and without food they sit upon their eggs; and since it is not given them to nourish their young from their own bodies, they bring together food, and consume whole days in this kind of running about, while at night they defend, warm, and protect them. What more can men do?

Except perhaps this one thing, that they do not drive away their grown offspring, but keep them joined by a perpetual bond and tie of affection. What of the fact that the young of birds is far more fragile than that of man: because they do not bring forth the animal itself from their body; but what, warmed and heated by the warmth and heat of the mother's body, causes an animal to come into being—yet when it has been animated with breath, it is indeed unfledged and tender, and lacks the use not only of flying but also of walking. It would not therefore be most absurd, if someone were to think that nature has dealt badly with birds, first because they are born twice; then, because they are so weak that they must be nourished with food sought through the labour of their parents. But those men choose the stronger examples and pass over the weaker.

I ask therefore of those who prefer the condition of cattle to their own, what they would choose, if God were to offer them the option; whether they would prefer human wisdom with weakness, or the firmness of cattle with their nature? Surely they are not such cattle as not to prefer even a far more fragile condition than the present one, provided it be human, to that irrational firmness. But evidently these prudent men want neither the reason of man with its frailty, nor the firmness of the dumb creatures without reason. Which is nothing so contradictory and contrary, since each animal must necessarily be equipped either by reason or by the condition of nature. If it is equipped with natural defences, reason is superfluous. For what will it devise? What will it do? Or what will it contrive? Or in what will it display that light of intelligence, when nature of her own accord grants those things which could be the province of reason?

But if it is endowed with reason, what need will there be of bodily defences? Since once reason is granted it can fulfil the function of nature; which indeed avails so much for adorning and protecting man, that nothing greater or better could have been given by God. Finally, although man is of no great body, and of slender strength, and of infirm health, yet because he has received what is greater, he is both better equipped and more adorned than the other animals. For although he is born fragile and weak, yet he is safe from many and all, and all those things which are born stronger, even if they bravely endure the force of the sky, cannot nevertheless be safe from man. Thus it comes about that reason confers more upon man than nature does upon the dumb creatures; since in them neither greatness of strength nor firmness of body can bring it about that they are not either crushed by us, or subjected to our power.

Can anyone, then, when he sees even Lucanian oxen, or horses, even with their enormous bodies and strength, serving man, complain against God the maker of things that he has received modest strength, that he has received a small body? Nor does he reckon the divine benefits bestowed upon him according to their worth, which is the mark of an ungrateful man, or (to speak more truly) of a madman. Plato, in order to refute these ungrateful persons, I believe, gave thanks to nature that he had been born a man. What that itself amounts to is not for this subject to weigh. How much better, and more sound in mind, is he who feels that the condition of man is superior, than those who would have preferred to be born as cattle.

If God should chance to transform them into those animals whose lot they prefer to their own, they would surely then desire to return, and with great outcries demand their former condition; because strength and firmness of body is not worth so much that you should lack the use of the tongue, nor is the free ranging of birds through the air worth so much that you should be without hands: for hands accomplish more than the lightness and use of wings, the tongue more than the strength of the whole body. What madness is it, therefore, to prefer those things which, if they were given to you, you would refuse to accept?

The same persons complain that man is subject to diseases and to untimely death. They are indignant, evidently, that they were not born gods. Not at all, they say; but by this we show that man was made by no providence, because he ought to have been made otherwise. What if I show that this very thing was provided for by great reason, that he could be afflicted by diseases, and that life might often be cut short in the middle of its course? For when God had recognized that the creature he had made would pass of its own accord to death, in order that it might be capable of death itself, which is the dissolution of nature, he gave it frailty, which would find a way for death to dissolve the creature. For if it were made of such strength that disease and sickness could not approach it, neither could death, since death is the consequence of diseases. But how would untimely death be absent from one for whom a timely death had been appointed?

Surely they want no man to die unless he has completed his hundredth year of age. How will their reasoning be able to hold together amid such great contradiction of things? For in order that no one might die before a hundred years, some strength that is immortal would have to be granted to him. Once that is conceded, the condition of death is necessarily excluded. But what sort of thing can that be, which makes man solid and impregnable against diseases and external blows? For since he is composed of bones, and sinews, and viscera, and blood, which of these can be so firm as to repel frailty and death? In order, then, that man be indissoluble before that time which they think ought to have been appointed, from what material will they assign him a body? All things that can be seen and touched are fragile. It remains that they seek something from heaven, since on earth there is nothing that is not infirm.

Since, therefore, man was to be formed by God in such a way that he would at some point be mortal, the very nature of the matter required that he be fashioned with an earthly and fragile body. It is necessary, therefore, that he receive death at whatever time, since he is corporeal; for every body is dissoluble and mortal. Most foolish, therefore, are those who complain about untimely death, since the condition of nature makes room for it. Thus it will follow that he is also subject to diseases; for nature does not permit that infirmity can be absent from that body which must at some point be dissolved. But let us suppose it possible, as they wish, that man should not be born under the condition of being subject to disease or death, unless he has completed the span of his age and advanced to extreme old age.

They do not see, then, if it were so constituted, what would follow—namely, that during all the rest of that time he could in no way die: but if he can be cut off from sustenance by another, he will be able to die; the matter requires, therefore, that man, who cannot die before a fixed day, should have no need of nourishment from food, since it can be withheld. If he will have no need of food, he will no longer be a man but will become a god. Therefore (as I said above) those who complain about the frailty of man complain above all that they were not born immortal and everlasting. No one ought to die except as an old man. Surely he ought to die for this reason, because he is not God. Yet mortality cannot be joined with immortality.

For if he is mortal in old age, he cannot be immortal in youth; nor is the condition of death foreign to one who is at some point going to die; nor is there any immortality to which a limit has been set. Thus it comes about that immortality being excluded forever, and mortality received for a time, man is placed in such a condition that he is mortal at any age whatsoever. The necessity therefore fits on every side, and it neither ought to have been otherwise, nor was it right that it should be. But these men do not see the consequence of their reasoning, because they went astray at the very outset. For with divine providence excluded from human affairs, it necessarily followed that all things arose of their own accord. Hence they invented those collisions of tiny seeds and chance concurrences, because they did not see the origin of things. Having cast themselves into these straits, necessity then compelled them to think that souls are born together with bodies, and likewise are extinguished together with bodies.

For they had assumed that nothing is made by divine mind. This very assumption they could prove in no other way than by showing that there were certain things in which the reasoning of providence seemed to limp. They therefore found fault with those very things in which providence most wonderfully expressed its divinity, such as those things I mentioned concerning diseases and untimely death, when they ought to have considered what would necessarily follow from these assumptions (and what follows is what I have said)—if man did not receive disease, he would need neither roofs nor clothing. For what would he fear from winds, or rains, or cold, whose power consists in bringing diseases? For this reason he received wisdom, that he might fortify his frailty against harmful things.

It must necessarily follow that, since he receives diseases for the sake of preserving reason, he also always receives death; because he to whom death does not come must necessarily be strong: but infirmity carries within itself the condition of death; but where there is strength, neither can old age have a place, nor death, which follows old age. Moreover, if death were appointed to a fixed age, man would become most insolent and would lack all humanity. For nearly all the laws of humanity by which we cohere among ourselves arise from fear and consciousness of frailty. Indeed, the weaker and more timid animals gather together, so that since they cannot protect themselves by strength, they may be protected by numbers: but the stronger seek out solitudes, because they trust in their strength and power. Man too, if he had sufficient strength in the same way to repel dangers, and needed the help of no other, what society would there be? What reason? What humanity? Or what would be more savage than man? What more brutal? What more monstrous?

But since he is weak, and cannot live by himself without another man, he seeks society, so that the common life may become both more refined and more secure. You see, therefore, that the whole rational nature of man rests above all on this: that he is born naked and fragile, that he is afflicted by diseases, that he is punished by untimely death. If these things are taken away from man, reason and wisdom must necessarily be taken away as well. But I dispute too long about open matters, since it is clear that nothing has ever been made, nor could have been made, without providence. Concerning all its works, if it should now please me to argue through them in order, the subject matter is infinite.

But I have undertaken to speak only about the one body of man, so that in it I may show to what extent the power of divine providence has been present, at least in those things which are comprehensible and open; for those things which belong to the soul can neither be subjected to the eyes nor comprehended. Now we speak of the vessel of man itself, which we see.

In the beginning, when God was fashioning animals, he did not wish to ball them up and gather them into a round shape, so that they might both move for walking and bend themselves easily in any direction: but from the very top of the body he brought forth a head; likewise he brought forth certain members at greater length, which are called feet, so that by alternating movements fixed to the ground they might carry the animal wherever the mind directed, or wherever the necessity of seeking food prompted. From the little vessel of the body itself he made four projecting parts: two at the rear, which in all animals are feet; likewise two nearest to the head and neck, which provide various uses to living creatures. For in cattle and wild beasts the front ones are similar to the rear feet, but in man they are hands; which are born not for walking, but for making and managing.

There is also a third kind, in which those front parts are neither feet nor hands, but wings, in which feathers fixed in order provide the use of flying. Thus one form has diverse species and uses. And in order to firmly hold together the very thickness of the body, he joined together larger and shorter bones one with another, and fitted together as it were a keel, which we call the spine, and he did not wish to form it from one continuous bone, lest the animal should lack the ability to walk and to bend itself. From what is roughly the middle part of it he extended ribs—that is, transverse and flat bones—in different directions, which being gently curved and drawn together almost into a circle upon themselves, cover the internal organs, so that those parts which needed to be made soft and less strong could be protected by the embrace of that solid framework.

At the very top of that construction, which we said resembles the keel of a ship, he placed the head, in which was to be the governance of the whole living creature; and this name was given to it, as Varro writes to Cicero, because from here the senses and nerves take their beginning.

Those parts, however, which we said were brought forth from the body for the purpose of walking, or making, or flying, he wished to consist not of too many long bones, on account of swift mobility, nor of too many short ones, on account of strength, but of few and large bones. For they are either two in number, as in man; or four, as in a quadruped: yet he did not make these solid, lest sluggishness and heaviness should retard them in walking, but hollowed out and filled within with marrow for preserving the vigor of the body; and these again he did not finish as equally extended: but he rounded the topmost parts of them into thicker knobs, so that they might more easily be bound with sinews and turned more safely, whence they are called joints. These knobs, firmly solidified, he covered with a certain smooth covering, which is called cartilage; evidently so that they might be bent without friction and without any sensation of pain.

Yet he did not form these in one uniform manner: for some he made simple and rounded in a circle, in those joints only in which the members needed to move in all directions, as in the shoulder-blades; since it is necessary for the hands to be moved and turned in every direction: but others broad, and even, and rounded on one side, and in those places indeed where the members needed only to be bent, as in the knees and elbows, and in the hands themselves. For just as it was both graceful and useful for the hands to move in every direction from the place where they originate, so assuredly, if this same thing were to happen also in the elbows, such motion would be both superfluous and unseemly.

For then the hand, having lost the dignity which it now possesses, would seem by its excessive mobility to resemble a proboscis, and man would be plainly snake-handed: which kind of thing has been wonderfully accomplished in that most enormous beast. For God, who wished to display his providence and power through the wonderful variety of many things, since he had not extended the head of that animal far enough to be able to touch the ground with its mouth—which would have been horrible and hideous—and because he had armed the mouth itself with protruding tusks in such a way that even if it did touch the ground, the tusks would nonetheless deprive it of the ability to feed, brought forth between them from the very top of the forehead a soft and flexible member, by which it could grasp and hold whatever it wished, lest either the prominent size of the tusks or the shortness of the neck should hinder the means of obtaining food.

I cannot be restrained at this point from refuting once more the folly of Epicurus; for all the ravings of Lucretius are his: who, in order to show that living creatures were born not by any craft of a divine mind but, as he is wont to say, by chance, declared that at the beginning of the world certain other innumerable creatures of wondrous appearance and size had been born, but that these could not endure, because either the faculty of taking food or the means of mating and reproducing had failed them. Evidently, so as to make room for his atoms flying through the infinite void, he wished to exclude divine providence. But since he saw that in all breathing things there is a wondrous design of Providence, what (pray!) was the vanity of saying that monstrous creatures had existed in which the principle of birth was absent?

Since, therefore, all things that we see have been born with reason—for the very act of being born cannot be brought about except by reason—it is manifest that nothing whatsoever devoid of reason could have been generated. For in the fashioning of each individual thing it was foreseen beforehand, both how far it would make use of the service of its members for the necessities of life, and how far, by the joining of bodies, the offspring raised up would preserve all creatures according to their kind.

For if a skilled architect, when he has resolved to construct some great building, first of all considers what the final form of the completed building will be, and measures out beforehand what place awaits a light weight, where the mass of a great structure is to stand, what the intervals between the columns, and what and where the courses and outlets of falling waters and their receptacles—these things, I say, he foresees first, so that whatever is necessary for the work already completed may be set in order together with the very foundations: why should anyone suppose that God, in contriving living creatures, did not foresee beforehand what would be necessary for living before He gave life itself? Which assuredly could not subsist unless those things by which it subsists had first been made. Epicurus therefore saw in the bodies of living creatures the skill of divine reason: but in order to establish what he had rashly assumed beforehand, he added another piece of raving consistent with the former.

For he said that eyes were not born for seeing, nor ears for hearing, nor feet for walking, since these members were born before there was any use of seeing, hearing, and walking; but that all the functions of these arose from the members once born. I fear lest to refute such monstrous and ridiculous notions may seem no less absurd. But it pleases me to be absurd, since we are dealing with an absurd man, lest he think himself too clever. What do you say, Epicurus? Were eyes not born for seeing? Why then do they see? Afterwards, he says, their use became apparent. Therefore they were born for the purpose of seeing; since they can do nothing else but see. Likewise the other members—for what purpose each was born, their very use shows: which use could in no way exist unless all the members had been made so orderly, so providently, that they could have use.

For what if you were to say that birds were not born for flying, nor wild beasts for savagery, nor fish for swimming, nor men for wisdom; when it is apparent that living creatures serve that nature and function for which each was generated? But evidently one who has lost the very sum of truth must always go astray. For if all things are born not by providence but by the chance collisions of atoms, why does it never happen by chance that those first principles come together so as to produce a creature of such a kind that it would hear with its nostrils, smell with its eyes, and see with its ears? For if the first elements leave no kind of arrangement untried, such monsters ought to be generated daily, in which both the order of the members would be reversed and the use far different.

But since all kinds, and all members likewise, maintain their own laws, orders, and uses assigned to them, it is manifest that nothing has been made by chance, since the arrangement of divine reason is perpetually preserved. But we shall refute Epicurus elsewhere; now let us discourse of providence, as we have begun.

God therefore bound and fastened together with sinews the solid supports of the body, which are called bones, knotted and joined to one another, so that the mind, if it wished to move forward or to resist, might use them as reins; and this with no effort and no exertion: but with even the slightest nod it might govern and bend the whole mass of the body. These supports He covered with viscera, as was fitting for each place, so that what was solid might be enclosed and protected. Likewise He mingled veins with the viscera themselves, distributed like channels throughout the whole body, through which the flowing moisture and blood might water all the members with vital juices; and those viscera, formed in the manner that was suited to each kind and place, He covered over with skin laid upon them, which He adorned with beauty alone, or covered with bristles, or protected with scales, or adorned with distinguished plumage. That contrivance of God is indeed wonderful, that one arrangement and one form should present innumerable varieties of appearance.

For in nearly all breathing creatures the same series and order of members exists. First the head, and joined to it the neck. Then the chest joined to the neck, and from it the projecting shoulders, the belly adhering to the chest. Then the genitals attached below the belly. Last of all the thighs and feet. Nor do the members alone maintain their sequence and position in all creatures, but also the parts of the members. For in the head itself, ears occupy a fixed seat, eyes a fixed seat, likewise the nostrils, the mouth too, and in it the teeth and tongue. All of which, though they are the same in all living creatures, yet there is an infinite and manifold diversity of forms; because the things I have mentioned are comprehended in lines variously differing, either more extended or more contracted. What of this—is it not divine, that in so great a multitude of living things, each animal is most beautiful in its own kind and species?

So that if anything were transferred in turn from one to another, nothing would necessarily appear more hindered in usefulness, nothing more unsightly in appearance: as if you were to give an elephant a long neck, or a camel a short one; or if you were to add feet or hair to serpents, in which the length of the body, extended equally and stretched out, exhibits nothing else but that, marked on their backs with spots and supported by the smoothness of their scales, they glide in sinuous windings into slippery courses. In four-footed creatures, however, the same Maker drew out the framework of the spine, led down from the top of the head, further beyond the body, and tapered it into a tail, so that the unseemly parts of the body might either be covered on account of their unsightliness or protected on account of their tenderness, and so that certain small and harmful creatures might be driven from the body by its movement: which member, if you take it away, the animal becomes imperfect and weak.

But where there is reason and a hand, that is no more necessary than a covering of hair: so aptly does each thing suit its own kind, that nothing more unseemly could be devised either for a bare four-footed creature or for a clothed man. But yet, although the very nakedness of man contributes wonderfully to beauty, it was nevertheless not fittingly suited to the head—

For how great the unsightliness in it would be is apparent from baldness. He therefore covered it with hair; and because it was to be at the top, He adorned it as it were like the topmost ridge of a building: which adornment is not gathered into a circle, nor made round in the shape of a cap, lest it be unsightly with certain parts left bare, but is spread out in some places, drawn back in others, according to the seemliness of each place. The brow therefore fenced around on all sides, and the hair spread before the ears from the temples, and the upper parts of the ears girt in the manner of a crown, and the entire back of the head covered, present an appearance of wondrous beauty.

Now the design of the beard contributes an incredible amount, both to the recognition of the maturity of bodies, and to the distinction of sex, and to the comeliness of manliness and strength; so that the design of the whole work would seem altogether not to have held together, if anything had been made otherwise.

Now I shall set forth the plan of the whole man, and explain the uses and character of each member, whether open or covered in the body. Since God had determined to make man alone, of all animals, a heavenly creature, and all the rest earthly, He raised man erect and stiff toward the contemplation of heaven, and established him as a biped, so that he might look toward the place from which his origin came; but the others He pressed down toward the earth, so that, since they have no hope of immortality, they might, with their whole body cast upon the ground, serve the belly and its fodder. Thus the upright bearing and lofty stature of man alone, and his countenance common to and nearest to God the Father, bear witness to his origin and his Maker.

His mind, nearly divine, because it has obtained dominion not only over the living creatures that are on earth but also over its own body, placed as in a high citadel at the summit of the head, surveys and beholds all things. This dwelling of his He formed not flat and extended, as in mute animals, but like a sphere and globe; because all roundness belongs to perfect reason and form. Therein the mind and that divine fire is covered as by a heaven: and when He had clothed the topmost summit of it with its natural garment, He both furnished and adorned the front part, which is called the face, with the necessary services of the members.

And first, He enclosed the orbs of the eyes in hollow sockets, from which perforation Varro thought the forehead (frons) took its name; and He willed them to be neither fewer nor more than two, because for beauty no number is more perfect than two: just as also two ears, whose doubling displays an incredible beauty, both because each side is adorned by the likeness of the other, and so that voices coming from either side may be more easily gathered in; for the very form of them is fashioned in a wondrous manner, in that He willed their openings to be neither bare nor unobstructed, which would have been both less seemly and less useful, since the voice might fly past the narrowness of simple cavities, unless the openings themselves caught it through the hollow recesses and held it by reverberation: like those small vessels by which narrow-mouthed containers are usually filled when placed upon them.

These ears therefore (to which the name was given from drinking in voices, whence Virgil says, with these ears I drank in the voice; or because the Greeks call the voice itself αὐδή, the ears were named from hearing, aures as it were audes, by a change of letter) God the Artificer willed not to be formed of soft little skins, which, hanging and flaccid, would diminish their beauty, nor of hard and solid bones, lest they be immovable and stiff and unfit for use: but He devised what was between these two, so that a somewhat soft cartilage might bind them, and they might have at once a fitting and flexible firmness. In these the function of hearing alone is established, just as in the eyes that of seeing; whose subtlety above all is inexplicable and wonderful, because their orbs, presenting the likeness of gems, He covered on the side where sight was needed with translucent membranes, so that the images of things placed opposite, shining as in a mirror, might penetrate to the inward sense.

Through these membranes, therefore, that sense which is called the mind looks out upon what is outside. Lest you should suppose that we see by the impact of images (as the philosophers have said), since the function of seeing ought to reside in that which sees, not in that which is seen: or by the tension of air, together with the edge or outpouring of rays, since, if it were so, we would see the ray which we direct from our eyes, while the tensed air with its edge, or the outpoured rays, were reaching that which was to be seen. But since we see at the same moment of time, and indeed often while doing something else we nonetheless behold all things placed before us, it is more truly and plainly the case that it is the mind which looks through the eyes at what is set opposite, as through windows covered with clear glass or transparent stone. And therefore the mind and will are often discerned from the eyes. To refute this, Lucretius used a most foolish argument.

For if the mind (he says) sees through the eyes, it would see more with the eyes gouged out and dug away; since doors torn out with their posts admit more light than if they were covered. Doubtless his own eyes, or rather those of Epicurus who taught him, had been gouged out, lest they should see that gouged-out orbs, and torn fibres of the eyes, and blood flowing through the veins, and flesh growing from the wounds, and scars finally drawn over them, can admit no light at all—unless perhaps he wished eyes to be born like ears; so that we should see not so much with eyes as with holes: than which nothing can be made more foul in appearance, more useless in function. For how little could we see, if the mind were to attend from the inmost recesses of the head through the tiny chinks of cavities; as if someone wished to look through a hemlock stalk, he would certainly see no more than the capacity of the stalk itself could encompass.

And so for seeing there was need rather of members gathered together in a sphere, so that vision might be spread broadly, and that they should adhere to the foremost part of the face, so that they might freely behold all things. Therefore the ineffable power of divine providence made two most similar orbs, and bound them together in such a way that they could not be turned about entirely, but could yet be moved and bent within measure. The orbs themselves He willed to be full of pure and liquid moisture, in the middle part of which the sparks of lights are enclosed and held, which we call pupils, in which, pure and subtle, the sense and faculty of seeing is contained. Through these orbs, therefore, the mind directs itself to see, and by a wondrous method the vision of both lights is mingled and joined into one.

It is fitting here to rebuke the vanity of those who, wishing to show that the senses are false, gather many instances in which the eyes are deceived; among which also this, that to the mad and to the drunk all things appear double: as though indeed the cause of that error were obscure. For it happens because there are two eyes. But how this comes about, hear. The sight of the eyes consists in the attention of the mind. And so since the mind (as was said above) uses the eyes as windows, this happens not only to the drunk or the mad, but also to the sane and sober. For if you bring something too close, it will appear double; for there is a fixed interval and space at which the edge of the eyes converges. Likewise if you draw the mind back, as it were to think, and relax the attention of the mind, then the edge of each eye is drawn apart, and then each begins to see separately.

If you direct the mind again and fix the gaze, whatever appeared double comes together into one. What wonder then if the mind, dissolved by poison and the power of wine, cannot direct itself to see, just as the feet cannot direct themselves to walk when the sinews are numbed and weakened? Or if the force of madness raging in the brain breaks apart the harmony of the eyes? This is so true that in one-eyed men, if they become either mad or drunk, it can in no way happen that they see anything double. Wherefore if the reason appears why the eyes are deceived, it is manifest that the senses are not false; which either are not deceived, if they are pure and sound, or if they are deceived, yet the mind is not deceived, which knows their error.

But let us return to the works of God. In order therefore that the eyes might be better protected from injury, He concealed them under the coverings of the eyelids; whence Varro holds that the eyes (oculi) take their name. For the eyelids themselves, to which mobility belongs and which give their name to the word palpitation, fenced about with hairs standing in a row, provide a most seemly barrier for the eyes. Their continual motion, meeting with incomprehensible swiftness, neither hinders the continuity of seeing nor tires the gaze. For the edge of the eye, that is the translucent membrane, which ought not to dry out and become parched, unless it shines purely when wiped by continual moisture, grows dim. What of the very ridges of the eyebrows adorned with short hairs? Do they not, like ramparts, provide both a protection for the eyes lest anything fall upon them from above, and at the same time a pleasing appearance?

From the junction of these the nose rises, and stretching out as it were along an even ridge, at once separates and guards both edges of sight. Also the not unbecoming swelling of the cheeks below, rising gently in the likeness of hills, makes the eyes safer on every side; and provision was made by the supreme Artificer that if any somewhat violent blow should occur, it should be repelled by the projecting parts. The upper part of the nose down to the middle was formed solid, but the lower part was softened by adhering cartilage, so that it might be tractable to the use of the fingers. In this member, though simple, three functions are established: one of drawing in breath; another of receiving smell; the third that through its cavities the purgings of the brain flow down: these very cavities God fashioned with how wonderful, how divine a plan, so that yet the opening of the nose itself should not deform the appearance of the mouth. Which would plainly have happened if one simple opening lay open.

But He divided and separated it as if by a wall drawn through the middle, and by that very doubling made it most beautiful. From this we understand how much the dual number, consolidated into one and simple structure, avails for the perfection of things. For although the body is one, yet the whole could not consist of simple members, unless there were parts either right or left. And so just as two feet, and likewise two hands, avail not only for some utility and use, whether of walking or of doing, but also confer an admirable bearing and comeliness: so in the head, which is as it were the summit of the whole divine work, both hearing is divided by the supreme Artificer into two ears, and sight into two pupils, and smell into two nostrils: because the brain, in which the faculty of sensing resides, although it is one, is yet divided into two parts by an intervening membrane.

But also the heart, which seems to be the dwelling-place of wisdom, although it is one, yet has within two chambers, in which the living springs of blood are contained, divided by an intervening partition; so that just as in the world itself the supreme governance of things, whether duplex from simple or simple from duplex, both governs and contains the whole: so in the body all things compacted from two might display an indissoluble unity. The appearance of the mouth also, and the opening of the jaws spread crosswise, how useful, how seemly it is, cannot be told: its use consists in two functions, of taking food and of speaking.

The tongue enclosed within, which by its movements distinguishes the voice into words, and is the interpreter of the mind; yet it cannot alone by itself fulfil the function of speaking, unless it has struck its point against the palate, unless aided by the collision of the teeth or the compression of the lips: yet the teeth contribute more to speaking; for infants do not begin to speak before they have teeth, and old men who have lost their teeth babble so that they seem to have returned again to infancy. But these things pertain to man alone, or to birds, in which the tongue, sharpened and vibrated with certain movements, expresses innumerable inflections of songs and various modes of sounds. It has moreover another function, which it uses in all creatures, but yet in mute ones alone, in that it gathers the food chewed and ground by the teeth, and having formed it into a mass by its force presses it down and transmits it to the stomach.

And so Varro thinks the name of tongue (lingua) was given from binding (ligando) food. It also aids beasts in drinking; for stretching out and hollowing themselves they draw in water, and having caught it in the hollow of the tongue, lest it flow away by slowness and delay, they press it to the palate with swift movement. This tongue therefore is covered by the hollow of the palate as by a vault; and God fenced it about with the barriers of the teeth as with a wall.

The teeth themselves, fixed in wondrous order, lest they be bare and exposed and a source of horror rather than ornament, he adorned with soft gums (which take their name from generating the teeth) and then with the coverings of the lips; whose hardness, as in a millstone, is greater and rougher than in the other bones, so that they might suffice for grinding foods and fodder. The lips themselves, which were as it were joined together before, he parted with fitting grace; the upper one he marked beneath the very midpoint of the nostrils with a slight hollow, as it were a little valley, and the lower one he gently spread outward for the sake of comeliness. For as regards the receiving of taste, whoever thinks this sense resides in the palate is mistaken; it is the tongue by which flavors are perceived: yet not the whole of it, for those parts of it which are more tender on either side draw the flavor through their most delicate senses.

And although nothing is diminished from either food or drink, yet the flavor penetrates to the sense in an ineffable manner, by the same principle by which no portion of any material is taken away by the perception of its odor. How beautiful the remaining parts are can scarcely be expressed. The chin drawn gently down from the cheeks and closed below in such a way that a lightly impressed division seems to mark its outermost point; the neck firm and rounded; the shoulder-blades let down from the neck as if over gentle ridges; the arms strong and bound with sinews for strength; the vigorous power of the prominent muscles with their notable swellings; the useful and comely bending of the elbows. What shall I say of the hands, ministers of reason and wisdom? These the most skillful craftsman fashioned with a flat and moderately hollowed palm, so that whatever must be held might fitly rest within, and terminated them in fingers: in which it is difficult to determine whether beauty or usefulness is the greater.

For both the number is perfect and complete, and the order and gradation most seemly, and the equal bending of the joints is flexible, and the rounded shape of the nails, grasping and securing the tips of the fingers with their concave coverings lest the softness of the flesh give way in holding, provides great ornament. That feature, moreover, is wonderfully suited to use: that one finger, arising separately from the rest together with the hand itself, spreads out in the opposite direction more freely; this one, presenting itself as it were to meet the others, possesses alone, or chiefly, the entire capacity of holding and making, like a ruler and governor of all the rest; whence it has also received the name of pollex, because it excels the others in force and power. It has indeed two projecting joints, not three like the others, but one is joined to the hand by flesh for the sake of beauty.

For if it too had been divided by three joints, the ugly and unseemly appearance would have robbed the hands of their comeliness.

Now the breadth of the chest, raised up and exposed to the eyes, displays a wondrous dignity of its bearing. The reason for this is that God seems to have formed man alone, as it were, lying face upward (for almost no other animal can lie on its back), whereas he fashioned the mute creatures as though lying on their sides and pressed down toward the earth. Therefore in them the chest is narrow, turned away from sight, and cast downward toward the earth; but in man it is open and erect, because, being full of reason given from heaven, it ought not to be lowly or unseemly. The nipples too, slightly prominent and crowned with darker and small circles, add no little beauty; given to women for nourishing their offspring, given to men for ornament alone, lest the chest appear misshapen and, as it were, mutilated.

Beneath this lies the flatness of the belly, which the navel marks near its middle with a not unbecoming sign, made for the purpose that through it the fetus, while in the womb, may be nourished.

It follows of necessity that I begin to speak also of the internal organs: to which not beauty, since they are hidden, but incredible usefulness has been assigned, inasmuch as it was needful that this earthly body be nourished by some juice from foods and drinks, just as the earth itself is by rains and dews. The most provident craftsman made in the midst of it a receptacle for foods, by the digestion and liquefaction of which he might distribute the vital juices to all the members. But since man consists of body and soul, that receptacle which I mentioned above provides nourishment for the body alone; for the soul, however, he gave another seat. For he made a certain kind of organ, soft and porous, which we call the lung, into which the breath might pass in reciprocal alternation; and he did not fashion it after the manner of a womb, lest the breath be expelled all at once or inflate all at once.

And therefore he did not make it a solid organ, but one capable of inflation and of receiving air, so that it might receive the breath gradually while the vital wind is dispersed through that porousness, and might again gradually release it while it unfolds from within. For the very alternation of blowing and breathing, and the drawing of respiration, sustains life in the body.

Since therefore there are two receptacles in man, one of air, which nourishes the soul, the other of foods, which nourishes the body, in order that the neck may be bent and moved easily, it is necessary that there be two passages through the neck, one for food and one for breath: the upper one leading from the mouth to the stomach, the lower from the nostrils to the lung. Their nature and character are different. For that passage which is from the mouth is made soft, and such as always remains closed and cohering within itself, like the mouth itself; because drink and food, when the throat is moved and opened, since they are corporeal, make a space for themselves to pass through. Breath, on the contrary, which is incorporeal and subtle, because it could not make a space for itself, received an open way, which is called the windpipe. This consists of flexible and soft bones, like rings fitted and joined together in the manner of a reed; and this passage is always open.

For the breath can have no rest in its passage, because that which is ever passing through is usefully restrained, by a portion of the member let down from the brain, called the uvula, as if by a kind of interception, lest either the tender substance of its dwelling be corrupted by a pestilential draft drawn in with force, or the full violence of harm be carried into the inner receptacles. And therefore the nostrils too are briefly opened, which are so named because through them odor or breath never ceases to flow, and they are as it were the doors of this passage. Yet this passage for breath opens not only to the nostrils but also to the mouth in the outermost regions of the palate, where the hills of the fauces, facing the uvula, begin to rise in a swelling.

The reason and cause of this is not obscure; for we would not have the faculty of speech if, as the passage of the gullet leads only to the mouth, so the windpipe led only to the nostrils, nor could the breath proceeding from it produce voice without the ministry of the tongue. Divine wisdom therefore opened a way for the voice from that passage for breath, so that the tongue might be able to perform its ministry, and the unimpeded flow of the voice itself might be broken by its pulsations into words. If this passage be intercepted in any way, it must of necessity render a person mute. For whoever thinks there is another cause why men are mute is certainly mistaken. For they do not (as is commonly believed) have a bound tongue; but such persons pour forth that vocal breath through the nostrils as if bellowing, because the passage of the voice to the mouth is either entirely absent or not so open as to be able to emit a full voice.

This most often occurs by nature; sometimes also it happens by accident, that some disease blocks this passage and does not transmit the voice to the tongue, and makes mute those who were speaking. When this has happened, it is necessary that hearing also be obstructed, so that, because it cannot emit a voice, it cannot admit one either. This passage was therefore opened for the purpose of speech. It also provides that in the celebration of baths, since the nostrils cannot bear the heat, the hot air may be drawn in through the mouth; likewise, if by chance the phlegm of cold has blocked the breathing passages of the nostrils, we may draw air through the mouth, lest, with the faculty of passage obstructed, the breath be strangled. Foods received into the belly, and mixed with the moisture of drink, when they have been thoroughly cooked by heat, their juice is diffused in an ineffable manner through the members, irrigates the whole body, and gives it life.

The manifold coils of the intestines also, and their length wound upon itself, yet bound together by a single ligament—how wondrous a work of God is this? For when the belly has discharged the foods it has macerated, they are gradually pushed through those inner windings, so that whatever juice is in them, by which the body is nourished, may be distributed to all the members. And yet, lest they anywhere adhere and resist—which could happen on account of the very convolutions of those coils often turning back upon themselves, and which could not happen without harm—he coated them within with a thicker juice, so that those waste matters of the belly might more easily press forward to their exits through the slipperiness. That reasoning also is most subtle: that the bladder, the use of which birds do not have, though it is separated from the intestines and has no passage by which it might draw urine from them, is nevertheless filled and distended with moisture.

How this comes about is not difficult to perceive; for those parts of the intestines which receive food and drink from the belly are more open than the other coils, and much thinner. These surround and contain the bladder; and when food and drink mixed together reach those parts, the solid matter becomes thicker and passes through, but all the moisture is strained through that thinness, and the bladder, whose membrane is equally thin and fine, absorbs and collects it, to discharge it outward through the exit which nature has opened.

Of the womb also and conception, since we are speaking of internal things, it is necessary to speak, lest we seem to have passed over anything: which matters, although they lie hidden in secret, cannot yet be hidden from sense and understanding. The vein in males which contains the seed is double, a little more inward than that receptacle of obscene moisture. For just as there are two kidneys, so there are two testes, and likewise two seminal veins, yet cohering in one structure; which we see in the bodies of animals when they are opened after slaughter: but the right one contains the male seed, the left the female; and altogether throughout the whole body the right side is male, the left female. The seed itself some think flows together to the generative vein from the marrow alone, others from the whole body, and there congeals. But how this comes about the human mind cannot comprehend.

Likewise in females the womb divides itself into two parts, which, spread out and bent in opposite directions, are coiled around, like the horns of a ram. The part which turns to the right is male; that which turns to the left is female.

Varro and Aristotle therefore think that conception comes about in this way. They say that seed is present not only in males but also in females, and that offspring are for this reason often born resembling their mothers; but that the seed of females is purified blood, which, if it be rightly mixed with the male seed, both being congealed and coagulated together are formed; and that first the heart of the man is shaped, in which both all life and all wisdom reside; and finally that the whole work is completed on the fortieth day. These conclusions have perhaps been gathered from miscarriages. In the embryos of birds, however, it is beyond doubt that the eyes are formed first, as we often observe in eggs. Whence I think it cannot be but that the formation takes its beginning from the head.

They think that resemblances in the bodies of children come about in this way. When the seeds mixed together coalesce, if the male prevails, the offspring comes forth resembling the father, whether male or female; if the female prevails, the progeny of either sex corresponds to the image of the mother. That one of the two prevails which is more abundant; for it in a manner embraces and encloses the other: hence it most often comes about that the offspring displays the features of one parent only. But if the mixture from equal seed be equal, the forms too are blended; so that the offspring appears either to resemble neither, because it does not have the whole from either one, or to resemble both, because it has borrowed a part from each. For in the bodies of animals we see either the colors of the parents blended together, producing a third resembling neither parent; or those of both so expressed that, with differently colored members, a harmonious mixture is varied throughout the whole body.

Differing natures too are thought to arise in this way. When by chance the seed of male stock falls into the left part of the womb, a male is indeed born, in the common opinion; but because he was conceived in the female part, he has something feminine in him beyond what male dignity permits: either remarkable beauty, or excessive fairness of complexion, or smoothness of body, or delicate limbs, or short stature, or a slender voice, or a weak spirit, or several of these. Likewise, if seed of the female sex has flowed into the right part, a female is indeed produced; but because she was conceived in the male part, she has something of virility in her beyond what the condition of her sex allows: either strong limbs, or immoderate height, or dark complexion, or a rough face, or an unbecoming countenance, or a robust voice, or a bold spirit, or several of these.

But if the male seed passes to the right side and the female to the left, both offspring develop properly; so that females retain in all respects the grace of their own nature, and males preserve virile strength both in mind and body. And how wonderful is this very ordinance of God, that for the preservation of each kind He devised two sexes, male and female; by whose union through the allurements of pleasure a successive offspring might be born, lest the condition of mortality extinguish every race of living things. But greater strength was assigned to males, so that females might more readily be brought to endure the yoke of marriage. The man (vir) is so named because there is greater force (vis) in him than in the woman; and from this word virtue (virtus) received its name.

Likewise woman (mulier), as Varro interprets, comes from softness (mollitie), with a letter changed and removed, as it were mollier; for her, when she has conceived, as the time of birth begins to draw near, the swelling breasts are distended with sweet juices, and the fruitful breast overflows with milky springs for the nourishment of the newborn. Nor indeed was it fitting that anything other than this should occur, that a wise animal should draw its nourishment from the heart. And this itself was most ingeniously arranged, so that a bright and rich fluid might water the tenderness of the new body, until it is both furnished with teeth and strengthened with vigor to take stronger food. But let us return to our subject, so that we may briefly set forth the remaining matters.

I could now set forth for you the wondrous design of the generative members themselves, were I not recalled from such discourse by modesty: and so let those parts which are called shameful be veiled by us with the covering of decency. As regards this matter, it is enough to complain that impious and profane men commit the greatest wickedness, who turn the divine and admirable work of God—provided and effected by an inconceivable design for the propagation of posterity—either to the most shameful gains or to the shameful acts of obscene lust; so that they now seek nothing else from a most sacred thing than empty and barren pleasure. What of the remaining parts of the body—do they lack design and beauty? The flesh gathered into the buttocks, how well fitted for the office of sitting! And the same is firmer than in the other members, lest it yield to the bones under the pressing weight of the body.

Likewise the length of the thigh, drawn down and strong with broader muscles, so that it might more easily sustain the burden of the body: this length, gradually diminishing, is bounded at the narrow point by the knees, whose shapely joints provide the leg with a bending most apt for walking and sitting. Likewise the shins, not drawn in a uniform manner lest an ungainly shape deform the feet, but are both strengthened and adorned by the rounded calves gently projecting and gradually tapering. In the soles indeed the design is the same as in the hands, yet far different: since these are as it were the foundations of the whole body, the most skillful artificer formed them not in a rounded shape, lest a man be unable to stand or need other feet for standing, as quadrupeds do, but more extended and longer, so that by their flatness they might make the body stable; whence their name was given to them.

The toes are equally as many as the fingers on the hands, presenting more of appearance than of greater use, and therefore both joined together, and short, and arranged in gradation: and the one that is largest, since it was not necessary that it be separated from the rest as in the hand, is thus brought into line, yet so that it appears to differ from the others in size and by a slight interval. This comely kinship of the toes strengthens the thrust of the feet with no slight assistance; for we cannot be set in motion for running unless, with the toes pressed into the ground and resting on the sole, we take our impetus and leap. I seem to have set forth all things whose design can be understood. Now I come to those which are either doubtful or obscure.

It is agreed that there are many things in the body whose force and design no one can see through except He who made them. Does anyone think he can explain what utility, what effect that thin translucent membrane has, by which the belly is enmeshed and covered? What of the twin likeness of the kidneys? Which Varro says are so called because streams of foul fluid arise from them: which is far otherwise, since they adhere on either side of the spine lying flat, and are separated from the intestines. What of the spleen? What of the liver? Which viscera seem to be congealed as it were from disturbed blood: what of the most bitter fluid of the gall? What of the globe of the heart?

Unless perhaps we shall think we must believe those who suppose that the passion of anger is located in the gall, of fear in the heart, of joy in the spleen. And they hold that the office of the liver itself is to digest food in the belly by its embrace and warmth: some think that the lusts of venereal things are contained in the liver. First, human sense cannot perceive these things clearly, because the offices of these organs lie hidden in concealment, nor do they demonstrate their functions when laid open. For if it were so, perhaps the more placid animals would have either no gall at all, or less than wild beasts; the more timid would have more heart, the more lustful more liver, the more wanton more spleen. Just as therefore we perceive that we hear with the ears, see with the eyes, smell with the nostrils: so surely we would perceive that we grow angry with the gall, desire with the liver, rejoice with the spleen.

But since we in no way perceive whence these passions come, it is possible both that they come from elsewhere, and that those viscera produce something other than what is supposed. Nor yet can we prove that those who argue these things speak falsely. But all things that pertain to the motions of the soul and spirit I judge to be of so obscure and deep a design that it is above man to see through them clearly. Yet this ought to be certain and beyond doubt, that so many things, so many kinds of viscera, have one and the same office, namely to contain the soul in the body. But what function in particular is assigned to each, who can know, save the artificer, to whom alone his own work is known?

But what account can we give of the voice? Grammarians and philosophers indeed define voice as air struck by breath: whence words (verba) are so named, which is manifestly false. For voice is not produced outside the mouth, but within; and therefore that opinion is more plausible, that compressed breath, when it has been dashed against the obstruction of the throat, produces the sound of the voice: just as when we send breath down into an open pipe held to the lips, and it, rebounding and rolling back from the hollow of the pipe from the bottom, as it returns to meet the descending breath, striving toward the exit, produces a sound, and springing back into vocal breath, the wind animates itself of its own accord. Whether this is true, God the artificer will know. For it seems that the voice arises not from the mouth but from the innermost breast. Moreover, even with the mouth closed, such sound as is possible is emitted through the nostrils.

Furthermore, voice is not produced by the greatest breath with which we pant, and it is produced with light and unconfined breath as often as we wish. It is not therefore grasped how it comes about, or what it is at all. Nor should you think that I am now slipping into the opinion of the Academy, because not all things are incomprehensible. For as it must be admitted that many things are unknown which God willed to exceed the understanding of man: so yet there are many things which can both be perceived by the senses and comprehended by reason. But we shall have an unimpaired disputation against the philosophers. Let us therefore complete the course we are now running.

Who does not know that the design of the mind also is incomprehensible, save one who has none at all, since the very place where the mind is, or what manner of thing it is, is unknown? Various opinions have therefore been debated by philosophers concerning its nature and location. But I will not conceal what I myself think; not because I affirm it to be so (which it is foolish to do in a doubtful matter), but so that, with the difficulty of the subject set forth, you may understand how great is the magnitude of the divine works. Some have held that the seat of the mind is in the breast. If this is so, how great a wonder is it that a thing situated in a dark and shadowy dwelling-place should move in so great a light of reason and understanding? Then too, because the senses from every part of the body converge upon it, so that it seems to be present in whatever region of the members.

Others have said that its seat is in the brain. And indeed they used probable arguments: namely, that what holds the governance of the whole body ought rather to dwell in the highest place, as in a citadel; and that nothing is more exalted than that which governs the whole by reason, just as the very lord and ruler of the world is in the highest place. Then because all the senses, that is the organs serving hearing, seeing, and smelling, are located in the head, and the pathways of all of them lead not to the breast but to the brain: otherwise we would necessarily perceive more slowly, until the faculty of perceiving descended by a long journey through the neck all the way to the breast. These men either are not far wrong, or perhaps are not wrong at all.

For it seems that the mind, which holds dominion over the body, is established in the top of the head, as God is in heaven: but when it is engaged in some thought, it moves to the breast, and withdraws as it were into some secret inner chamber, so that it may draw forth and bring out counsel, as from a hidden treasury; and therefore when we are intent on thinking, and when the mind, occupied, has hidden itself in the depths, we are accustomed neither to hear what is around us nor to see what is before us. Whether this is so or not, it is surely wonderful how it comes about, since no passage lies open from the brain to the breast. But if it is not so, it is nonetheless wonderful that it comes about by some divine design that it appears to be so.

Can anyone fail to wonder that that living and heavenly sense, which is called mind or soul, is of such great mobility that it does not rest even when it is asleep; of such great swiftness that in a single point of time it surveys the whole heaven, and if it wishes, flies over the seas, traverses lands and cities, and finally sets before itself in view all things that it pleases, however far and wide they may be removed? And does anyone wonder if the divine mind of God, intent upon all parts of the universe, ranges through and governs all things, orders all things, present everywhere, diffused everywhere; when so great is the force and power of the human mind enclosed within a mortal body, that it cannot in any way be confined even by the barriers of this heavy and sluggish body to which it is bound, so as not to grant itself, impatient of rest, a free faculty of wandering?

Whether therefore the mind dwells in the head or in the breast, can anyone comprehend what force of reason brings it about that that incomprehensible sense either clings in the marrow of the brain, or in that bipartite blood which is enclosed in the heart? And not from this very fact conclude how great is the power of God, in that the soul does not see itself, either what manner of thing it is or where it is; nor, if it did see, could it yet perceive in what manner an incorporeal thing is joined to a corporeal thing?

Or even if the mind has no location, but dispersed throughout the whole body ranges freely, which both can happen and was argued by Xenocrates the disciple of Plato, since sense is present in whatever part of the body, neither what this mind is nor what manner of thing it is can be understood, since its nature is so subtle and fine that, infused into the solid viscera, it mingles with all the members in a living and as it were burning sense.

But beware lest you ever think likely to be true what Aristoxenus said: that there is no mind at all, but that, as a kind of harmony in strings, the power of sensation arises from the construction of the body and the joinings of the viscera. For musicians call harmony the tension and concord of strings in complete modes, consonant without any discord. They therefore hold that the soul subsists in man by a similar principle as concordant melody subsists in strings; namely, that the firm conjunction of the individual parts of the body, and the agreeing vigor of all the members united into one, produces that sensitive motion and tunes the soul, just as strings well tuned produce a harmonious sound. And just as in strings, when something is either broken or relaxed, all the principle of singing is disturbed and dissolved: so in the body, when some part of the members has contracted a defect, the whole is destroyed, and with all things corrupted and disordered, sensation perishes, and this is called death.

But he, if he had had any mind, would not have transferred harmony from strings to man. For strings cannot sing of their own accord, so that there is any comparison and likeness to a living being in them. But the soul both thinks and moves of its own accord. For if there were anything in us resembling harmony, it would be moved by an external stroke, as strings are by hands, which without the touch and stroke of fingers of the player lie mute and inert: But he of course needed to be struck by a hand so that he might at some point feel; because his mind, ill compacted from his members, was torpid.

Those who supposed the soul to be fire used this argument: that when the soul is present the body is warm, and when it departs the body grows cold. But fire both lacks sensation, and is visible, and burns by touch. The soul, however, is both endowed with sensation, and cannot be seen, and does not scorch. Hence it appears that the soul is something akin to God. But those who suppose it to be wind are deceived by the fact that, drawing breath from the air, we seem to live. Varro defines it thus: "The soul is air taken in by the mouth, warmed in the lungs, heated in the heart, and diffused through the body." These things are most plainly false. For I do not say that the reasoning in such matters is so obscure to us that we cannot even understand what cannot be true.

If someone were to tell me that the sky is made of bronze, or of glass, or, as Empedocles says, of frozen air, should I immediately assent, merely because I do not know of what material the sky is made? For just as I do not know that, so I do know this. The soul, therefore, is not air taken in by the mouth, because the soul is generated long before air can be taken in by the mouth. For it does not enter the body after birth, as some philosophers suppose, but immediately after conception, when divine necessity has formed the embryo in the womb; for it lives so fully within the mother's womb that it both grows by increase and eagerly strives to emerge with frequent pulsings. Finally, a miscarriage must occur if the living being within has been extinguished. The remaining parts of that definition tend toward the conclusion that during those nine months in which we were in the womb we should seem to have been dead. None of these three opinions, therefore, is true.

Yet it must not be said that those who held these views were so entirely wrong as to have said nothing at all; for we live by blood, and heat, and breath together. But since it is agreed that the soul in the body is united from all of these, they did not properly express what it is, because it can no more be expressed than it can be seen.

There follows another question, itself likewise inextricable: whether the soul (anima) and the mind (animus) are the same thing, or whether that by which we live is one thing, and that by which we perceive and think is another. Arguments are not lacking on either side. For those who say they are one follow this reasoning: that one can neither live without sensation, nor have sensation without life; and therefore that which cannot be separated cannot be different, but whatever it is, it has both the function of living and the faculty of perceiving. For this reason the two Epicurean poets use the words animus and anima interchangeably.

But those who say they are distinct argue thus: that it can be understood that the mind is one thing and the soul another, because while the soul remains intact the mind can be extinguished, as is wont to happen in the insane; likewise, because the soul is stilled by death, the mind by sleep, and indeed in such a way that it not only is ignorant of what is happening or where it is, but is also deceived by the contemplation of false things. How this very thing comes about cannot be fully seen; why it comes about can be. For we can in no way rest unless the mind is held occupied by the images of visions. The mind lies hidden, oppressed by sleep, like a fire smothered under a covering of ash, which, if you stir it a little, blazes up again and, as it were, awakens.

It is therefore drawn away by phantoms until the limbs, drenched in slumber, are refreshed; for the body, while sensation is awake, even though it lies motionless, is nevertheless not at rest, because sensation blazes within it and quivers like a flame, and holds all the limbs drawn tight to itself. But after the mind has been led away from its attention to the contemplating of images, then at last the whole body is released into rest. The mind is led away by blind thought, when, compelled by darkness, it has begun to be with itself alone: while it is intent upon those things about which it thinks, sleep suddenly steals upon it, and the thought itself gradually slides into the nearest images; and so it begins also to see those things which it had set before its eyes. Then it proceeds further and finds diversions for itself, lest it interrupt the most wholesome rest of the body.

For just as the mind during the day is diverted by true visions lest it fall asleep, so at night by false ones lest it be awakened. For if it perceives no images, it will either have to remain awake, or be lulled in perpetual death. Therefore the faculty of dreaming has been granted by God for the sake of sleeping; and indeed in common to all living creatures: but this especially to man, that when God gave that faculty for the sake of rest, He reserved for Himself the power of teaching man future things through a dream. For histories often attest that there have been dreams whose outcome was immediate and wonderful; and the responses of our prophets have in part been constituted from dreams. Wherefore they are neither always true nor always false, as Virgil bears witness, who wished there to be two gates of dreams.

But those which are false are seen for the sake of sleeping; those which are true are sent by God, so that by this revelation we may learn of impending good or evil.

This question too may arise: whether the soul is generated from the father, or rather from the mother, or indeed from both. But I claim the right to decide this matter from an ambiguous position. For none of these three is true, because souls are not sown from either one or both. For body can be born from bodies, since something is contributed from each; but from souls a soul cannot be, because nothing can be taken away from something subtle and incomprehensible. And so the principle of sowing souls belongs to God alone and to no other. As Lucretius says. For from mortal things nothing but what is mortal can be generated. Nor ought he to be considered a father who in no way perceives that he has poured forth or breathed a soul from his own substance; nor, if he does perceive it, has he grasped in his mind when or how it comes about.

From this it appears that souls are not given by parents, but by the one and same Father of all, who alone holds the law and principle of birth, since He alone brings it about. For the earthly parent's part is nothing except to emit or receive, with the sensation of pleasure, the bodily fluid in which the material of birth resides; and beyond this act the man stands apart and can do nothing more: and therefore they desire that children be born to them, because they do not make them themselves. All the rest belongs to God: namely, the conception itself, and the forming of the body, and the breathing in of the soul, and safe delivery, and whatever thereafter avails for the preservation of man; it is His gift that we breathe, that we live, that we flourish. For beyond the fact that by His beneficence we are sound in body, and that He supplies us with sustenance from various things, He also bestows wisdom upon man, which an earthly father can in no way give.

And therefore from the wise the foolish are often born, and from the foolish the wise; which some assign to fate and to the stars. But this is not the place to discuss fate. It is enough to say this: that even if the stars contain the efficacy of things, it is nonetheless certain that all things are done by God, who both made and ordered the stars themselves. Foolish, therefore, are those who take this power away from God and attribute it to His work.

This heavenly and glorious gift of God, then, whether we use it or do not use it, He willed to be in our own power. For by granting this, He bound man himself by the sacrament of virtue, through which he might be able to attain life. For great is the power of man, great his reason, great his sacrament: from which if anyone has not fallen away, nor betrayed his faith and devotion, this man is blessed, this man finally (to put it briefly) must needs be like unto God. For whoever measures man by the flesh is in error. For this little body with which we are clothed is the vessel of man. For man himself can neither be touched, nor seen, nor comprehended, because he lies hidden within that which is visible. If he shall have been in this life more soft and tender than his nature demands, if, scorning virtue, he has given himself over to the desires of the flesh, he will fall and be pressed down into the earth.

But if (as he ought) he shall have readily and steadfastly defended his condition, which he has rightly received as upright, if he shall not have served the earth, which he ought to tread upon and overcome, he will merit everlasting life.

These things I have set forth to you, Demetrianus, for the present briefly, and perhaps more obscurely than was fitting, as the necessity of the subject and the time demanded; with which you ought to be content, being about to receive more and better, if indulgence shall come to us from heaven. Then therefore I shall exhort you to the teaching of true philosophy both more plainly and more truly. For I have resolved to commit to writing as many things as I can that pertain to the state of the blessed life; and indeed against the philosophers, since they are pernicious and burdensome in their efforts to confound the truth. For the incredible force of their eloquence, and the subtlety of their argumentation and disputation, would easily deceive anyone: these men we shall refute partly with our own weapons, and partly with those taken from their own mutual contentions; so that it may appear that they have introduced error rather than removed it. Perhaps you will wonder that I dare so great an undertaking.

Shall we then suffer truth to be extinguished or suppressed? I for my part would more willingly fail under this burden. For if Marcus Tullius, the sole exemplar of eloquence itself, was often overcome by the unlearned and ineloquent, who nevertheless strove on behalf of truth, why should we despair that truth itself will prevail against deceitful and captious eloquence by its own proper force and clarity? Those men indeed are accustomed to profess themselves champions of truth: but who can defend a matter which he has not learned, or make clear to others what he himself does not know? I seem to promise great things: but a heavenly gift is needed, that faculty and time may be granted to us for pursuing our purposes.

But if life is to be desired by the wise man, assuredly I would desire to live for no other reason than to accomplish something worthy of life, and something that may bring benefit to readers, if not in eloquence, because the stream of fluency in us is thin, yet at least for living: which is most necessary. When this is accomplished, I shall consider that I have lived long enough, and have fulfilled the duty of a man, if my labor shall have freed some men from their errors and directed them onto the heavenly path.