possible for so many different voices to strike at once my ear
without confounding one another, and for those sounds to leave in
me, after they have ceased to be, so lively and so distinct images
of what they have been? How careful was the Artificer who made our
bodies to give our eyes a moist, smooth, and sliding cover to close
them; and why did He leave our ears open? Because, says Cicero, the
eyes must be shut against the light in order to sleep; and, in the
meantime, the ears ought to remain open in order to give us warning,
and wake us by the report of noise, when we are in danger of being
surprised. Who is it that, in an instant, imprints in my eye the
heaven, the sea, and the earth, seated at almost an infinite
distance? How can the faithful images of all the objects of the
universe, from the sun to an atom, range themselves distinctly in so
small an organ? Is not the substance of the brain, which preserves,
in order, such lively representations of all the objects that have
made an impression upon us ever since we were in the world, a most
wonderful prodigy? Men admire with reason the invention of books,
wherein the history of so many events, and the collection of so many
thoughts, are preserved. But what comparison can be made between
the best book and the brain of a learned man? There is no doubt but
such a brain is a collection infinitely more precious, and of a far
more excellent contrivance, than a book. It is in that small
repository that a man never misses finding the images he has
occasion for. He calls them, and they come; he dismisses them, and
they sink I know not where, and disappear, to make room for others.
A man shuts or opens his fancy at pleasure, like a book. He turns,
as it were, its leaves; and, in an instant, goes from one end to the
other. There is even in memory a sort of table, like the index of a
book, which shows where certain remote images are to be found. We
do not find that these innumerable characters, which the mind of man