so bold as to ascribe this to chance?


SECT. XLVII. The Power of the Soul over the Body is not only
Supreme or Absolute, but Blind at the same time.


But that power, which is so supreme and absolute, is blind at the
same time. The most simple and ignorant peasant knows how to move
his body as well as a philosopher the most skilled in anatomy. The
mind of a peasant commands his nerves, muscles, and tendons, which
he knows not, and which he never heard of. He finds them without
knowing how to distinguish them, or knowing where they lie; he calls
precisely upon such as he has occasion for, nor does he mistake one
for the other. If a rope-dancer, for instance, does but will, the
spirits instantly run with impetuousness, sometimes to certain
nerves, sometimes to others--all which distend or slacken in due
time. Ask him which of them he set a-going, and which way he begun
to move them? He will not so much as understand what you mean. He
is an absolute stranger to what he has done in all the inward
springs of his machine. The lute-player, who is perfectly well
acquainted with all the strings of his instrument, who sees them
with his eyes, and touches them one after another with his fingers,
yet mistakes them sometimes. But the soul that governs the machine
of man's body moves all its springs in time, without seeing or
discerning them, without being acquainted with their figure,
situation, or strength, and yet it never mistakes. What prodigy is
here! My mind commands what it knows not, and cannot see; what
neither has, nor is capable of any knowledge. And yet it is
infallibly obeyed. How much blindness and how much power at once is