He asks what is the exact measure of deformity by which you can
recognize whether or no a child has a soul? What is the precise degree
at which it must be declared a monster and deprived of a soul?

One asks still further what would be a soul which never has any but
fantastic ideas? there are some which never escape from them. Are they
worthy or unworthy? what is to be done with their pure spirit?

What is one to think of a child with two heads? without deformity apart
from this? Some say that it has two souls because it is provided with
two pineal glands, with two _corpus callosum_, with two _sensorium
commune_. Others reply that one cannot have two souls when one has only
one chest and one navel.[22]

In fine, so many questions have been asked about this poor human soul,
that if it were necessary to answer them all, this examination of its
own person would cause it the most intolerable boredom. There would
happen to it what happened to Cardinal de Polignac at a conclave. His
steward, tired of never being able to make him settle his accounts, made
the journey from Rome, and came to the little window of his cell
burdened with an immense bundle of papers. He read for nearly two hours.
At last, seeing that no reply was forthcoming, he put his head forward.
The cardinal had departed nearly two hours before. Our souls will depart
before their stewards have acquainted them with the facts: but let us be
exact before God, whatever sort of ignoramuses we are, we and our
stewards.


FOOTNOTES: