disposition of their organs: thus it is seen, that a clock composed only
of wheels and weights can number the hours and measure time more exactly
than we with all our skin.

I had after this described the reasonable soul, and shown that it could by
no means be educed from the power of matter, as the other things of which
I had spoken, but that it must be expressly created; and that it is not
sufficient that it be lodged in the human body exactly like a pilot in a
ship, unless perhaps to move its members, but that it is necessary for it
to be joined and united more closely to the body, in order to have
sensations and appetites similar to ours, and thus constitute a real man.
I here entered, in conclusion, upon the subject of the soul at
considerable length, because it is of the greatest moment: for after the
error of those who deny the existence of God, an error which I think I
have already sufficiently refuted, there is none that is more powerful in
leading feeble minds astray from the straight path of virtue than the
supposition that the soul of the brutes is of the same nature with our
own; and consequently that after this life we have nothing to hope for or
fear, more than flies and ants; in place of which, when we know how far
they differ we much better comprehend the reasons which establish that the
soul is of a nature wholly independent of the body, and that consequently
it is not liable to die with the latter and, finally, because no other
causes are observed capable of destroying it, we are naturally led thence
to judge that it is immortal.



PART VI

Three years have now elapsed since I finished the treatise containing all