Chapter XXIV.—Plato’s Inconsistency. He Supposes the Soul Self-Existent, Yet Capable of Forgetting What Passed in a Previous State.

In the first place, I cannot allow that the soul is capable of a failure of memory; because he has conceded to it so large an amount of divine quality as to put it on a par with God. He makes it unborn, which single attribute I might apply as a sufficient attestation of its perfect divinity; he then adds that the soul is immortal, incorruptible, incorporeal—since he believed God to be the same—invisible, incapable of delineation, uniform, supreme, rational, and intellectual. What more could he attribute to the soul, if he wanted to call it God? We, however, who allow no appendage to God177    Nihil Deo appendimus. (in the sense of equality), by this very fact reckon the soul as very far below God: for we suppose it to be born, and hereby to possess something of a diluted divinity and an attenuated felicity, as the breath (of God), though not His spirit; and although immortal, as this is an attribute of divinity, yet for all that passible, since this is an incident of a born condition, and consequently from the first capable of deviation from perfection and right,178    Exorbitationis. and by consequence susceptible of a failure in memory. This point I have discussed sufficiently with Hermogenes.179    In his, now lost, treatise, De Censu Animæ. But it may be further observed, that if the soul is to merit being accounted a god, by reason of all its qualities being equal to the attributes of God, it must then be subject to no passion, and therefore to no loss of memory; for this defect of oblivion is as great an injury to that of which you predicate it, as memory is the glory thereof, which Plato himself deems the very safeguard of the senses and intellectual faculties, and which Cicero has designated the treasury of all the sciences. Now we need not raise the doubt whether so divine a faculty as the soul was capable of losing memory: the question rather is, whether it is able to recover afresh that which it has lost. I could not decide whether that, which ought to have lost memory, if it once incurred the loss, would be powerful enough to recollect itself. Both alternatives, indeed, will agree very well with my soul, but not with Plato’s. In the second place, my objection to him will stand thus: (Plato,) do you endow the soul with a natural competency for understanding those well-known ideas of yours? Certainly I do, will be your answer. Well, now, no one will concede to you that the knowledge, (which you say is) the gift of nature, of the natural sciences can fail.  But the knowledge of the sciences fails; the knowledge of the various fields of learning and of the arts of life fails; and so perhaps the knowledge of the faculties and affections of our minds fails, although they seem to be inherent in our nature, but really are not so:  because, as we have already said,180    Above, in ch. xix. xx. pp. 200, 201. they are affected by accidents of place, of manners and customs, of bodily condition, of the state of man’s health—by the influences of the Supreme Powers, and the changes of man’s free-will.  Now the instinctive knowledge of natural objects never fails, not even in the brute creation. The lion, no doubt, will forget his ferocity, if surrounded by the softening influence of training; he may become, with his beautiful mane, the plaything of some Queen Berenice, and lick her cheeks with his tongue.  A wild beast may lay aside his habits, but his natural instincts will not be forgotten. He will not forget his proper food, nor his natural resources, nor his natural alarms; and should the queen offer him fishes or cakes, he will wish for flesh; and if, when he is ill, any antidote be prepared for him, he will still require the ape; and should no hunting-spear be presented against him, he will yet dread the crow of the cock. In like manner with man, who is perhaps the most forgetful of all creatures, the knowledge of everything natural to him will remain ineradicably fixed in him,—but this alone, as being alone a natural instinct. He will never forget to eat when he is hungry; or to drink when he is thirsty; or to use his eyes when he wants to see; or his ears, to hear; or his nose, to smell; or his mouth, to taste; or his hand, to touch.  These are, to be sure, the senses, which philosophy depreciates by her preference for the intellectual faculties.  But if the natural knowledge of the sensuous faculties is permanent, how happens it that the knowledge of the intellectual faculties fails, to which the superiority is ascribed? Whence, now, arises that power of forgetfulness itself which precedes recollection? From long lapse of time, he says. But this is a shortsighted answer. Length of time cannot be incidental to that which, according to him, is unborn, and which therefore must be deemed most certainly eternal. For that which is eternal, on the ground of its being unborn, since it admits neither of beginning nor end of time, is subject to no temporal criterion. And that which time does not measure, undergoes no change in consequence of time; nor is long lapse of time at all influential over it. If time is a cause of oblivion, why, from the time of the soul’s entrance into the body, does memory fail, as if thenceforth the soul were to be affected by time? for the soul, being undoubtedly prior to the body, was of course not irrespective of time. Is it, indeed, immediately on the soul’s entrance into the body that oblivion takes place, or some time afterwards? If immediately, where will be the long lapse of the time which is as yet inadmissible in the hypothesis?181    Or, “which has been too short for calculation.” Take, for instance, the case of the infant. If some time afterwards, will not the soul, during the interval previous to the moment of oblivion, still exercise its powers of memory? And how comes it to pass that the soul subsequently forgets, and then afterwards again remembers? How long, too, must the lapse of the time be regarded as having been, during which the oblivion oppressed the soul? The whole course of one’s life, I apprehend, will be insufficient to efface the memory of an age which endured so long before the soul’s assumption of the body.  But then, again, Plato throws the blame upon the body, as if it were at all credible that a born substance could extinguish the power of one that is unborn. There exist, however, among bodies a great many differences, by reason of their rationality, their bulk, their condition, their age, and their health.  Will there then be supposed to exist similar differences in obliviousness? Oblivion, however, is uniform and identical. Therefore bodily peculiarity, with its manifold varieties, will not become the cause of an effect which is an invariable one. There are likewise, according to Plato’s own testimony, many proofs to show that the soul has a divining faculty, as we have already advanced against Hermogenes. But there is not a man living, who does not himself feel his soul possessed with a presage and augury of some omen, danger, or joy. Now, if the body is not prejudicial to divination, it will not, I suppose, be injurious to memory. One thing is certain, that souls in the same body both forget and remember. If any corporeal condition engenders forgetfulness, how will it admit the opposite state of recollection? Because recollection, after forgetfulness, is actually the resurrection of the memory. Now, how should not that which is hostile to the memory at first, be also prejudicial to it in the second instance? Lastly, who have better memories than little children, with their fresh, unworn souls, not yet immersed in domestic and public cares, but devoted only to those studies the acquirement of which is itself a reminiscence? Why, indeed, do we not all of us recollect in an equal degree, since we are equal in our forgetfulness? But this is true only of philosophers! But not even of the whole of them. Amongst so many nations, in so great a crowd of sages, Plato, to be sure, is the only man who has combined the oblivion and the recollection of ideas. Now, since this main argument of his by no means keeps its ground, it follows that its entire superstructure must fall with it, namely, that souls are supposed to be unborn, and to live in the heavenly regions, and to be instructed in the divine mysteries thereof; moreover, that they descend to this earth, and here recall to memory their previous existence, for the purpose, of course, of supplying to our heretics the fitting materials for their systems.

CAPUT XXIV.

Primo quidem oblivionis capacem animam non cedam, quia tantam illi concessit divinitatem, ut Deo adaequetur: innatam eam facit, quod et solum armare potuissem ad testimonium plenae divinitatis: adjicit immortalem, incorruptibilem, incorporalem, quia hoc et Deum credidit, invisibilem, ineffigiabilem, uniformem, principalem, rationalem, intellectualem. Quid amplius proscriberet animam, si eam Deum nuncuparet? Nos autem qui nihil Deo appendimus, hoc ipso animam longe infra Deum expendimus, quod natam eam agnoscimus, ac per hoc dilutioris divinitatis, et exilioris felicitatis; ut flatum, non ut spiritum; et si immortalem, ut hoc sit divinitatis, 0687C tamen passibilem, ut hoc sit nativitatis: ideoque et a primordio exorbitationis capacem, et inde etiam oblivionis affinem. Satis de isto cum 0688A Hermogene . Caeterum, quae, ut haberi merito possit ex peraequatione omnium proprietatum deus, nulli passioni subjacebit; ita nec oblivioni, cum tanta sit injuria oblivio, quanta est gloria ejus, cujus injuria est, memoria scilicet: quam et ipse Plato sensuum et intellectuum salutem, et Cicero thesaurum omnium studiorum praedicavit. Nec hoc jam in dubium deducetur, an tam divina anima memoriam potuerit amittere; sed an quam amiserit, recuperare denuo possit. Quae enim non debuit oblivisci, si oblita sit, nescio an valeat recordari. Ita utrumque meae animae, non platonicae congruet. Secundo gradu opponam: natura compotem animam facis idearum illarum, annon? Imo natura, inquis. Nemo ergo concedet naturalem scientiam naturalium excidere artium. 0688B Excidet studiorum, excidet doctrinarum, disciplinarum, excidet fortasse et ingeniorum, et affectuum: quae naturae videntur, non tamen sunt, quia, ut praemisimus et pro locis, et pro institutionibus, et pro corpulentiis, ac valetudinibus, et pro potestatibus dominatricibus, pro libertatibus arbitrii, ex accidentibus constant. Naturalium vero scientia ne in bestiis quidem deficit. Plane obliviscetur feritatis leo, mansuetudinis eruditione praeventus, et cum toto suggestu jubarum , delicium fiet Berenices alicujus reginae, lingua genas ejus emaculans; mores bestiam relinquent: scientia naturalium permanebit. Non obliviscetur idem naturalium pabulorum, naturalium remediorum, naturalium terrorum; etsi de piscibus, etsi de placentis regina ei obtulerit, carnem 0688C desiderabit; etsi languenti theriacam composuerit, simiam leo requiret: et si nullum illi venabulum obfirmabit, gallum tamen formidabit. Perinde et homini 0689A omnium forsitan obliviosissimo inobliterata perseverabit sola scientia naturalium, ut sola scilicet naturalis; memor semper manducandi in esurie, et bibendi in siti, et oculis videndum, et auribus audiendum, et naribus odorandum, et ore gustandum, et manu contrectandum. Hi sunt certe sensus, quos philosophia depretiat intellectualium praelatione. Igitur si naturalis scientia sensualium permanet, quomodo intellectualium, quae potior habetur, intercidit? Unde nunc ipsa vis oblivionis antecedentis recordationem? Ex multitudine, ait, temporis. Satis improspecte. Quantitas enim temporis non pertinebit ad eam rem quae innata dicatur, ac per hoc potissimum aeterna credatur. Quod enim aeternum est, eo quia et innatum est, neque initium, neque finem temporis 0689B admittendo, nullum modum temporis patitur; cui temporis modus nullus est, nec ulla demutatione tempori subest, nec ea de multitudine tempori vis est . Si tempus in caussa est oblivionis, cur, ex quo anima corpori inducitur, memoria delabitur, quasi exinde tempus anima sustineat, quae sine dubio prior corpore, non fuit utique sine tempore? Ingressa vero corpus, statimne obliviscitur, an aliquanto post? Si statim, et quae erit temporis nondum supputandi multitudo? infantia scilicet. Si aliquando post, ergo illo in spatio ante tempora oblivionis memor adhuc aget anima, et quale est, ut postea obliviscatur, et rursus postea recordetur? Quoquo autem tempore illam oblivio irruerit, quantus hic etiam habebitur modus temporis? tota opinor vitae decursio satis non 0689C erit ad evertendam memoriam tanti ante corpus aevi. Sed rursus Plato caussam demutat in corpus. Quasi et hoc fide dignum, ut nata substantia innatae vim exstinguat. Magnae autem et multae differentiae corporum, pro gentilitate, pro magnitudine, pro habitudine, pro aetate, pro valetudine. Num ergo et oblivionum differentiae aestimabuntur? Sed uniformis oblivio est; ergo non erit corporalitas multiformis in caussa exitus uniformis. Multa item documenta, teste ipso Platone, divinationem animae probaverunt, quae proposuimus jam Hermogeni. Sed nec 0690A quisquam hominum, non et ipse aliquando praesagam animam suam sentit, aut ominis, aut periculi, aut gaudii augurem. Si divinationi non obstrepit corpus, nec memoriae, opinor, officiet. In eodem certe corpore, et obliviscuntur animae, et recordantur. Si qua corporis ratio incutit oblivionem, quomodo contrariam ejus admittet recordationem? quia et ipsa post oblivionem recordatio, memoria recidiva est. Quod primae memoriae adversatur, cur non et secundae refragatur ? Postremo, qui magis reminiscerentur quam pueruli, ut recentiores animae, ut nondum immersae domesticis ac publicis curis, ut ipsis solis deditae studiis, quorum discentiae reminiscentiae fiunt? Imo cur non ex aequo omnes recordamur, cum ex aequo omnes obliviscamur, sed tantummodo Philosophi? 0690B Ne hi quidem omnes. Plato scilicet solus in tanta gentium sylva, in tanto sapientium prato, idearum et oblitus et recordatus est . Igitur si nullo modo consistit argumentatio ista praecipua, totum illud pariter eversum est, cui accommodata est, ut animae et innatae, et in coelestibus conversatae, et consciae divinorum illic, et inde delatae, et hic recordatae crederentur, ad occasiones plane haereticis subministrandas.