The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

to mere skeletons, either by wasting diseases or laborious old age;⁠ ⁠… they, who labor for true courage, are such as exercise themselves in true wisdom.” (Philo Judaeus, De Virtutibus.) Non in viribus corporis et lacertis tantummodo fortitudinis gloria est, sed magis in virtute animi.⁠ ⁠… Jure ea fortitudo vocatur, quando unusquisque seipsum vincit, iram continet, nullis illecebris emollitur atque inflectitur, non adversis perturbatur, non extollitur secundis, etc.: “The true excellency of courage does not consist so much in the strength of the body and arms, as in the virtue of the mind;⁠ ⁠… that is truly called courage when a man subdues himself, keeps under his passions, is not weakened or drawn aside by any temptations, is not depressed in adversity nor puffed up in prosperity, etc.” (St. Ambrose, De Officiis Ministrorum.) ↩

Qui se ipse norit, primùm aliquid sentiet se habere divinum, etc.: “He that understands what sort of a being he himself is, will find that he has something divine in him, etc.” (Cicero, De Legibus.) ↩

Εἰ μήτε ἔξωθεν κινεῖται [τὸ σῶμα] ὡς τὰ ἄψυχα, μήτε φυσικῶς ὡς τὸ πῦρ, δῆλον ὅτι ὑπὸ ψυχῆς κινεῖται, κ.τ.λ.: “If [the body] be not moved by something external, as things inanimate are; or if it has not a natural motion, as fire has; it is manifest that it must then be moved by the soul.” (Gregory Thaumaturgus, Ad Tatianum de anima per capita disputatio.) ↩

Which is, ὡς ἐιπεῖν, οἶκός ὲστι τῶν ἀισθήσεων: “as it were, the seat of sensation.” (Artemidorus Daldianus, Oneirocritica.) ↩

Ὅπου ὁ βασιλεὺς, ἐκεῖ καὶ ὁι δορυφόροι· δορυφόροι δὲ ἀἰσθήσεις τοῦ νοῦ, περὶ κεφαλὴν οὖσαι: “Where the king is, there are his guards also; now the senses are the guards of the mind, and these are about the head.” (Philo Judaeus, Legum Allegoriarum.) ↩

Τὰ μέρη τοῦ σώματος ἄλογά ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾿ ὅταν ὁρμὴ γένηται, σείσαντος ὥσπερ ἡνίας τοῦ λογισμοῦ, πάντα τέτακται καὶ συνῆκται καὶ ὑπακούει: “The members of the body are not endowed with reason, but as soon as any appetites arise, the reason directs them as a bridle, and all things are regulated, adjusted, and submit to it.” (Plutarch, Moralia.) ↩

Nos ne nunc quidem oculis cernimus ea, quæ videmus: neque enim est ullus sensus in corpore, sed⁠ ⁠… viæ quasi quædam sunt ad oculos, ad aures, ad nares à sede animi perforatæ. Itaque sæpe aut cogitatione aut aliqua vi morbi impediti, apertis atque integris et oculis et auribus, nec videmus, nec audimus: ut facilè intelligi possit, animum et videre, et audire, non eas partes, quæ quasi fenestræ sunt animi: quibus tamen sentire nihil queat mens, nisi id agat, et adsit: “We do not now see objects with our eyes; for there is no perception in the body,⁠ ⁠… but there are particular passages which go from the seat of the soul to the eyes, the ears, and the nose. Wherefore when we are very thoughtful, or when we are hindered by any violent disease, we neither see nor hear, though our eyes and ears be open and sound; whence we may easily apprehend, that it is the soul that sees and hears, and not those parts which are, as it were, the windows of the soul, and which it cannot make use of unless it be present and attends to it.” (Cicero, Epistles.) ↩

Or even detracto corpore multo: “if a great part of the body were pulled off,” as Lucretius speaks. (De Rerum Natura.) ↩

Πολλάκις καὶ τῶν χειρῶν καὶ τῶν ποδῶν ἐκκεκομμένων, ὁλόκληρος ἐκείνη [ἡ ψυχὴ] μένει: “Very often when the hands and legs are cut off, yet the soul remains entire.” (Johannes Chrysostom, De incomprehensibili dei natura.) ↩

Therefore Aristotle says, if an old man had a young man’s eye βλέποι ἂν ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ νέος. Ὥστε τὸ γῆρας, οὐ τῷ τὴν ψυχήν πεπονθέναι τι, ἀλλ᾿ ἐν ᾧ καθάπερ ἐν μέθαις καὶ νόσοις, κ.τ.λ.: “He would see like a young man. So that, in old age, the soul is not affected; but is in the same state, as when a man is in drink, or in any distemper.” (De Anima.) ↩

Hierocles (with others) accounts the soul to be the true man. Σὺ γὰρ εἶ ἡ ψυχή· τὸ δὲ σῶμα σόν: “It is the soul that is you, and the body that is yours.” (Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.) ↩

So Plato uses the word Ἁυτὸς, “Self,” for the whole of the man; by which the soul, as one part of it, is called κτῆμα, “a possession.” ↩

Φάινεται ἐν ἀυτοῖς καὶ ἀλλό τι παρὰ τὸν λόγον πεφυκός, ὃ μάχεται καὶ ἀντιτείνει τῷ λόγῳ: “It is evident that there is something else in us, beside reason, which wars against and contradicts reason.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.) ↩

Whether any form, modification, or motion of matter can be a human soul, seems to be much such another question as that in one of Seneca’s epistles, An justitia, an fortitudo, prudentia, ceteræque virtutes, animalia sint: “Whether justice, or fortitude, or prudence, and the rest of the virtues, be living creatures.” (Epistle to Lucilius.) ↩

Νοῦν οὐδὲν σῶμα γεννᾷ· τῶς γὰρ ἂν τὰ ἀνόητα νοῦν γεννήσοι: “Nobody can produce a mind, for how can understanding come out of that which has no understanding.” (Sallustius, On the Gods and the Cosmos.) ↩

That the soul is the principle of motion, or that which begins it in us, is (though