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

xml:lang="la">Velut è diutino carcere emissus [animus]: “[The soul] is, as it were, let out of a prison, in which it has been a long while.” (Seneca, De Consolatione ad Polybium.) ↩

Those kinds of animals which do not speak, do not reason: but those which do the one, do the other. Therefore, הי מדבר, “a living,” (or Arabic נאטק, “a speaking animal”) is a rational animal: and λόγος signifies both “speech” and “reason,” as going together. ↩

Θυρίδες γὰρ ὄντως τῆς ψυχῆς ἁι ἀισθήσεις: “The senses are the windows of the soul.” (Basil, De Virginitate.) ↩

Ἄσαρκος καὶ ἀσώματος ἐν τῷ τοῦ παντὸς θεάτρῳ διημερεύουσα: “When it shall dwell upon the stage of the universe, without flesh and without a body.” (Philo Judaeus, De Gigantibus.) ↩

So Hierocles distinguishes τὸ ἀυγοειδὲς ἡμῶν σῶμα, ὁ καὶ ψυχῆς λεπτὸν ὄχημα: “our glorious body, and the thin vehicle of the soul,” from that which he calls τὸ θνητὸν ἡμῶν σῶμα, “our mortal body,” and to which the former communicates life. Τῶ ἀυγοειδεῖ ἡμῶν σῶματι προσέφυ σῶμα θνητὸν ὄν: “The mortal and the glorious body adhere to, and grow up with, each other.” (Hierocles, Commentary on the Carmen Aureum.) This fine body he calls also ψυχικὸν σῶμα, “a living body,” and πνευματικὸν ὄχημα, “a spiritual vehicle.” In Nishmat Hayyim, there is much concerning that “fine body” in which the soul is clothed, and from which it is never to be separated, according to an old tradition. Menasseh Ben Israel gives the sum of it in such words as these: יש גוף דק עד מאד בו מתלבש הנשמה טרם ביאה לעולם: “There is a very thin, fine body, with which the soul is clothed before it comes into the world,” and afterward, הנשמות המה בבריאתם הראשונה נקשרות עם גשמים דקים רוחניים מהטבע השמימי בלתי מושגים לחוש הראות. והנשמות לא יתפרדו מאותם הגשמים הדקים הרוחניים כל ימי עולם אם קודם בואם לגוף ואם בהיותם עמו וגם אחרר הפרדם ממנו: “These souls, at their first creation, were joined with some thin, spiritual, and celestial bodies, which cannot be perceived by our eyes. Neither can these thin, spiritual bodies be separated from those souls so long as the world lasts, neither before they came into this (gross) body, nor while they remain in it, nor after they are separated from it.” Saadya long before him joins to the soul עצם דק, “a thin substance,” which he says is דק [יותר זך] מן חגלגלים: “thinner than the ether in the skies,” etc. ↩

Cùm corpora quotidie nostra fluant, et aut crescant aut descrescant, ergo tot erimus homines, quot quotidie commutamur? qut alius fui, cùm decem annorum essem; alius, cùm triginta; alius cùm quinquaginta, alius, cùm jam toto cano capite sum? “Because our bodies are continually altering, and either increasing or diminishing, shall we therefore be as many different men, as we undergo perpetual changes? Or was I one person when I was ten years old, another when I was thirty, another when I was fifty, and another now I am grey-headed.” (St. Jerome, Epistles.) So it must be, if our souls are nothing different from our bodies. ↩

I would say the egoity remains, that is, that by which I am the same as I was; Cicero has his Lentulitas, “Lentulity,” and Appietas, “Appiety,” that is, that by which Lentulus remained Lentulus and Appius remained Appius in the same form, though not just the like sense. (Letters to Friends.) ↩

That passage in Sefer ha-Ikkarim imports much the same thing that has been said here: הוא מבואר שהדבר שמציאותו טוב ראוי שימצא והדבר שמציאותו רע אין ראוי שימצא ומה שמציאותו מעורב מן הטוב והרע אם הטוב הוא הגובר ראוי שימצא ואם הרע הוא הגובר אין ראוי שימצא: “This is manifest, that that thing whose existence is good, ought to exist; and that thing whose existence is evil, ought not to exist; and if the existence of anything is made up of a mixture of good and evil, if the good prevail, it ought to exist, and if the evil prevail, it ought not to exist.” ↩

C. Caesar⁠ ⁠… Senatores et Equites⁠ ⁠… cecidit, torsit, non quæstionis, sed animi causâ. Deinde quosdam ex illis⁠ ⁠… ad lucernam decollabat.⁠ ⁠… Torserat per omnia, quæ in rerum natura tristissima sunt, fidiculis, etc.: “Gaius Caesar⁠ ⁠… the Senators and the Knights⁠ ⁠… killed and put to the rack (a great many), not in order to find out the truth, but for their own pleasure only. Afterwards, he cut off the heads of some⁠ ⁠… by candlelight⁠ ⁠… tormented others, by all the most cruel tortures that could be thought of in nature; stretched them with cords, etc.” (Seneca, De Ira.) Homo, sacra res, jam per lusum et jocum occiditur: “A man, who is a divine creature, is slain out of sport and jest.” (Ibid.) ↩

Slaves were reckoned among beasts of old: Οὔτε γὰρ γυνὴ ὴέφυκας, οὔτ ἐν ἀνδράσι σύγ εἶ: “For you are not really a woman, nor are you to be reckoned of human race.” (Euripides, Orestes.) And sometimes as mere instruments and tools: Ὁ γὰρ δοῦλος ἔμψυχον· τὸ δ᾿ ὄργανον ἄψυχος δοῦλος: “For a slave is a living instrument, and an instrument is a lifeless slave.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.) Their sad condition I will set down in Plato’s words: Οὐκ ἀνδρὸς τοῦτό γ᾿ ἐστὶ τὸ πάθημα, τὸ ἀδικεῖσθαι ἀλλὰ ἀνδραπόδου τινὸς, ᾧ κρεῖττόν τεθνάναι ἐστιν ἢ ζῆν· ὅστις ἀδικούμενος καὶ προπηλακιζόμενος, μὴ