Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/235

 THE LYING-IN WOMAN. 231 Fa. I suppose you would infer that as the mind sees and hears by the eyes and ears, so by some organs it also understands, remembers, loves, hates, is provoked and appeased. Eu. Right. Fa. But pray, what are those organs, and where are they situated ? Eu. As to the eyes you see where they are. Fa. I know well enough where the ears and the nose and the palate are, and that the body is all over sensible of the touch, unless when some member is seized with a numbness. Eu. When a foot is cut off, yet the mind understands. Fa. It does so, and when a hand is cut off too. Eu. A person that receives a violent blow on the temples or hinder part of his head falls down like one that is dead, and is insensible. Fa. I have sometimes seen that myself. Eu. Hence it is to be collected, that the organs of the will, under- standing, and memory are placed within the skull, being not so crass as the eyes and ears, and yet are material, inasmuch as the most subtil spirits that we have in the body are corporeal. Fa. And can they be vitiated with meat and drink too ? Eu. Yes. Fa. The brain is a great way off from the stomach, Eu. And so is the funnel of a chimney from the fire-hearth, yet if you sit upon it you will feel the smoke. Fa. I will not try that experiment. Eu. Well, if you will not believe me, ask the storks. And so it is of moment what spirits and what vapours ascend from the stomach to the brain, and the organs of the mind. For if these are crude or cold they stay in the stomach. Fa. Pshaw ! you are describing to me an alembic, in which we distil simple waters. Eu. You do not guess much amiss. For the liver, to which the gall adheres, is the fire-place; the stomach, the pan; the skull, the top of the still ; and if you please, you may call the nose the pipe of it. And from this flux, or reflux of humours, almost all manner of diseases proceed, according as a different humour falls down after a different manner, sometimes into the eyes, sometimes into the stomach, some- times into the shoulders, and sometimes into the neck and elsewhere. And that you may understand me the better, why have those that guzzle a great deal of wine bad memories 1 Why are those that feed upon light food not of so heavy a disposition ? Why does coriander help the memory ? Why does hellebore purge the memory ] Why does a great expletion cause an epilepsy, which at once brings a stupor upon all the senses, as in a profound sleep ? In the last place, as violent thirst or want weaken the strength of wit or memory in boys, so food eaten immoderately makes boys dull-headed, if we believe Aristotle, in that the fire of the mind is extinguished by the heaping on too much matter. Fa. Why, then, is the mind corporeal, so as to be affected with corporeal things 1 Eu. Indeed the nature itself of the rational soul is not corrupted; but the power and action of it are impeded by the organs being vitiated, as the art of an artist will stand him in no stead if he has not instruments. Fa. Of what bulk and in what form is the mind? Eu. You ask a ridiculous question, what bulk and form the mind is of, when you have allowed it to be incorporeal. Fa. I mean the body that is felt. Eu. Nay, those bodies that are not to be felt are the most perfect bodies, as God and the angels. Fa. I have heard that God and angels are spirits, but we feel the Spirit,