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284 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
And not forgetting Aristotle, that which naturally
causeth the body to move, who calleth it Entelechy,
or perfection moving of itselfe (as cold an invention as
any other), for he neither speaketh of the essence, nor
of the beginning, nor of the soules nature, but onely
noteth the effects of it: Lactantius, Seneca, and the
better part amongst the Dogmatists, have confessed
they never understood what it was : and after all this
rable of opinions. Harum sententiarum quas vera sit,
Dens aliquis indent:¹ ' Which of these opinions is true,
let some God looke unto it,' saith Cicero. I know by
myselfe, quoth Saint Bernard, how God is incomprehensible,
since I am not able to comprehend the parts
of mine owne being: Heraclitus, who held that every
place was full of Soules and Daemons, maintained
neverthelesse that a man could never goe so far towards
the knowledge of the soule as that he could come unto
it; so deep and mysterious was her essence. There is
no lesse dissention nor disputing about the place wliere
she should be seated. Hypocrates and Herophilus
place it in the ventricle of the brain : Democritus and
Aristotle, through all the body :
Ut bona seppe valetudo cum diatur esse
Corporis, et non est tamen hac pars ulla valentis.²
As health is of the body said to be,
Yet is no part of him in health we see,
Epicurus in the stomacke.
Hie exultat enim pavor ac metus, hoec loca circum
Loetxtice mulcent. 3
For in these places feare doth domineere,
And neere these places joy keepes merry cheere.
The Stoickes, within and about the heart: Erasistratus,
joyning the membrane of the epicranium : Empedocles,
in the bloud: as also Moses, which was the cause he
forbade the eating of beasts bloud, unto which their
soule is commixed : Galen thought that every part of
the body had his soule : Strato hath placed it betweene
¹ CIC. Tusc, Qu. 1. i. ² LUCR. 1, iii. 103.
³ /b. 142.