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Posted by foad on January 15, 2008, 3:42 pm
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SECTION VI: THE PHILOSOPHERS
339. I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head (for it is only
experience which teaches us that the head is more necessary than feet). But
I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.
340. The arithmetical machine produces effects which approach nearer to
thought than all the actions of animals. But it does nothing which would
enable us to attribute will to it, as to the animals.
341. The account of the pike and frog of Liancourt. They do it always, and
never otherwise, nor any other thing showing mind.
342. If an animal did by mind what it does by instinct, and if it spoke by
mind what it speaks by instinct, in hunting and in warning its mates that
the prey is found or lost, it would indeed also speak in regard to those
things which affect it closer, as example, "Gnaw me this cord which is
wounding me, and which I cannot reach."
343. The beak of the parrot, which it wipes, although it is clean.
344. Instinct and reason, marks of two natures.
345. Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in
disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are
fools.
346. Thought constitutes the greatness of man.
347. Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a
thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A
vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to
crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because
he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the
universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves,
and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to
think well; this is the principle of morality.
348. A thinking reed.--It is
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