SECT. XXXIX. Of the Forehead and Other Parts of the Face.
The forehead gives majesty and gracefulness to all the face, and serves to heighten all its features. Were it not for the nose, which is placed in the middle, the whole face would look flat and deformed, of which they are fully convinced who have happened to see men in whom that part of the face is mutilated. It is placed just above the mouth, that it may the more easily discern, by the odours, whatever is most proper to feed man. The two nostrils serve at once both for the respiration and smell. Look upon the lips: their lively colour, freshness, figure, seat, and proportion, with the other features, render the face most beautiful. The mouth, by the correspondence of its motions with those of the eyes, animates, gladdens, suddens, softens, or troubles the face, and by sensible marks expresses every passion. The lips not only open to receive food, but by their suppleness and the variety of their motions serve likewise to vary the sounds that form speech. When they open they discover a double row of teeth with which the mouth is adorned. These teeth are little bones set in order in the two jaw-bones, which have a spring to open and another to shut in such a manner that the teeth grind, like a mill, the aliments in order to prepare their digestion. But these aliments thus ground go down into the stomach, through a pipe different from that through which we breathe, and these two pipes, though so neighbouring, have nothing common.
SECT. XL. Of the Tongue and Teeth.
The tongue is a contexture of small muscles and nerves so very supple, that it winds and turns like a serpent, with unconceivable mobility and pliantness. It performs in the mouth the same office which either the fingers or the bow of a master of music perform on a musical instrument: for sometimes it strikes the teeth, sometimes the roof of the mouth. There is a pipe that goes into the inside of the neck, called throat, from the roof of the mouth to the breast, which is made up of cartilaginous rings nicely set one within another, and lined within with a very smooth membrane, in order to render the air that is pushed from the lungs more sonorous. On the side of the roof of the mouth the end of that pipe is opened like a flute, by a slit, that either extends, or contracts itself as is necessary to render the voice either big or slender, hollow or clear. But lest the aliments, which have their separate pipe, should slide into the windpipe I have been describing, there is a kind of valve that lies on the orifice of the organ of the voice, and playing like a drawbridge, lets the aliments freely pass through their proper channel, but never suffers the least particle or drop to fall into the slit of the windpipe. This sort of valve has a very free motion, and easily turns any way, so that by shaking on that half-opened orifice, it performs the softest modulations of the voice. This instance is sufficient to show, by-the-by, and without entering long-winded details of anatomy, what a marvellous art there is in the frame of the inward parts. And indeed the organ I have described is the most perfect of all musical instruments, nor have these any perfection, but so far as they imitate that.
SECT. XLI. Of the Smell, Taste, and Hearing.
Who were able to explain the niceness of the organs by which man discerns the numberless savours and odours of bodies? But how is it possible for so many different voices to strike at once my ear without confounding one another, and for those sounds to leave in me, after they have ceased to be, so lively and so distinct images of what they have been? How careful was the Artificer who made our bodies to give our eyes a moist, smooth, and sliding cover to close them; and why did He leave our ears open? Because, says Cicero, the eyes must be shut against the light in order to sleep; and, in the meantime, the ears ought to remain open in order to give us warning, and wake us by the report of noise, when we are in danger of being surprised. Who is it that, in an instant, imprints in my eye the heaven, the sea, and the earth, seated at almost an infinite distance? How can the faithful images of all the objects of the universe, from the sun to an atom, range themselves distinctly in so small an organ? Is not the substance of the brain, which preserves, in order, such lively representations of all the objects that have made an impression upon us ever since we were in the world, a most wonderful prodigy? Men admire with reason the invention of books, wherein the history of so many events, and the collection of so many thoughts, are preserved. But what comparison can be made between the best book and the brain of a learned man? There is no doubt but such a brain is a collection infinitely more precious, and of a far more excellent contrivance, than a book. It is in that small repository that a man never misses finding the images he has occasion for. He calls them, and they come; he dismisses them, and they sink I know not where, and disappear, to make room for others. A man shuts or opens his fancy at pleasure, like a book. He turns, as it were, its leaves; and, in an instant, goes from one end to the other. There is even in memory a sort of table, like the index of a book, which shows where certain remote images are to be found. We do not find that these innumerable characters, which the mind of man reads inwardly with so much rapidity, leave any distinct trace or print in the brain, when we open it. That admirable book is but a soft substance, or a sort of bottom made up of tender threads, woven one with another. Now what skilful hand has laid up in that kind of dirt, which appears so shapeless, such precious images, ranged with such excellent and curious art?
SECT. XLII. Of the Proportion of Man’s Body.
Such is the body of man in general: for I do not enter into an anatomical detail, my design being only to discover the art that is conspicuous in nature, by the simple cast of an eye, without any science. The body of man might undoubtedly be either much bigger and taller, or much lesser and smaller. But if, for instance, it were but one foot high, it would be insulted by most animals, that would tread and crush it under their feet. If it were as tall as a high steeple, a small number of men would in a few days consume all the aliments a whole country affords. They could find neither horses nor any other beasts of burden either to carry them on their backs or draw them in a machine with wheels; nor could they find sufficient quantity of materials to build houses proportioned to their bigness; and as there could be but a small number of men upon earth, so they should want most conveniences. Now, who is it that has so well regulated the size of man to so just a standard? Who is it that has fixed that of other animals and living creatures, with proportion to that of man? Of all animals, man only stands upright on his feet, which gives him a nobleness and majesty that distinguishes him, even as to the outside, from all that lives upon earth. Not only his figure is the noblest, but he is also the strongest and most dextrous of all animals, in proportion to his bigness. Let one nicely examine the bulk and weight of the most terrible beasts, and he will find, that though they have more matter than the body of a man, yet a vigorous man has more strength of body than most wild beasts. Nor are these dreadful to him, except in their teeth and claws. But man, who has not such natural arms in his limbs, has yet hands, whose dexterity to make artificial weapons surpasses all that nature has bestowed upon beasts. Thus man either pierces with his darts or draws into his snares, masters, and leads in chains the strongest and fiercest animals. Nay, he has the skill to tame them in their captivity, and to sport with them as he pleases. He teaches lions and tigers to caress him: and gets on the back of elephants.
SECT. XLIII. Of the Soul, which alone, among all Creatures, Thinks and Knows.
But the body of man, which appears to be the masterpiece of nature, is not to be compared to his thought. It is certain that there are bodies that do not think: man, for instance, ascribes no knowledge to stone, wood, or metals, which undoubtedly are bodies. Nay, it is so natural to believe that matter cannot think, that all unprejudiced men cannot forbear laughing when they hear any one assert that beasts are but mere machines; because they cannot conceive that mere machines can have such knowledge as they pretend to perceive in beasts. They think it to be like children’s playing, and talking to their puppets, the ascribing any knowledge to mere machines. Hence it is that the ancients themselves, who knew no real substance but the body, pretended, however, that the soul of a man was a fifth element, or a sort of quintessence without name, unknown here below, indivisible, immutable, and altogether celestial and divine, because they could not conceive that the terrestrial matter of the four elements could think, and know itself: Aristoteles quintam quandam naturam censet esse, è quâ sit mens. Cogitare enim, et providere, et discere, et docere. . . . in horum quatuor generum nullo inesse putat; quintum genus adhibet vacans nomine.