"Nevertheless," rejoined Pécuchet, "I have in myself something superior to my body, which sometimes confutes it."
"A being in a being—homo duplex! Look here, now! Different tendencies disclose opposite motives. That's all!"
"But this something, this soul, remains identical amid all changes from without. Therefore, it is simple, indivisible, and thus spiritual."
"If the soul were simple," replied Bouvard, "the newly-born would recollect, would imagine, like the adult. Thought, on the contrary, follows the development of the brain. As to its being indivisible, neither the perfume of a rose nor the appetite of a wolf, any more than a volition or an affirmation, is cut in two."
"That makes no difference," said Pécuchet. "The soul is exempt from the qualities of matter."
"Do you admit weight?" returned Bouvard. "Now, if matter can fall, it can in the same way think. Having had a beginning, the soul must come to an end, and as it is dependent on certain organs, it must disappear with them."
"For my part, I maintain that it is immortal. God could not intend——"
"But if God does not exist?"
"What?" And Pécuchet gave utterance to the three Cartesian proofs: "'Primo: God is comprehended in the idea that we have of Him; secundo: Existence is possible to Him; tertio: How can I, a finite being, have an idea of the Infinite? And, since we have this idea, it comes to us from God; therefore, God exists.'"
He passed on to the testimony of conscience, the traditions of different races, and the need of a Creator.