Let us imagine an idiot unable to form complex ideas, but who possesses sensation; he certainly lives without thinking, forming simple ideas from his sensations. Thought, therefore, is not necessary to life, since this idiot has lived without thinking.
Hence, certain thinkers think that thought is not of the essence of man. They maintain that many idiots who think not, are men; and so decidedly men as to produce other men, without the power of constructing a single argument.
The doctors who maintain the essentiality of thought, reply that these idiots have certain ideas from their sensation. Bold reasoners rejoin, that a well-taught mind possesses more consecutive ideas, and is very superior to these idiots, whence has sprung a grand dispute upon the soul, of which we shall speak—possibly at too great a length—in the article on "Soul."
LOVE.
There are so many kinds of love, that in order to define it, we scarcely know which to direct our attention to. Some boldly apply the name of "love" to a caprice of a few days, a connection without attachment, passion without affection, the affectations of cicisbeism, a cold usage, a romantic fancy, a taste speedily followed by a distaste. They apply the name to a thousand chimeras.
Should any philosophers be inclined profoundly to investigate a subject in itself so little philosophical, they may recur to the banquet of Plato, in which Socrates, the decent and honorable lover of Alcibiades and Agathon, converses with them on the metaphysics of love.
Lucretius speaks of it more as a natural philosopher; and Virgil follows the example of Lucretius. "Amor omnibus idem."
It is the embroidery of imagination on the stuff of nature. If you wish to form an idea of love, look at the sparrows in your garden; behold your doves; contemplate the bull when introduced to the heifer; look at that powerful and spirited horse which two of your grooms are conducting to the mare that quietly awaits him, and is evidently pleased at his approach; observe the flashing of his eyes, notice the strength and loudness of his neighings, the boundings, the curvetings, the ears erect, the mouth opening with convulsive gaspings, the distended nostrils, the breath of fire, the raised and waving mane, and the impetuous movement with which he rushes towards the object which nature has destined for him; do not, however, be jealous of his happiness; but reflect on the advantages of the human species; they afford ample compensation in love for all those which nature has conferred on mere animals—strength, beauty, lightness, and rapidity.
There are some classes, however, even of animals totally unacquainted with sexual association. Fishes are destitute of this enjoyment. The female deposits her millions of eggs on the slime of the waters, and the male that meets them passes over them and communicates the vital principle, never consorting with, or perhaps even perceiving the female to whom they belong.