SECTION VII.
Souls of Fools and Monsters.
A child, ill-formed, is born absolutely imbecile, has no ideas, lives without ideas; instances of this have been known. How shall this animal be defined? Doctors have said that it is something between man and beast; others have said that it is a sensitive soul, but not an intellectual soul: it eats, it drinks, it sleeps, it wakes, it has sensations, but it does not think.
Is there for it another life, or is there none? The case has been put, and has not yet been entirely resolved.
Some have said that this creature must have a soul, because its father and its mother had souls. But by this reasoning it would be proved that if it had come into the world without a nose, it should have the reputation of having one, because its father and its mother had one.
A woman is brought to bed: her infant has no chin; its forehead is flat and somewhat black, its eyes round, its nose thin and sharp; its countenance is not much unlike that of a swallow: yet the rest of his body is made like ours. It is decided by a majority of voices that it is a man, and possesses an immaterial soul; whereupon the parents have it baptized. But if this little ridiculous figure has pointed claws, and a mouth in the form of a beak, it is declared to be a monster; it has no soul; it is not baptized.
It is known, that in 1726, there was in London a woman who was brought to bed every eight days of a young rabbit. No difficulty was made of refusing baptism to this child, notwithstanding the epidemic folly which prevailed in London for three weeks, of believing that this poor jade actually brought forth wild rabbits. The surgeon who delivered her, named St. André, swore that nothing was more true; and he was believed. But what reason had the credulous for refusing a soul to this woman's offspring? She had a soul; her children must likewise have been furnished with souls, whether they had hands? or paws, whether they were born with a snout or with a face: cannot the Supreme Being vouchsafe the gift of thought and sensation to a little nondescript, born of a woman, with the figure of a rabbit, as well as a little nondescript born with the figure of a man? Will the soul which was ready to take up its abode in this woman's fœtus return unhoused?
It is very well observed by Locke, with regard to monsters, that immortality must not be attributed to the exterior of a body—that it has nothing to do with the figure. "This immortality," says he, "is no more attached to the form of one's face or breast than it is to the way in which one's beard is clipped or one's coat is cut."
He asks: What is the exact measure of deformity by which you can recognize whether an infant has a soul or not? What is the precise degree at which it is to be declared a monster and without a soul?
Again, it is asked: What would a soul be that should have none but chimerical ideas? There are some which never go beyond such. Are they worthy or unworthy? What is to be made of their pure spirit?