LUCRETIUS.—I think I can, for I think of whatever I please. My intention was to converse with you about metaphysics, and I have done so.

POSIDONIUS.—You think that you are master of your ideas; do you know, then, what thoughts you will have in an hour, or in a quarter of an hour?

LUCRETIUS.—I must own that I do not.

POSIDONIUS.—You frequently have ideas in your sleep; you make verses in a dream: Cæsar takes cities: I resolve problems; and hounds pursue the stag in their dreams. Ideas, therefore, come to us independently of our own will; they are given us by a Superior Being.

LUCRETIUS.—In what manner do you mean? Do you suppose that the Supreme Being is continually employed in com­mun­icat­ing ideas; or that he created in­corp­oreal sub­stances, which were after­wards capable of forming ideas of themselves, sometimes with the assistance of the senses, and sometimes without it? Are these substances formed at the moment of the animal’s conception? Or are they formed before its conception? Do they wait for bodies, in order to insinuate themselves into them? or are they not lodged there till the animal is capable of receiving them? Or, in fine, is it in the Supreme Being that every animated being sees the ideas of things? What is your opinion?

POSIDONIUS.—When you tell me how our will produces an instantaneous motion in our bodies, how your arm obeys your will, how we receive life, how food digests in the stomach, and how corn is transformed into blood, I will then tell you how we have ideas. With regard to all these particulars I frankly confess my ignorance. The world, perhaps, may one day obtain new lights; but from the time of Thales to the present age we have not had any. All we can do is to be sensible of our own weakness, to acknowl­edge an Almighty Being, and to be upon our guard against these systems.

DIALOGUE BE­TWEEN A CLI­ENT AND HIS LAW­YER.

CLIENT.—Well, sir! with regard to the cause of those poor orphans?

LAWYER.—What do you mean? It is but eighteen years since their estate has been in litigation.

CLIENT.—I don’t complain of that trifling matter; I know the custom well enough; I respect it, but how in the name of heaven comes it to pass that you have been these three months soliciting a hearing and have not yet obtained it?