r this or that image to be excited in it will
the mind be better fitted to contemplate this or that object. But my
opponents will say, that from the laws of Nature alone, in so far as it
is considered to be corporeal merely, it cannot be that the causes of
architecture, painting, and things of this sort, which are the results
of human art alone, could be deduced, and that the human body, unless it
were determined and guided by the mind, would not be able to build a
temple. I have already shown, however, that they do not know what the
body can do, nor what can be deduced from the consideration of its
nature alone, and that they find that many things are done merely by the
laws of Nature which they would never have believed to be possible
without the direction of the mind, as, for example, those things which
sleep-walkers do in their sleep, and at which they themselves are
astonished when they wake. I adduce also here the structure itself of
the human body, which so greatly surpasses in workmanship all those
things which are constructed by human art, not to mention what I have
already proved, that an infinitude of things follows from Nature under
whatever attribute it may be considered.

With regard to the second point, I should say that human affairs would
be much more happily conducted if it were equally in the power of men to
be silent and to speak. But experience shows over and over again that
there is nothing which men have less power over than the tongue, and
that there is nothing which they are less able to do than to govern
their appetites, so that many persons believe that we do those things
only with freedom which we seek indifferently; as the desire for such
things can easily be lessened by the recollection of another thing which
we frequently call to mind; it being impossible, on the other hand, to
do those things with freedom which we seek with such ardor that the
recollection of another thing is unable to mitigate it.

But if, however, we had not found out that we do many things which we
afterwards repent, and that when agitated by conflicting emotions we see
that which is better and follow that which is worse, nothing would
hinder us from believing that we do everything with freedom. Thus the
infant believes that it is by free will that it seeks the breast; the
angry boy believes that by free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man
thinks it is with free will he seeks flight; the drunkard believes that
by