justice, and that the rights of rulers in sacred, no less
than in secular matters, should merely have to do with actions, but that
every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] From the _Tr. Th.-P._, ch. xx, same title.

CHAPTER XIX

OF HUMAN FREEDOM

_Introductory_

I pass at length to the other part of ethics which concerns the method
or way which leads to liberty. In [the following], therefore, I shall
treat of the power of reason, showing how much reason itself can control
the emotions, and then what is freedom of mind or blessedness. Thence we
shall see how much stronger the wise man is than the ignorant. In what
manner and what way the intellect should be rendered perfect, and with
what art the body is to be cared for in order that it may properly
perform its functions, I have nothing to do with here; for the former
belongs to logic, the latter to medicine. I shall occupy myself here, as
I have said, solely with the power of the mind or of reason, first of
all showing the extent and nature of the authority which it has over the
emotions in restraining them and governing them; for that we have not
absolute authority over them we have already demonstrated. The Stoics
indeed thought that the emotions depend absolutely on our will, and that
we are absolutely masters over them; but they were driven, by the
contradiction of experience, though not by their own principles, to
confess that not a little practice and study are required in order to
restrain and govern the emotions. This one of them attempted to
illustrate, if I remember rightly, by the example of two dogs, one of a
domestic and the other of a hunting breed; for he was able by habit to
make the house dog hunt, and the hunting dog, on the contrary, to desist
from running after hares.

To the Stoical opinion Descartes much inclines. He affirms that the soul
or mind is united specially to a certain part of the brain called the
pineal gland, which the mind by the mere exercise of the will is able to
move in different ways, and by whose help the mind perceives all the
movements which are excited in the body and external objects. This
gland, he affirms, is suspended in the middle of the brain in such a
manner that it can be moved by the least motion of the animal spirits.
Again, he affirms that any variation in the manner in which the animal
spirits impinge upon this gland is followed by a variation in the manner
in