ches at the sides of the desk. They afterwards ascended in the order
in which they were seated; and every one, when he ascended, put on a
silken tunic of an opaline color, and over it a robe of soft wool
interwoven with flowers, and on his head a cap, on the crown of which
was a bunch of roses encircled with small sapphires. The first youth
thus clad ascended the desk, and thus began: "What the soul is, and what
is its quality, has never been revealed to any one since the day of
creation, being an arcanum in the treasuries of God alone; but this has
been discovered, that the soul resides in a man as a queen; yet where
her palace is, has been a matter of conjecture among the learned. Some
have supposed it to be in a small tubercle between the cerebrum and the
cerebellum, which is called the pineal gland: in this they have fixed
the soul's habitation, because the whole man is ruled from those two
brains, and they are regulated by that tubercle; therefore whatever
regulates the brains, regulates also the whole man from the head to the
heel." He also added, "Hence this conjecture appeared as true or
probable to many in the world; but in the succeeding age it was rejected
as groundless." When he had thus spoken, he put off the robe, the tunic,
and the cap, which the second of the selected speakers put on, and
ascended the desk. His sentiments concerning the soul are as follows:
"In the whole heaven and the whole world it is unknown what the soul is,
and what is its quality; it is however known that there is a soul, and
that it is in man; but in what part of him is a matter of conjecture.
This is certain, that it is in the head, since the head is the seat
where the understanding thinks, and the will intends; and in front in
the face of the head are man's five sensories, receiving life from the
soul alone which resides in the head; but in what particular part of the
head the soul has its more immediate residence, I dare not take upon me
to say; yet I agree with those who fix its abode in the three ventricles
of the brain, sometimes inclining to the opinion of those who fix it in
the _corpora striata_ therein, sometimes to theirs who fix it in the
medullary substance of each brain, sometimes to theirs who fix it in the
cortical substance, and sometimes to theirs who fix it in the _dura
mater_; for arguments, and those too of weight, have not been wanting in
the support of each of these opinions. The arguments in favor of the
thre