e affirms it when he says, in the twelfth book On Animals,
that man is the most perfect of all the animals. Therefore, since many
who live are entirely mortal, as are the brute animals, and all may
be, whilst they live, without that hope of the other life; if our hope
should be in vain, our want would be greater than that of any other
animal. There have been many who have given this life for that: and
thus it would follow that the most perfect animal, man, would be the
most imperfect, which is impossible; and that that part, namely,
reason, which is his chief perfection, would be in him the cause of
the chief defect: which seems strange to say of the whole. And again
it would follow that Nature, in contradiction to herself, could have
put this hope in the human mind; since it is said that many have
hastened to death of the body that they might live in the other life;
and this also is impossible. Again, we have continual experience of
our immortality in the divination of our dreams, which could not be if
there were no immortal part in us, since immortal must be the
revelation. This part may be either corporeal or incorporeal if one
think well and closely. I say corporeal or incorporeal, because of the
different opinions which I find concerning this. That which is moved,
or rather informed, by an immediate informer, ought to have proportion
to the informer; and between the mortal and the immortal there is no
proportion. Again, we are assured of it by the most truthful doctrine
of Christ, which is the Way, the Truth, and the Light: the Way,
because by it without impediment we go to the happiness of that
immortality; the Truth, because it endures no error; the Light,
because it enlightens us in the darkness of worldly ignorance. This
doctrine, I say, which above all other reasons makes us certain of it;
for it has been given to us by Him who sees and measures our
immortality, which we cannot perfectly see whilst our immortal is
mingled with the mortal. But we see it by faith perfectly; and by
reason we see it with the cloud of obscurity which grows from the
mixture of the mortal with the immortal. This ought to be the most
powerful argument that both are in us: and I thus believe, thus
affirm; and I am equally certain, after this life, to pass to that
other and better life--there where that glorious Lady lives, with whom
my soul was enamoured when it was struggling, as will be set forth in
the next chapter.

CHAPTER