"The soul remains in the feet to the age of two or three years; at four it inhabits the legs; it gets up to the knees and thighs at fifteen. Then we love dancing, fencing, riding, and the other violent bodily exercises. This is the predominant passion of all young folks, and the madness of some. What! does not the soul reside in those places, where she almost only manifests herself, and where she feels the most agreeable sensations? But if her residence varies in infancy and youth, why should it not vary thro' every stage of life?" Mirzoza pronounced this discourse with such rapidity as made her pant. Selim, one of the Sultan's favorites, embraced the moment while she was taking breath, and said to her: "Madam, I will make use of the liberty you have granted the company, of proposing their objections. Your system is ingenious, and you have delivered it with equal grace and clearness: but I am not so far seduced by it, as to think it stands demonstrated. Methinks one may say, that even in infancy 'tis the head that commands the feet, and from thence the spirits flow, which, by means of the nerves, running into all the members, stop or move them at the will of the soul seated on the pineal gland: just as we see his highness's orders issuing from the sublime Porte, which set all his subjects in action." "Doubtless," replied Mirzoza, "but one would tell me a very obscure thing; to which I should give no other answer than by an experienced fact. In infancy we have no certainty that the head thinks; and even you, my lord, who have so good an one, and who in your tender years passed for a prodigy of reason, do you remember that you thought at that time? But you might well assert, that when you gamboled about like a little Dæmon, so as to drive your governants out of their wits, your feet then governed your head." "That proves nothing," said the Sultan. "Selim was lively, and so are a thousand other children. They do not reflect, but they think: time slips away, the remembrance of things wears out, and they remember not that they thought." "But by what part did they think," replied Mirzoza: "for that is the point in dispute?" "By the head," answered Selim.