Again, nobody knows by what means or by what method the mind moves the
body, nor how many degrees of motion it can communicate to the body, nor
with what speed it can move the body. So that it follows that when men
say that this or that action of the body springs from the mind which has
commanded over the body, they do not know what they say, and they do
nothing but confess with pretentious words that they know nothing about
the cause of the action, and see nothing in it to wonder at.
But they will say, that whether they know or do not know by what means
the mind moves the body, it is nevertheless in their experience that if
the mind were not fit for thinking the body would be inert. They say,
again, it is in their experience that the mind alone has power both to
speak and be silent, and to do many other things which they therefore
think to be dependent on a decree of the mind.
But with regard to the first assertion, I ask them if experience does
not also teach that if the body be sluggish the mind at the same time is
not fit for thinking? When the body is asleep, the mind slumbers with
it, and has not the power to think, as it has when the body is awake.
Again, I believe that all have discovered that the mind is not always
equally fitted for thinking about the same subject, but in proportion to
the fitness of the body for 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.