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| The Soul, as to Its Nature Uniform, But Its Faculties Variously Developed. Varieties Only Accidental.
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Chapter
XX.—The Soul, as to Its Nature Uniform, But Its Faculties
Variously Developed. Varieties Only Accidental.
And here, therefore, we draw our conclusion, that
all the natural properties of the soul are inherent in it as parts of
its substance; and that they grow and develope along with it, from the
very moment of its own origin at birth. Just as Seneca says, whom
we so often find on our side:1645
“There are
implanted within us the seeds of all the arts and periods of life. And
God, our Master, secretly produces our mental dispositions;” that
is, from the germs which are implanted and hidden in us by means of
infancy, and these are the intellect: for from these our natural
dispositions are evolved. Now, even the seeds of
plants have, one form in each kind, but their development varies: some
open and expand in a healthy and perfect state, while others either
improve or degenerate, owing to the conditions of weather and soil, and
from the appliance of labour and care; also from the course of the
seasons, and from the occurrence of casual circumstances. In like
manner, the soul may well be1646
uniform in its
seminal origin, although multiform by the process of nativity.1647
And here local influences, too, must be
taken into account. It has been said that dull and brutish persons are
born at Thebes; and the most accomplished in wisdom and speech at
Athens, where in the district of Colythus1648
| 1648 Tertullian perhaps
mentions this “demus” of Athens as the birthplace of Plato
(Oehler). |
children speak—such is the precocity of their tongue—before
they are a month old. Indeed, Plato himself tells us, in the
Timæus, that Minerva, when preparing to found her great
city, only regarded the nature of the country which gave promise of
mental dispositions of this kind; whence he himself in The Laws
instructs Megillus and Clinias to be careful in their selection of a
site for building a city. Empedocles, however, places the cause of a
subtle or an obtuse intellect in the quality of the blood, from which
he derives progress and perfection in learning and science. The subject
of national peculiarities has grown by this time into proverbial
notoriety. Comic poets deride the Phrygians for their cowardice;
Sallust reproaches the Moors for their levity, and the Dalmatians for
their cruelty; even the apostle brands the Cretans as
“liars.”1649
Very likely, too,
something must be set down to the score of bodily condition and the
state of the health. Stoutness hinders knowledge, but a spare form
stimulates it; paralysis prostrates the mind, a decline preserves it.
How much more will those accidental circumstances have to be noticed,
which, in addition to the state of one’s body or one’s
health, tend to sharpen or to dull the intellect! It is sharpened by
learned pursuits, by the sciences, the arts, by experimental knowledge,
business habits, and studies; it is blunted by ignorance, idle habits,
inactivity, lust, inexperience, listlessness, and vicious
pursuits. Then, besides these influences, there must
perhaps1650
be added the
supreme powers. Now these are the supreme powers: according to our
(Christian) notions, they are the Lord God and His adversary the devil;
but according to men’s general opinion about providence, they are
fate and necessity; and about fortune, it is man’s freedom of
will. Even the philosophers allow these distinctions; whilst on
our part we have already undertaken to treat of them, on the principles
of the (Christian) faith, in a separate work.1651
| 1651 Tertullian wrote a
work De Fato, which is lost. Fulgentius, p. 561, gives a
quotation from it. | It
is evident how great must be the influences which so variously affect
the one nature of the soul, since they are commonly regarded as
separate “natures.” Still they are not different
species, but casual incidents of one nature and substance—even of
that which God conferred on Adam, and made the mould of all (subsequent
ones). Casual incidents will they always remain, but never will they
become specific differences. However great, too, at present is
the variety of men’s maunders, it was not so in Adam, the founder
of their race. But all these discordances ought to have existed
in him as the fountainhead, and thence to have descended to us in an
unimpaired variety, if the variety had been due to
nature.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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