Part 14

These may not at first appear to be bodily vices, but I doubt not they are all remotely derived from you. All unjust schemes and practices are undertaken to procure your ultimate gratification; and I am convinced, that were I disengaged from you, I should desire nothing but what is virtuous and noble. I wish our confederacy could be ended.

BODY.

You often express a wish for this independence, and yet, whenever age or sickness makes it likely that we may soon part, you are thrown into the greatest alarm, and become extremely desirous of remaining amongst these nerves which you now treat with so much contempt. How humbly do you then implore me to harbour you a little longer! How anxiously do you consult my countenance, and inquire what are my intentions; having recourse every hour to some medicine, prayer, or other plot, to retard the breaking of our alliance! If you sincerely desire a separation, why do not you rejoice when you appear likely to be released from me, who have subjected you to the hardship of enjoying so many pleasures. It is strange that you triumph so little in the expectation of immediately becoming a free spirit, and never again drinking wine or having the gout.

MIND.

My regret at parting from you is a weakness, to which I confess myself subject. Though I well know how unworthy you are of my kindness, yet from the years we have passed together I usually contract a tenderness for you, which, though I am ashamed of it, gives me some pain at the prospect of separation.

BODY.

I believe, rather, you then discover how very helpless you are without my assistance; and I suspect you feel some distrust of your ability to live at all apart from me.

MIND.

What! do you presume to question my immortality? Have you the arrogance to suppose that my being is vested in you? That reason, imagination, memory, and all my great endowments, are derived from your muscles and arteries? Can you deny that you spring from the earth? And how then is it possible that we should partake of the same nature?

BODY.

I am far from wishing to disclaim my origin, but acknowledge myself derived from the earth; and in return, let me beg you to give me some information concerning your own lineage. Are you acquainted with your parentage? Is your native place heaven or earth? Can you in any intelligible language relate who and what you are?

However, to proceed no farther in these questions about your origin, which you seem in no haste to answer, let me ask how you would pass your time if disunited from me, and deprived of those amusements which I afford; for I believe that I supply or assist all the chief pleasures of mankind.

MIND.

I should pass my time in contemplation like the gods.

BODY.

I know not what may be the habits of the gods; but if men were excluded from all pleasure except contemplation I believe they would not think it so agreeable an employment as you imagine.

MIND.

And pray, except vice and debauchery, which of the pleasures of life are supplied by you?

BODY.

Remember I have never pretended that separate from you I am qualified for happiness; I affirm only that I contribute my full share of the pleasures that we enjoy together, and that if in this world you were deprived of my society you would be melancholy and forlorn. If, then, you ask me what advantages are furnished by me, I answer that one of the chief pleasures of life is the love between the two sexes.

MIND.

And do you pretend to be the author of that love? I think more nobly of the passion, and regard it as a feeling of the mind alone.

BODY.

Such has always been your doctrine; but I believe that I, though sprung from the earth, have quite as much power to inspire love as you, who are made of such great qualities as reason, imagination, memory, and I know not how many more. Lovers very commonly profess their fidelity to you, while in truth it is I on whom all their secret affections are fixed, for there are many whose notions of body and mind are so confused that they perpetually mistake one for the other. A young man declares himself enamoured of the mind of some beautiful woman, and yet when he is absent from her his thoughts are wholly occupied with her figure, and he passes his time in considering her countenance, her hair, her neck, while her reason, imagination, and memory do not once occur to him. When he is in her presence he takes great delight in pressing her hand, without betraying the least wish to press her intellect. Indeed, there can be no doubt that in most instances in which the admiration is professed to you I secretly supplant you, and win to myself all the real tenderness. If two young persons were reduced to the mere soul, and deprived of eyes, lips, and all the other conveniences which are now so instrumental in loving, I do not understand how they could contrive to love each other at all.

MIND.

I shall not condescend to reason with you any longer.

* * * * *

I must now explain the circumstances in which the preceding dispute between the mind and the body took place. It was an unusual controversy; for though the mind has often repeated these complaints against its colleague, the body has always endured them in silence. This account of the quarrel is translated from a Greek manuscript which has been lately discovered, and fell into my hands by an accident which I need not relate. This manuscript contained also the other tales in this volume, which are entitled translations from Greek. The author of them is unknown; but from his style he must certainly have lived in the later and more corrupt times of the Greek language. A great scholar is preparing these stories for publication by Latin notes and other encumbrances, without which they could not be valid Greek. In the mean time I give this translation.

The foregoing dialogue, according to this Greek author, was overheard by a philosopher named Aristus, who lived at Rhodes, where he had a great reputation and many disciples. He had one day been giving them a lecture on the inconvenience of having a body, on its vicious propensities, and interruptions of thought and study. He had lamented that it cannot be laid aside without loss of life, but exhorted his pupils to mortify, control, and govern it, and thus to be as nearly as possible exempt from it. His lecture being ended, and his pupils dismissed to assume an authority over their bodies as they could, Aristus laid himself on a couch for rest in the heat of day, at the same time murmuring against the body, which exacted this indulgence, and very soon he fell into a strange kind of trance, in which he heard the foregoing dispute between the mind and the body as if within his own person. He listened till they were silent, and then rose out of his trance in great astonishment at this vision, which was quite different from a common dream.

He wondered that the mind had not argued with greater force, and thought that he could himself have pleaded its wrongs much better. Revolving the subject in his thoughts, he unconsciously said aloud, "Whatever the body may say in praise of itself, I should heartily rejoice in being free from all intercourse with it."

"Do you sincerely wish to relinquish your body?" said a voice close to him.

He looked round in surprise, but saw nobody: the voice seemed to come from the hearth, upon which were some little wooden images, his household gods, and while he gazed, one of these little figures opened its mouth and repeated the question. These deities of the hearth had hitherto been as silent as other gods of the same materials, and Aristus was overawed by the unexpected voice.

"Why," continued the image, "are you so much astonished? Is it wonderful that a god should be able to speak?"

"Certainly," answered the philosopher, "I did not expect a voice from an oaken god."

"But," replied the deity, "you have worshipped me with prayers and offerings, and must therefore have believed in my power."

"I have worshipped you," said Aristus, "in deference to the customs of my country; but to tell you the truth, I no more expected any blessing from you than from my walking stick, which is of the same wood as yourself."

"You philosophers," said the image, "are very apt to deprive the gods of their privileges: but you have deserved a benefit from me by rescuing me a few days ago from the fire, into which one of your children had thrown me, and as it is in my power to separate you from your body I will do so if such is your wish, still leaving you the faculties of seeing, hearing, and speaking, which you would find convenient; but I advise you to decide cautiously, for when once you have quitted your body you cannot enter it again."

Aristus still persisted in the wish to be disencumbered of his limbs, and vehemently entreated the image to execute what it promised, so possessed was he by his philosophy, though he was then in the prime of life, when the body imparts so many agreeable hints, which it afterwards loses the power of communicating. "Then," said the protector of the hearth, "if such is your resolution, go down to the sea-shore, and sprinkle a little of the salt water in your face, at the same time pronouncing a word which I will teach you: immediately your body will fade away, and leave you as free a soul as you desire to be." He then taught Aristus to pronounce the powerful word, and the philosopher eagerly expressed his gratitude for the privilege of not having a body. But he said there was one thing wanted to make his happiness complete. He had lived in great concord with his wife, but he feared that when they were become so dissimilar, she being confined within a body, and he reduced to reason and voice, they should not be so well fitted for the society of each other; he therefore entreated the household god, that his wife, Cleopatra, might be brought into the same condition as he was himself about to assume. "I will grant your request," answered the image, "if your wife concurs in it, but I shall not confiscate her person without her own consent. If she agrees to what you wish, let her sprinkle her face with sea water, and pronounce the word that I have taught you, and she will find the same consequences."

Aristus having again thanked the image, walked down to the sea in great expectation of what was to happen; and as soon as he had sprinkled his face, and pronounced the mysterious word, he saw his body begin to escape. His arms, legs, and trunk wasted gradually away, and he could not avoid feeling some horror on looking down at himself thus diminished.

But this melancholy spectacle lasted only a few moments, for he soon withered away, and entirely vanished, so that he could not see the least remnant of himself. When he was quite gone, he no longer pitied the limbs, which had looked so rueful; and being very much elevated by the singularity of his condition, he set out towards home to inform his wife of the advantage he had obtained for himself and her. He was in great admiration of the new kind of being with which he found himself endowed. His body had left him so much remembrance of it, that he still imagined himself to be moving his limbs. At first, therefore, forgetting his want of substance, he set out to walk, as having legs, and fancied himself proceeding in the usual manner, till he looked down, and saw nothing to represent legs or feet. He had also a sensation of arms, together with the belief of a head, and of every other part of his late body. As he went along, he was continually looking for himself, and could hardly be convinced that the limbs, which he felt so plainly, were not there. However, he made the same progress on these imaginary legs as if he had been really walking.

The household god, in taking his body away, had left him those faculties of it, without which he could not have enjoyed any conversation or intercourse with mankind. The power of speech would have been forfeited with his tongue; but the god had contrived him a supposititious voice, exactly resembling the bodily one which he had lost; and thus when he seemed to himself to be opening his mouth, and moving his tongue, though his mouth and tongue were fallacies, yet he produced sounds as serviceable as those which his real tongue had formerly effected. The sense of hearing, too, being instrumental in conversation, and having been lost with his ears, he was by the same magic provided with a substitute for it. With these endowments, he went home in quest of his wife, designing the same spoliation of her.

He had often descanted to her on the demerits of the body, and told her how happily the soul might live apart from it. She having no love of dispute had always seemed to acquiesce in his philosophical opinions; he now therefore believed that he should have no difficulty in persuading her to follow his example, and discard this useless appendage.

When he arrived at home, he was, from habit, about to knock at the door; but endeavouring to raise what seemed to him a hand and arm, and seeing, to his surprise, that no hand or arm resulted from the supposed effort, he remembered his new condition, and was at a loss in what manner to procure entrance into his house. He called many times, but was not heard; and to his perplexity now first discovered that the immortal soul by itself cannot knock at a door. He thought that the god ought to have remedied this defect, and that as he had made him a false speech and hearing, by the same art he ought to have invented some fiction, by which he might have gained an entrance into his own house. It then occurred to him that the arm which he had just discarded was the very instrument that he was in need of, and a sudden apprehension crossed his mind that he had acted rashly. From this difficulty he was relieved by pressing against the door, and finding that he passed through it as if it had been air. Delighted and re-assured by this exploit, he tried himself against two or three other doors, which also offered no opposition, and he stood in his wife's apartment. She was quite ignorant of his presence: he passed before her face, and she took no notice of him; till having amused himself for a short time in watching her, he pronounced her name aloud. She started, and looked round the room without answering: he stood close to her, and again uttered her name, when in great astonishment she said, "Aristus, is that you?"

"Yes, certainly; do not you know my voice?"

"Where are you?"

"Here, in this room, close to you; my hand is on your shoulder. Though, indeed, I cannot properly call it my hand, because I no longer have one, but that sensation of a hand which I retain is now placed on your shoulder."

"The sensation of a hand!" she exclaimed; "what can this mean? You must have been learning some juggling arts, by which you make your voice seem so near to me. But pray come into the room."

"My dearest wife, cannot you believe me? I am now in the room with you. My soul, my intellect, all the faculties of my mind are by your side at this moment; as for the body, arms, and legs, which you have been accustomed to call Aristus, I know not what is become of them."

Aristus, perceiving that this explanation of his circumstances was not quite intelligible to Cleopatra, at length relieved her astonishment by relating to her his conversation with the image, and the change which it had so kindly effected in him. His wife would have believed this wonderful tale to be merely a pleasantry of her husband's, had she not been convinced of its truth by his being invisible. She looked all round, and could see nothing; the voice was certainly close to her; and when she heard the air telling her this story she could not refuse to believe that something unusual had occurred.

She did not at first understand that her husband was to pass all his life in this condition, but imagined that he had merely gained a privilege of making himself invisible at pleasure; and in this belief she said to him, "The Image has certainly taught you an excellent trick; but as I have now had a proof of it, pray let me see you come to yourself again."

"What do you mean by coming to myself?"

"Why, making visible the body that you now contrive to hide?"

"Do you believe, then, that my body is here in concealment?"

"I do not understand how you can be here without it."

"Have I not already explained to you that my body is no longer a part of me? Though it is away I am present; that is to say, my judgment, my imagination, my memory, are here in person."

"Where are they? I cannot see them."

"No, they are not things to be looked at, but to be reasoned about."

"What! shall I never see you again, and shall I only reason about you in future?"

"You will never again see those paltry limbs in which I formerly went about; but me you will have with you still, that is, my reason, my ----"

"Oh, Aristus! what have you done?"

"Surely you do not regret what I have done. I have attained to that pure and exalted condition which is natural to me,--I have become a genuine mind, and shall pass the rest of my days in free contemplation. But this is not all, I have happy tidings for you; the household god, at my entreaty, has consented to extricate you also from your body. You have only to repair to the sea, and as soon as you have sprinkled a little salt water in your face, and repeated a word, which I will teach you, your body will release you, and you will see it crumble away. Let us immediately go to the sea, and practise this enchantment."

"Indeed if I thought water would have such an effect I would never wash my face again."

"You do not seriously mean to be so perverse as to neglect this opportunity of quitting your body."

"Really I do not understand what is the advantage of being without a body."

"Have I not often explained to you that the mind by being disengaged from the limbs is able to think with all its natural vigour?"

"My limbs do not prevent me from thinking: I have now as many thoughts as I desire, and do not wish to lose so much as a finger."

"I am grieved that you are unable to value the blessing offered you. Consider the glorious life we shall enjoy, when together with our bodies we shall have laid aside our infirmities. We shall undoubtedly soon become the two wisest persons upon earth, we shall attain to contemplations hitherto beyond the reach of mortal reason, and shall every day make fresh discoveries in nature."

"One of us is sufficient for all this: you can make discoveries while I stay in my body, and then you can tell me what you have found."

"And do you imagine that you, a composition of dust, will be able to comprehend the conceptions of a pure spirit?"

"I must be content, then, with as many of them as are suitable to my capacity."

Aristus was greatly mortified by this obstinacy of his wife; and being determined to enforce his advice, he turned towards her, as he imagined, with a look not to be disputed, but suddenly remembered that he had no longer a face to be stern with, and that this invisible anger could have but little efficacy. Finding, therefore, that his wife began already to have less veneration for him, now that he was out of sight, he became more than ever desirous of obtaining the resignation of her body, and continued to remonstrate against her perverseness. She persisted, however, in refusing the release that he offered, and also reproached him with his folly, lamenting her loss very bitterly, and declaring that nothing could reconcile her to the change of his character.

Aristus endeavoured to prove to her that his efficacy was not at all diminished, the mind constituting a rational creature, and the body being an insignificant addition. While he was thus labouring to vindicate himself, a friend of his, named Polemo, entered the room, and inquired whether Aristus was at home.

"Oh, Polemo!" exclaimed Cleopatra, weeping vehemently, "you are come to receive sad intelligence of your friend: you will never see him again."

Polemo, supposing him to be dead, expressed the greatest sorrow, and asked what disease or accident had caused this unexpected calamity.

"Aristus can best relate his misfortune to you himself," answered Cleopatra; "for I scarcely understand what has happened to him."

"Is my friend then still alive?" inquired Polemo eagerly.

"He is; but you can never again look upon him."

"What can you mean? I conjure you to explain what has occurred."

"Oh, Polemo! one of our household gods has taken away Aristus's body from him. But ask him to tell you what has happened, for he is now in the room."

"Now in the room! and without his body! Really, if it were not for your tears, I should suppose you were jesting. Perhaps there may be some pleasant raillery in all this, but I confess I am too dull to understand it."

"Why do not you speak," said Cleopatra, addressing herself to the air, "and explain this mystery?"

Aristus having thus long suffered his friend's perplexity to continue, at length declared himself by saying,--

"It is true that I am now in the room and apart from my body, but I know you will not regard my separation as a calamity."

Polemo was in great astonishment when these words spoke themselves close to him. He knew the voice to be his friend's, and looking round endeavoured to find him, till Aristus related to him the whole adventure, and the circumstances in which he now found himself, saying to him at the conclusion of his story,--

"You have come fortunately, my friend, to assist me in persuading my wife to her duty. I have prevailed on the god to grant that by sprinkling her face, and by the magical word, she shall be let loose as I was, but (would you believe it?) she determines to remain shut up in her body, and in spite of the fidelity and love which I have a right to expect from her, she positively refuses to resemble me."

"Indeed, my friend," answered Polemo, "I think you very unreasonable in expecting that she should submit to such a change. She is certainly obliged as a wife to be faithful and kind, but it does not seem to me that as a wife she is obliged to be air whenever you may think fit to desire it."

"But is she not acting contrary to her own happiness in refusing such an opportunity?"

"Why, perhaps she has not, like you, felt the hardship of a body, but having passed many years in hers very comfortably, has no reason for desiring to break out of it. Not only do I commend her prudence, but I believe that you even, philosopher as you are, will soon repent of having allowed yourself to be thus despoiled; and I earnestly advise you to repair instantly to this household god which takes away men's bodies, and entreat that it will again let you into the human frame, which you have so unadvisedly abandoned; that is, if it has not quite decayed since your desertion of it, but can still be repaired so as to be habitable."

"That, I rejoice to say, is impossible," answered Aristus: "my body is gone--quite annulled--I saw it abolished. But even if there were still a frame fit for my reception, do you imagine, that after having once escaped from that carcass I shall ever suffer myself to be inveigled into it again?"

"And pray what advantages have you gained by being shut out?"

"I have gained the power of passing my life in uninterrupted thought, the proper employment of the human mind."

"But why could not you think in your body? I do not understand why your limbs should interfere with your studies. When I wish to think I never find that my arm interrupts me, or that my leg breaks in upon my meditations."

"Nor did his body interrupt him," exclaimed Cleopatra: "I have seen him sit in it and think for hours together without any one of his limbs molesting him."

"Indeed," replied Polemo, "I think he had as much time for contemplation as a man moderately thoughtful could wish."