Chapter 25 [XVII.]—The Disembodied Soul May Think of Itself Under a Bodily Form.

You must not, however, suppose that I say all this as if denying it to be possible that the soul of a dead man, like a person asleep, may think either good or evil thoughts in the similitude of his body. For, in dreams, when we suffer anything harsh and troublesome, we are, of course, still ourselves; and if the distress do not pass away when we awake, we experience very great suffering. But to suppose that they are veritable bodies in which we are hurried, or flit, about hither and thither in dreams, is the idea of a person who has thought only carelessly on such subjects; for it is in fact mainly by these imaginary sights that the soul is proved to be non-corporeal; unless you choose to call even the objects which we see so often in our dreams, besides ourselves, bodies, such as the sky, the earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, the stars, and rivers, mountains, trees, or animals. Whoever takes these phantoms to be bodies, is incredibly foolish; although they are certainly very like bodies. Of this character also are those phenomena which are demonstrably of divine significance, whether seen in dreams or in a trance. Who can possibly trace out or describe their origin, or the material of which they consist? It is, beyond question, spiritual, not corporeal. Now things of this kind, which look like bodies, but are not really corporeal, are formed in the thoughts of persons when they are awake, and are held in the depths of their memories, and then out of these secret recesses, by some wonderful and ineffable process, they come out to view in the operation of our memory, and present themselves as if palpably before our eyes. If, therefore, the soul were a material body, it could not possibly contain so many things and such large forms of bodily substances in its scope of thought, and in the spaces of its memory; for, according to your own definition, “it does not exceed this external body in its own corporeal substance.” Possessing, therefore, no magnitude of its own, what capacity has it to hold the images of vast bodies, spaces, and regions? What wonder is it, then, if it actually itself appears to itself in the likeness of its own body, even when it appears without a body? For it never appears to itself in dreams with its own body; and yet in the very similitude of its own body it runs hither and thither through known and unknown places, and beholds many sad and joyous sights. I suppose, however, that you really would not, yourself, be so bold as to maintain that there is true corporeity in that form of limb and body which the soul seems to itself to possess in dreams. For at that rate that will be a real mountain which it appears to ascend; and that a material house which it seems to enter; and that a veritable tree, with real wood and bulk, beneath which it apparently reclines; and that actual water which it imagines itself to drink. All the things with which it is conversant, as if they were corporeal, would be undoubted bodies, if the soul were itself corporeal, as it ranges about amongst them all in the likeness of a body.

CAPUT XVII.

25. Neque me haec ita disserere existimes, tanquam negem fieri posse ut anima mortui sicut dormientis, in similitudine corporis sui sentiat, seu bona, seu mala. Nam et in somnis quando aliqua dura et molesta perpetimur, nos utique sumus; et nisi evigilantibus nobis illa praetereant, 0539 poenas gravissimas pendimus. Sed corpora esse credere, quibus hac atque illac quasi ferimur et volitamus in somnis, hominis, est qui parum vigilanter de rebus talibus cogitavit: de his quippe visorum imaginibus, maxime anima probatur non esse corporea: nisi velis et illa corpora dicere, quae praeter nos ipsos tam multa videmus in somnis, coelum, terram, mare, solem, lunam, stellas, fluvios, montes, arbores, animalia. Haec qui corpora esse credit, incredibiliter desipit: sunt tamen corporibus omnino simillima. Ex hoc genere sunt etiam, quae alia significantia divinitus demonstrantur, sive in somnis, sive in ectasi: quae unde fiant, id est, quaenam sit velut materies eorum, quis indagare potest aut dicere? Procul dubio tamen spiritualis est, non corporalis. Namque hujusmodi species velut corporum, non tamen corpora, et vigilantium cogitatione formantur, et profunditate memoriae continentur; et ex ejus abditissimis sinibus, nescio quo mirabili et ineffabili modo, cum recordamur prodeunt, et quasi ante oculos prolata versantur. Tam multas igitur et tam magnas corporum imagines, si anima corpus esset, capere cogitando vel memoria continendo non posset. Secundum tuam quippe definitionem, «corporea substantia sua corpus hoc exterius non excedit.» Qua igitur magnitudine, quae nulla illi est, imagines tam magnorum corporum et spatiorum atque regionum capit? Quid ergo mirum, si et ipsa sibi in sui corporis similitudine apparet, et quando sine corpore apparet? Neque enim cum suo corpore sibi apparet in somnis, et tamen in ea ipsa similitudine corporis sui, quasi per loca ignota et nota discurrit, et laeta sentit multa vel tristia. Sed puto quod nec tu audeas dicere, figuram illam corporis atque membrorum, quam sibi habere videtur in somnis, verum corpus esse. Nam isto modo erit verus mons, quem sibi videtur ascendere; et corporea domus, quam sibi videtur intrare; et arbor vera lignumque verum corpus habens, sub qua sibi videtur jacere; et aqua vera, quam sibi videtur haurire; et omnia in quibus quasi corporibus versatur, corpora erunt si et ipsa corpus est, quae simili imagine inter cuncta illa versatur.