DISCOURSE ON METHOD. 49 



tion, that, in this way alone, things purely material 

 might, in course of time, have become such as we , 

 observe them at present; and their nature is much 

 more easily conceived when chey are beheld coming 

 in this manner gradually into existence, than when 

 they are only considered as produced at once in a 

 finished and perfect state. 



From the description of inanimate bodies and 

 plants, I passed to animals, and particularly to man. 

 But since I had not as yet sufficient knowledge to 

 enable me to treat of these in the same manner as of 

 the rest, that is to say, by deducing effects from 

 their causes, and by showing from what elements 

 and in what manner Nature must produce them, I 

 remained satisfied with the supposition that God 

 formed the body of man wholly like to one of ours, 

 as well in the external shape of the members as in 

 the internal conformation of the organs, of the same 

 matter with that I had described, and at first placed 

 in it no Rational Soul, nor any other principle, in 

 room of the Vegetative or Sensitive Soul, beyond 

 kindling in the heart one of those fires without light, 

 such as I had already described, and which I 

 thought was not different from the heat in hay that 

 has been heaped together before it is dry, or that 

 which causes fermentation in new wines before they 

 are run clear of the fruit. For, when I examined 

 the kind of functions which might, as consequences 

 of this supposition, exist in this body, I found pre- 

 cisely all those which may exist in us independently 

 of all power of thinking, and consequently without 

 being in any measure owing to the soul ; in other 





