NEW ESSAYS 401 



But if some one should say that at any rate God can add 

 the faculty of thinking to a mechanism prepared for it, 

 I would answer that, if this took place and God added 

 this faculty to matter, without at the same time putting 

 into matter a substance which should be the subject in 

 which this same faculty (as I conceive it) is inherent 

 (that is to say, without .adding to matter an immaterial 

 soul), matter must needs have been miraculously exalted 

 so as to receive a power of which it is not naturally 

 capable : as some Scholastics declare that God exalts fire 

 so as to give it the power directly to burn spirits separated 

 from matter 181 , which would be entirely miraculous 182 . 

 And it is enough that we cannot maintain that matter 

 thinks, unless there is attributed to it an imperishable 

 soul or rather a miracle, and that thus the immortality 

 of our souls follows from that which is natural 183 : since 

 we cannot maintain that they are extinguished, unless 

 it be by a miracle, consisting either in the exaltation of 

 matter or in the annihilation of the soul. For we know, 

 of course, that the power of God could make our souls 

 mortal, although they may be quite immaterial (or im- 

 mortal by nature), since He can annihilate them t84 . 



181 E. reads 'bodies.' 



182 Of. Nouveaux Essais, bk. iv. ch. 3, 6 (E. 347 a ; G. v. 360 : 

 ' To suppose that God acts otherwise and gives to things accidents, 

 which are not modes [fapons d'etre] or modifications derived from 

 substances, is to have recourse to miracles and to what the Schools 

 called obediential power, through a kind of supernatural exaltation, 

 as when certain theologians hold that the fire of hell burns 

 "' separated " souls. In which case it may even be doubted whether 

 it would be the fire which would do it, and whether God would 

 not Himself produce the effect, acting in place of the fire.' 

 Cardinal Bellarmine (1542-1621) in his fie Purgatorio, bk. ii. chs. 10- 

 12, expounds a view of this kind, holding that the fire of purgatory 

 is material fire, but nevertheless miraculously burns souls. In this 

 opinion he openly follows Augustine (fie Civitate fiei, bk. xxi. ch. 10), 

 and a similar view is expressed by Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol. 

 Suppl. P. iii. Q. 70, Art. 3, conclusion. 



183 i. e. ' from their nature ' or ' from the order of nature.' 



184 Cf. Monadology, 6. 



Dd 



