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The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t6: 6. Physiological Conclusions from the Upanishads

The Philosophy of the Upanishads c11.s2.t6

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6. Physiological Conclusions from the Upanishads

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The gross body which the soul abandons at death as the mango fruit its stalk,¹ must be distinguished from the subtle body, which in its capacity as vehicle of the psychical organs accompanies the soul on its wanderings up to the time of its release. We propose here by way of appendix to collect all that the Upanishads have to say on the body, its organs and functions.

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¹ Bṛih. 4. 3. 36.

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The body is the prâṇa's habitation, of which the head forms the roof, in which it is bound to the breath as posts by food as the rope.² It is the âtman “consisting of the juice of food,” annarasamaya, in which is enclosed the prâṇamaya âtman, in this again the manomaya, in this the vijñânamaya, and in this as the innermost the ânan-damaya.³ Only later⁴ is the ânandamaya âtman also described, like the rest, as a sheath kośa of the soul.⁵ Usually following Bṛih. 2. 5. 18, and especially Chând. 8. 1. 1, the body is described as the city of Brahman (brahma-puram), heavenly,⁶ desirable,⁷ the highest dwelling of Brahman,⁸ in which as a house the lotus flower of the heart abides,⁹ in which during sleep the fires of the prâṇa keep watch.¹⁰ This city of the body has eleven,¹¹ or more usually nine gates,¹² viz., the nine openings in the body, to which when eleven are reckoned the navel and the Brahman orifice (brahmarandhram) are added. The latter is an imaginary orifice of the skull on the top of the head, through which, according to Ait. 1. 3. 12, Brahman entered into the body, and by which the soul, or according to the more usual view only the souls of the emancipated,¹ having ascended by the hundred and first vein (subsequently named, following Maitr. 6. 21, *sushumnâ*), attains to union with Brahman.² Thus the conception is old. The name *brahma-randhram* is first found in Haṁsa Up. 3 in connection with the six mystical and imaginary regions on the body that occur there for the first time (the regions of the belly, loins, navel, heart, neck and eyebrows). It is perhaps an anticipation of this when, in Ait. 1. 3. 12, eye, manas and the ether of the heart (as the scholiast reckons them), are distinguished as special stations of the purusha, or in Brahma Up. 4, eye, throat, heart and head (in Brahma Up. 2, navel, heart, throat and head). From him who forms the light within men proceeds also, according to Chând. 3. 13. 8, the warmth of the body and the noises in the ear. The latter like digestion are ascribed by Bṛih. 5. 9 to the Vais'vânara fire in men, which when we bear in mind S'atap. Br. X. 6. 1 amounts to the same thing. The passages Mahân. 11. 10, Maitr. 2. 6, 6. 27, 6. 31 depend on a combination of the other two.

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² Bṛih. 2. 2. 1.

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³ Taitt. 2. 1 f.

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⁴ by Maitr. 6. 27–28.

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⁵ cp. Sarvopanishats. 9 f., where the annamaya âtman is still further divided into six sheaths consisting of food (according to the commentator of the Calcutta edition, these are,—bones, marrow, fat, skin, flesh and blood.

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⁶ Muṇḍ. 2. 2. 7.

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⁷ Brahma-Up. 1.

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⁸ Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 1.

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⁹ Chând. 8. 1. 1, Mahân. 10. 23, Nârây. 5, Âtmabodha.

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¹⁰ Pras'na 4. 3.

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¹¹ Kâth. 5. 1.

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¹² S'vet. 3. 18, Yogas'. 4, Yogat. 13, Bhag. G. 5. 13.

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¹ Chând. 8. 6. 6=Kâṭh. 6. 16.

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² cp. Brahmavidyâ 12, and especially Taitt. 1. 6.

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Descriptions of the body and its parts, usually with a pessimistic colouring, are first found at a later period. "In this evil-smelling unsubstantial body, shuffled together out of bones, skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears, eye-gum, dung, urine, gall and phlegm, how can we enjoy pleasure?"³ "This body, originating from copulation, grown in the pit (of the mother's womb) and issuing forth through the passages of the excretions, is a collection of bones daubed over with flesh, covered with skin, filled full with dung, urine, phlegm, marrow, fat and grease, and to crown all with many diseases, like a treasure store crammed with treasure.”¹ A definition of the body is given by Âtma Up. 1:—“That self, in which are skin, bones, flesh, marrow, hairs, fingers, thumbs, spine, nails, joints, belly, navel, pudenda, hips, thighs, cheeks, brows, forehead, arms, sides, head, veins, eyes and ears, and which is born and dies, is called the external self.”

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³ Maitr. 1. 3.

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¹ Maitr. 3. 4.

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The most complete elucidation of the body and its relations is furnished by the late and unfortunately very corrupt Garbha Upanishad. Its explanations are attached to a verse, which we quote, inserting the explanations that follow it:—“Consisting of five (earth, water, fire, wind, ether), ruling in these groups of five (the so-called five elements, or the five organs of knowledge, or the organs of generation and evacuation with buddhi, manas, and speech), supported on six (the sweet, sour, salt, bitter, acid and harsh juices of food), endowed with six qualities (unexplained), made up of seven elementary substances (the white, red, grey, smoke-coloured, yellow, brown, pale fluid in the body which is produced from the juice of the food), made up of three kinds of mucus (unexplained, probably the three dosha, humours, viz.,—vâyu wind, pittam gall, kapha phlegm), twice-begotten (from the father’s seed and the mother’s blood), partaking of various kinds of food (that which is eaten, drunk, licked and sucked up) is the body.” On the parts of the body and their importance the Upanishad declares at the close:—“The head has four skull-bones, and in them there are (on each) side sixteen sockets. (In the body) there are 107 joints, 180 sutures, 900 sinews, 700 veins, 500 muscles, 360 bones, and 4½ crore (45 million) hairs. The heart weighs eight pala (364 grammes), the tongue 12 pala (546 grammes), the gall a prastham (728 grammes), the phlegm an âdhakam (2912 grammes), the seed a kuḍavam (182 grammes), the fat two prastha (1456 grammes; the dung and the urine are indeterminate, depending on the quantity of food."

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The head is compared in a verse from Atharvav. X. 8. 9 to a goblet tilted sideways, the opening of which is formed by the seven openings of the organs of sense as seven ṛishis. The same verse with the addition of speech as an eighth organ is repeated and explained in Bṛih. 2. 2. 3. According to this passage the eyes are two ṛishis, although immediately before the red black and white in the eye with the pupil, the humour, and the upper and lower lashes, had been inconsistently described as seven gods remaining in attendance on the eye. Of the purusha in the eye as the symbol of the âtman we have already spoken.¹ According to Bṛih. 4. 2. 2-3, Indra and Virâj dwell in the right and left eye; they are nourished from the heart through the veins hitâḥ,² and are, by virtue of their "union" in the ether of the heart, the individual âtman identical with the supreme.

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¹ sup. p. 114 f.

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² cp. Maitr. 6. 2.

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As an appropriate punishment for arrogance in questioning or for the darkness of false knowledge there frequently occurs in the Upanishads the bursting of the head.³ The expression may perhaps have its origin in the sensation of bursting which attends any excessive rush of blood to the head. This is indicated by Bṛih. 1. 3. 24 also, where the reference is to a bursting of the head caused by indulgence in soma. As a rule this punishment is only threatened.⁴ Only once is it actually inflicted.⁵

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³ The phrase is better translated in this way than by the falling off of the head; vi-pat might mean either.

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⁴ Chând. 1. 8. 6, 8, 1. 10. 9-11, 1. 11. 4-9, 5. 12. 2, Bṛih. 3. 6, 3. 7. 1.

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⁵ Bṛih. 3. 9. 26; cp. Atharvav. 19. 28. 4, S'atap. Br. 3. 6. 1. 23, 4. 4. 3. 4, 11. 4. 1. 9.

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The heart more than the head occupies the attention of the thinkers of the Upanishads. It is there that the vital breaths reside.¹ Not only the five prāṇas, but also eye, ear, speech and manas originate from the heart.² The heart and not the head is the home of manas ;³ and the former therefore is the centre also of conscious life. In sleep the organs of the soul remain in the heart,⁴ and there also they gather at death;⁵ “through the heart we recognise forms,”⁶ through the heart we recognise faith, beget children, know the truth, on it speech also is based, while the further question on what the heart is based is angrily rejected.⁷ Not the organs however alone, but all beings are based upon and supported by the heart; and even setting aside the actual definition of the heart as Brahman,⁸ it is yet the empirical home of the soul, and therefore of Brahman:—“here within in the heart is a cavity, wherein he resides, the lord of the universe, the ruler of the universe, the chief of the universe.”⁹ The heart is called hṛidayam, because “it is he” who dwells “in the heart” (hṛidi ayam, Chând. 8. 3. 3), small as a grain of rice or barley;¹⁰ an inch in height the purusha dwells in the midst of the body, as the self of created things in the heart.¹¹

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¹ Chând. 3. 12. 4. ² Chând. 3. 13. 1–5. ³ Ait. 1. 2. 4. ⁴ Bṛih. 2. 1. 17. ⁵ Bṛih. 4. 4. 1. ⁶ Bṛih. 3. 9. 20. ⁷ Bṛih. 3. 9. 21–25. ⁸ Bṛih. 4. 1. 7. ⁹ Bṛih. 4. 4. 22. ¹⁰ Bṛih. 5. 6, Chând. 3. 14. 3. ¹¹ Kâṭh. 2. 20, 4. 12, 6. 17, etc. ¹² Mahânâr. 10. 23, Nâr. 5, Maitr. 6. 2, Brahmab. 15; Âtmab, cp. Upan., p. 751; Haṁsa 6. ¹³ Dhyânab. 14. ¹⁴ Or ether, âkasa. ¹⁵ Muṇḍ. 3. 2. 1.

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On the ground of Chând. 8. 1. 1 the heart is frequently in the later Upanishads compared with the hanging cup of a lotus flower,¹² or even with banana blossom;¹³ and is more fully described in Mahânâr. 11. 8, Dhyânab. 14–16, Yogat. 9, Mahâ 3. In this lotus flower of the heart there is a small space,¹⁴ in which, according to Chând. 8. 1. 3, heaven and earth, sun, moon and stars are enclosed, in which “the lights of the universe shine enclosed,”¹⁵ which is “the strong support of this universe.”¹ Into this space the soul enters in sleep,² in it the immortal golden purusha abides.³ It is the cavity (*guhâ*), so often referred to, in which Brahman lies concealed,⁴ and from which he issues in the meditation of yoga, when he pushes on one side the ether of the heart,⁵ or forces his way through it.⁶

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¹ Brahma Up. 4.

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² Bṛih. 2. 1. 17.

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³ Taitt. 1. 6. 1.

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⁴ Taitt. 2. 1, Kâṭh. 2. 12, 2. 20, 3. 1, S'vet. 3. 20, Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 10, etc.

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⁵ Maitr. 6. 27.

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⁶ Maitr. 6. 38.

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Several accounts are found of the veins that originate from the heart and surround it, and these are related in a peculiar and hardly definable way.

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Bṛih. 4. 2. 3 :—The veins called *hitâḥ*, fine as a hair a thousand times subdivided, have their home in the heart, and nourish the individual soul. A special vein leading upwards is the path on which it travels.

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Bṛih. 4. 3. 20 :—The veins called *hitâḥ*, fine as a hair a thousand times subdivided, are filled with white, grey, brown, green and red fluid. They are the abode of the soul in deep sleep.

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Bṛih. 2. 1. 19 :—The veins called *hitâḥ*, 72,000 in number, ramify from the heart outwards into the pericardium (*purîtat*). They are the abode of the soul in deep sleep.

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These passages are in essential agreement; and Kaush. 4. 19 appears to be derived from a combination of them :—“The veins called *hitâḥ*, fine as a hair subdivided a thousand times, surround the pericardium. They are the abode of the soul in deep sleep. They are filled with brown, white, black, yellow and red fluid.” All this is like the passages from Bṛih., only that the succession and names of the colours⁷ agree with Chând. 8. 6. 1.

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⁷ Up to *kṛishṇa* for *nîla*.

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Chând. 8. 6. 1 connects the idea of the brown, white, gray, yellow and red “veins of the heart” with the theory¹ of the rays of the sun similarly five coloured, which form the continuation of the veins unto the sun, thus uniting heart and sun, like two villages by a high road. In deep sleep the soul glides into these veins,² and through them becomes one with the heat.³ At death the soul ascends to the sun by way of the veins and the sun’s rays. The wise gain the sun, the ignorant find the entrance to it closed.

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¹ Of which Chând. 3. 1–5 is an anticipation.

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² Chând. 8. 6. 3.

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³ *tejas*, Chând. 6. 2. 3, 6. 8. 6, 6. 15. 2.

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The verses Bṛih. 4. 4. 8–9 may perhaps be derived from this passage. They describe an ancient path, extending even to the individual man, which leads up to the heavenly world, and is white, gray, yellow and green. On this the soul of the wise man travels, after it has become heat, *taijasa*. The expression *taijasa* recalls the passages quoted from the Chândogya;⁴ the colours are as in the Bṛihadâraṇyaka. In the main point all the passages hitherto cited agree.

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⁴ cp. also however Bṛih. 4. 4. 7.

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A different view however seems to attach to the verse (perhaps derived from Bṛih. 4. 4. 2), which is appended to Chând. 8. 6. 6 and recurs in Kâṭh. 6. 16:—

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The veins of the heart are a hundred and one.
Of these one leads to the head;
By it he ascends who wins immortality.
The others issue forth on all sides.

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According to this verse only one vein leads upwards to immortality, while according to the preceding prose all the veins are connected with the sun’s rays, and therefore lead to the sun, where first a separation takes place.

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Later passages all depend on a combination of the theories of the 72,000 and the 101 veins. Thus on the basis of them Pras'na 3. 6 enumerates 101 chief veins, each with 100 branch veins, to each of which again there are 72,000 tributary branch veins, making a total of 101 + 101 × 100 + 101 × 100 × 72,000 = 727,210,201, i.e. 72 crores, 72 lacs, and 10,201 as the commentary¹ correctly reckons. According to Maitr. 6. 30, countless white, not white, blackish yellow, gray, reddish brown, and light-red rays proceed from the heart, of which one leads to the sun, 100 to the abodes of the gods, and the rest downwards to the ordinary world. Kshurikâ 15-17 mentions the 72,000 veins, of which 101 are the most important. Through all these veins, which are grouped around the 101st, named sushumnâ, as round a cushion, the yogin forces his way, when conducted on the sushumnâ to Brahman. Similarly Brahmavidyâ 11-12 describes how the syllable Om (i.e. that on which he meditates) ascends on the vein of the head which is attached to the sun, and breaks through the 72,000 veins and the head, in order to unite with Brahman. These and other fancies depend upon a combination of the passages quoted from Bṛih. Up. with the verse cited from Chând. 8. 6. 6.²

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¹ According to the reading of the Ânandâs'rama edition.

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² = Kâṭh. 6. 16.

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The body consists on the usual hypothesis, which is traceable back to Bṛih. 4. 4. 5, of the five elements.³ In Chând. 6. 5 also, where only three elements (food i.e. earth, water, and heat) are assumed, it is shown how the body and the psychical organs originate from the most dense, the medium, and the finest parts of them according to the following scheme :—

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³ Garbha 1.

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| | Densest. | Medium. | Finest. |
| Food . . . | fæces | flesh | manas |
| Water . . . | urine | blood | prâṇa |
| Heat . . . | bones | marrow | speech |

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In this case, just as with the milk when churned to butter, the fine parts float to the top.¹ In proof of the statement that manas is composed of food, prāṇa of water, it is declared that if a man abstains from food but drinks water the life (prāṇa) is maintained, but thought (manas) fails.² In Bṛih. 4. 2. 3 also it is declared that the individual soul is nourished by the mass of blood in the heart, and that it therefore, as the bodily self, "has a choice food" (pravivikta-āhāra-tara). From this is derived the doctrine that the waking ātman "enjoys that which is gross" (sthūlabhuj), the sleeping on the contrary "enjoys that which is choice" (pravivikta-bhuj).³

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¹ Chând. 6. 6.

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² Chând. 6. 7.

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³ Māṇḍūkya 3–4, interpreted differently in Vedāntasāra 120.

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Hunger and thirst, which according to Ait. 1. 2. 5 make their home in men as demoniac powers, are explained in Chând. 6. 8 on etymological grounds on the supposition that in hunger (aśanāyā) the waters carry off (aśitam nayante) the food that is eaten (to build up the organism), while in thirst (udanyā) the heat carries away (udakam nayate) the water that is drunk (likewise to build up the organism). When then in hunger and thirst the food becomes water, the water heat, they only return to the source from which according to Chând. 6. 2 they were derived.

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The states of waking, dreaming, deep sleep and death will have to be discussed in the immediately following chapters. Here we propose merely to summarise the most important teaching of the Upanishads on the origin of organisms (which collectively are the wandering souls).

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Organisms are divided according to their origin into four classes, viz.—born alive, born from an egg, born from moisture (insects and the like), and born from a germ (plants). This classification, which was universally adopted with a few modifications by later Indian writers,¹ depends solely upon two passages of the Upanishads. The first is Chând. 6. 3. 1:—"In truth, these beings have here three kinds of seeds, born from the egg, born alive, and born from the germ." In Ait. 3. 3 where a fourth class is added, and the enumeration is "born from an egg, born from the mother's womb, born from moisture, and born from a shoot," the impression is conveyed of a later origin and of apparent dependence on the former passage.

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¹ Manu 1. 43–48, Mahâbh. 14. 1136, 2543, etc.; cp. for the Vedânta, Syst. d. Ved., p. 259; for the Sâṅkhya, Garbe, Sâṅkhyaphilosophie, p. 243; for the Nyâya, Colebrooke, Misc. Essays, I. p. 269 f.

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In harmony with the doctrine of transmigration, generation is not the birth of the soul for the first time, but is only its return from the moon, where it has received the fruit of the works of its earlier existence. According to the principal text of the doctrine of transmigration,² the stations through which the soul passes on its return from the moon are ether, wind, smoke, mist, clouds, rain, plants, seed and the mother's body. Hence is derived the description of Muṇḍ. 2. 1. 5; and the verses also of Kaush. 1. 2, in which the soul on its return from the moon directs its course through the bodies of father and mother, are connected with these ideas. Perhaps the obscure passage Prâṇâgnihotra Up. 2 is to be explained in a similar way. According to it the expiatory fire "by means of the brilliancy of the moon" effects generation.³ The last receptacle of the soul on its descent from the other world to enter into a new body is the father's seed; this is the essence of men,⁴ "the power gathered together from all the limbs,"⁵ it is the propagation itself;¹ its home is in the heart;² Prajâpati created the woman as its dwelling-place;³ into her the man pours forth his own self, and causes it thereby to be born:—“then enters he into the very essence of the woman, as though he were a limb of hers; therefore it is that he does her no harm; she however, after that this his âtman has come to her, cherishes it; because she cherishes it, therefore is she to be cherished.”⁴ According to this it is the soul of the father, which is born again in the child, while, according to the principal text of the doctrine of transmigration⁵ quoted above, the child is a soul on its return from the moon, and consequently in its view both the father’s seed and the mother’s womb are only stations on the road. The myth ascribed to Yâjñavalkhya in Bṛih. 1. 4. 3-4 is not in agreement with either of these views, when it explains procreation as the desire for re-union of the two halves of one and the same being, originally belonging together, but divided by Prajâpati into man and woman. This myth, like that analogous to it in the Symposium of Plato, departs from the truth only to the extent that it places in the past what lies in the future. For the being that brings together man and woman is indeed the child that will be born (cp. Deussen, *Elements of Metaphysic*, 153).

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² Chând. 5. 10. 5–6 = Bṛih. 6. 2. 16.

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³ Nârâyaṇa's explanation is different in the gloss quoted in Upan., p. 615, Anm. 2.

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⁴ Bṛih. 6. 4. 1.

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⁵ Ait. 2. 1; on the expression sambhṛitam tejas, cp. Meghadûta 43.

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¹ Bṛih. 6. 1. 6.

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² Bṛih. 3. 9. 22.

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³ Bṛih. 6. 4. 2.

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⁴ Ait. 2. 2-3.

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⁵ Chând. 5. 10. 5-6.

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To beget is represented as a religious duty. In Taitt. 1. 9 it is enjoined side by side with studying and teaching the Veda. Frequently it is allegorically described as an act of sacrifice.⁶ In Taitt. 1. 11 the pupil dismissed from study is charged,—“After having delivered to the teacher the gifts of affection, take care that the thread of thy race be not broken.” “He who in his lifetime rightly continues to spin the thread of posterity thereby transfers his guilt to the fathers; for it (begetting) is the transference of his guilt."¹ By the son his continued life is assured in the world of men,² he is admitted to the fathers to consummate his righteous deeds;³ "and if anything whatever has been committed perversely by him, his son will expiate all; therefore is his name 'son';⁴ by the son that is to say he continues to exist in this world."⁵ Particular directions are given in Bṛih. 6. 4 how to proceed in order to beget a son or a daughter of a definite disposition. This chapter forms the conclusion of the Upanishad, and therefore probably the close of the religious instruction imparted to the student at the end of his student life.

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⁶ Chând. 3. 17. 5, 5. 8-9, Bṛih. 6. 2. 13, 6. 4. 3.

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¹ Mahân. 63. 8. ² Bṛih. 1. 5. 16. ³ Ait. 2. 4. ⁴ putra, because he pûraṇena trâyati pitaram, S'aṅk. ⁵ Bṛih. 1. 5. 17.

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In contrast with these views, which include the act of procreation within the sphere of religious duties, an ascetic tendency gradually prevailed which rejected it altogether. In Bṛih. 1. 4. 17 the five natural objects of human endeavour (self, wife, child, kingdom, action) are replaced by five phenomenal forms of the âtman (manas, speech, breath, eye and ear, body). In Bṛih. 3. 5. 1 it is said of Brâhmans who have known the âtman that they hold aloof from the desire for children, possessions, and the world. Similarly in Bṛih. 4. 4. 22, where it has been said previously:—"This our ancestors knew, when they ceased to desire offspring, and said,—'What need have we of offspring, we whose soul this universe is.'" If these assertions are put into the mouth of Yâjñavalkhya, who nevertheless himself had two wives, this is only an additional proof that Yâjñavalkhya is a mere name, to which the loftiest and noblest thoughts of the school of the Vâjasaneyins were assigned. Whether in the wish also of Chând. 8. 14:—"May I not, the glorious of the glorious, enter upon old age toothless,” the expression “toothless, grey, slobbery” is to be understood of a fresh entrance into the mother’s womb (as the scholiast takes it), or of a possibly long period of trial before old age and its troubles are reached may be left undecided. Of later passages only Mahân. 62. 7, 11, 63. 8, 13 need be cited, where self-renunciation is exalted above parentage, and Pras’na 1. 13, 15, where the *prajâpativratam* is still permitted on the condition that it is not practised by day, but the world of Brahman is promised only to those “who mortify themselves, in whom true chastity is firmly established.” That the later Sannyâsa Upanishads are full of this spirit needs no proof. Sacrifice to Prajâpati, which is enjoined in them on the Sannyâsin at his entrance,¹ but is elsewhere forbidden,² appears to denote a symbolical release from the duty of propagation.

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¹ Kanthas’r. 4.

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² Jâbâla 4.

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The length of the stay in the mother’s body is estimated in Chând. 5. 9. 1 at “ten (lunar) months, or as long as it is.” Detailed information on the development of the embryo is given in Garbha Up. 2–4:—“The embryo is developed from the union of seed and blood, . . . from this union at the periodical time after one night a nodule arises, after seven nights a cyst, within half a month a lump, within one month it hardens, after two months the head is formed, after three months the parts of the feet, in the fourth month the ankle-bones, belly and hips, in the fifth the spine, in the sixth, mouth, nose, eyes and ears, in the seventh the embryo is furnished with the soul (*jîva*), in the eighth it is complete in all its parts. If the male seed is in excess a male is born, if the female a female, if both are equal a hermaphrodite; blind, lame, bent and dwarfed are the results of lack of power. If the seed on its entrance is divided by the pressure of the wind on either side into two parts, the body also becomes twofold, and twins are born. . . . Finally in the ninth month it is complete in all its parts, and also in knowledge; then it recalls (as long as it remains still in the mother’s body, like Vâmadeva, Ait. 2. 4) its former births, and has knowledge of its good and evil deeds; . . . when however, arriving at the gates of the sexual parts, it suffers pain by the pressure, is with difficulty and in great anguish born, and comes into contact with the Vaishnava wind (the wind of the external universe), it is unable any longer to bethink it of its births and deaths, and has no further knowledge of its good and evil deeds.” Voltaire’s mockery (Ep. XIII. sur les Anglais) has reference to similar ideas in the later Western philosophy, but it applies also to the Indian *a priori* imaginations:—je ne suis pas plus disposé que Locke à imaginer que, quelques semaines après ma conception, j’étais une âme fort savante, sachant alors mille choses que j’ai oubliées en naissant et ayant fort inutilement possédé dans l’utérus des connaissances qui m’ont échappé dès que j’ai pu en avoir besoin et que je n’ai jamais bien pu reprendre depuis.

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