petty theft, at that, precisely,” Dr. Monardes nodded in agreement. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s . . .”
At that moment we heard the voice of Jesús the coachman, who always knew the way.
“Señores, Sevilla.” I looked out the window—indeed, the lights of Sevilla were visible in the distance, heaped into several piles in the night, surrounded by gloom like coals in a dark room. Whose room? And for what reason? Nature’s room, señor. For no apparent reason. Indeed, it would be strange for anything at all to appear in such a pitch-dark night.
“Hey, Jesús,” Dr. Monardes yelled suddenly. “Are you a Spaniard?”
“Of course!” Jesús replied. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Where are you from originally?”
“Where am I from originally? I guess I’ve got to be from Sevilla. I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
“And where is your father from?”
“Well, my father is a different story! He came from the Holy Lands, señor. Hence the name. If I’d been a girl, I would’ve been called Maria Immaculata.”
Dr. Monardes turned to me. “See? Not one. Not a single one.”
My sincerest thanks to Señor Dr. da Silva for granting me the opportunity to sincerely express and so forth, etc.
What do these various churchmen, these so-called philosophers and other clever windbags, mean when they use the word “soul”? What is the soul, in their view? In response to this question they offer some complex and entirely unfathomable answers, some conundrums and other such mind-bogglers, which depend entirely on their unfathomableness, combined with a profuse stream of words, to convince you of their correctness. The intelligent person, however, quickly notes their vacuity and even their naiveté, as well as their utter lack of familiarity with and understanding of human nature. Dr. da Silva has informed me that earlier in his work he has revealed the true medical opinions on the so-called “soul,” how it is a type of interaction and actio pro functio et junctio of the four bodily humors with the numerous organs and so forth. Thus, I will not expound on these arguments. I will merely note the utter indefensibility of belief in the soul from the point of view of everyday common sense. Let’s take as an example that whole rabble one sees in the streets of Sevilla—all those drunkards, bandits, Portuguese vagrants, streetwalkers, laborers, beggars, crooks, murderers, out-of-work sailors, hayseeds, and so on and so forth. All of them, we are told, have souls. Very well, let us assume that I am willing to accept this. But then they tell us, on top of everything, that these souls of theirs are immortal! That is just too much! Even by the windbags’ own logic, this is clearly nonsense. However, I am a Renaissance man, a humanist. Such things cannot fool me. From their words it appears that God is some dustman who collects and preserves everything. What a concept! But no, they say, he does not collect them, but rather sends them to hell, where they burn for eternity. For eternity? First, I would venture to say that this is one and the same thing, i.e. those utterly useless, vacuous, ugly, and sometimes even terrifying souls are still being preserved. If this were the case, the whole Universe would soon be filled with a mob of such souls, it would start to resemble a spiritual junkyard. Second . . . Etc.
And another thing. They say, or rather de facto presuppose as nativum givenum, that each soul is valuable in and of itself. This is the height of inanity! What value could the soul of a killer have? If you find this example extreme, how much value could there really be in the soul of that whole multitude inhabiting the cities as well as the villages, and even in the so-called “ordinary person”—what value could his soul really have? None, I say. Even if the soul really existed, it would resemble everything else we see in nature and the world, which is either well or poorly made, either precious or worthless, with all the levels between them, as between gold and charcoal. The soul of a fool would be exactly as he is—i.e. a foolish soul, while the soul of a thief would be a thieving soul, the soul of a beggar a beggarly soul, and so on and so forth, etc. Ergo, the world would be full of foolish, mediocre, useless, evil souls, which no one has any need or use for and which are simply trash, things to be thrown away. They would be a huge majority, just like the people who have them. Could those clever windbags possibly imagine that all this rabble was created by the God they speak of? This only goes to show what foolish—or perhaps hypocritical and deceitful—souls they themselves have. And just as nature throws away bodies after they die, assimilating them and turning them to dust, so should God throw away those souls, turning them into nothing, as they have no value whatsoever. So nature will reject their bodies and God reject their souls, and that circle in the middle is what they call their life. The rejected ones are bold enough to claim they are God’s creation. It’s laughable! They hardly deserve the majesty of Nature, let alone the God they speak of. In Spain you’ll often hear it said: “I swear on my immortal soul!” Your immortal soul, did you say? It is most likely not worth a thing, my friend, and is entirely superfluous. The whole mistake begins here—they think that the soul is of value, and from there follows an entire series of mistaken conclusions. Whereas in reality, the soul, if it exists, could not possibly be anything particularly special—it would be something like the leaves on the trees, like drops of rain, the stones on the road or the grass in the field. In other words, it would simply be a part and functio of nature, something right alongside the rest, which in no way occupies any special place within the system of nature—as the churchmen and all philosophers since that madman Plato would have you believe—something of no particular significance at all, simply a part of the great natural cycle of creation and destruction as an end in itself. Incidentally, despite the fact that this cycle is repetitive, nothing ever returns, any such claims are empty gibberish. Once you’re gone, that’s the end, it’s over. There is no second time. Because Nature really does revolve, but not around your so-called “soul.” She revolves around her own self.
And Plato really is a madman. A reader need only read his description of life in Athens during the Age of Atlantis to realize that he filled his writings with every more or less coherent fable that occurs to him and that taking his absurdities and ravings seriously constitutes a grave and laughable mistake. If all of his works were to disappear in an instant, this would be no loss whatsoever to humanity. Incidentally, I would argue that it would be no loss whatsoever to humanity even if it itself were to disappear. Humanity is unbreakable, in other words, and that’s precisely what humanism is. Yet Plato did it great harm. He is the source of that utterly mistaken conception of man and his nature, which is also to blame for these meaningless formulations about the soul. I will not enter into detailed discussion of this, etc., suffice to say that from the medical point of view, man is simply a biological species, one of many, with certain abilities that differentiate him from the other animals, yet in general outlines and in his fundamental principles fully sharing their nature, which, by the way, is far more varied than we tend to realize. Although not every humanist would admit it, the truth is that man is simply a pipe—as are all biological species in their essence, with the exception of plants and minerals. Man is one of these creatures. A pipe, through which nature passes—it goes in through one side and out through the other. This is one of the ways Nature keeps herself in circulation, in eternal motion. (I hasten to add, however, that the tempting opposite suggestion, namely that Nature is a pipe through which man passes—going in through one side and out through the other—is not true! In principle, tempting things are not true. The most pitiful things are usually the closest to the truth, etc.) What soul? What immortality? Do they realize what they are saying? Does the pig that they gobble up on Christmas—as if to show through the connection of these two things what profound nonsense has pierced their minds—does the pig, I say, have a soul, and is it immortal? But no, they consider themselves something far more special, something entirely different. Although they themselves may live like swine, and frequently do far more revolting, terrible, and preposterous things than those good-natured animals. And of course, they are far more gluttonous. And incomparably more vain. This is the most terrifying of all the animals,
