Volume Volume2\Anatomy, Zoology, Physiology
Entry# 837. On the origin of the soul.
Contents: Vol. 1 | Vol. 2
On the origin of the soul.
Though human ingenuity may make various inventions which, by the
help of various machines answering the same end, it will never
devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to
the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is
wanting, and nothing is superfluous, and she needs no counterpoise
when she makes limbs proper for motion in the bodies of animals. But
she puts into them the soul of the body, which forms them that is
the soul of the mother which first constructs in the womb the form
of the man and in due time awakens the soul that is to inhabit it.
And this at first lies dormant and under the tutelage of the soul of
the mother, who nourishes and vivifies it by the umbilical vein,
with all its spiritual parts, and this happens because this
umbilicus is joined to the placenta and the cotyledons, by which the
child is attached to the mother. And these are the reason why a
wish, a strong craving or a fright or any other mental suffering in
the mother, has more influence on the child than on the mother; for
there are many cases when the child loses its life from them, &c.
This discourse is not in its place here, but will be wanted for the
one on the composition of animated bodies--and the rest of the
definition of the soul I leave to the imaginations of friars, those
fathers of the people who know all secrets by inspiration.
Footnote 57: _lettere incoronate_. By this term Leonardo probably
understands not the Bible only, but the works of the early Fathers,
and all the books recognised as sacred by the Roman Church. I leave
alone the sacred books; for they are supreme truth.
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