On the Soul of Brutes

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

are owed to your magnificence, so they also require your patronage. I have inscribed these works to you, the Archbishop original: "Archipræsuli", more for the sake of duty than for protection. Since I am about to speak concerning the Soul, I approach a great and difficult matter, full of dangerous hazard. It is only fitting that I should fear the censures of the Church no less than those of the Lyceum original: "Lycei," referring to the university and the Aristotelian tradition of philosophy.

Indeed, I assert that several distinct Souls inhabit Man, much like the madman in the Gospel who was possessed by a Legion. I describe their sometimes lawful subordination and at other times their unfair combinations, or most troublesome disagreements and wars more than civil The phrase "wars more than civil" is a literary reference to the Roman poet Lucan, used here to describe the internal conflict between different parts of the human soul. Furthermore, I boldly describe the characters and affections of both souls, their mutual elevations and depressions, their origins, and their states after separation. These things, I say, will be criticized not only by Philosophers, but perhaps also by certain Theologians. And although I hold it as a defense that arguments and reasons fight on my side, yet