On the Soul of Brutes

DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

and although I have adopted the support of the ancient Philosophers, and the Holy Fathers (and especially from among them Jerome, and Augustine, and of the moderns, Gassendi Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher who sought to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christian doctrine, and our own Hammond Henry Hammond was a leading English theologian and a close associate of Archbishop Sheldon); nevertheless, let your Greatness original: "Amplitudo vestra," a respectful title for a high-ranking official allow that, for the sake of greater protection, I may also offer your patronage as a shield, and profess myself in the vestibule of this treatise original: "Diatribæ," meaning a formal discourse or scholarly discussion as