Thoughts on Art and Life Part 25

106.

With regard to this matter, we have said on the previous page that the definition of a spirit is a power united with a body, because it cannot move of its own accord nor acquire any kind of motion. And if you say that it moves itself, this cannot be within the elements, because if the spirit is an incorporate quant.i.ty this quant.i.ty is a vacuum and the vacuum does not exist in nature, and if it did exist it would be immediately filled by the rus.h.i.+ng in of the element in which the vacuum was formed. So according to the definition of weight which runs: "Gravity is an accidental power created by one element attracted to or suspended in another," it follows that no element, weighing nothing in its own element, can have weight in the element which is above it and lighter than it; for instance, no one part of water has no more gravity or lightness than any other part, but if you were to draw it up into the air, it would acquire weight, and this weight cannot sustain itself by itself; and it must therefore inevitably fall, and thus wherever there is a vacuum in water it will fall in. The same thing would happen with a spirit among the elements where it would continuously generate a vacuum {186} in whatever element it might find itself, for which reason it is inevitable that it would move in a constant flight to the sky until it had quitted these elements.

[Sidenote: Has the Spirit a Body?]

107.

We have proved that a spirit cannot exist in the elements without a body, nor move of itself by voluntary motion unless it be to rise upwards. But now we will say that if such a spirit took a body made of air it would inevitably melt into air, because if it remained united it would be separated and fall and form a vacuum, as we have described above. Therefore if it desired to remain in the air it is necessary that it should blend with a quant.i.ty of air, and if it were united with the air, two difficulties arise: that is, that it will rarefy that portion of air with which it is mingled, and this rarefied air will fly upwards and will not remain in the air which is heavier than itself; and besides this the ethereal spiritual essence is disunited, and its nature is changed, for which reason that nature loses some of its first virtue. There is in addition to these a third difficulty, and this is that a body of this kind, made of air and a.s.sumed by the spirits, is exposed to the penetrating winds which continually sunder and scatter the united portions of the air, eddying and whirling amidst the rest of the atmosphere; therefore the spirit who would pervade {187} this air would be dismembered or rent and broken up with the rending of the air of which it formed part.

108.

It is impossible that the spirit, incorporated with a certain quant.i.ty of air, should move this air; and this is proved by the pa.s.sage where it is said that "the spirit rarefies that portion of the air with which it is mingled." This air therefore will rise high above the other air, and the air will be set in motion by its own lightness and not by the volition of the spirit, and if this air encounters a wind, the air will be moved by the wind and not by the spirit which is incorporated in it.

[Sidenote: Can the Spirit speak?]

109.

In order to show whether the spirit can speak or not it is first necessary to define the voice and the manner of its origin. The following will be our definition: The voice is the movement of air in friction against a dense body, or a dense body in friction against the air (which is the same idea), and by this friction of the dense and the rare what is rare is condensed, and resistance is caused; and again, when the rare in swift motion and the rare in slow motion come into contact, they condense one another and produce sound, and a great noise is made. The sound or murmur made by the rare moving through the rare {188} with slow motion is like the great flame whence sounds issue in the air; the exceedingly great noise made by the rare, when the air which is rare and swift mingles with that which is rare and in [slow]

motion, is like the flame of fire issuing from a great gun and striking against the air; likewise the flame when it issues from a cloud strikes the air as it begets the thunderbolt. Therefore we will say that the spirit cannot produce a voice unless the air be set in motion, but since there is no air within, it cannot discharge what it does not possess; and if it wishes to move that air in which it is incorporated, it is necessary that the spirit should multiply itself; but that which has no quant.i.ty cannot be multiplied. In the fourth place it is said, that no rare body can move if it has not a stable spot whence it may take its motion, and more especially is this the case when an element must move in its own element, which does not move of itself, excepting by uniform evaporation at the centre of the thing evaporated; as occurs in the case of the sponge squeezed in the hand under water, whence the water escapes in every direction with equal motion through the s.p.a.ces between the fingers of the hand which squeezes it. As to whether the spirit has an articulate voice and can be heard, and as to what are hearing and sight--the wave of the voice travels through the air as the images of objects travel to the eye.

{189}

110.

O mathematicians, clear up this error! The spirit cannot have a voice, for where there is a voice there is a body, and where there is a body there is occupation of s.p.a.ce, which prevents the eye seeing what is behind that s.p.a.ce; therefore a body fills all the surrounding air, that is to say, with its own image.

111.

There can be no voice where there is no motion or percussion of the air, there can be no percussion of the air where there is no instrument, there can be no such thing as an immaterial instrument; and this being so, a spirit can have neither voice, nor shape, nor force; and if it a.s.sumes a shape it can neither penetrate nor enter where the issues are closed. If any one were to say that a spirit may take bodies of various shapes by means of concentrated and compressed air, and by means of this instrument speak and move with force--I reply to this argument that where there are no nerves or bones, no force can be expended in any movement made by these imaginary spirits.

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

AND

TABLE OF REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Only of late years have the ma.n.u.scripts of Leonardo da Vinci seen the light and the many difficulties been overcome which long proved an obstacle to their publication. The labour of editing, deciphering and translating his many scattered and fragmentary codices was beyond the efforts of any single man. The grat.i.tude of the cultivated world is therefore due to those who, like J. P. Richter, C. Kavaisson-Mollien, Luca Beltrami, Piumati, Sabachnikoff, and, last but not least, the scholars of the Academia del Lincei, have so faithfully devoted themselves to this task, which alone has made possible the present little work.

It was unavoidable that the form in which these ma.n.u.scripts have been published should practically restrict their possession to the great libraries. But an excellent volume of selections from the writings of Leonardo, which are found in so haphazard a manner scattered through his codices and intermingled with his drawings and diagrams, has been published in Italy (Leonardo da Vinci: Frammenti Letterari e Storici, Florence, 1900). By kind permission of its editor, Dr. Solmi, this has served as a basis for the text of the present translation. The references, however, have {194} been verified with the complete editions of Leonardo's works, while a different arrangement has been made of the text.

L. E.

[Sidenote: Table of References]

TABLE OF REFERENCES

[A] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Le ma.n.u.scrit A de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. i. Paris, 1880.

[ASH I] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Les ma.n.u.scrits H de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut; 2038 (Ash I) et 2037 (Ash II) de la Bibliotheque Nationale. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. vi. Paris, 1891.

[ASH II] Idem.

[B] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Les ma.n.u.scrits B et D de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. ii. Paris, 1883.

[C] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Les ma.n.u.scrits C, E et K de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. iii.

Paris, 1888.

[C A] Il Codice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano. Rome; Milan, 1891. (Still in course of publication.)

[D] See B.

[E] See C.

[F] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Les ma.n.u.scrits F et I de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. iv. Paris, 1889.

{195}

[G] Les ma.n.u.scrits de Leonard de Vinci. Les ma.n.u.scrits G, L et M de la Bibliotheque de l'Inst.i.tut. Edit. Ravaisson-Mollien, vol. v. Paris, 1890.

[H] See Ash I.

[I] See F.

[L] See G.

[Lu] Leonardo da Vinci: Das Buch vom Malerei. Herausgegeben v. H.

Ludwig. 3 vols. Berlin, 1882.

[M] See G.

[R] The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. Compiled and edited from the original ma.n.u.scripts by J. P. Richter. 2 vols. London, 1883.