Note 76 — FREDERIC THE GREAT’S EULOGY ON JULIEN OFFRAY DE LA METTRIE. (continued 2)

But let us say with M. Hecquet76 that all men may not go to Corinth.77 Why should not Stahl have been even more favored by nature as a man than as a chemist and a practitioner? Happy mortal, he must have received a soul different from that of the rest of mankind,—a sovereign soul, which, not content with having some control over the voluntary muscles, easily held the reins of all the movements of the body, and could suspend them, calm them, or excite them, at its pleasure! With so despotic a mistress, in whose hands were, in a sense, the beating of the heart, and the laws of circulation, there could certainly be no fever, no pain, no weariness,...! The soul wills, and the springs play, contract or relax. But how did the springs of Stahl’s machine get out of order so soon? He who has in himself so great a doctor, should be immortal.