St. Thomas assures us that the smell of the glorified bodies will be perfect, and will not be diminished by perspiration. _"Corporibus gloriosi serit odor ultima perfectione, nullo modo per humidum repressus."_ This question has been profoundly treated by a great many other doctors.
Suarez, in his "Wisdom," thus expresses himself concerning taste: "It is not difficult for God purposely to make some rapid humor act on the organ of taste." _"Non est Deo difficile facere ut sapidus humor sit intra organum gustus, qui sensum illum intentionaliter afficere."_
And, to conclude, St. Prosper, recapitulating the whole, pronounces that the blessed shall find gratification without satiety, and enjoy health without disease. _"Saturitas sine fastidio, et tota sanitas sine morbo._"
It is not then so much to be wondered at that the Mahometans have admitted the use of the five senses in their paradise. They say that the first beatitude will be the union with God; but this does not exclude the rest. Mahomet's paradise is a fable; but; once more be it observed, there is in it neither contradiction nor impurity.
Philosophy requires clear and precise ideas, which Grotius had not. He quotes a great deal, and makes a show of reasoning which will not bear a close examination. The unjust imputations cast on the Mahometans would suffice to make a very large book. They have subjugated one of the largest and most beautiful countries upon earth; to drive them from it would have been a finer exploit than to abuse them.
The empress of Russia supplies a great example. She takes from them Azov and Tangarok, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Georgia; she pushes her conquests to the ramparts of Erzerum; she sends against them fleets from the remotest parts of the Baltic, and others covering the Euxine; but she does not say in her manifestos that a pigeon whispered in Mahomet's ear.
A man of almost universal learning--a man even of genius, who joins philosophy with imagination, uses, in his excellent article "Encyclopedia," these remarkable words: "If we except this Perrault, and some others, whose merits the versifier Boileau was not capable of appreciating."
This philosopher is right in doing justice to Claude Perrault, the learned translator of Vitruvius, a man useful in more arts than one, and to whom we are indebted for the fine front of the Louvre and for other great monuments; but justice should also be rendered to Boileau. Had he been only a versifier, he would scarcely have been known; he would not have been one of the few great men who will hand down the age of Louis XIV. to posterity. His tart satires, his fine epistles, and above all, his art of poetry, are masterpieces of reasoning as well as poetry--_"sapere est principium et fons."_ The art of versifying is, indeed, prodigiously difficult, especially in our language, where alexandrines follow one another two by two; where it is rare to avoid monotony; where it is absolutely necessary to rhyme; where noble and pleasing rhymes are too limited in number; and where a word out of its place, or a harsh syllable, is sufficient to spoil a happy thought. It is like dancing in fetters on a rope; the greatest success is of itself nothing.