From the book
Sal Lumen and Spiritus Mundi Philosophici
Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Meaning
III.9 contrasts the human upward gaze with the posture of other animals. The body becomes an image of the mind's vocation: humanity should look beyond immediate sustenance toward the celestial order and the jewel of intelligence it has been given. The argument then makes longer life desirable because intellectual cultivation requires time.
The abbreviated description of animals without reason must be read beside III.3, which grants them inward vital reason and some exceptional skills while distinguishing learned human arts. The later contrast is rhetorical, not permission to erase the earlier qualification. Likewise, upright posture does not prove that every human cultivates wisdom or that a longer lifespan is automatically well used; it grounds an exhortation about the value of understanding.
Places to read
- Book Three · Unit 9Human orientation toward heaven opposes animals’ eating-oriented posture and motivates the need for a longer knowing life.
- Book Three · Unit 3The earlier account grants animals vital reason and some skills, qualifying the later shorthand.
Word family
Regard and face levee: bodily posture as a summons to intelligence. Exact historical spellings are listed separately.
Attested forms
face & la veuë eslevee vers le Ciel; inclinee; mangeaille