Selected quad for the lemma: blood_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
blood_n	artery_n	heart_n	vein_n	9,504	5	10.0908	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60487	Select discourses ... by John Smith ... ; as also a sermon preached by Simon Patrick ... at the author's funeral ; with a brief account of his life and death.; Selections. 1660	Smith, John, 1618-1652.; Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1660 (1660)	Wing S4117; ESTC R17087	340,869	584

with that common sense and Experience which we have of our Souls this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Soul being nothing else but that Innate force and power which it hath within it to stir up such thoughts and motions within it self as it finds it self most free to And therefore when we reflect upon the productions of our own Souls we are soon able to find out the first Efficient cause of them And though the subtilty of some Wits may have made it difficult to find out whether the Understanding or the Will or some other Facultie of the Soul be the First Mover whence the motus primò primus as they please to call it proceeds yet we know it is originally the Soul it self whose vital acts they all are and although it be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the First Cause as deriving all its virtue from it self as Simplicius distinguisheth in 1. de An. cap. 1. yet it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vitally co-working with the First Causes of all But on the other side when we come to examine those Motions which arise from the Body this stream runs so far under ground that we know not how to trace it to the head of it but we are fain to analyse the whole artifice looking from the Spirits to the Blood from that to the Heart viewing all along the Mechanical contrivance of Veins and Arteries neither know we after all our search whether there be any Perpetuum mobile in our own Bodies or whether all the motions thereof be onely by the redundancy of some external motions without us nor how to find the First mover in nature though could we find out that yet we know that there is a Fatal determination which sits in all the wheels of meer Corporeal motion neither can they exercise any such noble freedome as we constantly find in the Wills of men which are as large and unbounded in all their Elections as Reason it self can represent Being it self to be Lucretius that he might avoid the dint of this Argument according to the Genius of his Sect feigns this Liberty to arise from a Motion of declination whereby his Atomes alwaies moving downwards by their own weight towards the Centre of the World are carried a little obliquely as if they tended toward some point different from it which he calls clinamen principiorum Which riddle though it be as good as any else which they who held the Materiality and Mortality of Souls in their own nature can frame to salve this difficulty yet is of such a private interpretation that I believe no Oedipus is able to expound it But yet by what we may guesse at it we shall easily find that this insolent conceit and all else of this nature destroys the Freedome of Will more then any Fate which the severest censours thereof whom he sometimes taxeth ever set over it For how can any thing be made subject to a free and impartial debate of Reason or fall under the Level of Free-will if all things be the meer result either of a Fortuitous or Fatal motion of Bodies which can have no power or dominion over themselves and why should he or his great Master find so much fault with the Superstition of the world and condemn the Opinions of other men when they compare them with that transcendent sagacity they believe themselves to be the Lords of if all was nothing else but the meer issue of Material motions seeing that necessity which would arise from a different concourse and motion of several particles of Matter begetting that diversity of Opinions and Wills would excuse them all from any blame Therefore to conclude this Argument Whatsoever Essence finds this Freedome within it self whereby it is absolved from the rigid laws of Matter may know it self also to be Immaterial and having dominion over its own actions it will never desert it self and because it finds it self non vi alienâ sed suâ moveri as Tully argues it feels it self able to preserve it self from the forrein force of Matter and can say of all those assaults which are at any time made against those sorry mud-walls which in this life inclose it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoick did all this is nothing to me who am yet free and can command within when this feeble Carkass is able no longer to obey me and when that is shattered and broken down I can live any where else without it for I was not That but had onely a command over It while I dwelt in it But before we wholly desert this Head we may adde some further strength to it from the Observation of that Conflict which the Reasons and Understandings of men maintain against the Sensitive appetite and wheresoever the Higher powers of Reason in a man's Soul prevail not but are vanquish'd by the impetuousness of their Sensual affections through their own neglect of themselves yet are they never so broken but they may strengthen themselves again and where they subdue not men's inordinate Passions and Affections yet even there will they condemn them for them Whereas were a Man all of one piece and made up of nothing else but Matter these Corporeal motions could never check or controul themselves these Material dimensions could not struggle with themselves or by their own strength render themselves any thing else then what they are But this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks call it this Self-potent Life which is in the Soul of man acting upon it self and drawing forth its own latent Energie finds it self able to tame the outward man and bring under those rebellious motions that arise from the meer Animal powers and to tame and appease all those seditions and mutinies that it finds there And if any can conceive all this to be nothing but a meer fighting of the male-contented pieces of Matter one against another each striving for superiority and preeminence I should not think it worth the while to teach such an one any higher learning as looking upon him to be indued with no higher a Soul then that which moves in Beasts or Plants CHAP. V. The third Argument for the Immortality of the Soul That Mathematical Notions argue the Soul to be of a true Spiritual and Immaterial Nature WE shall now consider the Soul awhile in a further degree of Abstraction and look at it in those Actions which depend not at all upon the Body wherein it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greeks speak and converseth onely with its own Being Which we shall first consider in those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mathematical notions which it conteins in it self and sends forth from within it self which as they are in themselves Indivisible and of such a perfect nature as cannot be received or immersed into Matter so they argue that Subject in which they are seated to be of a true Spiritual and Immaterial nature Such as a pure Point Linea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

and more plainly declares its own high descent to us That it is able to subsist and act without the aid and assistance of this Matter which it informes And here we shall take that course that Aristotle did in his Books de Anima and first of all inquire Whether it hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some kind of Action so proper and peculiar to it self as not to depend upon the Body And this soon offers it self in the first place to us in those Elicite motions of it as the Moralists are wont to name them which though they may end in those they call Imperate acts yet have their first Emanation from nothing else but the Soul it self For this purpose we shall take notice of Two sorts of Actions which are obvious to the experience of every one that observes himself according to a double Source emanation of them which a late Philosopher hath very happily suggested to us The first are those Actions which arise up within us without any Animadversion the other are those that are consequent to it For we find frequently such Motions within our selves which first are before we take notice of them and which by their own turbulency and impetuousness force us to an Advertency as those Fiery spirits and that inflamed Blood which sometimes fly up into the head or those gross and Earthly Fumes that disturb our brains the stirring of many other Humours which beget within us Grief Melancholy Anger or Mirth or other Passions which have their rise from such Causes as we were not aware of nor gave no consent to create this trouble to us Besides all those Passions and Perceptions which are begotten within us by some externall motions which derive themselves through our Senses and fiercely knocking at the door of our Minds and Understandings force them sometimes from their deepest debates musings of some other thing to open to them and give them an audience Now as to such Motions as these are it being necessary for the preservation of our Bodies that our Souls should be acquainted with them a mans Body was so contrived and his Soul so united to it that they might have a speedy access to the Soul Indeed some ancient Philosophers thought that the Soul descending more deeply into the Body as they expresse it first begot these corporeal motions unbeknown to it self by reason of its more deep immersion which afterwards by their impetuousness excited its advertency But whatsoever truth there is in that Assertion we clearly find from the relation of our own Souls themselves that our Soul disowns them and acknowledgeth no such Motions to have been so busy by her commission neither knows what they are from whence they arise or whither they tend untill she hath duly examined them But these Corporeal motions as they seem to arise from nothing else but meerly from the Machina of the Body it self so they could not at all be sensated but by the Soul Neither indeed are all our own Corporeal actions perceived by us but only those that may serve to maintain a good correspondence intelligence between the Soul and Body and so foment cherish that Sympathy between them which is necessary for the subsistence and well-being of the whole man in this mundane state And therefore there is very little of that which is commonly done in our Body which our Souls are informed at all of The constant Circulation of Blood through all our Veins and Arteries the common motions of our Animal spirits in our Nerves the maceration of Food within our Stomachs and the distribution of Chyle and nourishment to every part that wants the relief of it the constant flux and reflux of more sedate Humours within us the dissipations of our corporeal Matter by insensible Transpiration and the accesses of new in the room of it all this we are little acquainted with by any vital energie which ariseth from the union of Soul and Body and therefore when we would acquaint our selves with the Anatomy and vital functions of our own Bodies we are fain to use the same course and method that we would to find out the same things in any other kind of Animal as if our Souls had as little to doe with any of these in our own Bodies as they have in the Bodies of any other Brute creature But on the other side we know as well that manythings that are done by us are done at the dictate and by the commission of our own Wills and therefore all such Actions as these are we know without any great store of Discoursive inquiry to attribute to their own proper causes as seeing the efflux and propagation of them We doe not by a naked speculation know our Bodies first to have need of nourishment and then by the Edict of our Wills injoyn our Spirits and Humours to put themselves into an hungry and craving posture within us by corroding the Tunicles of the Stomach but we first find our own Souls sollicited by these motions which yet we are able to gainsay and to deny those petitions which they offer up to us We know we commonly meditate and discourse of such Arguments as we our selves please we mould designs and draw up a plot of means answerable thereto according as the free vote of our own Souls determines and use our own Bodies many times notwithstanding all the reluctancies of their nature onely as our Instruments to serve the will and pleasure of our Souls All which as they evidently manifest a true Distinction between the Soul and the Body so they doe as evidently prove the Supremacy and dominion which the Soul hath over the Body Our Moralists frequently dispute what kind of government that is whereby the Soul or rather Will rules over the Sensitive Appetite which they ordinarily resolve to be Imperium politicum though I should rather say that all good men have rather a true despotical power over their Sensitive faculties and over the whole Body though they use it onely according to the laws of Reason and Discretion And therefore the Platonists and Stoicks thought the Soul of man to be absolutely freed from all the power of Astral Necessity and uncontroulable impressions arising from the subordination and mutual Sympathie and Dependance of all mundane causes which is their proper notion of Fate Neither ever durst that bold Astrologie which presumes to tell the Fortunes of all corporeal Essences attempt to enter into the secrets of man's Soul or predict the destinies thereof And indeed whatever the destinies thereof may be that are contained in the vast volume of an Infinite and Almighty Mind yet we evidently find a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a liberty of Will within our selves maugre the stubborn malice of all Second Causes And Aristole who seems to have disputed so much against that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Souls which his Master before him had soberly maintained does indeed but quarrel