same posture in which she left it But as yet she was not fully Satisfy'd She was unacquainted with the way and means that led her into this Condition And she consider'd it was an hazardous Exploit and that being once united to her Body she might never for ought she knew be disjoyn'd again till Death should cause a final Separation She apply'd her self therefore seriously to consider the Nature of her Body and the disposition of all its Organs She found that the Nerves imploy'd in Sentation and those that serve for Natural functions as the beating of the Heart the circulation of the Blood c. were of a Nature quite distinct She saw that these were vehemently distended and she concluded it might be for the better communicating the Animal Spirits to the Muscles with which the Nerves are united and capacitating them to maintain and continue those natural Motions the Soul is not aware of when united with the Body and that on the contrary the Nerves made use of in Sensation and by whose Means the Soul received the Impression of Objects were almost all unbraced and lax which might prevent the Motion caused by the Impulse of Objects from being continued unto the Seat of the Soul The Difficulty was to find the true Cause why one should be taxed without the other and how she might bring it about to distend those that formerly were laxed Mean while the Snush-Box which I mention'd his Body held in its left-Hand made M. Descartes call to mind That before his Extasie he had taken Tabaccco-Snush and he could not tell but so extraordinary an Effect might have been produced by the Vertue of that Tobacco That which he took of was an unusual kind which a Merchant of Amsterdam had brought over from an Island near China and presented him It was extreamly strong and M. Descartes to mollisie it had mix'd a certain Herb in it dryed to Powder whose Name he never would acquaint me with nor the Place where it grew though he presented me with a great Quantity of the same He laid a sufficient Dose upon the Back-Side of his Hand and gave it his Body to take and at the same Time happen'd this prodigious Effect in his Brain for all the Vapours raised there since his last taking were dislodged and dissipated in an instant He observed it was only the Particles of the Tobacco that scattered the Fumes of the Brain and that those of the Herb which he had tempered with it being not so fine and having very little Motion fastned themselves in the Nerves that cause Sensation and and made them looser than they were before Seeing that Effect he no longer doubted but concluded it to be the Herb which he mix'd with the Tobacco that caus'd his Trance and took away his Senses and that the Tobacco at the same Time unharbouring all the Fumes that might benight the Brain left the Soul with the entire Liberty of knowing and reflecting on it's self as she had then experienc'd After which he thought that Hungary Water was sufficient to brace the Nerves afresh that serve for Sensation since it is often used to recal those Persons that swoon away The Soul takes the Bottle I not long since mentioned and brings it in the Air from the far Side of the Chamber to his Body and therein consists exactly the Magick of which I then suspected M. Descartes guilty and moistens his Nostrils with it The subtile Vapour of that Liquor effected what he aimed at presently the laxed Nerves erect themselves and the Soul streight seats it self in the Pineal Gland and finds itself confederate with the Body as before It was in that instant I perceived Descartes to come to himself I told you he lock'd himself forthwith in another Room it was to make a second Experiment of his Tobacco and his Herb which succeeded to his Hearts Desire Since when it was a Business of nothing for his Soul to leave the Body and since his imparting to me the Secret his Soul and mine have made an hundred Expeditions together to instruct our selves of the greatest Curiosities in Nature As those that read the Works of M. Descartes are unacquainted with all that I have been relating they with just Cause are amazed at a thing which you will not startle at for the future I mean the Particulars he descends to in his Physicks concerning the Properties of his three Elements at how great soever remove from Sense they lie concerning their Figure their Motion their Rank and File in the Composition of his World and all particular Bodies concerning the Disposition of his Vortexes in which he proceeds so far as to observe the different size of the Balls of the second Element of which they consist Part. 3. Princip in their respective Places how those that come nearest the Centre of the Water are the least of all those that are a little removed are somewhat bigger increasing still in Bigness unto a determinate Distance after which they all are equal Concerning the Formation of their Parts chamfer'd in Fashion of a Skrew with which he explains the Nature and the different Phenomena's of the Load-Stone in a way so fine and easie Phoenomena's that till then had puzled and confounded all the Philosophers even those that had so ready a Method of explaining all things by the Assistance of their occult Qualities All this he saw intuitively and of himself and for me that speak to you is it possible to think That at the Age of seventy seven and being of so weak a Constitution as I am I say is it possible for you to think I should have lived to this and preserved my Health and Vigour as I do unless I had had a perfect Knowledge of the Machine of my Body Unless I had still silled and made up the Breaches whereat Life leaks and runs out continually I mean not in applying the Remedies that Medicine prescribes whose conjectures are so very uncertain and from the Use of which Monsieur Descartes has so frequently dissuaded the Princess Elizabeth Lett. de Descartes But in the Practice of that Critical Knowledge my Soul has of my Body of which she perfectly is and can be instructed as often as she pleases by putting herself in the Capacity I have now been speaking of I must acknowledg Sir replyed I then it is a most admirable Secret and of Infinite Use I am impatient till I learn it of you and as soon as I know it I am persuaded I shall improve it to as great a Benefit as Adam would have done the Tree of Life in Paradise if he had continued there And I doubt not but if Origen had known it he that looks upon the History of Scripture as Allegory he would have believed the Tree of Life to be nothing but this Mystery which God had communicated unto Adam But that which you was speaking of your Health creates one Scruple in me How Monsieur Descartes having
remember the Priviledg these Cartesian Gentlemen take who when perplex'd in answering the Argument brought against the Essence of Matter and drawn from the Sacrament of the Host think they have right to cry out They are injur'd That their Philosophy is sequestred from Things relating to Faith That they are Philosophers and not Divines and undertake the explaining the Mysteries of Nature not of Religion I would I say they 'd do me the like Justice or if they had rather the same Favour And supposing any one so Religious as to suspect me of the Heresie of those who say The Souls in parting from the Body are not doom'd for Eternity I wish he 'd consider once more that I am in this an Historian and Philosopher not a Theologist and give a Relation of Descartes's World am not making a Profession of Faith Which the Character of an History such as I am upon will bear far more independently of the Truths of our Religion than a System of Philosophy Any one that knows never so little must be forc'd to acknowledg this Which being once suppos'd I return to the Narrative of my Old Gentleman who thus went on M. Descartes's Soul returning to Stockholm found her self in the like unlucky Circumstances as did one Hermotimus mentioned by Tertullian L. de Anima who having procur'd the self-same Secret as Descartes left constantly anights his Body asleep in Bed whilst his Soul went a rambling through the World Both one and the other at their return found their Lodgings out of a Capacity to receive them The Task Descartes's Soul enjoyn'd her self then was to meet at Paris She would not tell me presently of the Accident but only invited me to take a turn or two No sooner said than done With one Snuff of the Tobacco I equipt my self to wait on her My Soul was no sooner out of my Body but she said in Language Spiritual she was about to tell me strange News I am says she no longer Imbody'd my Corps is this day to be interr'd at Stockholm and he gave me the Particulars of what I have been relating Nor did she seem sab or afflicted thereupon I then demanded of her if she experienc'd what the Philosophers report That the Soul being the substantial Form of the Body when separated for good and all is in statu violento She answer'd me she knew nothing of that violent State but found her self incomparably better out than in the Body And that she had but one Concern upon her to know in what part of the vast Space was best to settle her Abode in That she would take my Directions in the thing but that she found her Will inclin'd for the third Heaven The third Heaven according to the division Cartesius makes of the World is the last of all and that which is the farthest remov'd from us For the first is nothing but the Vortex in which is plac'd the Earth whose Centre is the Body of the Sun about which the Coelestial Matter that composes the Vortex carries us and makes us turn continually like the other Planets The second Heaven is incomparably larger than that in which we are and takes up all that mighty space in which we see the fix'd Stars which are so many Suns and have each of them a Vortex of which they are themselves the Centre as our Sun is of this Lastly the third Heaven is all that Matter or all that indefinite Extent which we conceive above the Starry Heaven and is void of Bounds and in respect of which the space of all the other may be consider'd as a Point Now many Reasons determin'd M. Descartes to choose his place of Residence in the highest Heaven The first was To avoid the Company of an Innumerable gang of Souls of Philosophers that were vaulting and fluttering on all parts of this our Vortex for to tell you by the way 't is incredible how many Souls we met upon our Journey And M. Descartes was much surpriz'd to see the Secret of which he took himself to be the first Inventer made use of in all times even by those of a very mean Quality whereby they have escap'd a dying or whose Souls have lost their Bodies by some Accident not unlike that of M. Descartes But that which made their Company so disrelisht and perfectly intolerable to Cartesius his Spirit was That these Souls so disentangled as they were from Matter were tinctur'd still with Prejudice wherewith they were prepossess'd when united with their Bodies That when he would have converss'd with them about the Principles of Bodies and the Causes of several Phoenomena's they faintly suppos'd to him or prov'd by the Authority of Aristotle substantial Forms absolute Accidents and occult Qualities as is done to this day in many Schools And except some few Souls of the highest Rank which he hath converted and proselyted to Cartesianism all are inveterate and inleagu'd against him with as immoderate Fury as the Philosophers of this World when he began to publish his Doctrin here The second Reason that byass'd him to that Election was because he look'd upon those indefinite Spaces as a new Discovery of which he was the Author For it was upon his forming a distinct Idea of Matter whose Essence consisted in Extension that he concluded Space Extension and Matter to be one and the same thing signify'd under different Names And being it was necessary to admit of a Space and an Extension above our World since we have a most clear Conception of them it was plain That above our World there was Matter too and as we can have no Idea of any Bounds or Limits that Matter has it is necessary it should be Infinite or rather Indefinite Finally the third and most prevailing Reason of all and which he intimated not to me until we arrived upon the place is that well conjecturing the Matter above the fix'd Stars to be uninform'd and not yet shap'd into a World he was in good hopes that he was able to set it to work himself and fancy'd that in dividing and agitating it according to his Principles he could reduce it to a World like this excepting that it would be destitute of real Men and only stor'd with Automatous Machines in their Likeness That Project was the Subject of the most part of his Books especially of his Book of Principles and that Entituled The World of M. Descartes We set out immediately for the third Heaven I shall not descend to the Particulars of our Voyage I hope in a few days you 'll bear me Company there your self I 'll only say that upon our Coasting we found all Things exactly in that Portrait we had drawn before without Form without due Order or any regular posture of the Parts as rude and unsightly Materials that require the Hand of the Artist We survey'd it all about and bewilder'd our selves a long time in the vast Deserts of the other World which perfectly represented to me
composed That Concussion is communicated to the Brain and to the place of Residence of the Soul and it is pursuant to and on the Account of that Concussion the Soul forms an Idea of the Object which she perceives or apprehends in the manner we call Seeing And it is according to the various Modifications of that Concussion that she sees Objects at several distances under divers Figures and of different Colours From whence it follows that the Perceptions or Ideas of the Soul have no necessary dependence on the Objects but only on the exteriour Organ which may be prov'd by a thousand Experiments but especially by that of Phrenetick People who perceive Objects quite different from what they really are and see them where they are not Now that you may perceive a Body in the place where I am when no such thing is there it is sufficient that your interiour Organ should be moved in such a manner as it would be if a Body was really there That 's the thing I now am actually doing upon your Optick Nerve to make you know that I am here That is it which causes you to see a Body though in truth there is none to see And what I act upon the Organ of Sight to make a Body appear the same I do in proportion upon that of Hearing to find you Sounds and Words I impress a like Motion upon the Strings of your Nerves of the fifth Conjugation as would the Vibrations and Undulations of the Air were it agitated by the Motion of a Tongue and the Mouth of a Man who should stand where I seem to do and should utter the same Words you at present hear Upon these Principles it was F. Maignan that a Father of our Order has most ingeniously unfolded the Mysteries of the Holy Sacrament without the assistance of that Medly of absolute Accidents that could never be conceiv'd For says he when we are taught the Body of J. C. is under the appearance of Bread nothing more is intimated than that the Body of J. C. is truly there where the Bread was and seems still to us to be to the end that Bread may appear where the Body of J. C. actually is God acts upon our Senses He there produces the self-same Motions and makes the same Impressions the Bread did before So when our Lord presented himself to St. Magdalen in the form of a Gardiner it was by acting upon her Eyes just as the Visage and Habit of the Gardiner would have done and not by cloathing himself with the absolute Accidents of a Gardiner But that which you may gather from this present Experience is the manner how the Dead appear who sometimes by God's Permission present themselves to those alive For they appear by the same Method as I do actually my self And those Bodies of Air or Water which some pretend they attire themselves withal are only the Whymsies and Forgeries of their imagination who have treated of Devils craft in supposing the Principles of the School Philosophy Have you any farther Difficulty said he upon that Point Ah! Father reply'd I you have made it as clear as the Sun and have given me infinite Satisfaction Your Discourse is altogether Spiritual I rely not much upon the Explication of that Father of your Order upon the Mystery of the Eucharist I take it for a Maxim with the wisest of the Catholick Philosophers That all Novelty in such sort of Things is dangerous at least always ought to be suspected You have absolutely dispers'd the Doubts that troubled me It was indeed long ago that I had a Notion Sensation was caus'd by the Local Motion of the Organs but that Idea was not unperplex'd Aristotle had said it before Cartesius Arist in Probl. but had not explain'd it From this time forth I renounce for ever a great part of the Ideas I had fram'd thereupon I solemnly abjure before you all the Axioms that respect the Active Passive and passible Intellect I acknowledg they are Terms that signifie nothing and are of no use but to make the Ignorant to stare who cannot understand them but imagine the Philosophers can After that Protestation Father Mersennus's Soul mov'd my Organ in such a manner as gave me to apprehend he was well pleas'd Which made me take the boldness of proposing a second Scruple Father said I I don 't well understand what that World is of M. Descartes where you would conduct me For in reading M. Descartes I did conceive his World was nothing else but this of ours explain'd by the Principles of his Philosophy And I distinctly remember I have read in a Letter he had formerly wrote these Words That he should think himself undeserving of the Name of a Natural Philosopher if he could only tell how Things might be without demonstrating they could not be otherwise There he Bravado's it a little Let. 37. Tom. 2. But that confirms me that when he speaks the contrary and says he pretends not to give an Account of Things as they are in the World but only how they ought to be in a World that he imagins he would be angry should we credit him thereupon What you say is true reply'd Father Mersennus M. Descartes design'd not to be believed in that Particular So that the World of M. Descartes is in earnest this World explain'd by the Principles of his Philosophy But it is also true that there is or rather will be very speedily another World that may more properly be call'd Descartes's World since it will be of his own Contrivance And that 's the World with which this Gentleman your Friend has entertain'd you and that we shall give you a sight of if you please Nothing certainly said I will be more diverting I would quit the Racing or the Festivals of Versailles to be Spectator of this Prodigy which doubtless is the compleatest Work of Philosophy and the almost Master-piece of Human Nature But Sir said I turning to my old Gentleman the Story of Descartes you have formerly related gives me some disturbance The Voyage you know is very long and a World like this he is about is not to be built in one Hour's time I know my Soul loves her Body very well and would be much concern'd at her return to find it incapacitated to receive her And an hundred Accidents may happen against which no one can give Security We are provided for them all said he Look towards the bottom of your Bed Good God! I cry'd out scar'd out of my Senses What is' t I see The Devil then is one of your Club Wretched Mortal that I am I am lost undone However I 'll die without any familiarity with him Monsieur avaunt I renounce utterly your Enchantments and your Magick Softly foftly said he why all this Alarm He is no Devil that you see though Black He 's far from being a Devil This is the Soul of a little Black that waits upon Descartes To ease
the Agitation of its insensible Parts dissolves Meats no otherwise than Aqua Fortis dissolves Metals How the most subtle Parts separated from one another made a Cream-like Liquor called the Chyle How the Peristaltique Motion of the Guts served to drive down the grosser Parts and to give admittance to the Chyle into the Venae Lacteae of the Mesentery through the imperceptible Pores proportioned to the Figure of the Particles the Chyle's composed of How upon the Heats staying in my Heart just as before the Blood performed its circular usual Course continuing all the consequent Effects such as Nutrition and the sound Constitution of the Limbs placed at the greatest Distance How in short all the Motions were carried on by the only Clockwork of the Machine And here the Sticklers for the old Philosophy must not resent the Compliance I used on this Occasion for if all that was absolutely false it could never have been true in this present Juncture seeing my Body was not corrupted tho' my Soul had left it but if the Motion and Circulation of the Humours once had ceased it must of necessity have been corrupted Whence it follows That supposing my Soul separate from my Body as I do then suppose it was it is plain that all the Motions were performed and performed only by their Dependance on the Disposition of the Machine At last we thought of setting out I ask'd then what Names and Titles of Dignity or Respect Souls used to treat each other with in their Spiritual Conversation for that Souls being in French of the Feminine Gender I was guilty all-a-long of an Absurdity in calling the Soul of M. by the Name of Monsieur yet I durst not use Madam nor Mademoiselle As for you said I to Father Mersennus 's Soul I may ease my self of that Trouble for the future by using your Reverence so you may said he by addressing M s Soul with your Lordship both Titles are all-a-mode in Italy and arriv'd from thence in France But trouble not your Head about it we continue the same Names we had in the World when in our Bodies M. Descartes is M. Descartes still this Gentleman is what he was before I am called Father Mersennus as you are M for we Cartesians are a little Platonical in the Business With Plato what 's a Man He 's a Soul that makes use of a Body And you may call to Mind a Particular Passage among others in Cartesius his Method where he says Examining with Attention what I was and that I could conceive my Body to be nothing thing and on the contrary if I did subsist a Moment without thinking I had no Reason to believe I had an Existence in that Moment I conceived I was a thing or a Substance whose whole Nature and Essence did meerly consist in thinking so that my self I mean my Soul by whose means only I am what I am my self I say is a thing wholly distinct from my Body And I wonder added Father Mersennus the Philosophers and School-Divines have escaped this Passage and have not before this ranked it in the Catalogue of his pretended Errors especially since M. Arnauld reflected on it by the by But let 's be gone said he and let 's make haste we have lost a whole half Hour already Time's very precious And with that he Soars up in the Air with the Soul of the old Gentleman and I without any more Demurs set out to follow them A VOYAGE TO The World of Cartesius PART II. THE Weather was very serene the Air extreamly clear the Moon was in the Full and the Stars glittered methought in an extraordinary manner which made me wonderful impatient to contemplate those Glorious Bodies more nigh them whose Splendor Vastness Number and Order have been thought a Subject of Admiration by all Ages the worthiest Object of the Study and Meditation of Philosophers and most sensible Proof of the Divinity notwithstanding which my Guides caused me to make a Halt upon the Pinnacle of a Tower raised far above the rest of the Town to observe the Nature of the Air of that low Region and the Parts of which it is composed Come on says my old Gentleman you shall know by your own Experience the Truth of Descartes his Sentiments in the Explication of Natural Beings Remember what he says in his fourth Book of Principles that the Air is only an Amass of branched and ragged Parts of the third Element extreamly small sever'd from one another and floating in the middle of the Balls of the Second Element whose Motions they obey See how the Parts of the First Element are mingled through the whole and fill up all the Intervals the little Globules and the branch'd Parts leave betwixt them how the Fluidity of this Body as well as all other we call Liquids consists in the Motion of its insensible Parts which have an indifferent Tendency to any Side for being they are all in Motion and have mostly quite different Determinations we may readily conceive two things First That upon a Liquid Body's ceasing to be confined and bounded by a Solid one it must diffuse itself on every Side since it's Parts are in a Motion every way Secondly That upon a solid Body's offering to pass through finding all the Parts in Motion it easily makes a Separation since to do this 't is only requisite to give them different Determinations instead of those they had before it being certain that when Bodies and especially small ones are in Motion a Motion so different as that in which the little Parts are found 't is the easiest thing in Nature to give them new Determinations and by consequence to divide a Liquid Body and pass through it These two Phaenomena's then of a Liquid Body being explain'd so cleverly and so intelligibly as you see they are by the Principles of Phiosophy the Gentlemen Philosophers of the Schools would have a great Sway over my Mind if they would oblige me to acknowledge Fluidity for an absolute Accident distinguish'd from the Motion of the Insensible Parts of a Liquid Body As much inclined as I was to defend the Interests of the old Philosophy I must own this Reasoning joyned with that I saw my self made great Impression on my Mind for though I could perceive no such Thing as the little Globules of the Second Element of which he talk'd and which was a meer Illusion of a Soul intoxicated as much as possible with the Ideas and Prejudices of Cartesianism yet I was forced to Acknowledg in the Air those little insensible Parts loose and disingaged of one another that undoubtedly constitute all Liquid Bodies I plainly saw that subtle Matter which Aristotle himself acknowledged under the Name of Etherial Matter and taught to be dispersed throughout the World in a most rapid Motion Thereupon I could not disallow that plain Explication he had made of the Properties of a Liquid Body And I must grant That were Descartes's Philolosophy as
should be destroy'd and yet no other Body produc'd in its room Or thus which turns to the same Account I most distinctly conceive a part of Matter setting aside all others and I most distinctly conceive all other without that for Instance without conceiving the Air inclos'd in a Chamber My Hypothesis then is establish'd as well as the Consequences that naturally follow against your Opinion touching the Essence of Matter So that if you have any Inclination towards a Peace you will be content to say that considering Things in their natural Capacity Matter is necessarily extended but will willingly give up that Expression that hath disgusted all the World That Extension Matter and Space were all the very same thing That Insult which Aristotle made upon M. Descartes in bandying one part of his Principles against another worsted my old Gentleman's Patience and rattled him so that ' was ten to one but he had tore the Paper on the spot He propos'd our going off without acquainting Aristotle's Embassadors who were stragled a good way from us telling us the Company of such sort of Cattle was not very pleasing But we represented to him how dishonourable a thing and unbecoming of Descartes that would be That that Paper was not so much a Project of Peace as a Challenge and Defiance Aristotle had sent him that probably he might slight it and probably he might think it worth while to answer it That M. Descartes had so wonderful a Gift of persuading and captivating Spirits and the production of a World was a thing of that surprizing Nature that doubtless the two Souls that bore us Company must be converted to Cartesianism provided M. Descartes would be at the pains of explaining his System to them in a plausible and familiar manner These Reasons setled him again and we pursued in the reading of the Paper in expectation of the two Souls From the Essence of the Body and Soul Aristotle passed on to their Union and the Relations they have betwixt themselves He began with great Encomiums on M. Descartes for having opened the Eyes of the Philosophers and shewing them the Unusefulness as well as Absurdity of their Intentional Species in many cases alledging That he had taught nothing on that Occasion that ought to be held so strange and incomprehensible by the Peripateticks had not they deserted the Sentiments of their acknowledged Master to follow the Whimsies and Imaginations of his Commentators That he himself had remarked in many Places That the Sense of Feeling was dispersed throughout the Body and through all the Organs of the other Senses That Vision Taste the Perception of Sounds and Smells were only caused by the local Motion of some Bodies that touch'd and moved the Organs of the different Senses that in effect if that Motion were insufficient for the Soul 's perceiving Objects those intentional Species substituted in their Place would be as far from serving Turn That he was not for rejecting M. Descartes's Doctrin concerning the Seat of the Soul in the Pineal Gland were it proposed only as a pure Hypothesis since all that others say amounts to nothing better but it was insufferable that System should be urged as a setled and demonstrated Truth And that the Respect M. Descartes still pretended for Truth and Experience ought to make him qualify and moderate his Assertions thereupon He intreated him likewise to be more Human and good-natured towards those who taught the Soul was expanded through the Body and this is what he added to shew the Cartesians were a little Unreasonable in that Affair For said he when you assert the Soul is placed in the Pineal Gland either you suppose she takes up all the extent of that Gland or that she only possesses one indivisible part of it if she possesses all the Capacity of the Gland she herself must thence be extended for that Consequence entirely resembles yours which you draw against the Philosophers who make the Soul expanded throughout the Body If she only possesses an indivisible Part thereof there must necessarily be some part of Matter that is indivisible and not extended And thus in admiting that disjunctive Proposition you appropriate to the Soul what you affirm belongs to Matter only otherwise you grant an Attribute to Matter which on all other occasions you deny and pretend according to your Principles however we understand it that it is the only peculiar of a Spiritual Soul Besides all the Nerves where are the Radiations of the Spirits that enter in and out of the Pineal Gland can neither part from the same indivisible Point of the Gland nor meet there so that if the Soul was in an indivisible Point of that Gland she could not have the Perception of all Objects there But if you reply The Soul is not in the Gland as a Body is in another Body or as a Body is in a Place but that the Soul in quality of a Spirit is not in that Gland but because she acts there because she thinks there wills there and perceives Objects there and that since the Different Impressions of Objects terminate in divers Points of the Gland where she is advertised of them it may be said the Soul is in all the Gland The Philosophers that undertake you are ready to take you up with a fresh Objection For if the Soul acts wills thinks apprehends Objects in all the Gland that is to say in a very devisible Space and if that be sufficient to affirm she is in all the Pineal Gland it will be true according to their Hypothesis to say The Soul is in all the Body since it acts and perceives Objects in all the Body she sees them in the Eye as you say she perceives them in that part of the Pineal Gland where the Optick Nerve doth point or the Rays of the Spirits that proceed from that Nerve she perceives Sounds in the Ear or as you say she perceives them in another Point of the Pineal Gland where the Nerves do center or the Rays that serve for that Perception Thus that pretended Bug-bear of Philosophy I mean the Presence of the Soul throughout the Body that causes her to feel in the Hand when that is prick'd and makes her move it presently and withdraw it upon the Sense of the Compunction that makes her stir the Foot in order to advance methinks is no longer monstrous or frightful nor a Prejudice of Infancy evidently false seeing that Presence of the Soul throughout the Body is no other than that which is allowed her in the Pineal Gland the Pineal Gland being extended as well as the whole Body for the Diminutivenss of the Extension makes nothing to the Purpose Why therefore should that Vertual Extension of a Spirit be turned to a Jest and Ridicule when 't is the same as is admitted by the Cartesians when both are well explained and undoubtedly all the Sensations may very near be as justly explained upon this Hypothesis as upon that of
Pains Religion it self was ingag'd that Answer should be made the first as hath since been done by another Hand and M. Arnauld's Honour and Reputation were interess'd to satisfy the Scruples the Evidence of Fact and the Force of Reasons in the second had rais'd in the Minds of Men. See then what was the sense of the Politicians of the Commonwealth of Learning 'T is known by long Experience that M. Arnauld never us'd to be very Dormant in the case of Books wrote against him Whence then proceeds this extraordinary Patience he would fain seem to have at present Whence comes it that instead of defending himself against his Enemies that make voluntary Insults to attack him and fall so foully on him he makes himself new Adversaries and out of a gayety of Humour falls to Daggers-drawing with his Friends and Allies whilst his Country is abandon'd to the Pillage and Descretion of his Enemies Here is say they the short and the long of the Business Those two Books Non-plus M. Arnauld The first upon several Articles presents you with an Argumentum ad Hominem and is beyond Reply The second is penn'd with that Circumspection and Exactness as Wards off all Passes gives not the least hold and blocks up all the out-lets where ere his Adversary might escape him It would be no part of Prudence to engage on so disadvantagious Terms He must not however be seen to baulk or decline the Challenge and besides M. Arnauld had resolv'd to leave the World whenever he desisted to make a noise in it and to Write and Dispute whatever it cost him Therefore he cunningly procures himself a Diversion He picks a random Quarrel with Father Malebranche threatning an Attack on a Treatise of his concerning Nature and Grace which he had presum'd to publish contrary to his Advice He compiles a great Volume against two or three Chapters of the Research of Truth That Book is answered M. Arnauld thereupon makes his Reply Father Malebranche charges again M. Arnauld makes yet another Onset Here some are inquisitive why M. Arnauld neglects to answer both M. Juriou and the Jesuue Hey day cry others how would you have him answer them Does not Father Malebranche find him his Hands full Whose little Volumes he 's forc'd to overwhelm with bulky Books to obstruct the entrance of that monstrous Impiety into the Church viz. the Doctrin of a Corporeal God Without which no Man can find out what he means by his intelligible Extension that is he says in God However the other Concern is urgent and requires Dispatch But what would you have a Man do they add Is it possible he should be every where at once Whilst the King of Poland march'd with all the Forces of his Kingdom to raise the Siege of Vienna was he not necessitated to suffer the Garrison of Kaminiec to over-run Podolia and the Tartars to inslave Vcraine If that Conjecture is not true said M. Descartes it is however very probable and those Gamesters play the Politician not amiss But what pursu'd he is the Subject of Dispute betwixt those two famous Authors For I assure you I perceive a Concern upon me upon their Account The Matter in Debate I answer'd is of the Nature of Ideas and the manner of our apprehending Objects that are without us M. Arnauld would have it that our Idea's are nothing but the Modifications of our Soul Father Malebranche pretends that that Opinion is unwarrantable and maintains we have no other perception of Objects than in God who being every where is intimately united with our Soul and who following the general Laws of the Union of the Body and Soul communicates to us the Idea of the Object that he hath in himself and at once makes us apprehend the Impression of it Both one and the other strive upon occasion to ingage you on their side or to shew rather that they advance nothing contradictory to your Thoughts upon Ideas But I am of Opinion you never penetrated so deep in that Affair as that either of them can gain much by your Authority What you say of me is true reply'd M. Defcartes but which at last of these two Combatants have got the better on 't I answer'd him I was not rash and inconsiderate enough to set up for a Decider of the Difference and Advantages of those two Hero's That I could only say that they fell to 't in earnest That though M. Arnauld had propos'd to himself the encountring Father Malebranche's Tract of Nature and of Grace he thought it advisable to begin with the Confutation of what he had written touching Idea's in his Search of Truth looking on that past to use his Thought and his Expression as the Outworks of the place he had a Design to ruin That the Subject being very Abstracted and Metaphysical and above the ordinary Capacity of Men and Father Malebranche's System on that Particular requiring a very great Attention to comprehend it M. Arnauld seem'd to have taken designedly that Method of Assault for the making a more advantagious Effort on his Adversary but that Father Malebranche without giving up his Out-works wherein he acquit himself admirably well had drawn them into the Body of the place that is to say had incorporated them with the Interests of Grace which is very disadvantagious Ground and too slippery a stand for M. Arnauld where he was very closely press'd Yet that I durst not undertake for the Success of Father Malebranche's Self on that Side because of the great Experience of M. Arnauld in such sort of War wherein he undoubtedly merits the Encomium Admiral Chatillon used to give himself viz. He had wherewith to be distinguish'd from the greatest Captains that ever were in that having been always beaten by his Enemies having lost all the Battles he had been oblig'd to Fight after all his Misfortunes he still stood upon his Legs in a capacity to relieve his Party and bearing still a Part and Figure able to disquiet those by whom he had been worsted I might likewise add without affronting Father Malebranche he is already sensible of the loss he has sustain'd since that first Breach For before that unhappiness and whilst he was a Friend of M. Arnauld he was every where extoll'd for a sublime and infinitely penetrating Genius and at present he 's a Man that speaks nothing but Perplexities and Contradictions whom one can neither understand nor follow without danger of Error So true it is that M. Arnauld's Friendship is at this day as it ever has been a prodigious bank of Merit to those that are so fortunate to injoy it and that Societies no less than particular Persons that were destitute of that Advantage would be very little better for their Reputation As I was thus entertaining Discourse with M. Descartes I perceiv'd in an Instant a change in me that carry'd something in it much like what we experience in some sudden Faintings wherein all things seem to alter and
the Pineal Gland From all which Aristotle concluded That M. Descartes had better acknowledg with the wisest and least conceited of the Philosophers that the Relation the Soul had with the Body in the Perception of Objects was an incomprehensible Mystery to the Mind of Man That the manner of Objects acting on the Senses as also how their Action was carried to the Brain might be very well explained but that a Bar was put to all farther Progress unless a Man would run himself into an unintelligible Jargon or advance Propositions dangerous in themselves or in the Conclusions that might be deduced from them He went on in commending M. Descartes for his Integrity Lett. de Desc Tom. 1. Lett. 69. manifested in his declaring there was nothing in the Idea of a Soul or a Spirit that included an Impossibility of the Production of Motion by them and at once he blamed the Inconsiderateness of the Cartesians who fool-hardily advanced That no Creature whatsoever had the Power of producing Motion It is true adjoyned he with a little dash of Malice that Paradox as ill founded as it is is one of the Principal Pillars of the Cartesian System For without it how should an equal Quantity of Motion be kept up in the World where there are so many Souls so many Angels and so many Devils whose greatest Pastime it is to produce and create Hurly-burlies every Moment But M. Descartes is so much more Praise-worthy for preferring the Interests of Truth before those of his own System as dear and beloved as it was The next Article was upon that grand Paradox of M. Descartes In resp ad 5. object Let. 110. Tom. 1. That the Essences of Things and Truths commonly called necessary are not independent of God and that they are only eternal and immutable because God hath will'd it so That God is the total and efficient Cause of the Truth of Propositions That it was equally arbitrary for God to cause that it should be false that all the Lines drawn from the center to the Circumference should be equal as to create the World See then the Abridgment of what Aristotle spoke at length upon that Subject He said He did not well understand what was the Sense and Meaning of those Words God is the efficient and total Cause of the Truth of Propositions For the Truth of a Proposition since it is not a Being but a meer Relation of Conformity that it hath with its Object could not to speak properly have an efficient Cause and if in some Sense it might be said to have an efficient Cause that could be nothing but the Mind or Tongue of him that Frames and Pronounces the Proposition Again he demanded if M. Descartes spoke in general of all Necessary Truths or only of some Particulars He could not continued he speak of all For doubtless he did not believe that God was or had been able to make these Propositions false There is a God God is the free Cause of all Beings God is a necessary Being He must therefore only speak of Propositions relating to the Creatures because according as he expresses himself in one of his Letters Ibid. God is the Author of the Essence as well as the Existence of the Creatures But that he had made a Reflection That the Truths which respect the Essence of the Creatures have a necessary Connexion with those that appertain to the Essence of God and that if it was possible for the one to be false the other might be so too As for example this The Creature essentially depends on God is a Proposition belonging to the Essence of the Creature which if it could be false that other would fall into the same Circumstance God is the absolute Master and free Cause of all Beings for neither the one could be true without the other's being so nor could the one be false unless the other was likewise false Whereupon Aristotle advised M. Descartes to have a special Care lest the profound Respect he affected towards the Omnipotence of God should not only degenerate into Superstition but should proceed so far as to bring him to Blasphemous Conclusions After that Aristotle made a frank and honest Acknowledgment That Descartes had explain'd the Nature of most sensible Qualities in a siner and exacter way than he had done As of the Hardness of Bodies of Liquidity of the Power of the Elaverium of Cold of Heat c. And to manifest he had no other Concern than for the Interests of Truth he retracted without Ceremony his Position of the Eternity of the World and his Sphere of Fire But since that Sphere of Fire makes one of the principal Parts of the Peripatetick System and is one of the chief Ornaments of his World he presumed that M. Descartes could do no less than abandon all his Vortexes in Exchange against which he urged many Reasons But Voetius having understood from us that M. Descartes was ready to put his World in Execution and the Design of our Journey was that we might be Witnesses of that mighty Action he wrote a Postscript in the Margent in which he promis'd to submit himself to that Experience and supposing it should answer the Pretensions of M. Descartes his Vortexes should be received at least as a good Hypothesis for the explaining the Phenomena of the World which God hath made But he farther adjoyned That in case M. Descartes should fail in his Attempt he should be oblig'd thus far to condescend That his Physicks which turn for the most part upon those Hinges is an Edifice without Foundation And that he should rest contented with the Praise common to all the Leaders of a Sect viz. That his Philosophy had something that was Good and True in it and that he should avow with the rest of Mankind that to build a World and establish a System of Philosophy true in all its Principles and Conclusions was a Point the Mind of Man in its utmost Endeavours could never reach Lastly as to M. Descartes's Demonstrations touching the Existence of God the Rules of Motion and some other Opinions for which that Philosopher had engag'd a greater Zeal and Earnestness and which required a more through Discussion Aristotle proposed to him the pitching on some Neutral and Unprejudic'd Place where they might confer together before disinterested Arbitratours to whose Determinations they should submit themselves He concluded with a gracious Offer of associating him in the Empire of Philosophy upon those only Conditions compriz'd in that Project He admonish'd him to six some Bounds to his Ambition assuring him of the Vanity of his Hopes if he pursu'd to carry them any farther for that his own Authority was too well establish'd throughout all Europe to be indangered by the Enterprizes of a new Comer That almost all Universities and Colleges had renew'd the Oath of Allegiance to him and had made an Offensive and Defensive League against the New Philosophy That some Ladies
Mind because she has not so great a reach as to conceive them For Instance that that Being should be of it self that that Being should be Almighty and Independent of every thing in its acting even to the Power of producing Beings out of Nothing There are others that seem to her inconsistent in the same Subject For instance she conceives Liberty and Immutability Immensity and Indivisibility the Properties of Bodies and of Spirits as so many Perfections She sees that the Perfections which agree to several Beings separately must all be united in that absolutely perfect Being Conceiving therefore a Being absolutely perfect she represents it at once as a free Being and an Immutable as one that can desire and be averse to the same thing though its Will be always Unchangeable that is Omnipresent without being extended or divisible that is a pure Spirit and at the same time includes all the Perfections of Bodies possible to be produc'd Nay I dare presume to say that this Idea thus analyz'd in respect of a Mind that never made any Reflection on the Reasons that conclude the Existence of a necessary Being discovering so many Contradictions in that necessary Being would as soon represent it as an Imaginary Being as a real one and that not supposing those usual Reasons that prove to us a first cause of all Beings and the Reflections that follow them we should as easily regard that Being as impossible as possible From whence I at least conclude that the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect cannot be look'd on as an Idea undoubtedly real by him that examins it before his Acquaintance with the ordinary Demonstrations Consequently that he that examins it cannot absolutely attribute Existence to that Being and which is the same thing cannot demonstrate to himself the Existence of a God from the Idea of a Being infinitely perfect The defect therefore of Descartes's Paralogism consists in this that he supposes before any Demonstrations the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect to be taken by the Mind for real and as having a real Object which is palpably false All this discovers the Original of the Scruples all the World have had as to that Demonstration and which those themselves have not been clear of whom the difficulty of resolving so subtil a Paralogism hath drawn over to Descartes's Party who doubtless had they been honest and sincere must have confess'd they still felt some disquiet in their Mind on that Particular and that it was by meer Violence they had at last accustom'd their Understanding to tell them that Demonstration was evident This was the Fault which some felt rather than saw that made them deny Existence to be inclos'd in the Idea of a Being infinitely perfect For absolutely speaking although it is compriz'd in the Catalogue of Perfections appropriate to that Being yet the Mind to which the Idea was not manifestly real took it not in and excluded it in making that very Problem Does a Being absolutely perfect Exist Until the Arguments independent of that Idea had resolv'd the Problem and convinc'd it that such a Being did Exist And let not Descartes say that that Idea including nothing but Perfections it is evident it includes nothing but what is Real for a Chimerous Idea may be compos'd of only Real Ideas here then is one exactly like that we are in dispute of A Triangle that hath all the Perfections of Triangles That Idea though it includes nothing besides real Perfections is notwithstanding a Chimera since for Instance a rectangled Triangle has opposite Properties to those of an Equilateral and that Opposition is the reason they are inconsistent with one another So though all the Perfections of Beings are real it does not follow that that Idea A Being that hath all the Perfections of Beings should be a real Idea and the Opposition I observe betwixt some of those Perfections naturally influences my Mind unless prevented by the ordinary Demonstrations to doubt at least whether that Idea is not a Chimera as well as the other I have been speaking of From hence it is that in pursuance to the Demonstrations that convince me of the Existence of that Being but that give me no clear and distinct Knowledg of its Essence I confine my self to say That Being must contain the Perfections of all other Beings eminently that is to say in a way I don't conceive and which would never have come into my Head or at least would never have been look'd on by me as certainly and evidently possible unless I had been convinc'd of the Existence of the first Being before the discussion of its Essence That Solution of Descartes's first Paralogism made way to the discovery of that other Default of his where he concludes the Existence of God from the objective reality of the Idea as he speaks which we have of God That Idea says he which I find in my Mind has an infinite objective reality since it represents to me an infinite Being Therefore it has that infinite Being for its cause therefore an infinite Being exists For otherwise the Effect would have Perfections that were not in its cause Those who have undertook that arguing give us to understand they have found it to be a greater Paralogism than the former and bring many Reasons for it which M. Descartes refutes as well as he is able For my own Part my Opinion is That M. Descartes supposes in that Reasoning what lay on him to be proved For he not only supposes that that Idea has an objective reality but farther that I can be ascertained independently of the common Demonstrations that it effectively has an objective Reality or that it has a Real and not an imaginary Object But I am incapable of knowing whether its Object be real or imaginary before the Demonstrations as I have already proved And if I can doubt whether that Object is not a Chimera I cannot suppose it has an Objective Reality but ought to fear it has an Objective Vanity if I may be allowed so to speak and in that Case I can by no means conclude That God has impressed it on my Mind and consequently that there is a God But I ought to think That probably it proceeds from nothing as Descartes expresses himself That is from an Imperfection of Mind that hath produced it as it could produce this same a Mountain without a Valley Hence it is clear and manifest that those two pretended Demonstrations are meer Paralogisms and that both are maimed and lame in the same part and defective on the same account Besides M. Descartes can never demonstrate to me the Truth of the Proposition on which all his reasoning depends viz. That the Cause of an Idea ought to contain formally or eminently all the Perfections which the Idea represents for when 't is said The Cause contains all the Perfections of the effect that is not meant nor is it evidently true but of such Perfections as the effect possesses and
Advantage of living with the most Wise and Puissant Soul that ever came out of the Almighty's Hands You 'l be better advis'd than that reply'd M. Descartes it behoves you to expect the Orders of the Sovereign Being for an entire Dismission from your Body nor is there any Necessity for it to have all the Satisfaction that you wish In less than two Hours Time I 'll make you a World wherein shall be a Sun an Earth Planets Comets and every thing you see more Curious and observable in yours and since this World I am about to make is not to stand for good and all but is only an Essay of another I intend to build at my Leisure of far greater Capacity and Perfection I can easily interrupt and break the Motions to let you see in a little Time the different Changes which occur not in the Parts of the great World but in the Process of Years Come on then let us begin said he but follow me exactly in the Principles I lay down and the Reflections I shall make you observe Above all interrupt me not After these few Words M. Descartes prepar'd himself for the executing his Projection Which was by the Exposition or rather Supposition of some of his most Important Principles thought necessary to qualifie us for the comprehending the Dispatch of that grand Master-piece Conceive in the first Place said he that all this vast Space is Matter For this Space is extended and nothing is not capable of being so This Space therefore is an extended Substance or which is the same Thing Matter Whoever can doubt of this Truth can doubt if a Mountain can be without a Valley Conceive in the second Place That in Nature there are two inviolable Laws The first is That every Body will ever maintain the Post and Capacity it has once been put in will never change it till some External Cause shall force it if it is in rest it will be in Rest eternally if it is in Motion it will continue eternally in Motion if it is of a Square Figure it will preserve its Square Figure always The Second is That a Body always naturally continues its Motion in a right Line though the rencounter and justling of other Bodies frequently disturb it from its Regular Course and from hence follows an indisputable Principle confirm'd by infinite Experiments viz. That a Body circularly moved constantly endeavours to get farther from the Centre of its Motion and if it fortune to get rid of a Body or Bodies that constrain it to move circularly it is always sure to make its escape by the Tangent of the Circle it describ'd in its Motion The Line A G is the Tangent the Stone would describe supposing it to be freed from the Sling at the Point A. These Principles are the rich and fruitful Sources of that Infinity of admirable Truths of which True Philosophy is compos'd and the only Rules I will and ought to follow in the Production of the World I am about This short Speech ended I was wonderfully edify'd in seeing M. Descartes fall to Prayers and make an humble Acknowledgment to God of all those intellectual Gifts and Blessings he had vouchsaf'd him Sovereign Being said he thou bearest me witness That never Mortal acknowledg'd that absolute Dominion thou hast over all thy Creatures with greater Respect and Submission than my self So long as I had my Being in the Land of the Living I made it my Business to convince Men of that entire Dependence they have on thee having persuaded many of that important Truth That thou art the only Being which can produce every thing in the World That it is a punishable Pride in Men to conceit themselves capable of causing the least Motion imaginable in Matter and that the very Motion their Soul supposes she influences on the Body which she animates is purely the effect of thy Almighty Power that in concurrence with the Laws thy Wisdom itself has confirm'd moves the Members of the Body with such exactness and celerity on occasion of the Desires and Inclinations of the Soul as persuades her it is herself that moves them though at the same Time she confesses her Ignorance of the manner whereby it must be done That bright and lively influx wherewith thou hast enlightned my Understanding hath guided me out of that Laberynth of common Delusion and open'd me the way and Method I ought to take in the Study and Contemplation of thy wonderful Works Though I at present undertake to work upon that immense Matter which thy infinite Bounty seems to have left at my Disposal and though I have assum'd the Freedom of warranting my Disciples the Production of a World like that of thy own Making yet it is wholly in Dependence on thy Power I have made this account Yea Lord I shall contribute in no wise to that Operation but by the Desires of my Will which thou out of thy gracious Goodness wilt be pleased to second by impressing so much Motion on this Matter as I shall wish for and by giving this Motion Determinations necessary to the End which I propose Reason and Experience having taught me That every pure Spirit such as am I my self by one of the Universal Rules to which thou conformest thy external Actions hath Right and Priviledg of so much Motion as is sufficient to move the Matter of a World Manifest then Lord thy Power in Condescention to a Spiritual Creature that makes this humble Confession of his Weakness and give us farther occasion to praise and glorifie thy Name Having finish'd his Devotion M. Descartes mark'd out a round Space of about five hundred Leagues diameter for the making a little Sampler of his World whereupon thus he spake Gentlemen I shall at present only represent you the Solary Vortex of your World and all that is therein that is to say the Sun the Earth the Planets the Elements the Disposition of its principal Parts and the different Relations and Dependences they have on one another if you will honour me with a Visit some Years hence you shall see the Great World finish'd The first thing I shall do is to divide in almost equal Parts all the Matter comprehended in the Space I have chalk'd out All those Parts shall be very Small but yet they must be less before I have done with them They must not all be of a Spherical Figure ' cause if they were all so shap'd there must necessarily be an Interval or Void betwixt them But a Void is impossible they must therefore be of all Shapes and Figures but angular for the generality Secondly whereas the Union of the Parts of Matter purely consist in that Repose they are in one by another that Division I propose to make will last no longer than I shall agitate them several ways and drive them on every Side Thirdly Since the Fluidity of Matter is nothing but the Motion of its smallest Parts agitated different ways upon my
caused meerly by the vibration of the Threds wherewith the optick Nerve is wrought And it is on Account of that vibration that a Man falling rudely on his Head or who walking in the dark runs his Face against a Post sees a sudden flash of Light like the glaring of a Candle It tortures the Naturalists to explain the manner how that vibration causes us to perceive all luminous and bright Objects Upon what Hypothesis soever they proceed they meet with inconquerable Difficulties But at the bottom and in earnest it is no more than this He then went on in explaining to me all the Properties of Light and the Demonstrations he hath given concerning the Reflection and Refraction of its Rays He was very large and copious upon that Subject For that piece of his Philosophy together with that where he explains the Phaenomena's of the Loadstone is his darling and beloved Theam I shall not descend to the Particulars of that Discourse for fear of wearying my Reader as also frightning some to whom Lines crossing one another with A. B. C. are as terrible as Magick and the sight thereof enough to make them shut the Book and never open it after And this is the Reason I will make use of them as little as possibly I can He would not for any thing whatever have forgotten to remark to me those little channel'd Parts whose Service is so very necessary to him nor the way that they are wrought Amongst the Parts of the first Element which are made of the filings of the Second there are some that by reason of their irregular Figure are not so rapid as the other Those of this Nature easily hook themselves together and make up little Bodies larger than the other parts of the first Element and as in their turning about they are often obliged to pass betwixt the Balls of the second Element Numb 90. they accommodate themselves for that Passage and as they squeeze betwixt them wrythe themselves into the Shape of a Skrew or become like little Pillars chamfer'd with three Furrows or gutterwork'd and tourn'd as you see the Shell of a Snail They are chiefly to be found toward the Poles of the Vortex having their Determination toward the Centre Now whereas some of them enter by way of the Northern Pole others by the Southern whilst the Vortex turns upon its Axis it is apparent to every Cartesian that those which proceed from the North-Coast must be turned Shell-wise a different way from those that proceed from the South An Instance M. Descartes took care to inculcate throughly in me For it is principally upon that the Power and Vertue of the Loadstone do depend Numb 91. But it shall not be long said he before you see some particular Effect of these little channel'd Parts Take notice said he how things go in that Star that 's next you How some of the chamfer'd Parts that come fromward the Poles of their Vortex mingle themselves with the Matter of that Star and not being able to keep pace with it in Motion are thrown out of the Star just as the scummy Parts of a boiling Liquor are separated from the other and rise above the Liquor See how they link themselves to one another and by that Union lose the quality of the first Element and take on them that of the third Upon their gathering and condensing in a very great quantity it is manifest they must hinder the action of the first Element whereby it pushes the Balls of the second Element to the Circumference Fig. Seq and consequently must interrupt that Motion and Pressure in which Light consists And now you may see exactly what those Stains are which you sometimes discover on the Face of the Sun of your World They are nothing else but the drossy and scummy Parts of the third Element gathered in Heaps and expanded on its Surface Now the wreek and scattering of those Stains which are still a gathering and as easily dissipanated diffusing it self far and near throughout the Circumference of the Vortex will constitute a thin and rarify'd Body like the Air about your Earth Numb 92. at least the finest part of it and I have formerly observed that that of the Vortex of your Sun is extended as far as the Sphere of Mercury Whilst M. Descartes was thus busied in disclosing to me all his Mysteries Father Mersennus and the old Gentleman were diverting themselves by Vaulting from Vortex to Vortex and were but very ordinary Company to Aristotle's Plenipotentiaries who star'd confusedly and were exceedingly out of Countenance and who now and then joyned them now and then came to us comprehending not a Syllable all the time in that Galimauphry of Vortexes of the first second and third Element of ragged and branched Parts c. for having only Peripatetick Ideas they saw not so much as a Pins Head of all we saw in that immense Space And they were much surprized to hear us entertain our selves seriously with such idle Fopperies and Chimera's for such they reckoned all we said so far as to believe we meerly designed it to expose and banter them and doubtless they had highly resented it had not M. Descartes forestall'd them by telling them separate Spirits conceiv'd things only in reference to some principal Ideas they had formerly been possessed with and as they saw no Matter in the Space where we most distinctly beheld it so he himself with all the Eyes in his Head was never able to perceive substantial Forms in Bodies absolute Accidents and intentional Species though at the same time the Peripateticks talkt of them as Things they saw as clear as the Noon-day Mean time of these Occurrences the old Gentleman in haste came and acquainted Descartes That on that Coast he had been on there were three or four Vortexes that began to jumble and fall to Loggerheads and that if he did not speedily come and part them there needed nothing more to tear and shatter all his World in pieces Poor honest old Gentleman said M. Descartes That which makes him so solicitous for my World is one of the finest Phenomena's that can possibly be seen and by which I 'll demonstrate to you how Comets are begot in yours and how in time a fix'd Star may become a Planet Let us go and cure him of his Fears When we came there we found two Stars whose Surface was almost wholly overgrown with Scurf and whose Vortexes began to be drain'd and suckt up by those round about them If you have read my Book of Principles and my Treatise concerning Light says M. Descartes to me you will easily conclude in what this little bustle and disorder ought to end and I strange said he to the old Gentleman you should be frighted at it Call to mind then what I there teach how that which preserves a Vortex in the midst of several others is that impulse caus'd by the Matter of the Star in its attempt
the great Portions call'd by him Vortexes are compos'd to turn about their proper Center But it is impossible they adjoyn to conceive the division and motion of Matter upon his Principles For as to the division it can be conceiv'd but by one of these two ways either by supposing betwixt the Parts divided some empty Spaces or imagining those Intervals fill'd up with some Bodies or Matter of a different Nature from the Parts And thus though Nature every where is full we conceive four Dice laid close to one another as four distinct cubical Bodies for though there is nothing of a void betwixt them we yet perceive a little Interval fill'd with Air that hinders our Conception of them as of one single Body But by the Principles of Cartesianism we can conceive it neither one way nor the other For we must not suppose a Vacuity betwixt the Parts divided since a Vacuum is utterly thrown out of that System Nor is it easier to conceive a Body of a different Nature since the distinction of Bodies according to the Author of the System is not to be conceiv'd till after the agitation and motion of Matter That division therefore is an Absurdity As to the business of Motion that 's in a worse Case still for how is it possible to conceive that all those cubical Parts that are universally hard impenetrable and incapable of Compression should turn about their Center and break in pieces unless they find or make a Vacuum For the diminutiveness of them will not help us out since let them be as little as you can suppose them they are still hard and impenetrable as Adamant and all combine together to desist the Motion of each Particular That Hypothesis therefore is indefensible and Descartes his very first Supposition is deny'd These Monsieur were the first Passes these Gentlemen made at me the first Blows I was to ward off in the Defence of the System of your World They had been taken out of the Books of very Ingenious Men and whereas the Gentlemen your Disciples as if it was their Maxim and their Method never to be put out of their own Road which is barely to give an Exposition and a Proof of their Doctrin trouble not much their Heads with Objections that are made them since they are not oblig'd to the formal Answer of the Desk these Arguments pass'd for unanswerable and such as at the very entrance of Dispute baffled the Cartesian But the more impregnable my Adversaries appear'd in so good Accoutrements and Arms the more my Honour was advanc'd in disabling and disarming them As I had diligently read your Works and above all the Book of Principles and that Intitled a Treatise concerning Light or M. Descartes's World I answer'd the first Argument by pleading a false Indictment charg'd on you for making a distinction of Instants betwixt the Division and the Motion as if you had held that God divided the Matter in one Instant and mov'd it another I said you never suppos'd that Matter was divided before its Motion That the manner of proposing your System in the third Part of Principles suppos'd no such distinction and that in the Treatise of Light where you describ'd the formation of the World you said positively the contrary advertising your Reader That that Division of Matter consisted not in God's separating its Parts so as to leave a Vacuity betwixt them but that all the distinction you suppos'd God made in them consisted in the diversity of Motions that he gave causing some from the first instant of their Creation to commence their Motion one way some another so that in this Instance Division and Motion were the same Thing or at farthest one could not be without the other That you would be as forward as any of them to confess That nothing was more absurd in reference to your other Principles than to suppose the Parts of Matter still and in Repose and yet divided since according to you the Union of the Parts of a solid Body such as Matter must be conceiv'd before its Motion consists in that Rest they enjoy by one another And farther that it was full as easie to comprehend how Division was made by Motion and yet cotemporary with the same Motion as to understand how I can tear a Sheet of Paper by dividing it in two half Sheets one whereof I hand towards the East the other towards the West I hereupon produc'd the Books that I had cited and shew'd them the very Places in dispute They were convinc'd by plain Matter of Fact and had no more to urge against it But we had not so soon done with the Motion of Matter we must necessary still dispute tho' very calmly without the least Passion or wrangling since the generality of those I had to deal with were well bred honest Gentlemen that would submit to Reason The Question was to explain how the Parts of Matter which we conceiv'd so closely press'd against one another as not the least Interval was left betwixt them throughout the Mass and which we also suppos'd solid from a settl'd Rest could skip into Motion After these Gentlemen had copiously discours'd upon the Subject I ask'd them If as stanch Peripateticks as they were they were throughly convinc'd that the Fluidity of Water for instance Was an absolute Quality that when it was congeal'd it became Solid by an absoute Accident call'd Solidity and that when it was dissolv'd it became Liquid by an absolute Accident call'd Fluidity That one of these Accidents made Lead run when heated and the other sixed it when it began to cool And on the contrary if having read the Delicate Natural and Intelligible Way of M. Descartes's explaining the Nature of Fluidity and the Properties of Fluid Bodies by the Motion of the insensible Parts of those Bodies a Motion which the meer Dissolution of Salts in common Water and of Metals in Aqua Fortis evidently demonstrates they were not at least come over to us in that Point The most of them answered That as they were persuaded there was no doing without absolute Qualities in the explication of an abundance of Phenomenas that which they could most easily part with was Fluidity and that they would not quarrel with me thereupon This suppos'd said I Gentlemen you shall be speedily satisfied or more perplex'd than M. Descartes for in short in your own System the World is full there 's an Abhorrence of a Vacuum through the whole Motion notwithstanding both is and does continue the Sensible and Insensible Parts of Bodies are mov'd nor does their Hardness and Impenetrability stop their Progress Why may not M. Descartes's Matter that is no more impenetrable than yours enjoy the same Priviledg and Charter Why must his Motion be more impossible both you and us suppose the self same Thing and we have no more to do than defend our selves against the Epicureans who think they demonstrate by Motion the Necessity of their little
of the Water that forces it along is wanting in the Planet steer'd in the midst of the Celestial Matter The reason is this that part of the Boat which stands above the Water meets with the opposition of the Air which bends its course differently from the Water and consequently resists the Motion wherewith the Water influences the Boat And the greater that resistance is as in a contrary Wind the slower is the Motion of the Boat in comparison with that of the Water And the less the resistance is as when the Wind stands fair the swifter is the motion of the Boat But this is not to be found in the Planet plung'd in the midst of the Celestial Matter It preserves intirely all that Motion the Celestial Matter can impress upon it free from all external Opposition Besides being of it self indifferent to Motion or to rest to such or such a degree of Motion to this or that Determination it offers no resistance as M. Descartes himself speaks to the Matter of the Heaven He gives next the reason of that inequality of Motion of the Celestial Matter and of the Planet carried by it which is says he that though such little Bodies as are the insensible parts of the Celestial Matter conspiring all together to act confederately against a great one may be as prevalent as that notwithstanding they can never move it in all respects so swift as they are mov'd themselves ' cause though they are united in some of their Motions which they communicate unto it they infallibly disagree in others which they cannot communicate Either we are mistaken or this is a meer Gipsy-talk at least in relation to the Business we are upon and one of these Slights of Hand we have observ'd M. Descartes from time to time to make use of designedly to blind his Reader and to conceal from him the Lameness and Imperfection of a Conclusion necessary to his System which he is well aware of but is unwilling any one else should see 'T is but bringing some pretty sort of Comparison that may prepare the Mind and sooth and tame if we may so speak the Imagination of his Reader though commonly it never comes up to the stress of the Difficulty and then clapping on it for a Confirmation some abstracted Reason that few either can or will take pains to understand and the Business is done fore-seeing that being half-gain'd already by the Comparison they will easily surrender themselves to the least appearance of Truth which he shall give them a glimpse of in his reason that often is a meer fallacy at bottom And as for this before us What matters it though the little Bodies that drive on a great one should have several Motions What tho' they do not communicate all these several Motions provided they have still Strength enought to force it on that the Body makes no resistance that they all combine as we suppose with M. Descartes to communicate the Motion requisite and that we conceive them all pressing on its Surface so as to push it towards the place where they are push'd themselves For certainly in all these Circumstances we must conceive it going at as great a rate as they And yet from a Principle so weakly establisht as this he concludes That the Celestial Matter ought to move the Planet round its own Centre and constitute a little Heaven about it to turn at the same time as the great one But not now to controvert that Supposition as poorly prov'd as it is let us persue him in his reasoning and to see if it be good let us imagine the Earth T. as it were suspended in a Void and let us fancy a Circle of Celestial Matter as thick as the Diameter of the Earth that violently rushing like a Torrent carries it suddenly away But as we suppose this Torrent to be swifter than the Earth methinks without having puzzled our Heads much with the Rules of the Determinations of Motion we might readily conceive it upon its violent dashing against the Earth to be immediately divided in two Parts or Arms whereof one should run above the other below it and whether we conceive this Stream of an equal or a greater depth than the Diameter of the Earth it would diffuse it self round its Surface above below and on every side Whence it follows that it would impress no Motion on it about its own Centre but would moreover deprive it of that Motion if it had one all the Lines of the Torrent counterpoizing one another and resisting the Determinations they should meet with in the Earth contrary to their own Here ought to be the foregoing Figure p. 278. Now methinks in explaining these things thus it is not a bare Similitude that we offer but a perfect Idea of that which ought to happen in the Motion of the Celestial Matter wherein the Earth is carried round the Sun Wherefore then will Descartes have the Celestial Matter that carries the Earth and insists against its Superficies towards A making greater haste than the Earth bend its whole Current from A to B not suffering half of it to run from A to D For 't is impossible for things to be or to be conceiv'd otherwise But if it ought to fall out thus as questionless it ought the Earth no longer has a Vortex since the Matter flowing from A to D prevents that which flows from A to B from returning by C. D. Nothing can be more plain and evident than this Demonstration But let us suppose per impossibile that the Matter when arriv'd at A should entirely make a double to run towards B. Would it make a Vortex No by no means For advancing from B. to C. and arriving at C. it ought to deviate from the Centre of its Motion and continue its Progress towards Z. The Reason given for it in the Principles of Descartes is That this is the very place in all the little Circle it had begun to describe where it finds least resistance First because the Matter it meets in that same Point is already on its Motion towards Z. and freely resigns its place Secondly because that which is below it that is to say betwixt D. and C. resists it and hinders its Descent being more weighty according to M. Descartes And thirdly because the Circle C Z. is its natural place according to the same Philosopher It will flow therefore more towards Z. than D. and consequently make no Vortex But let us farther suppose a Vortex made and the Matter continuing its round from A. to B. from B. to C. and from C. to A. would this Vortex last Not at all For we must suppose one of these three things Either that it is stronger than the Vortex of the Sun that is its Matter has a stronger bent and tendency from its Centre than the Matter of the Sun 's Vortex has from his or that it is weaker or that they both are equal If it is weaker it must
That was the Product of the Meditation wherein you surpriz'd me the other day and when I seem'd to you to awake of a suddain I came farther a Field than you imagine He spoke this in so serious and positive a way that he seem'd to be in earnest It shall be your Fault added he if you are not convinc'd of the Truth of what I say and of the Experiment It is the most curious Secret in the World I am resolv'd to commit it but to very few but that Adherency which you have manifested until this time unto me will not suffer me to be reserv'd in any thing He went on without giving me time to complement his Generosity and related that extraordinary Event in all its Circumstances He told me that being six'd attentively upon the Question which the Princess Elizabeth had propos'd touching the Union of the Soul and Body and revolving in his Mind his former Thoughts upon that Subject in the midst of that extraordinary Application he found himself in such a strange Surprizal in an Instant that he was not capable when he told me of it to express himself clearly thereupon nor could he gain so distinct a Conception of it as when actually he was in it All that he could tell me was That it resembled a Trance because in that there is no use of the Senses one can neither See nor Hear nor Feel the Impression of External Objects unless they be extreamly violent and then there is an end of it But herein it was quite different since the Soul had Perceptions of it Self and was apprehensive of the Cessation of its Organical Functions Which in a Trance is nothing so That she was furnish'd with a World of Immaterial or purely Spiritual Notices of which he had sometime discours'd to us but in an abundantly more perfect and lively manner than when his Attention was disturb'd with the appearances of Fancy which constantly interrupt it That more Discoveries of Truth could be made thus in one Minute than in ten years by the ordinary means which Knowledg of Truth fill'd the Soul with so pure and satisfactory a Joy that nothing is more true than what Aristotle says likely upon the same Experience That the compleat Happiness of Man in this Life if there is any such thing consists in the Contemplation of God and Natural Beings But he told me he had no sense of that perfect Joy till he was fully enlightned upon the Point that then took up his Thoughts Which was done in a Moment He had the satisfaction not only to know but to be sensible in some measure of the Truth of the greatest part of those Things which had imploy'd his Meditations until that time and of the Evidence of the Idea's he had fram'd concerning the Essence of the Body and Soul to see her advanc'd upon her Pineal Gland he had conjectur'd and to see that the Union of the Soul with the Body was nothing less then that vertual or rather imaginary Extension by which she was suppos'd commensurate with the Limbs much less those imaginary Modes which the Schools makes use of to confound and plague the Conceptions of Youth But that which was of most Importance was to see that this Union was nothing in Effect but these actual Commerce and Correspondence the Soul and Body had with one another A Commerce that chiefly is maintain'd in this that the Nerves spread through the Body by their Vibration give occasion to the Soul of knowing the different impressions External Objects make upon the Senses and in that the Soul pursuant thereupon by the Motion she immediately impresses upon the Pineal Gland where all the Nerves concentre determines the Animal Spirits to their several marches through the Muscles to produce in the Body such several Motions as she shall please to give and especially those that are necessary to her Preservation After that pursu'd my old Friend M. Descartes entertain'd me with all that happen'd upon that occasion and all the other Reflections he had made The Principal of which was That his Soul in that juncture no longer perceiving the Motions external Objects caus'd upon his Body and by consequence that Commerce in which the Essence of Union consisted being broken she could behold her self as in a separate State though in the mean time she resided at her usual Abode that local Presence having the least share in her Union with the Body She then had a mind to disengage her self from the Body and see what would be the Event of that Separation No sooner had she wisht it than it was so And he farther experienc'd what he had often suggested to us before that if the Machine of the Body had all its Organs sound and free if it had its customary Heat in the Heart and Stomack the circulation of the Blood the filtration of the Humours and all those natural Functions all the Motions constantly perform'd in us without the notice of the Soul would go on as regularly in her absence as when she was there Moreover it fell out as she was busy in contemplating the operation of her Body at some paces distance from it a Fly fortun'd to tickle it in the Face presently the Hand rais'd it self to the place and unseated the Fly just as if the Soul had been actually in the Body So true it is that the greatest part of the Motions of our Body which we attribute to the Soul are owing to the sole Disposition of the Machine This Soul before she durst venture to wander very far from the Body made her entry and exit sundry times and judging by the disposition in which she saw it she might without any apparent danger leave it for some time she hazarded the undertaking a very long Voyage She arriv'd at Beitany in the Houses of her Relations and from thence she made a Sally unto Paris to the House of some other Acquaintance She was much concern'd to see that the People there had but an indiffernt Opinion of her Religion the Country M. Descartes had chose to live in and some unwaranted Inferences that one or other had drawn from his Principles had given occasion to those rash Censures It is notwithstanding true that all the time he liv'd and when he dy'd he was a sound and honest Catholick Finally such was the success the Soul found in her Rambles when separate from the Body that she could when she pleas'd in a Minute travel three or four thousand Leagues In so much that this of M. Descartes parting from Egmond about half an hour after eight in the Morning had travers'd all France in an hour and an half and was return'd at ten Bless me said I to my old Gentleman how expedient would that be for a Person that so passionately desires to see the Country as I do You shall gratify your Curiosity answer'd he but hear me out M. Descartes Soul being return'd from he Voyage in France found her Body almost in the