body nor your soule which are still the same subjects of all these passions the alterations then are in the passions or qualities themselves I beleeve these entities are not unknowne to you as you are a man Homo es humani à te nihil alienum puto Lastly if qualities must be proved then I must prove that there is motion action and passion in the world but you 'l say these need no proofe so say I and consequently neither need we prove that there are qualities for if there were not heat in the fire there could be no calefaction in the water The perfection of substances consisteth in their operations but take away qualities you take away all operation and by consequence the perfection of substance nay you must deny all generation and corruption in nature if you deny qualities for by their service the matter is prepared to receive the form or lose it and they are inseparable hand-maids waiting on the formes as their mistresses and ready to performe their commands The body is a meere passive thing What think you of Sect 64. Pag. 342. Conclus the celestiall bodies are they meerly passive if they be what is it that works upon this inferiour globe Are the Sun and Moone meere passive bodies by which all things here have light life motion and vegetation But perhaps you meane not celestiall bodies Then come lower Are not the animall and vitall spirits bodies and yet they are active not meerely passive and if they were not active they could not unite the soule with the body as they do but unire est agere nay what say you to your little Pages the Atomes they are bodies you confesse and yet not meerly passive for in this Treatise of yours they have done you Knights-service Neither am I of your opinon when you say that rare and dense is the Pag. 342. primary and adequat division of bodies For there is in bodies a division more prime then of dense and rare to wit of hot and cold for rarity is but the effect of heat and density of cold now the effect is not the prime but posterior to its cause Though we have not sworne to defend Aristotle in all Sect. 65. Conclus his Dictats yet till we know better we will adhere to his If you can informe us of principles more consonant to truth wee will follow you and leave him for neither Plato nor Aristotle but Truth is it we fight for But indeed wee doe not find your Philosophy answerable to your paines or our expectations I will not dispraise your endeavours nor will I promise to follow them I honour your worth I admire your paines but I dislike your tenets Your good parts deserve my love but your principles convince not my judgement therefore afford me the same libertie in dissenting from you which you assume to your selfe in deviating from Aristotle whom notwithstanding you thinke you have exactly followed in your opinion of Atomes But if my judgement faile me not in this you are mistaken for though hee denies not minima naturalia or atomes in bodies which are parts of the whole yet hee never affirmed that all actions passions motions mutations are performed by them much lesse was he of your opinion that light heat cold and other qualities were atomes or corporieties but through all his workes when hee hath occasion to speak of them he makes them distinct entities and placeth them in distinct predicaments Therefore father not these your Atomes upon Aristotle but set the right saddle on the right horse and let Democritus enjoy his owne conceipts to whom by right these atomes belong and not to Aristotle Though Metaphysicall principles be of a higher straine Sect. 66. Pag. 344. conclus then Physicall yet we must not set them apart and make no use of them in the compositions resolutions and motions of things as you would have us for both the subject of Physick is subordinate to Metaphysick and the principles of that demonstrable by the principles of this How can you know exactly a naturall bodie and its affections and principles if you know not what is entity essence existence act possibility c The thing defined cannot be knowne but by the definition nor this without the genus and difference If you know not what is animal you know not what is man How shall wee know without Metaphysick what your active atomes are whether they be bodies or spirits corruptible or incorruptible substances or accidents perfect or imperfect c By the touch-stone of Metaphysick we must try the goodnesse of your new coined opinions but you wrong the learned Pag. 344. Aristotelians when you say that they imagine positive entities to the negatives of things as to the names of points lines instants for they never called names and negatives positive entities nor are the names of points lines instants negatives with them and though they did imagine such to be positive entities yet they doe not hold them to be so indeed for you may imagine or conceive darknesse or blindnesse under the notion of positive entities though you know them to be privations And indeed wee cannot imagine privations and negations without some reflexion on their habits and affirmations because entities are only the objects of the intellect You shall do well to name the Aristotelians who are guilty of this your accusation You would make Aristotle a weak Logician if hee Sect. 67. Pag. 345 should meane by qualities nothing else but a disposition of parts as you say But he is of another mind for qualities are with him in one predicament the disposition of parts in another to wit in the Category of Site therefore your definitions are lame for want of Logick and Metaphysick for you define beauty a composition of parts and colours in due proportion whereas beauty is a qualitie composition an action and proportion in the predicament of relation So when you define health a due temper of the humours health is not the temper of humours but is the effect of this temper For as sicknesse is an affection hurting and hindering our naturall vitall and animall actions so health is an affection preserving and maintaining these actions in safetie but affections are qualities Neither is agility a due proportion of spirits and strength of sinewes as you define it for proportion is a relation but agilitie a qualitie Besides there is in Elephants a due proportion of spirits and more strength of sinews then in a Mouse or Weasle and yet no waies that agilitie And as bad is your definition of Science which you say is nothing else but ordered phantasmes whereas I have ordered phantasmes of contingencies corruptible and individuall things and yet of these there is no science Though I have ordered phantasmes of the effect yet for want of the knowledge of the cause I have not the science of it for scire est per causas cognoscere And if you take phantasmes
which is in Christ by which he justifieth Rom. 12. many in respect of which he is called the Wisdome of the Father for in him are hid all the treasures of wisdome and knowledge Or had you meant that which wee have of Christ by illumination and in respect of which the Apostle accounted all things lost desiring to know nothing but Christ crucified If I say you had meant such guides I had approved of your judgement and I had been your fellow-traveller for indeed by these onely our wants are supplied and our accounts made up And in this respect naturam sequi est Deo obsequi The Conclusion wherein is asserted the Soules Immortality and Objections answered THus Sir Kenelme I have briefly run over your voluminous Discourses of the nature of Bodies and of the Soules immortalitie in which though you have shewed much wit and good language yet your arguments and descriptions of the Soule are not of that evidence and validitie which I have shewed as to convince our understanding and to vindicate our beliefe in assenting to all your dictats in this your laborious Work therefore give mee leave without prejudice to your paines to point briefly at such reasons and arguments as I conceive will be more evincing and pressing and more prevalent both with Christians and Pagans then those which you have imparted to us 1. We will first then begin with divine Testimony which is of greater authority then all humane capacity God tells Moses Exod. 3. that he is the God of Abraham Isaac and Iacob by which words our Saviour proves the soules immortalitie in affirming that God is not the God of the dead but of the living Matth. 22. and consequently that these were not dead but alive in their soules Solomon tells us Eccles. 12. that the spirit returnes to God that gave it The Scripture tells us that Samuel's soule was alive after her separation 2 Sam. 28. which place though it be controverted whether it was truly Samuel's soule or not yet that apparition which was beleeved by the Iewes shewes that they doubted not of the soules immortalitie Christ tells us of Lazarus his soule that was carried by Angels into Abraham's bosome and the rich Gluttons into hell Luke 16. Hee tells us also of that rich mans soule which after his barnes were full was to be taken from him Luke 12. But if she perished with the bodie how could she be taken away Hee assures the good thiefe that his soule should be with him that night in Paradise Luke 23. And hee will not have us feare them that can destroy the bodie but cannot kill the soule Matth. 10. by which he intimates that the soule is not liable to death as the bodie is 2. Wee prove it by arguments grounded on the Scripture as first The soule of Christ was immortall when it was separated therefore our soules are so The consequence is evident because Christ was like to us in all things except sin The antecedent no Christian will deny except he will deny the hypostaticall union of the Divinitie and the Humanitie which was not nor could not be dissolved by death for the Divinitie was not separated from Christs bodie in death much lesse from his soule to which it was immediately united 'T is true Christs bodie died because the soule was separated by which the Divinity gave life to the bodie to wit effectively not formally but God being united immediately and principally to the soule shee could not die And though God hath not so united our soules to himselfe as he did Christs yet hee is so neerly united to our spirituall soules being a spirit himselfe that they cannot die except hee should forsake them which hee will not doe for he will not leave our soules nor forsake them nor suffer them to see corruption Secondly man was made to the image of God Gen. 1. which image consisteth partly in hyperphysicall graces as righteousnesse and true holinesse and partly in five physicall gifts 1. understanding 2. will 3. dominion 4. liberty 5. immortality Thirdly mans soule was not educed out of the earth and water as the soules of other creatures were but immediately inspired by God Genes 1. by which it is plaine that the soule of man is of a farre more excellent condition and nature then the soules of beasts are and that shee hath immediate dependence from God not from the bodie therefore not mortall Fourthly if the soule die with the bodie there can be no resurrection and so 1 Cor. 15. our hope and faith are in vaine Now there can be no resurrection of the bodie if the soule its forme be not pre-existent For how can the soule be re-united to the bodie or informe it againe if it be extinguished with the bodie Fifthly the Kingdome of Christ the joyes and Luke 1. Matth. 25. happinesse of the Saints and the torments of the wicked are eternall therefore the soules of men which are the subjects of Christs Kingdome and the inheritors of joy or paine cannot be mortall for what subjects shall this eternall King have or to what end are the rewards and punishments eternall if the soules which are the chiefe subjects and chiefly interessed in these rewards and paines perish and die Sixthly Moses shewes that the Sun Moon and Stars of heaven were made for the service of man Deuteron 4. which argueth that man is of a more excellent nature then they Now this could not be if he were not spirituall and immortall in his soule for in his bodie hee is inferiour to them in regard they are incorruptible and unchangeable substances 3. We prove that the soule is not onely immortall by Divine power but also of her owne nature First she is made to the image of God but this image as I have shewed consisteth not onely in supernaturall graces but also in naturall powers and faculties of the soule Secondly the soule is a spirit of her owne nature therefore of her owne nature immortall for spirits are free from the prime qualities which are the causes of corruption Thirdly the soule is a simple uncompounded substance therefore cannot be corruptible for how can that be dissolved which was never compounded And though Tertullian held the materiality yet he acknowledgeth De resur c. 34. the soules immortality to be naturall to her Salva erit anima natura sua per immortalitatem Fourthly if the soule were not in her selfe immortall how should the Heathen Philosophers who knew not God nor the Scriptures dispute so accurately as they do in defence of her incorruptibility But when I say that the soule is immortall by nature my meaning is not that she is the efficient cause of her owne immortality or that she is not mortall and dissoluble by externall power for so God is onely immortall as the Apostle sheweth and as the sixt Tim. 6. Sess. 11. Synod hath defined and some Fathers have proved so that the Angels in this respect
and diastole sec. 59. Paine is not compression but the effect of it All hard things breed not paine nor soft things pleasure The heart is more active then passive because hot Feare sorrow and stupidity how they differ Passion is not the motion of the bloud and spirits but of the sensible appetite Every passion is not motion The division of passions Why birds more musicall then other creatures sec. 60. There are sympathies and antipathies in nature of which we can give no reason which is the punishment of Adams pride sec. 61. Of impressions made in the embryo and of the formative power sec. 62. Substances could not be knowne were it not for qualities No action passion and motion without qualities Alterations from them sec. 63. All bodies are not meerly passive Rare and dense not the primary division of bodies sec. 64. Aristotle not the author of atomes but Democritus sec. 65. The necessity of metaphysicall knowledge Privations and negations conceived as positive entities by Aristotelians how sec. 66. Qualities are not dispositions of parts Beauty is neither composition nor proportion Health is not temper Agility is not proportion nor strength Science is not ordered phantasmes sec. 67. Sir Kenelme modestly reproved for mocking at Aristotelians sec. 68. How and why accidents are in their subjects Accidents are entities Aristotelians vindicated from tautologies Nature aimes at unity why Of similitudes and the ground thereof How man is like to God not God to man sec. 69. The CONTENTS of the second part containing 28. Sections ARistotelians make not heat and cold indivisible qualities Not they but the Masse-Priests turne bodies into spirits sec. 1. Not the nature but the similitude of the thing apprehended is in the man apprehending and therefore the understanding is not the same with the thing understood proved by ten reasons sec. 2. All relations are not notions but reall entities proved by ten reasons sec. 3. Existence is not the property of man but of entity or rather its formality in God onely it is one with essence sec. 4. The soule is more then an active force She sleepeth not in the grave c. sec. 5. Being hath no great affinity with the soule it is neither the end nor the Idea of the soule sec. 6. Things are understood rather by way of similitude then of respect or relation sec. 7. Mans knowledge how finite and infinite God onely absolutely infinite How he is knowne by us here and hereafter How infinity can be knowne sec. 8. Things lose not their being by reason of quantity but by the privation of the forme sec. 9. Mathematicians consider not the natures of things but bare accidents abstracted from sensible matter sec. 10. All life consisteth not in motion Life is not an action but the act How motions come from without how not sec. 11. How the soule is perfect In her no privative but negative imperfections There are accidents in the soule sec. 12. Place is not a body it is neither forme nor matter Whatsoever hath existence hath ubiety even Angels and soules How soules are in their bodies They are not no-where nor are they every-where sec. 13. How time is the measure of motion Time and motion different things When the heavenly motions shall cease there will be time how understood Things below would move though the heavens stood still sec. 14. What things are in time chiefly and primarily How spirits are not in time and how in time Tempus aevum eternitie God onely exempted from time Discrete time sec. 15. The soule is no accident She knoweth not all things There is no exteriour and interiour soule Phantasmes are not bodies All soules have not the same amplitude of knowledge Life is not motion Neither the soule nor the life becomes to be a spirit sec. 16. Both Angels and soules stand in need of externall and internall helps of knowledge Memory remaines in separated soules How the species depend from the phantasie Divers habits left in the soule separated The soules in their understanding differ from the Angels What things they know not God is not understood by species sec. 17. The phantasie worketh not upon the soule but the active intellect upon the passive How the phantasie helps the understanding The phantasie workes in sleep How the soule worketh upon her selfe by meanes of her divers faculties sec. 18. In Angels and departed soules there are actions and perfective passions The want of action argues death rather then life Some actions cease after death not all All actions not corruptive Sir Kenelm contradicts himselfe sec. 19. The soule the subject of memory recordation reminiscence and of oblivion too What habits are left actually and potentially in the soule 'T is a happinesse to be forgetfull of some things sec. 20. Rhetoricall flourishes uselesse and hurtfull in Philosophicall disputes sec. 21. Perfection of knowledge makes not the substance of the soule more perfect The soule ceaseth not to be a soule though shee brings knowledge with her False judgements and erroneous opinions are a part of the punishment of damned soules in hell sec. 22. All effects doe not immediately follow upon the working of the efficient Opus and Operatio The act of entity and of causality are to be distinguished The effect which is the property of the cause followeth immediately God an eternall entity not an eternall cause sec. 23. That the soule is not a materiall but a spirituall substance infused not traduced proved by twenty arguments Of the operations knowledge and liberty of the soule in willing Of her excellency above the senses and corporeall substances this is proved by Scripture In what sense the soule is called corporeall by some Fathers She is no part of the divine essence as some hereticks thought sec. 24. The specificall perfection or excellency of soules is alike in all There may be some difference in accidentall perfections in respect of the organs and phantasie sec. 25. The neerer the Intelligences are to God the more they know The superiour have a greater similitude with God then the inferiour and stand in need of fewer intelligible species All behold Gods essence but not in the same measure Neither is their knowledge equall nor infinitely unequall sec. 26. The soule is not made complete in or by the body but rather incomplete because she is then a part of the whole sec. 27. Nature reason and knowledge are but blind guides to heaven without Christ proved by Scripture and reason What we are by nature How Christ may be called nature reason and knowledge sec. 28. The CONTENTS of the Conclusion containing 17. Sections THe immortality of the soule proved by Scripture sec. 1. The same proved by six reasons grounded on the Scripture sec. 2. That the soule is immortall of her owne nature proved by foure reasons and how this phrase is to be understood sec. 3. The soules immortality proved by thirteen naturall and morall reasons The Gentiles by natures light were not ignorant of this truth
Aristotle in this point cleered and vindicated sec. 4. How Angels and mens soules subject to annihilation or dissolution sec. 5. The first Objection against our doctrine answered and is shewed how the soule is immortall both by grace and nature sec. 6. The second Objection answered Solomon compares not mens soules to beasts but the death of mens bodies to that of beasts sec. 7. The third Objection answered Job denieth not the resurrection but sheweth it cannot be effected by the power of nature sec. 8. The fourth Objection answered Austin cleered The way how the soule is infused and originall sin propagated sec. 9. The fifth Objection answered How the soule in under standing depends from the senses sec. 10. The sixth Objection answered how the soule suffers sec. 11. The seventh Objection answered How immateriall grace is corrupted sec. 12. The eighth Objection answered Desire of immortality in man onely sec. 13. The ninth Objection answered The soule understands better being separated then now she doth in the body sec. 14. The many mischiefes that Christian Religion suffers by this opinion of the soules corruptibility sec. 15. The late printed Pamphlet at Amsterdam which undertakes to prove the soules mortality briefly refuted and slighted as a frivolous and irreligious rapsodie having nothing in it but froth Wherein he abuseth Scripture He is refuted in foure observations The soule after death subsisteth naturally not violently nor miraculously sec. 16. A devout and comfortable meditation upon the soules immortality fit for all afflicted Christians sec. 17. THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE NOble Sir KENELME as I reverence your worth so I admire your paines who being a Gentleman of such eminencie thinks it no disparagement but an honour to spend your time in good literature which giveth true Nobilitie your practice herein is exemplary which I wish the Gentry of our Nation would imitate who think they are born meerly for themselves and their pleasures whose time is spent either idlely wickedly or impertinently as Seneca complaines Eorum vitam mortemque juxta existimo but your mind being of a more noble extraction semine ab aethereo you know that you are not borne for your selfe and therefore by your indefatigable paines doe both eternize your fame and enoble your Countrie but because this life of ours cannot challenge the priviledge of perfection and truth here is accompanied with errour as the light with shades therefore I find that this your Work of the nature of Bodies and of the Soules immortality hath some passages in it Heterodoxall and not consonant to the principles of Divinity and Philosophy which have drawne from mee these sudden Observations for I have here neither time books nor opportunitie to enlarge my selfe in which I promise both brevity and modesty suffering no other language to passe from mee but such as may beseem both your worth and my ingenuitie for my end is not to wound your reputation but to vindicate the truth The first mistake I meet with is That words expresse Sect. 1. Pag. 2. cap. 1. things only according to the pictures we make of them in our thoughts and not as the things are in their proper natures But if our words expresse not the things which we conceive in our minds as they are in their owne natures then our conceptions are erroneous and our words improper or false and if there be not an adequation of our conceptions with the things we conceive there can be no metaphysicall truth in us which consisteth in the agreement of our thoughts with the things as ethicall truth doth in the consent of our words to our thoughts Our conceptions are our internall words which represent reall things and our externall words represent these conceptions and by consequence they expresse things as they are in their natures So Adam in Paradise gave names to the creatures according to their natures and so have wise men ever since The Latines call the sea mare quasi amarum from its saltnesse or bitternesse for it is so in its owne nature Secondly You define quantity to be nothing else but the Sect. 2. Pag. 9. cap. 2. extension of a thing and shortly after that quantity is nothing else but divisibility Thus you confound extension and divisibility which differ as much as in man rationality differs from risibility the one being the effect of the other for therefore things are divisible because they are extensive take away extension divisibility faileth and therefore numbers are not properly divisible because they have no extension but onely in resemblance Secondly extension is not the essence of quantity for if it were all that have quantitie must have also extension but Angels have discrete quantitie which wee call number and yet have no extension Thirdly there is a quidditative or entitive extension by which one part is not another in bodies though there were no quantitative extension at all therefore not every extension is the essence of quantitie There is also the extension of site which is no quantitie Whereas you make heat a property of rare bodies and Sect 3. Pag. 28. cap. 4. Pag. 30. that out of rarity ariseth heat and that a body is made and constituted a body by quantity you speak paradoxically for the rarest bodie is not still the hottest A burning coale is hotter then the flame and scalding lead is hotter then scalding water Secondly rarity is not the cause of heat but heat the cause of rarity that which begets heat is motion and the influence and light of the Stars motion then begets heat heat begets rarity 'T is true that rarefaction prepares the matter to receive heat as heat prepares the matter to receive the forme of the hot element but what prepares is not the cause Thirdly a bodie is not made and constituted by quantitie for this is posteriour to a bodie being a substance and followes the bodie as its accident and therefore more ignoble Every accident hath a subjective dependence from the substance a bodie hath or may have entitie without quantitie so cannot quantitie without the bodie The essence or as you call it the substance of locall motion Sect. 4. Pag 34. cap. 5. doth not consist in division because whatsoever division there is in this motion it is either in respect of the thing moved or in respect of the space in which it is moved but both these are externall to motion and not belonging any waies to its essence therefore in that divisibility which is in them cannot consist the essence of locall motion Besides divisibility is a propertie of quantitie flowing from its essence whereas locall motion is quantitative but by accident and not but by way of reduction in the predicament of quantitie therefore except you be of Scotus his opinion who will have mobile and motus all one division cannot be the essence of locall motion And if you were a Scotist in this yet you cannot prevaile for division being the accident of the thing moved it cannot be
fiery wheele because the beames of our eye are dissipated and broken by the swift motion of the lucid object Yet these will not prove that wee are deceived in the instantaneall motion of the light from East to West or of a candle in the roome where we are for if the eye be continually deceived in the motion of its proper object being within a convenient distance then is the eye given to us in vaine and so God is made imperfect in his worke And therefore our argument is good when we say that the light can be no naturall body seeing it illuminates the whole Hemisphere in an instant You give a reason why the light by its motion doth Sect. 17. Pag. â—9 c. 8. Pag. 60. not shatter the aire or other bodies in pieces Because in light there is only celerity but no bignesse or density This is a strange body that hath no dimensions you were better call it a spirit then a body for if it be a body it must have matter and forme by the matter it hath quantity which is inseparable from it by the forme that quantitie hath its determination and limits therefore if there be in the light celerity there is motion if motion then the principles of motion which are two to wit the active forme and the passive matter and these cannot be without quantitie nor this without dimensions and what dimensions can be wanting in so vaste a body as the light is reaching from heaven to earth You cannot allow lesse then the three dimensions of longitude latitude and profundity and that I think is bignesse and if it incorporate it selfe with the aire there must needs be a condensation two bodies nay perhaps a thousand in one Church if there be so many candles being united in one No light is seen by us but what is reflected from an opacous Sect. 18. Pag. 61. cap. 8. body to our eye I pray from what opacous bodie is the light of the Sun Moon and Stars reflected when we look upon these luminaries Doe they not immediatly without any such help strike our eyes when we look on them And wherefore hath the wind no power to shake the light which strikes our eye in a straight line Is the wind more restrained by a straight then a crooked line The wind shakes the aire and yet shakes not the light which is in it Sure it is not the straight line that keeps the light from shaking but because it is an accident and not a bodie as the aire is and bodies only are the objects and subjects of motion Our arguments you say against light being a body are Sect. 19. Pag. 62. cap. 8. only negative All negative arguments are not to be rejected there be negative demonstrations as well as affirmative and you which hold light to be a body how will you prove it to be no accident but by negatives and yet I have urged already divers affirmative arguments to prove that light is a qualitie as well as negative to prove it is no bodie And whereas you conclude that if fire be light then light must needs be fire Pag. 63. it will not follow for fire may be light or lucid in the concrete and yet not so in the abstract and if it were so yet light is not therefore fire for sure the light of snow or fish or glow-wormes is not fire nor indeed any light as I have proved By how much the quicker the motion is by so much the Sect 20. Pag. 65. cap. 9. agent is the perfecter The quicknesse of the motion argues not the perfection of the agent except you will have the Moon which moves swifter a perfecter agent then the Sun whose motion is much slower Is Mercurie a more perfect agent then his father Iupiter or is Tobias lesse perfect then his dogge because he is not so nimble footed The nature of a body is that greater quantity of the same Sect. 21. Pag 65. cap. 9. thing hath greater vertue then a lesse quantity hath You confound the two sorts of quantities to wit virtutis and molis the greatest vertue is not alwaies in the greatest bulk there was more spirit and courage in little David then in great Goliah A little horse hath oftentimes more metall then a bigger and a few drops of chymicall spirit have more vertue then an handfull of herbs little women for the most part are fruitfuller then the tallest And there is more force in a little gunpowder within a musket then in twenty times so much in an open place You can see no principle to perswade you that any body can Sect 22. Pag. 70. cap. 9. move it selfe towards any place If your meaning be that no body can move it selfe totally that is that the whole and every part in the whole be both movers and moved I assent to you for one and the same thing cannot be in the same respect actually and potentially in being but the mover is still in actu the thing moved in potentia nor can the same thing be more noble then it selfe which it must be if the bodie thus move it selfe seeing the mover is more noble then the thing moved but if your meaning be that no bodie moves it selfe that is that in the same bodie one part doth not move the other you are mistaken for every bodie is compounded of forme and matter the forme is the mover the matter is moved and so every bodie moves it selfe as having within it selfe the principle of its motion which is the forme So heavie bodies move themselves downward light bodies upward the one by gravitie or the forme of gravitie the other by the forme of levitie gravitie and levitie being qualities proceeding from the forme of these inanimate bodies and this power of moving themselves these bodies had in their generation from their generator who gave them being and forme and the consequences of forme dans formam dat consequentia ad formam therefore when a stone falls downward that motion is not from an externall mover for then the motion should not be naturall but violent now the motion is naturall for nature is the principle and cause of it and nature is intrinsecall and the forme is the chiefe nature which causeth this motion therefore the generator cannot be the cause of this motion as being gone and separated from it nor is the removing of the impediment or the impeller the cause of this motion for these are causes only by accident which must be reduced to the selfe cause Doubtlesse then all bodies move themselves Now if the quality be nothing else as you urge out of Thomas but the modification of the thing whose quality it is then you must exclude all habits naturall faculties and passions all colours sounds sents and many other qualities from being reall entities which is absurd The Sun is a perpetuall and constant cause working upon Sect. 23. Pag 76. cap. 10. inferiour bodies by
for the objects of knowledge as they are in the phantasie sure science cannot be phantasmes no more then the eye can be the colour which it sees Knowledge or Science and the thing knowne are relatives but these are opposites therefore not the same Lastly science is a habit phantasmes are patible qualities if you speak of the objects in the phantasie but these are different species of qualitie You conclude your first part pleasantly making your Sect 68. Pag. 345. Conclus selfe merry in these sad times but with your owne shadow and conceipts playing with these as a Cat doth with her owne taile You make the Aristotelians speak absurdities of your owne invention and of which they never dreamed and then you laugh at them comparing them to a boy that by adding Bus turned all English words into Latine Thus Turnus-like in the Poet you fight not against Aenaeas but his Image or rather your owne imaginations and you play upon these Sampsons who can easily pull down with the strength of their arguments this temple of your large discourse which you have been so many yeares in building If you were not a Gentleman whom for your good parts I honour I could say that the boy was not so much to blame for Bus as you are for being too busie in jeering at such eminent men and at those Maximes which have been so unanimously received by all Universities and for so many hundred yeares constantly maintained but your worth and my modestie enjoyne mee silence and restraine my pen from recrimination But let us see what it is that you so play upon them Sect. 69. for Because when you aske how a wall is white they answer There is an entity whose essence is whitenesse in the wall If you aske againe how whitenesse sticks to the wall they reply By meanes of the entity called union If againe you aske how one white is like another they answer 'T is done by another entity whose nature is likenesse Thus you make them very simple and ridiculous and indeed no wiser then the boy with his Bus or rather Bussards then Philosophers These men whom you mock say that praedicare sequitur esse the wall is called white because it is white and it is white in concreto because the Painter would have it so by introducing whitenesse the abstract into it But I will tell you why whitenesse is in the wall other accidents in their subjects because they cannot subsist without them and they cannot subsist without them because their essence is to inhere If you aske a reason of this their essence I must leave you and send you to the Author of nature If you dislike the terme of entitie to be given to whitenesse and union and likenesse then they must be non-entities for the one or the other they must needs be seeing there is no medium between entity and non-entity But Philosophers are not so childish as you make them when you will have them say that whitenesse sticks to the wall by meanes of union this is to tautologise not to satisfie they say not then that union unites whitenesse to the wall but that accidents are united to their subjects as heat to the fire because without them the substance whose ultimate perfection consists in operation cannot work nor the accidents whose essence is inherence without their subjects cannot subsist So wee say that in mixture the substances are united not by meanes of union but of humiditie which is the glue and cement in naturall compositions as drinesse dissolves the union Againe one whitenesse is not like another because of likenesse that 's childish but because nature aimes at unitie and in similitude there is a kind of unitie The reason why shee aimes at unitie is because there is most entity where is most unity multiplicity enclines to non-entity from which nature flies as farre as shee can and because she aimes at perfection which consisteth in unitie therefore she aimes at unitie And because where there is division there are parts now parts being of the whole which is the same either generically or specifically with the parts they resemble the whole and each other in some sort Or if you aske mee the reason why two eggs are like each other I answer Because they have the same qualitie So then the identity of the qualitie is the cause or ground of similitude and so saith Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are like that have the same 5. Metaph. cap. 15. qualitie yet not qualities only but other entities also are the ground of similitude The thing generated and the generator have the same similitude because they have the same essentiall forme All things that are united in a specificall forme have a specificall similitude and they have a genericall similitude that have the same genus and so equivocall effects are like their causes So there is the similitude of actions passions quantities relations site c. And as the forme whether essentiall or accidentall is the ground of that similitude which is called of participation so entitie it selfe is the ground of that which is called the similitude of proportion Thus man is like unto God because hee is an entitie as God is but by participation therefore like to him onely by analogie and proportion And because the entities of God and of man are not of the same order therefore God is not like man no more then you are like your picture though perhaps your picture may be like you Lastly you will not admit qualities except we can shew you out of Aristotle a medium between naturall and logicall entities Then belike you suppose that wee make qualities neither naturall nor logicall entities but some middle between both but if you were versed in Philosophy you will find that Aristotelians make qualities naturall or reall entities and therefore place them directly in the predicament which is the receptacle of reall entities onely You would take it ill if any should tell you that the habits of wisedome learning c. the naturall faculties of seeing hearing c. which are in you as likewise your passions and patible qualities with your forme and figure were not naturall and reall entities But this shall suffice briefly to have pointed at some of your deviations which I have done hastily not having time to make a full survay of your Treatise Let us now pass to your second Discourse and see whether your in-sight in the nature of the Soule be as good as that which you have made shew of in your Treatise of the nature of Bodies ANIMADVERSIONS upon Sir Kenelme Digbie's Treatise of the nature of the SOULE IN your Preface you traduce Philosophers Sect. 1. Pag. 352. for turning all bodies into spirits because they make heat and cold to be of it selfe indivisible a thing by it selfe This is a great mistake for neither do they make heat and cold in themselves indivisible but divisible rather to wit
in its owne kind so that there is no imperfect bodie in the world but how one soule is more imperfect then another you must tell us if you will have us be your disciples The essence of every thing is indivisible but the soule is the essence of the living creature and the essence of the thing is the perfection of it A negative imperfection there is in the creature compared to the Creator so in mens soules compared to Angels because they have not these perfections nor are they capable of them in that estate they are now in except their species be altered and yet the soules are perfect in their owne kind for perfectum est cui nihil deest Thus a Diamond is a perfect stone though it hath not the perfections of man But a privative imperfection is not in any soule because there is nothing wanting that ought to be in the soule I speak here of naturall faculties not of supernaturall grace if there be some failing or defect in the organs by which the soule worketh that imperfection to no more to be imputed to the soule then want of skill to an expert Musician because his Lute is out of tune Secondly when you call the soule a knowledge an art a rule you make the soule an accident or a collection of accidents and so you are more injurious to the soule then Hippocrates and Galen who beleeved it to be nothing else but a celestiall heat Thirdly what you meane by an imperfect soule which you say is the participation of an Idea I know not Fourthly neither can I tell how some part of our thoughts are corporeall and some spirituall seeing they are actions and accidents of the soule Fifthly if there be no accidents in the soule then there be no habits nor actions nor intelligible species in her for these are meere accidents but such are in every soule or else you must deny that there is either knowledge or wisdome goodnesse or evill in the soule 'T is true there are not materiall accidents in her because she is free from materiality yet in that she is not a pure act as God is there is in her a potentiality whence arise these spirituall and immateriall accidents which be in her To be in a place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Sect. 13. Pag. 424. c. 10. body It is absurd to say it is therefore it is somewhere it is an eminent property of a separated soule to be no where and yet she is every where Place is not a bodie for then two bodies must be in one place which nature abhors Neither is place any part of a bodie not the matter because the matter doth not containe as the place doth but is contained nor is it the forme for the bodie may be separated from the place containing without any hurt to the bodie contained so cannot a bodie be separated from its forme without its destruction And if place were either matter or forme there would be no motion to a place for bodies move to their place because they are not in it they move to enjoy that they want but bodies having and enjoying already their matter and form cannot move to have or enjoy them therefore place is not a bodie but the superficies of an ambient bodie or rather the concavity of that superficies Secondly it is no absurditie from the existence of a thing to prove the ubiety of it for whatsoever is must necessarily be somewhere except God whose centre is every-where his circumference no-where And though spirits are not in a place by way of circumscription as bodies are whose extremities fill the vacuity of the containing superficies yet they are in their ubi by way of definition or designation that is whilst they are here they are not there whilst the Angel Gabriel is with the Virgin in her chamber hee is not the same time in heaven and whilst our soules are here present in their bodies they are absent from the Lord saith the Apostle And though Angels and our soules are in bodies as in their ubi yet they are not there as in a place for neither is there any dilatation nor condensation of the bodies upon their entering in no more then there is of the aire in your chamber upon the shining of the Sun beams in it Or if they be in a place they are not there by any quantitative but by a virtuall contact Thirdly you make it the eminent property of a soule to be no-where and yet every-where But if the soule be no-where it is nothing and if every-where it is God whose property it is indeed to be every-where by his essence power and providence but how the soule can be every-where and yet no-where is one of your riddles I think you have read that passage in Seneca Nusquam est qui ubique est But indeed neither are the soules nowhere nor are they every-where not no-where for ubietie is so necessary to created entities that like Hippoer ates twins they live and die together Tolle spatia corporibus nusquam erunt qui a nusquam erant omnino non erant What S. Austin speaks there of bodies must be also understood Epist. 57. of spirits for no reason can be given why spirits should have more priviledge to exist without their Ubi then bodies have to exist without their place And how can wee imagine that a spirit can work or produce any effect except the cause and the effect the work and the worker have a locall co-existence Therefore Plato In Timaeâ— part 3. said well that what is not contained within the compasse of heaven and earth cannot be at all And so saith Aristotle that which is no-where is not If Sphinx be 4. Phys. t. 1. no-where there is no such creature And to say that soules are every-where is to oppose both Divinity and Philosophy for the one teacheth us that ubiquity is Gods property the other that Intelligences which are of a more eminent essence or nature then our soules are not in every part of their orbe but in that onely which moveth most swiftly As their essence is finite so is their existence and so is their Ubi As they cannot work every-where so they cannot be every-where The soules departed then are in their Ubi which excludes ubiquitie You say you have explicated how time is the motion of Sect. 14. Pag. 424. c. 10. the heavens You had need explicate this well for how the measure can be the same thing with that which it measureth I know not Now time is the measure of motion but not of celestiall motion for time being the affection of that motion must needs be after it but a measure is naturally before the thing measured and the cause is the measure rather of the effect then the effect can be of the cause saith Scaliger Therefore as the Exerc. 352. 2. first bodie is the measure of other bodies so is the
first motion the measure of other motions And nature by motion measureth time because by motion shee begets time but wee make time to measure motion when wee say so many degrees of the equinoctiall have moved in such a time Againe time cannot be motion because time is the same every-where but motion is not the same one time is not swifter or slower then another but one motion is swifter or slower then another motion Besides it is a received opinion among Divines that the motion of heaven shall cease after the resurrection being the motion of the Sun Moon and Stars is a part of that vanitie to which the creature is subject and of this motion there shall be then no use either for distinction of times and seasons or for generation corruption and alteration of sublunary bodies but though this motion shall cease yet time shall not cease except it be that which is caused by their motion to wit houres dayes yeares c. But that time which consisteth in the succession of duration or motion of any other thing whether it be of our bodies or of our thoughts that time I say shall not cease To be briefe time is not the motion of heaven because that motion is onely in heaven as in its subject but time is every-where and in every thing neither is that time which is caused by the motion of the first movable the same that inferiour motions are because they are separable for the heaven might move and cause time though there were no inferiour motion below and there may be motions here below though the heavens stood still The wheele of a clock would go though the heavens moved not And Iosuah did fight though the Sun stood still Though a separated soule consists with time yet shee is not Sect. 15. Pag. 425. c. 10. in time If you understand by being in time to be measured by time and to be overcome by it I yeeld for so whatsoever hath a perpetuall being is freed from the lawes of time saith Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 Physic. And so motion onely is in time to wit per se primò because it is motion only that primarily and by it selfe is measured by time for time is the number and measure of motion per prius posterius And therefore motion having of it selfe and primarily prioritie and posterioritie it is onely primarily and of it selfe in time and other things but in respect of motion As for spirits because they have no dependence on time nor on the motion of the first sphere neither in respect of their being nor of their conservation they cannot be said to be in time for to be in time includes three things first to be measured secondly to be comprehended thirdly to be mastered and consumed by time and so onely corruptible bodies are in time and yet these are not in time but in respect of their motions and mutations For the being or essence even of corruptible things consists in indivisibilitie and have not in them priority and posteriority nor succession which are necessarily required for time But though spirits are not in time after the manner of corruptible bodies yet they are in time in respect of their locall motions thoughts volitions and operations which require a succession prioritie and posterioritie and cannot be in an instant But this the Schoole-Doctors will not have to be called physicall time which consisteth in a continuated motion but tempus discretum being composed of divers minutes or little stayes or delayes succeeding one another And though their operations be indivisible in themselves yet they by succeeding one another make up that discrete time which is divisible So unities and instances indivisible in themselves make up numbers and time which are divisible So then this duration of spirits though it be indivisible and permanent according to their proper being yet it is variable according to their operations proceeding from them And though in respect of indivisibility and permanencie they will have this their duration to be called not tempus but aevum yet they acknowledge them to be in discrete time in regard of their successive operations and they admit that their aevum is virtually divisible having its succession as it is co-existent with our time And therefore the duration of Angels and separated soules is greater this yeare then it was an hundred or a thousand yeares ago because they have been co-existent to a longer time Besides nothing but God can be said to be exempted from time because his essence existence and duration or permanencie is all one but in the creatures these are distinguished for duration is extrinsecall and accidentall to the essence of the creature even of spirits and therefore they are not the same with their duration but something else they are in aevo as we are in tempore although aevum be not a fit terme to expresse the duration of Angels and soules being it signifieth the same that eternity onely proper to God for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is eternity and God onely is eternall knowing neither beginning nor exding antiquity nor novelty for the one supposeth an end the other a beginning as Tertullian sheweth Deus si vetus est In Marcion 1. cap. 8. non erit si novus non fuit novitas initium testatur vetustas finem comminatur Not long ago you said The soule was nothing else but Sect 16. Pag. 426 427 428 cap. 10. an active force now you call it an indivisible substance an actuall knowledge of all things a skill a rule by what it selfe is that shee is all that shee knoweth her nature is order That there are some imperfect soules and an interiour soule that the amplitude of knowledge is common to all humane soules separated that phantasmes are little bodies which goe with the body that life is a generall motion preceding that moment in which shee becomes an absolute spirit And then you confesse you have engulfed your selfe into a sea of contradiction You have indeed and I know not how to help you out but by telling you that if the soule be a substance it cannot be a rule a knowledge a skill an order for these are accidents Secondly if the soule be all she knoweth then shee needs no other knowledge but of her selfe for in knowing her selfe she knowes all things Thirdly if there be some imperfect soules then God is not a perfect Creatour for he immediately creates the soule and infuseth it Fourthly and if there be an interiour soul tell us which is the exteriour or how many soules a man may have Fifthly and if phantasmes be bodies how can they have their residence in the soule or understanding Spirits may dwell in bodies but that bodies should reside in spirits I have not heard till now Sixthly neither doe you tell us a reason why these your little bodies should forsake the soule upon her departure
and goe with the bodie Is not the understanding of a separated soule as capable to lodge and entertaine such guests as before Or are these little bodies made of dust that to dust they must returne Seventhly have all separated soules the same amplitude of knowledge then the soule of Iudas in hell hath as much knowledge as Abraham's soule in heaven but I see no reason for it Eighthly if life be a motion it is an imperfect thing consisting not in esse but in fieri and so the life of man both here and hereafter cannot be perfect no not in heaven And in a separated soule tell mee which is the mover the motion and the mobile Ninthly tell us what this Shee is that becomes an absolute spirit Is it the soule or is it life If the soule then she was before she was a spirit If life then motion may become a spirit I see it is not without cause you complaine of engulfing your selfe into the sea of contradiction Help your selfe out againe if you can But you plunge your selfe over head and eares when Sect. 17. Pag. 430. c. 10. you tell us That separated soules doe enjoy their knowledge without the help of externall objects phantasmes instruments or any other helps having all things requisite in themselves This is to deifie soules and to elevate them above the pitch of created entities For the Angels themselves have not such an eminent knowledge in that they stand in need of helps both externall to wit that supreme light and cleere looking-glasse of the Trinity in which they see all things as also of the innate species or idea both of universalities and of singularities without which they can have no knowledge therefore à fortiori if Angels stand in need of such helps much more must departed soules Secondly memorie remaines in departed soules but memory or recordation is by help of the species laid up in the mind to the understanding of which when the mind applies it selfe this is called recordation Thirdly though the intelligible species depend from the senses and phantasie in their fieri or being yet they have no dependence from them in their conservation For the sensible species in sleepe serve the phantasie though the common sense and all the outward are bound up and as it were dead Fourthly in Angels and departed soules there are divers habits both of love and knowledge and vertue yea of tongues also in respect of entitie though there be no use nor exercise but after a spirituall way of speaking now habits are the causes of action and in vaine should they be left in the soule if she by them did not worke and actually understand neither can the effect to wit actuall understanding subsist without its cause which is the habit for this is such an effect as depends in its conservation from the cause Fiftly understanding and the manner of understanding accompany the nature of the soule but the nature of the soule is the same here and hereafter therefore the manner of understanding must be the same to wit by the species Sixtly Whereas the soules departed do specifically differ from the Angels they must have a different manner of understanding to wit by discourse but this way needs help not of the phantasme or senses being all commerce with the body is taken away but of the species Hence then it is apparent that departed soules stand in need of helps and of objects of their understanding and that they have not all things requisite in themselves which objects are externall in respect of their essence though the species be inherent or adherent to the soules much more externall are these objects which they see in God although God himselfe is not intelligible by any species by reason of his immensity neither doth the soule understand it selfe by any species nor doth she know except by revelation what is done or doing here on earth which she must needs know if she had all things requisite for knowledge in her selfe but indeed Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel knows us not Nesciunt mortui quid hic agatur De cura pro mortuis nisi dum hic agitur saith S. Austin Our looking upon the phantasmes in our braine is not our Sect. 18. Pag. 430. c. 10. soules action upon them but it is our letting them beat at our common sense that is our letting them work upon our soule The phantasie being a corporeall sense cannot work upon the soul which is a spirit it is not then the phantasie that works upon the soule but the agent intellect refines purifies and makes more spirituall those phantasmes or species which are represented by the phantasie and so impresseth them in the passive intellect and this is called understanding The agent intellect is the force or quality of the soule mediating betweene the phantasie and passive intellect framing the intelligible species which the passive intellect receiveth and so by the one power the soule acteth and by the other suffereth but not at all by the phantasie whose hand cannot reach so high as to knock at the gates of the soule It must then be a spirituall power that must worke upon a spirit the passive intellect is rasa tabula like cleane paper having no innate species or images of objects in it selfe but what it receiveth from the active intellect so that the phantasie helps the understanding onely dispositivè not efficienter being rather the materiall then efficient cause of understanding furnishing those species which the active intellect refineth and impresseth in the passive If you should ask whether our understanding is an action or a passion I answer that it consists in both for not only doth it receive the intelligible species but also operats upon them And this is that action of the soule which you deny and what do you talke of letting our phantasmes beat at our common sense The phantasmes will beat whether you will or no. If you will not beleeve me beleeve your owne dreames in sleep I suppose your phantasmes then beat when you could be content they would spare their labour and be quieter But so long as the spirits do make their intercourse betweene the phantasie and the common sense there will be an agitation and beating of the phantasmes But it seemes you take the soule and common sense for the same thing when you say that to let the phantasmes beat upon the common sense is to let them work upon the soule They may beat upon the one and not work upon the other for the soul suffers not but by it selfe and her suffering is perfective not destructive as that of the matter is But she doth not worke upon or deduce her selfe out of possibility into act considered as the same thing but in respect of her divers faculties whereof the one is the efficient the other the patient and resembles the matter and if it were not so we should never actually understand for what should excite the
soule as you call it in saying that her being in a body is her being one thing with the body she is said to be in for if she be one thing with the body she hath the same essence and essentiall properties of a body which I beleeve you wil not subscribe to Sect 22. Pag. 441. c 1 1. Should a soule by the course of nature obtaine her first being without a body and be perfect in knowledge she must be a compleat substance not a soule whose nature is to acquire perfection by the service of the senses 1. You suppose what is not to be supposed for no soul can obtain her first being by the course of nature 2. If she did yet it were not repugnant to her nature to be perfect in knowledge 3. Perfection in knowledge will not make her a complete substance 4. Though the soule naturally acquires perfection by the service of the senses yet that hinders not her bringing in of knowledge with her Adams soul had perfect knowledge as it was fit being all the works of God were created in their perfection and Adam was to be the Doctor and instructor of his posterity and because he was created both in the state and place of happinesse which could not subsist without knowledge yet Adams soule ceased not therefore to be a soule or the forme of his materiall body nor did her knowledge make her a complete substance for in her substance she was no more complete then our soules are in our nativity Neither did that knowledge which Adam brought with him hinder his soule from acquiring by the service of his senses a fuller measure of understanding for hee neither had the knowledge of future contingencies nor of the secrets of mens hearts nor of every particular individuum of every species nor of every stone or sand in the world which belonged nothing to his perfection and happinesse If you 'l say that Adams soule obtained not her first being by the course of nature I grant it nor was it possible she should but by what course soever you imagine the soule to have her being shee may bring perfect knowledge with her and yet not cease to be a soule But when you say That no false judgements can remaine in a Pag. 442. miserable soule after her departure you make the damned soules in hell in farre better condition then wee are here upon earth who are subject to false judgements and erroneous opinions even the best of us but I am not of your mind for doubtlesse false judgements are a part of that punishment which the wicked soules suffer in hell But if there be no falshood or errour of judgement in them they must be in this point as happy as Adam was in Paradise If nothing be wanting but the effect and yet the effect Sect. 23. doth not immediately follow it must needs be that it cannot follow at all This inference will not follow at all for wee see many effects doe not immediately follow upon the working of the efficient and yet follow at last The fire melts not the metall presently nor the Carpenter builds the house nor the Sun produces corne grasse and fruits immediately nor doth the Physician presently cure diseases and yet all these are efficient causes and actually work the effects follow at leasure and at last though not immediately You should doe well to distinguish between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the working or operation and the work it selfe When the efficient is not only in its act of entity but of causality too there followes immediately operation but not opus the working not the work the effect in fieri not in esse Againe you must discriminate between voluntary and naturall agents the one operate freely the other of necessity The soule is doubtlesse a voluntary not a naturall agent so that the effect may follow though not immediately And if in naturall causes the effect followes still immediately it is where the effect is an essentiall property of the subject flowing immediately from the forme as heat from the fire which notwithstanding produceth not heat immediately in water or other subjects Lastly if your argument be good they are not to blame who held the eternity of the world for they reasoned as you doe that the cause being eternall the effect must immediately or eternally follow or else not follow at all But they should have knowne that God was no naturall but a voluntary agent and though from eternity hee did actually exist yet he did not from eternitie actually create The act of entity in him was eternall but not the act of causality In the conclusion of your discourse you make nature Sect 24. play the Smith for you say If the dull percussion which by natures institution hammereth out a spirituall soule from grosse flesh and bloud can atchieve so wondrous an effect by such blunt instruments as are used in the contriving of a man fifty or an hundred yeares time must forge out in such a soule an excellency above the forme of an abortive embryon You may with your Rhetorick as soon perswade me that Minerva was hammered out of Iupiters braine by the percussion of Vulcans hatchet as that the spirituall soule can by natures institution or any dull percussion of hers be hammered out from grosse flesh and bloud It is not nature but the God of nature that is the efficient cause of the soule It 's not natures dull percussion but Gods active inspiration that is the instrument It is not flesh and bloud out of which it is educed but into which the immateriall soule is introduced The soule is not framed either in or of the bodie by the work of nature but is inspired by the breath of the Almighty who in the beginning breathed into Adam the breath of life and so became a living soule Nature cannot hammer out such a piece as the soule is though shee had the help of Vulcans Cyclopes Brontesque Steropesque nudus membra Pyracmon She is of too pure a quintessence and of too sublimated an alloy to be extracted out of such grosse materialls as flesh and bloud are After the bodie is articulated the new created soule is infused accompanied with her perfections which she receives not from but communicates to the bodie and so that rude masse of flesh in the matrix becomes a man And the same soule which makes him a man makes him lord over all the workes of Gods hands by this he subdues the wilde beasts commands the earth masters the ocean measures the heaven searcheth into the nature of herbs trees metalls mineralls stones c. fore-tells celestiall changes inventeth arts and sciences and becomes the lively character and expresse image of the Almighty Can nature then hammer such a divine essence out of grosse flesh and bloud It is questioned whether God himselfe can doe it without implying a contradiction which is so repugnant to him Nature
indeed extracts the grosse soules of the beasts out of their grosse bodies which as they came of them so they dye with them but the reasonable soule being 1. the act of the bodie and principle of all vitall operations 2. being shee is a spirit not capable of physicall matter and quantitie for she is all in all and all in every part of the bodie 3. being shee is not onely the first act of the organicall bodie but also the very agent or efficient of the bodies organisation therefore shee cannot be materiall nor hammered out of the matter 4. If shee were corporeall either in her being or in her extraction the world could not be perfect or complete for as it is made up of creatures some meerly spirituall some meerly corporeall so for the complement and perfection of it there should be some creatures partly spirituall partly corporeall and these are onely men 5. The effect cannot exceed the cause in perfection and eminencie but the soule farre exceeds the bodie 6. Man had not been fit to rule over the corporeall creatures if hee had not a spirituall soule which onely is capable of reason and dominion and not the bodily substance 7. One species cannot beget another but the soule is a species of spirits far different from bodily species 8. There can be no connexion between the superiour and inferiour creatures but by certaine media by which nature passeth from one extreme to another therefore it was fit that the spirituall and corporeall creatures which are the extremes should be united in that creature which is partly spirituall partly corporeall and this is onely man 9. If the soule be not meerly spirituall she cannot enjoy the vision of nor friendship and familiarity with God who is a spirit nor can she be capable of any spirituall gifts The Spirit of God cannot dwell but in a spirit nor can that which is meerly corporeall be like unto God or see him as he is 10. If the soules be materiall they must be mortall for we have no other reason to induce us to beleeve the soules of beasts to be mortall but because they are materiall and educed out of the possibility of the matter 11. As Christ proved the truth of his body by feeding upon bodily substances so we prove the spirituality of the soule by her food and delights which are not corporeall but spirituall things for knowledge wisdome truth vertue honesty which are incorporeall things are the soules chiefe delights next to God in whom only she rests and with whom onely she is satisfied Fecisti August nos Domine à te inquietum est cor nostrum nisi requiescat in te 12. If the soule be of the parents seed or conveyed with it the seed must needs be man and so a reasonable creature and consequently capable as being man of eternall joy or paine 13. The operations of the soule are spirituall such as be the actions of understanding and will The principall then of these operations which is the soule cannot be corporeall for no operation can in dignity of entity exceed the substance whence it ariseth or the power and facultie of the soule by which she worketh and which differs from the soule as the property doth from the subject for as the potentia or facultie receiveth its specification from the act so the act hath all its dignity from the faculty now if the faculty be spirituall the soule which is its subject cannot be corporeall for no indivisible quality can be inherent in a divisible subject And as the faculty receives its specification from the act so doth the act from the object and therefore the act by which we understand spirits must be spirituall And though in the act of conception we may fancie spirits to be like bodies yet in the act of judgement we know them to be immateriall substances and of a far other nature or essence then bodies and this act is elevated above the senses and abstracts the spirituall object from all sensible conditions 14. The soule knows all bodies celestiall terrestriall simple mixed c. which she doth by receiving these intelligible objects but she could not receive them being corporeall if she were not free from corporiety her selfe for Intus existens prohibet contrarium and she doth not receive them as the senses doe to wit superficially onely but she pierceth into their inmost natures searcheth out their causes properties and effects and yet higher she riseth above the senses by substracting bodies from individuation and all sensible accidents which the senses cannot do and so she considereth them in their universalities which is a kind of spirituality but this she could not do if she were not spirituall her selfe 15. As the dissolution or corruption of the body dissolveth not the soule neither doth the constitution or generation of the body give being to the soul for if she hath her being from the body she must decay with the body 16. Liberty of will proves also the immateriality of the soule for all materiat agents worke either by necessity as the insensitive or are led by instinct as the animat except man who is master of his owne actions and can promote or stay suspend and incline them which way he likes best and in this he comes neere to the Angelicall nature for onely Men and Angels have this prerogative of free-will inferiour creatures want it because of their materiality which determinats them to one kind of operation and so to a necessary working that way as for the fire to heat for a stone to fall downward But such is the independency and spirituality of mans soule that no creature neither Heavens Stars nor Angels have any power to command or force mans will whereas all materiall entities are subject to mutation by the influence and working of the superiour agents to wit the Angels and the Heavens 17. If the intellect or the soule were corporeall she should be hurt and weakned by a vehement object as the senses are to wit the eye with too much light the eare with too violent sounds but no intelligible object be it never so strong and powerfull hurts the intellect at all but perfects it rather 18. If the soule were corporeall it would grow weak and feeble and by degrees decay as the body doth by old age but we see the contrary for the soule even when the body is weakest is most active and by old age rather perfected then weakned 19. If the soule were corporeall entity in its latitude could not be the adequat object of the intellect for the materiall and organicall faculties are determinated by the matter to some particular objects onely mans understanding as likewise that of the Angels have entity as entity for their object that is both uncreated and created spirituall and corporeall substantiall and accidentall entities which could not be if the intellect were not spirituall 20. That this hath been the doctrine of the Church of
the mind are not one with those of the body and so in the ninth and tenth Chapters of his Ethicks we may see how he affirmes the immortality of the soule by her desire of beatitude And whereas some think that he held the soule mortall because he saith she depends on the phantasie in her operation they are mistaken for he speaks of the soule as she is united to the body and so she depends on the Phantasie but yet onely objectively instrumentally and occasionally as the Philosophers speake and not efficiently or formally for it is true that the Intellect receives its species from the phantasie and therefore in the body depends antecedently from the phantasie otherwise the Intellect is meerly inorganicall and no waies depending on the phantasie as a proper mover and of it self but onely the passive Intellect thus depends on the active and the act of understanding is altogether independent And so when he sayes that the passive Intellect is corruptible he meanes nothing else but the phantasie or cogitative faculty which because it is in some sort capable of reason he cals the Intellect as he cals the passive Intellect sometimes by the name of phantasie because it is moved by the superiour Intellect And so when he sayes that remembrance and love perish in the soule he meanes that their dependence the one from the phantasie the other from the appetite perisheth because these are corporeall faculties and perish with the body but otherwise recordation and love in respect of their entity remaine in the soule as in their subject So likewise when he saith that the Intellect is in the possibility of the matter he meanes that it is in the possibility of the matter in respect of introduction not of eduction as the matter is capable to receive it when by a superiour power it is thither induced The soule then is in the possibility of the matter by way of reception but not by way of extraction So likewise when he sayes that the dead are not happy he meanes the happinesse of this life which consisteth in operations flowing from the compositum of which the soule is not capable And lastly when he sayes that all have ending which had beginning he meanes of those things which had beginning by generation and so it is true but the soules originall is by creation Out of all then that wee have said it is apparent to any man who is not a wilfull Saducee or Arabian that the soule is every way incorruptible both in respect of grace and in respect of nature both in respect of externall and internall agents both in respect of annihilation and dissolution There is onely an obedientiall power of dissolution in the soule as there is in Angels and in the heavenly bodies by the infinite power of the Almighty and that rather by the negative act of his influx then any positive act of resolving that into nothing which he made of nothing so that the soule hath no parts principles or causes in her selfe of corruption nor of annihilation Such reasons and arguments I take to be more evincing then these far-fetched notions of Sir Kenelm's which he hath clothed with too many words whereas Philosophicall arguments sort not well with Rhetoricall flourishes and Tullian pigments Now let us see what hath of old been or can of late be objected against this knowne and generally acknowledged truth by the impugners thereof Sect 6. Object 1. First they say that the soule is immortall by grace not by nature To which I answer that shee is immortall by both by grace in that the soule hath her dependence from God the first and sole independent entitie of whom and by whom she is what she is and so by that entitie as I said shee may be deprived of that being which of his bounty she obtained for though she be free from subject and termination yet she is not free from the causality of the first agent Shee is also immortall by nature in that there is nothing either in her owne or in the universall created nature that can destroy or dissolve her Our bodies are destroyed either by externall agents or by internall the naturall heat wasting our radicall moisture as a candle that is either wasted by the wind or by its owne heat but in the soule which is a spirit there is no such thing Secondly they alledge Solomons words for them Eccles Sect. 7. Object 2. 3. 19. where hee saith There is one end of man and beasts as man dieth so doe they Answ. Here is no comparison between mans soule and that of beasts but between the death of the one and of the other so that both are lyable to death and corruption and to outward violence and inward distempers which procure death in both and both are so lyable to the law and dominion of death that from thence there is no redemption or returning by the course of nature So that it 's no more possible for man to avoid death or its dominion of himselfe then it is for a beast Secondly Solomon speakes not this in his owne person but in the person of the Atheist who will not forgo his earthly pleasures because hee beleeves not any heavenly or any life after this Thirdly they would make Iob plead for them when Sect. 8. Object 3. he sayes there is more hope of a tree cut downe then there is of man Iob 14. Answ. Iob speakes not there in his owne person but in the person of a wicked man Secondly though hee did speak this as from himselfe yet this will not availe our moderne Saducees for by the course of nature man cannot revive againe though the tree may sprout again after it is cut which the Poet intimates when he sayes Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit mox Horat. lib. 4. od 7. Bruma recurret iners Damna tamen celeres reparant coelestia Lunae Nos ubi decidimus Quò pius Aenaeas quò Tullus dives Ancus Pulvis umbra sumus Thirdly man shall not returne againe to live that life or to performe those functions which he did in this world when he lived here but hence it will not follow that man shall not be raised by that power which gave him being at the first or that he shall enjoy no life because he shall not enjoy this life Fourthly they would faine draw in Austin to their Sect. 9. Object 4. side because sometimes he doubts of the manner of the soules production whether it is by creation or traduction Answ. 'T is true that sometimes hee doubted of the manner how the soule entered into the bodie because he doubted of the manner how originall sin is propagated but will this prove that therefore hee doubted of the soules immortalitie which hee strongly maintaines throughout all his Workes And so hee doth also the soules creation and infusion although in a few places he speaks doubtfully of traduction so farre as it hath relation
to originall fin which notwithstanding is propagated though the soule be pure which is infused by reason of the union betwixt the soule and the bodie for originall sin is in the parent as in the efficient in the seed as in the instrument in the soule as in the subject but in the flesh by way of punishment or rather indeed the whole man is the subject of originall sin which with the soule is convayed from the parent to the childe by and in the seed but onely dispositivè not effectivè by disposing and preparing the embryo to receive the soule and not by way of efficiencie producing the soule and so upon the infusion of a pure soule into the prepared and disposed embryo the whole man is made up who becomes the subject of originall sin by reason of the union of the soule and corrupted flesh and in that hee is the issue of such a parent the branch of such a stocke which hath derived corruption in and by the seed and fitted or disposed the bodie to receive a soule though pure in it selfe yet upon the union impure and corrupted and even in it selfe actually void of originall righteousnesse and inclinable or potentially subject to guilt or sin As a leprous father begets a leprous son which leprosie is not in the seed actually but potentially and dispositivè so the privation of righteousness is in the seed actually but concupiscence or inclination to sin dispositivè Fifthly they tell us that mans soule cannot conceive Sect. 10. Object 5. any thing yea not a spirit but under the notion of a bodie therefore shee is corporeall and consequently mortall Answ. Though shee were corporeall yet is shee not therefore mortall for the Sun Moone and Stars are bodies and yet incorruptible Secondly though the soul being in the bodie understands by the outward senses and phantasie yet the act of understanding is inorganicall and that not onely when she is separated but while shee is in the bodie though then in the bodie she stands in need of the phantasie without the bodie shee shall not need it Thirdly the soule not onely understands bodies under materiall notions but searcheth deeper then any corporeall facultie can do even into the natures formes and abstruse principles of bodies so that here shee understands the quiddities and essences of things which a bodily power cannot doe Sixthly they say that the soule can suffer to wit by Sect. 11. Object 6. griefe paine c. therefore shee is corruptible Answ. As the soule is a spirit so her sufferings are spirituall all suffering supposeth not corruptibilitie except it be caused by the prime elementary qualities of which the soule is not capable Secondly there are some sufferings so far from being destructive that they are rather conservative and perfective such are the motions of the heavens Thirdly the soule suffers not but by her selfe in griefe for by her owne agencie she makes her selfe a patient by her thoughts and knowledge of griefe and sorrowes shee grieves and sorrowes and so becomes a sufferer Seventhly they tell us that immaterialitie is no argument Sect. 12. Object 7. of the soules immortalitie for spirituall graces which are infused into us are immateriall yet corruptible Answ. These graces are accidents we speake of the soule which is a substance Secondly these graces are not corrupted by us physically but metaphorically or morally onely Eighthly the desire of immortalitie say they is the Sect. 13. Object 8. affection of the whole man not of the soule alone and yet man is mortall therefore they will not have us inferre the soules immortalitie from her desire thereof Answ. Though this desire be subjectively in the whole man yet it is originally in the soule Secondly it is a good argument to prove that something is immortall in man though not all because he so earnestly desires immortality Thirdly this desire is in man onely and not in beasts which shewes that he not they hath an immortall soule Fourthly though the beasts strive to preserve their naturall being yet man onely aimes at a supernaturall being as having a more divine knowledge and appetite then other creatures are capable of Fifthly how much man desires immortalitie is plaine by the many pyramides obelisks triumphant arches mausolets brasse and marble statues prodigious palaces bookes and other monuments for which who would care if hee thought his soule should perish with the beasts Ninthly mans understanding perisheth after death Sect. 14. Object 9. therefore the soule cannot be immortall Answ. Though the act of understanding did cease yet the power remaines and consequently the soule the subject of that power for actually wee understand not many things here by reason of some defect in the organs yet the soule ceaseth not therefore to be nor the faculty of understanding to be none Secondly the soule doth actually understand and more excellently being separated then shee did in the bodie because not onely doth shee retaine the species which shee carried out with her but also shee receiveth an addition of new species by divine illumination Thirdly though shee understands now by the phantasie yet hereafter by reason of new illumination shee shall need neither phantasie externall object nor any corporeall organ Fourthly the knowledge which the soule shall have after death shall be naturall to the soule though it proceed from God for he is the author both of naturall and supernaturall light These are the chiefe weapons by which the Soules Sect. 15. Antagonists strive to wound and kill her which are of no more validity to hurt her then that dart which old feeble King Priamus flung at Pyrrhus was able to hurt him telum imbelle sine ictu Conjecit summo quod protinus aere pependit These arguments make a sound but have no strength These Arabian Pigmies will never be able with such engines to overthrow the soules immortalitie which is the strong Fort and Citadell of every good Christian in his afflictions Let there be but way given to this doctrine of the Saducees wee must bid farewell to lawes and civility nay to Religion and Christianity We must bid adieu to vertuous actions and to all spirituall comforts Christ died the Apostles laboured the Martyrs suffered but all in vaine if the soule be mortall Our faith our hope our preaching and reading our restraint from pleasures our sorrowing for sins our taking up of our crosse and following of Christ is all in vaine if the soule be mortall And in a word wee Christians are of all men the most miserable if the soule be mortall Why did Abel offer sacrifice Abraham forsake his countrie Ioseph forbeare his mistresse Moses refuse the pleasures of Pharaoh's Court And why have so many thousands endured mockings scourgings bonds prisonment stoning hewing asunder murthering by the sword Why would they wander up and downe in sheeps skins and in goats skins being destitute afflicted tormented if the soule be mortall What needs Cain feare to kill
his brother Ioseph to lye with his mistresse Saul to persecute the Church and Felix to tremble at the mention of a future judgement if the soule be mortall Admit but such Lucretian doctrine you may shake hands with heaven and hell Esse aliquos Maneis subterranea regna Iuven. Sat. 2. Et contum Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras Atque unâ transire vadum tot millia cymbâ Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum are lavantur Here I had ended but that I have now lighted on a Sect. 16. Mans mortality Pamphlet by chance the Scribler of which was ashamed to put to his name his cause is so bad He undertakes to prove the soules mortalitie but so weakly that I should lose too much time and spend too much paper to answer him according to his folly For there is nothing in it but the froth of a luxurious wit wantonly abusing Scripture and obtruding a cloud in stead of Iuno shadowes of reason in stead of solid arguments As first when hee will prove the death of the soule out of Scripture hee brings those places that speake of the metaphoricall or spirituall death of the soule which is the defiling of her by sinne and her separation from God and so hee confounds the life of nature of grace and of glory as he doth death spirituall and corporall Secondly hee abuseth the Synecdochicall speeches in Scripture when he will have those phrases which are spoken of man to bee understood of the soule and bodie dis-junctively And so when the Scripture speakes of mans dissolution and death hee will have the soule die as well as the bodie but by this meanes hee must affirme that the soule eates drinkes playes sings weeps because these things are spoken of men What were the soules of the Egyptians drowned in the red sea and the soules of the Chaldeans burned in the fiery fornace or the soule of the disobedient Prophet torne by the Lion because these men died such deaths Many things are spoken of the whole man but not wholly the totall compositum is the subject of such predications but not totally Christ died was buried was borne was crucified and yet his Divinity suffered none of these things Hee is a bad Divine that knowes not that by the communication of properties that is spoken of the person of Christ which is proper onely to either of his natures and so that is spoken of man which is proper onely to either of his essentiall parts Thirdly he confounds the act and the habit concluding that the habit is lost because the act ceafeth as that there is no habit or faculty of reason in a mad man because the act of reasoning is hindered As if you should say that a Musician hath lost his skill in Musick when he ceaseth to play Fourthly some old objections hee hath inserted which wee have already sufficiently answered and the rest of the passages in his Pamphlet are so frivolous that they are not worth the answering or reading for Magno conatu magnas nugas dicit And so he that shall diligently read this former Discourse of ours and shall make use of these foure Observations which now I have set downe will find that this irreligious Rapsodie of his is but froth a vapour or one of his dreames Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno Virgil. and which I thinke will little prevaile with any rationall man much lesse with him who is truly sanctified with grace For he that was led meerely by reason confessed that the fatall houre of death was the last houre to the body onely not to the soule Decretoria illa hora non est animo suprema sed corpori Seneca For even reason will teach us that the soule which in her selfe is immortall I exclude not here the generall but the speciall or miraculous concourse of the Almighty may naturally subsist by her self after separation for if her subsistence from the body were violent then her returne to the body should be naturall as if the holding of a stone in the aire be violent the falling downe of that stone upon the removing of the impediment must needs be naturall But her returning to the body is an not miraculous and of supernaturall power for though the soule as she is the forme of the body hath a naturall propensity or innate appetite to a reinforming of or re-union with the body yet is she not againe conjoyned with the body but by a speciall and supernaturall worke of God in the resurrection Neither againe must we thinke that the soule subsists after separation by any speciall or supernaturall power for then we shall make the soule so subsisting of no better metall then the yron so swimming on the water both being sustained not by their owne but by a speciall and miraculous power and by this meanes the soule of a dog may as well subsist after death as the soule of a man but he that thinks so that the soule hath no other being after this life may be in name a Christian professor but is indeed a Cynick Philosopher or Epicuri de grege porcus fitter to dwell in the Isle of dogs then among men Therefore as it was naturall for the childs soule to subsist in the mothers wombe and it is as naturall for the same soule to subsist without it so is the subsistence of the same soule in and without the body essentiall and naturall to her and not violent or supernaturall But to leave these men whose soules are fitter Sect. 17. to dwell with Nebuchadnezzars in a beasts body then in their owne I will conclude this Discourse with an acknowledgement and confession of that solace and true comfort which I take in these dismall and calamitous times in which we live from the consideration of my soules immortality that however she be now tossed upon the proud and lofty billowes of the turbulent sea of afflictions in this life with Noahs Arke yet a higher mountaine then those of Ararat is prepared for her to rest upon and however this weary Dove flutter upon these boysterous waters that she can find no rest for the soales of her feet yet she sees a window in that celestiall Arke which is above ready open to receive her Christ hath not in vaine gone to prepare a place for us he hath prepared it that we may enjoy it and to what end should he shed his blood for our soules and redeeme them at so deare a rate if they be mortall and can not enjoy that which they long after as earnestly as the Hart brayeth after the rivers of water Doth God mock us when by his Prophet he tels us of fulnesse of joy in his presence and at his right hand pleasures for evermore Is God our Father and Heaven our Inheritance and must we be put off from the enjoyment of either We are here miserable Pilgrims and strangers if after our tedious journey we have
no other home to rest in but a cold and stinking grave and no other companions but wormes better is the condition of beasts then of Christians Surely the place of our future rest should not be called the Land of the living if our soules there must die And why should the Angels be so carefull of us here if they must be debarred of our company hereafter In vaine are our soules fed here with the Bread that came downe from Heaven if they must not enjoy that same bread againe in heaven Our condition will be far worse then that of the Prodigals if we shall be fed with husks here and not have accesse when we returne by death to eat bread in our Fathers house where is such exuberant plenty Can Christ the Bridegroome of our soules suffer himselfe to be perpetually separated from his Bride whom he hath bought with so high a price as his owne blood Our life is a warfare what encouragement have we to fight the good fight if we enjoy not the Crowne of righteousnesse Hath Christ no other reward for his souldiers but a crowne of thornes then indeed we fight as one that beateth the aire and we were better with Caligula's souldiers spend our time in gathering of shels and pebble-stones then fight under the standard of such a Generall But indeed we need not feare for he that permitted the soule of the penitent thiefe into Paradise and by the ministery of his Angels conveyed the soule of Lazarus into Abrahams bosome and when himselfe gave up the Ghost recommended his soule into the hands of his Father will not leave our soules in hell nor will he suffer his holy ones to see corruption Though the shell of our bodies be broken the precious kernell of our soules shall not be lost these earthen pots may crack but the jewels in them shall be preserved There lieth a hid Mannah within not our golden but our earthen pots which is not capable of wormes and corruption Let that proud insulting Conquerour who rides upon the pale horse bruise the satchels of our bodies as the Tyrant did that of Anacharsis unto dust yet over our soules which are our selves he hath no power Be not dismaid though our mistresse Nature strip us of the garment of our body as Potiphars wife did Ioseph yet of our soules she cannot rob us she gave us the garment it is her owne she may challenge it but the soule was no gift of hers she hath no title to it she cannot claime it Diseases infirmities and injuries like so many Sodomites may beset these houses of our bodies but they cannot injure our soules which are the Angels lodged within us The celestiall fire of our soules shall never be extinguished though the temples of our bodies in which they burne shall be destroyed That fire which consumed the Temple of Peace at Rome did no hurt to the Palladium that was in it neither shall the conflagration of our bodies in a Calenture or Burning-feaver prejudice or hurt our soules The Vestall Virgins were not more carefull to rescue the Palladium from the flame then the good Angels our ministring spirits shall be to convey our soules out of these flames unto a place of refreshing Therefore my soule shall not be dismaid though she be carried in this weake and leaking ship of an infirme body on the waves of the Red sea of persecution for even from hence she smels by faith the sweet odours of her heavenly Arabia though as yet with her bodily eyes she cannot see it The hot firy furnace of affliction shall no more consume and annoy her then the flame did consume the firie bush or the firie furnace of Babylon did the three Children The Presteres live in the fire and are not burned fresh waters spring out of the salt Sea and yet are not thereby infected nor are the fishes salt which live in salt water neither shall our Soule either suffer by sicknesse in the body or die with the body but after she hath fought the good fight like a Conquerour or Emperour she shall be carried out of this campus Martius upon the shoulders not of Senators but of Angels And as an Eagle flew out of the funerall pile when it was set on fire leaving the body of the Emperour to be consumed so shall our soules flye up unto their Maker leaving their bodies to be wasted by time and corruption For as it is impossible for the body to die till the soule forsake it which is the life of it so much more impossible is it for the soule to die untill God who is her life forsake her and that will never be till God himselfe cease to be for he hath promised never to forsake us his love like himselfe is unchangeable A mother may forget the fruit of her wombe fathers and mothers may and will forsake us but the Lord will never forget or forsake us but when friends and all leave us he will then receive us therefore let our soules magnifie the LORD and let our spirits rejoyce in God our SAVIOUR FINIS
HAving with much delight satisfaction and content perused this Treatise entituled The Philosophicall Touch-stone I allow it to be printed and published and commend it to the learned and judicious Reader as a work sound and solid and eminently acute and accurate Iohn Downame THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE OR OBSERVATIONS UPON Sir Kenelm Digbie's Discourses of the nature of BODIES and of the reasonable SOULE In which his erroneous Paradoxes are refuted the Truth and Aristotelian Philosophy vindicated the immortality of mans Soule briefly but sufficiently proved And the weak Fortifications of a late Amsterdam Ingeneer patronizing The Soules mortality briefly slighted By ALEXANDER ROSS Pers. Sat. 5. Non equidem hoc studeo bullatis ut mihi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo LONDON Printed for Iames Young and are to be sold by Charles Green at the signe of the Gun in Ivie-lane 1645. TO THE Right honourable IOHN Earle of RUTLAND Lord Ross c. My Lord WIth the same boldnesse that I have adventured to lap up in the folds of a few paper sheets the rich Jewells of Philosophicall truths with the same have I presumed to present them to your Lordships view not that you can receive from them any addition of honour but that they from your Name and Protection may partake a farther degree of irradiation and lustre Here you may see what odds there are between naturall gems and counterfeit stones between solid wholsome meats and a dish of Frogs or Mushroms though made savoury with French sauce to which that ingenious rather then in this Discourse judicious Knight doth invite us who breathing now in a hotter climate cannot digest the solid meats of Peripatetick verities which hitherto have been the proper and wholsome food of our Universities and therefore entertaines us with a French dinner of his owne dressing or with an airie feast of Philosophicall quelque choses a banquet fitter for Grashoppers and Camelions who feed on dew and aire then for men who rise from his Table as little satisfied as when they sate downe We that have eat plentifully of the sound and wholsome viands which are dressed in Aristotle's kitchin are loth now to be fed as the Indian gods are with the steem or smoak of meats or as those Umbrae tenues simulachraque luce carentum those pale ghosts in Proserpine's Court to champ Leeks and Mallowes My Lord in this Dedication I onely aime at an expression of my gratefulness and observance which I owe to your goodnesse and of those reall sentiments I have of your favours and opinion which your self and your truly noble and religious Countesse have been pleased to conceive of mee I heartily pray for an accumulation of all happinesse on you both as likewise on the fruit of your bodies especially the tender plant and hopefull pledge of your mutuall loves my Lord Ross which is the wish of Your Honours humble servant ALEXANDER ROSS The CONTENTS of the first part containing 68. Sections WOrds expresse things as they are in their owne nature sect 1. Divisibility the effect of extension this is not the essence of quantity sect 2. Rarity the effect not the cause of heat rarified bodies not the hottest sec. 3. The essence of locall motion consisteth not in divisibility sec. 4. Place is not a body but the superficies of a body sec. 5. Not density but gravity is the cause of activity and frigidity cause of both sec. 6. Pressure and penetration not parts but effects of frigidity heat is more piercing sec. 7. Though accidents be reall entities yet they exist not by themselves sec. 8. Heat is not the substance of the fire sec. 9. Light no body but a quality proved by twelve reasons Nor can it be fire sec. 10. Of the qualities of light and how it heats and how it perisheth sec. 11 12. The dilatatioâ— and motion of the light and how seen by us sec. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20. The greatest bodies have not the greatest vertue sec. 21. How naturall bodies move themselves sec. 22. How the Sun causeth motion sec. 23. If the light beares up the atomes and if it be a part of them sec. 24. There is in nature positive gravity and levity by which she works sec. 25. Light descends thorow dense bodies sec. 26. Atomes doe not presse sec. 27. Egyptian earth why heavie upon change of weather How a vessell with snow and salt in it freezeth by the fire The vanity of atomes sec. 28. Water is not actually heavie in its owne sphere The sea moves naturally to the centre Water can divide water sec. 29 Heavie bodies tend naturally to the centre Gravity is not the cause of violent motion The effect sometimes exceeds the cause Inanimate things without understanding affect and dis-affect what 's good or bad for them sec. 30. The true cause of the motion of projection and its properties sec. 31. The heavens void of generation corruption alteration they are naturall bodies sec. 32. Atomes are not the causes of heat nor ofre-action sec. 33. How elementary formes remaine in mixed bodies sec. 34. There are in nature foure simple bodies sec. 35. Wind is not the motion of atomes but an exhalation sec. 36. Naturall Mathematicall and Diabolicall magick sec. 37. The weapon-salve a meere imposture sec. 38. The true causes of the temperament under the line sec. 39. The load-stone is not begot of atomes drawne from the North-Pole sec. 40. Without qualities no operation in nature sec. 41. Atomes pierce not the earth Odors decay by time Salt how it growes heavie sec. 42. Naturall agents at the same time work diversly sec. 43. The heat of the marrow is not the cause of the hardnesse of the bones but the heat of the bones themselves sec. 44. God is not dishonoured by calling him the Creatour of the meanest things sec. 45. The formative power of generation in the seed sec. 46. Whether the heart or the liver first generated sec. 47. Thin bodies as well as thick the objects of touch Rarity and density what kind of entities sec. 48. Objects work not materially but intentionally on the sense sec. 49. Sound is not motion proved How perceived by deafe men It shakes not houses sec. 50. Colours are not quantities nor substances but qualities s. 51. How living creatures can move themselves Of nature and properties Of life And how the life of God differs from the life of the creature sec. 52. Of sense and sensation How the sense worketh and suffereth sec. 53. Vision is not caused by materiall atomes Seven things required in sensation sec. 54. Words are not motion nor are they the chiefe object of memory sec. 55. The organ of the memory How the intellect and memory differ sec. 56. Purging consisteth not in liquefaction but in attracting and expelling sec. 57. Pleasure is not the motion of a fume about the heart but the apprehension of a convenient object sec. 58. Paine and pleasure move not the heart Of systole
his being sometime present sometime absent You spend much paper in shewing that the Sun is the cause of the motion of inferiour bodies which wee deny not but wee are not satisfied with this cause for the Sun as all other celestiall bodies is but an universall and remote cause of inferiour bodies and their motions but such a cause begets no scientificall knowledge the cause by which we must know scientifically is particular and immediate to wit the formes of bodies by their properties gravity and levity these are the causes of motion by which we know The Sun is too remote a cause and I doubt whether hee be a cause at all why the fire burnes and of other such like effects And though the Sun being present is the cause of sublunary effects yet being absent he cannot be a cause properly but accidentally or causa deficiens not efficiens The light carrieth up an atome with it and shortly after Sect. 24. Pag. 80. cap. 10. you tell us that light is a part of the atome Is not the aire strong enough to beare atomes except you adde this new carrier or porter light What becomes of these atomes when the light is gone Are they not too heavie a burthen for the aire to support without its fellow-helper Hercule supposito sidera fulcit Atlas This is much like their conceipt who feared that Atlas was not strong enough to beare up the heavens if Hercules shoulder had not helped him but how comes the light to be a part of its owne burthen an atome then I see is no atome but may be cut in parts and anatomized and these parts are light But is light an integrall or an essentiall part Are there any atomes in candle-light if there be how shall we know if there be not then is the light no part of atomes And if atomes be opake bodies how can light be a part of such is one opposite a part of another I think your atomes sustained by the light are like the dreames in Virgil supported by an elme or like the shadowes in the Elysian fields flying about the green medowes tenues sine corpore vitae Cernuntur volitare cava sub imagine formae You have been too much conversant in the schoole of Democritus who held the world to be made of atomes And to say that the first and most generall operation of the Pag. 76. Sun is to raise and make atomes is to give the Sun a very poore unworthy and fruitlesse imployment Caligula and his souldiers were better imployed when they gathered shells and pebble-stones and so was Dioclesian in catching of flies There is no such thing among bodies as positive gravity Sect. 25. Pag. 81. cap. 10. and levity but that their course upwards or downwards happen to them by the order of nature It seems you understand here by nature the universall nature which is nothing else but the dependencie of all inferiour causes orderly from the supreme cause If this be your meaning as it must needs be you commit a contradiction for you deny the secondary causes which you suppose to depend from the supreme If then I should aske you why a stone descends you will answer Not because of any positive gravity in it but because it so happens by the order of nature But why hath nature ordered a stone to fall downward not to move upward seeing there is no positive gravitie in it You answer me Because it meets with the aire or water bodies lighter thinner then the stone Then you here acknowledge a comparative gravitie in the stone for if the aire be lighter then the stone the stone must be heavier then the aire and so comparatively it is heavie but every comparative includes a positive for if you be wiser then another then you are wise but indeed universall nature works not without the particular neither doth God or the heaven move the stone downward but by the stones gravity therefore gravitie is the immediate cause of its motion which if you deny you may as well deny the fire to be hot and if you say the fire burnes only because it happeneth so by the order of nature you were as good say nothing Any body will descend if it light among others more Sect. 26. Pag 81. c. 10. rare then it selfe and will ascend if it light among bodies more dense then it What say you then to your light bodie of light which you say is nothing else but fire dilated surely meeting with aire a bodie heavier and denser it should never descend to us who live here on the earth but ascend rather how comes it that so light a bodie should descend so many miles from its fountaine the Sun to us seeing the aire is much more dense then it Nay it descends thorow a denser bodie the water for divers find light in the bottome of the sea Againe what say you to a thick plank of timber which meeting with the water a rarer bodie notwithstanding descends not to the bottome but swims above This is contrary to your doctrine You told us afore that light hath no bignesse or densitie Sect. 27. that the more dense the bodie is the more active it is that the light carries up atomes and now you say that these atomes the subtilest divisions of light doe presse Pag. 86. c. 11. downe a leaden bullet and penetrates or runs thorow it as light thorow a glasse water thorow a spunge and sand thorow a sieve The light then carries up these atomes which presse downe a leaden bullet and yet the light hath not densitie These are riddles which Oedipus cannot unfold for how a qualitie should be a body how that bodie should want dimensions how it should want density and yet beare up that which presseth downe with its weight a leaden bullet how there should be so much weight in atomes as to presse down such a bullet how these atomes should pierce so dense a bodie as lead whereas light cannot doe it yea run thorow lead as water thorow a spunge or sand thorow a sieve are I thinke some of these second notions which Chimaera did eat But how doe the atomes presse downe the lead doe they remain in their expansion dispersed then they cannot more presse the lead then the sea-water presseth him downe that dives in it elementum in suo loco non gravitat Or doe the atomes meet together in a bodie to help the lead downwards if all the atomes in the light were in one bodie how big would that bodie be The clod of earth which in Egypt is shut up in a close Sect. 28. Pag. 87. c. 11. roome and doth shew the change of weather by the increase of its weight receiveth not this weight from the atomes of salt-peter piercing the walls as you say but from the aire it selfe of which it is made up as other mixed bodies are which therefore sympathise with the aire and its changings as our
affect or hate each other Though your atomes be but little bodies yet they Sect. 31. are your great servants for they help you still at a dead lift and doe you much service in all your actions they are your light-bearers they make all things move in their naturall courses upward and downward they are also the causes of violent motions as of projection for by their help the arrow flieth out of the bow as you say and Pag. 181. c. 12. the ball from the racket So these atomes are your archers slingers gunners or canoneers and they help you at your sports in the Tennis-courts Multitudo populorum sepidum as Apuleius calls them the Ants did not so much good service to Psyche in that intricate labour of dividing all sorts of graines enjoyned her by Venus as these atomes doe you By them the arrow flies out of the bow the stone out of the sling the bullet out of the gun or canon and if it were not for them we could not kill our enemies in the wars for the gun-powder could have no force to carry the heavie iron bullet so farre in the aire and to beat downe stone walls of townes and castles if these atomes did not put to their shoulders What Hercules is able to resist such Pigmies but wee who have been bred in the peripatetick schooles at the feet of Aristotle find the maine cause of projection to be the qualitie or force of the projicient impressed upon the bodie projected as the force of the gun-powder-fire impressed in the bullet carries it thorow the aire Neither is it more impossible for this impressed force and adventitious qualitie to carry a bullet violently then for the intrinsecall qualities of gravitie and levitie to carry bodies to their owne places naturally The generator impresseth a qualitie of gravitie in the stone to move naturally to its owne place the projicient impresseth the qualitie of projection in the same stone to move violently from its place If you aske why the stone returnes at last to its owne motion downward and continues not flying in the aire the reason is because the aire makes resistance which at length weakens the impressed force so that this growing weaker then the resistance yeelds and the stone falls downe Neither is it reasonable that an extrinsecall qualitie should have that continuance as a qualitie that is naturall which cannot receive any mutation except there be a change in the first qualities whose commixtion gravitie and levitie naturally followes but the force of the projicient makes no such change in the first qualities of the bodie projected Neither doth the stone lose its gravitie whilst it flies upward but hath it only suspended while the projicients impression lasts when this is spent downe falls the stone againe shewing the same gravitie it had before If any say that this impulse is contrary to the inclination of the bodie impelled I answer 'T is contrary to its inclination to locall motion but not to any inclination the stone might have to the active quality of levity which is not in the stone levity then expells gravity but projection doth not This impulse then is an accidentall forme and in respect of the impression it is in the third species of Quality but as this impression inclineth the stone to motion it is a naturall faculty in the second species of Quality I say naturall not as being the naturall forme or the property flowing from thence but because it moves like the naturall forme though not to the same place and because the stone in which the impression is made is a naturall subject and the projicient is a naturall agent You see then that this doctrine of impression is no shift as you call it but it is a shift to make Atomes carry a Canon bullet so farre in the aire for as the aire it selfe is passive having no other motion in projection but what it receives from the projicient even so be your Atomes if any such were which are dispersed by the wind and force of the bullet Wheresoever there is variety of bodies there must be the Sect. 32. Pag. 27. c. 14. foure elements then belike in the Heavens there must be the foure elements for there are variety of bodies one starre differing from another in glory But indeed there be no elements nor generation nor corruption nor alteration but such as belong to light and locall motion and therefore the heaven is but a naturall body analogically which proportion consisteth in this that as sublunary bodies have a nature which is the inward principle of motion so hath the heaven though in a far different way and for this cause we deny that the matter of the celestiall bodies is univocall to that of elementary for then there should be mutuall action and passion betweene them 2 Then the celestiall matter should have an appetite to being or not being 3. It should have an appetite to divers formes 4. It should be the subject of corruption and of transmutation into In comment de terrae motu circulari sublunary bodies all which are absurd as I have shewed elsewhere Why may we not as well say that fire warmes the Sect. 33. water or burnes the board by its quality of heat as to multiply entities to no purpose as you do in your innumerable Atomes which is your salve for all diseases for as if these had not done you service enough already you must make them your Cooks to boile and rost your meat You will have them to come out of the fire and pierce the bottome of the kettle and so up unto the water and Cap. 15. c. 16. being quickly weary there ascend in smoake and then descend in drops But if these Atomes be the smallest parts of the substance of the fire I wonder how they scape drowning when they are in the water and that they are not served as the Persian god was by the Egyptian Priest and so Canopus prove to be the better god Nay you will not have any occult quality in the Load-stone to draw the iron but these Atomes must doe it and your reason is because otherwise the whole body of Pag. 139. the agent must worke which it cannot do but by locall motion But what need is there to say that the whole body must worke if the Atomes do not It is not the whole body that works or at least not totally for the fire heats by its forme not by its matter and so the Load-stone draws but if we did yeeld that the whole body did work must it therefore worke by locall motion Cannot the fire warme you being within a fit distance except the fire come to you The Load-stone shall keep its distance from the iron and yet shall draw it without Atomes but they are little beholding to you in that after all their good service they have done you you set them together by the eares and makes all re-actions to
be performed by them you make an irreconcilable warre betweene the firy and watry Atomes like Homers Batrochomyamachia or like that battell in Ovids Chaos wher 's Frigida pugnabant calidis humentia siccis Mollia cum duris sine pondere habentia pondus When you hold ice in your hand you will not have the ice by its coldnesse to worke on your hand nor your hand by its heat to re-worke on the ice but Atomes to work one against another When you saw wood be there any Atomes that come out of the teeth of the saw which divide the wood or Atomes out of the wood which blunt the saw But seeing you will not have re-action to consist in qualities I desire to know whether in every re-action there is not an alteration this you cannot deny for when you put hot iron in cold water you make an alteration from heat to cold and from cold to heat but alterations consist in qualities as augmentation doth in quantity and generation in substances therefore re-action must consist in quality not in your Atomes which are substances Besides substances are not contrary to each other but in re-actions there be contrarieties which argues qualitie in which properly consists contrariety I know not what to make of your Atomes for sometime Sect. 34. Pag. 142. c. 16. Pag 143. you call them substances and here you will have them to be qualities Againe you say these Atomes are the pure parts of the elements and by and by that they are accidentall qualities It seems then that accidents are parts of substances by your Logick Besides you say the elements remaine pure in every compound and yet you Ibid. will not have their substantiall formes to remaine actually sure the elements remaine not if their formes are gone for it is by their formes that they are elements and if they remaine pure in the compound then the compound is not a physicall mixed body And if your Atomes be qualities then there is no mixture at all for mixture is of substances not of qualities and the body mixed differs specifically from the elements of which it is mixed We hold then that the elementary formes remaine in mixture but refractè remissè castigatè as they speake and in some degree onely which degrees the substantiall formes admit but not as the qualities doe for these admit degrees remaining the same they were before so do not the formes for as soone as there is any remission of degree in them the species is changed and so that which was the forme of the element becomes now the forme of a mixed body being of another species then the element Take any degree of the substantiall forme from fire and it s no more fire Sect. 35. Pag. 143. c. 16. It doth not appeare to what purpose nature should place store-houses of simples seeing mixed bodies can be dissolved into other mixed bodies Into what then shall these mixed bodies be dissolved Into mixed stil Must there not be a dissolution into simple bodies at last as well as there was a composition of them Sure if there were not store-houses of these simples the world could not be perfect for in this is its perfection that it consists of all sorts of bodies to wit as well simple as mixed and if there be foure prime qualities where shall they have their residence but in the foure prime simple bodies which we call elements hence the elements are eternall in the whole though they be perishing in their parts when they enter into composition The motion of Atomes we call a winde A winde is a Sect. 36. Pag. 152. c. 17. substance as afterward you confesse when you say winds are made up of bodies but motion is an accident therefore wind cannot be a motion I think your meaning is that winds are Atomes moved or moving but then you should have told us whether these Atomes move themselves or are they moved by some other these Atomes are unruly bodies which if they were not curbed by Aeolus Maria ac terras caelumque profundum Quippe ferent rapidi secum verrantque per auras Who would think there should be such strength in Atomes to over-turne trees and strong houses to move the Seas from the bottome to sink ships and to move the earth it selfe Was that a motion of Atomes which drove the Sea againe into its own place and dried the earth from Noahs Flood Are those Aetesii which blow continually under the Line motions of Atomes or those which blow constantly in Egypt forty daies together in the summer solstice 'T is strange there should be such strength in these bodies which are so weake that the light as you said before can support them and that there should be such spite and courage in them as to encounter in duels and trouble the world with their quarrels Saepe ventorum concurrere praelia vidi Were these Satans souldiers when he by the winds overthrew the house where Iobs children were Your best way will be to leave your Atomes and to acquiesce in the received opinion that the winde is an exhalation raised by the Sun out of moisture which exhalation by reason of its lightnesse mounting upward is repelled by the cold middle region of the aire and so moveth not directly downeward because 't is light but athwart and sidlings As for your Atomes leave them for Aeolus to bind up in a bagge who were so unruly before the took them to taske that they turned the sea upon the land and the land into the sea dividing Italy from Sicily and Spaine from Africa Is it not a wrong to God and his instruments to impute to Sect. 37. Pag. 164 ca. 18. the Divell the aides which to some may seem supernaturall True for there is a naturall magick by which you may doe strange things and anticipate the time prefixed by nature in producing of divers effects by applying activa passivis So you may produce a Rose in Winter and raise Parsly out of the ground within a few houres after the seed is sowne There is also a Mathematicall magick by which strange things are done as was that woodden Pigeon which Architas caused to flie and that brasen head which Albertus Magnus made to speak That worthy man Boëtius was very skilfull in this way Such things and many more may be done without witchcraft but withall there is a Diabolicall magick in working strange things by the power of Sathan by a contract which Witches make with them God permitting in his secret judgement the affectors of such evill things to be deluded and abused by the evill Angels Saith S. Austin De doct Christ. l. 2. cap. 22 23. 'T is fit that he who forsakes the fountaine of living waters digge to himselfe fountaines that will hold no water Therefore in all our actions wee ought to aime at Gods glory at the salvation of our owne and others soules at the honour of the Church and State in
infinite that is she is capable of knowing at the same time objects without end or measure Where is absolutenesse there is no respect how then can the soule be infinite absolutely in respect of knowledge Is there an absolute respect or a respective absolutenesse of infinitie in the soule I thought God onely had been absolutely infinite and what odds will you make between Gods knowledge and mans if the soule at the same time is capable of knowing objects without end or measure Gods knowledge cannot exceed this for what can be knowne beyond infinitenesse and immensity And if the soule knowes at the same time things infinite and immense then the soule must be also infinite and immense For the Understanding and the thing understood is the same but infinitenesse and immensitie are Gods proper attributes For my part I confesse that all I know of infinitenesse is that I know it not For this cause Aristotle proves that the principles of naturall bodies cannot Lib. 1. phys text 35. be infinite because they are knowne for they could not be knowne if they were infinite And therefore Philosophers could not attaine to the knowledge of God because of his infinitenesse but onely by degrees reached to the knowledge of some of his attributes as first that he was an entity then a mover then they came to know his power after that his wisdome and then his goodnesse And sure all the knowledge we have of God in this life is but the light of the Owles eyes to the Sun Our Peripateticks are more modest who say not that the soule at the same time is capable of knowing objects without end or measure as you doe but they say that the facultie of understanding must be proportionated to the object Now the object of the intellect is finite for nature acknowledgeth no infinitum actu Infinitenesse by succession there is and so she may know infinite things that is one thing after another in infinitum for she knoweth not so much but she may know more yet she knoweth not infinite things actually or habitually because actually at the same time she knoweth that only which hath one species but infinitenesse hath not one species Hence it is that shee knoweth in infinitenesse one part after another and so wee know not God in this life because there is no proportion between his actuall infinitenesse and our finite understandings Nay in heaven wee shall not know him by way of comprehension though we shall then know his essence And because wee cannot actually at the same time understand many things therefore the intelligible species enter into the understanding successively And if at any time wee understand many things together it is not as they are many or divers but as they are united in one common notion or nature So the Angels themselves understand not many things at once but as they are united in one species whether wee speake of those species which are innate or of those which they see in the glasse as they call it of the Trinity And this truth of the Peripateticks you seem afterward to yeeld unto when you say that if knowledge be taken properly we Pag. 410. c. 7. doe not know eternity however by super naturall helps we may come to know it All things which within our knowledge lose their being Sect. 9. Ibid. doe so by reason of their quantities Quantities are not active therefore nothing can lose its being by reason of them When a man dieth hee loseth his being as man and yet the fame quantitie remaines that was before in the bodie If you speak of the formall being of things they are lost not by reason of the quantitie but by reason of the introduction of another forme which expells that forme that was as the forme of the chick expells the forme of an egge and then followeth a change of the quantitie but if you speak of materiall being that is not lost at all the matter being eternall and so quantity which followeth the matter remaineth too but indeterminate till the forme come which restraines and confines the exorbitancie both of the matter and of its quantity Sect. 10. Pag 419. c. 9. You say that those Philosophers who search into nature are called Mathematicians They are so by you but by whom else are they so called They use to be termed Physici naturall Philosophers but for Mathematicians they consider not nature at all neither the matter nor the forme of things but bare accidents not as the naturall Philosopher who handles them as affections of naturall bodies but as they are abstracted from all sensible matter So the Geometrician considereth continued quantities the Arithmetician discrete quantities or numbers Astronomers motions and measures of celestiall bodies Opticks light and shadowes Musicians sounds All life consisteth in motion and all motion of bodies Sect. 11. Pag. 420. c. 9. cometh from some other thing without them The soule can move without receiving her motion from abroad First all life consisteth not in motion for there is life in spirits without motion so there is in bodies too In Dormise and other sleeping creatures in Winter in trees at the same season in women that are troubled with histerica passio they have life and yet no motion at all Secondly life consisteth not in motion for it is not the action but the act of the soule not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Life consists in union but this is rather rest then motion Life is not in the categorie of action From life proceed divers actions as understanding sensation motion nutrition generation but actionis non est actio It 's true that life is manifested by motion but it consisteth not in motion for the foule being separated from the bodie liveth but moveth not Thirdly all motions of bodies come not from without for the forme is the cause of motion but the forme is not an externall cause Though your hand in flinging up a stone be an externall mover yet when the stone falls downward it is moved internally by its owne forme What externall mover is that which moveth the heart even when it is separated from the rest of the bodie Fourthly the soule moveth not but by receiving her motion from abroad for as all things have their formes from the first cause so from the same cause they have their motion which followes the forme dans formam dat consequentia therefore the Apostle tells us it is in God wee live and move and have our being You are troubled with phancies when you tell us of Sect. 12. Pag. 423. c. 10. a perfect and imperfect soule that you call a knowledge an art a rule c. and this you call a participation of an Idea So in our thoughts you make some part of them corporeall and some spirituall In the soule you will have no accidents but all to be soule that is in her We say that every bodie is perfect
are not immortall but my meaning is that the soule is not a subject capable as bodies are neither hath she in her selfe any passive power or possibility of dissolution 4. The soules immortality is proved by naturall and morall reasons thus 1. If the soule perish it must be either by annihilation or dissolution not by the first naturally for nothing of its owne nature can be annihilated God indeed by his omnipotency may annihilate what he made of nothing but there is no entity of it selfe capable of non-entity nor any action tending to it naturally Neither by the second for nothing is dissolved but what had parts dissolution being nothing else but the solution of one part from another but what is not compounded hath no parts and such is the soule as I have shewed For she is independent as she is a substance from any subject as she is a spirit from any created substance therefore dieth not when the body dieth for neither is she compounded of essentiall parts which we call matter and forme nor of integrall which we call members or limbs And hence it appeares that though the soules of beasts may be free from such compositions yet they are not from dependence on the body of which they came and with which they decay 2. The soule is a quintessence and of a more excellent nature then the foure elements are and therefore as she is not of their nature and substance she cannot be capable of their affections and properties but the maine quality and property of elements is to be the subjects of generation and corruption 3. Such as the operation of a thing is such is the subject whence the operation proceeds for operations are emanations of the substance and flow from thence but the chiefe operation of the soule which is understanding is spirituall therefore the soule cannot be corporeall for if the soul were compounded of the elements these operations of the soule must be in the elements for whatsoever is in the compound was before in its principles these being their acts whose principles they are but understanding and will were never in the elements nor are they capable of such operations and so the soule is immortall as she is incorporeall 4. If the soule may be annihilated naturally then naturally she was produced of nothing but such a production is repugnant to the Peripatetick tenents and so by consequence must such an annihilation be 5. Whatsoever is corruptible is corrupted or destroyed by a contrary agent for without contrariety there can be neither generation nor corruption But in mans soule there are no contrarieties for she can receive contrarieties without contrariety because she receives not contrary formes as they are in their naturall but as they are in their intentionall being Hence it is that the heavens though they be compounded are not corruptible because they are not subject to contrarieties 6. The Gentiles by the glimmering light of Nature knew there were some supreme entities by which the world was guided the wicked punished and the innocent rewarded which the Poet acknowledgeth Si genus humanum mortalia temnitis arma At sperate deos memores fandi atque nefandi But they saw that for the most part wicked men enjoyed most outward happinesse here and good men were most wronged and oppressed therefore they beleeved the soules immortality that wicked men might receive their due punishment and good men their reward or else they must confesse that their gods were unjust And as this reason did strongly move them so it must us also to beleeve the soules immortality for it is a righteous thing with God to render vengeance to the wicked and 1 Thes. 1. to you that are afflicted peace with us saith the Apostle 7. It is an undeniable Maxime that God and Nature made nothing in vaine but if there should be in mans soule such a desire and so earnest an affection to immortality and yet not enjoy it that desire which God hath given to her had been in vaine 8. From what proceeds the horrour of conscience in wicked men their trembling at the report and serious thoughts of future judgement on the other side the unspeakable joyes of good men their cheerefulnesse comforts and alacrity even in their paines and afflictions if they did not beleeve the soules immortality and that after this life all teares should be wiped from their eyes 9. God made man for some end and that was to enjoy eternall beatitude which consisteth in the enjoyment of himselfe but if the soule be mortall man cannot attaine to his end and so God made him to no end 10. In extasies and raptures though the body be without sense and motion and seemes as it were dead yet the soule is not but remaines unperished or unextinguished which doth argue her immortality 11. If the soule were mortall as the body is she would grow aged feeble and would decay as the body doth but we see the quite contrary for then she is most active and vigorous when the body is most weake and decrepit 12. If the soule be corruptible she may be separated from her existence and being now this cannot be done but by the worke of an externall and contrary agent which is more powerfull then the soule but no contrary agent abolisheth one forme but by introducing another nor taketh away one existence but by giving another for no action tends to a negative but to some thing that is positive 13. The Gentiles by the light of nature beleeved the immortality of the soule hence sprung the doctrine of transanimation among the Pythagoreans of the Elysian fields and places of torment among the Poets Hac iter Elysium nobis at laeva malorum Aeneid 6. Exercet poenas ad impia tartara mittit Hence Tully concludes that the ancient Romans beleeved the soules immortality because they were so carefull of their dead bodies and funerall ceremonies Tam religiosa De Amici◠jura majores nostri mortuis non tribuissent si nihil ad eos pertinere arbitrarentur c. So Homer acknowledgeth Iliad 23. the soule of Patroclus to live appearing after his death to Achilles The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by him and imago by the Prince of Poets is much used for separated soules as Inhumati venit imago Nota major imago Sub Aeneid 1. 2. 4. terras ibit imago c. The barbarous Indians assent to the soules immortality as Acosta Lerius Martyr and others do witnesse and Aristotle who in some places seemes De Anima l. 1. t. 13. l. 3. t. 5. l. 2. de gen Animal c. 3. to doubt yet in other places plainly asserts this doctrine so universally beleeved that the soules can subsist by themselves because they have distinct affections and operations from the body and the understanding or intellect enters from without into the body it is void of passibility and is some divine thing and that the actions of
owne bodies doe though wee were never so close shut up in a roome When the aire is inclined to raine bodies grow heavie and in a close room we see the water in weather-glasses ascend and descend as the aire changeth abroad although the water in the glasse hath no commerce with the aire abroad and so wee feele aches upon change of weather in our bodies and heavinesse of our heads after sun-set by reason of the heavinesse or gloomy heat of the aire caused not by your atomes but by vapors mists or fumes in the aire which we are continually sucking in by the lungs by which the two principall parts of our bodies are affected to wit the head and the heart and by them the rest of the bodie And as for spirits or atomes of snow and Pag. 87. salt-peter which you say passe thorow a glasse-vessell I know no such thing 'T is true that the outside of a glasse or pot being made wet will freeze to the boord though neere the fire if you put snow and salt-peter in the pot because the cold snow by antiperistasis becometh much colder in having the hot salt joyned with it and so shunning its enemy the salt fortifies it selfe which causeth the wet bottome to freeze So in great frosts the fire is most hot and scalding wells and deep cellars in summer are most cold without any penetration of atomes at all which were heretofore bodies and parts of light now by you are called spirits And as there is no concourse of atomes to presse downe the falling bullet in the aire neither is there of water to presse down the stone Pag. 88. falling in it as you say because both the aire and the water meet onely to fill up the place which the bullet and stone had that there may be no vacuity for lighter bodies presse not downward the heavier but support the lighter But it troubles mee to waste so much time and paper in refelling your Paradoxes of atomes which are as void of soliditie as the atomes themselves Hence wee see how easie it is to deviate from the truth and to lose our selves in the winding labyrinths and intricate Meanders of errour when we fall off from these knowne and generally received principles which have had the approbation of wise men for so many generations Is it not a shorter way and more consonant to reason to say that cork sinks not and iron doth because the one is porous and full of aire the other dense and more earthy because the one and the other are moved diversly according to their divers formes and the properties from them to wit gravity and levity then to devise phantomes of atomes which involve within them so many absurdities The elements doe weigh in their owne spheres for a ballone Sect. 29. Pag. 95 c. 11. stuffed hard with aire is heavier then an empty one Secondly more water would not be heavier then lesse Thirdly if a hole were digged in the bottome of the sea the water would not run into it I answer a stuffed ballone is heavier because the aire which is in it is separated from its own sphere in which it doth not weigh according to our principles Secondly more water is not in its owne sphere actually heavier then lesse for a man in the bottome of the sea feels no more weight then if hee were but halfe a yard from the superficies but potentially it is gravida est sed non gravitat Thirdly the sea would run downe and fill up the hole because it moves naturally as it is heavie towards the centre which weight appeares not actually in its sphere till it remove towards the centre Nature in her actions is not to be seen in all places and at all times There is life in seeds and fruit in trees though not alwaies actually seen So there is gravitie in water though not alwaies felt as you seeme afterward to confesse when you say that water in a Pag. 97. cap. 11. pale because it is thereby hindred from spreading abroad hath the effect of gravity predominating in it So one part of water in its own sphere doth not divide the other Shall we then say there is no power in water to divide water Yes there is for water powred out of an 〈◊〉 into a bason wherein is water will divide the water in the bason Your reason to prove that there is no inclination in Sect. 30. Pag. 98. cap. 11. heavie bodies to tend to the centre because the centre is as often changed as any dust lighteth unequally upon any one side of it is a weak one for let the centre change never so often every houre if you will yet a centre there must be still and to that centre in what place of the earth soever it be the heavie bodie hath its inclination And no lesse weaknesse is it to confound vis impressa or a violent motion with the naturall motion of gravitie as you do for gravitie is neither the mediate nor immediate cause of a violent but of a naturall motion Neither Pag. 99. is it impossible for any cause as you say to produce an effect greater then it selfe for the flame may produce a greater heat in iron then is in it selfe May not a little man beget a tall man Oftentimes the effect exceedeth the cause both in quantity and vertue A blind man begets a son with eyes the heat of an Egyptian oven hatcheth chickens and the Suns heat begets many sensitive creatures of putrefied matter Neither must you inferre That Pag. 99. gravity is no naturall quality of earthy bodies because a bullet can ascend out of the bottome of the barrell of a gun being suck't up by ones breath for this infers the bullet to be naturally heavie in that it doth not naturally ascend but is forced by the violent motion of traction which traction were needlesse if the bullet were not naturally heavie Neither doth this motion shew That gravity is an intellective entity as you say for though the naturall properties of things have not understanding yet they have that appetite given to them by the God of nature to preserve their owne unitie and the unitie of the universe and to shun their owne destruction and this is no determining of the qualitie by it selfe which is the act of an intelligent creature to wit to determine it selfe but it is a power given by the God of nature to every thing to preserve it selfe and to shun its owne hurt So the stomack which hath no understanding receives and concocts wholsome food the meseraick veines suck the purest part thereof prepare and fit it for the second concoction and send away the excrementitious and superfluous parts to the guts and the same stomack vomits out that which is hurtfull to it and all this is nature not understanding What understanding will you give to a load-stone when it drawes iron or to those senslesse creatures which by their sympathies and antipathies