endeavour the same FINIS A SECOND PART OF A TREATISE INTITULED A SEARCH after SOULS THE Fore-going Treatise being finished and coming under the Perusal of several Persons amongst them a Minister an Eminent both Scholar and Teacher made some Reflections thereupon and transmitted them to the Author of this Treatise willing to receive his Reply thereunto And because the Dispute arising thereupon occasioned the opening divers Apprehensions concerning the Main Intent of the Treatise it seemed useful to publish the same therewithal The First Opposal came in one Sheet of Paper which received a Division into Fifteen Paragraphs 1. Paragraph Was a Civil Complement To which was returned a Thankfulness 2. Parag. Was a Discourse that some particular Fathers Opinions touching the Soul as Origen Tertullian and even St. Austin was not fit to counterpoise the General Stream of the Fathers of their Time And this was granted 3. and 4. Speak to the Novelty of the Opinion of a Humane Material Soul and it is granted new to the Generality 5. States the Question viz. that it is Whether the Soul of Man be Material or Immaterial 6. Parag. The Opponent says Men cannot conceive how a Material Agent can act as the Intellect and Memory of Man can do Nor that it can do so Therefore the Soul of Man cannot be Material but must be Immaterial To this it was replied That the Works of God exceed the Capacities of Men to conceive and that Men cannot find out Reasons for or of the Contextures so much as of a Leaf What it is that frames it into a Stem then puts forth the Ramuli then the Fibres of a divers Fashion as is proper to each Tree then unites them by a thin Covering of Green in some more glossy and glittering and in some less Men cannot perceive how or by what means this is done but are satisfied with knowing that there is a Material Spirit or Sap in the Plant and that thereby and by the Vegetative Power in Plants all such acts are wrought in them and that they are acted according to the appointment of God without Mens being able to find out the immediate or next Causes of the particulars And so for the Animalia they have Nutritive and Generative Powers the Loco-motive and Affective as Lust Wrath Fear they have Sensitive Powers and all these in as high and perfect a Degree as Men have them and the Intellectual Faculties but in a very low Degree Men know these Powers or Acts are wrought in or by the Beasts but not in a particular manner applicando to the next Causes of them but we know there is a Flame of Life in them which acts in them and acts them and is the Cause and Original of all their Motions and Actions without knowing how that produces in them Anger or Fear or a Lust to Generation or power to see remember c. The very next Causes or Manner of their Production cannot be known but Men may be satisfied in knowing the Aptitude of the Organs and that generally there is a Flame of Life or a Flamy Spirit in Animals by which God can and doth effect all such Motions and Actions as are fit and proper for each sort of Animals to perform And if all this can be done in Beasts by such a Spirit I desire to be shown some reason why the like may not be acted in Man by a like Spirit and in a much higher Degree assisted by Organs especially in the Head much fitlier framed for the effecting of such purposes and so judging we shall be freed from the Common and Vulgar Error of thinking all we see done extraordinary and of which we are not able to collect or find out the Cause that it is done by assistance or agency of Spirits as was the Case of Regiomontanus his Eagle and Flie and the Artist was therefore taken for a Conjurer And so when Watches first appeared in China those People thought they were moved by Spirits Our present Argument seems of that Nature we know not how such Effects are or can be produced from Matter and Motion and therefore they must be acted by an Immaterial and Self-subsisting Spirit not generated but coming into the Body ab extra no Body certainly knowing from whence nor how nor what it is nor that it is Doctor Willis in his Book De Anima Brutorum Latin Printed at Amsterdam page 4. names Periera and Des Cartes and Sir Ken. Dighy who to avoid the allowance of such Souls unto the Beasts will have the Beast esteemed but a sort of Machines which only can move but that they have no knowledge or feeling of any thing that they do or suffer acted by Matter and Motion which they say can have no Sense P. 5. These Men says the Dr. think that God cannot make Things or Creatures beyond the Powers of Mans Capacity to conceive and rightly to understand P. 6. But says he Nemesius and Gassendus do allow to Beasts Senses Outward and Inward Perception Appetite Spontaneous Motion a sort of Deliberation Judgment and a lower sort of Ratiocination for that is no more but knowingly to distinguish one Thing from another to compare them and chuse one of them before the other And the Brutes do Ex uno colligere aliud and therefore they have a sort of Reasoning although in a very low Degree and he cites the words of Gassendus Animam esse quandam flammulam ignisve tenuissimi speciem quae quamdiu viget seu manet accensa tam diu vivit animal cum amplius non viget seu extinguitur animal moritur P. 8. the Doctor says The Sensitive Souls of Men are of the same nature with this description and this sort of Soul is extended over the whole Body and is dividable and the Members and Parts of the Body are the proper Organs of this Soul aad this Soul is of a fiery nature and the act or substance of it is either a Flame aut habitum flammae proximum affinem and that so it is says he not only Gassendus hath determined but 13 great Learned Men here named have concurred in that Opinion P. 9. he asserts Animam in sanguine aut liquore vitali gliscentem aut ignem aut flammam quandam esse And this Soul which acts and keeps Life in the Body must have a continual Nourishment both from Air and Viands And he takes this Soul to consist of the same Matter with the Body but of the most select subtil and active Particles of such Matter he says Dr. Ent hath clearly demonstrated Sanguinem pariter ac ignem duo desiderare viz. alimentum ventilationem This Soul is fitted and proportioned to the Body and the Body contains it as the Scabbard doth the Sword and it is so fine as to be imperceptible to Humane Senses and so as that it can be known only ab effectis operationibus P. 11. So as when the Life fails there is no sign or footsteps left
Recompencs are warrantable to be expected viz. at Christ's Second Coming and to look for them sooner is against his own Direction in this Text Well fortified and confirmed by Acts 3.19 Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord and he shall send Jesus Christ whom the Heaven must receive until the times of the restitution of all things The time when amongst other things Men shall be restored to their former Beings and become the same Persons that they were before and so shall account at the Last Judgment and in all probability not before Well but what becomes of people in the mean time I take it for most likely that the Body verges to Dust Gradatim and the Flame of Life which I take for the Soul extinguishes in Death as Dr. Willis says Illico nihil est it vanishes as the Flame of Spirit of Wine when the Spirit is consumed And thus I conceive Men die thus they rest and Believers sleep in Jesus till time of the Restitution of all things Job 14.12 Even as the Flood decayeth and drieth up so Man lieth down and riseth not at all till the Heavens be no more they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep Thus Job and I agree punctually in our State of Death and so we do in that of the Resurrection Job 19.25 I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the later day upon the Earth and though after my Skin Worms destroy this Body yet in my Flesh shall I see God And as 1 Joh. 3.2 We know that when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is At his Second Coming and not till then not by going to Heaven in Effigie But till then Believers in Death enjoy such a Rest as the Revel calls Blessed They sleep in Jesus and rest from their Labours So Heb. 4.1 There is a Promise left us of entring into his Rest Ver. 6. Some must enter therein Ver. 9. There remains a Rest to the People of God Ver. 10. He that is entred into his Rest hath ceased from his own Works as God did from his And such a Rest is a pious Death and in assured hope of a joyful Resurrection Dan. 12.13 The Angel says to him Go thy way till the end be for thou shalt rest and stand in the Lot at the end of the days And here I cease and rest my Second positive Argument against the Immateriality and Separate Subsistence of Souls and their going to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection And upon this Argument I intend to make Three short Observations The First of which grows from our Author's Expressions Page 49. of his said Book There he says 'T is a great Mistake that the Soul is capable only of Social Glory or Suffering or a Blessedness in Partnership with the Body and that it can neither exert its own powers nor enjoy its own happiness in the absence of the Body The Opinion of a sleeping Interval of the Soul he says took its rise from this Error They conceived the Soul to be so dependant upon the Body at least in all its Operations that when Death rends it from the Body it must needs be left as in a swoon or sleep unable to exert its proper Powers or enjoy that felicity which we ascribe to it in its state of Separation Thus our Author To which I Reply They who so conceived were Fathers very Ancient and of great Authority in the Church and in my Opinion the Ground they stood upon was firm and good viz. they and we and all Men who consider may and do perceive by hourly Experiences that the Soul doth no more act or suffer without the Body than the Body without the Soul nor either of them without the other This constant Experience teaches To this also Reason very well agrees and Men have never yet met with good Reason plain Experience or clear Scripture to the contrary Nor doth our Author or any other shew any convincing or strong or likely Evidence that ever any Soul did or that it can act or suffer without Partnership with the Body and in Conjunction with it It may be asked How then can it subsist in a State of Separation from the Body if it can neither act nor suffer without it I Answer That I am not to Account for such a Subsistence because I deny the thing and say the Soul extinguishes in Death But those who held both Opinions viz. The Separate State and the Non-Activity did imaginarily cast the Soul into such a Swoon or Sleep as the Author mentions in a Limbus or Dormitory created by Invention to that purpose and those who so believe both Opinions are necessitated to invent such Places That the Soul neither acts nor suffers without the Body being true and the Separate Subsistence being granted Places for Dormitories were a reasonable and necessary Invention But if the Truth stand with me and the Soul extinguish in Death it neither acts nor suffers without the Body nor yet is there need to invent Dormitories or Purgatories for reception of such Souls as have no real Subsistence He hath truly related a Cause why the Ancients did believe Souls rested in Dormitories till the Resurrection not going to Heaven or Hell till that time and a Re-union with their Bodies viz. Because they believed Souls could not act or suffer without their Bodies according to the common Course of Nature and Experience This I agree to be true and a reasonable Ground for them to stand upon in this Point and that they erred only in believing a Separate Subsistence whence they were forced to invent Dormitories But I say though the Author have given us a true and good Cause why the Ancients thought Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection grounded upon the Nature and Constitution of Mankind there is another Cause and Reason for their so believing as true well grounded and evident as the former which will weigh with many Believers more than that can do viz. The Tenour and Consent of all the Texts before quoted by me in this Argument There is another Marvellous Agreement amongst them for all say the same things viz. That all Men must after Death appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ at his Second Coming at that Day at the Last Day when he shall appear Without mention of any other Time or any other Judgment or any going to Heaven or Hell in the mean time This sort of Declaration of the state of things after Death was a good and sufficient Ground for those Ancients to believe that Souls went not to Heaven or Hell before the Resurrection and I hold this Declaration to be a good true and sufficient Ground for People so to believe at this day And with this I finish my first Observation upon this Argument 2. My
Hares Foxes and other-like pursued Creatures are invented and acted and the like for Apes and Elephants and their Docility and that of Horses and Dogs and the very Insects Wasps and Serpents know their Powers to Hurt and use them accordingly without that any Man is or ever was able to give a full and true Account of the Means Power and next Natural Causes of such Actions or by what direct Mediums they are performed Shall we then go about to cover our Ignorance of the Immediate Powers and Actings in Mens Heads and Brains by inventing for him an unknown and unprovable Spiritual Being residing in him we know not where coming into him we know neither when nor from whence guiding and ruling we know not how sitting perhaps in Majesty in the Head but rejected or over-powered in the Heart by the Natural Inhabitants the Affections and Passions of it Solomon was wiser than so to be intangled Prov. 20.12 says The hearing Ear and the seeing Eye the Lord hath made even both of them seems a tacite Confession that he knew not how and Eccles 8 17. makes an open Confession that Man cannot find out the Works of God not those which are of thi World the wisest of Men cannot do it And my Lord Bacon amongst the wisest of our Naturalists tells us in his Advancement of Learning Pag. 200. that a Rational Account of the Soul cannot be expected from Philosophy because the thing is Supernatural and Inspired Whence it seems we seek in vain to know what it is or whence it is or where it is or why it is since we cannot know that it is but from the Divine Fountain of Faith and Revelation in his Opinion But says he Man hath a Sensible Soul as the Organ to his Rational which may rather be called a Spirit being a Corporal Substance attenuated by Heat and made Invisible of a Flamy Airy Nature nourished part by an Oily and part by a Watery Substance spread all over the Body and repaired continually by Spirituous Blood We may perceive why he forbears to describe or discourse farther of the Self-subsisting Soul because it is not Natural but Inspired and of which a Reason therefore cannot be required to give any tolerable Account seems tantamount to saying he did not understand the thing nor would make any farther Inquiry into the Truth of it but was content to accept of the Opinion as of a Notion which had long gone for currant in the World and was grown the General if not the Universal Opinion amongst Christians of the later Ages But if we credit Baxter our Author he tells us Pag. 72. That some think the Soul to be Material of a Purer Substance than Things visible and that the common Notion of its Substantiality means nothing else but a Pure as they call it Spiritual Materiality And thus thought not only Tertullian but almost all the old Greek Doctors of the Church or Fathers that write of it and most of the Latine or very many of them and there are few of the Old Doctors or Fathers who thought that the Soul was not some ways Material And now say I upon what new Reasons or Revelations is that Opinion of the Old Fathers of the Church come to be changed Why should not we think now of the Soul as the Fathers and Primimitive Church and Christians thought of it It seems we neither pretend any New Revelation for it nor have found out any either Scriptures or Reasons which were not known to them It may be not unaptly surmised that from the Time of Gregory the first called the Great Bishop of Rome in the end of the Sixth and beginning of the Seventh Century there rose a Conceit in his Church from a Story told to that Pope by the Bishop of Centum Cellae that Christian Souls were put to Penances and Sufferings after Death of the Body for expiating of Sins commited whilst they were in the Flesh whence Prayers were made for them first out of a Charitable Design and then Alms came to be distributed likewise on their behalf then the Clergy and Poor People began to be hired and have Money distributed and given to them for such Purposes And in time there came a Place to be assigned where such Penances were thought to be performed or Penalties for Purging of Sins were supposed to be suffered and this Opinion became beneficial to the Poor and profitable to the Clergy of that Church and went on like such kind of Projects increasing till it grew up to a perfect Purgatorial Fire over which his Holiness took the Supream Command which he hath been reputed to enjoy for the space of some Hundred of Years last past to the great Enlargement of his Reputation and Revenues and the Benefit of his Sons and Servants the Clergy and Ministers of his Church And this hath now continued for about the space of Eleven hundred Years time enough to radicate and fix the Belief of a Self-subsisting Soul in all Believers deriving under that Church or that have been subjected thereunto But whatsoever the Cause hath been of the present Christians declining and swerving from that of the Primitive Fathers in this Point it seems the State of this Question deserves to be diligently reviewed and considered Our Author undertakes to prove this Self-subsisting Spiritual Substance in Man from Three Topicks or Grounds viz. 1. From Reason or Nature 2. From Moral Congruity 3. From Express Places and Texts of Scripture How concise and short he is both in the Words and Sense of his Reasoning in this Point any who will bestow the pains of perusing him will evidently and easily perceive All that he says in proof from this Topick hath been truly related before and without farther Descant thereon it seems less can hardly be said than Id aliquid nihil est and he leaves his important Undertaking proving such a Soul in Man from Reason or Nature with turning himself about to Matters and Things or rather to Conceipts and Phantasies of very small Value as Page 13. Whether the Soul be an Individual Spirit or be an Act or Emanation of God or of some Universal Soul in the Body of Man Pag. 15. Whether the Soul be annihilated by Death and then whether it shall be destroyed by the Dissolution of its Parts Pag. 17. Then whether Souls subsisting after Death do sleep as the Body doth till the Resurrection Pag. 21. Whether Souls subsisting after Death and not sleeping shall continue distinct Beings or fall into one Common Soul or be united to God and so lose their Individuation and Separated Being Upon this Question Pag. 22. he cites S. Austin de Anima putting the Question Whether Souls are all but one and not many But that he utterly denies 2. Whether they are many and not one And that he could not well digest 3. Whether they were at once both one and many And though this might seem ridiculous yet he was most inclined to the Belief of
as a Pilot is in a Ship who having brought it to Shore leaves it Chap. 2. The Soul is amongst those things which are called Principles having the special Faculties of Nutrition Sense Reason and Local Motion but there is doubt whether all these proceed from the whole Soul or that they are separated Parts of it and if separated then whether in Place or only in Imagination the Vegetative Soul will act in Slips and Branches and enable them to grow but the Soul of Man seems to be of another Sort and that this only is capable of a Separation from the Body as that which is Eternal may be separated from that which is subject to Corruption but all other Parts of the Soul except that which is purely Contemplative are inseparable from the Body The Soul is that Principle by which we have Life Sense and Vnderstanding as from our proper Form and Ratio and this is not the Body but belongs to it she is not the Body nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and such an one as is sutable to her Operations and is her proper Matter whence she is the Active Principle bearing a reasonable or natural Proportion to the Matter which is to be informed by her or to her Body We may observe how warily or uncertainly Aristotle handles the Separate Subsistence of Souls saying first That the Soul of Man is the only Sort that seems capable of it and that it doth seem capable of a Separate Subsistence as an Eternal Being But this is spoken without Addition of Reason or farther Dilucidation or Confirmation of the Thing as if in Compliance with Vulgar Opinion and then presently subjoins The Soul is not the Body but belongs to it nor can she be without it In a Body therefore she is and likely cannot be without it Farther it may be observed that in this Chapter we begin to enlarge our Strides and omit all such things which do not properly belong to Souls or is Declarative of their Natures or Properties and this Course will be followed in our future Progression in this Author Chap. 3. Where there is Sense there is Appetite viz. Lust Wrath and Will also Pleasure and Pain or that which is Pleasing and Troublesom Lust desires that which is Pleasant and Animals are nourished by Dry and Moist Things and by Hot and Cold Things Hunger and Thirst belong to Lust Hunger desires the Dry and Warm Things and Thirst the Cold and Moist Man hath a Discursive Understanding or if there be any thing in Nature above that Man hath it Creatures in the lowest Degree Rational have all things pertaining to Animation Sense Appetite Motion c. and yet they all perish in Death Of the Contemplative Intellect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seems there may other Things be spoken or conceived We may observe here the same cautelous Expressions of Aristotle concerning Subsistence of a Rational Soul in a State of Separation from the Body that hath been usual with him Chap. 4. It is one of the properest and most natural Qualities of all Living Creatures perfect in their Kinds to generate such another as themselves are and the first able Effect of a Soul arrived to Perfection and the most universal is to generate its Like and support its Species Whence the Souls first Denomination may be Generativa except from her first Acts she should be called Nutritiva The Soul is the first Principle and Cause of Life in the Body and first of Motion both as to the what and why She is the very Essence of the Body or the Causa cur sit and the Life of Living Bodies is the very Being of them and this is of the Soul and all Natural Bodies are Instruments of the Soul Empedocles thought Plants had their Nourishment from the Earth below which was carried up by a Power of Heat and Fire Says Aristotle Earth and Fire are Contraries What keeps them then in an amicable Temper This is the Soul and therefore this is the Prime Cause of Nutrition Yet the Fire or Natural Heat is a Concomitant Cause not yet so Principal as the Soul which bounds the Force of the Fire knowing otherwise no Bounds Nothing can take Food or Nourishment that is not an Animated Body so as such Bodies do therefore these Actions come from the Soul therefore the Soul is such a Principle as hath sutable Faculties to preserve the place of her Abode If that have no Aliment it cannot subsist and therein are Three Particulars viz. 1. What must be nourished 2. With what 3. What effects the Nouriture and that is the Soul The other Two are the Body and the Aliment and all Aliment must be digested and all Digestion is effected by Heat therefore all Living Things have Heat We may apply what Aristotle says here of Generation as the most Natural Action viz. to generate another Creature of his own Likeness and Kind This imports a Generation of the whole Matter and Form Body and Soul according to Natural Inclination and Power of all other Living Creatures Chap. 5. Treats of the Senses and the Objects of them The first Motions towards Sense grow from the Seminal Power then that which is procreated obtains Sense natural to Sensitive Creatures as Science and Contemplation is to Man But Objects of the Senses are external Things and those of Science as Things Universal are inward and within Compass of the Soul it self and it can understand when it will not use the Senses without their proper exterior Objects not hear without a Noise Chap. 6. Each Sense judges of its proper Object without being deceived in it the Distance and Medium being fit and the Organ found But Motion Rest Number Figure and Bulk are not peculiar to any one Sense to the peculiar Object the Essence of the Sensible Power applies it self Chap. 7. Light is as it were the Colour of the Perlucid Body when enlightned by Fire or the Heavenly Luminaries but Light is not Fire nor clearly a Body nor the Effluction of a Body for then it self would be a Body But it is the Presence of Fire or other Lucid Thing in the Perlucidum We may say the Presence of that Habit which expels Darkness is Light and of that Habit Darkness is the Privation The Perlucid Body hath no proper Colour whence it cannot be seen as Air or can hardly be seen as Water The Motive to discern Colours is the Perlucidum enlightened but the Act of discerning is from the Light Fire may be seen both in the Dark and Light for that it enlightens the Darkness Chap. 8. All Sounds occasion Ecchoes though not perceptibly even as all Light hath its Reflexion which causes the Light where the Sun doth not shine or in the Shade The Air seems to be an inane or void Space fit for Sounds The Terms of Acute and Obtuse or Slack is derived from Sounds A Voice is the Natural Sound of an Animal and no Inanimate Thing
do not make use of their ignorance for the extracting from thence an Unintelligible Extraneous Spirit for the Government of a Humane Body Memory or Understanding The case of the Watch shews the thing moved and made a noise and the Indians did not and could not discover the cause thereof and therefore they concluded it was moved by a Spirit which contains the very Ground of your Argument viz. We understand not how a Material Agent can perform such a sort of acting Therefore there must be an Intelligent Spirit in the case or else such things could not be done yet if you will but make this Grant That a Man doth generate a Man as truly and perfectly as one Horse generates another it will prove like Archimedes his Postulatum of a Ground whereupon to fix his Instrument for thence will apparently follow all that in my Treatise hath been asserted For what is begotten and born of Flesh is Flesh and I would not advise you to venture upon the task of proving any other way of proceeding or framing of Humane Souls 7. Paragraph You pretend to prove an Intelligent Spirit in Man from the Power and Effects of Conscience in him You say no Beasts have it and yet it is very potent and prevalent in Man And I agree that Man hath a Conscience and that it hath a great Power in him and over him But I do not grant the Beasts are without it in a degree sutable to their Capacities and Understandings You say That Conscience in Man is natural to him or slows from his pure Natural Faculties unassisted by Education or Rules But this I deny and assert that Conscience in Man is not derived barely from Nature in such manner as his Vital Powers viz. Digestion Nutrition and Generation are nor as his Passionate Powers viz. his Ambition Covetousness Lust Wrath and Fear are nor as his Sensitive Powers or the use of this Senses are nor as his Rational Powers viz. his Understanding Phancy Memory Judgment are For all these Faculties are so natural to every Man that he can and doth act them and by them without either Rule Tutor or Example But Speech is not so natural nor is Conscience so natural but they must both be Learned and Directed by Rules Doctrine or Examples and then they may be varied and changed according as things shall fall out or it shall come into the Phancies of Men But without some sort of Education Rule Direction or Opinion there is no more Conscience in Man than in Beasts For take a Salvage Person bred up amongst Beasts he will not know that Killing in a Sin nor spare a Man in his Hunger or his Wrath any more than a Beast And for Adultery he is not capable of knowing it because he knows not what Marriage is And for Incest it is naturally so much unknown as that the first People practised it with Sisters lawfully and it seems Abraham thought it no Crime nor the Princes to whom he avowed it for that it pass'd without Punishment or Reproof from them And for Theft and Robbery it pass'd for a Glory amongst Barbarous People and so it doth amongst Conquerours at this day and it is counted a sufficient Crime for the Vaniquished to defend his Goods or Women from the Conquerour and he will yet be kill'd for so doing without any remorse or sense of Conscience in the Conquerour Nor is the Fact against Nature however Rules may perhaps determine otherwise I say then that Conscience is not an absolutely Natural Faculty in Man but rather is Faculty Complicated of Nature and other Adjuncts and Ingredients the Natural Powers that act in it are the Understanding the Memory and the Judgement and the Effects of it viz. Joy and Grief are also Natural but to compleat the Faculty of Conscience in Man there must be also some Rule for Direction of the Judgment whose proper Office is to compare the Fact and the Rule together and if they be found to agree the Effect is Joyous and Pleasing if they differ the Effect is Sorrow and Fear and the widelier they differ the stronger Effects are produced But say you these Effects are sometimes so potent and violent as they could not be if they did not proceed from an Intelligent Spirit Concerning which I will again quote to you Melanct. dicto lib. pag. 148. There he says Let our Students learn to admire the Wonderful Works of God in Man our Principal Powers and Faculties Vital Sensitive Affectionate Cogitative efficiuntur Spiritu Vitali Animali ideo aliqui dixerunt Animam esse hos Spiritus seu Flammulas Vitales Animales sua Luce superant Solis omnium Stellarum Lucem quod Mirabilius est his ipsis Spiritibus in Homibus piis miscetur ipse Divinus Spiritus and makes this Light in Man more Refulgent Active and Inclinable to apprehend Divine Truths and to practise accordingly And on the contrary When the Devil gets a Possession or but an Entrance amongst them he disturbs and tortures both Heart and Brain and drives them into Cruel Motions and manifest Furies And thus this Excellent Divine instructs us what are the proper Causes of the great and violent Stings of Conscience which you have chosen for a strong Proof of an Intelligent Immaterial Spirit in Man And that Conscience is not barely from Nature but is a Complex of Nature and Rules there are divers Texts of Scripture which may be cited to prove Rom. 2. St. Paul says Men do by Nature the things contained in the Law of Moses this intends a Cultivated Nature ordered and directed by other Rules although they were ignorant of Moses's Law and those other Rules became to them a Law written in their hearts which if they followed their Conscience was satisfied and if they acted contrary to those Rules their Consciences accused them for it St. Paul's Nature in this place therefore intends not Nature in puris naturalibus utterly unpolished and barbarous or salvage and naked of Rules Education and Examples but such a Nature as hath submitted it self to some Rules Education or Example though they be utterly ignorant of Moses's Laws Rom. 5.13 Though sin those acts which are sinful were in the world until or before the Law yet sin is not imputed where there is no Law or Rule to direct the Judgment and therefore without some sort of Rule rising from Institution Example or Opinion as there can no Sin be imputed so no Consciousness of Sin nor Sting of Conscience for it So Rom. 7.7 I had not known sin but by the Law some Rule Education or Example which taught me that this is Sin bare or salvage Nature would not have taught me what was a Sin and what was not John 9.41 Our Lord says to the Pharisees If you were blind purely ignorant ye should have no sin Chap. 15.22 If I had not spoken to them instructed them they had not had sin 1 John 3.4 Sin is the Transgression
quasi spirituosam toti adaequatam coextensam constiâ—â—unt ex creationis lege Here he shews how these Active Particles first work in semine and form a Consistence and Body sutable to its own activities as a Case may be exactly fitted to a Jewel haec anima ex se statim dissolvi tenuesque in auras evanescere apta a corpore continenti in subsistentia sua actu conservatur ita anima tenuissima licet est corporea P. 11. Corpori intime unitur ejusque velut subtegmen existit attamen textura subtilissima sensibus nostris percipi nequit sed solum modo ab effectis operationibus suis dignoscitur And when the Creature dies Statim ejus particulae à concretione sive mutua adhaesione sua abruptae absque vestigio quovis relicto prorsus dissipantur P. 30. After treating of Brutal Souls he says Ac in eadem classe etiam hominis animam corpoream ponimus idque jure quoniam in utrisque praecordiorum nec non cerebri ejusque appendicis nervosi eadem est confirmatio P. 38. Anima corporea brutis perfectionibus homini communis cum toti corpori organico extenditur singula tum partes ejus tum humores vivificat actuat irradiat ita in duobus illorum eminentius subsistere atque sedes velut imperiales habere videtur Here our Doctor declares the manner how this Material Soul acts and works in the Head and Heart principally P. 39. The Modes and Manner of its Operation by such inflamed Particles of the Blood and specially in the Head whence they are dispersed over all the Body effecting therein Perception by the Senses and all other Faculties their Order Causes and Manner of Working very much deserving the perusal of those who really desire satisfaction in the Enquiry which you have propounded viz. Quomodo operatur Anima Materialis in Homine There you may find a better account to this purpose and a larger than I dare pretend to give you of my own My Answer to your Question How Mens Faculties and Powers can be acted by a Material Spirit given in my former Treatise is That although I were not able to give Evidence of the Manner how but should plead Ignoramus in Answer thereunto this could be no great Detriment to the Tenet of a Material Soul in Man For that Men do not know nor can find out how the Material Soul in Plants produceth Wood Bark Leaves Blossoms Fruits of great Diversities in Nature Shape Firmness Taste Colour Smell Natural Qualities both for Meat Medicine and divers other uses Nor do Men know how the Material Soul in Insects doth or can produce the admirable Order Oeconomy and Regiment which is plainly visible amongst the Bees the Orderly Proceedings and Industry amongst the Ants and the fine and regular Textures of Spiders the wonderful Faculties of Birds in chusing commodious Places for their Nests their Building Sitting Hatching Feeding Guarding and Training of their Young Their Musical Notes and Modulations their Exercises of Power the Stronger over the Weaker and which the Weaker apprehend at the very first sight Neither do men know nor can find out how or by what means the Beasts discern and know their proper Nouritures and Medicines the Means and Causes of their Disgestion Nutrition Generation Appetites Passions Spontaneous Motions Ejections of Excrements the putting out their Hair Horns Hooffs Claws c. Or the Means or Causes of using their Senses and perceiving by them Their Common Sense Phancy Memory and the low Degree of Understanding which they have I say the next Means and Causes of these Effects and their like men cannot discover or find out And yet there appears no doubt but that such Effects flow from the Material Souls or Spirits with which every one of them in their Kinds or Species are endowed Ergo Though I may not be able to declare how a Material Spirit doth or can act in Man his Superiour Faculties of his Reason and Mind yet that may not prove an Argument sufficient to overthrow the Materiality of a Humane Soul For such a Soul may and probably doth actuate all these Superiour Powers and Faculties in Man although we cannot perceive or understand the manner and next Causes of such Productions in any plain or declarable manner It seems enough that we find there are apt Matter Members and Organs to serve those Effects and there is an Active Principle or Spirit though Material yet sufficient for enlivening and acting those Organs or Instruments for the serving such turns to as great Perfection as is ordinarily found in Humane Nature although we do not and rationally are not able to discover the adaequate or perhaps the true Reasons or Means the How and the Why of such Performances Sir Kenelm Digby in his Maintenance of the Soul's Immortality Fol. 394. says Gross Earthly Bodies create Idea's in the Minds of Men and by that means doth Spiritualize such Bodies and that which can so do must needs be Immaterial Now if you ask me how this comes to pass and by what Artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confess I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer That it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works But as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from which these Operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this Mystery is says he as I say though we cannot know nor express the manner of it And I may say the like for the Material Soul that it is also Invisible too fine to be perceived but by its Effects and therefore its Operations or the Manner of them are not Perceptible by Mens Senses and thereunto the old Theorem may reasonably be applied Nihil venit in Intellectu quod non prius fuit in Sensu And it seems not reasonable to expect a clear Description or Declaration of such Things or Productions as are not perceptible to Sense or that doth not at some time come or in some measure come under the Test and Trial of those Informers To comply with your Demands I have thus repeated to you that I have before expressed in my First Treatise although it seem more than the Exigence of the Case requires For that although nothing had been said in the Defence Proof or Discovery of what concerns the Souls Materiality yet it seems not to me a good or clear Consequence That therefore it must be Immaterial But that the Proof of that will still be necessary and lie upon your hand to shew De Anima Immateriali quod sit in Rerum Natura quid sit unde oritur quando ingreditur quomodo ubi residet in Corpore quomodo actuat Corpus cum Membris omnia ejus Organa as well in the Vital Nutritive Generative Faculties as in the Loco-motive Affective and Passionate Powers and
Calamos cera conjungere plures instituit Lastly I have chosen the Organ as that Instrument whereunto Mankind may most sutably be compared and from hence shall begin to make general Observations upon these Instruments and Creatures comparando As the Whistle and Horn have no great Variety in their Sounds so have the Insects but something analogous in them to them to Flame and Blood and therefore may rather be counted Animata than Animalie and we shall but little insist upon them but chuse to observe rather upon our Third Instrument the Penny Pipe which can make a Variety of Sounds by several Stops upon it First it appears that this as all our other Instruments this and they all are acted and made sounding by one same Actor or Principle viz. Breath or Wind inspiring them And I say the like of the small Animals compared to it viz. Mice Moles c. we say that they as all other Animals are framed and acted after a similar Manner and as the rest of the greater Animals are and as Man their Supream also is for each of these small Animals have Skin Bone Flesh Blood Sinews Nerves Muscles Joints Heart Brain and Breath as well as the Horse or the Elephant or even as Man himself and act their Five Senses and Vital Faculties as other Animals do and have a Flame of Life or Glowing in their Flood which makes it Circulate Active and Moving as is done in other more large and potent Animals in a Proportion and Nature sutable to their beings The thing is all of a hind in them all as the Wind and Breath in the Musical Instruments the Wind in them doth not make a like Sound or Musick in them all but according to the structure and capacity of every one of them Now give a Penny Pipe into the best Artists hand and who hath a very good Breath yet he shall be able to make but very mean Musick with it sutable to the mean capacity of the Instrument and this is the Case of the Mouse or the Mole amongst Animals though they in their Structure Parts and Spirits are of the same Nature with the greater Animals yet such Spirit and Flame can do no more in those small and weak Bodies than the Capacities and Organs of them will extend unto and those Degrees of Power proportionate to its own Strength Nature and Constitution And so it is in every Degree of Animals one above another the Flame or Material Spirit of Life works in each of them proportionably to act and perform such things and in such manner as the Structure of their Bodies and the Figure Power and Order of their Members make them able and inclinable to act and gives them a Power to execute And just as in the Wind Instruments one sort of Spirit acts them all and one sort of Materials viz Hard Materials Wood or Metâ—al make the Body or gross and palpable parts of them and yet there is that vast Variety in the Musick and Sounds of them as if they were not at all of kin one of them to the other but rather as if they were quite different things in their Nature which plainly they are not for the Matter and Spirit in them all are alike It is true they are different Instruments and make very different Sounds and Sort of Musick And it seems the Case is the same amongst Animals Matter and Spirit are of like Nature in them all Man himself though Sanctius his Animal Mentisque capacius altae his Genus is the same with theirs he is Animal let the differentia be what it will Rationale or Religiosum Man is of the same Kind with the other Animals and is compared by David to the Beasts that perish utterly and so should Man have done unless God had promised and appointed a Resurrection for him and a Judgment upon him But all our Maintainers of the Immateriality exclaim and declaim upon the transcendent advantages which Men have over and beyond the Beasts in the Power and Activity of their Rational Faculty which mistakingly and yet generally they call the Soul of Man and seem so to esteem and think of it but to me it seems there is not a greater difference in Nature or Power betwixt Men and Beasts then in Musick there is between the Organ and the inferiour Instruments from the Trompet to the Penny Pipe or Whistle There is as great a transcendency in the Organ over or and above each of the other Instruments in the Musical Use of them as there is in Men over and above Beasts in the several Kinds of them These Machines viz. the Organ and the Man the one amongst Wind Instruments and the other amongst Animals must evidently be accounted for Superlative and Supream with whom none of the Inferiour Animals or Instruments can hold a reasonable Comparison but Ocularly visible it is that the Organ hath no other Spirit or Cause of its Sound Musick and Harmony but the same that acts in all the Inferiour Instruments And semblably it seems that although Man be a Superlative and Supream Animal yet he may be and is acted by a like Flame or Spirit as we agree doth actuate and enliven the other Animals of an Inferiour Nature or Degree inabling for Acts of Life and Vegetation Nourishment Digestion and Generation stirring their Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear Moving and acting their Five Senses to perceive their several Objects And all these and their Local Motions are as vigorous and perfectly acted in Beasts as in Men and this sort of Soul acts also in Brutes an Understanding Phancy Judgment and Memory true in their Kind but to a very low Degree in comparison with Faculties of those Kinds found amongst Men for that the Humane Head and Organs there placed are far more advantageously framed and fitted for such purposes And thus it seems there is set forth and shewed an apparent and pregnant likeness or similitude between the Correspondence which the Organ hath with the Inferiour Wind Instruments and that which Man hath with the Inferiour Animals And that this Comparison or Similitude may be helpfully used towards the Discovery of the Nature and Operations of an Humane Soul and some farther Assimilations may be made of Man to an Organ viz. First That as in an Organ the Wind cannot command or alter the Sound of any of the Pipes so as to make the Treble Mean Tenor or Bases sound otherwise than that Artist who made them intended them for So it is in Man his Spirit or Soul cannot act any of his Senses or Faculties to other then those very purposes for which the Divine Artificer made and intended them it cannot make the Hand see nor the Foot hear the Shoulders understand nor the Buttocks digest but it can only act every Part Member and Organ to those purposes intended by him that made them Secondly As when any of the Pipes in an Organ are ill made cracked or otherwise harmed the Wind cannot