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
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
my Opinion when I found Roccius saying the same things and words and Melanchton apparently to the same Sense and Peter Martyr approaching thereunto and nearer than I do expect other men shall come in any short time Your Quotation out of Dr. Cave was drawn by him out of Euseb Hist lib. 6. cap. 36 and is quoted in my Treatise This Particular finishes your Opposition to my Treatise and shall put an End also to my Defence Yet because I have as you may see some room left upon this Sheet of Paper I am thereby invited to remember what you said in your Second Paragraph viz. That it is not unlikely that my Treatise might be the result of some years Study To set your Imagination right upon that Point I give you this Account of it That in Summer 1690 I practised my Monastick Discipline reading within Doors and labouring the Ground abroad Mutans quadrata rotundis What I read within I ruminated without I considered the close Connection of Soul and Body and even the Contexture of them that Humane Constitutions and Faculties are often alter'd by Diet Air Sickness Accidents that the best Reasons Memories or Judgments may be altered or spoiled by divers like Means and recovered sometimes by Medicines applied to the disaffected Parts or Organs of the Body How this might competere with the Acts and Powers of a Substantial Angelical Spirit as the Soul or Form of Man I found my self unable to comprehend but that rather it seemed there was a Dependency of the Soul upon the Body as well as of the Body upon the Soul Hence I concluded there was a Close and Natural Contexture between them and that likely they were both of one same Nature Connatural to Man viz. his Natural and Constituent Parts Then I considered the Brutes and that they had the same Senses and Affections with Men and some sort of Understanding Phancy and Memory and all liable to like Accidents Also both Sorts lived by Blood Breath and Fewel or Food and if any of these failed the Man must die as well as the Beast so as the Man's Soul could help in such or any other Vital or Natural Necessities no more than the Soul of a Beast can do in like Cases And thus I went on considering all the Summer and coming tube inclined I fell upon a very Natural Course of Proceeding in such Cases followed by St. Paul Acts 17.17 He disputed his Tenets in all Places and with all Persons of his Conversation proper for that purpose and so did I and read Books such as I had or could buy or borrow Lastly One lent me a Book called Richard Baxter's Dying Thoughts and the Weak Defence which he and Sir Kenelm Digby and Doctor More made on behalf of that Immortal Opinion fortified my Conceptions to the contrary In Christmass I discours'd with many about it and soon after Candlemass I began to write and finish'd my Treatise about a Week after Midsummer in An. 1691 since which time divers have perused it and I refuse it to none who are like to use it cleanly and are capable of it I know you observe that I begin with Baxter's Book and end with it quoting and examining of it all along nor did I find it difficult to refute all that he says in maintenance of the Immortality except the Texts of Scripture which he quotes And those Texts in him and in you seem to me the only Defences of the Immortality Batteries you perceive are and may be raised against the intention and effects of those Texts which are quoted to that purpose and of what force they will prove Men are not like speedily to determine But my Judgment is not convinced or perswaded that by forbearing the Argument drawn from the Immortality and pressing in its stead that from the Resurrection and the Last Judgement there can any detriment arise to the Progress and Maintenance of the Christian and specially of the Protestant Religion If I had a desire to argue upon this Point and towards the Clearing of it as St. Paul did both in Synagogues Markets and Schools I do it much more desirously with you as professing my self Your much obliged and very humble Servant 8 March 1692. After this Answer to the Opponents Objections he was p1eased to reply thereunto in June following and his Replication was divided into Seven Paragraphs His 1. Parag Insists That I had not made that Proof which he demanded of the Quomodo How a Material Spirit was able to act or did act the Humane Faculties and Powers known to be in Mankind and carried to an excellent Perfection in some Men As this was a repeated Demand so I say that I answer to it as before viz. That there are many other Things and Actings in the World the Reasons and Causes of which Men neither do nor can enough comprehend or perceive Our Lord tells us That if one should watch the Corn Night and Day yet he could not perceive so as to know the Immediate and Proper Causes of its Growth but it will bring forth first the Stalk next the Blade then the Ear and lastly the Full Corn in it Men not perceiving the How or the Why of it and the Case is like for all other Plants How it was or whence it proceeds that they bring forth Fruits and Leaves of wondrous Variety and Diversity in Colour Figure Taste Smell Bulk and Operations We see that each of them have Root Bole Skin or Bark and we perceive and know that each of them hath an active and lively Juice or Spirit ascending from the Root into the Boles Branches and Tops of them and this Composition of Matter and Form in Plants we do reasonably believe to be sufficient and effectual for the production of all that doth ordinarily grow out of them But that Solomon or any other man ever did or can declare to us the manner of their proceedings or the next Reasons of them and of that great Variety in their Natures and Productions I do not know nor believe nor do I think it a Work of Humane Power to do Next Plants we may consider the Insects Solomon points us to the Spiders the Locusts the Ants and the Bees what are the Causes of their Motions and Actions Solomon tells us they do what is proper and best for their Beings but as Wonders to him and us who know neither the How nor the Why of them And so for the Fishes and the Birds we cannot know by what secret Engines and Motors divers particulars are done amongst them Concerning the Quadrupedes we see and know they have the same Flesh Blood Bones and Breath that Men have and in their Kinds sutable Bodily Members as Head Heart Liver Lungs Arteries Veins Fibres Muscles c. that Men have also a Generation and Production all alike I may demand what makes them live and grow in the Wombs of their Dams What forms their Members and how are they made in those