speculate or understand without Phantasms and therefore it is not likely that the soul is a distinct substance and separable from the body For the ground hereof is false viz that there is no Intellection but what is either direct Imagination or done by Imagination as we have formerly proved and that with no sparing hand so that we need not here repeat it Nor had I here remembred this Argument of Aristotle but that this you now urge is very neer of kin thereunto as to its force and importance and so put me in mind of it afresh Lucretius An Eighth Objection may be made from hence that the Soul being once expired the body soon corrupts stinks and resolves to dust I say expired or like a vapour exhaled through the conduits and pores of the body and therefore so divided into small portions or particles as that in that very Egression or Expiration it must be wholly comparated to Dispersion and what is capable of such dispersion is capable of totall dissolution Athanasius You might well Lucretius have spared yourself and me the trouble of this impertinent objection had you thought my Answer to your Fifth worthy your memory For since you could not then deny that the soul as Incorporeal is diffused through the whole body and therefore may issue out of it intire and unimpaired as possessing no place and in that respect as capable of passing through the solid and compacted parts as through the conduits and pores why should you now resume that gross conception of the Souls expiring from the body like a vapour or exhalation And as for the Putrefaction of the Body after the Soul hath withdrawn itself from it though it nothing at all concern the buisiness in hand I say the Cause thereof is the defect of that vital Agitation of the Heart Blood and spirits by which the Humours most prone to putrifaction were partly kept from subsiding and fermenting and partly so extenuated as to be discussed and expelled Lucretius A Ninth from hence that in Lipothymies or swooning fits the vigour of the Soul is so much abated and brought low as that it would be totally dissolved and extinguished in case the Causes of those its Failings or Dejections were yet more violent as frequently they are and then they cause sudden death Athanasius Here you recur to the Symptomes of bodily Diseases again but I wish I could as easily remove them from the body as you from defending the Mortality of the Soul by any considerations drawn from them and their most fatal effects For as to Lipothymies which according to the Etymologie of the word you call Failings of the Soul they are in truth only Failings of the Heart or vital influence arising from the preclusion or stopping of those passages ordained for the continual transmission of vital Spirits which as servants the Soul makes use of to Life Sense and Motion And therefore reflecting upon what I have already said it is obvious to conceive that the whole Soul being diffused through the whole body all the failing in Swooning fits doth fall not upon her Self but upon the Vital Organs which at that time are rendred unfit for the uses and actions to which they were framed and accommodated And if the Causes of such Failings should chance to be so violent as to induce suddain death then the Soul indeed would and must wholly depart yet not by reason of any dissolution of its substance or exceeding imbecility in it self but only for want of those Dispositions in the Organs of life by which she was enabled to enliven the body And here I could mind you of a certain sort of Lypothymies that happen in Ecstasies of some Holy men when the Soul being transported with the superlative beauty and excellency of Divine Objects in abstracted contemplations doth so much neglect her inferior functions as that the body all that while seems senselesse and livelesse And yet this an argument rather of the strength of the Soul than of any Failing or Defection in it self I could also insist upon this that in sleep there is a kind of Defection of the influence of the Soul upon her corporeal Organs especially those inservient to Sense and Motion and yet the Soul is then most her self as Cyrus long since observed in one of Xenophons Orations in these most elegant words Dormientium Animi maximè declarant Divinitatem suam multa enim eum remissi ac liberi sunt futura prospiciunt ex quo intelligitur quales futuri sint cum se planè corporis vinculis relaxaverint But the Objection being otherwise refuted doth require neither Lucretius Experience teacheth that no man when dying findeth his Soul to depart out of his body whole and at once but rather to fail by degrees within his breast just as he doth his Sense in each proper Organ Which he would not do in case his Soul took her flight whole and intire out of his breast as a bird out of a Cage and therefore it is probable that the Soul being dissolved at the instant of death is breathed out in dispersed Atoms together with the Aer expired from the Lungs Athanasius You must needs be streightned for Objections Lucretius when you fly to uncertain Experiments and incompetent conceptions of vulgar heads and therefore I hope you cannot much longer hold out against truth I say to uncertain experiments because since it is impossible that any man in the extream moment of life wherein his Soul ceaseth to be either in his breast or any other part of his body should say to the standers by Now I am sensible of the egresse or flight of my Soul and I perceive how it departs because while he is able to speak or be sensible of any thing the Soul is still in the body and at the instant of its departure the Speech all Sense fail for ever The experience you alleage is uncertain and so no experience at all To incompetent Conceptions of vulgar heads because the common people not being able to understand the nature of an Incorporeal and how possessing no place no body can hinder its passage or trajection have a certain grosse apprehension that the Soul must issue out of the breast the same way that the breath doth out of the lungs And as for its Dispersion into Atoms you do ill to suppose it to be Corporeal when you have been so often beaten from that starting hole These Impertinences are much below so great a wit as yours Lucretius and I should very much wonder how you could fall upon them but that I ascribe it to your present humour of Contradiction which doth many times transport even wise men themselves to gross extravagancies Lucretius If the Soul were Immortal and conscious of its Immortality as you have affirmed certainly it would not grieve to leave the body which is rather its prison than delightful Mansion but rather rejoyce to be set at liberty and exult as a snake doth to
like conditions of Matter Truth is I have often heard among your soaring and long-winged Wits of Abstracted and Unbodied Notions and have somtimes perplexed my mind and almost crackt the membranes of my brain in striving how to comprehend them And yet I alwaies found my Phansy so inseparably conjoined to my Intellect as if they were both one and the same Faculty Nor am I yet able to distinguish betwixt my Imagination and Intellection And when once you shall have satisfied me of a reall Difference betwixt them I shall soon confesse you have gone very near the Demonstration of the Souls Immortality Because if the operations of the Intellect be clearly distinct from those of the Phansy which is a Corporeal Faculty and therefore limited to the perception and representation of only Corporeal Natures It will almost follow that the Intellect which is capable of knowing Incorporeals is a substance clearly distinct from the body and so Immaterial since different effects must have different Causes And as for your other Postulate viz. the exemption of my mind from contrary prejudice This also is what I should expect from the efficacy of your intended Arguments For as I told you before I believe the Immortality of the Soul but cannot perswade my self of the possibility of its Demonstration by any other but Divine reasons And it must be your work to convince me of the error of that perswasion Neverthelesse I will assure you of my best Attention and that I come not with a resolution not to be satisfied Athanasius Dear Sir have patience a while and you shall soon perceive both the Necessity and Equity of what I require And in the mean time do not take occasion to anticipate my Notions but leave me to deliver them in their due places and order Lucretius I shall punctually observe your commands and therefore if you think fit immediately addresse your self to your Demonstration Athanasius First it will be convenient in order to the prevention of all Equivocation and Logomachy that may arise from the various use of the word Soul that we insist a little on the examination of that vulgar Opinion which admitteth a real distinction betwixt Animus and Anima the Mind and the Soul In regard it seems to be the very same according to which many Doctors of the Church have conceived the Soul to have Two Parts a Superior and Inferior the one being the Mind Intellect or Reason the other comprehending the Sense Appetite Natural and Brutish There are you know many eminent men as well Theologues as Philosophers who as they hold Man to be composed of two parts a Soul and a Body so do they conceive that his soul is likewise composed of a twofold substance the one Incorporeal or Immaterial immediately created by God and infused into the body at the instant of its Empsychosis or first Animation in the Mothers Womb The other Corporeall or Material originally contained in the Parents Seed and derived ex traduce from the Seminalities of Male and Female commixed in coition which is as it were the Medium or Disposition by the intermediate nature whereof the Diviner part is conjoined and united to the Elementary or Body And this Opinion they ground chieflly upon that speech of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I perceive a Law in my members warring against the Law of my Mind c. For say they since it is impossible that one Simple Essence or thing should war against or have contrariety to it self from this Repugnancy betwixt the Sense and the Mind or Reason it seems necessarily consequent that the Sensitive and Rational Soul are things essentially different each from other Whereunto they superadd also that unlesse this Distinction be admitted we can never well understand how Man as a living Creature can be said to be in one part little lower than the Angels and in another to be like the Horse or Mule that have no understanding How in respect of one part he is made after the Image of God and in respect of another he is compared to the Beasts that perish How in one respect he acknowledgeth God to be his Author and Principle and in another he owns his production upon his Parents How in one relation he is said to be Immortall and in another subject to death equally with the smallest worme Notwithstanding it is not either the Authority or Arguments of these Men that seem prevalent enough to bring me to be of their persuasion For as to their Authority I could thereunto oppose that of some Fathers yea and Councils who not onely reprehend but condemne all such as make a duality of Souls in man were not the thing already well known to you However suffer me to put you in mind that the pious and learned Conimbricenses who certainly have most profoundly and judiciously of all others handled this Question though they proceed not so far as to censure this conceipt to be Hereticall as some others before them had don yet they expressy declare their Dissent from it And as for their Reasons alledged I thinke them likewise insufficient For all that Psychomachy or intestine Conflicts which these men imagine to be betwixt the inferior part of the soul which is called the sensitive and the superior called the Rational or betwixt the Natural Appetites and the Will doe arise onely from the repugnancy or contrariety which is between those motions of the spirits which are on one side caused by the senses affected by externall objects and those motions of the spirits which on the other side are caused by the will after the soul hath deliberated upon their conveniency and utility And in truth each individuall man hath one and onely one soul in which is no variety of parts that which is the Sensitive is also the Rationall and all her Appetites are absolute Volitions The cause of these mens error seems to be this that they could not well distinguish the Functions proper to the soul from the Functions proper to the body to which alone we ought in right to ascribe whatever we observe in our selves to be repugnant to our Reason So that in Man there is no other Contract or Contrariety of Affections but what consisteth in the contrary motions caused by the spirits and purer part of the blood in that part of the body in which as in its principall and more immediate organ the soul is enthroned and exerciseth her faculties whether that be the Plexus Choroides in the brain as most Physicians conceive or the Heart as the Scripture seems to intimate or the Glandula pinealis in the centre of the brain as Des Cartes affirmeth or any other part whatsoever one of these motions arising from the determination of the spirits by the will one way and the other from the determination of them by the corporeal Appetite another way And hence it comes often to pass that these impulses being contrary each to other the stronger doth impede and
countermand the effect of the weaker Nor is it difficult to distinguish these two kinds of impulses or motions made by the mediation of the spirits upon the principal sensory or chief seat of the soul. Forasmuch as some of them represent to the soul the Images of objects either at that time moving the senses or the impressions formerly made and remaining in the brain but offer no force or violence to it so far as to engage the will toward their prosecution and others prove so effectual as to dispose the will accordingly as may be observed in all those which produce passions or such motions in the body as usually accompany passions As for the former though they often impede the actions of the soul and are againe as often impeded and suppressed by them yet because they are not directly opposite each to other we can observe no conflict or wrestling betwixt them as we may betwixt the latter sort of Motions and acts of the will or Volitions that oppose them as for example betwixt that impulse by which the principall organ of the soul is disposed to affect her with the cupidity or desire of any one particular object and that by which the will counterdisposeth her to an aversation from or avoydance of the same And this Conflict chiefly demonstrate thits selfe hereby that the will being not able to excite passions directly and immediately is constrained to cast about and use a kind of art in order thereunto and to apply it selfe to the consideration of several things successively or one after another whereupon it comes to passe that if any one of those things occurring chance to be prevalent enough to change the course or current of the spirits at that instant yet another that followes next after it be not powerfull enough to second the former in that change the spirits then immediately againe resume their first course or motion the precedent disposition in the nerves heart and blood being not yet altered and thereupon the soul perceives her selfe to be impelled to pursue and avoid the same object almost in one and the same moment And this alone was that which gave occasion to men to imagine Two Distinct and mutually repugnant Powers or Faculties in the soul. Nevertheless we may conceive another sort of Conflict consisting in this that many times the same cause which exciteth a passion in the soul doth even in the same moment excite also in the body certaine motions to which the soul doth not at all conduce and which she suppresseth or at least indeavours to suppress so soon as she observes them to be begun For instance whatsoever causeth Feare doth at the same instant cause also the spirits to flow into those muscles which serve to move the thighs and legges to flight or avoidance of the terrible object but if the Will suddainly rise up and determine to exercise the vertue of Fortitude and oppose the danger threatned the soul then giveth check to that motion of the spirits and converts them to the heart and armes the better to make resistance And here I ask leave to make a short Digression while with the excellent Des Cartes I observe to you that it is from the Event of these inward Conflicts by which a man may come to understand the strength or weakness of his own soul. For such persons who have their wills sufficiently strong to subdue passions and countermand those suddain motions in the body which accompany the passions are without doubt endowed with Noble and Generous Souls And those who have their wills subject to the impetuosity of passions and cannot check the motions of the spirits resulting from them must be men of abject effeminate and pusillanimous ones Not that every man can make this Experiment of himselfe as to Weaknesse or Fortitude because many and indeed most men come to these Duells armed not with the true and proper weapons of the mind but with false ones borrowed from some contrary Affection so that the conflict may seem to be rather betwixt two opposite Passions than betwixt the Will and either of them and the Will may be said to follow the fortune of the conquering passion rather than to be it selfe the conquerour By the true and proper weapons of the Mind I meane certaine right and firme judgments concerning the knowledge of Good and evill according to which it hath decreed to regulate it self in all the actions and occurrences of life And certainly of all Souls those are the most weak and feminine which have not their wills thus determined to follow certaine settled Judgements but suffer them to be drawn aside by present Affections which being many times contrary one to another and equally prevalent counter-incline the Will alternately and so keep it on the rack of suspence Thus when Feare representeth Death as the worst of evils and which cannot be otherwise avoided but by flight if on the other side Ambition step in and represent the infamy of flight as an Evill worse then Death these two contrary Affections variously agitate and distract the Will and by putting it to a long conflict and irresolution render the soul most servile and miserable Now from this consideration it is manifest that there is no such necessity as hath been imagined of allowing a distinction of the soul into Animum and Animam or making the Reasonable soul and the Sensitive two distinct beings in order to the explanation of that Psychomachy or Contest betwixt Reason and Sense or the Superior and Inferior Faculties of which the Apostle complained and indeed which every man feels within himselfe all that repugnancy consisting in a Contrariety not of the soul to it selfe which in a Simple Essence is impossible but onely of the Motions of the spirits caused by the Senses on one side and those caused by the Will on the other as hath been declared And as for the other Reasons that remaine what I have now said may be easily extended to the solution of them also for that Man is composed of a Reasonable Soul and a Body is sufficient to our understanding him to be in one respect little lower than the Angells made after the Image of God and Immortall and in another like the Horse and Mule that have no understanding and subject to death equally with the beasts that perish Isodicastes By your favour good Athanasius You were saying even now that there were some Fathers and Councils who condemned all such as maintained a Duality of Souls in Man But if I am not mistaken that condemnation doth cheifly concern the Maniches who held two distinct Souls in every man the one derived from an evill Principle and so contaminated with the tincture of Vices the other immaculate pure and having its origine immediately from God yea being a certain Particle of the Divine Essence it self And perhaps it may be extended also to the Platonist and Averrhoist who affirm the Ratitional Soul not to be the Forma informans
not deny Lucretius but some of those School-men who have alleaged congruous and sinewy Reasons in favour of the Souls Immortality did afterward themselves confesse they were not compleatly Apodicticall But you may be pleased to remember also that some others of them stiffly maintained the contrary and all of them unanimously concur in this that howbeit those Reasons do not ascertain equally with Geometrical Demonstrations yet they are such as import either a Physicall or Moral evidence sufficient to perswade a mind well affected toward truth and free from the obstruction of prejudice Nor should I fear to obtain the Cause however the Arguments I shall bring to assert the Immortality of the Soul arise not to the height of absolute Demonstrations Provided they be found of greater certainty clearnesse and consequence than those that have ever yet been urged by those of the contrary perswasion and such as being superadded to the Authority of Holy Writ become ineluctable And more than this Lucretius considering the singular obscurity and abstruse condition of the subject you have no reason to expect at my hands Pray do but reflect a little on the modesty of that great man Aristotle declared in sundry places of his Writings but more especially in the beginning of his Ethicks where he saith Hominis probe instituti est tantam in unoquoque genere subtilitatem desiderare quantam rei ipsius natura recipit A man of Erudition and a sound Judgement ought to require only so much subtility and exactnesse in any kind of Argument as the nature of the thing treated of will admit and no more And having observed the same unreasonable humour of curiosity in others of those times that now possesseth you and too many of the sublime Wits of the present age who look for nothing below Demonstrations though in the Metaphysicks and other Sciences that are really incapable of them he addeth this positive rule Mathematica certitudo non est in omnibus quaerenda Mathematical Certitude is not to be required in all things To convince you the more clearly of the Unreasonablenesse of what you would exact from me in this case let me a while divert you to the consideration of the nature of a Demonstration The Method of Demonstration you know is twofold the one by Analysis the other by Synthesis The Analytical teacheth the true way by which the truth of a thing may be found out Methodically and as à priori so that if the Reader or Hearer shall strictly follow the same and attentively heed all the Antecedents and Consequents therein propounded he shall come at length to understand the thing demonstrated as perfectly and make it as much his own as if himself had first found it out But yet it contains nothing whereby either the heedless or dissenting reader may be compelled to assent For if any one of the least Propositions therein delivered be not exactly and fully noted the necessity of its Conclusions doth not sufficiently appear The Synthetical by a way opposite to the former and as it were sought à posteriori though the Probation it self be oftentimes more à priori than in the former doth clearly demonstrate what is concluded and useth a long series of Definitions Postula es Axioms Theorems and Problems that if any thing be denied of the Consequents it speedily sheweth the same to be comprehended in the Antecedents and so extorts belief from the Reader though formerly repugnant and pertinacious Neverthelesse this doth not satisfie nor fil the mind of him who comes to learn so amply as the other Because it teacheth not the way or manner how the thing proved was first found out And this Latter is that which the Ancient Geometricians generally made use of in their Writings not that they were ignorant of the other But as I conceive because they valued it so highly as that they desired to reserve it to themselves as a great Secret and too noble to be prophaned by vulgar communication Now this is that strict and vigorous Method upon which I suppose you reflect when you say you would gladly meet with a perfect Demonstration of the Immortality of Mans Soul And I must therefore advertise you of the Incompetency thereof to Metaphysical subjects And the reason doth consist in this Difference that the First Notions which are presupposed in order to the demonstration of things Geometrical agreeing with the use of the Senses are most easily and promptly admitted by all men so there is no difficulty but only in deducing right Consequences from them which may be done only by remembring the Antecedents And the minute distinction of propositions is therefore made that each of them may upon occasion be quickly recited and so recalled to the memory of even the most heedlesse Reader But on the contrary in things Metaphysical all the difficulty lies in clearly and distinctly perceiving the First Notions For though of their own nature they be not lesse known or even more known than those considered by Geometricians Yet because many prejudgements of the Senses to which from our infancy we have been accustomed seem repugnant to them therefore cannot they be perfectly known but by such as are very attentive to them and withall abstract their Minds from the Images of Corporeal things as much as is possible and being proposed alone by themselves they might easily be denied by such as delight in contradiction But as for the Analytical method I would not have you despair of seeing it in some measure accommodated to the subject of which we now discourse Provided you shall first tune your Mind to a fit key to bear a part in the harmony of truth when it resounds from the strings of all the Antecedents and Consequents propounded Which you must do both by abstracting your thoughts many times from the grosse representations of Corporeal things that hold no commerce of proportion or similitude with the Incorporeal Nature of the thing enquired into and by wholly devesting your self of all prejudice and inclination to impugn truth when it presents it self clad in sufficient evidence For whosoever comes to the examination of an intricate truth with the cloud of inveterate aversion and mask of affected contradiction before his eyes doth thereby make himself the lesse fit to perceive it because he diverts his mind from the due consideration of those reasons that might convince him to the hunting after such as may dissuade him Lucretius You do well Athanasius thus to prepare my belief before-hand by telling me how necessary it is that I should abstract my Mind as well from the Images of Material Objects as from prejudice when it remains on your part first to shew me the way of that Abstraction and then to devest me of prejudice For for my own part I confesse ingenuously I can speculate nothing without the help of my Imagination so that whatever I can think upon comes to my mind in the dresse of Magnitude Figure Colour and other the
and so make two forms in every individual person both which opinions are erroneous and hereticall But that it doth include also those who distinguish the Soul into a Superior and Inferior part the one comprehending the Mind Intellect or Reason only the other the Sensitive Faculties and Appetites I am yet to learn Which I advertise you of not that I am unsatisfied with the reason you have given of those Conflicts we daily have within us For in truth it seems conveniently to explain the mystery of that Repugnancy betwixt our Rational and Corporeal Appetites but to intimate to you that I see no reason why the Human Soul may not be admitted to consist of two parts the one Immaterial and Intellectual called the Mind or Understanding and by way of excellency the Human Soul the other Material and only Sensitive by the mediation whereof that Divine part is united to the body during life And without admitting this Distinction I do not understand the meaning of that Sentence of Plato Mentem recipi in Anima Animam in corpore nor of that of Trismegistus or whoever was the Author of Poemander Mentem in Animam Animam in Spiritu Spiritum in corpore vehi Both which not obscurely intimate a certain Third Nature in Man intermediate between that Divine essence his reasonable Soul that Material or Elementary one his body which can be no other but what we call the Sensitive part of the Soul Athanasius Whether that condemnatory Sentence mentioned doth extend to such as hold the Reason to be one part of the Soul and the Sensitive power to be another in this moderate sense you are pleased to state it I will not much contend it being the proper businesse of Divines to determine that doubt But thus much I am certain of that it expresly toucheth all who assert a Duality of Souls Coexistent in man and that is enough I presume to justifie my quotation of it against them As for those remarkable texts of Plato and the great Hermes which you alleage I answer that it is very probable that those Philosophers who held the Soul to be Composed of two different Natures as these seem to have done had for their principal argument that intestine Repugnancy we have explained and that nothing can be contrary to it selfe Now their ground or Supposition that this Repugnancy is in the Soul it self or betwixt the Reasonable part and the Sensitive and not betwixt the Soul and Body only as I have clearly proved it to be being manifestly erroneous Assuredly their Inference cannot be longer considerable Neverthelesse if what I have already urged be not sufficiently clear and valid rather than shew my self so vain an Opiniator as to put my judgement into the ballance against so solid a one as yours I am content you should continue the possession of your present perswasion till you shall please to afford me some other opportunity of demonstrating the Unity and Simplicity of the Soul My present undertaking being only to evince the Immortality of it and this more out of compliance to Lucretius importunity than any confidence of singular ability in my self to mannage so noble and weighty an Argument If therefore I have not already discouraged your patience permit me now to apply my self wholly to that Province The Considerations which I have designed to alleage at this time in favour of the Souls Immortality are either Physical or Moral And the Physical or such as arise from the Nature of the Soul it self seem all to refer themselves to this one Capital Argument The Reasonable Soul of Man is Immaterial and therefore Immortal Here notwithstanding the main Difficulty be concerning the Antecedent yet convenience of Method requires me first to manifest the Force or Necessity of the Consequence The Reason therefore why what is Immaterial must also be Immortal is deduceable from hence that what wants Matter wants likewise parts into which it might be distracted and dissolved and what is uncapable of being dissolved must of perfect necessity alwayes continue to be what it is For whatever is of a nature free from the conditions of Matter or Body doth neither carry the principles of dissolution in it selfe nor fear them from External Agents and by pure consequence cannot but perpetually last or which is the very same be Immortall And this Reason seems to me both most evident and ineluctable Lucretius I perceive no such unavoidable Necessity For though an Immateriall thing cannot perish by the Exsolution of parts which is the only way by which all Corporeall natures are destroyed yet it is not impossible but the same may be destroyed some other way proper to Incorporealls and unknown to us Forasmuch as what ever is Principiate or once produced must have some cause of its production and then why may it not be againe destroyed by the selfe same Cause or by an action of that Cause contrary to that action by which it was at first produced Athanasius There are but two wayes comprehensible by the Understanding how any thing that hath existence in nature can perish the one is as I have already expressed by the Exsolution and Dissipation of its parts of which it was composed the other by absolute Adnihilation of its Entity as the Schoolmen phrase it Now though I confesse that as the former way of destruction is peculiar to Corporeall natures so I know nothing to the contrary but the Latter may be competent to Incorporeals which are produced ex nihilo for every dependent or what hath not its Being from its selfe but deriveth it from another is liable at the pleasure of that on which it doth depend to be deposed from that essence or state of Being in which it was by the same created yet that there is any such thing as Adnihilation though consistent with the Omnipotence of God is hardly conceiveable without derogation from his wisedome which pronounced all to be good that he had made and the formal reason of the Creatures goodnesse doth consist only in this that it seem'd good to the Divine will so to make them and to argue à posse ad esse that God doth or will adnihilate any thing because it is in his power to adnihilate is much below so good a Logician as Lucretius is Nor are we to suppose any Innovation in the generall state of things but that the course of the Universe or Nature doth constantly and invariably proceed in the same manner or tenour of method which was at first instituted by the wisedome of the Creator There is you know a twofold Immortality the one Absolute the other only Derivative That the First is competent onely to God cannot be denyed since it is impossible that that essence which is Non-principiate or never had beginning nor any Cause of its production should be determined or ever cease to be or meet with any cause of its destruction And that the latter may be competent to the whole Genus
their Nature but only that they are two we repeat the same Idea we had before which comes thereby to be Universal and we call this number by the same Universal name After the same manner when we behold a Figure comprehended in Three lines we form in our Mind a certain Idea thereof which we call the Idea of a Triangle and we afterward alwaies use the same Idea as an Universal one to represent to us all other Figures consisting of three lines Again when we perceive that among Triangles there are some which have one right angle and others which have not we form in our selves the Universal Idea of a rectangle Triangle which in relation to the former Idea as more General we call a Species And that rectitude of the Angle is the Universal Difference by which all rectangle Triangles are distinguished from others Further that in all such Triangles the Basis is in power equal to the powers of the sides this is a Propriety competent to all such and only to such Triangles And lastly if we suppose that some of these Triangles are moved and others not this will be in them an Universal Accident And after this Manner doth the Understanding frame those Five Universals Genus Species Difference Propriety and Accident which really are but so many several Modes or Manners of our Cogitating or Thinking and having no existence in Nature but only in Mans Understanding do bear pregnant testimony of its being Immaterial Lucretius Here you say it is undeniably certain that the Understanding hath a power to abstract things from all conditions of Matter and all Particularities when for my part I professe I can find no such power in my self For after many the most serious essayes I could make I could never yet conceive an Universal but there doth alwaies occur to my Mind somwhat of Particularity and that under some certain Magnitude Figure Colour and the like adjuncts of Body So that it seems either I have not an Understanding as Active and Comprehensive as other men have or else those Unbodied and Universal Notions of which you and other Philosophers talke so solemnly are meer Chimera's invented by curious and wanton Wits to amuse such vulgar heads as mine is Athanasius You cannot be ignorant of that power in your self as you pretend Lucretius For though your Mind is not capable of devesting Objects of their particular Magnitude Figure Colour and the other concomitants of Matter altogether and at once yet it can easily doe it successively or one after another and that is sufficient to attest and manifest that the Intellect hath this power of Abstracting and forming Universals as I have explained Lucretius I have read a certain book written by one Hieronymus Rorarius a learned Prelate conteining a collection of all Arguments commonly urged to prove that many Brute Animals have the use of Reason not only aswell as but in a greater proportion than Man himself hath and among the rest He affirmes that they also frame Universals as in particular the species of Man according to which as often as they see a two-legged and erect Animal they take it to be a Man and not a Lion or Horse or the like And if so what becomes of this Prerogative of the Human Intellect you so much depend upon for testimony of its Incorporiety Athanasius If this were true yet doubtless Brutes can have no knowledg of the Universality of that Species or universal Nature of Man viz. Humanity as abstracted from every degree of singularity But we have no reason to grant the Supposition for as Brutes doe not apprehend things abstracted but concrete as not Colour but a body coloured not a sapour but a body sapid c so ought we to conceive that there is nothing else in a Dog for instance but only the Memory of singulars or of those single men whom he hath seen and taken notice of and when he meets a man whom he hath not seen afore his phansy instantly presents him the image of some one he hath seen afore and so he takes him to be a man Nor can you recurr to that vulgar subterfuge that we are not so well acquainted with the nature of Beasts as to understand what is done in the secret cells of their brains and after what manner they apprehend objects seeing it is not difficult for us to inferr as much from their operations or external actings For in case they could aspire to so much perfection as to frame Universal Notions of things as we doe and reason upon them as we doe it were not to be doubted but it would come into their minds to enquire into the acts of their progenitors what they knew before them how they might signify to others at distance what themselves have thought and done and how they might devolve memorials to their posterity They would likewise attempt to frame Arts usefull in their lives and doe many noble actions of which it is impossible they should have the least hint or notice For as much therefore as no age can give us an Example of any such action done by any Beast whatever we may safely conclude that they have no notion of Universals as Rorarius and you from him seem to suppose So that this prerogative of Mans Understanding in framing Universals remains entire and untoucht and while it doth so I need not fear the stability of what I have founded thereupon viz that the. Human Intellect is Incorporeall And therefore if you have no more to object against this my reason I doubt not but Isodicastes will give his vote on my side Idosicastes I should be grossly partial Athanasius if I did not confess that you have foiled your adversary at this weapon yet I am sure Lucretius is so candid an Antagonist as to account it no dishonour to be overcome by Truth and I presume He doth contend only to make your conquest the more absolute Athanasius To these few Reasons of the Immateriality of the Human Soul desumed from the excellency of her operations I might here add a multitude of others of the same extraction and equivalent force as in particular that of the existence of Corporeal natures in the Soul by the power of apprehension that of her drawing from multitude to unity her apprehension of Negations and Privations her conteining of Contraries without opposition her capacity to move without being moved herself the incompossibility of opposite propositions in the understanding and sundry others the least whereof is of evidence and vigour sufficient to carry the cause against all those Enemies to her Immortality who would degrade her from the divine dignity of her nature to an equality with the souls of Beasts that are but certain dispositions of Matter and so obnoxious to dissolution upon change of the same by contrary agents But considering that the certainty of truth ought to be estimated rather by the weight than number of testimonies and that the discourses I have already
congenial Motives or incitements of the Soul are abstracted Considerations as hope of what is to come of Eternity Memory of what is past Virtue Honour and the like which arise not from material principles and have no commerce with Elementary compositions Now if the Understanding were not it self purely Immaterial it would be absolutely impossible for it ever so much as to suspect much lesse to know assuredly that there were any such things as Incorporeals in the Universe The Reason being obvious from that rule of Aristotle juxtim apparens prohibet alienum For as the eye when discoloured with a yellow humour in the jaundice can see no Object but it appears tincted with the same colour So could not the Intellect perceive any other but Corporeal Natures if it self were not only perfused with but wholly and intirely immersed into Corporiety so that of necessity it must be Incorporeal Lucretius Me thinks now you might with equal reason inferr the quite Contrary viz. that the Intellect could not have any perception of Corporeal Natures if it self were not likewise Corporeal there being required some kind of proportion and compossibility betwixt the Faculty percipient and the Object perceptible as is exemplified in each of the Senses which is the sole reason of their opinion who contend that the Sensitive part of the Soul is Material Athanasius I positively deny that Lucretius For since the Order or Degree of Incorporeal is superior to that of Corporeal thence it follows that by virtue of that its superiority or excellency it possesseth all the perfections of the inferior and that in a more eminent manner So that as the degree Animal being nobler than the degree meerly Vegetable doth in a more excellent proportion and manner comprehend Vegetation or Nutrition Accretion and Generation which are the functions of the Vegetable In like manner doth the degree Spiritual or Incorporeal being more noble and perfect than the meer Animal and Corporeal comprehend cognition Corporeal or Sensation and Imagination which are the functions proper to the degree Animal And thus you see that my inference of the Intellect's capacity to know Incorporeal essences from its own being a Spiritual Faculty is genuine and orderly but yours of its being Corporeal from its capacity to know Corporeals is false and preposterous Lucretius But may not I lawfully object that we do not conceive God or Angells or Intelligences as Immaterial Substances when we find in our selves that the mind doth alwaies speculate the Divine Essence it self under some Species of a Body and though not of a Human Body which yet is most usual yet of an aereal or ethereal one or somwhat more fine and subtile if any such there be Athanasius You may make this Objection there is no doubt but it will not be sufficient to prevail against what I have urged concerning the Intellect's extensibility even to God and other Intellectual essences For the understanding though it make use of those Phantasms that are proper to the Imagination as the means or degrees by which it mounteth it self up to a sublimity above all Corporeal species doth yet by ratiocination at length attain to that height as to be ascertained that beside all body of whatsoever thinness purity and subtility there is moreover a certain supereminent substance which hath nothing of Corporiety in it The Intellect I confess doth not positively or intuitively as they say know this Substance but since this is its condition while immersed in a body which doth as it were infect it with corporeal representations or Phantasms and eclipse its power of Intuition it is abundantly sufficient to our Conclusion that even in this mortal body it doth retein and conserve its incorporeal nature that it doth understand that substance Negatively or Abstractively For this investigation or search after God and our concluding him out of the force of contradiction or by way of Negation to be Eternal Infinite Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable with all other perfections imaginable essential to his nature doth clearly demonstrate that though the Intellect be obliged to make use of Corporeal images in order to its knowledge yet it is not obliged to acquiesce in them so as to enquire no further but hath such a liberty and energy as tht it doth ratiocinate beyond them and conclude that there is somewhat else in being which cannot be represented by any Corporeal Image or species and which though it cannot understand what it is in the fullness of its nature yet is it certain that such a nature there is and more than that is not required to justify my Assertion You may remember how Aristotle and other great Philosophers asserted the existence of Caelestial Intelligences Abstracted Movers and Immaterial Substances not that they could see them with the eye of the body or frame any Idea's of them in their Imagination but that by profound reasoning from the magnitude forme situation motion and duration of the Celestial bodies they came to understand that in nature there could not but be such Abstracted and Immaterial Movers which governed and continually regulated those vast and glorious Orbs in their Admirable and well ordered Motions Lucretius If what you say were true it would follow that in diseases of the brain and such as cause a depravation of the Phansy the Intellect as being more at liberty to exercise its faculty of pure and abstracted intellection would arise to the cognition of Immaterial things with more facility and promptness than at any other time But we daily see that men of disturbed Phansies and alienated minds as the vulgar phrase is are so far from understanding more clearly and distinctly than before that they cannot reason at all and it was not without cause that some Philosophers have held that a man deprived of any one of his senses can not rightly discourse of that sense or the objects belonging to it Athanasius You have no reason to urge this upon me for I formerly rejected that error of the Averrhoist that the Soul is a Forme meerly Assistent and in its functions altogether independent upon the body and what I averr is this that the soul of Man doth truely and intirely informe the body and to that purpose nature hath added senses and Imagination as handmaids to attend it in its operations and to give it opportunities of reasoning from what they bring in So that it ought not to seem strange that upon the loss of a sense or perturbation of the Phansy men cannot reason so exactly as before and it sufficeth that when the whole oeconomy of mans nature is in tune and order his understanding is capable of reasoning so as to advance itself above the body as far as is permitted to its nature and at length to conclude that there is somewhat Incorporeal And now I have recited all the Arguments which I thought most material towards the proof of the Soul's Immortality drawn from considerations Physical and in particular from the souls Operations and
they might be dissolved all exsolubility consisting wholly in Partibility And that Simple Natures are likewise incorruptible is manifest even from hence that the General and First Matter though Corporeal and produced from nothing by God at first doth persevere the very same for ever So that Dissolubility belonging neither to Incorporiety nor Simplicity it is purely consequent that the Soul which is an essence Incorporeal and Simple cannot be obnoxious to Dissolution And as to the Production of it though it be not easie for us especially at the first thought to conceive how an Incorporeal can be produced without perfect creation from which we have good cause to believe that God long since desisted yet that the Soul is produced we have the perswasion of sundry good reasons As if it were improduct or eternal à parte ante it would and must be so either as Coherent by it self and a substance sejoyned or severed from all other things or as a part adhaerent to another and deduced from that other when it is induced into the body But that it is not a substance cohaerent per se ab aeterno may be inferred from hence that there is remaining in us no memory of any such eternal state that the University of things would want beginning and so could have neither Author nor Governour which is monstrous and absurd as I have demonstrated in my Book against Atheism that if Men had been from all Eternity they must have been Infinite and so either there must have been an infinite multitude of Souls before all excogitable time or the same numerical Souls must have by transmigration been inservient to or informed successively not only many but infinite persons when yet it is repugnant that there should be an infinite number lest therein should be admitted as many Binaries Denaries Millenaries c. as Unities and so somthing be allowed more infinite than an infinite which is absurd And that our Souls were formerly in other men who lived before us we have no monument no record but those Fables of Pythagoras Empedocles and the like And that it is not a Particle desumed from another incorporeal is demonstrable from hence that an Incorporeal is uncapable of division into parts Which reason is so plain and obvious that I cannot but wonder that Plato having asserted God to be a Mind Divine and Incorporeal should neverthelesse contradict himself in affirming that Mans Soul was a Particle taken from the substance of God himself or how he could imagine the Soul to be Inexsoluble which he thought a part of an exsoluble nature Wherefore seeing the Soul cannot possibly be Improduct either of these two waies and certainly there can be no other it must of necessity be Product whatsoever the Manner of its Production be And here I might as I suppose you expect I should take occasion to engulph my self in that bottomlesse Sea of Difficulties concerning the Original and Extraduction of Mans Soul but being digressive from my present Theme and such whereof I am not yet able to give any other account than what you have met with in Sennertus Harvey and other modern Physicians who have more expresly addicted themselves to enquire into the mysteries of Generation I think it prudence to wave the opportunity Only thus much I may adventure to say and it is pertinent to my businesse in hand that the Production of the Soul cannot be from Matter because she is her self Immaterial nor from an Incorporeal by way of desumption or partition because Incorporiety and Divisibility are incompatible So that they are not altogether destitute of reason who conceive that it is produced ex Nihilo and by such a Cause whose power is immense and superior to all the Energy of of Nature which must be God the Author of Nature But however it is plain that though it hath its beginning and origine together with the body yet being Incorporeal it is not capable of perishing together with it as you would conclude And thus much for the First part of your Argument As for the Remainder of it to that Aristotle hath long since provided an Answer to my hand in the fourth Chapter of his first Book de Anima which is a Text very apposite and memorable however it either import a Contradiction in the Author himself or seem capable of their interpretation who alleage him as a defendant of the Mortality of the Soul and therefore I shall recite it Innasci autem Intellectus videtur substantia quaedam esse nec corrumpi nam si corrumperetur quidem id maximè fieret ab hebetatione illa quae in senectute contingit nunc autem res perinde fit ac in ipsismet sensuum instrumentis Si enim Senex oculum juvenilem reciperet non secus ac ipse juvenis videret Unde senectus non ex eo est quod quidquam passa Anima sit sed quod simile aliquid ac in ebrietate morbisque eveniat ipsaque intelligendi contemplandi functio propter aliquid aliud interius corruptum marcescit cum ipsum interim cujus est passionis expers maneat Which words considered we have good reason to afffirm that all that change which the Epicurean would have to be in the Rational Soul or Mind during the growth of the body in youth and decay of it in old age doth not proceed from any mutation in the Soul it self but in some other interior thing distinct from it as the Imagination or Organ of the Common Sense the Brain which being well or ill affected the Soul it self suffereth no whit at all but only the Functions of it flourish or decay accordingly For since the Intellect is enshrined in the body for only this end that it might collect the Knowledge of things by the intercession of the Phansy into which the images of things are conveyed through the Senses and that in order to its reasoning concerning them it might receive hints from those images which residing in the Phansy are therefore as we have said called Phantasms hence is it that the Soul in the beginning of its age or during Childhood doth reason but little because it hath then but few images or phantasms in store from which it might take occasion of composing discourses but in processe of time it comes to ratiocinate more copiously and perfectly as having then both more and more clear and ordinate Phantasms and lastly in decrepite old age it again falls to reason but little and brokenly because by reason of the drinesse of the brain the Phantasms are then either wholly or for the most part obliterated and those few that remain are represented both obscurely and perturbedly So that as Aristotle saith if it were possible to give an old man a young Eye and a young Imagination his Soul would soon declare by exquisite vision and quick reasoning that it was not she that had grown old but her Organs and that she is capable of no more change
from the impairment of the body by old age than is usually observed to arise pro tempore from a fit of drunkennesse or some disease of the brain For as when the malignity of the Spirits of Wine is overcome by sleep and dispelled by sweat or the violence of a disease possessing the brain or seat of reason is abated a man doth no longer suffer a delirium but returns to the clear use of his reasoning Faculty as before his head was disordered So if the Brain and Phansy were youthfully affected in an old man the Soul would no longer seem to doat but reason as perfectly as ever before in the vigour and flourishing state of youth From whence it is evident that whatever of change men have thought to be in the Soul by reason of that great decay generally attending old age is not really in the Soul but only in the Imagination and the Organ thereof which is not so well disposed as in the vigour of life And this might be conveniently explained by the similitude of a Scribe who cannot write so smooth and fine a hand with an old and blunted pen as with a new and sharp one But the thing is of it self too clear to need the illustration of Comparisons And this may suffice to dissolve your mighty Argument objected Lucretius My SECOND Argument is desumed from hence that the Soul is not only distempered and misaffected with diseases of her owne but infected and touch't also by those of the body and what is capable of disease or misaffection either protopathically or sympathically is doubtless capable of dissolution This you may remember was long since urged by Panaetius of Epicurus sect for Cicero primo Tuscul. speaking of him saith alteram autem rationem affert nihil esse quod dole at quin id aegrum esse quoque possit quod autem in morbum cadat id etiam interiturum dolere autem Animos ergo etiam interire Athanasius As for such Diseases of the body which you suppose extend to the discomposure of the Soul by way of sympathy as particulary the Phrensy Madnesse Hypochondriacall Melancholy the Lethargy Hydrophobia and others which work upon the brain and perturb the Animal Faculties the same Answer will serve to exempt the Soul from suffering any detriment from them which I just now alleaged against her decay in old age For though in truth the Mind cannot exercise its proper functions duely and rightly in fits of Delirium the Phrensy and the like nor at all in Lethargies and Apoplexies yet this ought not to be ascribed to any depravation or change in the substance of the Mind itself but only to an indisposition in the Phansy and Animal Organs And as for Passions of Grief Fear Remorse c. which are reputed the proper Diseases of the Mind in the first place we may derive our Answer concerning them from the place of Aristotle newly cited For he there subjoyns Amores odium alia passiones esse non intellectûs sed corporis ipsum habentis esse enim fortè Intellectum aliquid divinum passionis expers By which his meaning is that the proper Function of the Intellect is to understand and reason though he was pleased to reckon Cogitation among the Passions and that all Passions belong to the Appetite either Concupiscible or Irascible which is a Corporeal Faculty For though Passion be posterior to Cognition and dependent thereupon so that it may seem to be received in the subject to which Cognition doth belong that is to the Mind nevertheless because the Mind while resident in the body doth make use of corporeal Images pre-admitted into the Imagination and in the mean while the Phansy in imagining what things are doth co-operate together with the Mind and the motion of the Corporeal or Sensitive Faculty followeth after the perception of objects by the Phansy thence it comes that the whole Commotion or Passion doth belong to the Appetite and Body the Mind all that while remain free and unmoved after the same manner as a Master and servant travelling together the servant carries the burden and the Master goes light and free and unconcerned in the weight and trouble thereof But forasmuch as we must admit a certain Appetite properly competent to the Soul itself viz. the Rational Appetite from the name of its action usually denominated the Will by which we find ourselves secretly inclined and carried towards things Honest and Divine and which ought to remain in the Soul even after death since it must then be sensible either of pleasure in the state of felicity or of pain in the state of misery therefore I confess we cannot deny but there are some certain Motions in the Soul itself which in respect of the analogy they seem to hold to those of the sensual or Corporeal Appetite and that we cannot otherwise express them may well enough be called Passions yet these are not to be conceived to arise from any dilatation compression solution of continuity and the like violent motions that might adferr any harme or detriment to the substance of the Soul Nor indeed ought this to seem strange or difficult in a thing that is Incorporeal since even among Corporeals we observe some that have a substance unalterable and so inconsumable by the most violent motions in Nature as Gold Amianthus and the like and that Aristotle makes the substance of Heavenly bodies such as that it cannot be altered heated or dissolved by the heat of the Sun as all sublunary bodies are Lucretius What think you then Athanasius of Drunkeness wherein both the Rational Faculty is highly perturbed and the Motive as much enfeebled neither of which could be if the Soul did not suffer from the violence of the wine and what is capable of suffering such damage from external causes cannot be incapable of totall dissolution from the same in case their force and activity become more intense Therefore the soul is Mortal Athanasius Why truly I think this Argument as light and trivial as your former and that the same solution will serve to both For it is not the Mind which is overwhelmed with the deluge of Wine but the brain and seat or instrument of the Phansy whose images being beclouded and confused by the fumes or spirits of the wine brought thither by the arteries it is impossible the Mind should make use of them with that clearness and distinction as when they were pure and in order And as for that general weakness which remaines for a while after the drunken fit is over in all the members of the body this is not to be referred to the Mind neither but to the Motive-Faculty whose instruments and principally the Nerves are then misaffected and in a manner relaxed so as they become indisposed to the regiment of the Mind The best Lutenist in the world you know cannot play a tune upon a Lute whose strings are relaxed by moisture or otherwise altered from their requisite