seeing that 't is rashness to give to Beasts Reason and Reasoning also and much more to place in them Human Souls and not being able to defeat the prevalence which rules over them by a long accustomed Empire which took its beginning and its root in their Infancy they say That indeed Beasts do neither Reason nor have any manner of Reason but that they know by simple Perception by which they represent and paint in themselves Objects in proportion as they strike their exterior Senses just as we perceive them and we our selves represent them to others This Opinion is yet less tolerable than all the rest it is more rash and hath less foundation it implies more Contrarieties and Contradictions because there is nothing more unreasonable more contradictory and more confused than to imagine that Beasts do a thousand acts of Reason without Reason And there is nothing more contrary than this Judgment to That Reason and natural Logick which God hath given us to conduct us than to give to Beasts the advantage of that kind of Knowledge which they give them without going on farther to give them Reason which is nothing else than even that very Knowledge which they give them For Reason is nothing else but that sort of Knowledge which instructs and guides by an assured Intuition This natural Logick teaches us That we ought to acknowledge nothing but that which enters into our Spirits as it were by a lively force of clearness and evidence which is the mark of Truth for which Nature hath placed in us Intelligence and Knowledge This Rule is without doubt good and certain and it is no less certain That we see nothing in Beasts which obliges us to own that there is in them a true Knowledge and perception of Objects such as we have by that intimate Certainty which the presence or revival of their Species causes in us We cannot prove that Beasts are truly and interiourly enlightned and made certain and knowing of the presence of Objects as we are we divine it we presume it we conjecture it but we prove it not nor know we how to prove it for how should we prove it since we have not any certain Experience of it and we can only alledge Signs altogether equivocal of this their Knowledge and of their real Certainty like ours which is the thing in question It is customary to say That Beasts pursue and flie Objects according as they are either agreeable or contrary to them just as we do That they cry and bemone themselves just as we do That they have their Sadnesses and their Melancholies their Gaieties and their Joys their Fears and their Courages just as we have This is what we have been accustom'd to say and what is full of weakness and of a lightness and rashness of Judging unbecoming judicious and rational Persons since there is not any of these things which necessarily marks out in Beasts a Principle of Certainty and of Light of interiour Knowledge and of real Sensibility like to that which is in us There are things which Beasts avoid and there are things which they pursue we are agreed about this but this is not a certain mark of a true Knowledge There are Plants and Metals which shun one another and pursue one another without any Knowledge we see them search after one another embrace one another entwine and fasten to one another or withdraw from one another as if they had a true knowledge of the Sympathick Qualities which unite them or of the Antipathick Qualities which divide them and altho' it be a manner of Speaking common enough to say That the Loadstone knows Iron and that Plants know and discern the Juices which are agreeable or disagreeable to them we do not believe for all that that the Loadstone hath a true Knowledge and a true Perception it is only an equivocal and metaphorical Knowledge To cry and whine are in like manner equivocal Signs of Grief for the Organ-pipe will whine like a little Infant it will cry like a Man that suffers the most exquisite Pains and yet we will not say for all that that it hath any real Pain To skip and leap are likewise equivocal Signs of Joy as well as to laugh and sing for we see that Monkies do all That in whom we are sure there are not any of these Sentiments of which they let us see the Movements It is an indisputable Maxim of Physick and good Sense That we must never place in Nature an useless Principle and without an Effect to which it is necessary It would for Example be ridiculous to be willing to put a Soul endu'd with a true Knowledge either into a Clock or a Windmill to make them go since all their Movements may be made without any such Principle of Knowledge to direct or determine their Movements And without doubt it is no less ridiculous to put into Animals a Principle of Knowledge and true Sentiment like unto ours and a true Light to instruct them if there be no need of such a Principle to make them do every thing which they do Now so it is that there doth not any thing appear in Beasts that is a necessary and inseparable Effect of such a Knowledge of such a Sentiment of such a Principle since there is nothing that Beasts do which may not be easily explain'd mechanically as we say or which requires that there should be a true and proper Principle of Knowledge in Them Besides Knowledge is not only not necessary to produce those Movements which we admire in Beasts and for the which alone we have given it them but it is certain that if Beasts had it it would be of no use to them to direct or to cause them to make those Movements for we may not presume that Knowledge can do more in Beasts than in Men And it is certain that Knowledge is not only not the next and immediate Principle of the Movements which are common to us with Beasts but that it neither aids nor assists them in any thing For as it hath been hereupon observ'd Knowledge doth not cause in us either our natural or vital Movements nor our voluntary Movements which are commonly call'd Animal Movements It is not Knowledge that directs or determins the Motion of our Heart the Pulsation of our Arteries the Circulation of our Blood c. It is not likewise Knowledge that determins the Nerves and the Muscles that moves our Feet or our Hands our Tongues or our Eye-lids It is not Knowledge that directs them we do not know what are the Nerves and Muscles which serve to these Motions so that Knowledge doth not only not cause in us our Movements but it do's not so much as assist them and if Knowledge neither causes nor assists our Movements it is clear that we must not presume that it ought to be in Beasts to cause their Movements It is therefore a pure Capriciousness which places a true Knowledge in
that the natural order and connexion of these Species cannot be observ'd and kept but are confusedly and tumultuously excited and stirr'd up by a tumultuous and irregular agitation of the Organ in which they reside There are divers sorts of Follies there are the Furious and the Peaceable there are the Rejoycing and the Melancholy and there are general ones and particular ones which are fastned to one single Object And all these diversities do proceed from the diverse manner whereby the Brain is disorder'd and it would be easie to Explain them particularly if there was occasion It is sufficiento say that in what manner soever Folly subsists it is the greatest Humiliation of our Nature and that which gives us the best Prospect of the Misery of the Servitude of our Souls in the present Estate of Union with the Body since they lose by Folly the Empire and the Liberty of their Thoughts being forc'd to follow the fantasticalness the perplexity the disorder and the confusion of the irregular Motion of the Brain either too much dry'd and burnt up by Choler and Melancholy or too much overflow'd or too much moistned by Phlegm without being able either to suspend or stop them or to hasten or advance them This lets us see the Limitation even of our Spiritual Nature which is Finite even in the most Divine Perfection that she possesses for this disorder of the loss of the Empire and of the Liberty of Thoughts happens in Man because he doth not possess as God doth an Infinite Liberty that is to say an Infinite Empire but only a Finite Liberty or a Finite Empire over himself For it is this which makes that God as the Universal Cause doth not respect this Liberty of Man but determines in his Soul Thoughts conformable to the Agitations of his Brain which is the Occasional Cause by which he is determin'd in this Quality of Universal Cause to give Thoughts and Idea's to the Soul God concurs with Fools as he doth with Natural Causes for the making of Monsters he follows the Motion of the Brain as a Necessary Cause Raving doth not differ from Folly but by the Intervals which it hath and because it is only an Accident and a transient Symptom of a Fever which too strongly agitates the Brain Frensie is but a violent Raving and both the one and the other let us see that there must be a Superior Power who with an absolute Empire Determines our Thoughts from the Occasion of the Motions of our Brain and Confirms by a sensible Argument all that we have said concerning the Union of our Souls with our Bodies and concerning the continual Action by which we believe that God Determines our Thoughts and our Sentiments from the Occasion of divers Impressions which are made on our Bodies either by External Objects or by the Fermentation of their proper Humors If we reflect seriously upon it we shall see that it is not at all possible to think that the Soul in these States of Folly and Frensie should make in her self her Thoughts We shall be persuaded that she receives them from that Superior Power which unites her to the Body and which Acting as an Universal Cause hath no regard to the incongruity of these Thoughts as it hath no regard to the incongruity of Monsters in the Motions which it gives to the common Matter of the Universe by its inviolable and infallible Laws but makes the Fortune of the Disorder and of the Disranging of the Harmony of the Body to follow and run upon the Soul not ceasing to determine her Thoughts according to the Occasion which that part gives her thereof and that common Center of the Organizanization which it hath establish'd for the occasional Cause of its Essential Concourse or of the Action by which it Enlightens us God Determines the Thoughts in Madmen and in Fools by the immutable Laws which he hath Establish'd in the Union of Bodies with Souls which is To give Idea's upon the Occasion of the Corporeal retracement of Objects which are made in the Brain without having regard either to the Order or to confusion of the Thoughts Visions The Illusions of the Imagination by which Men believe they see by Intervals Things which in effect they do not see are a kind of short and transient Folly and they are made by a deep and lively retracement of some particular Species which so occupie the Organ of the internal Sense that the other Species there remain as it were all of them defaced from whence it happens that the Imagination of it is livelily determined And as this is the effect of lively and strong Imaginations to represent Things absent as if they were just present and as if they actually struck the Senses so it happens from thence that Men do believe they see that which they do not see because they judge that the Image that they have of it is determined by the presence of the Object not minding that it comes from the Imagination only and thus it is that there are a thousand sorts of Illusions and vain and chymerical Visions in certain Spirits which we call feeble or weak tho' indeed they are too strong because that these sorts of Illusions proceed not but from an excessive force of the Imagination the which is a true and real weakness of Reason since the Imagination is never excessively strong but Reason is thereby as much weak because the Power of Reason is to rule over the Imagination to redress to correct it to suspend its Operations and to consider it nearly to see wherein it exceeds The supernatural Visions which come from God are when God as a particular Cause makes a miraculous and supernatural Impression in the Imagination that is to say which doth not at all come from the necessary consequences of the Course of the natural Motion of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits and those which come from good and evil Angels are made by the Natural Empire that Angels have over Bodies by vertue whereof they stir up Images in the Brain which determin God as an Universal Cause by the Law of the Union of the Soul with the Body to give Idea's and Thoughts of which the Corporeal Images are the occasional Cause for be it what it will an Angel or a Devil which retrace a certain Object in our Brain God gives us necessarily the Idea of it by that immutable Law of Union which we have often explained which is no other but the confused Idea which Philosophers commonly express by the Term of Concourse which they conceive as the Universal Influence and perpetual and necessary Action of the Creator acting as an Universal Cause and animating by his Intimate Co-operation and by the most efficacious influence of his Life and of his Power the whole Universe reduced to a clear and distinct Idea under the name of the Action by which God makes and entertains the Union of the Souls with Bodies The
in God as in a Rageing Sea which dashes against them and tosses them and threatens them perpetually with its Storms and Tempests And this is All in my Opinion that we can desire to know upon the Principal Head of that which Regards the State of our Souls out of our Bodies Let us conceive with all my heart That there is above those Heavens which we know a Heaven wholly Enlightned and abounding with Joy and overwhelmed with Pleasures wherein the Holy Souls are involved And let us conceive on the other side a Place replenished with Flames and Darknesses with Horror and all manner of Despair which the Criminal Souls do fall into All this is most True and these Places are most Real and Effective but it is in God in whom the Holy Souls do find this Enlightned Heaven and in whom the Criminal Souls do find these Flames and these Darknesses these Despairs and these Horrors It is God who by an Immediate Union of his Almighty Activity causeth in Them this Light and these Darknesses these Sadnesses and these Joys these Pleasures and these Pains all the Paradice and all the Hell Erit Deus Omnia in Omnibus it is by an Immediate Union of God with Them and They with God that they are in Heaven and in Hell Since it is by this Union that they have this Lively Idea thereof which renders these Places present to them CHAP. VII That which makes the Difference between the Present and Future State of the Soul IT follows from what hath been said That that which makes the Essential Difference of the manner how our Souls are in our Bodies and of the manner how they are out of our Bodies is That when they are in the Body then they have but Successively the Idea's and the Knowledges of Things from the Occasion of different Impressions which come and arrive to the Brain by the Action of other Bodies which are round about Us and that they have not also the Sentiments and the several Movements of the Appetite but from the Occasion of divers Dispositions of Bodies and when they are parted from the Body they receive immediately from God these Idea's and these Sentiments which is requisite for the Disposition of Vice or Vertue which we otherwise call Merit of Demerit in which they find themselves when they are parted from the Body Now the Body by the divers Impressions which it receives from other Bodies or by the divers Dispositions which are raised formed in it by the Ebullition of the Blood by the Course of the Spirits and by the divers Excesses or Fermentations of Humors is the Occasional Cause of all these Idea's and of all the Sentiments of the Soul because that the Supream Being by which it Lives it Perceives Thinks and Wills for to conserve the Dignity and good Order of its Greatness in acting as Universal Cause was pleased to tye the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments to those Dispositions of the Body which result from the Laws of Motion by which He moves all the Corporeal Nature and by which he composes and conserves the Visible World with an infinite Wisdom which alone was able to produce so many Prodigious Effects with so much Order and so much Harmony from two or three Immutable Laws by which He moves the Matter of the Universe That in this New State of the Soul out of the Body God is not determined to Act in Them but by a necessary and immutable Love of Order and by their Vertuous or Criminal Disposition God doth not Act but as an Universal Cause with our Souls so long as they are in the Body He doth but follow the Law of Motion of the common Matter of the Visible World which diversly affecting our Bodies necessarily determines him by Vertue of his Immutable Decree to give to the Souls those Idea's and those Sentiments which answer the different Impressions wherewith the Body is affected but when the Soul is out of the Body God doth lay aside the Character of Universal Cause as to this purpose He no longer follows in respect of them the Laws of the Motion of the Universe Souls part with the World in parting with the Body They have no longer any Relation with the Body nor by consequence with the Visible World from that very instant that they have no more to do with their particular Bodies So long as they are in the Body they are united to all the Visible World because that their Thoughts and their Sentiments do depend upon the Laws of the Motion which moves all the Matter of the World it being that which gives them an Essential Relation to all the Parts of it because there is not any one of them which may not be an Occasion of the Determination of these Idea's and Sentiments but after Death all that ceases there is a new Order of things there are no more the same Laws God afterwards follows none but the Law of his Eternal and Inflexible Justice to Punish or to Reward the Souls according as they have made themselves deserving It is no more the Motion of the Universe and the particular Disposition of every ones Temperament which results from it which determins the diversity of our Idea's and Sentiments It is only the Pure and Holy Disposition or the Impute and Criminal Disposition of our Souls which determins the Sovereign and Eternal Justice and Equity to give us the Idea's and Sentiments proper to Reward or Punish our Irregular or our Vertuous Disposition God hath no longer Reason to be willing to mannage and conserve the Dignity and Character of Universal Cause He hath no longer Reason to mannage and conserve the Liberty of our Souls The time of our Trial is ended The time of Merit is past There is no more question to see whether they will make themselves worthy that is over They are fixed in an Immutable State That is Eternity There is no more Vicissitudes or Diversifications no more Instability or Changes no more an Alternativeness or a Passage from Evil to Good and from Good to Evil from Vice to Vertue and from Vertue to Vice The Tree lies where it falls And as the State of the Soul is fixed by this State of Immutability which is properly That which we call Eternity so God fixeth himself to Love or to Hate to Punish or to Reward He Acts thenceforwards as a particular Cause because that He immediately takes in the Ground of His Eternal Love of Order the determination of all these Idea's and Sentiments which he gives to our Souls That is all the Light which we can give to our First Curiosity concerning the State of our Souls out of our Body by which we see that they are not properly but in God and that it is He only who is the Cause and Occasion of all their Idea's and Sentiments We must now proceed and endeavour to Know all that belongs to this State by clear and infallible Lights CHAP. VIII How
walk speak fly eat and every thing else that is most marvellous in Animals which is what Aristotle hath said clearly in his seventh Chapter of his Book of the Movements of Animals saying That as Machins which we call Automata when they are mov'd after a certain manner do presently make their Movements by the force of Springs wound up so Animals are mov'd having Bones and Nerves as so many Instruments dispos'd by the Industry of Nature which causes in them what pieces of Wood and Iron with their Springs cause in Machins Nor that it is not Knowledge which causes these Motions even in us For it is certain that Knowledge neither causes nor directs even our voluntary Movements since none of us knows how he moves his Feet his Hands his Tongue and all the Members of his Body but only he knows that he moves them when he will if the Organ be fitly dispos'd and that Knowledge doth not at all accompany even those Motions which are purely Natural for our Blood circulates from one Ventricle of the Heart into the other going out of the one by the Arteries and returning into the other by the Veins without our having any Knowledge or Sentiment of them The Digestion the Distribution of Chyle the Separation of Humors in the Spleen in the Brain in the Liver all vital and natural Actions are made after the same manner This Judgment therefore hath been precipitous and inconsiderate and will be always so so long as it shall subsist without having other Principles or Foundations But it hath not only been inconsiderate and rash but also senseless and full of Contradiction and Contrariety in that it hath judg'd that Beasts have Knowledge like us without judging at the same time that they have a Principle of Spiritual Knowledge like us for it is a Contradiction to suppose Beasts to have a true Knowledge like us and not to have it Spiritual as ours is For either the Act of Knowing is Spiritual in us or it is not and if it is Spiritual how can it be the same in Beasts which we believe to be wholly Material and Corporeal There never was so visible a Contradiction as to maintain That the Act of Knowing is Spiritual and yet for all that that it is in a Subject wholly Corporeal and Material in which there can be nothing that is Spiritual When the Question was to be decided to our advantage we judg'd that Knowledge was essentially Spiritual to do our selves Honor and afterwards when we came to decide it about Beasts which we have judg'd to have Knowledge as well as we for we have not apply'd to them any other Idea of Knowledge than that which we have of our own proper Knowledge for how could we apply any other to them since it is manifest we have no other as hath been observed more than once we have forgotten what we had at first decided That Knowledge was essentially Spiritual and having at first conceiv'd it as such we have suddenly degraded it to make it Corporeal in Beasts We have believ'd that Butterflies Catterpillars Flies and Hand-worms ought to be rais'd to the Honor of Knowing as we do but being asham'd to give them a Spiritual Knowledge and a Soul like ours we have been forc'd to say that their Knowledge was Corporeal altho' like to ours in which there are two Contradictions one in saying that a Corporeal thing can be like a thing that is Spiritual the other That a thing which at first hath been conceiv'd to be essentially Spiritual should afterwards be found to be Corporeal CHAP. V. Whether Beasts have a true Reason like to ours BUT if the Judgment which we have made of Beasts is so insupportable in the Abstract the generality of it it is yet much more in the particular Opinions into which it is divided for there is not any one of them which is not either evidently false or evidently repugnant and full of Incompatibilities Not to say any thing of the fantastical Dream of the Transmigration of Souls of which the System is more reasonable than that which making the Souls of Beasts totally Corporeal gives them nevertheless a true Knowledge like ours And to let you see that the Chiefest amongst the Philosophers have very well comprehended that a Knowing Nature is essentially Spiritual let us say nothing of it but only that besides its other Repugnancies Incompatibilities and Absurdities and the rashness and precipitation of Judgment which is common to it with the other Three it contains the Incompatibility and the Defect of not being able to furnish Human Souls enough to animate all Living Creatures for it is certain that there are many more Ants and Flies only than there are Men. Let us dwell a little longer upon the Opinion of those who give to Beasts a true Reason and Souls like to ours They believe they are well grounded in this Opinion because it is certain that Animals perform Acts of Reason For who will gainsay that the Foresight of the Ant that the good Intelligence of the Bees that a thousand and a thousand admirable Effects of Instinct which guide Animals of which the Books and Discourses of Men are full are not Acts of a true Wisdom and Reason It is likewise certain that if Beasts did all these things by a true Knowledge which enlightned directed and conducted them it would be impossible to take from them the advantage of a true Reason and of having by consequence a Soul like ours But being we are far from having any certainty that it is by a true Knowledge like to ours that the Instincts of Beasts do operate which cannot be had but by an Experience which is absolutely impossible because one must have been a Brute to know that which is done in Brutes we have therefore indubitable certainty that it is not by Knowledge that Beasts perform these marvellous effects which we have acknowledg'd to be the Acts of Reason and we must decide without hesitation that there is no true Reason in Beasts The first Prejudice and the first Certainty which we have that the Acts of Reason which appear in Beasts are not Acts of their proper Reason but of an exterior Reason which guides them and that this Reason and this Wisdom which guides them is a Wisdom and a Reason more excellent and more certain than that of Man for there is no likelyhood that there should be in Ants and Bees more Light and more Wisdom than in Man and they should have a great deal more without doubt if it were by Light and true Wisdom that they did all which they do Let us see a little the Industry Capacity and Knowledge of all Birds who make their Nests at a certain time a little before they lay their Eggs. Let us look upon the Foresight of the Ant who heaps up its Provision for the Winter Let us behold the Agreement and good Order and all the Policy of that little Monarchical State of the
thereof And He is at the same time the Light and the Life of all Spirits as He Acts perpetually in Us and doth not less Animate the little World which is the Assembly of the Body and Spirit whereof Man consists than the Universal World which is the Assembly of all Corporeal Natures Thereby doth subsist our dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in the Foundation of our Being which depends every moment upon the continuation of that Action by which he at first Created us Happy it is that the Notion which we have made of the manner whereby we know all things which are without us should lead us back and unite us so intimately to the Source of our Being and that we cannot know how our Knowledges and Sentiments are form'd in us without knowing likewise together with the dependence that all our Life and all our Being hath from Him the Immensity the Excellency and the Superiority of his infinite Essence above all created Beings The blind and ignorant Pride of Humane Understanding will not perhaps suffer in some People that we should humble it after this manner and that we should thus bring it back again to God It will revolt it may be against the Evidence of the things which I have been speaking of and it will perhaps chuse much rather not to comprehend at all how the Corporeal Impressions of Objects become in our Souls Spiritual Images and Sensations than to comprehend it after a manner which gives it so lively an Idea of its Dependence and its Nothingness But we must not suffer it peaceably and quietly to enjoy the Pleasure of its affected Ignorance of its criminal Independency we must convince it not only that there is no other means of Explaining the manner how we have by reason of Corporeal Impressions the Idea's and Sentiments of things but we must also necessarily make it acknowledge That this perpetual Action of the Illumination and Irradiation of God in us as an Essential Act of his Supream Sovereignty over us is the inseparable Character of our Essential Dependence and the necessary continuance of the Function by which he unites the Souls to Bodies so as Faith teaches it CHAP. VII A Proof of what hath been decided That it is God as Author of the Union of the Soul and Body who gives to the Soul the Sentiments and Idea's of things from the occasion of Corporeal Impressions which are made upon the Material Senses THIS continual Action of God in us whereby he Acts perpetually in us in the Quality of the First and Universal Cause Enlightning us and affecting us with several Sentiments by reason of divers Impressions which are made either by a Cause from within or by a Motion from without in our Brain ought necessarily to be acknowledg'd by two or three sorts of Proofs and different Reasons equally convincing The first Proof by the Essential Union of our Souls with God First of all We have the indubitable Sentiment and Experience thereof For if we rereflect well upon our own Sentiment we shall find equally two Unions in us an Union of our Bodies with all the visible World and an Union of our Souls with a Nature Knowing Immense Infinite and Unchangeable which with an Eye always vigilant and always attentive to all the Movements of our Brains penetrates us continually with a thousand lively Sentiments and enlightens us with a thousand Idea's upon their Occasion Our Bodies are undoubtedly united to all other Bodies and by consequence to all the visible World Because there is not one single Motion made about them which doth not come to them through some one of their Parts or through some one of the Organs which the provident Wisdom of the Creator hath disposed so diversly to receive their different Motions If the Sun or any other Luminous Body be mov'd in the middle of that imperceptible Matter which it drives in straight Lines from all sides our Eyes receive in the instant and in the moment the Impression of it by the necessary Effect of the continuation of Motion or of the effort of Motion which is imprinted in that Matter because they find themselves so dispos'd to let it pass thro' the different Humors whereof they are compos'd and to receive it in that thin and subtil Web which is form'd in the bottom of our Eyes about the Extremities of the Optick Nerves and which is call'd the Retina If there be a Shock of two solid Bodies in the Air or any vehement Fomentation of Exhalation as it happens in Thunder from whence arise redoubled Trepidations in this fluid Matter like to those Circles which are describ'd upon the Superficies of Water one after the other and one against another this Motion comes to strike in our Bodies that which is called the Tympanum in the Organ of Hearing It is generally in the same manner with all other Bodies some of them are united to our Bodies by the subtile Vapours which they emit from them as are Odours others by an Immediation as they say of the Superficies of their Parts and there is not any one single one of them which doth not Act upon our Bodies after their manner But if our Bodies are so naturally united to all other Bodies by Contiguity which communicates the Motion of one to the other our Souls are yet more sensibly united to a Superior and an over-ruling Nature which imprints on them Idea's and Sentiments as it pleases by General Wills and universal and immutable Laws which it almost never departs from but in those extraordinary Occasions in the which it Acts as a particular Cause and works that which we call a Miracle We cannot be ignorant or insensible of this Empire which the Author and Master the Sovereign and the Lord of Nature Exercises over us for the Reasons which have been already observ'd and which S. Augustin had so well div'd into that he said That a reflective and an attentive Man would much rather doubt of the Union of his Body with the visible World to which it is tied by all its Parts than of that Union of his Soul with God since the Action thereof is never interrupted but it is sensible and visible for we know nothing if we do not know that it Acts in us and that it Rules us either by a lively and an involuntary Sentiment or by the Light wherewith it penetrates us since it is impossible not to acknowledge God in this Principle so Enlightning and so Vigilant of the one Part and on the other so Efficacious and so Commanding who Presides over all our Knowledges and over all our Sentiments and who makes them in us in spite of us with so admirable and so illuminating a Wisdom and so much the better as causing in us undoubtedly all the Pleasure and all the Pain which we resent by the occasion of our Bodies We see plainly that he is the Sovereign Arbiter as well as the
Principle of Happiness and Unhappiness which is the most Essential Character and Attribute of that which we call Divinity or Supream Nature Tho we should not have this so assur'd Experience of the Union which our Souls have with God by the continual Irradiation of his Divine Life and Influence in us the which agrees so well with this Idea which Faith gives That it is God who is the Immediate Cause of the Union of our Souls and our Bodies for we must observe by the way that it would be an Impiety to doubt of it since not only God according to Faith Created our Souls but he Infuses them also as they say and unites them to our Bodies we could not possibly be ignorant of it if we gave any attention to his Supream Sovereignty over us and to our Essential Dependence upon Him in all the Acts of our Life as well as in all the Foundations of our Being and by consequence in all our Knowledges Can the Sun-beam shine when it is separated from the Sun And can the created Spirit either subsist one moment or have the least Light or the least Spark of Life or of Knowledge without the Irradiations of the Supream Being The Ancients said very well when they said That all things were full of God That God was the Soul of the World the Life of every thing that Lives and the Being of every thing that Is and doth Subsist They had much better than Us conceiv'd the Supream Nature when they said that It was the Circumference and Center of a Circle That it was the Sun and its Rays That it contain'd All and replenish'd All And that its Action was the Life and the Motion of all things God is Effectively and Essentially apply'd to all the Parts of the Universe and that there is not one onely thing from which he withdraws himself for one only Minute Natural Evidence persuades us no less than the Divine and Heavenly Authority of S. Paul That every thing that Lives every thing that Moves every thing that Is Lives Moves and Is in Him In ipso vivimus movemur sumus But tho' he should not continually apply himself to all the other Parts of the Universe yet it must needs be that he should apply himself to Spiritual Natures and to every thing that is call'd Spirit or Knowing and Spiritual Nature for that also the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers do teach us That He is the Father that is to say the Lively and Essential Source of all Light and by consequence of all Knowledge the Sun of Intelligence and the Life of all Spirits Exposition of this Principle by S. Augustin St. Augustin by the force of this Natural Evidence Divinely said That we are so Essentially united to God that we may say we are much more in God even by our Bodies not only than we are in the Air or within any other Corporeal Space whatsoever but than we are in our selves because in fine saith he It is certain that God not only contains and environs our Bodies better than any Corporeal Space but he continually gives them their Being and their Motion by his Action and by his Almighty Influence a thousand times more than the Illumination of the Sun gives Light and Splendor to its Rays But this which the Holy Doctor says of our Bodies hath much greater force in it when he saith it of our Souls for tho' it be true that our Bodies are in God in whom all things are Essentially it is much more so that our Souls are in Him because they are ty'd to him by a thousand times more Dependences than the Body since they continually receive Life from him through all the Acts of all their diverse Faculties which are without number If a Man demands says he Where is the place of the Soul That is a Question which our gross and curious Imaginations make who being desirous to conceive all things after a Corporeal manner would determine a certain Space and a certain Extent to Souls But it would be very well says he to answer them and to say to them for to undeceive them of this Manichean Idea That they are in God that they Live they See they Perceive and they Imagine in God for it is certain that they do not any thing of all this but by the Immediate and Physical Influence and the continual and Essential Irradiation of his Divine Life which he communicates to them without ceasing And because the Life of God and of every Spirit is to See to Know and to Love it is certain That every thing that Thinks every thing that Seeth every thing that Loveth and every thing that Knoweth doth Think See Love and Know in him and by him by whom is every thing that is by whom is moved every thing that moves and by whom liveth every thing that lives For byreason that He is the First Being or Principle of Being it must needs be that every thing that Is receiveth without ceasing its Being from him by a perpetual and never-interrupted Communication of this Supream Essence By the reason that He is the Principle of Life or the Essential and Original Life it must needs be That every thing that lives receives continually a Life from Him by a like Influence and by a like Communication of his Life and by consequence That every thing that Thinks and Knows Thinketh and Knoweth by Him since to Think and Know is the Life of Spirits This is the solid Metaphysick of S. Augustin and this is also the Theology of S. Thomas who hath so often made use of these Arguments under the Name and Notion of a First Agent of a First Cause and of an Essential Principle of Life And this is the same common Notion of all the Doctors that ever were under the more consu'd Name and Idea of Concourse because it is certain that this Action of God which we call his Concourse cannot be in relation to the Passive Faculty by which our Soul hath the Idea's and Sentiments of Corporeal Objects but a Vision and a Chimera if it be not that Action by which I say That in the Quality of a First and Universal Cause on the one Part and on the other of a Particular Cause of the Union of our Souls and Bodies He determines in us our Sentiments and gives us our Idea's from the Occasion of the Impressions which either Actions from without on the part of the Bodies which are round about us cause upon our Brains or the Determination of the Circulation of the Blood of the Humors and of the Spirits within us which oftentimes are the Occasion of the Action of the Supream Cause without the intervening of any thing from without That this is not to have recourse to a Miracle but to Explain what sort of Commerce there is betwixt the Soul and the Body There is no need of opposing here that This is to have recourse to Miracle or to make God descend from
or Material Imagination That all the Soul is in all the Body and all of it in all the Essential and Integral Parts of the Body as God is all in all the World and in all the Parts of the World not by that Co-extension and and Local Chimerical Presence which gross Spirits do imagine but by the Intimate Presence of his Sovereign Essence Essentially Operating in all the World and in all the Parts of the World We must say the same of the Soul that it is in all the Body by the Relation of its Dependence and Activity But this do's not hinder but that we may say That she is more properly and more particularly in the Brain since it is by that Part that the Action of the Soul upon the Body immediately commences and that all the Action of the Body upon the Soul terminates wholly in that Part as it sensibly appears by that which interrupts and suspends the Action of the Soul upon the Body and the Action of the Body upon the Soul For as often as it happens that the Action of the Body upon the Soul is interrupted it is because there is some relaxation or some obstruction in some of the Nerves which hinders the Motion from being continu'd in the Part affected of the Body as far as the Brain and when the Action of the Soul upon the Body is interrupted as when the Soul would move the Paralytick Foot but cannot at all move it It is likewise because the Motion which begins always by the Brain or by the determination of the Nerves which have their Origine in the Brain or if you will by that most subtile Portion of the Blood which we call Animal Spirits cannot be continu'd so far as to that diseased Part. But after having Explain'd the manner how our Souls Are in our Bodies which gives us so lively an Idea of our Dependence upon the Supream Being and upon all his Divine Attributes we must now see how our Souls Operate in our Bodies and observe all the Differences of our diverse Operations for the clearing every thing that may have any difficulty and require Day and Light for the better apprehending the Sovereign Perâ—â—◠〈◊〉 of the Supream Nature the which Operates continually in us and Rules over us so many ways in all our diverse Operations and the Essential Subjection and Limitation of all created Natures which do in so many ways depend upon this Supream Nature CHAP. X. What the Soul doth in the Body and what it doth not WE observe first of all That there are in Us the Operations or Acts of the Body and the Operations or Acts of the Soul for there are things which the Body doth in Us and things which the Soul doth in the Body This is a certain Rule That the Soul doth not do any thing which she doth not perceive that she doth and that she doth every thing that she perceives that she doth Thus we may say with Assurance That our Souls do not make the Digestion in Us the Circulation of the Blood the Natural and purely Animal Respiration in Us the Separation of the Chyle which is the prepar'd Juyce of concocted and digested Victuals in the Stomach together with the Faeces or gross Matter which is discharg'd into the Bowels the Motion of the Heart of the Veins and of the Arteries the Ebullitions and Fermentations of the Blood and of that Matter which provokes carnal Concupiscence It is moreover certain That the Souls do not make neither the Preparation of Spirits either Vital or Animal nor the Continuation of the Motion or of the Impression of External Objects which are carry'd by the Nerves as by little well stretch'd Chords from all the Circumference of the Body to the most Integral part of the Brain as to the common Center of all its Structure and all its Organization nor the retracement of Objects which is made in the bottom of the Eye in the Retina or that which is made in that part of the Brain which is the Organ of that which we call the Common and Internal Sense It is sure that they do not make the Relaxation of the Muscles and of the Nerves which cause the Tympanum to be relaxed with all the Nerves which serve to Hearing and the Optick Nerves which serve to the Sight from whence Sleep comes That they do not cause Fevers the Stone the Gout the Cholique the Bloody-Flux Palsies Obstructions Apoplexies and Diseases in general Our Souls do nothing of all this these are the Acts of the Body or its Alterations and its Passions for altho' the Perception and the Sentiments of the Soul do accompany some one of these Effects she feels and perceives them in such a manner that she perceives at the same time that they go before and precede her Sentiments and her Perception and that being so she doth not at all Cause them Much better doth she perceive that she hath Essentially the Empire over every thing that she doth and that she hath none at all over all these things That our Souls do not Operate out of themselves but by Will and cause not in Us neither Heat nor Digestion nor any Corporeal Effect There are some who conceive our Souls as the Physical and Immediate Causes of that Heat for Example which Concocts and Digests the Meat in our Stomach and which keeps in our Blood that degree of ardor and quickness which is necessary to the end that it may spread abroad the Nourishment and maintain Motion in all the Body They conceive the Soul of Man as having formally the Vegetable Faculty which nourishes and which causes the Body to increase by the which as Thomas Aquinas says we are rather Plants than Men And this is what they express by that common manner of Speaking when they say that our Souls are not only Reasonable but Vegetable or Vegetating But as we ought not to conceive or say any thing of our Souls but that which we find included and contain'd in the Idea and Notion which give us the Sentiment which we have of them and that this is a certain sure Rule by which we ought to guide our Opinions and our Judgments Not to Judge but according to our Light not finding at all in that Idea of our Soul which gives us that intimate Sentiment which we have of it that our Soul hath any such Vertue to do it Immediately and notwithstanding any other Vertue and Faculty that she may have for it we do not at all believe that it ought to be attributed to her We experience in our Soul no other Power nor no other Vertue upon Body than that of being able to move that Structure of Bone of Flesh and of Nerves which we call our Body and thereby other Bodies to which we do apply it So likewise she hath not the Power to make and determine all the Motions of the Body She can do nothing and she doth nothing as hath been already said
Place of Spirits than the Sea is the Place for Fishes and the Air the Place for Birds The Body saith the Wise-man returns to the Earth from whence it was taken and the Soul returns to God who made it and from whom it issu'd out that is to say It hath no more immediate Union but with God alone which occasions us to say very exactly That she goes into God We have said That our Souls have an Essential Union with God in whom they live and to whom they are much more united by all their Parts and by all the Faculties of their Being than the Beams are united to the Sun than a River is united to its Spring than the living Branch is united to its Root We have said That all Knowing Created Natures do depend as immediately upon God in all the Acts of their Life and by consequence in all the Acts of their Perceptive and Appetitive Faculties as they depend upon him for the Foundation of their Being as well as all other Created Natures that is to say That as they cannot come out of nothing but by the Almighty and Efficacious Action of his Eternal Essence so they can neither Think nor Will but by the continual Action of his Supream Influence We have said That as God is the sole Being Existing by himself so he is the sole Living Being and by consequence the sole Thinking and Willing Being by himself and from thence arises a Relation and an Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Supream Spirit and of the Supream Spirit with the Created Spirits All the Rivers drink of the Sea saith that Ancient all the Branches suck up perpetually the the Juyce and the Sap of the Root the Beams draw perpetually their Heat and Light from the Sun and all Living Beings drink perpetually of that Living and Eternal Spring of Life and all Spirits of that Living and Eternal Source of Knowledge It is the Natural Estate of all Spiritual Natures to have this immediate Union with God but this Supream Spirit being willing to do Honor to his Almightiness and to his Wisdom being willing to make the Idea of all kinds of Creatures possible to proceed from himself and to render it Real and Effective to make the World thereby compleat and finish'd and being willing to assemble together Corporeal and Spiritual Nature in one single Whole and being willing perhaps thereby to put Pure Spirits into the Places of the Fall'n Angels and to triumph over the Rebellious Ones in causing himself to be Serv'd in Bodies by Inferior Spirits would have it that this Immediate Union which the Created Spirits have Essentially with Him should be in some manner suspended and interrupted or at least obscur'd and diminish'd in regard of those whose Fidelity and Obedience he was willing to make Trial of in the Body The Union of Bodies interrupts and suspends the Immediate Union of our Souls with God Our Souls naturally like other Created Spirits ought not to have any Dependence upon any Bodies for to have the Idea's of things they ought only to depend immediately upon God and by consequence ought only to have Union with Him But this Supream Spirit having been pleas'd for the Reasons we have said for many others which we conceive and for more yet apparently which we do not conceive that our Souls should have their Thoughts and their Sentiments their Desires and their Affections upon the Occasion of the Body to the End that That should be a continual Subject of Victory and of meritorious Exercise He hath thought fit that for a time this Immediate and Essential Union of all Created Spirits with the Eternal Essence should become in our Souls Mediate if I may be permitted to say so and that the Essential Union of God and of all Created Spirits should not Operate in them but by an Accessory Union with this Matter Organiz'd or dispos'd into a certain Structure of Bones of Flesh and of Nerves which we call Human Body This Union of our Souls with our Bodies is not as we have said but this precisely That our Bodies by the diverse stirrings up the diverse Agitations and the diverse Configurations of the Brain which they receive from Bodies which environ them or from the natural Course of the Blood or from their proper Humors are the Occasion and Condition of the Determination of the Idea's and Sentiments which the Supream Spirit gives us that is to say That the Body is the Occasional Cause which Determines the Influence of the Essential Union which we have with God and thereby it is in some manner betwixt us and God it diminisheth in some manner our Essential Union with him because it hinders if I may be permitted to say so the Immediation of him Without That we could not say that our Souls were in our Bodies they would be immediately in God because the Place of the Souls and of all Spirits is intirely their Relation of Dependence and of Activity and our Souls in that case would have no Relation and Dependence but upon God only It is for that Reason that the Scripture speaks to us of the Union of our Souls with our Bodies or of our present Life not only as it were of a Wall between God and us but as it were of a Banishment as it were a Voyage and a Running away or Departure which we make from God Peregrinamur à Domino saith St. Paul and this is Effectively as it were a kind of Departure from God and by consequence a Banishment a Voyage a Running away from him because it is a Suspension and an Interruption of the Essential and Immediate Union which all Spirits have necessarily with him Our Souls going out of the Body are immediately united to God Now since our Souls entring into Bodies do go out from God according to the Expressions of the Divine Word which are exact and just when we know how to comprehend and penetrate them we must say likewise That our Souls going out of the Body return to God and in God as the Scripture Effectively saith it God is on both sides the Term of the Voyage It is from him we part in ceasing to be united immediately to him by reason of the Intervention of Body through which the Action of the Influence of his Divine Life in us doth pass and it is to him that we return in Dying and in going out of the Body because our Dependence on the Body ceaseth by Death and Death beating down the Wall which was between God and us the Union of God to us and of us to God becomes Pure and Immediate God is the Term we arrive to as well as that from whence we parted we are come out of him and we enter again into him that is to say That as before our Souls are united to our Bodies they have no Union with any thing but with God and by consequence they are nowhere but in God so after the same manner so
World I confess it will not be easie to determin what they see of it and what they do not see of it because we have no Principle so well Established thereupon that I know as to make us willing to build a sure Determination upon it We may most probably say That God discovers to Innocent Souls that which regards their Family and their Friends but to say That he sets before their Eyes a Diversified Table of Events Revolutions Intrigues and the Mannagements and Contrivances of Courts and States the Successes of Wars Negotiations and Treaties the vast and ambitious Designs of Great Princes and a peculiar Account of Families and particular Fortunes is a thing which I dare neither affirm nor gain-say for the Scripture gives us sufficiently to understand That there are Angels too amongst whom these Knowledges are partly Communicated or it may be wholly given to them But as to Souls I do not find either in the Scripture or in the clear Notion which we have either of the Soul or of God who enlightens the Soul any thing thereupon which may Establish a solid and an infallible Judgment if it be not that God makes them see something of it which may contribute to the satisfaction of the innocent and pure Souls It is very certain That that which is of certainty therein is That if they do see all these things they undervalue them as much as we esteem them and that all those great Changes and Revolutions which we attribute to Fortune are to their Eyes but what the Play of Children is to ours or to say better The business of Ants or of Bees or that perpetual and impertinent Agitation which we see in those Flies whom a vain and unnecessary Motion drives too and fro in the middle of the Air without any purpose or advantage CHAP. X. That Criminal Souls are in Darkness and see nothing SUCH is the knowledge in Just Souls in Relation to Extension But we ought to have sufficiently comprehended That it ought not to be in the same manner in the Impure and Criminal Souls For that Order which requires that the Just one should be illuminated wills on the contrary that the other should be filled with Darknesses so that instead of that Immensity of Light and Knowledge which the former have this other will have only an Immensity of obscurity of Night and of the horror of Darknesses These will be Darknesses that is to say an obscurity and privation on all sides of Kowledge and of Light Jesus Christ makes use of the Expression of outward Darknesses or Darknesses invironing that is to say which will encompass on every side for it is so I understand these outward Darknesses of which the Divine Redeemer speaks so often They will know and see God after their manner but it will be only his Wrath which they will see by a kind of Intuitive Vision in the manner as it hath been hereupon already Explained They will see the Eternal and Essential Light but that Light will only serve to blind them because it will only leave them the Idea's of his Wrath and of their Sins and of all the Circumstances that possibly may augment their Despair Instead of the Beauteous Spectacle of Nature which the Just shall have Eternally they will never have any but the Idea of that dark and burning place which the Supream Justice hath prepared for their Bodies and if they do know any thing of their Family and of their Friends it is only to augment and redouble the Pain of their Regrets of their Privation and eternal Desolation Ejicite in tenebras exteriores ibi erit fletus stridor dentium The Soul of the Father for Example I speak of the ambitious and covetous Soul which loves nothing but the World and its Vanity for himself and his Family will see in his Children all that can be capable of augmenting his Regret and his Remorse The Soul of a Prince in the same manner unjust and reprobate will see in the State which he hath quitted that which will increase his Pain c. CHAP. XI The Faculties of the Souls of which the Acts will be Exercised out of the Body AFTER having seen the Matter and the extent of the Souls Knowledges out of the Body We must now see what perceptive or Knowing Faculties the Soul will Exercise upon this Matter and upon these Objects We have observ'd in the Soul in its present State of Union with the Body a Faculty of Knowing by Sensation a Faculty of Imagining or of Representing things to us by lively and distinct Images a Faculty of Recollecting our selves by Memory and Reminiscency a Faculty of Conceiving by pure Intellection a Faculty of Reasoning or Extending Knowledge acquir'd thereupon by new Consequences and a Faculty of Separating universal Notions of Things from Particular and Individual Differences to frame thereof general Maxims and Principles whither they be of pure Speculation or Moral and Practical for the Order of Life and Action and for the Perfection of Arts and Sciences How the Souls will have Acts of Sensation without any Exterior Sense or Corporeal Organs The Souls whether they be Just or Reprobate do Exercise all these Faculties for tho' Sensation Imagination and the Memory have at present Corporeal Organs yet we must not say for all that that these Faculties ought no more to Exercise themselves out of the Body The Corporeal Organ doth now serve but for two Purposes To be an Occasion to the Universal Cause of the Knowledge that it ought to give to the Soul from the presence of such or such an Object and To be also an Occasion to it of giving to the Soul diverse and different Idea's according to the diversity of Objects and it is for that Reason that he hath Establish'd a diversity of them All the Parts of the Body cannot be shaken by the Motion of the Air which striking upon our Ears causes that which we call a Report or a Sound The Motion of the Beams of the Sun which in striking upon our Eyes causes a sense of the Light cannot affect any other part than that subtile Web which is in the inward part of the Eye which we call the Retina The exterior Fibres of the Skin which cover the Hand and the whole Superficies of the Body will be sufficiently shaken by the Rencounter of a Thorn of a Needle of the Point of a Sword and of a thousand such like things to the end that the Motion may be carry'd by reason of the continuity of the Fibres and Nerves as far as the Brain but neither Sounds nor Light will ever shake them enough to carry the Impression of them to the Brain When the Ears are well stopt you will to little purpose expose the whole Body to the Harmony of a melodious Symphony which is only the Air melodiously struck for this Air so melodiously struck will find no other part in the Body than the Ear only by which it