HAving with much delight satisfaction and content perused this Treatise entituled The Philosophicall Touch-stone I allow it to be printed and published and commend it to the learned and judicious Reader as a work sound and solid and eminently acute and accurate Iohn Downame THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE OR OBSERVATIONS UPON Sir Kenelm Digbie's Discourses of the nature of BODIES and of the reasonable SOULE In which his erroneous Paradoxes are refuted the Truth and Aristotelian Philosophy vindicated the immortality of mans Soule briefly but sufficiently proved And the weak Fortifications of a late Amsterdam Ingeneer patronizing The Soules mortality briefly slighted By ALEXANDER ROSS Pers. Sat. 5. Non equidem hoc studeo bullatis ut mihi nugis Pagina turgescat dare pondus idonea fumo LONDON Printed for Iames Young and are to be sold by Charles Green at the signe of the Gun in Ivie-lane 1645. TO THE Right honourable IOHN Earle of RUTLAND Lord Ross c. My Lord WIth the same boldnesse that I have adventured to lap up in the folds of a few paper sheets the rich Jewells of Philosophicall truths with the same have I presumed to present them to your Lordships view not that you can receive from them any addition of honour but that they from your Name and Protection may partake a farther degree of irradiation and lustre Here you may see what odds there are between naturall gems and counterfeit stones between solid wholsome meats and a dish of Frogs or Mushroms though made savoury with French sauce to which that ingenious rather then in this Discourse judicious Knight doth invite us who breathing now in a hotter climate cannot digest the solid meats of Peripatetick verities which hitherto have been the proper and wholsome food of our Universities and therefore entertaines us with a French dinner of his owne dressing or with an airie feast of Philosophicall quelque choses a banquet fitter for Grashoppers and Camelions who feed on dew and aire then for men who rise from his Table as little satisfied as when they sate downe We that have eat plentifully of the sound and wholsome viands which are dressed in Aristotle's kitchin are loth now to be fed as the Indian gods are with the steem or smoak of meats or as those Umbrae tenues simulachraque luce carentum those pale ghosts in Proserpine's Court to champ Leeks and Mallowes My Lord in this Dedication I onely aime at an expression of my gratefulness and observance which I owe to your goodnesse and of those reall sentiments I have of your favours and opinion which your self and your truly noble and religious Countesse have been pleased to conceive of mee I heartily pray for an accumulation of all happinesse on you both as likewise on the fruit of your bodies especially the tender plant and hopefull pledge of your mutuall loves my Lord Ross which is the wish of Your Honours humble servant ALEXANDER ROSS The CONTENTS of the first part containing 68. Sections WOrds expresse things as they are in their owne nature sect 1. Divisibility the effect of extension this is not the essence of quantity sect 2. Rarity the effect not the cause of heat rarified bodies not the hottest sec. 3. The essence of locall motion consisteth not in divisibility sec. 4. Place is not a body but the superficies of a body sec. 5. Not density but gravity is the cause of activity and frigidity cause of both sec. 6. Pressure and penetration not parts but effects of frigidity heat is more piercing sec. 7. Though accidents be reall entities yet they exist not by themselves sec. 8. Heat is not the substance of the fire sec. 9. Light no body but a quality proved by twelve reasons Nor can it be fire sec. 10. Of the qualities of light and how it heats and how it perisheth sec. 11 12. The dilatatioâ— and motion of the light and how seen by us sec. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20. The greatest bodies have not the greatest vertue sec. 21. How naturall bodies move themselves sec. 22. How the Sun causeth motion sec. 23. If the light beares up the atomes and if it be a part of them sec. 24. There is in nature positive gravity and levity by which she works sec. 25. Light descends thorow dense bodies sec. 26. Atomes doe not presse sec. 27. Egyptian earth why heavie upon change of weather How a vessell with snow and salt in it freezeth by the fire The vanity of atomes sec. 28. Water is not actually heavie in its owne sphere The sea moves naturally to the centre Water can divide water sec. 29 Heavie bodies tend naturally to the centre Gravity is not the cause of violent motion The effect sometimes exceeds the cause Inanimate things without understanding affect and dis-affect what 's good or bad for them sec. 30. The true cause of the motion of projection and its properties sec. 31. The heavens void of generation corruption alteration they are naturall bodies sec. 32. Atomes are not the causes of heat nor ofre-action sec. 33. How elementary formes remaine in mixed bodies sec. 34. There are in nature foure simple bodies sec. 35. Wind is not the motion of atomes but an exhalation sec. 36. Naturall Mathematicall and Diabolicall magick sec. 37. The weapon-salve a meere imposture sec. 38. The true causes of the temperament under the line sec. 39. The load-stone is not begot of atomes drawne from the North-Pole sec. 40. Without qualities no operation in nature sec. 41. Atomes pierce not the earth Odors decay by time Salt how it growes heavie sec. 42. Naturall agents at the same time work diversly sec. 43. The heat of the marrow is not the cause of the hardnesse of the bones but the heat of the bones themselves sec. 44. God is not dishonoured by calling him the Creatour of the meanest things sec. 45. The formative power of generation in the seed sec. 46. Whether the heart or the liver first generated sec. 47. Thin bodies as well as thick the objects of touch Rarity and density what kind of entities sec. 48. Objects work not materially but intentionally on the sense sec. 49. Sound is not motion proved How perceived by deafe men It shakes not houses sec. 50. Colours are not quantities nor substances but qualities s. 51. How living creatures can move themselves Of nature and properties Of life And how the life of God differs from the life of the creature sec. 52. Of sense and sensation How the sense worketh and suffereth sec. 53. Vision is not caused by materiall atomes Seven things required in sensation sec. 54. Words are not motion nor are they the chiefe object of memory sec. 55. The organ of the memory How the intellect and memory differ sec. 56. Purging consisteth not in liquefaction but in attracting and expelling sec. 57. Pleasure is not the motion of a fume about the heart but the apprehension of a convenient object sec. 58. Paine and pleasure move not the heart Of systole
affect or hate each other Though your atomes be but little bodies yet they Sect. 31. are your great servants for they help you still at a dead lift and doe you much service in all your actions they are your light-bearers they make all things move in their naturall courses upward and downward they are also the causes of violent motions as of projection for by their help the arrow flieth out of the bow as you say and Pag. 181. c. 12. the ball from the racket So these atomes are your archers slingers gunners or canoneers and they help you at your sports in the Tennis-courts Multitudo populorum sepidum as Apuleius calls them the Ants did not so much good service to Psyche in that intricate labour of dividing all sorts of graines enjoyned her by Venus as these atomes doe you By them the arrow flies out of the bow the stone out of the sling the bullet out of the gun or canon and if it were not for them we could not kill our enemies in the wars for the gun-powder could have no force to carry the heavie iron bullet so farre in the aire and to beat downe stone walls of townes and castles if these atomes did not put to their shoulders What Hercules is able to resist such Pigmies but wee who have been bred in the peripatetick schooles at the feet of Aristotle find the maine cause of projection to be the qualitie or force of the projicient impressed upon the bodie projected as the force of the gun-powder-fire impressed in the bullet carries it thorow the aire Neither is it more impossible for this impressed force and adventitious qualitie to carry a bullet violently then for the intrinsecall qualities of gravitie and levitie to carry bodies to their owne places naturally The generator impresseth a qualitie of gravitie in the stone to move naturally to its owne place the projicient impresseth the qualitie of projection in the same stone to move violently from its place If you aske why the stone returnes at last to its owne motion downward and continues not flying in the aire the reason is because the aire makes resistance which at length weakens the impressed force so that this growing weaker then the resistance yeelds and the stone falls downe Neither is it reasonable that an extrinsecall qualitie should have that continuance as a qualitie that is naturall which cannot receive any mutation except there be a change in the first qualities whose commixtion gravitie and levitie naturally followes but the force of the projicient makes no such change in the first qualities of the bodie projected Neither doth the stone lose its gravitie whilst it flies upward but hath it only suspended while the projicients impression lasts when this is spent downe falls the stone againe shewing the same gravitie it had before If any say that this impulse is contrary to the inclination of the bodie impelled I answer 'T is contrary to its inclination to locall motion but not to any inclination the stone might have to the active quality of levity which is not in the stone levity then expells gravity but projection doth not This impulse then is an accidentall forme and in respect of the impression it is in the third species of Quality but as this impression inclineth the stone to motion it is a naturall faculty in the second species of Quality I say naturall not as being the naturall forme or the property flowing from thence but because it moves like the naturall forme though not to the same place and because the stone in which the impression is made is a naturall subject and the projicient is a naturall agent You see then that this doctrine of impression is no shift as you call it but it is a shift to make Atomes carry a Canon bullet so farre in the aire for as the aire it selfe is passive having no other motion in projection but what it receives from the projicient even so be your Atomes if any such were which are dispersed by the wind and force of the bullet Wheresoever there is variety of bodies there must be the Sect. 32. Pag. 27. c. 14. foure elements then belike in the Heavens there must be the foure elements for there are variety of bodies one starre differing from another in glory But indeed there be no elements nor generation nor corruption nor alteration but such as belong to light and locall motion and therefore the heaven is but a naturall body analogically which proportion consisteth in this that as sublunary bodies have a nature which is the inward principle of motion so hath the heaven though in a far different way and for this cause we deny that the matter of the celestiall bodies is univocall to that of elementary for then there should be mutuall action and passion betweene them 2 Then the celestiall matter should have an appetite to being or not being 3. It should have an appetite to divers formes 4. It should be the subject of corruption and of transmutation into In comment de terrae motu circulari sublunary bodies all which are absurd as I have shewed elsewhere Why may we not as well say that fire warmes the Sect. 33. water or burnes the board by its quality of heat as to multiply entities to no purpose as you do in your innumerable Atomes which is your salve for all diseases for as if these had not done you service enough already you must make them your Cooks to boile and rost your meat You will have them to come out of the fire and pierce the bottome of the kettle and so up unto the water and Cap. 15. c. 16. being quickly weary there ascend in smoake and then descend in drops But if these Atomes be the smallest parts of the substance of the fire I wonder how they scape drowning when they are in the water and that they are not served as the Persian god was by the Egyptian Priest and so Canopus prove to be the better god Nay you will not have any occult quality in the Load-stone to draw the iron but these Atomes must doe it and your reason is because otherwise the whole body of Pag. 139. the agent must worke which it cannot do but by locall motion But what need is there to say that the whole body must worke if the Atomes do not It is not the whole body that works or at least not totally for the fire heats by its forme not by its matter and so the Load-stone draws but if we did yeeld that the whole body did work must it therefore worke by locall motion Cannot the fire warme you being within a fit distance except the fire come to you The Load-stone shall keep its distance from the iron and yet shall draw it without Atomes but they are little beholding to you in that after all their good service they have done you you set them together by the eares and makes all re-actions to
fiery wheele because the beames of our eye are dissipated and broken by the swift motion of the lucid object Yet these will not prove that wee are deceived in the instantaneall motion of the light from East to West or of a candle in the roome where we are for if the eye be continually deceived in the motion of its proper object being within a convenient distance then is the eye given to us in vaine and so God is made imperfect in his worke And therefore our argument is good when we say that the light can be no naturall body seeing it illuminates the whole Hemisphere in an instant You give a reason why the light by its motion doth Sect. 17. Pag. â—9 c. 8. Pag. 60. not shatter the aire or other bodies in pieces Because in light there is only celerity but no bignesse or density This is a strange body that hath no dimensions you were better call it a spirit then a body for if it be a body it must have matter and forme by the matter it hath quantity which is inseparable from it by the forme that quantitie hath its determination and limits therefore if there be in the light celerity there is motion if motion then the principles of motion which are two to wit the active forme and the passive matter and these cannot be without quantitie nor this without dimensions and what dimensions can be wanting in so vaste a body as the light is reaching from heaven to earth You cannot allow lesse then the three dimensions of longitude latitude and profundity and that I think is bignesse and if it incorporate it selfe with the aire there must needs be a condensation two bodies nay perhaps a thousand in one Church if there be so many candles being united in one No light is seen by us but what is reflected from an opacous Sect. 18. Pag. 61. cap. 8. body to our eye I pray from what opacous bodie is the light of the Sun Moon and Stars reflected when we look upon these luminaries Doe they not immediatly without any such help strike our eyes when we look on them And wherefore hath the wind no power to shake the light which strikes our eye in a straight line Is the wind more restrained by a straight then a crooked line The wind shakes the aire and yet shakes not the light which is in it Sure it is not the straight line that keeps the light from shaking but because it is an accident and not a bodie as the aire is and bodies only are the objects and subjects of motion Our arguments you say against light being a body are Sect. 19. Pag. 62. cap. 8. only negative All negative arguments are not to be rejected there be negative demonstrations as well as affirmative and you which hold light to be a body how will you prove it to be no accident but by negatives and yet I have urged already divers affirmative arguments to prove that light is a qualitie as well as negative to prove it is no bodie And whereas you conclude that if fire be light then light must needs be fire Pag. 63. it will not follow for fire may be light or lucid in the concrete and yet not so in the abstract and if it were so yet light is not therefore fire for sure the light of snow or fish or glow-wormes is not fire nor indeed any light as I have proved By how much the quicker the motion is by so much the Sect 20. Pag. 65. cap. 9. agent is the perfecter The quicknesse of the motion argues not the perfection of the agent except you will have the Moon which moves swifter a perfecter agent then the Sun whose motion is much slower Is Mercurie a more perfect agent then his father Iupiter or is Tobias lesse perfect then his dogge because he is not so nimble footed The nature of a body is that greater quantity of the same Sect. 21. Pag 65. cap. 9. thing hath greater vertue then a lesse quantity hath You confound the two sorts of quantities to wit virtutis and molis the greatest vertue is not alwaies in the greatest bulk there was more spirit and courage in little David then in great Goliah A little horse hath oftentimes more metall then a bigger and a few drops of chymicall spirit have more vertue then an handfull of herbs little women for the most part are fruitfuller then the tallest And there is more force in a little gunpowder within a musket then in twenty times so much in an open place You can see no principle to perswade you that any body can Sect 22. Pag. 70. cap. 9. move it selfe towards any place If your meaning be that no body can move it selfe totally that is that the whole and every part in the whole be both movers and moved I assent to you for one and the same thing cannot be in the same respect actually and potentially in being but the mover is still in actu the thing moved in potentia nor can the same thing be more noble then it selfe which it must be if the bodie thus move it selfe seeing the mover is more noble then the thing moved but if your meaning be that no bodie moves it selfe that is that in the same bodie one part doth not move the other you are mistaken for every bodie is compounded of forme and matter the forme is the mover the matter is moved and so every bodie moves it selfe as having within it selfe the principle of its motion which is the forme So heavie bodies move themselves downward light bodies upward the one by gravitie or the forme of gravitie the other by the forme of levitie gravitie and levitie being qualities proceeding from the forme of these inanimate bodies and this power of moving themselves these bodies had in their generation from their generator who gave them being and forme and the consequences of forme dans formam dat consequentia ad formam therefore when a stone falls downward that motion is not from an externall mover for then the motion should not be naturall but violent now the motion is naturall for nature is the principle and cause of it and nature is intrinsecall and the forme is the chiefe nature which causeth this motion therefore the generator cannot be the cause of this motion as being gone and separated from it nor is the removing of the impediment or the impeller the cause of this motion for these are causes only by accident which must be reduced to the selfe cause Doubtlesse then all bodies move themselves Now if the quality be nothing else as you urge out of Thomas but the modification of the thing whose quality it is then you must exclude all habits naturall faculties and passions all colours sounds sents and many other qualities from being reall entities which is absurd The Sun is a perpetuall and constant cause working upon Sect. 23. Pag 76. cap. 10. inferiour bodies by
his being sometime present sometime absent You spend much paper in shewing that the Sun is the cause of the motion of inferiour bodies which wee deny not but wee are not satisfied with this cause for the Sun as all other celestiall bodies is but an universall and remote cause of inferiour bodies and their motions but such a cause begets no scientificall knowledge the cause by which we must know scientifically is particular and immediate to wit the formes of bodies by their properties gravity and levity these are the causes of motion by which we know The Sun is too remote a cause and I doubt whether hee be a cause at all why the fire burnes and of other such like effects And though the Sun being present is the cause of sublunary effects yet being absent he cannot be a cause properly but accidentally or causa deficiens not efficiens The light carrieth up an atome with it and shortly after Sect. 24. Pag. 80. cap. 10. you tell us that light is a part of the atome Is not the aire strong enough to beare atomes except you adde this new carrier or porter light What becomes of these atomes when the light is gone Are they not too heavie a burthen for the aire to support without its fellow-helper Hercule supposito sidera fulcit Atlas This is much like their conceipt who feared that Atlas was not strong enough to beare up the heavens if Hercules shoulder had not helped him but how comes the light to be a part of its owne burthen an atome then I see is no atome but may be cut in parts and anatomized and these parts are light But is light an integrall or an essentiall part Are there any atomes in candle-light if there be how shall we know if there be not then is the light no part of atomes And if atomes be opake bodies how can light be a part of such is one opposite a part of another I think your atomes sustained by the light are like the dreames in Virgil supported by an elme or like the shadowes in the Elysian fields flying about the green medowes tenues sine corpore vitae Cernuntur volitare cava sub imagine formae You have been too much conversant in the schoole of Democritus who held the world to be made of atomes And to say that the first and most generall operation of the Pag. 76. Sun is to raise and make atomes is to give the Sun a very poore unworthy and fruitlesse imployment Caligula and his souldiers were better imployed when they gathered shells and pebble-stones and so was Dioclesian in catching of flies There is no such thing among bodies as positive gravity Sect. 25. Pag. 81. cap. 10. and levity but that their course upwards or downwards happen to them by the order of nature It seems you understand here by nature the universall nature which is nothing else but the dependencie of all inferiour causes orderly from the supreme cause If this be your meaning as it must needs be you commit a contradiction for you deny the secondary causes which you suppose to depend from the supreme If then I should aske you why a stone descends you will answer Not because of any positive gravity in it but because it so happens by the order of nature But why hath nature ordered a stone to fall downward not to move upward seeing there is no positive gravitie in it You answer me Because it meets with the aire or water bodies lighter thinner then the stone Then you here acknowledge a comparative gravitie in the stone for if the aire be lighter then the stone the stone must be heavier then the aire and so comparatively it is heavie but every comparative includes a positive for if you be wiser then another then you are wise but indeed universall nature works not without the particular neither doth God or the heaven move the stone downward but by the stones gravity therefore gravitie is the immediate cause of its motion which if you deny you may as well deny the fire to be hot and if you say the fire burnes only because it happeneth so by the order of nature you were as good say nothing Any body will descend if it light among others more Sect. 26. Pag 81. c. 10. rare then it selfe and will ascend if it light among bodies more dense then it What say you then to your light bodie of light which you say is nothing else but fire dilated surely meeting with aire a bodie heavier and denser it should never descend to us who live here on the earth but ascend rather how comes it that so light a bodie should descend so many miles from its fountaine the Sun to us seeing the aire is much more dense then it Nay it descends thorow a denser bodie the water for divers find light in the bottome of the sea Againe what say you to a thick plank of timber which meeting with the water a rarer bodie notwithstanding descends not to the bottome but swims above This is contrary to your doctrine You told us afore that light hath no bignesse or densitie Sect. 27. that the more dense the bodie is the more active it is that the light carries up atomes and now you say that these atomes the subtilest divisions of light doe presse Pag. 86. c. 11. downe a leaden bullet and penetrates or runs thorow it as light thorow a glasse water thorow a spunge and sand thorow a sieve The light then carries up these atomes which presse downe a leaden bullet and yet the light hath not densitie These are riddles which Oedipus cannot unfold for how a qualitie should be a body how that bodie should want dimensions how it should want density and yet beare up that which presseth downe with its weight a leaden bullet how there should be so much weight in atomes as to presse down such a bullet how these atomes should pierce so dense a bodie as lead whereas light cannot doe it yea run thorow lead as water thorow a spunge or sand thorow a sieve are I thinke some of these second notions which Chimaera did eat But how doe the atomes presse downe the lead doe they remain in their expansion dispersed then they cannot more presse the lead then the sea-water presseth him downe that dives in it elementum in suo loco non gravitat Or doe the atomes meet together in a bodie to help the lead downwards if all the atomes in the light were in one bodie how big would that bodie be The clod of earth which in Egypt is shut up in a close Sect. 28. Pag. 87. c. 11. roome and doth shew the change of weather by the increase of its weight receiveth not this weight from the atomes of salt-peter piercing the walls as you say but from the aire it selfe of which it is made up as other mixed bodies are which therefore sympathise with the aire and its changings as our
owne bodies doe though wee were never so close shut up in a roome When the aire is inclined to raine bodies grow heavie and in a close room we see the water in weather-glasses ascend and descend as the aire changeth abroad although the water in the glasse hath no commerce with the aire abroad and so wee feele aches upon change of weather in our bodies and heavinesse of our heads after sun-set by reason of the heavinesse or gloomy heat of the aire caused not by your atomes but by vapors mists or fumes in the aire which we are continually sucking in by the lungs by which the two principall parts of our bodies are affected to wit the head and the heart and by them the rest of the bodie And as for spirits or atomes of snow and Pag. 87. salt-peter which you say passe thorow a glasse-vessell I know no such thing 'T is true that the outside of a glasse or pot being made wet will freeze to the boord though neere the fire if you put snow and salt-peter in the pot because the cold snow by antiperistasis becometh much colder in having the hot salt joyned with it and so shunning its enemy the salt fortifies it selfe which causeth the wet bottome to freeze So in great frosts the fire is most hot and scalding wells and deep cellars in summer are most cold without any penetration of atomes at all which were heretofore bodies and parts of light now by you are called spirits And as there is no concourse of atomes to presse downe the falling bullet in the aire neither is there of water to presse down the stone Pag. 88. falling in it as you say because both the aire and the water meet onely to fill up the place which the bullet and stone had that there may be no vacuity for lighter bodies presse not downward the heavier but support the lighter But it troubles mee to waste so much time and paper in refelling your Paradoxes of atomes which are as void of soliditie as the atomes themselves Hence wee see how easie it is to deviate from the truth and to lose our selves in the winding labyrinths and intricate Meanders of errour when we fall off from these knowne and generally received principles which have had the approbation of wise men for so many generations Is it not a shorter way and more consonant to reason to say that cork sinks not and iron doth because the one is porous and full of aire the other dense and more earthy because the one and the other are moved diversly according to their divers formes and the properties from them to wit gravity and levity then to devise phantomes of atomes which involve within them so many absurdities The elements doe weigh in their owne spheres for a ballone Sect. 29. Pag. 95 c. 11. stuffed hard with aire is heavier then an empty one Secondly more water would not be heavier then lesse Thirdly if a hole were digged in the bottome of the sea the water would not run into it I answer a stuffed ballone is heavier because the aire which is in it is separated from its own sphere in which it doth not weigh according to our principles Secondly more water is not in its owne sphere actually heavier then lesse for a man in the bottome of the sea feels no more weight then if hee were but halfe a yard from the superficies but potentially it is gravida est sed non gravitat Thirdly the sea would run downe and fill up the hole because it moves naturally as it is heavie towards the centre which weight appeares not actually in its sphere till it remove towards the centre Nature in her actions is not to be seen in all places and at all times There is life in seeds and fruit in trees though not alwaies actually seen So there is gravitie in water though not alwaies felt as you seeme afterward to confesse when you say that water in a Pag. 97. cap. 11. pale because it is thereby hindred from spreading abroad hath the effect of gravity predominating in it So one part of water in its own sphere doth not divide the other Shall we then say there is no power in water to divide water Yes there is for water powred out of an 〈◊〉 into a bason wherein is water will divide the water in the bason Your reason to prove that there is no inclination in Sect. 30. Pag. 98. cap. 11. heavie bodies to tend to the centre because the centre is as often changed as any dust lighteth unequally upon any one side of it is a weak one for let the centre change never so often every houre if you will yet a centre there must be still and to that centre in what place of the earth soever it be the heavie bodie hath its inclination And no lesse weaknesse is it to confound vis impressa or a violent motion with the naturall motion of gravitie as you do for gravitie is neither the mediate nor immediate cause of a violent but of a naturall motion Neither Pag. 99. is it impossible for any cause as you say to produce an effect greater then it selfe for the flame may produce a greater heat in iron then is in it selfe May not a little man beget a tall man Oftentimes the effect exceedeth the cause both in quantity and vertue A blind man begets a son with eyes the heat of an Egyptian oven hatcheth chickens and the Suns heat begets many sensitive creatures of putrefied matter Neither must you inferre That Pag. 99. gravity is no naturall quality of earthy bodies because a bullet can ascend out of the bottome of the barrell of a gun being suck't up by ones breath for this infers the bullet to be naturally heavie in that it doth not naturally ascend but is forced by the violent motion of traction which traction were needlesse if the bullet were not naturally heavie Neither doth this motion shew That gravity is an intellective entity as you say for though the naturall properties of things have not understanding yet they have that appetite given to them by the God of nature to preserve their owne unitie and the unitie of the universe and to shun their owne destruction and this is no determining of the qualitie by it selfe which is the act of an intelligent creature to wit to determine it selfe but it is a power given by the God of nature to every thing to preserve it selfe and to shun its owne hurt So the stomack which hath no understanding receives and concocts wholsome food the meseraick veines suck the purest part thereof prepare and fit it for the second concoction and send away the excrementitious and superfluous parts to the guts and the same stomack vomits out that which is hurtfull to it and all this is nature not understanding What understanding will you give to a load-stone when it drawes iron or to those senslesse creatures which by their sympathies and antipathies
which we live and to avoid scandall to submit our thoughts and actions to Gods Word and not to practise such things as have no cause or reason in nature as to cure diseases by spells or words characters and knots which being artificiall and quantities cannot naturally operate The weapon-salve must be conserved in an equall temper Sect. 38. Pag. 164 c. 18. and the weapon which made the wound must be orderly dressed Paracelsus the inventor of this salve is ill reported of to wit to be a Magician Baptista Porta Goclenius D r. Floid some others have bin too credulous to beleeve him for if it be not magicall it is suspicious considering the author the superstitious ceremonies in gathering of the mosse from the dead skull with the other simples used in it besides the unreasonablenesse of their opinions who think that a wound can be cured by such a way whereas nihil agit in distans naturall agents work not but within a proportionable distance as the fire will not heat if the object be not within its reach neither will the load-stone draw except the iron be neer But the patrons of this salve will have it cure the wound though many miles distant and though there be an interposition of many dense bodies as of houses and hills What medium can carry this vertue so far thorow so many impediments whereas the Sun cannot conveigh his beames to us if the Moon or a thick cloud be interposed And what sympathy can wee conceive to be between a sword or a clout and a wound except you 'l say It is because the bloud touched it or as you say Because the steem or spirits entered into the pores of the weapon These are piercing spirits indeed that can passe thorow steele and stay there so long after the bloud is cold whereas the bloud which in phlebotomy is received into a dish loseth the spirits as soon as the bloud is cold though many ounces of bloud be there yet never a spirit left nor any sympathy at all between the dish and the wound Sure by this reason when the sword that wounds is kept in the same roome with the wounded man it must cure whereas it cures so farre off But no such cure is to be found for I was yet never cured by the knife that cut my finger though never so often dressed If any reply that some cures have been done by this salve I answer that I have heard so and they that write of it most of them write but upon report and suppose some cures had been done yet I will not impute them to the salve but to the washing and keeping of the wound cleane in which case nature will help it selfe The imagination also is sometimes a help to cure and sometime Sathan may concurre for his owne ends videlicet to confirme superstition and errour If any say that there is a sympathy between the pole and the needle touched with the load-stone which are farther distant then the sword and the wound I grant it because the influence of celestiall bodies upon earthy is not hindred by distance but we cannot say so of the actions of sublunary bodies whose matter is farre different from that of the heavens In a word the effects of this salve which you speak of are much like the effects that are said to be caused by images of wax made by Witches The like credit is to be given to those other reports you speake of to wit the curing of the kines swelled soles by a turffe cut from under their sore feet and hung upon an hedge the drying of which is the mending of the sore feet And the running over of the Cowes milk in boiling into the fire wil cause an inflammation in the Cowes udder and that this is cured by casting salt into the fiâ—e upon the milk I could tell you many such tales as those which I have partly read and partly heard but credat Iudaus Apella I will stick to that Philosophicall principle Ominis actio 〈◊〉 per 〈◊〉 but here is no contact and I will as soon credit Apuleius his Metamorphosis into an Asse by the anointing of his body as the curing of a wound by an ointment which is not at all applyed to the bodie If any will say that such cures are done by the influence of the Stars let him prove it wee may so salve all questions and not trouble our selves to search any further into the hidden causes of things These influences are the sanctuary of ignorance but Stars are universall agents whose operations are fruitlesse if they be not determined by the particular agents Lastly I like your supposition wel If the steem of bloud and spirits carry with it the balsamick qualities of the powder into the wound it will better it In this I am of your opinion for if Daedalus did flie in the aire wings doubtlesse would help him but there is great odds between the sents which the Deere or Hare or Fox leave behind them and this imaginary vertue of the weapon-salve this being altogether hid these other being manifest qualities quickly apprehended by the sagacious hounds You say that the heat of the torrid Zone drawes aire to Sect. 39. Pag. 176. c. 20. it from the Poles and rest of the world otherwise all would be turned into fire The aire about the Poles you confesse is very cold and the aire under the Line very hot Now that heat should draw cold to it is to contradict a sensible maxime for what is more plaine and sensible then that one contrary drives out another and like drawes its like The heat of the fire drawes out the heat of a burned finger or the heat of the stomack whereas the cold aire repells it Hence it is that we concoct better in Winter then in Summer The heat of the upper and lower region of the aire doth not draw to it the cold of the middle region but the cold fortifies and unites it selfe against its enemy Secondly the aire under the Line is carried about so fast by the motion of the primum mobile from East to West that there is a continuall trade-wind and a strong tide to the West So that the aire there will not give leave by reason of its swift motion for any other aire to come thither Thirdly the torrid Zone needs no refrigeration from the Poles for there are great lakes rivers and seas besides constant gales of wind which refresh the aire and make it no lesse temperate then Spain if you will beleeve Hist. Ameris Acosta Not to speak of the equalitie of the night there with the day so that the Sun is not so long above their Horison as hee is above ours in Summer And if there were such extreme heat there as is supposed there would not be such multitudes of all sorts of herbs fruits and trees green all the yeare as Lerius witnesseth in his In Brasil navigation You have found out
nothing else but the power Sect. 51. Pag. 262. which a body hath of reflecting light into the eye Then immediately you say Light is nothing else but the superficies of it and shortly after Colours are not qualities but tractable bodies With the same breath you contradict your selfe for you deny colour to be a qualitie and yet you will have it a power in the bodie to reflect light Are not naturall powers or faculties qualities Is not the power that water hath to coole a qualitie but in this you are also mistaken for colour is not such a qualitie as you make it to wit in the second species where only those powers are which can naturally produce their owne acts As in the eye there is a power to see a power I say which it can produce into act when occasion serves for the eye doth not alwaies actually see but colour is no such power for it cannot produce its owne act primarily as the former power did but in the second place For first it must affect the subject in which the colour is and secondly work upon the eye and so colour is in the third species of Qualitie Now if colour be a qualitie how can it be a superficies which is a quantitie The essence of colours is not in extension though they may be extended according to the extension of the subject in which they are Extension is the essence only of quantitie If colour then be not a quantitie but qualitie how can it be a tactable bodie Colours cannot subsist of themselves they admit degrees therefore cannot be substances You are angry with vulgar Philosophers who force you Sect. 52. Pag. 275. c. 22. to beleeve contradictions in that they say life consisteth in this that the same thing hath power to work upon it selfe Aristotle then and his learned Peripateticks are with you but vulgar Philosophers who teach us that those which move themselves by an internall principle have life in them and so because quick-silver seemes to move it selfe and fountaines or springs of water seeme also to move themselves hence the Latines call the one argentum vivum the other aquas vivas And because these created entities which wee call living actuate themselves either by perfecting themselves or by representing something within themselves by their knowledge or by enclining themselves to the things which they know by their appetite hence it is that we attribute life unto God in that hee actuates himselfe at least negatively so that hee is not actuated by any other and in that hee understands and wills himselfe and all things in himselfe But here is the difference between the life of the Creator and of the creature that our life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle sayes the abode or mansion of the vegetive soule in the bodie or naturall heat Or as Scaliger another of these vulgar Philosophers tells us unio animae cum corpore the union of the soule with the bodie And our life hath a dependance from a higher cause and our vitall actions depend from a causality as Understanding and Will from the essence of the soule but the life that is in God and his vitall actions are the same identically with his essence having no dependance or inhesion or connexion at all Tell us then where the contradiction lieth when wee say that the living creature can move it selfe Doth the Scripture teach contradictions when it tells us that Saul killed himselfe that Iudas hanged himselfe that we should accuse our selves condemne our selves convert our selves and many such like Neither doe we say that life consists in this that a thing can work upon it selfe as you would have it for wee make not the essence of life to consist in this wee only make this a propertie of life for the living creature to move it selfe Neither doe wee say that life is action but that life is the principle of action therefore we act because we live actiones sunt suppositorum Though the forme work upon the matter yet the suppositum or compound is the subject of action or motion The form worketh originally or as principium Quo the suppositum worketh subjectively denominatively or as principium Quod. The forme is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the suppositum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the act not the action but the efficient cause of five actions to wit of understanding sense motion nutrition and generation For if life were an action it should be the cause of these actions but actionis non datur actio Lastly life is in the soule originally in the bodie by participation and in the compound subjectively You challenge also Philosophers that they hold sensation Sect. 53. Pag. 275 ca. 32. to be a working of the active part of the same sense upon its passive part and yet will admit no parts in it but will have the same indivisible power work upon it selfe Philosophers distinguish between the organ the faculty and action of the sense The organ is a substance the faculty a qualitie which is properly called sense of which ariseth the action which is properly sensation The forme is the cause of sense God is the supreme cause of the forme and consequently of sense too for dans formam dat consequentia ad formam and sense is the cause of sensation And so they hold that there is in the sense an action and a passion but in a different respect for the passion is in respect of the object the species of which is received by the sense but reception is passion yet in the sense there is an action too but that 's in respect of the soule working by the sense its instrument which it animates and by it judgeth of those objects which are convenient or inconvenient not only for the bodie but for the soul too For the two noblest of the senses were made principally for the soule that by them she might gaine knowledge and in the second place for the bodie Now out of all that 's said tell us where this indivisible power workes upon it selfe or who holds any such thing The power of the soule in actuating the sense the power of the sense in receiving the species is not the same power no more then the power of the soule in moving the hand and the power of the hand in receiving a blow the one being an active the other a passive power the one being from the soule the other from the disposition of the matter whose propertie is to suffer as the formes is to act Therefore wee hold not active and passive parts in the sense but that the whole sense is passive in respect of the object the whole sense is active in respect of the soul working in it So the whole water is passive in regard of the fire which hears it and it 's wholly active in respect of the hand which is warmed by
Aristotle in this point cleered and vindicated sec. 4. How Angels and mens soules subject to annihilation or dissolution sec. 5. The first Objection against our doctrine answered and is shewed how the soule is immortall both by grace and nature sec. 6. The second Objection answered Solomon compares not mens soules to beasts but the death of mens bodies to that of beasts sec. 7. The third Objection answered Job denieth not the resurrection but sheweth it cannot be effected by the power of nature sec. 8. The fourth Objection answered Austin cleered The way how the soule is infused and originall sin propagated sec. 9. The fifth Objection answered How the soule in under standing depends from the senses sec. 10. The sixth Objection answered how the soule suffers sec. 11. The seventh Objection answered How immateriall grace is corrupted sec. 12. The eighth Objection answered Desire of immortality in man onely sec. 13. The ninth Objection answered The soule understands better being separated then now she doth in the body sec. 14. The many mischiefes that Christian Religion suffers by this opinion of the soules corruptibility sec. 15. The late printed Pamphlet at Amsterdam which undertakes to prove the soules mortality briefly refuted and slighted as a frivolous and irreligious rapsodie having nothing in it but froth Wherein he abuseth Scripture He is refuted in foure observations The soule after death subsisteth naturally not violently nor miraculously sec. 16. A devout and comfortable meditation upon the soules immortality fit for all afflicted Christians sec. 17. THE PHILOSOPHICALL TOUCH-STONE NOble Sir KENELME as I reverence your worth so I admire your paines who being a Gentleman of such eminencie thinks it no disparagement but an honour to spend your time in good literature which giveth true Nobilitie your practice herein is exemplary which I wish the Gentry of our Nation would imitate who think they are born meerly for themselves and their pleasures whose time is spent either idlely wickedly or impertinently as Seneca complaines Eorum vitam mortemque juxta existimo but your mind being of a more noble extraction semine ab aethereo you know that you are not borne for your selfe and therefore by your indefatigable paines doe both eternize your fame and enoble your Countrie but because this life of ours cannot challenge the priviledge of perfection and truth here is accompanied with errour as the light with shades therefore I find that this your Work of the nature of Bodies and of the Soules immortality hath some passages in it Heterodoxall and not consonant to the principles of Divinity and Philosophy which have drawne from mee these sudden Observations for I have here neither time books nor opportunitie to enlarge my selfe in which I promise both brevity and modesty suffering no other language to passe from mee but such as may beseem both your worth and my ingenuitie for my end is not to wound your reputation but to vindicate the truth The first mistake I meet with is That words expresse Sect. 1. Pag. 2. cap. 1. things only according to the pictures we make of them in our thoughts and not as the things are in their proper natures But if our words expresse not the things which we conceive in our minds as they are in their owne natures then our conceptions are erroneous and our words improper or false and if there be not an adequation of our conceptions with the things we conceive there can be no metaphysicall truth in us which consisteth in the agreement of our thoughts with the things as ethicall truth doth in the consent of our words to our thoughts Our conceptions are our internall words which represent reall things and our externall words represent these conceptions and by consequence they expresse things as they are in their natures So Adam in Paradise gave names to the creatures according to their natures and so have wise men ever since The Latines call the sea mare quasi amarum from its saltnesse or bitternesse for it is so in its owne nature Secondly You define quantity to be nothing else but the Sect. 2. Pag. 9. cap. 2. extension of a thing and shortly after that quantity is nothing else but divisibility Thus you confound extension and divisibility which differ as much as in man rationality differs from risibility the one being the effect of the other for therefore things are divisible because they are extensive take away extension divisibility faileth and therefore numbers are not properly divisible because they have no extension but onely in resemblance Secondly extension is not the essence of quantity for if it were all that have quantitie must have also extension but Angels have discrete quantitie which wee call number and yet have no extension Thirdly there is a quidditative or entitive extension by which one part is not another in bodies though there were no quantitative extension at all therefore not every extension is the essence of quantitie There is also the extension of site which is no quantitie Whereas you make heat a property of rare bodies and Sect 3. Pag. 28. cap. 4. Pag. 30. that out of rarity ariseth heat and that a body is made and constituted a body by quantity you speak paradoxically for the rarest bodie is not still the hottest A burning coale is hotter then the flame and scalding lead is hotter then scalding water Secondly rarity is not the cause of heat but heat the cause of rarity that which begets heat is motion and the influence and light of the Stars motion then begets heat heat begets rarity 'T is true that rarefaction prepares the matter to receive heat as heat prepares the matter to receive the forme of the hot element but what prepares is not the cause Thirdly a bodie is not made and constituted by quantitie for this is posteriour to a bodie being a substance and followes the bodie as its accident and therefore more ignoble Every accident hath a subjective dependence from the substance a bodie hath or may have entitie without quantitie so cannot quantitie without the bodie The essence or as you call it the substance of locall motion Sect. 4. Pag 34. cap. 5. doth not consist in division because whatsoever division there is in this motion it is either in respect of the thing moved or in respect of the space in which it is moved but both these are externall to motion and not belonging any waies to its essence therefore in that divisibility which is in them cannot consist the essence of locall motion Besides divisibility is a propertie of quantitie flowing from its essence whereas locall motion is quantitative but by accident and not but by way of reduction in the predicament of quantitie therefore except you be of Scotus his opinion who will have mobile and motus all one division cannot be the essence of locall motion And if you were a Scotist in this yet you cannot prevaile for division being the accident of the thing moved it cannot be
a pretty way for generation of Sect. 40. the load-stone which you say is begot of atomes drawne Cap. 21. from the North Pole by the heat of the torrid Zone and so sent downe into the bowels of the earth where meeting with some condensate stuffe becomes this stone This is the summe of your large discourse But first wee would know what these atomes are whether parts of that cold aire or of the light Secondly how the heat of the torrid Zone can draw cold atomes such a great way ninety degrees at least whereas wee have shewed that hot aire expelleth the cold but draweth it not Thirdly how it comes that load-stones are found in Macedonia Spaine Bohemia Germany and other Northern places Did the atomes in their Southern progresse stay there being weary of so long a journie and plant colonies neer home Or were they sent back by the heat which brought them thence Fourthly how can such weak bodies pierce so deep into the earth Fifthly when these atomes cast their spawne into the matrix of our great Mother whether she doth feed upon iron when shee 's breeding seeing the stone when it 's come to maturitie loveth iron so well Or did shee not surfeit upon garlick which is such an enemy to the load-stone Sixthly of what atomes is the stone Theamedes made that so much hates the iron which the load-stone loves and the Adamant that hinders its operation Though I honour your worth and ingenuitie in aiming at such abstruse causes yet both you and I and all men must confesse that our science here is but ignorance and wee see the natures of things as that blind man who saw men walk like trees Who can tell why Rhubarb purgeth choler Agarick phlegme How the Torpedo stupefieth the hand thorow the cane and the Remora stayes the ship Virgil. Has nè possimus naturae accedere partes Frigidus en obstat circum praecordia sanguis The load-stone you say workes by bodies Ergo not by Sect. 41. Pag. 18. 5. c. 21. quabities I deny the consequence for bodies doe not work upon bodies but by their qualities take these away and there will be no action in nature for actions have their originall from qualities and their properties too therefore actions are susceptible of contrarieties of intension and remission because the qualities from which they have their being are capable of these And as among substances only the forme so among accidents only the qualitie is operative because it is the accidentall forme of the subject in which it is 'T is true accidents work not by their owne power but in and by the power of their substances The hen by her heat which is a qualitie prepares the matter of the egge for introduction of the forme of a chick for the same agent that disposeth the matter introduceth the forme The fire warmes by its heat What 's the reason that you can cut downe a tree with an axe which a childe cannot doe with a woodden dagger 't is because you have the qualities of strength and skill which the childe wants and the axe hath the qualities of strength and sharpnesse which are wanting in the woodden dagger Your reasons by which you prove your assertion are weak viz. Because a greater load-stone hath more effect then a lesser A greater fire heats more then a lesser is therefore heat no qualitie Or must the same degree of heat be in a little fire that is in a greater The qualitie encreaseth and decreaseth according to the quantitie of the subject Secondly A load-stone giveth lesse force to a long iron then to a short one So the fire warmeth more at a neer then at a remoter distance Naturall agents work not in distans Will you deny your facultie of seeing to be a qualitie because you can see better neer at hand then at too remote a distance Thirdly The longer an iron is in touching the greater vertue it getteth Fourthly An iron or load-stone may lose their vertue either by long lying or by fire Will these reasons prove the vertue of the load-stone to be a bodie then vertue I see is a body with you and in the predicament of Substance These your reasons prove the load-stone to work by a qualitie because it hath degrees of more and lesse vertue and because it may be lost Is cold no qualitie because it may be lost in the water Or is the blacknesse of a mans haire no qualitie because it may be lost Or doth the fire consume nothing but bodies Is whitenesse an accident or a bodie a qualitie it is doubtlesse Cast your paper in the fire and what becomes of its whitenesse Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo Your arguments are so weak that they refute themselves and so they will save me a labour Atomes which pierce iron may penetrate any other body Sect. 42. Pag. 186. I know the fire can pierce iron and yet not pierce the dense bodie of the earth which your atomes must doe if they will beget a load-stone And if the fire could pierce the earth yet this will not prove that your magneticall atomes can doe the like except you give them the same Pag. 186. vertue And though light passe thorow thick glasses as you say yet there is some hinderance for the thicker the glasse is the lesse light you shall have Trie if light can passe thorow a thick unpolished horne as it doth thorow the thin horn of a lantern If the thicknesse of a bodie makes no opposition to the light then you may see the Sun as well thorow a thick cloud or thorow the bodie of the Moon as thorow the thin aire If then there be opposition though never so little of the glasse to the light there must needs be some tardity As for odoriferous bodies which you say continue many yeares spending of themselves and yet keep their odour in vigour is a miracle for how can the odour be kept in vigour in those bodies that still spend themselves If odour be a qualitie it must decay as the bodie spends in which it is If odour be a bodie it cannot continue in its vigour and be still spending of it selfe this is a contradiction Besides ' its repugnant to sense for as the flower decayes so doth the smell And though there be a power in roots of vegetables to change the advenient juice into their nature yet there is not the like power in loadstones or salt as you will have it except you will make these also vegetables and so they must not be called stones and mineralls but plants rather Salt doth not change the aire into its substance by lying in it as you say and would prove by the weight of it increased for if it change the aire into its substance it feeds on it and so some parts of its matter must be still wasting and there must be still a repairing of the decayed matter by nutrition and this
must be done by natural heat and a vegetative soule and what is this but to make salt a plant As for the weight of it which you say encreaseth I doubt of it but if it were so as you say yet that weight is not encreased by turning the aire into its substance but rather by the losse and evaporation of the aire by its long lying So paper-books grow much heavier by beating the aire out of the paper But whereas you say That the nature of the Load-stone proceeds from the Suns operation Pag. 200. c. 22. on the torrid Zone which operation is contrary to the Load-stone as being of a fiery nature and therefore the torrid lands are not so magneticall as the polar is a riddle for how can the nature of the Load-stone be contrary to that which begets it and how can the Sun beget magnetick vertue by that heat which by reason of its fiery nature hinders or destroyes it Sect. 43. Pag 215. c. 23. You say 'T is as impossible for diversity of worke in the seed to proceed at one time and in the same occasions from one agent as it is for multiplicity to proceed immediatly from unity I will not now tell with what arguments Physicians prove that the seed is the epitome of the whole body and extracted from every part thereof and containeth potentially all the parts of the body which the plastick or formative power of the seed educeth unto act by degrees but this I must tell you that naturall agents can at the same time produce diversity of works for doth not the Sun at the same time produce multitudes of divers effects according to the multitudes of bodies it works upon doth not the fire at the same time rarifie condense soften harden doth not the same liver at the same time by its heat produce blood choler melancholy and phlegme even so may the same formative power of the seed at the same time fabricate and distinguish all the parts of the body The marrow being very hot drieth the bones and yet with Sect. 44. Pag. 226. c. 24. its moisture humecteth How the same naturall agent can at the same time on the same object worke contrary effects I know not Can the fire at the same time both harden and soften the wax 2. The braine comparatively is colder then any other of the soft parts of the body and consequently the marrow which groweth from thence 3. If heat be the cause of the bones drinesse then the heart which is the hottest part of the body should have the hardest bone about it 4. What the bones are in sensitive creatures that the stones are in vegetables but the hottest fruits have not the hardest stones for the stone of a cold Peach is harder then the kernels or stones of the hot Grapes 5. If marrow were the cause of drinesse or hardnesse it would follow that where there is most marrow there should be the hardest and driest bones but Philosophers tell us that those creatures whose bones are most solid and drie have least marrow 6. That drinesse then and hardnesse of the bones proceeds not from the heat of the marrow which is held to be lesse hot then the braine but from the innate heat of the bones themselves wasting the aeriall and oylie substance thereof which heat is not fiery but temperate as the naturall heat should be yet it causeth this hardnesse and drinesse because the matter on which it works is grosse and terrestriall and because of the heats continuall working on the bones You will not have us too irreverently ingage the Almighties Sect. 45. Pag. 227. c. 25. immediate handy-worke in every particular effect of nature We offer no irreverence to the Almighty if we call him the Creator even of the meanest creatures being no lesse admirable in Creatione vermiculorum quà m Angelorum in the creation of wormes then of Angels saies S. Austine and therefore Basil thinks it no irreverence Homil. 7. in Gen. to say That God in the beginning did not only create Fishes in the sea but Frogs also in the pooles nay Gnats and vermine Whose immediate handy-work were the Lice that were procreated of the Egyptian dust at the stretching out of Aarons and Moses his Rod Did not the Sorcerers acknowledge that the finger of God was there If it be no disparagement to the Almighty that the excrementitious haires of our head are the objects of his providence neither can it be any dishonour to him if we say the meanest creatures are the effects of his omnipotence The worke of generation you say is not effected by the Sect. 46. Pag. 231. c. 25. formative power except we meane by it the chaine of all the causes that concurre to produce this effect When wee speak of the proximate or immediate cause of things we exclude not the remote causes for Causa causae est causa causati He that saies that Isaac was begot of Abrahams seed denies not that Abrahams seed is begot of his blood and he that saies a man is a reasonable creature saies also that he is a sensitive vegetative corporeall substance but what ever the remote causes be the formative facultie in the spirits of the seed effects the work of generation which spirits are derived from all parts of the body otherwise how could they frame all the distinct parts and members in the seed but the grosse or materiall part of the seed is onely from the vessels You hold the heart to be first generated This is probable Sect. 47. Pag. 225. c. 24. but it may be doubted because whatsoever liveth must be nourished but nourishment is from the blood and blood from the liver therefore Galens opinion was that the liver is first generated which he also proveth by the umbelicall veine But indeed Hippocrates his opinion is most likely to be true that all the parts are formed at the same time by the spirits in the seed However it be this is certaine that fearfully and wonderfully are we made The touch converseth with none but with the most materiall Sect. 48. Pag. 244. c. 27. and massie bodies What think you of the aire the winde the flame are these masfie bodies and yet they are the objects of our touch the instrument of which is not only in the hands and fingers but diffused also through all the skin and if the flame touch your skin you shall as soone feele it though it be no massie body as you shall a stone But whereas you call heat and cold wet and drinesse affections of quantity you confound entities and the predicaments as you use to doe If by affections you meane properties then heat and cold are not the properties of quantities but of elementary bodies which are substances If by affections you meane effects much lesse can these be the affections of quantity for quantity is not operative Neither are rarity and density out of the degrees of which you will
body nor your soule which are still the same subjects of all these passions the alterations then are in the passions or qualities themselves I beleeve these entities are not unknowne to you as you are a man Homo es humani à te nihil alienum puto Lastly if qualities must be proved then I must prove that there is motion action and passion in the world but you 'l say these need no proofe so say I and consequently neither need we prove that there are qualities for if there were not heat in the fire there could be no calefaction in the water The perfection of substances consisteth in their operations but take away qualities you take away all operation and by consequence the perfection of substance nay you must deny all generation and corruption in nature if you deny qualities for by their service the matter is prepared to receive the form or lose it and they are inseparable hand-maids waiting on the formes as their mistresses and ready to performe their commands The body is a meere passive thing What think you of Sect 64. Pag. 342. Conclus the celestiall bodies are they meerly passive if they be what is it that works upon this inferiour globe Are the Sun and Moone meere passive bodies by which all things here have light life motion and vegetation But perhaps you meane not celestiall bodies Then come lower Are not the animall and vitall spirits bodies and yet they are active not meerely passive and if they were not active they could not unite the soule with the body as they do but unire est agere nay what say you to your little Pages the Atomes they are bodies you confesse and yet not meerly passive for in this Treatise of yours they have done you Knights-service Neither am I of your opinon when you say that rare and dense is the Pag. 342. primary and adequat division of bodies For there is in bodies a division more prime then of dense and rare to wit of hot and cold for rarity is but the effect of heat and density of cold now the effect is not the prime but posterior to its cause Though we have not sworne to defend Aristotle in all Sect. 65. Conclus his Dictats yet till we know better we will adhere to his If you can informe us of principles more consonant to truth wee will follow you and leave him for neither Plato nor Aristotle but Truth is it we fight for But indeed wee doe not find your Philosophy answerable to your paines or our expectations I will not dispraise your endeavours nor will I promise to follow them I honour your worth I admire your paines but I dislike your tenets Your good parts deserve my love but your principles convince not my judgement therefore afford me the same libertie in dissenting from you which you assume to your selfe in deviating from Aristotle whom notwithstanding you thinke you have exactly followed in your opinion of Atomes But if my judgement faile me not in this you are mistaken for though hee denies not minima naturalia or atomes in bodies which are parts of the whole yet hee never affirmed that all actions passions motions mutations are performed by them much lesse was he of your opinion that light heat cold and other qualities were atomes or corporieties but through all his workes when hee hath occasion to speak of them he makes them distinct entities and placeth them in distinct predicaments Therefore father not these your Atomes upon Aristotle but set the right saddle on the right horse and let Democritus enjoy his owne conceipts to whom by right these atomes belong and not to Aristotle Though Metaphysicall principles be of a higher straine Sect. 66. Pag. 344. conclus then Physicall yet we must not set them apart and make no use of them in the compositions resolutions and motions of things as you would have us for both the subject of Physick is subordinate to Metaphysick and the principles of that demonstrable by the principles of this How can you know exactly a naturall bodie and its affections and principles if you know not what is entity essence existence act possibility c The thing defined cannot be knowne but by the definition nor this without the genus and difference If you know not what is animal you know not what is man How shall wee know without Metaphysick what your active atomes are whether they be bodies or spirits corruptible or incorruptible substances or accidents perfect or imperfect c By the touch-stone of Metaphysick we must try the goodnesse of your new coined opinions but you wrong the learned Pag. 344. Aristotelians when you say that they imagine positive entities to the negatives of things as to the names of points lines instants for they never called names and negatives positive entities nor are the names of points lines instants negatives with them and though they did imagine such to be positive entities yet they doe not hold them to be so indeed for you may imagine or conceive darknesse or blindnesse under the notion of positive entities though you know them to be privations And indeed wee cannot imagine privations and negations without some reflexion on their habits and affirmations because entities are only the objects of the intellect You shall do well to name the Aristotelians who are guilty of this your accusation You would make Aristotle a weak Logician if hee Sect. 67. Pag. 345 should meane by qualities nothing else but a disposition of parts as you say But he is of another mind for qualities are with him in one predicament the disposition of parts in another to wit in the Category of Site therefore your definitions are lame for want of Logick and Metaphysick for you define beauty a composition of parts and colours in due proportion whereas beauty is a qualitie composition an action and proportion in the predicament of relation So when you define health a due temper of the humours health is not the temper of humours but is the effect of this temper For as sicknesse is an affection hurting and hindering our naturall vitall and animall actions so health is an affection preserving and maintaining these actions in safetie but affections are qualities Neither is agility a due proportion of spirits and strength of sinewes as you define it for proportion is a relation but agilitie a qualitie Besides there is in Elephants a due proportion of spirits and more strength of sinews then in a Mouse or Weasle and yet no waies that agilitie And as bad is your definition of Science which you say is nothing else but ordered phantasmes whereas I have ordered phantasmes of contingencies corruptible and individuall things and yet of these there is no science Though I have ordered phantasmes of the effect yet for want of the knowledge of the cause I have not the science of it for scire est per causas cognoscere And if you take phantasmes
infinite that is she is capable of knowing at the same time objects without end or measure Where is absolutenesse there is no respect how then can the soule be infinite absolutely in respect of knowledge Is there an absolute respect or a respective absolutenesse of infinitie in the soule I thought God onely had been absolutely infinite and what odds will you make between Gods knowledge and mans if the soule at the same time is capable of knowing objects without end or measure Gods knowledge cannot exceed this for what can be knowne beyond infinitenesse and immensity And if the soule knowes at the same time things infinite and immense then the soule must be also infinite and immense For the Understanding and the thing understood is the same but infinitenesse and immensitie are Gods proper attributes For my part I confesse that all I know of infinitenesse is that I know it not For this cause Aristotle proves that the principles of naturall bodies cannot Lib. 1. phys text 35. be infinite because they are knowne for they could not be knowne if they were infinite And therefore Philosophers could not attaine to the knowledge of God because of his infinitenesse but onely by degrees reached to the knowledge of some of his attributes as first that he was an entity then a mover then they came to know his power after that his wisdome and then his goodnesse And sure all the knowledge we have of God in this life is but the light of the Owles eyes to the Sun Our Peripateticks are more modest who say not that the soule at the same time is capable of knowing objects without end or measure as you doe but they say that the facultie of understanding must be proportionated to the object Now the object of the intellect is finite for nature acknowledgeth no infinitum actu Infinitenesse by succession there is and so she may know infinite things that is one thing after another in infinitum for she knoweth not so much but she may know more yet she knoweth not infinite things actually or habitually because actually at the same time she knoweth that only which hath one species but infinitenesse hath not one species Hence it is that shee knoweth in infinitenesse one part after another and so wee know not God in this life because there is no proportion between his actuall infinitenesse and our finite understandings Nay in heaven wee shall not know him by way of comprehension though we shall then know his essence And because wee cannot actually at the same time understand many things therefore the intelligible species enter into the understanding successively And if at any time wee understand many things together it is not as they are many or divers but as they are united in one common notion or nature So the Angels themselves understand not many things at once but as they are united in one species whether wee speake of those species which are innate or of those which they see in the glasse as they call it of the Trinity And this truth of the Peripateticks you seem afterward to yeeld unto when you say that if knowledge be taken properly we Pag. 410. c. 7. doe not know eternity however by super naturall helps we may come to know it All things which within our knowledge lose their being Sect. 9. Ibid. doe so by reason of their quantities Quantities are not active therefore nothing can lose its being by reason of them When a man dieth hee loseth his being as man and yet the fame quantitie remaines that was before in the bodie If you speak of the formall being of things they are lost not by reason of the quantitie but by reason of the introduction of another forme which expells that forme that was as the forme of the chick expells the forme of an egge and then followeth a change of the quantitie but if you speak of materiall being that is not lost at all the matter being eternall and so quantity which followeth the matter remaineth too but indeterminate till the forme come which restraines and confines the exorbitancie both of the matter and of its quantity Sect. 10. Pag 419. c. 9. You say that those Philosophers who search into nature are called Mathematicians They are so by you but by whom else are they so called They use to be termed Physici naturall Philosophers but for Mathematicians they consider not nature at all neither the matter nor the forme of things but bare accidents not as the naturall Philosopher who handles them as affections of naturall bodies but as they are abstracted from all sensible matter So the Geometrician considereth continued quantities the Arithmetician discrete quantities or numbers Astronomers motions and measures of celestiall bodies Opticks light and shadowes Musicians sounds All life consisteth in motion and all motion of bodies Sect. 11. Pag. 420. c. 9. cometh from some other thing without them The soule can move without receiving her motion from abroad First all life consisteth not in motion for there is life in spirits without motion so there is in bodies too In Dormise and other sleeping creatures in Winter in trees at the same season in women that are troubled with histerica passio they have life and yet no motion at all Secondly life consisteth not in motion for it is not the action but the act of the soule not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Life consists in union but this is rather rest then motion Life is not in the categorie of action From life proceed divers actions as understanding sensation motion nutrition generation but actionis non est actio It 's true that life is manifested by motion but it consisteth not in motion for the foule being separated from the bodie liveth but moveth not Thirdly all motions of bodies come not from without for the forme is the cause of motion but the forme is not an externall cause Though your hand in flinging up a stone be an externall mover yet when the stone falls downward it is moved internally by its owne forme What externall mover is that which moveth the heart even when it is separated from the rest of the bodie Fourthly the soule moveth not but by receiving her motion from abroad for as all things have their formes from the first cause so from the same cause they have their motion which followes the forme dans formam dat consequentia therefore the Apostle tells us it is in God wee live and move and have our being You are troubled with phancies when you tell us of Sect. 12. Pag. 423. c. 10. a perfect and imperfect soule that you call a knowledge an art a rule c. and this you call a participation of an Idea So in our thoughts you make some part of them corporeall and some spirituall In the soule you will have no accidents but all to be soule that is in her We say that every bodie is perfect
in its owne kind so that there is no imperfect bodie in the world but how one soule is more imperfect then another you must tell us if you will have us be your disciples The essence of every thing is indivisible but the soule is the essence of the living creature and the essence of the thing is the perfection of it A negative imperfection there is in the creature compared to the Creator so in mens soules compared to Angels because they have not these perfections nor are they capable of them in that estate they are now in except their species be altered and yet the soules are perfect in their owne kind for perfectum est cui nihil deest Thus a Diamond is a perfect stone though it hath not the perfections of man But a privative imperfection is not in any soule because there is nothing wanting that ought to be in the soule I speak here of naturall faculties not of supernaturall grace if there be some failing or defect in the organs by which the soule worketh that imperfection to no more to be imputed to the soule then want of skill to an expert Musician because his Lute is out of tune Secondly when you call the soule a knowledge an art a rule you make the soule an accident or a collection of accidents and so you are more injurious to the soule then Hippocrates and Galen who beleeved it to be nothing else but a celestiall heat Thirdly what you meane by an imperfect soule which you say is the participation of an Idea I know not Fourthly neither can I tell how some part of our thoughts are corporeall and some spirituall seeing they are actions and accidents of the soule Fifthly if there be no accidents in the soule then there be no habits nor actions nor intelligible species in her for these are meere accidents but such are in every soule or else you must deny that there is either knowledge or wisdome goodnesse or evill in the soule 'T is true there are not materiall accidents in her because she is free from materiality yet in that she is not a pure act as God is there is in her a potentiality whence arise these spirituall and immateriall accidents which be in her To be in a place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Sect. 13. Pag. 424. c. 10. body It is absurd to say it is therefore it is somewhere it is an eminent property of a separated soule to be no where and yet she is every where Place is not a bodie for then two bodies must be in one place which nature abhors Neither is place any part of a bodie not the matter because the matter doth not containe as the place doth but is contained nor is it the forme for the bodie may be separated from the place containing without any hurt to the bodie contained so cannot a bodie be separated from its forme without its destruction And if place were either matter or forme there would be no motion to a place for bodies move to their place because they are not in it they move to enjoy that they want but bodies having and enjoying already their matter and form cannot move to have or enjoy them therefore place is not a bodie but the superficies of an ambient bodie or rather the concavity of that superficies Secondly it is no absurditie from the existence of a thing to prove the ubiety of it for whatsoever is must necessarily be somewhere except God whose centre is every-where his circumference no-where And though spirits are not in a place by way of circumscription as bodies are whose extremities fill the vacuity of the containing superficies yet they are in their ubi by way of definition or designation that is whilst they are here they are not there whilst the Angel Gabriel is with the Virgin in her chamber hee is not the same time in heaven and whilst our soules are here present in their bodies they are absent from the Lord saith the Apostle And though Angels and our soules are in bodies as in their ubi yet they are not there as in a place for neither is there any dilatation nor condensation of the bodies upon their entering in no more then there is of the aire in your chamber upon the shining of the Sun beams in it Or if they be in a place they are not there by any quantitative but by a virtuall contact Thirdly you make it the eminent property of a soule to be no-where and yet every-where But if the soule be no-where it is nothing and if every-where it is God whose property it is indeed to be every-where by his essence power and providence but how the soule can be every-where and yet no-where is one of your riddles I think you have read that passage in Seneca Nusquam est qui ubique est But indeed neither are the soules nowhere nor are they every-where not no-where for ubietie is so necessary to created entities that like Hippoer ates twins they live and die together Tolle spatia corporibus nusquam erunt qui a nusquam erant omnino non erant What S. Austin speaks there of bodies must be also understood Epist. 57. of spirits for no reason can be given why spirits should have more priviledge to exist without their Ubi then bodies have to exist without their place And how can wee imagine that a spirit can work or produce any effect except the cause and the effect the work and the worker have a locall co-existence Therefore Plato In Timaeâ— part 3. said well that what is not contained within the compasse of heaven and earth cannot be at all And so saith Aristotle that which is no-where is not If Sphinx be 4. Phys. t. 1. no-where there is no such creature And to say that soules are every-where is to oppose both Divinity and Philosophy for the one teacheth us that ubiquity is Gods property the other that Intelligences which are of a more eminent essence or nature then our soules are not in every part of their orbe but in that onely which moveth most swiftly As their essence is finite so is their existence and so is their Ubi As they cannot work every-where so they cannot be every-where The soules departed then are in their Ubi which excludes ubiquitie You say you have explicated how time is the motion of Sect. 14. Pag. 424. c. 10. the heavens You had need explicate this well for how the measure can be the same thing with that which it measureth I know not Now time is the measure of motion but not of celestiall motion for time being the affection of that motion must needs be after it but a measure is naturally before the thing measured and the cause is the measure rather of the effect then the effect can be of the cause saith Scaliger Therefore as the Exerc. 352. 2. first bodie is the measure of other bodies so is the
and goe with the bodie Is not the understanding of a separated soule as capable to lodge and entertaine such guests as before Or are these little bodies made of dust that to dust they must returne Seventhly have all separated soules the same amplitude of knowledge then the soule of Iudas in hell hath as much knowledge as Abraham's soule in heaven but I see no reason for it Eighthly if life be a motion it is an imperfect thing consisting not in esse but in fieri and so the life of man both here and hereafter cannot be perfect no not in heaven And in a separated soule tell mee which is the mover the motion and the mobile Ninthly tell us what this Shee is that becomes an absolute spirit Is it the soule or is it life If the soule then she was before she was a spirit If life then motion may become a spirit I see it is not without cause you complaine of engulfing your selfe into the sea of contradiction Help your selfe out againe if you can But you plunge your selfe over head and eares when Sect. 17. Pag. 430. c. 10. you tell us That separated soules doe enjoy their knowledge without the help of externall objects phantasmes instruments or any other helps having all things requisite in themselves This is to deifie soules and to elevate them above the pitch of created entities For the Angels themselves have not such an eminent knowledge in that they stand in need of helps both externall to wit that supreme light and cleere looking-glasse of the Trinity in which they see all things as also of the innate species or idea both of universalities and of singularities without which they can have no knowledge therefore à fortiori if Angels stand in need of such helps much more must departed soules Secondly memorie remaines in departed soules but memory or recordation is by help of the species laid up in the mind to the understanding of which when the mind applies it selfe this is called recordation Thirdly though the intelligible species depend from the senses and phantasie in their fieri or being yet they have no dependence from them in their conservation For the sensible species in sleepe serve the phantasie though the common sense and all the outward are bound up and as it were dead Fourthly in Angels and departed soules there are divers habits both of love and knowledge and vertue yea of tongues also in respect of entitie though there be no use nor exercise but after a spirituall way of speaking now habits are the causes of action and in vaine should they be left in the soule if she by them did not worke and actually understand neither can the effect to wit actuall understanding subsist without its cause which is the habit for this is such an effect as depends in its conservation from the cause Fiftly understanding and the manner of understanding accompany the nature of the soule but the nature of the soule is the same here and hereafter therefore the manner of understanding must be the same to wit by the species Sixtly Whereas the soules departed do specifically differ from the Angels they must have a different manner of understanding to wit by discourse but this way needs help not of the phantasme or senses being all commerce with the body is taken away but of the species Hence then it is apparent that departed soules stand in need of helps and of objects of their understanding and that they have not all things requisite in themselves which objects are externall in respect of their essence though the species be inherent or adherent to the soules much more externall are these objects which they see in God although God himselfe is not intelligible by any species by reason of his immensity neither doth the soule understand it selfe by any species nor doth she know except by revelation what is done or doing here on earth which she must needs know if she had all things requisite for knowledge in her selfe but indeed Abraham is ignorant of us and Israel knows us not Nesciunt mortui quid hic agatur De cura pro mortuis nisi dum hic agitur saith S. Austin Our looking upon the phantasmes in our braine is not our Sect. 18. Pag. 430. c. 10. soules action upon them but it is our letting them beat at our common sense that is our letting them work upon our soule The phantasie being a corporeall sense cannot work upon the soul which is a spirit it is not then the phantasie that works upon the soule but the agent intellect refines purifies and makes more spirituall those phantasmes or species which are represented by the phantasie and so impresseth them in the passive intellect and this is called understanding The agent intellect is the force or quality of the soule mediating betweene the phantasie and passive intellect framing the intelligible species which the passive intellect receiveth and so by the one power the soule acteth and by the other suffereth but not at all by the phantasie whose hand cannot reach so high as to knock at the gates of the soule It must then be a spirituall power that must worke upon a spirit the passive intellect is rasa tabula like cleane paper having no innate species or images of objects in it selfe but what it receiveth from the active intellect so that the phantasie helps the understanding onely dispositivè not efficienter being rather the materiall then efficient cause of understanding furnishing those species which the active intellect refineth and impresseth in the passive If you should ask whether our understanding is an action or a passion I answer that it consists in both for not only doth it receive the intelligible species but also operats upon them And this is that action of the soule which you deny and what do you talke of letting our phantasmes beat at our common sense The phantasmes will beat whether you will or no. If you will not beleeve me beleeve your owne dreames in sleep I suppose your phantasmes then beat when you could be content they would spare their labour and be quieter But so long as the spirits do make their intercourse betweene the phantasie and the common sense there will be an agitation and beating of the phantasmes But it seemes you take the soule and common sense for the same thing when you say that to let the phantasmes beat upon the common sense is to let them work upon the soule They may beat upon the one and not work upon the other for the soul suffers not but by it selfe and her suffering is perfective not destructive as that of the matter is But she doth not worke upon or deduce her selfe out of possibility into act considered as the same thing but in respect of her divers faculties whereof the one is the efficient the other the patient and resembles the matter and if it were not so we should never actually understand for what should excite the
passive intellect to receive the species being purified and cleered from materiality and those accidents which neither conduce to the essence nor to the intellection if there were not an active power altogether impatible immateriall immortall using neither corporeall organs nor being mixed with corporeall senses which we call the active intellect and which irradiats illuminats intelligible things making them actually intelligible which before were potentially only as the light makes these colours actually aspectable which in the dark were invisible Sect. 19. Pag. 432. c. 10. In the state of a soule exempted from the body there is neither action nor passion which being so the soule cannot die for all corruption comes from the action of another thing This is but a weake argument to prove the soules immortality for actions and passions do neither hinder nor further it In departed soules there remaine loco-motive actions for they move from the body to their ubi where they remaine till the resurrection and then they shall move again to their bodies so the actions of understanding and will remaine in them Shall any then conclude that the soules are mortall because they are the subjects of action and of passion but their passion as I said is perfective The same actions are in Angels both in moving and removing Were the Angels that carried Lazarus his soule into Abrahams bosome mortall or that Angell that carried Habakkuk because of this action Are there not also in Angels the actions of intellect and will Nay action and passion do rather prove immortality and the cessation of these corruption For whilst the body is the soules patient it lives but when it ceaseth from suffering and the soule from acting in it and by it followes immediatly its corruption What think you of the first matter which is the first subject of passion and yet it is eternall à parte post And if you take away all action and passion from departed soules you must abridge them of the joyes they have in the fruition of Gods presence and of their duty in praising him so you rob God of his honour and them of their happinesse Againe we have shewed that habits remaine in departed soules but to what end if there be no action for Habitus est propter actionem and indeed actions are more excellent then habits Againe if there be neither action nor passion in the departed soules they are in the state of death rather then life for life consisteth in action though it selfe be no action and the soule is an act therefore cannot be without action but death is a cessation and rest from all action If you had said that some actions cease in the soule after her departure as generation nutrition and such as are the actions of the whole compound you had said somewhat but to exempt her from all action is to make her a dead body not a living soule and though corruption as you say is the effect of action or indeed rather of passion yet it will not follow that all action is the cause of corruption for there are actions of creation generation conservation c. Lastly you contradict your selfe for here you deny actions in separated souls but in the next Chapter cap. 11. p. 439. you say that the body hinders the soules operations and that her actions will be far greater and more efficacious when she shall be free from the burthen of her body To put forgetfulnesse in a pure spirit so palpable an effect Sect. 20. Pag. 433. c. 11. of corporiety and so great a corruption is an unsufferable errour I do not think oblivion to be an effect of corporietie for as the soul is the subject of memory which is one of her faculties of recordation which is the work of the intellect viewing over the species of reminiscence which is a disquisition or unfolding of the same species if they be clouded or confused so likewise is the same soule the subject of oblivion as the same eye is of sight and blindnesse the same aire of light and darknesse there being the same subject of habit and privation Now there are habits in the soule departed as I have said some actually there as the habit of knowledge some potentially as in their roote and originall such are the sensitive habits where the habit is actually there is the privation potentially but where the habit is potentially there the privation is actually as the habits of seeing hearing c. in the separated soule make it cleere And what we have said of the habits we may say of memory which is a power and faculty in the soule by which she retaines the species why then may there not be in her a deletion losse or abolition of such species the memory whereof will make her rather miserable then happy therefore the blessed soules in heaven remember not the vanities nor infirmities of their former life if they did they could not be truly happy and joyfull and so the oblivion of such things is not in them a corruption as you say but a perfection rather Therefore Albertus Magnus before his death prayed that he might obtaine the oblivion of all former vaine knowledge which might hinder his happinesse in the knowledge of Christ. Sect. 21. Your Rhetoricall descriptions which are both uselesse in and destructive of Philosophy make the soule sometimes equall with God sometimes no better then a corruptible body for to a separated soule you give those attributes proper to God as freedome of essence and subsisting in it selfe a comprehension of place and time that is of Pag. 439 440 441. c. 11. all permanent and successive quantity and the concurrence of infinite knowledge to every action of hers So you give to the soule independency ubiquity infinity which three are Gods due If you lay the fault of this upon your Rhetoricall expressions I must answer you that Rhetorick in such a subject may be well spared use your Rhetorick when you will work upon the affections but not when you will informe the understanding for in this regard you do but cloud not cleere the intellect Rhetorick is like fire and water a good servant but a bad master therefore ought not to be used but with great discretion especially in abstruse questions For this cause Logick was invented to curb and restraine the exorbitancy of Rhetorick If you will dispute like a Philosopher you must lay aside Rhetorick and use Philosophicall termes otherwise you 'l do as the fish Sepia to wit you 'l so thicken the waters of your discourse with that liquor that cometh out of your mouth that you will make your selfe invisible and delude the Reader which is the fashion of those who dare not confide in the strength of their arguments whereas naked truth cares not for such dressings nor seeks she after such corners And indeed you are too much in extremes for you do not more extol a separated then you do abase an incorporated
soule as you call it in saying that her being in a body is her being one thing with the body she is said to be in for if she be one thing with the body she hath the same essence and essentiall properties of a body which I beleeve you wil not subscribe to Sect 22. Pag. 441. c 1 1. Should a soule by the course of nature obtaine her first being without a body and be perfect in knowledge she must be a compleat substance not a soule whose nature is to acquire perfection by the service of the senses 1. You suppose what is not to be supposed for no soul can obtain her first being by the course of nature 2. If she did yet it were not repugnant to her nature to be perfect in knowledge 3. Perfection in knowledge will not make her a complete substance 4. Though the soule naturally acquires perfection by the service of the senses yet that hinders not her bringing in of knowledge with her Adams soul had perfect knowledge as it was fit being all the works of God were created in their perfection and Adam was to be the Doctor and instructor of his posterity and because he was created both in the state and place of happinesse which could not subsist without knowledge yet Adams soule ceased not therefore to be a soule or the forme of his materiall body nor did her knowledge make her a complete substance for in her substance she was no more complete then our soules are in our nativity Neither did that knowledge which Adam brought with him hinder his soule from acquiring by the service of his senses a fuller measure of understanding for hee neither had the knowledge of future contingencies nor of the secrets of mens hearts nor of every particular individuum of every species nor of every stone or sand in the world which belonged nothing to his perfection and happinesse If you 'l say that Adams soule obtained not her first being by the course of nature I grant it nor was it possible she should but by what course soever you imagine the soule to have her being shee may bring perfect knowledge with her and yet not cease to be a soule But when you say That no false judgements can remaine in a Pag. 442. miserable soule after her departure you make the damned soules in hell in farre better condition then wee are here upon earth who are subject to false judgements and erroneous opinions even the best of us but I am not of your mind for doubtlesse false judgements are a part of that punishment which the wicked soules suffer in hell But if there be no falshood or errour of judgement in them they must be in this point as happy as Adam was in Paradise If nothing be wanting but the effect and yet the effect Sect. 23. doth not immediately follow it must needs be that it cannot follow at all This inference will not follow at all for wee see many effects doe not immediately follow upon the working of the efficient and yet follow at last The fire melts not the metall presently nor the Carpenter builds the house nor the Sun produces corne grasse and fruits immediately nor doth the Physician presently cure diseases and yet all these are efficient causes and actually work the effects follow at leasure and at last though not immediately You should doe well to distinguish between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the working or operation and the work it selfe When the efficient is not only in its act of entity but of causality too there followes immediately operation but not opus the working not the work the effect in fieri not in esse Againe you must discriminate between voluntary and naturall agents the one operate freely the other of necessity The soule is doubtlesse a voluntary not a naturall agent so that the effect may follow though not immediately And if in naturall causes the effect followes still immediately it is where the effect is an essentiall property of the subject flowing immediately from the forme as heat from the fire which notwithstanding produceth not heat immediately in water or other subjects Lastly if your argument be good they are not to blame who held the eternity of the world for they reasoned as you doe that the cause being eternall the effect must immediately or eternally follow or else not follow at all But they should have knowne that God was no naturall but a voluntary agent and though from eternity hee did actually exist yet he did not from eternitie actually create The act of entity in him was eternall but not the act of causality In the conclusion of your discourse you make nature Sect 24. play the Smith for you say If the dull percussion which by natures institution hammereth out a spirituall soule from grosse flesh and bloud can atchieve so wondrous an effect by such blunt instruments as are used in the contriving of a man fifty or an hundred yeares time must forge out in such a soule an excellency above the forme of an abortive embryon You may with your Rhetorick as soon perswade me that Minerva was hammered out of Iupiters braine by the percussion of Vulcans hatchet as that the spirituall soule can by natures institution or any dull percussion of hers be hammered out from grosse flesh and bloud It is not nature but the God of nature that is the efficient cause of the soule It 's not natures dull percussion but Gods active inspiration that is the instrument It is not flesh and bloud out of which it is educed but into which the immateriall soule is introduced The soule is not framed either in or of the bodie by the work of nature but is inspired by the breath of the Almighty who in the beginning breathed into Adam the breath of life and so became a living soule Nature cannot hammer out such a piece as the soule is though shee had the help of Vulcans Cyclopes Brontesque Steropesque nudus membra Pyracmon She is of too pure a quintessence and of too sublimated an alloy to be extracted out of such grosse materialls as flesh and bloud are After the bodie is articulated the new created soule is infused accompanied with her perfections which she receives not from but communicates to the bodie and so that rude masse of flesh in the matrix becomes a man And the same soule which makes him a man makes him lord over all the workes of Gods hands by this he subdues the wilde beasts commands the earth masters the ocean measures the heaven searcheth into the nature of herbs trees metalls mineralls stones c. fore-tells celestiall changes inventeth arts and sciences and becomes the lively character and expresse image of the Almighty Can nature then hammer such a divine essence out of grosse flesh and bloud It is questioned whether God himselfe can doe it without implying a contradiction which is so repugnant to him Nature
the mind are not one with those of the body and so in the ninth and tenth Chapters of his Ethicks we may see how he affirmes the immortality of the soule by her desire of beatitude And whereas some think that he held the soule mortall because he saith she depends on the phantasie in her operation they are mistaken for he speaks of the soule as she is united to the body and so she depends on the Phantasie but yet onely objectively instrumentally and occasionally as the Philosophers speake and not efficiently or formally for it is true that the Intellect receives its species from the phantasie and therefore in the body depends antecedently from the phantasie otherwise the Intellect is meerly inorganicall and no waies depending on the phantasie as a proper mover and of it self but onely the passive Intellect thus depends on the active and the act of understanding is altogether independent And so when he sayes that the passive Intellect is corruptible he meanes nothing else but the phantasie or cogitative faculty which because it is in some sort capable of reason he cals the Intellect as he cals the passive Intellect sometimes by the name of phantasie because it is moved by the superiour Intellect And so when he sayes that remembrance and love perish in the soule he meanes that their dependence the one from the phantasie the other from the appetite perisheth because these are corporeall faculties and perish with the body but otherwise recordation and love in respect of their entity remaine in the soule as in their subject So likewise when he saith that the Intellect is in the possibility of the matter he meanes that it is in the possibility of the matter in respect of introduction not of eduction as the matter is capable to receive it when by a superiour power it is thither induced The soule then is in the possibility of the matter by way of reception but not by way of extraction So likewise when he sayes that the dead are not happy he meanes the happinesse of this life which consisteth in operations flowing from the compositum of which the soule is not capable And lastly when he sayes that all have ending which had beginning he meanes of those things which had beginning by generation and so it is true but the soules originall is by creation Out of all then that wee have said it is apparent to any man who is not a wilfull Saducee or Arabian that the soule is every way incorruptible both in respect of grace and in respect of nature both in respect of externall and internall agents both in respect of annihilation and dissolution There is onely an obedientiall power of dissolution in the soule as there is in Angels and in the heavenly bodies by the infinite power of the Almighty and that rather by the negative act of his influx then any positive act of resolving that into nothing which he made of nothing so that the soule hath no parts principles or causes in her selfe of corruption nor of annihilation Such reasons and arguments I take to be more evincing then these far-fetched notions of Sir Kenelm's which he hath clothed with too many words whereas Philosophicall arguments sort not well with Rhetoricall flourishes and Tullian pigments Now let us see what hath of old been or can of late be objected against this knowne and generally acknowledged truth by the impugners thereof Sect 6. Object 1. First they say that the soule is immortall by grace not by nature To which I answer that shee is immortall by both by grace in that the soule hath her dependence from God the first and sole independent entitie of whom and by whom she is what she is and so by that entitie as I said shee may be deprived of that being which of his bounty she obtained for though she be free from subject and termination yet she is not free from the causality of the first agent Shee is also immortall by nature in that there is nothing either in her owne or in the universall created nature that can destroy or dissolve her Our bodies are destroyed either by externall agents or by internall the naturall heat wasting our radicall moisture as a candle that is either wasted by the wind or by its owne heat but in the soule which is a spirit there is no such thing Secondly they alledge Solomons words for them Eccles Sect. 7. Object 2. 3. 19. where hee saith There is one end of man and beasts as man dieth so doe they Answ. Here is no comparison between mans soule and that of beasts but between the death of the one and of the other so that both are lyable to death and corruption and to outward violence and inward distempers which procure death in both and both are so lyable to the law and dominion of death that from thence there is no redemption or returning by the course of nature So that it 's no more possible for man to avoid death or its dominion of himselfe then it is for a beast Secondly Solomon speakes not this in his owne person but in the person of the Atheist who will not forgo his earthly pleasures because hee beleeves not any heavenly or any life after this Thirdly they would make Iob plead for them when Sect. 8. Object 3. he sayes there is more hope of a tree cut downe then there is of man Iob 14. Answ. Iob speakes not there in his owne person but in the person of a wicked man Secondly though hee did speak this as from himselfe yet this will not availe our moderne Saducees for by the course of nature man cannot revive againe though the tree may sprout again after it is cut which the Poet intimates when he sayes Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit mox Horat. lib. 4. od 7. Bruma recurret iners Damna tamen celeres reparant coelestia Lunae Nos ubi decidimus Quò pius Aenaeas quò Tullus dives Ancus Pulvis umbra sumus Thirdly man shall not returne againe to live that life or to performe those functions which he did in this world when he lived here but hence it will not follow that man shall not be raised by that power which gave him being at the first or that he shall enjoy no life because he shall not enjoy this life Fourthly they would faine draw in Austin to their Sect. 9. Object 4. side because sometimes he doubts of the manner of the soules production whether it is by creation or traduction Answ. 'T is true that sometimes hee doubted of the manner how the soule entered into the bodie because he doubted of the manner how originall sin is propagated but will this prove that therefore hee doubted of the soules immortalitie which hee strongly maintaines throughout all his Workes And so hee doth also the soules creation and infusion although in a few places he speaks doubtfully of traduction so farre as it hath relation
first motion the measure of other motions And nature by motion measureth time because by motion shee begets time but wee make time to measure motion when wee say so many degrees of the equinoctiall have moved in such a time Againe time cannot be motion because time is the same every-where but motion is not the same one time is not swifter or slower then another but one motion is swifter or slower then another motion Besides it is a received opinion among Divines that the motion of heaven shall cease after the resurrection being the motion of the Sun Moon and Stars is a part of that vanitie to which the creature is subject and of this motion there shall be then no use either for distinction of times and seasons or for generation corruption and alteration of sublunary bodies but though this motion shall cease yet time shall not cease except it be that which is caused by their motion to wit houres dayes yeares c. But that time which consisteth in the succession of duration or motion of any other thing whether it be of our bodies or of our thoughts that time I say shall not cease To be briefe time is not the motion of heaven because that motion is onely in heaven as in its subject but time is every-where and in every thing neither is that time which is caused by the motion of the first movable the same that inferiour motions are because they are separable for the heaven might move and cause time though there were no inferiour motion below and there may be motions here below though the heavens stood still The wheele of a clock would go though the heavens moved not And Iosuah did fight though the Sun stood still Though a separated soule consists with time yet shee is not Sect. 15. Pag. 425. c. 10. in time If you understand by being in time to be measured by time and to be overcome by it I yeeld for so whatsoever hath a perpetuall being is freed from the lawes of time saith Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 Physic. And so motion onely is in time to wit per se primò because it is motion only that primarily and by it selfe is measured by time for time is the number and measure of motion per prius posterius And therefore motion having of it selfe and primarily prioritie and posterioritie it is onely primarily and of it selfe in time and other things but in respect of motion As for spirits because they have no dependence on time nor on the motion of the first sphere neither in respect of their being nor of their conservation they cannot be said to be in time for to be in time includes three things first to be measured secondly to be comprehended thirdly to be mastered and consumed by time and so onely corruptible bodies are in time and yet these are not in time but in respect of their motions and mutations For the being or essence even of corruptible things consists in indivisibilitie and have not in them priority and posteriority nor succession which are necessarily required for time But though spirits are not in time after the manner of corruptible bodies yet they are in time in respect of their locall motions thoughts volitions and operations which require a succession prioritie and posterioritie and cannot be in an instant But this the Schoole-Doctors will not have to be called physicall time which consisteth in a continuated motion but tempus discretum being composed of divers minutes or little stayes or delayes succeeding one another And though their operations be indivisible in themselves yet they by succeeding one another make up that discrete time which is divisible So unities and instances indivisible in themselves make up numbers and time which are divisible So then this duration of spirits though it be indivisible and permanent according to their proper being yet it is variable according to their operations proceeding from them And though in respect of indivisibility and permanencie they will have this their duration to be called not tempus but aevum yet they acknowledge them to be in discrete time in regard of their successive operations and they admit that their aevum is virtually divisible having its succession as it is co-existent with our time And therefore the duration of Angels and separated soules is greater this yeare then it was an hundred or a thousand yeares ago because they have been co-existent to a longer time Besides nothing but God can be said to be exempted from time because his essence existence and duration or permanencie is all one but in the creatures these are distinguished for duration is extrinsecall and accidentall to the essence of the creature even of spirits and therefore they are not the same with their duration but something else they are in aevo as we are in tempore although aevum be not a fit terme to expresse the duration of Angels and soules being it signifieth the same that eternity onely proper to God for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and this is eternity and God onely is eternall knowing neither beginning nor exding antiquity nor novelty for the one supposeth an end the other a beginning as Tertullian sheweth Deus si vetus est In Marcion 1. cap. 8. non erit si novus non fuit novitas initium testatur vetustas finem comminatur Not long ago you said The soule was nothing else but Sect 16. Pag. 426 427 428 cap. 10. an active force now you call it an indivisible substance an actuall knowledge of all things a skill a rule by what it selfe is that shee is all that shee knoweth her nature is order That there are some imperfect soules and an interiour soule that the amplitude of knowledge is common to all humane soules separated that phantasmes are little bodies which goe with the body that life is a generall motion preceding that moment in which shee becomes an absolute spirit And then you confesse you have engulfed your selfe into a sea of contradiction You have indeed and I know not how to help you out but by telling you that if the soule be a substance it cannot be a rule a knowledge a skill an order for these are accidents Secondly if the soule be all she knoweth then shee needs no other knowledge but of her selfe for in knowing her selfe she knowes all things Thirdly if there be some imperfect soules then God is not a perfect Creatour for he immediately creates the soule and infuseth it Fourthly and if there be an interiour soul tell us which is the exteriour or how many soules a man may have Fifthly and if phantasmes be bodies how can they have their residence in the soule or understanding Spirits may dwell in bodies but that bodies should reside in spirits I have not heard till now Sixthly neither doe you tell us a reason why these your little bodies should forsake the soule upon her departure