Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	part_n	way_n	1,424	5	4.6103	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28958	A discourse of things above reason· Inquiring whether a philosopher should admit there are any such. By a Fellow of the Royal Society· To which are annexed by the publisher (for the affinity of the subjects) some advices about judging of things said to transcend reason. Written by a Fellow of the same Society.	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.; Fellow of the same Society. aut	1681 (1681)	Wing B3945; ESTC R214128	62,180	202

Negative we assert is grounded not upon Axioms taken from the usual course of Nature or upon Propositions dubious or remote from the first Principles of knowledge but upon either Catholick and Metaphysical Axioms or else upon Truths manifestly flowing from some clear tho inadequate notion we have of the nature of the things we treat of The other Case is when we have a clear and sufficient proof by Revelation or otherwise of the positive Attributes of the things we contemplate for then we may safely deny of that Subject any other thing that is really inconsistent with that positive Attribute Upon which account it is that tho we do not fully comprehend what God is yet knowing by the clear Light of Nature and if we be Christians believing it upon the account of Revelation that he is a Being Intelligent and infinitely perfect we may safely deny against Epicurus Vorstius and Mr. Hobbs that he is a Corporeal Substance as also that he is Mortal or Corruptible Pyrocl. I shall not trouble you Arnobius to inlarge upon your last Advice but willingly receive the ●avour of your next Arnob. Which shall be this The Third Advice or Rule That a matter of Fact or other Truth about Privileg'd Things being prov'd by Arguments competent in their kind we ought not to deny it meerly because we cannot explain or perhaps so much as conceive the Modus of it 'T is no very difficult Task to justifie this Advice but I may do it the better if you give me leave to frame and premise a Distinction for want of which I have observed a want of Clearness in several Discourses where the term Modus has been employed for sometimes we would deny so much as a possibillity that one thing can belong to or be truly said of another as when we say we understand not how one Creature can create another or how there can be a Line that is neither straight nor crooked or a finite whole number that is neither even nor odd But most commonly we mean by our not understanding the Modus of a thing that we do not clearly and distinctly conceive after what manner the Property or other Attribute of a Subject belongs to it or performs its operations The first kind of Modus may for distinctions sake be called a possible Modus and the other an actual modus Now in both the foregoing Acceptions of the term Modus we may find Instances fit for our present purpose For we cannot imagine How a short Line or other finite Quantity can be endlesly divisible or on the contrary how Infinite Parts should make but a Finite Total and yet Geometry constrains us to admit That it is so But tho there be but few Instances of this kind yet of the other sort of our Nescience of the Modus of things there may be found more Instances than we could wish there were for even in natural and corporeal things the eager disputes of the acutest Philophers and the ingenuous Confessions of the most judicious and moderate sufficiently manifest that as yet we know not the manner of operating whereby several Bodies perform what we well know they bring to pass And not to enter into those nice and tedious Disputes of the cause of the Cohesion of the parts of matter in the smallest most principal and most primary Bodies perhaps without going out of our selves the way whereby the Rational Soul can exercise any power over the humane body and the way whereby the Understanding and the Will act upon one another have not yet been intelligibly explain'd by any And the like I may say of the Phaenomena of the Memory especially in those in whom that faculty is eminent For 't is a thing much more fit to be admired than easie to be conceived how in so narrow a compass as part of a Human Brain there should be so many thousand distinct Cells or Impressions as are requisite to harbour the Characters or Signatures of many Languages each of them consisting of many thousand differing Words besides the Images or Models of so many thousand Faces Schemes Buildings and other sensible Objects and the Ideas of so many thousand Notions and Thoughts and the distinct Footsteps of almost innumerable multitudes of other things and how all these shall in so narrow a compass have such deep and lasting Impressions made for them and be oftentimes lodged so exactly in the order wherein they were at first committed to the memory and that perhaps many years before that upon a sudden command of the Will or a slight casual Hint a whole set of Words Things and Circumstances will in a trice as it were start up and present themselves even in the very Series order and manner that so long before belong'd to them And I doubt not but that besides those abstruse things about the Modus of which the more candid Philosophers have confessed their Ignorance there would many others have been taken notice of if we did but as seriously and impartially inquire into the Nature of all the things we are pleased to think we know And when I reflect on the yet depending Disputes between Philosophers and Mathematicians about the nature of Place and Local Motion which are things so obvious and familiar to us I should tho I had no other Inducements be inclin'd to think that we should find difficulties enough in many other Subjects wherein we do not now take notice of any if we particularly studyed their nature and that our acquiescence in what we have learned about many things proceeds not from our greater knowledge of their nature but from our having exercised less curiosity and attention in considering it And if in things Corporeal that are the familiar objects of our Senses we are often reduc'd to confess our Ignorance of the Modes of their inexisting or operating I hope it will not be denyed that to a Being wholly unapproachable by our Senses natural Theology may be allowed to ascribe some things whose Modus is not attainable by our understanding As the Divine Prescience of future Contingents which as 't were impious to deny as to the truth of the thing so I fear 't is impossible to explicate as to the Modus of it Eugen. If it were at this time proper for me to meddle with things of that kind I should not much scruple to say in favour of the Christian Religion that divers Tenents granted both by Christians Jews and Heathens as parts of natural Theology to me seem as difficult to be con●ived as divers of those Mysteries that for their unintelligibless are fiercely opposed in Reveal'd Theology I will not take upon me to judge of others but for my part I confess I do not much better understand how an Intellect and a Will and Affections are distinctly inexistent in God in such sort as they are wont to be attributed to him than how in him there can be a Trinity stated not as some Schoolmen explicate or rather darken it

really are not priviledged things but Scholastic Chimeras But tho' I shall not presume positively to set down the discriminating Bounds and Signes of priviledged things yet most if not all of them being such as are either primary in their kind as God himself and the things whose Nature flows immediately from him or else things that if thorowly inspected do necessarily involve the consideration of some kind of Infinitum or else are such that tho' in some main Questions about them one side must be taken both sides are encombred with absurdities or scarce superable Difficulties Those I say being all or some of them the usual marks that belong to priviledged things you will easily grant that their Number is not near so great as their abstruseness and that therefore Pyrocles and his Philosophical Friends need not fear to want employment for their Curiosity And for farther Answer to his Objection I shall add that we must regulate our Belief by our Perceptions not our Wishes and must not conclude that because 't were desirable for us that all things were penetrable to our humane Understandings there is really nothing that is not so and we can no more conclude that we are as knowing as Angels because we wish we were so than that we are as immortal as they because we would never die But as for those few things that have belonging to them Properties so extraordinary as to make it probable even at the first sight that their Nature must be very abstruse and difficult be fully discover'd by us I hope Pyrocles will allow that things of so Heteroclite a Nature may challenge an exemption from some of the rules imployed about common things And that really such Rules as I mean and some also of the vulgar Notions cannot always be safely extended to such Subjects I forbear to shew in this place only because I would not too long at once interrupt Arnobius and I expect to have a good opportunity to speak again of this Subject before our Conference be ended Tim. You may then I presume Arnobius as soon as you please favour us with your second Advice Arnob. I shall readily obey you Timotheus by proposing it thus The Second Advice or Rule That we be not hasty to frame Negatives about Privileg'd Things or to reject Propositions or Explications concerning them at least as if they were absurd or impossible 'T is easie to observe in the Speculation of natural things themselves how unsafe 't is not only to affirm but in divers Cases also reject opinions before men have any thing near a competent Historical Information of what belongs to the Subject they take upon them peremptorily to judge of And therefore it must in reason be thought much more unwary to be forward to resolve upon Negative Propositions about things which we our selves acknowledge to be above the reach of Human Reason which since they are 't will become us at least to forbear a rude and insulting way of rejecting the opinions of Learned Men that dissent from us about such things since the sublimity of the Subject should make mistakes about them the more easie to be pardon'd because they are difficult to be avoided and our own sharing in the disability of penetrating such abstruse things should keep us from being over-confident that we also may not be mistaken and incline us to tolerate other mens opinions about matters wherein we our selves have but opinion not science Pyr. But have not you formerly advised us not to suffer our selves to be impos'd upon by proofless Assertions even about privileg'd things Arnob. I did so and do so still but there is a great deal of difference between believing a proofless affirmation about things which the affirmer does not know to be true and framing Negative Conclusions against Opinions which for ought we yet clearly know may be true and therefore my present advice is very consistent with my former for here I counsel only either a suspension of Judgment when there appears no proof on either side sufficient to sway the Intellect or such a wary and unprejudic'd assent to opinions that are but faintly probable that the mind may be ready to receive without either obstinacy or surprise any better argument that shall conclude the contrary of the opinion we favour'd before Eugen. But methinks 't is hard to avoid the framing of Conjectures even about those sublime Subjects concerning which we can frame but conjectures and those often very slight ones Arnob. I confess an absolute suspension of judgment is a very uneasie thing nor do I strictly require you should entertain no conjectures but only that we should consider that we may be easily mistaken in them and by further information see cause to lay them down and perhaps exchange them for contrary ones my thoughts of this matter may be perchance somewhat illustrated by supposing that we four were walking in a High-way and discover'd as far off as our eyes could reach some erected and moving body of human stature tho we should by its shape and walking safely enough conclude that 't were no other animal than a man yet what manner of man he were as old or young handsome or ugly we should not be able to discern and consequently could have no sufficient ground to determine And as if I should affirm him to be a young man or handsome you may justly censure me of rashness so if because I cannot prove my conjecture you should resolutely deny that he is a young man or handsome I should think you guilty tho not of an equal yet of a censurable unwariness because for ought you know to the contrary he may be what I guess'd him to be And tho we are naturally so uneasie under fluctuation of mind that for my part I confess and it may be you may be subject to the same Infirmity I should scarce forbear resembling in my thoughts the man we speak of to some body or other that I knew yet I should justly think that Conjecture to be very fallible and both expect that when I should come to have a nearer and clearer view of him I might see cause to dismiss my first Idea for that which this new and better prospect would afford me tho it were quite differing from that I ●ad formerly entertain'd and should represent him that my forward thought perhaps resemble to a young man of my acquaintance with black curl'd hair and a ruddy complexion to be pale and wrinckled with grey hair curl'd like a pound of Candles The Application I suppose I may spare But Gentlemen I would not be understood in the preceding Discourse as if I were against all framing of Negative Propositions about privileg'd Things my design being but to dissuade from hasty ones For sometimes 't is much more easie and safe to deny things than to affirm them to belong to a Subject that surpasses our Reason And the observation may be of use especially in two cases one when the