such as her stirring up her self to love God or contemplate any Immateriall Object or they are such as have an influence on the Body as when by vertue of our Will we put ourselves upon going to this or that place He distinguishes again our Perceptions into two sorts whereof the one has the Soule for their cause the other the Body Those that are caused by the Body are most-what such as depend on the Nerves But besides these there is one kind of Imagination that is to be referred hither and that properly has the Body for its cause to wit that Imagination that arises meerly from the hitting of the Animall Spirits against the tracts of those Images that externall Objects have left in the Brain and so representing them to the Conarion which may happen in the day-time when our Fancy roves and we doe not set our selves on purpose to think on things as well as it does in sleep by night Those Perceptions that arrive to the Soule by the interposition of the Nerves differ one from another in this that some of them refer to outward Objects that strike our Sense others to our Body such as Hunger Thirst Pain c. and others to the Soule it self as Sorrow Joy Fear c. Those Perceptions that have the Soule for their cause are either the Perceptions of her own Acts of Will or else of her Speculation of things purely intelligible or else of Imaginations made at pleasure or finally of Reminiscency when she searches out something that she has let slip out of her Memory 10. That which is observable in this Distribution is this That all those Cogitations that he calls Actions as also those kind of Perceptions whose cause he assignes to the Soule are in themselves and are acknowledged by him of that nature that they cannot be imitated by any creature by the meer organization of i'ts Body But for the other he holds they may and would make us believe they are in Bodies of Brutes which he would have meer Machina's that is That from the meer Mechanical frame of their Body outward Objects of Sense may open Pores in their Brains so as that they may determine the Animall Spirits into such and such Muscles for spontaneous Motion That the course of the Spirits also falling into the Nerves in the Intestines and Stomack Spleen Heart Liver and other parts may cause the very same effects of Passion suppose of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow in these brute Machina's as we feel in our Bodies though they as being senseless feel them not and so the vellication of certain Tunicles and Fibres in the Stomack and Throat may affect their Body as ours is in the Sense of Hunger or Thirst and finally that the hitting of the Spirits into the tracts of the Brain that have been signed by Externall Objects may act so upon their Body as it does upon ours in Imagination and Memory Now adde to this Machina of Des-Cartes the capacity in Matter of Sensation and Perception which yet I have demonstrated it to be uncapable of and it will be exquisitely as much as Mr. Hobbs himself can expect to arise from meer Body that is All the Motions thereof being purely Mechanicall the perceptions and propensions will be fatall necessary and unavoidable as he loves to have them But being all Cogitations that Des-Cartes terms Actions as also all those kind of Perceptions that he acknowledges the Soule to be the cause of are not to be resolved into any Mechanicall contrivance we may take notice of them as a peculiar rank of Arguments and such as that if it could be granted that the Soules of Brutes were nothing but sentient Matter yet it would follow that a Substance of an higher nature and truly Immateriall must be the Principle of those more noble Operations we find in our selves as appears from Axiome 20. and 26. CHAP. VI. 1. That no part of the Spinall Marrow can be the Common Sensorium without a Soule in the Body 2. That the Animal Spirits are more likely to be that Common Percipient 3. But yet it is demonstrable they are not 4. As not being so much as capable of Sensation 5. Nor of directing Motion into the Muscles 6. Much less of Imagination and rationall Invention 7. Nor of Memory 8. An answer to an Evasion 9. The Authors reason why he has confuted so particularly all the suppositions of the Seat of Common Sense when few of them have been asserted with the exclusion of a Soule 1. THere remain now onely Two Opinions to be examined the one That place of the Spinall Marrow where Anatomists conceive there is the nearest concurse of all the Nerves of the Body the other the Animall Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain As for the former viz. That part of the Spinall Marrow where the concurse of the Nerves are conceived to be as I have answered in like case so I say again that besides that I have already demonstrated that Matter is uncapable of Sense and that there is no modification thereof in the Spinall Marrow that will make it more likely to be indued with that Faculty then the pith of Elder or a mess of Curds we are also to take notice that it is utterly inept for Motion nor is it conceivable how that part of it or any other that is assigned to this office of being the Common Percipient in us of all Thoughts and Objects which must also have the power of moving our members can having so little agitation in it self as appearing nothing but a kind of soft Pap or Pulp so nimbly and strongly move the parts of our Body 2. In this regard the Animal Spirits seem much more likely to perform that office and those the importunity of whose gross fancyes constrains them to make the Soule Corporeall doe nevertheless usually pitch upon some subtile thin Matter to constitute her nature or Essence And therefore they imagine her to be either Aire Fire Light or some such like Body with which the Animall Spirits have no small affinity 3. But this opinion though it may seem plausible at first sight yet the difficulties it is involved in are insuperable For it is manifest that all the Arguments that are brought Chap. 2. Sect. 3. will recur with full force in this place For there is no Matter that is so perfectly liquid as the Animal Spirits but consists of particles onely contiguous one to another and actually upon Motion playing and turning one by another as busy as Atomes in the Sun Now therefore let us consider whether that Treasury of pure Animall Spirits contained in the Fourth Ventricle be able to Sustain so noble an office as to be the common Percipient in our Body which as I have often repeated is so complex a Function that it does not onely contain the perception of externall Objects but Motion Imagination Reason and Memory 4. Now at the very first dash the transmission of the image of the Object
may easily abstain from winking But if fear surprise him the Soule is to be entitled to the action and not the meer Mechanisme of the Body Wherefore this is no proof that the Phaenomena of Passions with their consequences may be salved in brute Beasts by pure Mechanicks and therefore neither in Men but it is evident that they arise in us against both our Will and Appetite For who would bear the tortures of Fears and Jealousies if he could avoid it And therefore the Soule sends not nor determines the Spirits thus to her own Torture as she resides in the Head Whence it is plain that it is the effect of her as she resides in the Heart and Stomack which sympathize with the horrid representation in the Common Sensorium by reason of the exquisite unity of the Soul with her self of the continuity of Spirits in the Body the necessary instrument of all her Functions And there is good reason the Heart Stomack should be so much affected they being the chief Seats of those Faculties that maintain the life of the Body the danger whereof is the most eminent Object of Fear in any Animal 7. From this Principle I conceive that not onely the Sympathy of parts in one particular Subject but of different and distant Subjects may be understood such as is betwixt the party wounded and the Knife or Sword that wounded him besmeared with the Weapon-salve and kept in a due temper Which certainly is not purely Mechanical but Magical though not in an unlawful sense that is to say it is not to be resolved into meer Matter of what thinness or subtilty soever you please but into the Unity of the Soul of the Universe and Continuity of the subtile Matter which answers to our Animal Spirits And in this sense it is that Plotinus sayes that the World is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grand Magus or Enchanter And I doe not question but that upon this score meerly without the association of any Familiar Spirit several odde things may be done for evil as well as good For this Spirit of the World has Faculties that work not by Election but fatally or naturally as several Gamaitus we meet withall in Nature seem somewhat obscurely to subindicate Of this Principle we shall speak more fully in its due place 8. But we have yet a more clear discovery that our Soul is not confined to any one part of the Head but possesses the whole Body from the Perception of Pain in the parts thereof For it is plainly impossible that so high a torture as is felt but in the pricking of a Pin can be communicated to the Centre of Perception upon a meer Mechanical account For whether the immediate Instrument of Sense be the Pith of the Nerves as Des-Cartes would have it or whether it be the Spirits as is most true it is ridiculous to think that by the forcible parting of what was joyned together at ease when this case is not communicated to either the Spirits or Pith of the Nerves from the place of the Puncture to the very seat of Common Sense that the Soul there seated should feel so smart a torment unless that her very Essence did reach to the part where the pain is felt to be For then the reason of this is plain that it is the Unity of Soul possessing the whole Body and the Continuity of Spirits that is the cause thereof And it is no wonder if the continuation and natural composure of the Spirits be Rest and Ease to the Soul that a violent disjoyning and bruising of them and baring the Soul of them as I may so speak should cause a very harsh and torturous sense in the Centre of Perception This Argument bears undeniable Evidence with it if we doe but consider the fuzziness of the Pith of the Nerves and the fluidity of the Spirits and what little stress or crouding so small a thing as a Pin or Needle can make in such soft and liquid Matter CHAP. XI 1. That neither the Soul without the Spirits nor the Spirits without the presence of the Soul in the Organ are sufficient causes of Sensation 2. A brief declaration how Sensation is made 3. How Imagination 4. Of Reason and Memory and whether there be any Marks in the Brain 5. That the Spirits are the immediate Instrument of the Soul in Memory also and how Memory arises 6. As also Forgetfulness 7. How spontaneous Motion is performed 8. How we walk sing and play though thinking of something else 9. That though the Spirits be not alike fine every where yet the Sensiferous Impression will pass to the Common Sensorium 10. That there is an Heterogeneity in the very Soul her self and what it is in her we call the Root the Centre and the Eye and what the Rayes and Branches 11. That the sober and allowable Distribution of her into Parts is into Perceptive and Plastick 1. AFter our evincing that the Soul is not confined to the Common Sensorium but does essentially reach all the Organs of the Body it will be more easy to determine the Nature of Sensation and other Operations we mentioned For we have already demonstrated these two things of main consequence That the Spirits are not sufficient of themselves for these Functions nor the Soul of her self without the assistance of the Spirits as is plain in the interception or disjunction of the Spirits by Ligature or Obstruction whence it is that Blindness sometimes happens meerly for that the Optick Nerve is obstructed 2. Wherefore briefly to dispatch our third Querie I say in general That Sensation is made by the arrival of motion from the Object to the Organ where it is received in all the circumstances we perceive it in and conveyed by vertue of the Souls presence there assisted by her immediate Instrument the Spirits by vertue of whose continuity to those in the Common Sensorium the Image or Impress of every Object is faithfully transmitted thither 3. As for Imagination there is no question but that Function is mainly exercised in the chief seat of the Soul those purer Animal Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain I speak especially of that Imagination which is most free such as we use in Romantick Inventions or such as accompany the more severe Meditations and Disquisitions in Philosophy or any other Intellectuall entertainments For Fasting fresh Aire moderate Wine and all things that tend to an handsome supply and depuration of the Spirits make our thoughts more free subtile and clear 4. Reason is so involved together with Imagination that we need say nothing of it apart by it self Memory is a Faculty of a more peculiar consideration and if the Pith of the Brain contribute to the Functions of any power of the mind more then by conserving the Animal Spirits it is to this But that the Brain should be stored with distinct images whether they consist of the Flexures of the supposed Fibrillae or the orderly
Soules makes the Soule a Discerpible essence it is unconceivable how these two parts should make up one Soule for the Infant a thing ridiculous at first view But if there be no decision of any parts of the Soule and yet the Soule of the Parent be the cause of the Soule of the Childe it is perfectly an act of Creation a thing that all sober men conclude incompetible to any particular Creature It is therfore plainly unintelligible how any Soul should pass from the Parents into the Body of the seed of the Foetus to actuate and inform it which might be sufficient to stop the mouth of the Opposer that pretends such great obscurities concerning the entrance of Praeexistent Souls into their Bodies CHAP. XIV 1. The knowledge of the difference of Vehicles and the Soules Union with them necessary for the understanding how she enters into this Earthly Body 2. That though the name of Vehicle be not in Aristotle yet the thing is there 3. A clearing of Aristotles notion of the Vehicle out of the Philosophy of Des-Cartes 4. A full interpretation of his Text. 5. That Aristotle makes onely two Vehicles Terrestriall and AEthereall which is more then sufficient to prove the Soul's Oblivion of her former state 6. That the ordinary Vehicle of the Soule after death is Aire 7. The duration of the Soule in her severall Vehicles 8. That the Union of the Soule with her Vehicle does not consist in Mechanicall Congruity but Vitall 9. In what Vitall congruity of the Matter consists 10. In what Vital congruity of the Soule consists and how it changing the Soule may be free from her aiery Vehicle without violent precipitation out of it 11. Of the manner of the descent of Souls into Earthly Bodies 12. That there is so little Absurdity in the Praeexistence of Soules that the concession thereof can be but a very small prejudice to our Demonstrations of her Immortality 1. BUT I shall spend my time better in clearing the Opinion I here defend then in perplexing that other that is so gross of it self that none that throughly understand the nature of the Soule can so much as allow the possibility thereof wherefore for the better conceiving how a Praeexistent Soule may enter this Terrestriall Body there are two things to be enquired into the difference of the Vehicles of Soules and the cause of their union with them The Platonists doe chiefly take notice of Three kindes of Vehicles AEthereal AEreal and Terrestrial in every one whereof there may be several degrees of purity and impurity which yet need not amount to a new Species 2. This notion of Vehicles though it be discoursed of most in the School of Plato yet is not altogether neglected by Aristotle as appears in his De Generat Animal Lib. 2. Cap. 3. where though he does not use the Name yet he does expresly acknowledge the Thing it self For he does plainly affirm that every Soule partakes of a Body distinct from this organized terrestriall Body and of a more divine nature then the Elements so called and that as one Soule is more noble then another so is the difference of this diviner Body which yet is nothing else with him then that warmth or heat in the seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not fire but a Spirit contained in the spumeous seed and in this Spirit a nature analogous to the element of the Stars 3. Of which neither Aristotle himself had nor any one else can have so explicite an apprehension as those that understand the first and second Element of Des-Cartes which is the most subtill and active Body that is in the World is of the very same nature that the Heaven and Stars are that is to say is the very Body of Light which is to be understood chiefly of the first Element though so mingled with other Matter here below that it does not shine but is the Basis of all that naturall warmth in all generations and the immediate instrument of the Soule when it organizeth any Matter into the figure or shape of an Animall as I have also intimated elsewhere when I proved that the Spirits are the immediate instrument of the Soule in all Vital and Animal functions In which Spirits of necessity is contained this Coelestiall Substance which keeps them from congealing as it does also all other liquid bodies and must needs be in the Pores of them there being no Vacuum in the whole comprehension of Nature 4. The full and express meaning therefore of Aristotles text must be this that in the spumeous and watry or terrene moisture of the seed is contained a Body of a more spirituous or aëreal consistency and in this aëreal or spirituous consistency is comprehended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a nature that is analogous or like to the Element of the stars namely that is of it self aethereal and lucid 5. And it is this Vehicle that Aristotle seems to assert that the Soule does act in separate from the Body as if she were ever either in this terrestrial Body or in her aethereal one which if it were true so vast a change must needs obliterate all Memory of her former condition when she is once plunged into this earthly prison But it seems not so probable to me that Nature admits of so great a Chasme nor is it necessary to suppose it for this purpose the descent of the Soule out of her aiery Vehicle into this terrestrial Body and besmearing moisture of the first rudiments of life being sufficient to lull her into an eternall oblivion of whatever hapned to her in that other condition to say nothing of her long state of Silence and Inactivity before her turn come to revive in an earthly body 6. Wherefore not letting go that more orderly conceit of the Platonists I shall make bold to assert that the Soule may live and act in an aëreal Vehicle as well as in the aethereal and that there are very few that arrive to that high happiness as to acquire a Coelestial Vehicle immediatly upon their quitting the terrestrial one that heavenly Chariot necessarily carrying us in triumph to the greatest happiness the Soule of man is capable of which would arrive to all men indifferently good and bad if the parting with this earthly Body would suddainly mount us into the heavenly Wherefore by a just Nemesis the Soules of Men that are not very Heroically vertuous will finde themselves restrained within the compass of this caliginous Aire as both Reason it self will suggest and the Platonists have unanimously determined 7. We have competently described the difference of those three kinds of Vehicles for their purity and consistency The Platonists adde to this the difference of duration making some of them of that nature as to entertain the Soule a longer time in them others a shorter The shortest of all is that of the Terrestrial Vehicle In the Aëreal the Soule may inhabit as they define many Ages and in the
AEthereal for ever 8. But this makes little to the clearing of the manner of their descent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which cannot be better understood then by considering their Union with the Body generated or indeed with any kinde of Body whatever where the Soul is held captive and cannot quit her self thereof by the free imperium of her own Imagination and Will For what can be the cause of this cohaesion the very essence of the Soul being so easily penetrative of Matter and the dimensions of all Matter being alike penetrable every where For there being no more Body or Matter in a Vessel filled with Lead then when it is full of Water nor when full with Water then when with Aire or what other subtiler Body soever that can be imagined in the Universe it is manifest that the Crassities of Matter is every where alike and alike penetrable and passable to the Soul And therefore it is unconceivable how her Union should be so with any of it as that she should not be able at any time to glide freely from one part thereof to another as she pleases It is plain therefore that this Union of the Soul with Matter does not arise from any such gross Mechanical way as when two Bodies stick one in another by reason of any toughness and viscosity or straight commissure of parts but from a congruity of another nature which I know not better how to term then Vital which Vital Congruity is chiefly in the Soul it self it being the noblest Principle of Life but is also in the Matter and is there nothing but such modification thereof as fits the Plastick part of the Soul and tempts out that Faculty into act 9. Not that there is any Life in the Matter with which this in the Soul should sympathize and unite but it is termed Vital because it makes the Matter a congruous Subject for the Soul to reside in and exercise the functions of life For that which has no life it self may tie to it that which has As some men are said to be tied by the teeth or tied by the ear when they are detained by the pleasure they are struck with from good Musick or delicious Viands But neither is that which they eat alive nor that which makes the Musick neither the Instrument nor the Air that conveys the sound For there is nothing in all this but meer Matter and corporeal motion and yet our vital functions are affected thereby Now as we see that the Perceptive part of the Soul is thus vitally affected with that which has no life in it so it is reasonable that the Plastick part thereof may be so too That there may be an Harmony betwixt Matter thus and thus modified and that Power that we call Plastick that is utterly devoid of all Perception And in this alone consists that which we call Vital Congruity in the prepared Matter either to be organized or already shaped into the perfect form of an Animal 10. And that Vital Congruity which is in the Soul I mean in the Plastick part thereof is analogous to that Pleasure that is perceived by the Sense or rather to the capacity of receiving it when the Sense is by agreeable motions from without or in the Body it self very much gratified and that whether the Minde will or no. For there are some Touches that will in their Perception seem pleasant whether our Judgement would have them so or not What this is to the Perceptive part of the Soul that other Congruity of Matter is to the Plastick And therefore that which ties the Soul and this or that Matter together is an unresistible and unperceptible pleasure if I may so call it arising from the congruity of Matter to the Plastick faculty of the Soul which Congruity in the Matter not failing nor that in the Soul the Union is at least as necessary as the continuation of eating and drinking so long as Hunger and Thirst continues and the Meat and Drink proves good But either satiety in the Stomack or some ill tast in the Meat may break the congruity on either side and then the action will cease with the pleasure thereof And upon this very account may a Soul be conceived to quit her aiery Vehicle within a certain period of Ages as the Platonists hold she does without any violent precipitation of her self out of it 11. What are the strings or cords that tie the Soul to the Body or to what Vehicle else soever I have declared as clearly as I can From which it will be easy to understand the manner of her descent For assuredly the same cords or strings that tie her there may draw her thither Where the carcass is there will the Eagles be gathered Not that she need use her Perceptive faculty in her descent as Hawks and Kites by their sight or smelling fly directly to the lure or the prey but she being within the Atmosphear as I may so call it of Generation and so her Plastick power being reached and toucht by such an invisible reek as Birds of prey are that smell out their food at a distance she may be fatally carried all Perceptions ceasing in her to that Matter that is so fit a receptacle for her to exercise her efformative power upon For this Magick-sphere as I may so term it that has this power of conjuring down Souls into earthly Bodies the nearer the Centre the vertue is the stronger and therefore the Soul will never cease till she has slided into the very Matter that sent out those rays or subtile reek to allure her From whence it is easy to conceive that the Souls of Brutes also though they be not able to exercise their Perceptive faculty out of a terrestrial body yet they may infallibly finde the way again into the world as often as Matter is fitly prepared for generation And this is one Hypothesis and most intelligible to those that are pleased so much with the opinion of those large Sphears they conceive of emissary Atomes There is also another which is the Power and Activity of the Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soul of the World who is as fit an Agent to transmit particular Souls as she is to move the parts of Matter But of this hereafter 12. What has been said is enough for the present to illustrate the pretended obscurity and unconceivableness of this Mystery So that I have fully made good all the four parts of my Answer to that Objection that would have supplanted the force of my strongest Arguments for the Souls Immortality and have clearly proved that though this sequel did necessarily result from them That the Souls both of Men and Beasts did Prae-exist yet to unprejudiced reason there is no Absurdity nor Inconvenience at all in the Opinion And therefore this Obstacle being removed I shall the more chearfully proceed to the demonstrating of the Souls actual Separation from the Body CHAP. XV. 1. What is meant by
made dying men visit their friends before their departure at many miles distance their Bodies still keeping their sick bed and those that have been well give a visit to their sick friends of whose health they have been over-desirous and solicitous For this Ecstasie is really of the Soul and not of the Blood or Animal Spirits neither of which have any Sense or Perception in them at all And therefore into this Principle is to be resolved that Story which Martinus Del-Rio reports of a Lad who through the strength of Imagination and Desire of seeing his Father fell into an Ecstasie and after he came to himself confidently affirmed he had seen him and told infallible circumstances of his being present with him 13. That Cardan and others could fall into an Ecstasie when they pleased by force of Imagination and Desire to fall into it is recorded and believed by very grave and sober Writers but whether they could ever doe it to a compleat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or local disjunction of the Soul from the Body I know none that dare affirm such events being rather the chances of Nature and Complexion as in the Noctambuli then the effects of our Will But we cannot assuredly conclude but that Art may bring into our own power and ordering that which natural causes put upon us sometimes without our leaves But whether those Oyntments of Witches have any such effect or whether those unclean Spirits they deal with by their immediate presence in their Bodies cannot for a time so suppress or alter their Vital fitness to such a degree as will loosen the Soul I leave to more curious Inquisitors to search after It is sufficient that I have demonstrated a very intelligible possibility of this actual separation without Death properly so called From whence the peremptory Confessions of Witches and the agreement of the story which they tell in several as well those that are there bodily as they that leave their Bodies behinde them especially when at their return they bring something home with them as a permanent sign of their being at the place is though it may be all the delusion of their Familiars no contemptible probability of their being there indeed where they declare they have been For these are the greatest evidences that can be had in humane affairs And nothing so much as the supposed Impossibility thereof has deterred men from believing the thing to be true CHAP. XVI 1. That Souls departed communicate Dreams 2. Examples of Apparitions of Souls deceased 3. Of Apparitions in fields where pitcht Battels have been fought as also of those in Churchyards and other vaporous places 4. That the Spissitude of the Air may well contribute to the easiness of the appearing of Ghosts and Spectres 5. A further proof thereof from sundry examples 6. Of Marsilius Ficinus his appearing after death 7. With what sort of people such examples as these avail little 8. Reasons to perswade the unprejudiced that ordinarily those Apparitions that bear the shape and person of the deceased are indeed the Souls of them 1. THE Examples of the other sort viz. of the appearing of the Ghosts of men after death are so numerous and frequent in all mens mouths that it may seem superfluous to particularize in any This appearing is either by Dreams or open Vision In Dreams as that which hapned to Avenzoar Albumaron an Arabian Physitian to whom his lately-deceased friend suggested in his sleep a very soverain Medicine for his sore Eyes Like to this is that in Diodorus concerning Isis Queen of AEgypt whom he reports to have communicated remedies to the AEgyptians in their sleep after her death as well as she did when she was alive Of this kinde is also that memorable story of Posidonius the Stoick concerning two young men of Arcadia who being come to Megara and lying the one at a Victuallers the other in an Inne he in the Inne while he was asleep dream'd that his Fellow-traveller earnestly desired him to come and help him as being assaulted by the Victualler and in danger to be killed by him But he after he was perfectly awake finding it but a Dream neglected it But faln asleep again his murdered friend appeared to him the second time beseeching him that though he did not help him alive yet he would see his Death revenged telling him how the Victualler had cast his Body into a Dung-cart and that if he would get up timely in the morning and watch at the Town-gate he might thereby discover the murder which he did accordingly and so saw Justice done on the Murderer Nor does the first Dream make the second impertinent to our purpose For as that might be from the strength of Imagination and desire of help in the distressed Arcadian impressed on the Spirit of the World and so transmitted to his friend asleep a condition fittest for such communications so it is plain that this after his Death must fail if his Soul did either cease to be or to act And therefore it is manifest that she both was and did act and suggested this Dream in revenge of the Murder Of which kinde there be infinite examples I mean of Murders discovered by Dreams the Soul of the person murdered seeming to appear to some or other asleep and to make his complaint to them But I will content my self onely to adde an Example of Gratitude to this of Revenge As that of Simonides who lighting by chance on a dead Body by the Sea side and out of the sense of Humanity bestowing Burial upon it was requited with a Dream that saved his life For he was admonisht to desist from his Voyage he intended by Sea which the Soul of the deceased told him would be so perillous that it would hazard the lives of the Passengers He believed the Vision and abstaining was safe those others that went suffered Shipwrack 2. We will adjoyn onely an Example or two of that other kind of Visions which are ordinarily called the Apparitions of the dead And such is that which Pliny relates at large in his Epistle to Sura of an house haunted at Athens and freed by Athenodorus the Philosopher after the Body of that person that appeared to him was digged up and interred with due solemnity It is not a thing unlikely that most houses that are haunted are so chiefly from the Soules of the deceased who have either been murdered or some way injured or have some hid treasure to discover or the like And persons are haunted for the like causes as well as houses as Nero was after the murdering of his Mother Otho pull'd out of his bed in the night by the Ghost of Galba Such instances are infinite as also those wherein the Soule of ones friend suppose Father Mother or Husband have appeared to give them good counsell and to instruct them of the event of the greatest affairs of their life The Ghosts also of deceased Lovers have been reported to adhere
confined onely to our furtherance of what is of the highest and most indispensable consideration here but in proportion touches all transactions that proceed from a vertuous and good principle whereof there are several degrees amongst which those may not be esteemed the meanest that refer to a National good And therefore those that out of a natural generosity of Spirit and successful fortitude in Warre have delivered their Country from bondage or have been so wise and understanding in Politicks as to have contrived wholsome Laws for the greater happiness and comfort of the People while such a Nation prospers and is in being it cannot but be an accrument of happiness to these so considerable Benefactors unless we should imagine them less generous and good in the other World where they have the advantage of being Better And what I have said in this more notable instance is in a degree true in things of smaller concernment which would be infinite to rehearse But whole Nations with their Laws and Orders of Men and Families may fail and therefore these accessions be cut off but he that laies out his pains in this life for the carrying on such designs as will take place so long as the World endures and must have a compleat Triumph at last such a one laies a train for an everlasting advantage in the other World which in despite of all the tumblings and turnings of unsetled fortune will be sure to take effect 11. But this matter requires Judgement as well as Heat and Forwardness For pragmatical Ignorance though accompanied with some measure of Sincerity and well-meaning may set a-foot such things in the World or set upon record such either false or impertinent and unseasonable Principles as being made ill use of may very much prejudice the Cause one desires to promote which will be a sad spectacle for them in the other State For though their simplicity may be pardonable yet they will not fail to finde the ill effect of their mistake upon themselves As he that kills a friend in stead of an enemy though he may satisfy his Conscience that rightly pleads his innocency yet he cannot avoid the sense of shame and sorrow that naturally follows so mischievous an error 12. Such accruencies as these there may be to our enjoyments in the other World from the durable traces of our transactions in this if we have any Memory of things after Death as I have already demonstrated that we have But if we had not but Aristotles and Cardan's Opinion were true yet Vertue and Piety will not prove onely useful for this present state Because according to our living here we shall hereafter by a hidden concatenation of Causes be drawn to a condition answerable to the purity or impurity of our Souls in this life that silent Nemesis that passes through the whole contexture of the Universe ever fatally contriving us into such a state as we our selves have fitted our selves for by our accustomary actions Of so great consequence is it while we have opportunity to aspire to the best things CHAP. XII 1. What the Spirit of Nature is 2. Experiments that argue its real Existence such as that of two strings tuned Unisons 3. Sympathetick Cures and Tortures 4. The Sympathy betwixt the Earthly and Astral Body 5. Monstrous Births 6. The Attraction of the Loadstone and Roundness of the Sun and Stars 1. WE had now quite finished our Discourse did I not think it convenient to answer a double expectation of the Reader The one is touching the Spirit of Nature the other the producing of Objections that may be made against our concluded Assention of the Souls Immortality For as for the former I can easily imagine he may well desire a more punctual account of that Principle I have had so often recourse to then I have hitherto given and will think it fit that I should somewhere more fully explain what I mean by the terms and shew him my strongest grounds why I conceive there is any such Being in the World To hold him therefore no longer in suspence I shall doe both in this place The Spirit of Nature therefore according to that notion I have of it is A substance incorporeal but without Sense and Animadversion pervading the whole Matter of the Universe and exercising a plastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts it works upon raising such Phaenomena in the World by directing the parts of the Matter and their Motion as cannot be resolved into meer Mechanical powers This rude Description may serve to convey to any one a conception determinate enough of the nature of the thing And that it is not a meer Notion but a real Being besides what I have occasionally hinted already and shall here again confirm by new instances there are several other considerations may perswade us 2. The first whereof shall be concerning those experiments of Sympathetick Pains Asswagements and Cures of which there are many Examples approved by the most scrupulous Pretenders to sobriety and judgment and of all which I cannot forbear to pronounce that I suspect them to come to pass by some such power as makes strings that be tuned Unisons though on several Instruments the one being touched the other to tremble and move very sensibly and to cast off a straw or pin or any such small thing laid upon it Which cannot be resolved into any Mechanical Principle though some have ingeniously gone about it For before they attempted to shew the reason why that string that is not Unison to that which is struck should not leap and move as it doth that is they should have demonstrated that by the meer Vibration of the Aire that which is Unison can be so moved for if it could these Vibrations would not fail to move other Bodies more movable by farre then the string it self that is thus moved As for example if one hung loose near the string that is struck a small thred of silk or an hair with some light thing at the end of it they must needs receive those reciprocal Vibrations that are communicated to the Unison string at a far greater distance if the meer motion of the material Aire caused the subsultation of the string tuned Unison Which yet is contrary to experience Besides that if it were the meer Vibration of the Aire that caused this tremor in the Unison string the effect would not be considerable unless both the strings lay well-nigh in the same Plane and that the Vibration of the string that is struck be made in that Plane they both lie in But let the string be struck so as to cut the Plane perpendicularly by its tremulous excursions or let both the strings be in two several Planes at a good distance above one another the event is much-what the same though the Aire cannot rationally be conceived to vibrate backwards and forwards but well-nigh in the very Planes wherein the strings are moved All
things I say are beyond the powers of Matter I have fully enough declared proved in a large Letter of mine to V. C. and therefore that I may not actum agere shall forbear speaking any farther thereof in this place To which you may adde that meer corporeal motion in Matter without any other guide would never so much as produce a round Sun or Star of which figure notwithstanding Des-Cartes acknowledges them to be But my reasons why it cannot be effected by the simple Mechanical powers of Matter I have particularly set down in my Letters to that excellent Philosopher CHAP. XIII 1. That the Descent of heavy Bodies argues the existence of the Spirit of Nature because else they would either hang in the Aire as they are placed 2. Or would be diverted from a perpendicular as they fall near a Plate of Metall set stooping 3. That the endeavour of the AEther or Aire from the Centre to the Circumference is not the cause of Gravity against Mr. Hobbs 4. A full confutation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion 5. An ocular Demonstration of the absurd consequence thereof 6. An absolute Demonstration that Gravity cannot be the effect of meer Mechanical powers 7. The Latitude of the operations of the Spirit of Nature how large and where bounded 8. The reason of its name 9. It s grand office of transmitting Souls into rightly-prepared Matter 1. AND a farther confirmation that I am not mistaken therein is what we daily here experience upon Earth which is the descending of heavy Bodies as we call them Concerning the motion whereof I agree with Des-Cartes in the assignation of the immediate corporeal cause to wit the AEtherial matter which is so plentifully in the Air over it is in grosser Bodies but withall doe vehemently surmise that there must be some immaterial cause such as we call the Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soule of the World that must direct the motions of the AEtherial particles to act upon these grosser Bodies to drive them towards the Earth For that surplusage of Agitation of the globular particles of the AEther above what they spend in turning the Earth about is carried every way indifferently according to his own concession by which motion the drops of liquors are formed into round figures as he ingeniously concludes From whence it is apparent that a bullet of iron silver or gold placed in the aire is equally assalted on all sides by the occursion of these aethereal particles and therefore will be moved no more downwards then upwards but hang in aequilibrio as a piece of Cork rests on the water where there is neither winde nor stream but is equally plaied against by the particles of water on all sides 3. Nor can the endeavour of the celestial Matter from the centre to the circumference take place here For besides that Des-Cartes the profoundest Master of Mechanicks has declin'd that way himself though Mr. Hobbs has taken it up it would follow that near the Poles of the Earth there would be no descent of heavy Bodies at all and in the very Clime we live in none perpendicular To say nothing how this way will not salve the union of that great Water that adheres to the body of the Moon 6. Adde unto all this that if the motion of gross Bodies were according to meer Mechanical laws a Bullet suppose of Lead or Gold cast up into the aire would never descend again but would persist in a rectilinear motion For it being farre more solid then so much Aire AEther put together as would fill its place and being moved with no less swiftness then that wherewith the Earth is carried about in twenty four hours it must needs break out in a straight line through the thin aire and never return again to the Earth but get away as a Comet does out of a Vortex And that de facto a Canon Bullet has been shot so high that it never fell back again upon the ground Des-Cartes does admit of as a true experiment Of which for my own part I can imagine no other unexceptionable reason but that at a certain distance the Spirit of Nature in some regards leaves the motion of Matter to the pure laws of Mechanicks but within other bounds checks it whence it is that the Water does not swill out of the Moon 7. Now if the pure Mechanick powers in Matter and Corporeal motion will not amount to so simple a Phaenomenon as the falling of a stone to the Earth how shall we hope they will be the adaequate cause of sundry sorts of Plants and other things that have farre more artifice and curiosity then the direct descent of a stone to the ground Nor are we beaten back again by this discovery into that dotage of the confounded Schools who have indued almost every different Object of our Senses with a distinct Substantial form and then puzzle themselves with endless scrupulosities about the generation corruption and mixtion of them For I affirm with Des-Cartes that nothing affects our Senses but such variations of Matter as are made by difference of Motion Figure Situation of parts c. but I dissent from him in this in that I hold it is not meer and pure mechanical motion that causes all these sensible Modifications in Matter but that many times the immediate Director thereof is this Spirit of Nature I speak of one and the same every where and acting alwaies alike upon like occasions as a clear-minded man and of a solid judgment gives alwaies the same verdict in the same circumstances For this Spirit of Nature intermedling with the efformation of the Foetus of Animals as I have already shewn more then once where notwithstanding there seems not so much need there being in them a more particular Agent for that purpose 't is exceeding rational that all Plants and Flowers of all sorts in which we have no argument to prove there is any particular Souls should be the effects of this Universal Soule of the World Which Hypothesis besides that it is most reasonable in it self according to that ordinary Axiome Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora is also very serviceable for the preventing many hard Problems about the Divisibility of the Soules of Plants their Transmutations into other Species the growing of Slips and the like For there is one Soule ready every where to pursue the advantages of prepared Matter Which is the common and onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all Plantal appearances or of whatever other Phaenomena there be greater or smaller that exceed the pure Mechanical powers of Matter We except onely Men and Beasts who having all of them the capacity of some sort of enjoyments or other it was fit they should have particular Souls for the multiplying of the sense of those enjoyments which the transcendent Wisdome of the Creatour has contrived 8. I have now plainly enough set down what I mean by the Spirit of
are nothing but meer Matter That the whole Body cannot be the Common Sensorium 3. Nor the Orifice of the Stomack 4. Nor the Heart 5. Nor the Brain 6. Nor the Membranes 7. Nor the Septum lucidum 8. Nor Regius his small and perfectly solid Particle 9. The probability of the Conarion being the common Seat of Sense 154 Chap. 5. 1. How Perception of external Objects Spontaneous Motion Memory and Imagination are pretended to be performed by the Conarion Spirits and Muscles without a Soul 2. That the Conarion devoid of a Soul cannot be the common Percipient demonstrated out of Des-Cartes himself 3. That the Conarion with the Spirits and organization of the Parts of the Body is not a sufficient Principle of Spontaneous motion without a Soul 4. A description of the use of the Valvulae in the Nerves of the Muscles for Spontaneous motion 5. The insufficiency of this contrivance for that purpose 6. A further demonstration of the insufficiency thereof from whence is clearly evinced that Brutes have Souls 7. That Memory cannot be salved the way above described 8. Nor Imagination 9. A Distribution out of Des-Cartes of the Functions in us some appertaining to the Body and others to the Soul 10. The Authors Observations thereupon 161 Chap. 6. 1. That no part of the Spinal Marrow can be the Common Sensorium without a Soul in the Body 2. That the Animal Spirits are more likely to be that Common Percipient 3. But yet it is demonstrable they are not 4. As not being so much as capable of Sensation 5. Nor of directing Motion into the Muscles 6. Much less of Imagination and rational Invention 7. Nor of Memory 8. An answer to an Evasion 9. The Authors reason why he has confuted so particularly all the Suppositions of the Seat of Common Sense when few of them have been asserted with the exclusion of a Soul 173 Chap. 7. 1. His enquiry after the Seat of Common Sense upon supposition there is a Soul in the Body 2. That there is some particular part in the Body that is the Seat of Common Sense 3. A general division of their Opinions concerning the place of Common Sense 4. That of those that place it out of the Head there are two sorts 5. The Invalidity of Helmont 's reasons whereby he would prove the Orifice of the Stomack to be the principal Seat of the Soul 6. An answer to Helmont 's stories for that purpose 7. A further confutation out of his own concessions 8. Mr. Hobbs his Opinion confuted that makes the Heart the Seat of Common Sense 9. A further confutation thereof from Experience 10. That the Common Sense is seated somewhere in the Head 11. A caution for the choice of the particular place thereof 12. That the whole Brain is not it 13. Nor Regius his small solid Particle 14. Nor any external Membrane of the Brain nor the Septum Lucidum 15. The three most likely places 16. Objections against Cartesius his Opinion concerning the Conarion answered 17. That the Conarion is not the Seat of Common Sense 18. Nor that part of the Spinal Marrow where the Nerves are conceived to concurre but the Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain 182 Chap. 8. 1. The first reason of his Opinion the convenient Situation of these Spirits 2. The second that the Spirits are the immediate instrument of the Soul in all her functions 3. The proof of the second Reason from the general authority of Philosophers and particularly of Hippocrates 4. From our Sympathizing with the changes of the Aire 5. From the celerity of Motion and Cogitation 6. From what is observed generally in the Generation of things 7. From Regius his experiment of a Snail in a glass 8. From the running round of Images in a Vertigo 9. From the constitution of the Eye and motion of the Spirits there 10. From the dependency of the actions of the Soul upon the Body whether in Meditation or corporeal Motion 11. From the recovery of Motion and Sense into a stupified part 12. And lastly from what is observed in swooning fits of paleness and sharpness of visage c. 13. The inference from all this That the Spirits in the fourth Ventricle are the seat of Common Sense and that the main use of the Brain and Nerves is to preserve the Spirits 198 Chap. 9. 1. Several Objections against Animal Spirits 2. An Answer to the first Objection touching the Porosity of the Nerves 3. To the second and third from the Extravasation of the Spirits and pituitous Excrements found in the Brain 4. To the fourth fetcht from the incredible swiftness of motion in the Spirits 5. To the last from Ligation 6. Undeniable Demonstrations that there are Animal Spirits in the Ventricles of the Brain 209 Chap. 10. 1. That the Soul is not confined to the Common Sensorium 2. The first Argument from the Plastick power of the Soul 3. Which is confirmed from the gradual dignity of the Souls Faculties of which this Plastick is the lowest 4. External Sensation the next 5. After that Imagination and then Reason 6. The second Argument from Passions and Sympathies in Animals 7. An illustration of the manner of natural Magick 8. The third Argument from the Perception of Pain in the exteriour parts of the Body 9. The fourth and last from the nature of Sight 215 Chap. 11. 1. That neither the Soul without the Spirits nor the Spirits without the presence of the Soul in the Organ are sufficient causes of Sensation 2. A brief declaration how Sensation is made 3. How Imagination 4. Of Reason and Memory and whether there be any Marks in the Brain 5. That the Spirits are the immediate Instrument of the Soul in Memory also and how Memory arises 6. As also Forgetfulness 7. How spontaneous Motion is performed 8. How we walk sing and play though thinking of something else 9. That though the Spirits be not alike fine every where yet the Sensiferous Impression will pass to the Common Sensorium 10. That there is an Heterogeneity in the very Soul her self and what it is in her we call the Root the Centre and the Eye and what the Rayes and Branches 11. That the sober and allowable Distribution of her into Parts is into Perceptive and Plastick 226 Chap. 12. 1. An Answer to an Objection That our Arguments will as well prove the Immortality of the Souls of Brutes as of Men. 2. Another Objection inferring the Praeexistence of Brutes Souls and consequently of ours 3. The first Answer to the Objection 4. The second Answer consisting of four parts 5. First That the Hypothesis of Praeexistence is more agreeable to Reason then any other Hypothesis 6. And not onely so but that it is very solid in it self 7. That the Wisdome and Goodness of God argue the truth thereof 8. As also the face of Providence in the World 9. The second part of the second Answer That the Praeexistence of the Soul has the suffrage
these parts and transverse penetration and transcursion of secondary substance thorough this whole Sphere of life which we call a Spirit Nor need we wonder that so full an Orbe should swell out from so subtil and small a point as the Center of this Spirit is supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle somewhere sayes of the mind of man And besides it is but what is seen in some sort to the very eye in light how large a spheare of aire a little spark will illuminate 5. This is the pure Idea of a created Spirit in general concerning which if there be yet any cavill to be made it can be none other then what is perfectly common to it and to Matter that is the unimaginableness of Points and smallest Particles and how what is discerpible cannot at all hang together but this not hindering Matter from actuall existence there is no reason that it should any way pretend to the inferring of the impossibility of the existence of a Spirit by Axiome 7. But the most lubricous supposition that we goe upon here is not altogether so intricate as those difficulties in Matter For if that be but granted in which I find no absurdity That a Particle of Matter may be so little that it is utterly uncapable of being made less it is plain that one and the same thing though intellectually divisible may yet be really indiscerpible And indeed it is not only possible but it seems necessary that this should be true For though we should acknowledg that Matter were discerpible in infinitum yet supposing a Cause of Infinite distinct perception and as Infinite power and God is such this Cause can reduce this capacity of infinite discerpibleness of Matter into act that is to say actually and at once discerp it or disjoyn it into so many particles as it is discerpible into From whence it will follow that one of these particles reduced to this perfect Parvitude is then utterly indiscerpible and yet intellectually divisible otherwise magnitude would consist of meer points which would imply a contradiction We have therefore plainly demonstrated by reason that Matter consists of parts indiscerpible and therefore there being no other Faculty to give suffrage against it for neither sense nor any common notion can contradict it it remains by Axiome 5. that the Conclusion is true 6. What some would object from Reason that these perfect Parvitudes being acknowledged still intellectually divisible must still have parts into which they are divisible and therefore be still discerpible to this it is answered That division into parts does not imply any discerpibility because the parts conceived in one of these Minima Corporalia as I may so call them are rather essentiall or formall parts then integrall and can no more actually be dissevered then Sense and Reason from the Soul of a man For it is of the very Essence of Matter to be divisible but it is not at all included in the essence thereof to be discerpible and therefore where discerpibility fails there is no necessity that divisibility should faile also See the Preface Sect. 3. 7. As for the trouble of spurious suggestions or representations from the Fancy as if these perfect Parvitudes were round Bodyes and that therefore there would be Triangular intervals betwixt void of Matter they are of no moment in this case she alwayes representing a Discerpible magnitude instead of an Indiscerpible one Wherefore she bringing in a false evidence her testimony is to be rejected nay if she could perplex the cause far worse she was not to be heard by Axiome the 4. Wherefore Fancy being unable to exhibite the object we consider in its due advantages for ought we know these perfect Parvitudes may lye so close together that they have no intervals betwixt nay it seems necessary to be so For if there were any such intervalls they were capable of particles less then these least of all which is a contradiction in Reason and a thing utterly impossible But if we should gratify Fancy so far as to admit of these intervals the greatest absurdity would be that we must admit an insensible Vacuum which no Faculty will be able ever to confute But it is most rationall to admit none and more consonant to our determination concerning these Minima Corporalia as I call them whose largeness is to be limited to the least reall touch of either a Globe on a Plain or a Cone on a Plain or a Globe on a Globe if you conceive any reall touch less then another let that be the measure of these Minute Realities in Matter From whence it will follow they must touch a whole side at once and therefore can never leave any empty intervals Nor can we imagine any Angulosities or round protuberancies in a quantity infinitely little more then we can in one infinitely great as I have already declared in my Preface I must confess a mans Reason in this speculation is mounted far beyond his Imagination but there being worse intricacies in Theories acknowledged constantly to be true it can be no prejudice to the present Conclusion by the 4. and 7. Axiomes 8. Thus have we cleared up a full and distinct notion of a Spirit with so unexceptionable accuracy that no Reason can pretend to assert it impossible nor unintelligible But if the Theory thereof may seem more operose and tedious to impatient wits and the punctuality of the description the more hazardous and incredible as if it were beyond our Faculties to make so precise a Conclusion in a subject so obscure they may ease their understanding by contenting themselves with what we have set down Cap. 2. Sect. 11 12. and remember that that Wisdome and Power that created all things can make them of what nature He pleases and that if God will that there shall be a Creature that is penetrable and indiscerpible that it is as easy a thing for him to make one so of its own nature as one impenetrable and discerpible and indue it with what other properties he pleases according to his own will and purpose which induments being immediately united with the Subject they are in Reason can make no further demand how they are there by the 9. Axiome CHAP. VII 1. Of the Self-motion of a Spirit 2. Of Self-penetration 3. Of Self-contraction and dilatation 4. The power of penetrating of Matter 5. The power of moving 6. And of altering the Matter 1. WE have proved the Indiscerpibility of a Spirit as well in Center as Circumference as well in the Primary as Secondary Substance thereof to be a very consistent and congruous Notion The next property is Self-motion which must of necessity be an Attribute of something or other For by Self-motion I understand nothing else but Self-activity which must appertain to a Subject active of it self Now what is simply active of it self can no more cease to be active then to Be which is a sign that Matter
have now firmly made good that the notion of a Spirit implyes no contradiction nor incompossibility in it but is the notion or Idea of a thing that may possibly be Which I have done so punctually and particularly that I have cleared every Species of Substances Incorporeall from the imputation of either obscurity or inconsistency And that I might not seem to take advantage in pleading their cause in the absence of the adverse party I have brought in the most able Advocate and the most assured that I have hitherto ever met withall and dare now appeal to any indifferent Judge whether I have not demonstrated all his Allegations to be weak and inconclusive Wherefore having so clearly evinced the possibility of the Existence of a Spirit we shall now make a step further and prove That it is not onely a thing possible but that it is really and actually in Nature CHAP. XI 1. Three grounds to prove the Existence of an Immateriall Substance whereof the first is fetcht from the Nature of God 2. The second from the Phaenomenon of Motion in the world 3. That the Matter is not self-moveable 4. An Objection that the Matter may be part self-moved part not 5. The first Answer to the Objection 6. The second Answer 7. Other Evasions answered 8. The Conclusion That no Matter is self-moved but that a certain quantity of motion was impressed upon it at its first Creation by God 1. THere be three main Grounds from whence a man may be assured of the Existence of Spirituall or Immateriall Substance The one is the consideration of the transcendent excellency of the nature of God who being according to the true Idea of Him an Essence absolutely perfect cannot possibly be Body and consequently must be something Incorporeall and seeing that there is no contradiction in the notion of a Spirit in generall nor in any of those kinds of Spirits which we have defined where the notion of God was set down amongst the rest and that in the very notion of him there is contained the reason of his Existence as you may see at large in my Antidote Lib. 1. Cap. 7. 8 certainly if we find any thing at all to be we may safely conclude that He is much more For there is nothing besides Him of which one can give a reason why it is unless we suppose him to be the Author of it Wherefore though God be neither Visible nor Tangible yet his very Idea representing to our Intellectuall Faculties the necessary reason of his Existence we are by Axiome 5. though we had no other Argument drawn from our Senses confidently to conclude That He is 2. The second ground is the ordinary Phaenomena of Nature the most generall whereof is Motion Now it seems to me demonstrable from hence that there is some Being in the world distinct from Matter For Matter being of one simple homogeneal nature not distinguishable by specificall differences as the Schools speak it must have every where the very same Essentiall properties and therefore of it self it must all of it be either without motion or else be self-moving and that in such or such a tenor or measure of Motion there being no reason imaginable why one part of the Matter should move of it self lesse then another and therefore if there be any such thing it can onely arise from externall impediment 3. Now I say if Matter be utterly devoid of Motion in it self it is plain it has it's motion from some other Substance which is necessarily a Substance that is not Matter that is to say a Substance Incorporeall But if it be moved of it self in such or such a measure the effect here being an Emanative effect cannot possibly fail to be where-ever Matter is by Axiome 17. especially if there be no externall impediment And there is no impediment at all but that the terrestriall parts might regain an activity very nigh equall to the aethereall or rather never have lost it For if the Planets had but a common Dividend of all the motion which themselves and the Sun and Stars and all the AEthereall matter possess the matter of the Planets being so little in comparison of that of the Sun Stars and AEther the proportion of motion that will fall due to them would be exceeding much above what they have For it would be as if four or five poor men in a very rich and populous city should by giving up that estate they have in a levelling way get equall share with all the rest Wherefore every Planet could not faile of melting it self into little less finer Substance then the purest AEther But they not doing so it is a signe they have not that Motion nor Agitation of themselves and therefore rest content with what has extrinsecally accrued to them be it less or more 4. But the pugnacious to evade the stroke of our Dilemma will make any bold shift and though they affront their own faculties in saying so yet they will say and must say That part of the Matter is self-moving part without motion of it self 5. But to this I answer That first this evasion of theirs is not so agreeable to experience but so far as either our Sense or Reason can reach there is the same Matter every where For consider the subtilest parts of Matter discoverable here below those which for their Subtilty are invisible and for their Activity wonderfull I mean those particles that cause that vehement agitation we fell in Windes They in time loose their motion become of a visible vaporous consistency and turn to Clouds then to Snow or Rain after haply to Ice it self but then in process of time first melted into Water then exhaled into Vapours after more fiercely agitated do become Wind again And that we may not think that this Reciprocation into Motion and Rest belongs onely to Terrestriall particles that the Heavens themselves be of the same Matter is apparent from the Ejections of Comets into our Vortex and the perpetuall rising of those Spots and Scum upon the Face of the Sun 6. But secondly to return what is still more pungent This Matter that is Self-moved in the impressing of Motion upon other Matter either looses of its own motion or retains it still entire If the first it may be despoiled of all its motion And so that whose immediate nature is to move shall rest the entire cause of its motion still remaining viz. it self which is a plain contradiction by Axiome 17. If the second no meaner an inconvenience then this will follow that the whole world had been turned into pure AEther by this time if not into a perfect flame or at least will be in the conclusion to the utter destruction of all corporeall Consistencies For that these Self-moving parts of Matter are of a considerable copiousness the event does testify they having melted almost all the world already into Suns Stars and AEther nothing remaining but Planets and Comets to be
or little Finger Besides that it seems wholly imployed in the performance of its Systole and Diastole which causes such a great difference of the situation of the Heart by turns that if it were that Seat in which the sense of all Objects center we should not be able to see things steddily resting in the same place 5. How uncapable the Brain is of being so active a Principle of Motion as we find in our selves the viscidity thereof does plainly indicate Besides that Physitians have discovered by experience that the Brain is so far from being the common Seat of all senses that it has in it none at all And the Arabians that say it has have distinguished it into such severall offices of Imagination Memory Common Sense c. that we are still at a loss for some one part of Matter that is to be the Common Percipient of all these But I have so clearly demonstrated the impossibility of the Brains being able to perform those functions that appertain truly to what ordinarily men call the Soule in my Antidote against Atheisme that it is enough to refer the Reader thither 6. As for the Membranes whether we would fancy them all the Seat of Common Sense or some one Membrane or part there of the like difficulties will accur as have been mentioned already For if all the Membranes the difference and situation of them will vary the aspect and sight of the Object so that the same things will appear to us in several hues and severall places at once as is easily demonstrated from Axiome 22. If some one Membrane or part thereof it will be impossible to excogitate any Mechanicall reason how this one particular Membrane or any part thereof can be able so strongly and determinately to move upon occasion every part of the Body 7. And therefore for this very cause cannot the Septum lucidum be the Common Percipient in us because it is utterly unimaginable how it should have the power of so stoutly and distinctly moving our exteriour parts and limbs 8. As for that new and marvelous Invention of Henricus Regius that it may be a certain perfectly solid but very small particle of Matter in the Body that is the seat of common perception besides that it is as boldly asserted that such an hard particle should have sense in it as that the filings of Iron and Steel should it cannot be the spring of Motion For how should so small at Atome move the whole Body but by moving it self But it being more subtile then the point of any needle when it puts it self upon motion especially such strong thrustings as we sometimes use it must needs passe through the Body and leave it 9. The most pure Mechanical Invention is that of the use of the Conarion proposed by Des-Cartes which considered with some other organizations of the Body bids the fairest of any thing I have met withall or ever hope to meet withall for the resolution of the Passions and Properties of living Creatures into meer corporeall motion And therefore it is requisite to insist a little upon the explication thereof that we may the more punctually confute them that would abuse his Mechanicall contrivances to the exclusion of all Principles but Corporeall in either Man or Beast CHAP. V. 1. How Perception of externall Objects Spontaneous Motion Memory and Imagination are pretended to be performed by the Conarion Spirits and Muscles without a Soule 2. That the Conarion devoid of a Soule cannot be the common Percipient demonstrated out of Des-Cartes himself 3. That the Conarion with the Spirits and organization of the Parts of the Body is not a sufficient Principle of Spontancous motion without a Soule 4. A aescription of the use of the Valvulae in the Nerves of the Muscles for spontaneous motion 5. The insufficiency of this contrivance for that purpose 6. A further demonstration of the insufficiency thereof from whence is clearly evinced that Brutes have Soules 7. That Memory cannot be salved the way above described 8. Nor Imagination 9. A Distribution out of Des-Cartes of the Functions in us some appertaining to the Body and others to the Soule 10. The Authors Observations there upon 1 THE sum of this Abuse must in brief be this That the Glandula Pinealis is the common Sentient or Percipient of all Objects and without a Soule by vertue of the Spirits and Organization of the Body may doe all those feats that we ordinarily conceive to be performed by Soule and Body joyned together For it being one whenas the rest of the Organs of Sense are double and so handsomely seated as to communicate with the Spirits as well of the posteriour as anteriour Cavities of the Brain by their help all the motions of the Nerves both those that transmit the sense of outward Objects and of inward affections of the Body such as Hunger Thirst and the like are easily conveighed unto it and so being variously moved it does variously determine the course of the Spirits into such and such Muscles whereby it moves the Body Moreover that the transmission of Motion from the Object through the Nerves into the inward concavities of the Brain and so to the Conarion opens such and such Pores of the Brain in such and such order or manner which remain as tracts or footsteps of the presence of these Objects after they are removed Which tracts or signatures consist mainly in this that the Spirits will have an easier passage through these Pores then other parts of the Brain And hence arises Memory when the Spirits be determined by the inclining of the Conarion to that part of the Brain where these tracts are found they moving then the Conarion as when the Object was present though not so strongly From the hitting of the Spirits into such like tracts is also the nature of Imagination to be explained in which there is little difference from Memory saving that the reflection upon time as past when we saw or perceived such or such a thing is quite left out But these are not all the operations we are conscious to our selves of and yet more then can be made out by this Hypothesis That Perception of Objects Spontaneous Motion Memory and Imagination may be all performed by vertue of this Glandula the Animal Spirits and meer organization of the Body as we shall plainly find though but upon an easy examination 2. For that the Conarion devoid of a Soule has no perception of any one Object is demonstrable from the very description Cartesius makes of the transmission of the image suppose through the Eye to the Brain and so to the Conarion For it is apparent from what he sets down in the 35. Article of his Treatise of the Passions of the Soule that the Image that is propagated from the Object to the Conarion is impressed thereupon in some latitude of space Whence it is manifest that the Conarion does not nor can perceive the whole Object though severall parts
Substance residing in us distinct from the Body But I shall not content my self here but for a more full discovery of her Nature and Faculties I shall advance further and search out her chief Seat in the Body where and from whence she exercises her most noble Functions and after enquire whether she be confined to that part thereof alone or whether she be spred through all our members and lastly consider after what manner she sees feels hears imagines remembers reasons and moves the Body For beside that I shall make some good use of these discoveries for further purpose it is also in it self very pleasant to have in readiness a rationall and cohaerent account and a determinate apprehension of things of this nature CHAP. VII 1. His enquiry after the Seat of Common Sense upon supposition there is a Soule in the Body 2. That there is some particular part in the Body that is the Seat of Common Sense 3. A generall division of their Opinions concerning the place of Common Sense 4. That of those that place it out of the Head there are two sorts 5. The Invalidity of Helmont's reasons whereby he would prove the Orifice of the Stomack to be the principall Seat of the Soule 6. An Answer to Helmont's storyes for that purpose 7. A further confutation out of his own concessions 8. Mr. Hobbs his Opinion confuted that makes the Heart the Seat of Common Sense 9. A further confutation thereof from Experience 10. That the Common Sense is seated somewhere in the Head 11. A caution for the choice of the particular place thereof 12. That the whole Brain is not it 13. Nor Regius his small solid Particle 14. Nor any externall Membrane of the Brain nor the Septum Lucidum 15. The three most likely places 16. Objections against Cartesius his Opinion concerning the Conarion answered 17. That the Conarion is not the Seat of Common Sense 18. Nor that part of the Spinall Marrow where the Nerves are conceived to concurre but the Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain 1. IT will therefore be requisite for us to resume the former Opinions altering the Hypothesis and to examine which of them is most reasonable supposing there be a Substance immateriall or Soule in man 2. That there is some particular or restrained Seat of the Common Sense is an Opinion that even all Philosophers and Physitians are agreed upon And it is an ordinary Comparison amongst them that the Externall Senses and the Common Sense considered together are like a Circle with five lines drawn from the Circumference to the Centre Wherefore as it has been obvious for them to finde out particular Organs for the externall Senses so they have also attempted to assign some distinct part of the Body for to be an Organ of the Common Sense that is to say as they discovered Sight to be seated in the Eye Hearing in the Eare Smelling in the Nose c. so they conceived that there is some part of the Body wherein Seeing Hearing and all other Perceptions meet together as the lines of a circle in the centre and that there the Soule does also judge and discern of the difference of the Objects of the outward Senses They have justly therefore excluded all the Externall parts of the Body from the lightest suspition of any capacity of undergoing such a function as is thus generall they being all employed in a more particular task which is to be the Organ of some one of these five outward Senses and to be affected no otherwise then by what is impressed upon themselves and chiefly from their proper Objects amongst which five Touch properly so called has the greatest share it being as large as the Skin that covers us and reaching as deep as any Membrane and Nerve in the limbs and trunk of the Body besides all the Exteriour parts of the Head All which can no more see then the Eye can hear or the Eare can smell 3. Besides this all those Arguments that doe so clearly evince that the place of Common Sense is somewhere in the Head is a plain demonstration that the whole Body cannot be the Seat thereof and what those Arguments are you shall hear anon For all those Opinions that have pitched on any one Part for the Seat of Common Sense being to be divided into two Ranks to wit either such as assign some particular place in the Body or else in the Head we will proceed in this order as first to confute those that have made choice of any part for the Seat of Common Sense out of the Head and then in the second place we will in generall shew that the common Sensorium must be in some part of the Head and lastly of those many opinions concerning what part of the Head this common Sensorium should be those which seem less reasonable being rejected we shall pitch upon what we conceive the most unexceptionable 4. Those that place the Common Sensorium out of the Head have seated it either in the upper Orifice of the Stomack or in the Heart The former is Van-Helmont's Opinion the other Mr. Hobbs his 5. As for Van-Helmont there is nothing he alledges for his Opinion but may be easily answered That which mainly imposed upon him was the exceeding Sensibility of that part which Nature made so that as a faithfull sagacious Porter it might admit nothing into the Stomack that might prove mischievous or troublesome to the Body From this tender Sensibility great offences to it may very well cause Swoonings and Apoplexies and cessations of Sense But Fear and Joy and Grief have dispatched some very suddainly when yet the first entrance of that deadly stroak has been at the Eare or the Eye from some unsupportable ill newes or horrid spectacle And the harsh handling of an angry Sore or the treading on a Corn on the Toe may easily cast some into a swoon and yet no man will ever imagine the Seat of the Common Sense to be placed in the Foot In fine there is no more reason to think the Common Sensorium is in the mouth of the Stomack because of the Sensible Commotions we feel there then that it is seated in the Stars because we so clearly perceive their Light as Des-Cartes has well answered upon like occasion Nor can Phrensies and Madnesses though they may sometimes be observed to take their rise from thence any more prove that it is the Seat of the Common Sense then the Furor uterinus Apoplexies Epilepsies and Syncopes proceeding from the Wombe doe argue that the common Sensorium of Women lyes in that part 6. And if we consider the great Sympathy betwixt the Orifice of the Stomack and the Heart whose Pathemata are so alike and conjoyned that the Ancients have given one name to both parts calling them promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the pains of the Stomack 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also that the Heart is that part