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
notion of a Spirit 1. AND thus we have fairly well gratified the Fancy of the Curious concerning the Extension and Indiscerpibility of a Spirit but we shall advance yet higher and demonstrate the possibility of this notion to the severest Reason out of these following Principles AXIOME XI A Globe touches a Plain in something though in the least that is conceivable to be reall  AXIOME XII The least that is conceivable is so little that it cannot be conceived to be discerpible into less  AXIOME XIII As little as this is the repetition of it will amount to considerable magnitudes AS for example if this Globe be drawn upon a Plain it constitutes a Line and a Cylinder drawn upon a Plain or this same Line described by the Globe multiplyed into it self constitutes a superficies c. This a man cannot deny but the more he thinks of it the more certainly true he will find it AXIOME XIV Magnitude cannot arise out of meer Non-Magnitudes FOR multiply Nothing ten thousand millions of times into nothing the Product will be still nothing Besides if that wherein the Globe touches a Plain were more then Indiscerpible that is purely Indivisible it is manifest that a Line will consist of Points Mathematically so called that is purely Indivisible which is the grandest absurdity that can be admitted in Philosophy and the most contradictions thing imaginable AXIOME XV. The same thing by reason of its extreme littleness may be utterly Indiscerpible though intellectually Divisible THis plainly arises out of the foregoing Principles For every Quantity is intellectually divisible but something Indiscerpible was afore demonstrated to be Quantity and consequently divisible otherwise Magnitude would consist of Mathematicall points Thus have I found a possibility for the Notion of the Center of a Spirit which is not a Mathematicall point but Substance in Magnitude so little that it is Indiscerpible but in virtue so great that it can send forth out of it self so large a Sphere of Secondary Substance as I may so call it that it is able to actuate grand Proportions of Matter this whole Sphere of life and activity being in the mean time utterly Indiscerpible 2. This I have said and shall now prove it by adding a few more Principles of that evidence as the most rigorous Reason shall not be able to deny them AXIOME XVI An Emanative Cause is the notion of a thing possible BY an Emanative Cause is understood such a Cause as meerly by Being no other activity or causality interposed produces an Effect That this is possible is manifest it being demonstrable that there is de facto some such Cause in the world because something must move it self Now if there be no Spirit Matter must of necessity move it self where you cannot imagine any activity or causality but the bare essence of the Matter from whence this motion comes For if you would suppose some former motion that might be the cause of this then we might with as good reason suppose some former to be the cause of that and so in infinitum AXIOME XVII An Emanative Effect is coexistent with the very substance of that which is said to be the Cause thereof THis must needs be true because that very Substance which is said to be the Cause is the adaequate immediate Cause and wants nothing to be adjoyned to its bare essence for the production of the Effect and therefore by the same reason the Effect is at any time it must be at all times or so long as that Substance does exist AXIOME XVIII No Emanative Effect that exceeds not the virtues and powers of a Cause can be said to be impossible to be produced by it THis is so plain that nothing need be added for either explanation or proof AXIOME XIX There may be a Substance of that high Vertue and Excellency that it may produce another Substance by Emanative causality provided that Substance produced be in due graduall proportions inferiour to that which causes it THis is plain out of the foregoing Principle For there is no contradiction nor impossibility of a Cause producing an Effect less noble then it self for thereby we are the better assured that it does not exceed the capacity of its own powers Nor is there any incongruity that one Substance should cause something else which we may in some sense call Substance though but Secondary or Emanatory acknowledging the Primary Substance to be the more adequate Object of divine Creation but the Secondary to be referrible also to the Primary or Centrall Substance by way of causall relation For suppose God created the Matter with an immediate power of moving it self God indeed is the Prime cause as well of the Motion as of the Matter and yet nevertheless the Matter is rightly said to move it self Finally this Secondary or Emanatory Substance may be rightly called Substance because it is a Subject indued with certain powers and activities and that it does not inhaere as an Accident in any other Substance or Matter but could maintaine its place though all Matter or what other Substance soever were removed out of that space it is extended through provided its Primary Substance be but safe 3. From these four Principles I have here added we may have not an imaginative but rationall apprehension of that part of a Spirit which we call the Secondary Substance thereof Whos 's Extension arising by graduall Emanation from the First and primest Essence which we call the Center of the Spirit which is no impossible supposition by the 16. 18. and 19. Axiomes we are led from hence to a necessary acknowledgment of perfect Indiscerpibility of parts though not intellectuall Indivisibility by Axiome 17. for it implyes a contradiction that an Emanative effect should be disjoyned from its originall 4. Thus have I demonstrated how a Spirit considering the lineaments of it as I may so call them from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible But now if any be so curious as to ask how the parts thereof hold together in a line drawn cross to these from the Center for Imagination it may be will suggest they lye all loose I answer that the conjecture of Imagination is here partly true and partly false or is true or false as she shall be interpreted For if she mean by loose actually disunited it is false and ridiculous but if only so discerpible that one part may be disunited from another that is not only true but necessary otherwise a Spirit could not contract one part and extend another which is yet an Hypothesis necessary to be admitted Wherefore this Objection is so far from weakning the possibility of this notion that it gives occasion more fully to declare the exact concinnity thereof To be brief therefore a Spirit from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible but in lines cross to this it is closely cohaerent but not indiscerpibly which cohaesion may consist in an immediate union of
Sense or Common Notion found in all men that have not done violence to their own Nature unless by some other approved Faculty he can discover the contrary my Conclusion must stand for an undoubted Truth by Axiome 5. He pretends therefore some Demonstration of Reason which he would oppose against the dictate of this Inward Sense which it will not be amiss to examine that we may discover his Sophistry CHAP. III. 1. Mr. Hobbs his Arguments whereby he would prove all our actions necessitated His first Argument 2. His second Argument 3. His third Argument 4. His fourth Argument 5. What must be the meaning of these words Nothing taketh beginning from it self in the first Argument of Mr. Hobbs 6. A fuller and more determinate explication of the foregoing words whose sense is evidently convinced to be That no Essence of it self can vary its modification 7. That this is onely said by Mr. Hobbs not proved and a full confutation of his Assertion 8. Mr. Hobbs imposed upon by his own Sophistry 9. That one part of this first Argument of his is groundless the other sophisticall 10. The plain proposall of his Argument whence appeares more fully the weakness and sophistry thereof 11. An Answer to his second Argument 12. An Answer to the third 13. An Answer to a difficulty concerning the Truth and Falsehood of future Propositions 14. An Answer to Mr. Hobbs his fourth Argument which though slighted by himself is the strongest of them all 15. The difficulty of reconciling Free-will with Divine Prescience and Prophecies 16. That the faculty of Free-will is seldome put in use 17. That the use of it is properly in Morall conflict 18. That the Soule is not invincible there neither 19. That Divine decrees either finde fit Instruments or make them 20. That the more exact we make Divine Prescience even to the comprehension of any thing that implies no contradiction in it self to be comprehended the more cleare it is that mans Will may be sometimes free 21. Which is sufficient to make good my last Argument against Mr. Hobbs 1. HIS first Argument runs thus I will repeat it in his own words as also the rest of them as they are to be found in his Treatise of Liberty and Necessity I conceive saith he that nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the action of some other immediate agent without it self and that therefore when first a man hath an appetite or Will to something to which immediatly before he had no appetite nor Will the cause of his Will is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversy that of voluntary actions the Will is the necessary cause and by this which is said the Will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes and therefore are necessitated 2. His second thus I hold saith he that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessary cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needfull for the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily For whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been What followes is either the same or so closely depending on this that I need not adde it 3. His third Argument therefore shall be that which he urges from Future disjunctions For example let the case be put of the Weather 'T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore saith he it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain otherwise there is no necessity that the Proposition It shall rain or not rain should be true 4. His fourth is this That the denying of Necessity destroyeth both the Decrees and the Prescience of God Almighty For whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an Instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a man if he have liberty from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass 5. The Entrance into his first Argument is something obscure and ambiguous Nothing taketh beginning from it self But I shall be as candid and faithfull an Interpreter as I may If he mean by beginning beginning of Existence it is undoubtedly true That no Substance nor Modification of Substance taketh beginning from it self but this will not infer the Conclusion he drives at But if he mean that Nothing taketh beginning from it self of being otherwise affected or modified then before he must either understand by nothing no Essence neither Spirit nor Body or no Modification of Essence He cannot mean Spirit as admitting no such thing in the whole comprehension of Nature If Body it will not infer what he aims at unless there be nothing but Body in the Universe which is a meer precarious Principle of his which he beseeches his credulous followers to admit but he proves it no where as I have already noted If by Modification he mean the Modification of Matter or Body that runs still upon the former Principle That there is nothing but Body in the world and therefore he proves nothing but upon a begg'd Hypothesis and that a false one as I have elsewhere demonstrated Wherefore the most favourable Interpretation I can make is That he means by no thing no Essence nor Modification of Essence being willing to hide that dearly-hug'd Hypothesis of his That there is nothing but Body in the world under so generall and uncertain termes 6. The words therefore in the other senses having no pretence to conclude any thing let us see how far they will prevail in this taking no thing for no Essence or no Modification of Essence or what will come nearer to the Matter in hand no Faculty of an Essence And from this two-fold meaning let us examine two Propositions that will result from thence viz. That no Faculty of any Essence can vary its Operation from what it is but from the action of some other immediate agent without it self or That no Essence can vary its Modification or Operation by it self but by the action of some other immediate Agent without it Of which two Propositions the latter seemes the better sense by far and most naturall For it is very harsh and if truly looked into as false to say That the Mode
the Nymphs to whom though they allot a long Series of years yet they doe not exempt them from mortality and fate And Demetrius in Plutarch pronounces expresly out of Hesiod that their life will be terminated with the Conflagration of the World from what the Poet intimates AEnigmatically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. But to leave these Poetical Riddles and take a more serious and distinct view of the condition of the Soul after the Conflagration of the Earth we shall finde five several sorts of Opinions concerning it The first hold That this unmerciful heat and fire will at last destroy and consume the Soul as well as the Body But this seems to me impossible that any created Substance should utterly destroy another Substance so as to reduce it to nothing For no part of Matter acting the most furiously upon another part thereof does effect that It can onely attenuate dissipate and disperse the parts and make them invisible But the Substance of the Soul is indissipable and indiscerpible and therefore remains entire whatever becomes of the Body or Vehicle 8. The second Opinion is That after long and tedious torture in these flames the Soul by a special act of Omnipotency is annihilated But me thinks this is to put Providence too much to her shifts as if God were so brought to a plunge in his creating a Creature of it self immortal that he must be fain to uncreate it again that is to say to annihilate it Besides that that divine Nemesis that lies within the compass of Philosophy never supposes any such forcible eruptions of the Deity into extraordinary effects but that all things are brought about by a wise and infallible or inevitable train of secondary Causes whether natural or free Agents 9. The third therefor â—â— to avoid these absurdities denies both absumption by Fire and annihilation but conceives That tediousness and extremity of pain makes the Soul at last of her self shrink from all commerce with Matter the immediate Principle of Union which we call Vital Congruity consisting of a certain modification of the Body or Vehicle as well as of the Soul which being spoiled and lost and the Soul thereby quite loosned from all sympathy with Body or Matter she becomes perfectly dead and sensless to all things by Axiome 36. and as they say will so remain for ever But this seems not so rational for as Aristotle somewhere has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore so many entire immaterial Substances would be continued in being to all Eternity to no end nor purpose notwithstanding they may be made use of and actuate Matter again as well as ever 10. A fourth sort therefore of Speculators there is who conceive that after this solution of the Souls or Spirits of Wicked Men and Daemons from their Vehicles That their pain is continued to them even in that separate state they falling into an unquiet sleep full of furious tormenting Dreams that act as fiercely upon their Spirits as the external Fire did upon their Bodies But others except against this Opinion as a very uncertain Conjecture it supposing that which to them seems not so sound viz. That the Soul can act when it has lost all vital Union with the Matter which seems repugnant with that so intimate and essential aptitude it has to be united therewith And the Dreams of the Soul in the Body are not transacted without the help of the Animal Spirits in the Brain they usually symbolizing with their temper Whence they conclude that there is no certain ground to establish this Opinion upon 11. The last therefore to make all sure that there may be no inconvenience in admitting that the Souls or Spirits as well of evil Daemons as wicked Men disjoyned from their Vehicles by the force of that fatal Conflagration may subsist have excogitated an odde and unexpected Hypothesis That when this firing of the World has done due execution upon that unfortunate Crue and tedious and direful torture has we aried their afficted Ghosts into an utter recess from all Matter and thereby into a profound sleep or death that after a long Series of years when not onely the fury of the Fire is utterly slaked but that vast Atmosphere of smoak and vapours which was sent up during the time of the Earths Conflagration has returned back in copious showres of rain which will again make Seas and Rivers will binde and consolidate the ground and falling exceeding plentifully all over make the soil pleasant and fruitful and the Aire cool and wholsome that Nature recovering thus to her advantage and becoming youthful again and full of genital salt and moisture the Souls of all living Creatures belonging to these lower Regions of the Earth and Aire will awaken orderly in their proper places The Seas and Rivers will be again replenished with Fish the Earth will send forth all manner of Fowls four-footed Beasts and creeping things and the Souls of Men also shall then catch life from the more pure and balsamick parts of the Earth and be clothed again in terrestrial Bodies and lastly the AErial Genii that Element becoming again wholsome and vital shall in due order and time awaken and revive in the cool rorid Aire Which Expergeraction into life is accompanied say they with propensions answerable to those resolutions they made with themselves in those fiery torments and with which they fell into their long sleep 12. But the whole Hypothesis seems to be framed out of that dream of the Stoicks concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the World after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereof As if that of Seneca belonged to this case Epist. 36. Mors quam pertimescimus ac recusamus intermittit vitam non eripit Veniet iterum qui nos in lucem reponet dies quem multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret But how coursly the Stoicks Philosophize when they are once turned out of their rode-way of moral Sentences any one but moderately skilled in Nature and Metaphysicks may easily discern For what Errors can be more gross then those that they entertain of God of the Soul and of the Stars they making the two former Corporeal Substances and feeding the latter with the Vapours of the Earth affirming that the Sun sups up the water of the great Ocean to quench his thirst but that the Moon drinks off the lesser Rivers and Brooks which is as true as that the Ass drunk up the Moon Such conceits are more fit for Anacreon in a drunken fit to stumble upon who to invite his Companions to tipple composed that Catch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then for to be either found out or owned by a serious and sober Philosopher And yet Seneca mightily triumphs in this notion of foddering the Stars with the thick foggs of the Earth and declares his opinion with no mean
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
tenuious and thin is most passive and therefore if it be once the Vehicle of Sense is most sensible Whence it will follow that the reflexion of Light from Objects being able to move our Organs that are not so fine they will more necessarily move those of the Genii and at a greater distance But their Bodies being of diaphanous Aire it is impossible for us to see them unless they will give themselves the trouble of reducing them to a more terrestrial consistency whereby they may reflect light Nor can we easily hear their ordinary speech partly because a very gentle motion of the Aire will act upon their Vehicles and partly because they may haply use the finer and purer part of that Element in this exercise which is not so fit to move our Sense And therefore unless they will be heard datâ operâ naturally that impress of the Aire in their usual discourse can never strike our Organ 5. And that we may not seem to say all this for nought that they will have Hearing as well as Seeing appears from what I have intimated above that this Faculty is ranged near the Common Sensorium in the Vehicle as well as that of Sight and therefore the Vehicle being all Aire such percussions of it as cause the sense of Sound in us will necessarily doe the like in them but more accurately haply if they organize their Vehicle for the purpose which will answer to the arrection of the Ears of Animals for the better taking in the Sound 6. That they have the sense of Touch is inevitably true else how could they feel resistance which is necessary in the bearing of one Body against another because they are impenetrable And to speak freely my mind it will be a very hard thing to disprove that they have not something analogical to Smell and Tast which are very near a-kin to Touch properly so called For Fumes and Odours passing so easily through the Aire will very naturally insinuate into their Vehicles also which Fumes if they be grosser and humectant may raise that diversification of Touch which we Mortals call Tasting if more subtile and dry that which we call Smelling Which if we should admit we are within modest bounds as yet in comparison of others as Cardan who affirms downright that the AErial Genii are nourished and that some of them get into the Bodies of Animals to batten themselves there in their Blood and Spirits Which is also averred by Marcus the Mesopotamian Eremite in Psellus who tells us that the purer sort of the Genii are nourished by drawing in the Aire as our Spirits are in the Nerves and Arteries and that other Genii of a courser kinde suck in moisture not with the Mouth as we doe but as a Sponge does water And Moses AEgyptius writes concerning the Zabii that they eat of the blood of their Sacrifice because they thought it was the food of the Daemons they worshipped and that by eating thereof they were in a better capacity to communicate with them Which things if they could be believed that would be no such hard Probleme concerning the Familiars of Witches why they suck them But such curiosities being not much to our purpose I willingly omit 7. The conclusion of what has been said is this That it is certain that the Genii and consequently the Souls of men departed who ipso facto are of the same rank with them have the sense of Seeing Hearing and Touching and not improbably of Smelling and Tasting Which Faculties being granted they need not be much at a loss how to spend their time though it were but upon external Objects all the furniture of Heaven and Earth being fairly exposed to their view They see the same Sun and Moon that we doe behold the persons and converse of all men and if no special Law inhibit them may pass from Town to Town and from City to City as Hesiod also intimates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that we enjoy but they may have their fees out of it fair Fields large and invious Woods pleasant Gardens high and healthful Mountains where the purest gusts of Aire are to be met with Crystal Rivers mossy Springs solemnity of Entertainments Theatrick Pomps and Shews publick and private Discourses the exercises of Religion whether in Temples Families or hidden Cells They may be also and haply not uninteressed Spectators of the glorious and mischievous hazards of War whether Sea-fights or Land-fights besides those soft and silent though sometimes no less dangerous Combats in the Camps of Cupid and a thousand more particularities that it would be too long to reckon up where they haply are not men Spectators but Abettors as Plutarch writes Like old men that are past Wrestling Pitching the Barre or playing at Cudgels themselves yet will assist and abet the young men of the Parish at those Exercises So the Souls of men departed though they have put off with the Body the capacity of the ordinary functions of humane Life yet they may assist and abet them as pursuing some design in them and that either for evil or good according as they were affected themselves when they were in the Body 8. In brief whatever is the custome and desire of the Soul in this life that sticks and adheres to her in that which is to come and she will be sure so farre as she is capable either to act it or to be at least a Spectator and Abettor of such kinde of actions Quae gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadē sequitur tellure repostos Which rightly understood is no poetical fiction but a professed Truth in Plato's Philosophy And Maximus Tyrius speaks expresly even of the better sort of Soules who having left the Body and so becoming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. being made ipso facto Genii in stead of men that beside the peculiar happiness they reap thereby to themselves they are appointed by God and have a mission from him to be Overseers of humane affairs but that every Genius does not perform every office but as their naturall Inclinations and Customes were in this life they exercise the like in some manner in the other And therefore he will have AEsculapius to practise Physick still and Hercules to exercise his strength Amphilochus to prophesy Castor and Pollux to navigate Minos to hear causes and Achilles to war Which opinion is as likely to hold true in Bad Souls as in Good and then it will follow that the Souls of the wicked make it their business to assist and abet the exercise of such Vices as themselves were most addicted to in this life and to animate and tempt men to them From whence it would follow that they being thus by their separate state Daemons as has been said already if they be also tempters to evil they will very little differ from meer Devils 9. But besides this employment in reference to us they
something of it and being determined by the fancy of the Woman might sign the humid materials in her Womb with the image of her Minde 4. Wherefore if Fienus had considered from what potent causes Signatures may arise he would not have been so scrupulous in believing that degree of exactness that some of them are reported to have or if he had had the good hap to have met with so notable an example thereof as Kircher professes himself to have met with For he tells a story of a man that came to him for this very cause to have his opinion what a certain strange Signature which he had on his Arm from his birth might portend concerning which he had consulted both Astrologers and Cabbalists who had promised great preferments the one imputing it to the Influence of the Stars the other to the favour of the sealing Order of Angels But Kircher would not spend his judgement upon a meer verbal description thereof though he had plainly enough told him it was the Pope sitting on his Throne with a Dragon under his feet and an Angel putting a Crown on his head Wherefore the man desirous to hear a further confirmation of these hopes he had conceived from the favourable conjectures of others by the suffrage of so learned a man was willing in private to put off his doublet and shew his Arm to Kircher who having viewed it with all possible care does profess that the Signature was so perfect that it seemed rather the work of Art then of exorbitating Nature yet by certain observations he made that he was well assured it was the work of Nature and not of Art though it was an artificial piece that Nature imitated viz. the picture of Pope Gregory the thirteenth who is sometimes drawn according as this Signature did lively represent namely on a Throne with a Dragon under his feet leaning with one hand on his Seat and bearing the other in that posture in which they give the Benediction and an Angel removing a Curtain and reaching a Crown towards his head 5. Kircher therefore leaving the superstitions and fooleries of the spurious Cabbalists and Astrologers told him the truth though nothing so pleasant as their lies and flatteries viz. That this Signature was not impressed by any either influence of the Stars or Seals of Angels but that it was the effect of the Imagination of his Mother that bore him who in some more then ordinary fit of affection towards this Pope whose picture she beheld in some Chappel or other place of her devotion and having some occasion to touch her Arm printed that image on the Arm of her Child as it ordinarily happens in such cases Which doubtless was the true solution of the mystery 6. The same Author writes how he was invited by a friend to contemplate another strange miracle as he thought that did invite him to behold it that he might spend his judgement upon it Which was nothing else but an exposed Infant of some fourteen days old that was gray-hair'd both head and eye-brows Which his friend an Apothecary look't upon as a grand Prodigy till he was informed of the cause thereof That the Mother that brought it forth being married to an old man whose head was all white the fear of being surprized in the act of Adultery by her snowy-headed husband made her imprint that colour on the Child she bore Which Story I could not omit to recite it witnessing to what an exact curiosity the power of Fancy will work for the fashioning and modifying the Matter not missing so much as the very colours of the hair as I have already noted something to that purpose 7. To conclude therefore at length and leave this luxuriant Theme Whether it be the Power of Imagination carrying captive the Spirit of Nature into consent or the Soule of the Infant or both it is evident that the effects are notable and sometimes very accurately answering the Idea of the Impregnate derived upon the moist and ductil matter in the Womb Which yet not being any thing so yielding as the soft aire nor the Soule of the Mother so much one with that of the Infant as the separate Soule is one with it self nor so peculiarly united to the Body of the Infant as the Soule separate with her own Vehicle nor having any nearer or more mysterious commerce with the Spirit of Nature then she has when her Plastick part by the Imperium of her Will and Imagination is to organize her Vehicle into a certain shape and form which is a kind of a momentaneous birth of the distinct Personality of either a Soule separate or any other Daemon it followes that we may be very secure that there is such a power in the Genii and Separate Souls that they can with ease and accuracy transfigure themselves into shapes and forms agreeable to their own temper and nature 8. All which I have meant hitherto in reference to their visible congresses one with another But they are sometimes visible to us also under some Animal shape which questionless is much more difficult to them then that other Visibility is But this is also possible though more unusual by far as being more unnatural For it is possible by Art to compress Aire so as to reduce it to visible opacity and has been done by some and particularly by a friend of Des-Cartes whom he mentions in his Letters as having made this Experiment the Aire getting this opacity by squeezing the Globuli out of it Which though the separate Souls and Spirits may doe by that directive faculty Axiome 31. yet surely it would be very painful For the first Element lying bare if the Aire be not drawn exceeding close it will cause an ungratefull heat and if it be as unnatural a cold and so small a moment will make the first Element too much or too little that it may haply be very hard at least for these inferiour Spirits to keep steddily in a due mean And therefore when they appear it is not unlikely but that they soak their Vehicles in some vaporous or glutinous moisture or other that they may become visible to us at a more easy rate CHAP. VIII 1. That the Better sort of Genii converse in Humane shape the Baser sometimes in Bestial 2. How they are disposed to turn themselves into several Bestial forms 3. Of Psellus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Igneous splendours of Daemons how they are made 4. That the external beauty of the Genii is according to the degree of the inward vertue of their minds 5. That their aerial forme need not be purely transparent but more finely opake and coloured 6. That there is a distinction of Masculine and Feminine beauty in their personal figurations 1. AFter this Digression of shewing the facility of the figuring of the Vehicles of the Genii into personal shape I shall return again where we left which was concerning the Society of these Genii and Souls