Superfluities which bear onely a relation to a particular Creature which hath more Motion and Matter then is proper for the nature of its figure And thus much of this subject for the present from MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXVII MADAM In my last I remember I told you of your Authors opinion concerning the seat of Diseases viz. that Diseases are properly in living bodies and consist in the life it self but when I consider his definition of Life and of a Disease I cannot conceive how they should consist together for he describes a Disease to be a real material and substantial being truly subsisting in a body but life to be a meer nothing and yet the immediate mansion of a disease the inward subject yea and workman of the same and that with the life all diseases depart into nothing Surely Madam it exceedeth my understanding for first I cannot conceive how life which is a meer Nothing can be a lodging to something Next how Nothing can depart and die and thirdly how Something can become Nothing I think your Author might call a dead Carcass as well No-thing as Life and since he names Diseases the Thieves of Life they must needs be but poor Thieves because they steal No-thing But your Author compares Life to Light and calls it an Extinguishable Light like the light of a Candle which if so then the old saying is verified That life goes out like the snuff of a Candle But I wonder Madam that grave and wise men will seriously make use of a fimilifing old Proverb or of a Poetical Fancy in matter of natural Philosophy for I have observed that Homer Lucian Ovid Virgil Horace c. have been very ferviceable to great Philosophers who have taken the ground of their Fictions and transferred them into Natural Philosophy as Immaterial substances Non-beings and many the like but they can neither do any good nor hurt to Nature but onely spoil Philosophical Knowledg and as Nature is ignorant of Immaterials and Non-beings so Art is ignorant of Nature for Mathematical Rules Measures and Demonstrations cannot rule measure nor demonstrate Nature no more then Chymical Divisions Dissolutions and Extractions or rather distractions nay I may say destructions can divide dissolve extract compose and unite as Nature doth Wherefore their Instruments Figures Furnaces Limbecks and Engines cannot instruct them of the truth of Natures Principles but the best and readiest way to find out Nature or rather some truth of Nature is sense and reason which are Parts of Natures active substance and therefore the truest informers of Nature but the Ignorance of Nature has caused Ignorance amongst Philosophers and the Ignorance of Philosophers hath caused numerous Opinions and numerous Opinions have caused various Discourses and Disputes which Discourses and Disputes are not Sense and Reason but proceed from Irregular Motions and Truth is not found in Irregularities But to return to Life it seems your Author hath taken his opinion from Lucian's Kingdom of Lights the Lights being the Inhabitants thereof and when any was adjudged to die his Light was put out which was his punishment And thus this Heathenish Fiction is become a Christian Verity when as yet your Author rayls much at those that insist upon the Opinions and Doctrine of Pagan Philosophers Wherefore I will leave this Poetical Fancy of Life and turn to Death and see what opinion your Author hath of that First concerning the cause or original of Death Neither God says he nor the Evil Spirit is the Creator of Death but Man onely who made death for himself Neither did Nature make death but Man made death natural Which if it be so then Death being to my opinion a natural Creature as well as Life Sickness and Health Man certainly had great Power as to be the Creator of a natural Creature But I would fain know the reason why your Author is so unwilling to make God the Author of Death and Sickness as well as of Damnation Doth it imply any Impiety or Irreligiousness Doth not God punish as well as reward and is not death a punishment for our sin You may say Death came from sin but sin did not come from God Then some might ask from whence came sin You will say From the Transgression of the Command of God as the eating of the Forbidden Fruit. But from whence came this Transgression It might be answer'd From the Perswasion of the Serpent From whence came this Perswasion From his ill and malitious nature to oppose God and ruine the race of Mankind From whence came this ill Nature From his Fall Whence came his Fall From his Pride and Ambition to be equal with God From whence came this Pride From his Free-will From whence came his Free-will From God Thus Madam if we should be too inquisitive into the actions of God we should commit Blasphemy and make God Cruel as to be the Cause of Sin and consequently of Damnation But although God is not the Author of Sin yet we may not stick to say that he is the Author of the Punishment of Sin as an Act of his Divine Justice which Punishment is Sickness and Death nay I see no reason why not of Damnation too as it is a due punishment for the sins of the wicked for though Man effectively works his own punishment yet Gods Justice inflicts it Like as a just Judg may be call'd the cause of a Thief being hang'd But these questions are too curious and some men will be as presumptuous as the Devil to enquire into Gods secret actions although they be sure that they cannot be known by any Creature Wherefore let us banish such vain thoughts and onely admire adore love and praise God and implore his Mercy to give us grace to shun the punishments for our sins by the righteousness of our actions and not endeavour to know his secret designs Next I dissent from your Author That Death and all dead things do want roots whereby they may produce For death and dead things in my opinion are the most active producers at least they produce more numerously and variously then those we name living things for example a dead Horse will produce more several Animals besides other Creatures then a living Horse can do but what Archeus and Ideas a dead Carcass hath I can tell no more then what Blas or Gas it hath onely this I say that it has animate Matter which is the onely Archeus or Master-workman that produces all things creates all things dissolves all things and transforms all things in Nature but not out of Nothing or into Nothing as to create new Creatures which were not before in Nature or to annihilate Creatures and to reduce them to nothing but it creates and transforms out of and in the same Matter which has been from all Eternity Lastly your Author is pleased to say That he doth not behold a disease as an abstracted Quality and that Apoplexy
them with a fine coloured Covering of Logick and Geometry and set them out in a handsome array by which I might have also cover'd my ignorance like as Stage-Players do cover their mean persons or degrees with fine Cloathes But as I said I being void of Learning and Art did put them forth according to my own conceptions and as I did understand them my self but since I have hitherto by the reading of those famous and learned Authors you sent me attained to the knowledg of some artificial Terms I shall not spare any labour and pains to make my opinions so intelligible that every one who without partiality spleen or malice doth read them may also easily understand them And thus I shall likewise endeavour to give such answers to your scruples objections or questions as may explain those passages which seem obscure and satisfie your desire In the first place and in general you desire to know Whether any truth may be had in Natural Philosophy for since all this study is grounded upon probability and he that thinks he has the most probable reasons for his opinion may be as far off from truth as he who is thought to have the least nay what seems most probable to day may seem least probable to morrow especially if an ingenious opposer bring rational arguments against it Therefore you think it is but vain for any one to trouble his brain with searching and enquiring after such things wherein neither truth nor certainty can be had To which I answer That the undoubted truth in Natural Philosophy is in my opinion like the Philopher's Stone in Chymistry which has been sought for by many learned and ingenious Persons and will be sought as long as the Art of Chymistry doth last but although they cannot find the Philosophers Stone yet by the help of this Art they have found out many rare things both for use and knowledg The like in Natural Philosophy although Natural Philosophers cannot find out the absolute truth of Nature or Natures ground-works or the hidden causes of natural effects neverthelss they have found out many necessary and profitable Arts and Sciences to benefit the life of man for without Natural Philosophy we should have lived in dark ignorance not knowing the motions of the Heavens the cause of the Eclipses the influences of the Stars the use of Numbers Measures and Weights the vertues and effects of Vegetables and Minerals the Art of Architecture Navigation and the like Indeed all Arts and Sciences do adscribe their original to the study of Natural Philosophy and those men are both unwise and ungrateful that will refuse rich gifts because they cannot be masters of all Wealth and they are fools that will not take remedies when they are sick because Medicines can onely recover them from death for a time but not make them live for ever But to conclude Probability is next to truth and the search of a hidden cause finds out visible effects and this truth do natural Philosophers find that there are more fools then wise men which fools will never attain to the honour of being Natural Philosophers And thus leaving them I rest MADAM Your Ladiships humble and faithful Servant XXVIII MADAM YOur desire is to know since I say Nature is Wise Whether all her parts must be wise also To which I answer That by your favour all her parts are not fools but yet it is no necessary consequence that because Nature is infinitely wise all her parts must be so too no more then if I should say Nature is Infinite therefore every part must be Infinite But it is rather necessary that because Nature is Infinite therefore not any single part of hers can be Infinite but must be finite Next you desire to know Whether Nature or the self-moving matter is subject to err and to commit mistakes I answer Although Nature has naturally an Infinite wisdom and knowledg yet she has not a most pure and intire perfection no more then she has an absolute power for a most pure and intire perfection belongs onely to God and though she is infinitely naturally wise in her self yet her parts or particular creatures may commit errors and mistakes the truth is it is impossible but that parts or particular Creatures must be subject to errors because no part can have a perfect or general knowledg as being but a part and not a whole for knowledg is in parts as parts are in Matter Besides several corporeal motions that is several self-moving parts do delude and oppose each other by their opposite motions and this opposition is very requisite in Nature to keep a mean and hinder extreams for were there not opposition of parts Nature would run into extreams which would confound her and all her parts And as for delusion it is part of Natures delight causing the more variety but there be some actions in Nature which are neither perfect mistakes nor delusions but onely want of a clear and thorow perception As for example when a man is sailing in a Ship he thinks the shore moves from the ship when as it is the ship that moves from the shore Also when a man is going backward from a Looking-glass he thinks the figure in the Glass goeth inward whereas it is himself that goes backward and not his figure in the glass The cause of it is That the perception in the eye perceives the distanced body but not the motion of the distance or medium for though the man may partly see the motion of the visible parts yet he doth not see the parts or motion of the distance or medium which is invisible and not subject to the perception of sight and since a pattern cannot be made if the object be not visible hence I conclude that the motion of the medium cannot make perception but that it is the perceptive motions of the eye which pattern out an object as it is visibly presented to the corporeal motions in the eye for according as the object is presented the pattern is made if the motions be regular For example a fired end of a stick if you move it in a circular figure the sensitive corporeal motions in the eye pattern out the figure of fire together with the exterior or circular motion and apprehend it as a fiery circle and if the stick be moved any otherwise they pattern out such a figure as the fired end of the stick is moved in so that the sensitive pattern is made according to the exterior corporeal figurative motion of the object and not according to its interior figure or motions And this Madam is in short my answer to your propounded questions by which I hope you understand plainly the meaning of MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXIX MADAM THe scruples or questions you sent me last are these following First you desire to be informed what I mean by Phantasmes and Ideas I answer They are figures made by the purest and subtilest degree of
Power as in the Purity And the disparity between the Natural and Divine Infinite is such as they cannot joyn mix and work together unless you do believe that Divine Actions can have allay But you may say Purity belongs onely to natural things and none but natural bodies can be said purified but God exceeds all Purity 'T is true But if there were infinite degrees of Purity in Matter Matter might at last become Immaterial and so from an Infinite Material turn to an Infinite Immaterial and from Natrue to be God A great but an impossible Change For I do verily believe that there can be but one Omnipotent God and he cannot admit of addition or diminution and that which is Material cannot be Immaterial and what is Immaterial cannot become Material I mean so as to change their natures for Nature is what God was pleased she should be and will be what she was until God be pleased to make her otherwise Wherefore there can be no new Creation of matter motion or figure nor any annihilation of any matter motion or figure in Nature unless God do create a new Nature For the changing of Matter into several particular Figures doth not prove an annihilation of particular Figures nor the cessation of particular Motions an annihilation of them Neither doth the variation of the Onely Matter produce an annihilation of any part of Matter nor the variation of figures and motions of Matter cause an alteration in the nature of Onely Matter Wherefore there cannot be new Lives Souls or Bodies in Nature for could there be any thing new in Nature or any thing annihilated there would not be any stability in Nature as a continuance of every kind and sort of Creatures but there would be a confusion between the new and old matter motions and figures as between old and new Nature In truth it would be like new Wine in old Vessels by which all would break into disorder Neither can supernatural and natural effects be mixt together no more then material and immaterial things or beings Therefore it is probable God has ordained Nature to work in herself by his Leave Will and Free Gift But there have been and are still strange and erroneous Opinions and great differences amongst Natural Philosophers concerning the Principles of Natural things some will have them Atoms others will have the first Principles to be Salt Sulphur and Mercury some will have them to be the four Elements as Fire Air Water and Earth and others will have but one of these Elements also some will have Gas and Blas Ferments Idea's and the like but what they believe to be Principles and Causes of natural things are onely Effects for in all Probability it appears to humane sense and reason that the cause of every particular material Creature is the onely and Infinite Matter which has Motions and Figures inseparably united for Matter Motion and Figure are but one thing individable in its Nature And as for Immaterial Spirits there is surely no such thing in Infinite Nature to wit so as to be Parts of Nature for Nature is altogether Material but this opinion proceeds from the separation or abstraction of Motion form Matter viz. that man thinks matter and motion to be dividable from each other and believes motion to be a thing by its self naming it an Imaterial thing which has a being but not a bodily substance But various and different effects do not prove a different Matter or Cause neither do they prove an unsetled Cause onely the variety of Effects hath obscured the Cause from the several parts which makes Particular Creatures partly Ignorant and partly knowing But in my opinion Nature is material and not any thing in Nature what belongs to her is immaterial but whatsoever is Immaterial is Supernatural Therefore Motions Forms Thoughts Ideas Conceptions Sympathies Antipathies Accidents Qualities as also Natural Life and Soul are all Material And as for Colours Sents Light Sound Heat Cold and the like those that believe them not to be substances or material things surely their brain or heart take what place you will for the forming of Conceptions moves very Irregularly and they might as well say Our sensitive Organs are not material for what Objects soever that are subject to our senses cannot in sense be denied to be Corporeal when as those things that are not subject to our senses can be conceived in reason to be Immaterial But some Philosophers striving to express their wit obstruct reason and drawing Divinity to prove Sense and Reason weaken Faith so as their mixed Divine Philosophy becomes meer Poetical Fictions and Romancical expressions making material Bodies immaterial Spirits and immaterial Spirits material Bodies and some have conceived some things neither to be Material nor Immaterial but between both Truly Madam I wish their Wits had been less and their Judgments more as not to jumble Natural and Supernatural things together but to distinguish either clearly for such Mixtures are neither Natural nor Divine But as I said the Confufion comes from their too nice abstractions and from the separation of Figure and Motion from Matter as not conceiving them individable but if God and his servant Nature were as Intricate and Confuse in their Works as Men in their Understandings and Words the Universe and Production of all Creatures would soon be without Order and Government so as there would be a horrid and Eternal War both in Heaven and in the World and so pittying their troubled Brains and wishing them the Light of Reason that they may clearly perceive the Truth I rest MADAM Your real Friend and faithful Servant III. MADAM IT seems you are offended at my Opinion that Nature is Eternal without beginning which you say is to make her God or at least coeqnal with God But if you apprehend my meaning rightly you will say I do not For first God is an Immaterial and Spiritual Infinite Being which Propriety God cannot give away to any Creature nor make another God in Essence like to him for Gods Attributes are not communicable to any Creature Yet this doth not hinder that God should not make Infinite and Eternal Matter for that is as easie to him as to make a Finite Creature Infinite Matter being quite of another Nature then God is to wit Corporeal when God is Incorporeal the difference whereof I have declared in my former Letter But as for Nature that it cannot be Eternal without beginning because God is the Creator and Cause of it and that the Creator must be before the Creature as the Cause before the Effect so that it is impossible for Nature to be without a beginning if you will speak naturally as human reason guides you and bring an Argument concluding from the Priority of the Cause before the Effect give me leave to tell you that God is not tied to Natural Rules but that he can do beyond our Understanding and therefore he is neither bound up to time
forced them forth as soon as conceived and this made the first publishing of them so full of Imperfections which I am much sorry for But since that time I have not onely reviewed but corrected and altered them in several places so that the last Impression of my Philosophical Opinions you will find more perfect and exact then the former Next I pray you to take notice Madam that in the mentioned first Edition by the word Spirits I meant Material not Immaterial Spirits for observing that Learned Men do discourse much of Animal Spirits which are Material and that also high extracts in Chymistry are called Spirits I used that word purposely thinking it most proper and convenient to express my sense and meaning of that degree of matter which I call rational and sensitive But considering again that my opinions being new would be subject to misapprehensions and mis-interpretations to prevent those I thought it fitter to leave out the word Spirits in the second as also in the last Edition of my named Book of Philosophy lest my Readers should think I meant Immaterial Spirits for I confess really that I never understood nor cannot as yet apprehend Immaterial Spirits for though I believe the Scripture and the Church that there are Spirits and do not doubt the existency of them yet I cannot conceive the nature of Immaterial Spirits and what they are Wherefore I do onely treat of natural material substances and not of incorporeal also my discourse is of the Infinite servant of the Infinite God which servant is corporeal or material Nature God is onely to be admired adored and worshipped but not ungloriously to be discoursed of Which Omnipotent God I pray of his Infinite Mercy to give me Faith to believe in him and not to let presumption prevail with me so as to liken vain and idle conceptions to that Incomprehensible Deity These Madam are my humble Prayers to God and my request to you is that I may continue the same in your love and affection which I have been hitherto so shall I live content and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant SECT III. I. MADAM I Have discharged my duty thus far that in obedience to your commands I have given you my answers to the opinions of three of those famous and learned Authors you sent me viz. Hobbes Des Cartes and More and explained my own opinions by examining theirs My onely task shall be now to proceed in the same manner with that famous Philosopher and Chymist Van Helmont But him I find more difficult to be understood then any of the forementioned not onely by reason of the Art of Chymistry which I confess my self not versed in but especially that he has such strange terms and unusual expressions as may puzle any body to apprehend the sense and meaning of them Wherefore if you receive not that full satisfaction you expect from me in examining his opinions and arguments I beg your pardon before hand and desire you to remember that I sent you word in the beginning I did undertake this work more out of desire to clear my own opinions then a quarrelsome humor to contradict others which if I do but obtain I have my aim And so to the business When as your Author discourses of the causes and beginnings of Natural things he is pleased to say That Souls and Lives as they know no Degrees so they know no Parts which opinion is very different from mine For although I confess that there is but one kind of Life and one kind of Soul in Nature which is the sensitive Life and the rational Soul both consisting not onely of Matter but of one kind of Matter to wit Animate nevertheless they are of different degrees the matter of the rational Soul being more agil subtil and active then the matter of the sensitive Life which is the reason that the rational can act in its own substance or degree of matter and make figures in it self and its own parts when as the sensitive being of somewhat a grosser degree then the rational and not so subtil and active is confined to work with and upon the Inanimate matter But mistake me not Madam for I make onely a difference of the degrees of Subtilty Activity Agility Purity betwixt rational and sensitive Matter but as for the rational Matter it self it has no degrees of Purity Subtilty and Activity in its own Nature or Parts but is always one and the same in its substance in all Creatures and so is the sensitive You will ask me How comes then the difference of so many Parts and Creatures in Nature if there be no degrees of Purity Activity and Subtilty in the substance of the rational and in the substance of the sensitive Matter As for example if there were no such degrees of the Parts of rational Matter amongst themselves as also of the Parts of the sensitive there would be no difference betwixt Animals Vegetables Minerals and Elements but all Creatures would be alike without distinction and have the same manner of sense and reason life and knowledg I answer That although each sort or degree of animate Matter rational as well as sensitive has in it self or its own substance no degrees of purity rarity and subtilty but is one and the same in its nature or essence nevertheless each has degrees of quantity or parts which degrees of quantity do make the onely difference betwixt the several creatures or parts of Nature as well in their general as particular kinds for both the rational and sensitive matter being corporeal and so dividable into parts some creatures do partake more some less of them which makes them to have more or less and so different sense and reason each according to the nature of its kind Nay this difference of the degrees of quantity or parts in the substance of the rational and sensitive Matter makes also the difference betwixt particulars in every sort of Creatures as for example between several particular Men But as I said the nature or essence of the sensitive and rational Matter is the same in all for the difference consists not in the Nature of Matter but onely in the degrees of quantity and parts of Matter and in the various and different actions or motions of this same Matter And thus Matter being dividable there are numerous lives and souls in Nature according to the variousness of her several Parts and Creatures Next your Author mentioning the Causes and Principles of natural Bodies assigns two first or chief beginnings and corporeal causes of every Creature to wit the Element of Water and the Ferment or Leaven which Ferment he calls a formal created being neither a substance nor an accident but a neutral thing Truly Madam my reason is not able to conceive this neutral Being for it must either be something or nothing in Nature and if he makes it any thing betwixt both it is a strange Monster and will produce monstrous
effects and as for Water if he doth make it a Principle of Natural things I see no reason why he excludes the rest of the Elements But in my opinion Water and the rest of the Elements are but effects of Nature as other Creatures are and so cannot be prime causes The like the Ferment which to my sense and reason is nothing else but a natural effect of natural matter Concerning his opinion That Causes and Beginnings are all one or that there is but little difference betwixt them I do readily subscribe unto it but when he speaks of those things which are produced without life my reason cannot find out what or where they should be for certainly in Nature they are not Nature being Life and Soul her self and all her parts being enlivened and soulified so that there can be no generation or natural production without Life Neither is my sense and reason capable to understand his meaning when he says That the Seeds of things and the Spirits as the Dispensers thereof are divided from the Material Cause For I do see no difference betwixt the Seed and the material Cause but they are all one thing it being undeniable that the seed is the matter of that which is produced But your Author was pleased to say heretofore that there are but two beginnings or causes of natural things and now he makes so many more for says he Of Efficient and Seminal Causes some are efficiently effecting and others effectively effecting which nice distinctions in my opinion do but make a confusion in natural knowledg setting a mans brain on the rack for who is able to conceive all those Chymaeras and Fancies of the Archeus Ferment various Ideas Blas Gas and many more which are neither something nor no-thing in Nature but betwixt both except a man have the same Fancies Visions and Dreams your Author had Nature is easie to be understood and without any difficulty so as we stand in no need to frame so many strange names able to fright any body Neither do natural bodies know many prime causes and beginnings but there is but one onely chief and prime cause from which all effects and varieties proceed which cause is corporeal Nature or natural self-moving Matter which forms and produces all natural things and all the variety and difference of natural Creatures arises from her various actions which are the various motions in Nature some whereof are Regular some Irregular I mean Irregular as to particular Creatures not as to Nature her self for Nature cannot be disturbed or discomposed or else all would run into confusion Wherefore Irregularities do onely concern particular Creatures not Infinite Nature and the Irregularities of some parts may cause the Irregularities of other Parts as the Regularities of some parts do cause the Regularities of others And thus according as Regularities and Irregularities have power they cause either Peace or War Sickness or Health Delight and Pleasure or Grief and Pain Life or Death to particular Creatures or parts of Nature but all these various actions are but various Effects and not prime Causes which is well to be observed lest we confound Causes with Effects And so leaving this discourse for the present I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant II. MADAM IT is no wonder your Author has so many odd and strange opinions in Philosophy since they do not onely proceed from strange Visions Apparitions and Dreams but are built upon so strange grounds and principles as Ideas Archeus Gas Blas Ferment and the like the names of which sound so harsh and terrifying as they might put any body easily into a fright like so many Hobgoblins or Immaterial spirits but the best is they can do no great harm except it be to trouble the brains of them that love to maintain those opinions for though they are thought to be powerful beings yet being not corporeal substances I cannot imagine wherein their power should consist for Nothing can do nothing But to mention each apart first his Archeus he calls the Spirit of Life a vital Gas or Light the Balsam preserving from Corruption the Vulcan or Smith of Generation the stirrer up and inward director of Generation an Air a skiey or airy Spirit cloathing himself presently with a bodily cloathing in things soulified walking through all the dens and retiring places of the seed and transforming the matter according to the perfect act of its own Image remaining the president and overseer or inward ruler of his bounds even till death the Principle of Life the Inn of Life the onely immediate Witness Executor and Instrument of Life the Prince and Center of Life the Ruler of the Stern the Keeper of Life and promoter of Transmutations the Porter of the Soul a Fountainous being a Flint These and many more names your Author attributes to his Archeus but what properly it is and what its Nature and its peculiar office I am not able to conceive In the next place Gas and Blas are to your Author also true Principles of Natural things for Gas is the Vapour into which Water is dissolved by Cold but yet it is a far more fine and subtil thing then Vapour which he demonstrates by the Art of Chymistry This Gas in another place he calls a Wild Spirit or Breath unknown hitherto which can neither be constrained by Vessels nor reduced into a visible body in some things it is nothing but Water as for example in Salt in Fruits and the like But Blas proceeds from the local and alterative motion of the Stars and is the general beginning of motion producing heat and cold and that especially with the changing of the Winds There is also Blas in all sublunary things witness Amulets or preserving Pomanders whereby they do constrain objects to obey them Which Incorporeal Blas of Government acts without a Corporeal Efflux even as the Moon makes the Sea to swell but the fleshly generation hath a Blas of its own and it is twofold one which existeth by a natural Motion the other voluntary which existeth as a mover to it self by an Internal Willing There is also a Blas of the Heart which is the fuel of the Vital Spirit and consequently of its heat The Ferment he describes to be A true Principle or Original beginning of things to wit a Formal Created being which is neither a substance nor an accident but a Neutral being framed from the beginning of the World in the places of its own Monarchy in the manner of Light Fire the magnal or sheath of the Air Forms c. that it may prepare stir up and go before the Seeds Lastly his Ideas are Certain formal seminal Lights mutually piercing each other without the adultery of Union For says he although at first that which is imagined is nothing but a meer being of reason yet it doth not remain such for truely the Fancy is a sealifying vertue
is to say to find some certain and limited Time and Place in which to begin a method of Seeking And from thence his thoughts run over the same places and times to find what action or other occasion might make him lose it This we call Remembrance or calling to mind Sometimes a man knows a place determinate within the compass whereof he is to seek and then his thoughts run over all the Parts thereof in the same manner as one would sweep a room to find a Jewel or as a Spaniel ranges the field till he find a sent or as a Man should run over the Alphabet to start a Rime Thus far your Author In which discourse I do not perceive that he defineth what the Mind is but I say that if according to his opinion nothing moves it self but one thing moves another then the Mind must do nothing but move backward and forward nay onely forward and if all actions were thrusting or pressing of parts it would be like a crowd of People and there would be but little or no motion for the crowd would make a stoppage like water in a glass the mouth of the Glass being turned downwards no water can pass out by reason the numerous drops are so closely press'd as they cannot move exteriously Next I cannot conceive how the Mind can run back either to Time or Place for as for Place the mind is inclosed in the body and the running about in the parts of the body or brain will not inform it of an Exterior place or object besides objects being the cause of the minds motion it must return to its Cause and so move until it come to the object that moved it first so that the mind must run out of the body to that object which moved it to such a Thought although that object were removed out of the World as the phrase is But for the mind to move backward to Time past is more then it can do Wherefore in my opinion Remembrance or the like is onely a repetition of such Figures as were like to the Objects and for Thoughts in Particular they are several figures made by the mind which is the Rational Part of matter in its own substance either voluntarily or by imitation whereof you may see more in my Book of Philosophical Opinions Hence I conclude that Prudence is nothing else but a comparing of Figures to Figures and of the several actions of those Figures as repeating former Figures and comparing them to others of the like nature qualities proprieties as also chances fortunes c. Which figuring and repeating is done actually in and by the Rational Matter so that all the observation of the mind on outward Objects is onely an actual repetition of the mind as moving in such or such figures and actions and when the mind makes voluntary Figures with those repeated Figures and compares them together this comparing is Examination and when several Figures agree and joyn it is Conclusion or Judgment likewise doth Experience proceed from repeating and comparing of several Figures in the Mind and the more several Figures are repeated and compared the greater the experience is One thing more there is in the same Chapter which I cannot let pass without examination Your Authour says That things Present onely have a being in Nature things Past onely a being in the Memory but things to come have no being at all Which how it possibly can be I am not able to conceive for certainly if nothing in nature is lost or annihilated what is past and what is to come hath as well a being as what is present and if that which is now had its being before why may it not also have its being hereafter It might as well be said that what is once forgot cannot be remembred for whatsoever is in Nature has as much a being as the Mind and there is not any action or motion or figure in Nature but may be repeated that is may return to its former Figure when it is altered and dissolved But by reason Nature delights in variety repetitions are not so frequently made especially of those things or creatures which are composed by the sensitive corporeal motions in the inanimate part of Matter because they are not so easily wrought as the Rational matter can work upon its own parts being more pliant in its self then the Inanimate matter is And this is the reason that there are so many repetitions of one and the same Figure in the Rational matter which is the Mind but seldom any in the Gross and inanimate part of Matter for Nature loves ease and freedom But to conclude Madam I perceive your Author confines Sense onely to Animal-kind and Reason onely to Man-kind Truly it is out of self-love when one Creature prefers his own Excellency before another for nature being endued with self-love all Creatures have self-love too because they are all Parts of Nature and when Parts agree or disagree it is out of Interest and Self-love but Man herein exceeds all the rest as having a supernatural Soul whose actions also are supernatural To which I leave him and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant IX MADAM WHen your Author discourseth of the use of Speech or Words and Names he is pleas'd to say That their use is to serve for marks and notes of Remembrance Whereof to give you my opinion I say That Speech is natural to the shape of Man and though sometimes it serves for marks or notes of remembrance yet it doth not always for all other Animals have Memory without the help of Speech and so have deaf and dumb men nay more then those that hear and speak Wherefore though Words are useful to the mind and so to the memory yet both can be without them whereas Words cannot be without Memory for take a Bird and teach him to speak if he had not Memory before he heard the words he could never learn them You will ask me Madam What then is Memory the Cause of Speech I answer Life and Knowledg which is Sense and Reason as it creates and makes all sorts of Creatures so also amongst the rest it makes Words And as I said before that Memory may be without the help of Speech or Words so I say also that there is a possibility of reckoning of numbers as also of magnitudes of swiftness of force and other things without words although your Author denies it But some men are so much for Art as they endeavour to make Art which is onely a Drudgery-maid of Nature the chief Mistress and Nature her Servant which is as much as to prefer Effects before the Cause Nature before God Discord before Unity and Concord Again your Author in his Chapter of Reason defines Reason to be nothing else but Reckoning I answer That in my opinion Reckoning is not Reason it self but onely an effect or action of Reason for Reason as it is the chiefest and purest degree
But says your Author this Priviledge in Man is allay'd by another which is No living Creature is subject to absurdity but onely Man Certainly Madam I believe the contrary to wit that all other Creatures do as often commit mistakes and absurdities as Man and if it were not to avoid tediousness I could present sufficient proofs to you Wherefore I think not onely Man but also other Creatures may be Philosophers and subject to absurdities as aptly as Men for Man doth nor cannot truly know the Faculties and Abilities or Actions of all other Creatures no not of his own Kind as Man-Kind for if he do measure all men by himself he will be very much mistaken for what he conceives to be true or wise an other may conceive to be false and foolish But Man may have one way of Knowledge in Philosophy and other Arts and other Creatures another way and yet other Creatures manner or way may be as Intelligible and Instructive to each other as Man 's I mean in those things which are Natural Wherefore I cannot consent to what your Author says That Children are not endued with Reason at all till they have attained to the use of Speech for Reason is in those Creatures which have not Speech witness Horses especially those which are taught in the manage and many other Animals And as for the weak understanding in Children I have discoursed thereof in my Book of Philosophy The rest of this discourse lest I tyre you too much at once I shall reserve for the next resting in the mean time MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XI MADAM I sent you word in my last that your Author's opinion is That Children are not endued with Reason at all until they have attained to the use of Speech in the same Chapter he speaks to the same purpose thus Reason is not as Sense and Memory born with us nor gotten by experience onely as Prudence is but attained by industry To which I reply onely this That it might as well be said a Child when new born hath not flesh and blood because by taking in nourishment or food the Child grows to have more flesh and blood or that a Child is not born with two legs because he cannot go or with two arms and hands because he cannot help himself or that he is not born with a tongue because he cannot speak For although Reason doth not move in a Child as in a Man in Infancy as in Youth in Youth as in Age yet that doth not prove that Children are without Reason because they cannot run and prate I grant some other Creatures appear to have more Knowledg when new born then others as for example a young Foal has more knowledg than a young Child because a Child cannot run and play besides a Foal knows his own Dam and can tell where to take his food as to run and suck his Dam when as an Infant cannot do so nor all beasts though most of them can but yet this doth not prove that a Child hath no reason at all Neither can I perceive that man is a Monopoler of all Reason or Animals of all Sense but that Sense and Reason are in other Creatures as well as in Man and Animals for example Drugs as Vegetables and Minerals although they cannot slice pound or infuse as man can yet they can work upon man more subtilly wisely and as sensibly either by purging vomiting spitting or any other way as man by mincing pounding and infusing them and Vegetables will as wisely nourish Men as Men can nourish Vegetables Also some Vegetables are as malicious and mischievous to Man as Man is to one another witness Hemlock Nightshade and many more and a little Poppy will as soon nay sooner cause a Man to sleep though silently then a Nurse a Child with singing and rocking But because they do not act in such manner or way as Man Man judgeth them to be without sense and reason and because they do not prate and talk as Man Man believes they have not so much wit as he hath and because they cannot run and go Man thinks they are not industrious the like for Infants concerning Reason But certainly it is not local motion or speech that makes sense and reason but sense and reason makes them neither is sense and reason bound onely to the actions of Man but it is free to the actions forms figures and proprieties of all Creatures for if none but Man had reason and none but Animals sense the World could not be so exact and so well in order as it is but Nature is wiser then Man with all his Arts for these are onely produced through the variety of Natures actions and disputes through the superfluous varieties of Mans follies or ignorances not knowing Natures powerful life and knowledg But I wonder Madam your Author says in this place That Reason is not born with Man when as in another place he says That every man brought Philosophy that is Natural reason with him into the World Which how it agree I will leave to others to judg and to him to reconcile it remaining in the mean time MADAM Your Constant Friend and Faithful Servant XII MADAM TWo sorts of motions I find your Author doth attribute to Animals viz. Vital and Animal the Vital motions says he are begun in Generation and continued without Interruption through their whole life aud those are the Course of the Blood the Pulse the Breathing Conviction Nutrition Excretion c. to which motions there needs no help of Imaginations But the animal Motions otherwise called voluntary Motions are to go to speak to move any of our limbs in such manner as is first fancied in our minds And because going speaking and the like voluntary motions depend always upon a precedent thought of whither which way and what it is evident that the Imagination is the first Internal beginning of all voluntary Motion Thus far your Author Whereof in short I give you my opinion first concerning Vital Motions that it appears improbable if not impossible to me that Generation should be the cause and beginning of Life because Life must of necessity be the cause of Generation life being the Generator of all things for without life motion could not be and without motion not any thing could be begun increased perfected or dissolved Next that Imagination is not necessary to Vital Motions it is probable it may not but yet there is required Knowledg which I name Reason for if there were not Knowledg in all Generations or Productions there could not any distinct Creature be made or produced for then all Generations would be confusedly mixt neither would there be any distinct kinds or sorts of Creatures nor no different Faculties Proprieties and the like Thirdly concerning Animal Motions which your Author names Voluntary Motions as to go to speak to move any of our limbs in such manner as is first fancied in our minds
always but most commonly But says your Author How can so smal a Point receive the Images of so vast or so various objects at once without obliteration or confusion First I answer That as I said before sensitive Matter is not bound up to a Point nor to be a single self-subsisting Part. Next as for confusion I say that the sensitive matter makes no more confusion then an Engraver when he engraves several figures in a small stone and a Painter draws several figures in a small compass for a Carver will cut out several figures in a Cherry-stone and a Lady in a little black Patch and if gross and rude Art is able to do this why may not Ingenious and Wise Nature do And as Nature is ingenious and knowing in her self so in her Parts and her Parts in her for neither whole nor Parts are ignorant but have a knowledg each according to the motion of its own Parts for knowledg is in Motion and Motion in Matter and the diversity and variety of motion is the diversity and variety of knowledg so that every particular figure and motion hath its particular knowledg as well as its proper and peculiar parts and as the parts join or divide so doth knowledg which many times causes Arts to be lost and found and memory and remembrance in Particular Creatures I do not say they are utterly lost in nature but onely in respect to particular Creatures by the dissolving and dividing of their particular figures For the rational matter by reason it moves onely in its own parts it can change and rechange into several figures without division of parts which makes memory and remembrance But men not considering or believing there might be such a degree of onely matter namely rational it has made them erre in their judgments Nevertheless there is a difference between sensitive and rational parts and motions and yet they are agreeable most commonly in their actions though not always Also the rational can make such figures as the sensitive cannot by reason the rational has a greater power and subtiler faculty in making variety then the sensitive for the sensitive is bound to move with the inanimate but the rational moves onely in its own parts for though the sensitive and rational oftentimes cause each other to move yet they are not of one and the same degree of matter nor have they the same motions And this rational Matter is the cause of all Notions Conceptions Imaginations Deliberation Determination Memory and any thing else that belongs to the Mind for this matter is the mind of Nature and so being dividable the mind of all Creatures as the sensitive is the life and it can move as I said more subtilly and more variously then the sensitive and make such figures as the sensitive cannot without outward examples and objects But all diversity comes by change of motion and motions are as sympathetical and agreeing as antipathetical and disagreeing And though Nature's artificial motions which are her Playing motions are sometimes extravagant yet in her fundamental actions there is no extravagancy as we may observe by her exact rules in the various generations the distinct kinds and sorts the several exact measures times proportions and motions of all her Creatures in all which her wisdom is well exprest and in the variety her wise pleasure To which I leave her and rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XIV MADAM IF there be any sense and perception in Matter says your Author it must needs be Motion or Reaction of one part of matter against another and that all diversity of sense and perception doth necessarily arise from the diversity of the Magnitude Figure Posture Vigour and Direction of Motion in Parts of the Matter In which variety of perceptions Matter hath none but such as are impressed by corporeal motions that is to say that are perceptions of some actions or modificated Impressions of parts of matter bearing one against another I have declared Madam my opinion concerning Perception in my former Letters that all Perception is not Impression and Reaction like as a Seal is printed on Was For example the corporeal rational motions in the mind do not print but move figuratively but the sensitive motions do carve print engrave and as it were pencil out as also move figuratively in productions and do often take patterns from the rational figures as the rational motions make figures according to the sensitive patterns But the rational can move without patterns and so the sensitive For surely were a man born blind deaf dumb and had a numb palsie in his exterior parts the sensitive and rational motions would nevertheless move both in body and mind according to the nature of his figure for though no copies were taken from outward objects yet he would have thoughts passions appetites and the like and though he could not see exterior objects nor hear exterior sounds yet no question but he would see and hear interiously after the manner of dreams onely they might not be any thing like to what is perceiveable by man in the World but if he sees not the Sun-light yet he would see something equivalent to it and if he hears not such a thing as Words yet he would hear something equivalent to words for it is impossible that his sensitive and rational faculties should be lost for want of an Ear or an Eye so that Perception may be without exterior object or marks or patterns for although the sensitive Motions do usually pattern out the figures of exterior objects yet that doth not prove but they can make interior figures without such objects Wherefore Perception is not always Reaction neither is Perception and Reaction really one thing for though Perception and Action is one and the same yet not always Reaction but did Perception proceed from the reaction of outward objects a blind and deaf man would not so much as dream for he would have no interior motion in the head having no other exterior sense but touch which if the body was troubled with a painful disease he would neither be sensible of but to feel pain and interiously feel nothing but hunger and fulness and his Mind would be as Irrational as some imagine Vegetables and Minerals are To which opinion I leave them and rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XV. MADAM YOur Author is pleased in Mirth and to disgrace the opinion of those which hold that Perception is made by figuring to bring in this following example Suppose says he one Particle should shape it self into a George on Horse-back with a Lance in his hand and another into an Inchanted Castle this George on Horse-back must run against the Castle to make the Castle receive his impress and similitude But what then Truly the Encounter will be very Vnfortunate for S. George indeed may easily break his Lance but it is impossible that he should by justling against the Particle in the form of a
the sensitive which is the Life of Nature as the other is the Soul not the Divine but natural Soul neither is this Soul Immaterial bnt Corporeal not composed of raggs and shreds but it is the purest simplest and subtillest matter in Nature But to conclude I desire you to remember Madam that this rational and sensitive Matter in one united and finite Figure or particular Creature has both common and particular actions for as there are several kinds and sorts of Creatures and particulars in every kind and sort so the like for the actions of the rational and sensitive matter in one particular Creature Also it is to be noted That the Parts of rational matter can more suddenly give and take Intelligence to and from each other then the sensitive nevertheless all Parts in Nature at least adjoyning parts have Intelligence between each other more or less because all parts make but one body for it is not with the parts of Matter as with several Constables in several Hundreds or several Parishes which are a great way distant from each other but they may be as close as the combs of Bees and yet as partable and as active as Bees But concerning the Intelligence of Natures Parts I have sufficiently spoken in other places and so I 'le add no more but that I unfeignedly remain MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XVI MADAM SEnsation in corporeal motion is first and Perception follows sayes your Author to which opinion I give no assent but do believe that Perception and Sensation are done both at one and the same time as being one and the same thing without division either in reason or sense and are performed without any knocks or jolts or hitting against But let me tell you Madam there arises a great mistake by many from not distinguishing well sensitive Motion and rational Motion for though all motions are in one onely matter yet that matter doth not move always in the same manner for then there could be no variety in Nature and truly if man who is but a part of Nature may move diversly and put himself into numerous postures Why may not Nature But concerning Motions and their variety to avoid tedious repetitions I must still referr you to my Book of Philosophical Opinions I 'le add onely this that it is well to be observed That all Motions are not Impressions neither do all Impressions make such dents as to disturb the adjoyning Parts Wherefore those in my opinion understand Nature best which say that Sensation and Perception are really one and the same but they are out that say there can be no communication at a distance unless by pressing and crowding for the patterning of an outward object may be done without any inforcement or disturbance jogging or crowding as I have declared heretofore for the sensitive and rational motions in the sensitive and rational parts of matter in one creature observing the exterior motions in outward objects move accordingly either regularly or irregularly in patterns and if they have no exterior objects as in dreams they work by rote And so to conclude I am absolutely of their opinion who believe that there is nothing existent in Nature but what is purely Corporeal for this seems most probable in sense and reason to me MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XVII MADAM OUtward Objects as I have told you before do not make Sense and Reason but Sense and Reason do perceive and judg of outward objects For the Sun doth not make sight nor doth sight make light but sense and reason in a Man or any other creature do perceive and know there are such objects as Sun and Light or whatsoever objects are presented to them Neither doth Dumbness Deafness Blindness c. cause an Insensibility but Sense through irregular actions causes them I say through Irregular actions because those effects do not properly belong to the nature of that kind of Creatures for every Creature if regularly made hath particular motions proper to its figure for natural Matters wisdom makes distinctions by her distinct corporeal motions giving every particular Creature their due Portion and Proportion according to the nature of their figures and to the rules of her actions but not to the rules of Arts Mathematical Compasses Lines Figures and the like And thus the Sun Stars Meteors Air Fire Water Earth Minerals Vegetables and Animals may all have Sense and Reason although it doth not move in one kind or sort of Creatures or in one particular as in another For the corporeal motions differ not onely in kinds and sorts but also in Particulars as is perceivable by human sense and reason Which is the cause that Elements have elemental sense and knowledg and Animals animal sense and knowledg and so of Vegetables Minerals and the like Wherefore the Sun and Stars may have as much sensitive and rational life and knowledg as other Creatures but such as is according to the nature of their figures and not animal or vegetable or mineral sense and knowledg And so leaving them I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XVIII MADAM YOur Author denying that Fancy Reason and Animadversion are seated in the Brain and that the Brain is figured into this or that Conception I demand says he in what knot loop or interval thereof doth this faculty of free Fancy and active Reason reside My answer is that in my opinion Fancy and Reason are not made in the Brain as there is a Brain but as there is sensitive and rational matter which makes not onely the Brain but all Thoughts Conceptions Imaginations Fancy Understanding Memory Remembrance and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain neither doth this sensitive and rational mattet remain or act in one place of the Brain but in every part thereof and not onely in every part of the Brain but in every part of the Body nay not onely in every part of a Mans Body but in every part of Nature But Madam I would ask those that say the Brain has neither sense reason nor self-motion and therefore no Perception but that all proceeds from an Immaterial Principle as an Incorporeal Spirit distinct from the body which moveth and actuates corporeal matter I would fain ask them I say where their Immaterial Ideas reside in what part or place of the Body and whether they be little or great Also I would ask them whether there can be many or but one Idea of God If they say many then there must be several distinct Deitical Ideas if but one Where doth this Idea reside If they say in the head then the heart is ignorant of God if in the heart then the head is ignorant thereof and so for all parts of the body but if they say in every part then that Idea may be disfigured by a lost member if they say it may dilate and contract then I say it is not the Idea of God for God can neither contract nor
that those words express nothing else but the variety of motions in Nature for men are apt to make more distinctions then Nature doth Nature knows of nothing else but of corporeal figurative Motions when as men make a thousand distinctions of one thing and confound and entangle themselves so with Beings Non-beings and Neutral-beings Corporeals and Incorporeals Substances and Accidents or manners and modes of Substances new Creations and Annihilations and the like as neither they themselves nor any body else is able to make any sense thereof for they are like the tricks and slights of Juglers 't is here 't is gone and amongst those Authors which I have read as yet the most difficult to be understood is this Author which I am now perusing who runs such divisions and cuts Nature into so small Parts as the sight of my Reason is not sharp enough to discern them Wherefore I will leave them to those that are more quick-sighted then I and rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant XXIV MADAM YOur Author relates how by some the Immortal Soul is divided into two distinct parts the Inferior or more outward which by a peculiar name is called the Soul and the other the Superior the more inward the which is called the bottom of the Soul or Spirit in which Part the Image of God is specially contained unto which is no access for the Devil because there is the Kingdom of God and each part has distinct Acts Proprieties and Faculties Truly Madam I wonder how some men dare discourse so boldly of the Soul without any ground either of Scripture or Reason nay with such contradiction to themselves or their own opinions For how can that be severed into parts which in its nature is Individable and how can the Image of God concern but one Part of the Soul and not the other Certainly if the Soul is the Image of God it is his Image wholly and not partially or in parts But your Author has other as strange and odd opinions as these some whereof I have mentioned in my former Letters viz. the Souls being a Light her Figure her Residence and many the like Amongst the rest there is one thing which your Author frequently makes mention of I know not what to call it whether a thing or a being or no-thing for it is neither of them not a substance nor an accident neither a body nor a spirit and this Monster sor I think this is its proper name since none other will fit it is the Lacquey of the Soul to run upon all errands for the Soul sitting in her Princely Throne or Residence which is the orifice of the stomack cannot be every where her self neither is it fit she should as being a disgrace to her to perform all offices her self for want of servants therefore she sends out this most faithful and trusty officer your Author calls him Ideal Entity who being prepared for his journey readily performs all her commands as being not tied up to no commands of places times or dimensions especially in Women with Child he operates most powerfully for sometime he printed a Cherry on a Child by a strong Idea of the Mother but this Ideal Entity or servant of the Soul hath troubled my brain more then his Mistress the Soul her self for I could not nor cannot as yet conceive how he might be able to be the Jack of all offices and do Journies and travel from one part of the body to another being no body nor substance himself nor tyed to any place time and dimension and therefore I will leave him Your Author also speaks much of the Inward and Outward Man but since that belongs to Divinity I will declare nothing of it onely this I say that in my opinion the Inward and Outward man do not make a double Creature neither properly nor improperly properly as to make two different men improperly as we use to call that man double whose heart doth not agree with his words But by the Outward man I understand the sinful actions of flesh and blood and by the Inward man the reformed actions of the Spirit according to the Word of God and therefore the Outward and Inward man make but one Man Concerning the Natural Soul your Author speaks of her more to her disgrace then to her honor for he scorns to call her a substance neither doth he call her the Rational Soul but he calls her the Sensitive Soul and makes the Divine Soul to be the Rational Natural Soul and the cause of all natural actions for he being a Divine Philosopher mixes Divine and Natural things together But of the Frail Mortal Sensitive Soul as he names her which is onely the sensitive Life his opinions are that she is neither a substance nor an accident but a Neutral Creature and a Vital Light which hath not its like in the whole World but the light of a Candle for it is extinguished and goes out like the flame of a Candle it is locally present and entertained in a place and yet not comprehended in a place Nevertheless although this sensitive soul is no substance yet it has the honor to be the Inn or Lodging-place of the Immortal Soul or Mind and these two souls being both lights do pierce each other but the Mortal soul blunts the Immortal soul with its cogitation of the corruption of Adam These opinions Madam I confess really I do not know what to make of them for I cannot imagine how this Mortal soul being no substance can contain the Immortal soul which is a substance nor how they can pierce each other and the Mortal soul being substanceless get the better over an Immortal substance and vitiate corrupt and infect it neither can I conceive how that which in a manner is nothing already can be made less and annihilated Wherefore my opinion is that the Natural Soul Life and Body are all substantial parts of Infinite Nature not subsisting by themselves each apart but inseparably united and co-mixed both in their actions and substances for not any thing can and doth subsist of it self in Nature but God alone and things supernatural may for ought I know T is true there are several Degrees several particular Natures several Actions or Motions and several Parts in Nature but none subsists single and by it self without reference to the whole and to one another Your Author says the Vital Spirit sits in the Throne of the Outward man as Vice Roy of the Soul and acts by Commission of the Soul but it is impossible that one single part should be King of the whole Creature since Rational and Sensitive Matter is divided into so many parts which have equal power and force of action in their turns and severall imployments for though Nature is a Monarchess over all her Creatures yet in every particular Creature is a Republick and not a Monarchy for no part of any Creature has a sole supreme
Souls in Heaven as well as on Earth have reason to adore love and praise God But Madam my study is in natural Philosophy not in Theology and therefore I 'le refer you to Divines and leave your Author to his own fancy who by his singular Visions tells us more news of our Souls then our Saviour did after his Death and Resurrection Resting in the mean time MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXVI MADAM COncerning those parts and chapters of your Authors Works which treat of Physick before I begin to examine them I beg leave of you in this present to make some reflections first upon his Opinions concerning the Nature of Health and Diseases As for Health he is pleased to say That it consists not in a just Temperature of the body but in a sound and intire Life for otherwise a Temperature of body is as yet in a dead Carcass newly kill'd where notwithstanding there is now death but not life not health Also he says That no disease is in a dead Carcass To which I answer That in my opinion Life is in a dead Carcass as well as in a living Animal although not such a Life as that Creature had before it became a Carcass and the Temperature of that Creature is altered with the alteration of its particular life for the temperature of that particular life which was before in the Animal doth not remain in the Carcass in such a manner as it was when it had the life of such or such an Animal nevertheless a dead Carcass hath life and such a temperature of life as is proper and belonging to its own figure for there are as many different lives as there be different creatures and each creature has its particular life and soul as partaking of sensitive and rational Matter And if a dead Carcass hath life and such a temperature of motions as belong to its own life then there is no question but these motions may move sometimes irregularly in a dead Carcass as well as in any other Creature and since health and diseases are nothing else but the regularity or irregularity of sensitive corporeal Motions a dead Carcass having Irregular motions may be said as well to have diseases as a living body as they name it although it is no proper or usual term for other Creatures but onely for Animals However if there were no such thing as a disease or term it what you will I will call it Irregularity of sensitive motions in a dead Carcass How comes it that the infection of a disease proceeds often from dead Carcasses into living Animals For certainly it is not meerly the odour or stink of a dead body for then all stinking Carcasses would produce an Infection wherefore this Infection must necessarily be inherent in the Carcass and proceed from the Irregularity of its motions Next I 'le ask you Whether a Consumption be a disease or not If it be then a dead Carcass might be said to have a disease as well as a living body and the AEgyptians knew a soveraign remedy against this disease which would keep a dead Carcass intire and undissolved many ages but as I said above a dead Carcass is not that which it was being a living Animal wherefore their effects cannot be the same having not the same causes Next your Author is pleased to call with Hippocrates Nature the onely Physicianess of Diseases I affirm it and say moreover that as she is the onely Physicianess so she is also the onely Destroyeress and Murtheress of all particular Creatures and their particular lives for she dissolves and transforms as well as she frames and creates and acts according to her pleasure either for the increase or decrease augmentation or destruction sickness or health life or death of Particular Creatures But concerning Diseases your Authors opinion is That a Disease is as Natural as Health I answer 't is true Diseases are natural but if we could find out the art of healing as well as the art of killing and destroying and the art of uniting and composing as well as the art of separating and dividing it would be very beneficial to man but this may easier be wished for then obtained for Nature being a corporeal substance has infinite parts as well as an infinite body and Art which is onely the playing action of Nature and a particular Creature can easier divide and separate parts then unite and make parts for Art cannot match unite and joyn parts so as Nature doth for Nature is not onely dividable and composeable being a corporeal substance but she is also full of curiosity and variety being partly self-moving and there is great difference between forced actions and natural actions for the one sort is regular the other irregular But you may say Irregularities are as natural as Regularities I grant it but Nature leaves the irregular part most commonly to her daughter or creature Art that is she makes irregularities for varieties sake but she her self orders the regular part that is she is more careful of her regular actions and thus Nature taking delight in variety suffers irregularities for otherwise if there were onely regularities there could not be so much variety Again your Author says That a disease doth not consist but in living bodies I answer there is not any body that has not life for if life is general then all figures or parts have life but though all bodies have life yet all bodies have not diseases for diseases are but accidental to bodies and are nothing else but irregular motions in particular Creatures which may be not onely in Animals but generally in all Creatures for there may be Irregularities in all sorts of Creatures which may cause untimely dissolutions but yet all dissolutions are not made by irregular motions for many creatures dissolve regularly but onely those which are untimely In the same place your Author mentions That a Disease consists immediately in Life it self but not in the dregs and filthinesses which are erroneous forreigners and strangers to the life I grant that a Disease is made by the motions of Life but not such a life as your Author describes which doth go out like the snuff of a Candle or as one of Lucian's Poetical Lights but by the life of Nature which cannot go out without the destruction of Infinite Nature and as the Motions of Nature's life make diseases or irregularities so they make that which man names dregs and filths which dregs filths sickness and death are nothing but changes of corporeal motions different from those motions or actions that are proper to the health perfection and consistence of such or such a figure or creature But to conclude there is no such thing as corruption sickness or death properly in Nature for they are made by natural actions and are onely varieties in Nature but not obstructions or destructions of Nature or annihilations of particular Creatures and so is that we name
Leprosie Dropsie and Madness as they are Qualities in the abstract are not diseases I am of his mind that a disease is a real and corporeal being and do not understand what he and others mean by abstraoted qualities for Nature knows of no abstraction of qualities from substances and I doubt Man can do no more then Nature doth Besides those abstractions are needless and to no purpose for no Immaterial quality will do any hurt if it be no substance wherefore Apoplexy Leprosie Dropsie and Madness are Corporeal beings as well as the rest of Diseases and not abstracted Qualities and I am sure Persons that are affected with those diseases will tell the same Wherefore leaving needless abstractions to fancies abstracted from right sense and reason I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXVIII MADAM I Am very much troubled to see your Authors Works fill'd with so many spiteful reproaches and bitter taunts against the Schools of Physicians condemning both their Theory and Practice nay that not onely the Modern Schools of Physicians but also the two ancient and famous Physicians Galen and Paracelsus must sufficiently suffer by him especially Galen for there is hardly a Chapter in all his Works which has not some accusations of blind errors sloth and sluggishness Ignorance Covetousness Cruelty and the like Which I am very sorry for not onely for the sake of your Author himself who herein doth betray both his rashness and weakness in not bridling his passions and his too great presumption reliance and confidence in his own abilities and extraordinary Gifts but also for the sake of the Fame and Repute of our Modren Physicians for without making now any difference betwixt the Galenists and Paracelsians and examining which are the best for I think them both excellent in their kinds especially when joyned together I will onely say this in general that the Art of Physick has never flourish'd better then now neither has any age had more skilful learned and experienced Physicians then this present because they have not onely the knowledg and practise of those in ages Past but also their own experience joyned with it which cannot but add perfection to their Art and I for my part am so much for the old way of Practice that ifI should be sick I would desire rather such Physicians which follow the same way then those that by their new Inventions perchance cure one and kill a hundred But your Author will have a Physician to be like a Handycrafts man who being call'd to a work promises that work and stands to his promise and therefore It is a shame says he in a Physician being call'd to a sick-man in the beginning of the disease and when his strength is yet remaining to suffer the same man to die This in my opinion is a very unreasonable comparison to liken a Handicrafts man to a Physician and the art of Curing to the art of Building or any the like without regard of so many great differences that are between them which I am loth to rehearse for brevities sake and are apparant enough to every one that will consider them but this I may say that it is not always for want of skill and industry in a Physician that the cure is not effected but it lies either in the Incureableness of the disease or any other external accidents that do hinder the success Not but that the best Physicians may err in a disease or mistake the Patients inward distemper by his outward temper or the interior temper by his outward distemper or any other ways for they may easily err through the variaction of the disease which may vary so suddenly and oft as it is impossible to apply so fast and so many Medicines as the alteration requires without certain death for the body is not'able oftentimes to dispose and digest several Medicines so fast as the disease may vary and therefore what was good in this temper may perhaps be bad in the variation insomuch that one medicine may in a minute prove a Cordial and Poyson Nay it may be that some Physicians do err through their own ignorance and mistake must we therefore condemn all the skill and accuse all the Schools of Negligence Cruelty and Ignorance God forbid for it would be a great Injustice Let us rather praise them for the good they do and nor rashly condemn them for the evil they could not help For we may as well condemn those holy and industrious Divines that cannot reform wicked and perverse Sinners as Physicians because they cannot restore every Patient to his former health the Profession of a Physician being very difficult for they can have but outward signs of inward distempers Besides all men are not diffected after they are dead to inform Physicians of the true cause of their death nay if they were perchance they would not give always a true information to the Physician as is evident by many examples but oftentimes the blame is laid upon the Physician when as the fault is either in Nature or any other cause which Art could not mend And if your Author had had such an extraordinary Gift from God as to know more then all the rest of Physicians why did he not accordingly and as the Scripture speaks of Faith shew his skill by his Works and Cures certainly could he have restored those that were born blind lame deaf and dumb or cured the spotted Plague or Apoplexy after the third fit or the Consumption of Vital parts or a Fever in the Arteries or dissolved a Stone too big to go through the passage and many the like he would not onely have been cried up for a rare Physician but for a miracle of the World and worshipped as a Saint But if he could not effect more then the Schools can do why doth he inveigh so bitterly against them Wherefore I cannot commend him in so doing but as I respect the Art of Physick as a singular Gift from God to Mankind so I respect and esteem also learned and skilful Physicians for their various Knowledg industrious Studies careful Practice and great Experiences and think every one is bound to do the like they being the onely supporters and restorers of humane life and health For though I must confess with your Author that God is the onely giver of Good yet God is not pleased to work Miracles ordinarily but has ordained means for the restoring of health which the Art of Physick doth apply and therefore those Persons that are sick do wisely to send for a Physician for Art although it is but a particular Creature and the handmaid of Nature yet she doth Nature oftentimes very good service and so do Physicians often prolong their Patients lives The like do Chirurgeons for if those Persons that have been wounded had been left to be cured onely by the Magnetick Medicine I believe numbers that are alive would have been dead and numbers would die that are alive
I rest MADAM Your Faithful Friend and Servant XXXI MADAM YOur Author in opposition to the Schools endeavouring to prove that there are no humors in an animal body except blood proves many humors in himself But I can see no reason why Nature should not make several humors as well as several Elements Vegetables Minerals Animals and other Creatures and that in several parts of the body and many several ways for to mention but one sort of other Creatures viz. Vegetables they are as we see not onely produced many several ways but in many several grounds either by sowing setting or grafting either in clayie limy sandy chalky dry or wet grounds And why may not several humors be produced as well of other Creatures and parts as others are produced of them for all parts of Nature are produced one from another as being all of one and the same Matter onely the variation of corporeal motions makes all the difference and variety between them which variety of motions is impossible to be known by any particular Creature for Nature can do more then any Creature can conceive Truly Madam I should not be of such a mind as to oppose the Schools herein so eargerly as your Author doth but artificial actions make men to have erroneous opinions of the actions of Nature judging them all according to the rule and measure of Art when as Art oft deludes men under the cover of truth and makes them many times believe falshood for truth for Nature is pleased with variety and so doth make numerous absurdities doubts opinions disputations objections and the like Moreover your Author is as much against the radical moisture as he is against the four humors saying that according to this opinion of the Schools a fat belly through much grease affording more fuel to the radical moisture must of necessity live longer But this in my opinion is onely a wilful mistake for I am confident that the Schools do not understand radical moisture to be gross fat radical oyl but a thin oylie substance Neither do they believe radical heat to be a burning fiery and consuming heat but such a degree of natural heat as is comfortable nourishing refreshing and proper for the life of the animal Creature Wherefore radical heat and moisture doth not onely consist in the Grease of the body for a lean body may have as much and some of them more Radical moisture then fat bodies But your Author instead of this radical moisture makes a nourishable moisture onely as I suppose out of a mind to contradict the Schools when as I do not perceive that the Schools mean by Radical moisture any other then a nourishable moisture and therefore this distinction is needless Lastly he condemns the Schools for making an affinity betwixt the bowels and the brain But he might as will condemn Politicians for saying there is an affinity betwixt Governors and Subjects or betwixt command and obedience but as the actions of Particulars even from the meanest in a Common-wealth may chance to make a Publick disturbance so likewise in the Common-wealth of the body one single action in a particular part may cause a disturbance of the whole Body nay a total ruine and dissolution of the composed which dissolution is called Death and yet these causes are neither Light nor Blas nor Gas no more then men are shining Suns or flaming Torches or blazing Meteors or azure Skies Wherefore leaving your Author to his contradicting humor I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant XXXII MADAM I Do verily believe with the Schools the Purging of the Brain against your Author For I know no reason why all the parts of a man's body should not stand in need of evacuation and purging as well as some 'T is true if the substance or nourishment received were all useful and onely enough for the maintenance subsistance and continuance of the Creature and no more then there would be no need of such sort of evacuation but I believe the corporeal self-motions in a body discharge the superfluous matter out of every part of the body if the motions of the superfluous matter be not too strong and over-power the motions in the parts of the body but some parts do produce more superfluities then others by reason their property is more to dilate then to contract and more to attract then to retain or fix which parts are the brain stomack bowels bladder gall and the like wherefore as there is nourishment in all parts of the body so there are also excrements in all parts for there is no nourishment without excrement Next your Author says That the nourishment of the solid parts is made with the transmutation of the whole venal blood into nourishment without a separation of the pure from the impure But I pray give me leave to ask Madam whether the solid Parts are not Instruments for the nourishment of the Venal blood Truly I cannot conceive how blood should be nourished wanting those solid parts and their particular motions and imployments Again his opinion is That the brain is nourished by a few and slender veins neither doth a passage or channel appear whereby a moist excrement may derive or a vapour enter And by reason of the want of such a passage in another place he is pleased to affirm That nothing can fume up from the stomack into the brain and therefore Wine doth not make drunk with fuming from the stomach into the head but the Winie spirit is immediately snatched into the arteries out of the stomack without digestion and so into the head and there breeds a confusion First I am not of the opinion that all nourishment comes from the veins or from one particular part of the body no more do Excrements neither do I believe that every passage in the body is visible to Anatomists for Natures works are too curious and intricate for any particular Creature to find them out which is the cause that Anatomists and Chymists are so oft mistaken in natural causes and effects for certainly they sometimes believe great Errors for great Truths Next as for Drunkenness I believe that many who drink much Wine are drunk before such time as the Wine spirit can get into the Arteries but if there be Pores to the Brain as it is most probable the spirit of Wine may more easily ascend and enter those Pores then the Pores of the Arteries or the Mouth-veins and so make a circular journey to the Head But as for Excrements whereof I spake in the beginning as they are made several manners or ways and in several parts of the body so they are also discharged several ways from several parts and several ways from each particular part indeed so many several ways and manners as would puzzle the wisest man in the world nay your Authors Interior keeper of the Brain to find them out Wherefore to conclude he is the best Physician that can tell how to discharge
irregular and disordered motions or strengthen the weak or reduce the straying or work any other ways according to the nature and propriety of their own substance and the disposition of the distempered parts Nevertheless those cures which are performed exteriously as to heal inward affects by an outwad bare co-touching are all made by natural motions in natural substances and not by Non-being substanceless Ideas or spiritual Rays for those that will cure diseases by Non-beings will effect little or nothing for a disease is corporeal or material and so must the remedies be there being no cure made but by a conflict of the remedy with the disease and certainly if a non-being fight against a being or a corporeal disease I doubt it will do no great effect for the being will be too strong for the non-being Wherefore my constant opinion is that all cures whatsover are perfected by the power of corporeal motions working upon the affected parts either interiously or exteriously either by applying external remedies to external wounds or by curing internal distempers either by medicines taken internally or by bare external co-touchings And such a remedy I suppose has been that which your Author speaks of viz. a stone of a certain Irish-man which by a meer external contact hath cured all kinds of diseases either by touching outwardly the affected parts or by licking it but with the tip of the Tongue if the disease was Internal But if the vertue of the Stone was such as your Author describes certainly what man soever he was that possessed such a jewel I say he was rather of the nature of the Devil then of man that would not divulge it to the general benefit of all mankind and I wonder much that your Author who otherwise pretends such extraordinary Devotion Piety and Religiousness as also Charity viz. that all his works he has written are for the benefit of his neighbour and to detect the errors of the Schools meerly for the good of man doth yet plead his cause saying That secrets as they are most difficultly prepared so they ought to remain in secret forever in the possession of the Privy Councel what Privy Counsels he means I know not but certainly some are more difficult to be spoken to or any thing to be obtained from then the preparation of a Physical Arcanum However a general good or benefit ought not to be concealed or kept in privy Councels but to be divulged and publickly made known that all sorts of People of what condition degree or Nation soever might partake of the general blessing and bounty of God But Madam you may be sure that many who pretend to know Physical secrets most commonly know the least as being for the most part of the rank of them that deceive the simple with strange tales which exceed truth and to make themselves more authentical they use to rail at others and to condemn their skill onely to magnifie their own I say many Madam as I have observed are of that nature especially those that have but a superficial knowledge in the Art of Physick for those that are thorowly learned and sufficiently practised in it scorn to do the like which I wish may prosper and thrive by their skill And so I rest MADAM Your Ladiships humble Servant XLIII MADAM YOur Author is pleased to relate a story of one that died suddenly and being disfected there was not the least sign of decay or disorder found in his body But I cannot add to those that wonder when no sign of distemper is found in a man's body after he is dead because I do not believe that the subtillest learnedst and most practised Anatomist can exactly tell all the Interior Government or motions or can find out all obscure and invisible passages in a man's body for concerning the motions they are all altered in death or rather in the dissolution of the animal figure and although the exterior animal figure or shape doth not alter so soon yet the animal motions may alter in a moment of time which sudden alteration may cause a sudden death and so the motions being invisible the cause of death cannot be perceived for no body can find that which is not to be found to wit animal motions in a dead man for Nature hath altered these motions from being animal motions to some other kind of motions she being as various in dissolutions as in productions indeed so various that her ways cannot be traced or known thorowly and perfecty but onely by piece-meals as the saying is that is but partly Wherefore man can onely know that which is visible or subject to his senses and yet our senses do not always inform us truly but the alterations of grosser parts are more easily known then the alterations of subtil corporeal motions either in general or in particular neither are the invisible passages to be known in a dead Carcass much less in a living body But I pray mistake me not when I say that the animal motions are not subject to our exterior senses for I do not mean all exterior animal motions nor all interior animal motions for though you do see no interior motion in an animal body yet you may feel some as the motion of the Heart the motion of the Pulse the motion of the Lungs and the like but the most part of the interior animal motions are not subject to our exterior senses nay no man he may be as observing as he will can possibly know by his exterior senses all the several and various interior motions in his own body nor all the exterior motions of his exterior parts and thus it remains still that neither the subtillest motions and parts of matter nor the obscure passages in several Creatures can be known but by several parts for what one part is ignorant of another part is knowing and what one part is knowing another part is ignorant thereof so that unless all the Parts of Infinite Matter were joyned into one Creature there can never be in one particular Creature a perfect knowledg of all things in Nature Wherefore I shall never aspire to any such knowledg but be content with that little particular knowledg Nature has been pleased to give me the chief of which is that I know my self and especially that I am MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant XLIV MADAM I Perceive you are desirous to know the cause Why a man is more weak at the latter end of a disease then at the beginning and is a longer time recovering health then loosing health as also the reason of relapses and intermissions First as for weakness and strength my opinion is they are caused by the regular and irregular motions in several parts each striving to over-power the other in their conflict and when a man recovers from a disease although the regular motions have conquered the irregular and subdued them to their obedience yet they are not so quite obedient as they
for all parts belong to one body which is Nature nay if any thing could subsist of it self it were a God and not a Creature Wherefore not any Creature can challenge a soul absolutely to himself unless Man who hath a divine soul which no other Creature hath But that which makes so many confusions and disputes amongst learned men is that they conceive first there is no rational soul but onely in man next that this rational soul in every man is individable But if the rational soul is material as certainly to all sense and reason it is then it must not onely be in all material Creatures but be dividable too for all that is material or corporeal hath parts and is dividable and therefore there is no such thing in any one Creature as one intire soul nay we might as well say there is but one Creature in Nature as say there is but one individable natural soul in one Creature Your Tenth question is Whether Souls are producible or can be produced I answer in my opinion they are producible by reason all parts in Nature are so But mistake me not for I do not mean that any one part is produced out of Nothing or out of new matter but one Creature is produced by another by the dividing and uniting joyning and disjoyning of the several parts of Matter and not by substanceless Motion out of new Matter And because there is not any thing in Nature that has an absolute subsistence of it self each Creature is a producer as well as a produced in some kind or other for no part of Nature can subsist single and without reference and assistance of each other or else every single part would not onely be a whole of it self but be as a God without controle and though one part is not another part yet one part belongs to another part and all parts to one whole and that whole to all the parts which whole is one corporeal Nature And thus as I said before productions of one or more creatures by one or more producers without matter meerly by immaterial motions are impossible to wit that something should be made or produced out of nothing for if this were so there would consequently be an annihilation or turning into nothing and those Creatures which produce others by the way of immaterial motions would rather be as a God then a part of Nature or Natural Matter Besides it would be an endless labour and more trouble to create particular Creatures out of nothing then a World at once whereas now it is easie for Nature to create by production and transmigration and therefore it is not probable that any one Creature hath a particular life soul or body to it self as subsisting by it self and as it were precised from the rest having its own subsistence without the assistance of any other nor is it probable that any one Creature is new for all that is was and shall be till the Omnipotent God disposes Nature otherwise As for the rest of your questions as whether the Sun be the cause of all motions and of all natural productions and whether the life of a Creature be onely in the blood or whether it have its beginning from the blood or whether the blood be the chief architect of an animal or be the seat of the soul sense and reason in my opinion doth plainly contradict them for concerning the blood if it were the seat of the Soul then in the circulation of the blood if the Soul hath a brain it would become very dizzie by its turning round but perchance some may think the Soul to be a Sun and the Blood the Zodiack and the body the Globe of the Earth which the Soul surrounds in such time as the Blood is flowing about And so leaving those similizing Fancies I 'le add no more but repeat what I said in the beginning viz. that I rely upon the goodness of your Nature from which I hope for pardon if I have not so exactly and solidly answered your desire for the argument of this discourse being so difficult may easily lead me into an error which your better judgment will soon correct and in so doing you will add to those favours for which I am already MADAM Your Ladiships most obliged Friend and humble Servant III. MADAM You thought verily I had mistaken my self in my last concerning the Rational Souls of every particular Creature because I said all Creatures had numerous Souls and not onely so but every particular Creature had numerous Souls Truly Madam I did not mistake my self for I am of the same opinion still for though there is but one Soul in infinite Nature yet that soul being dividable into parts every part is a soul in every single creature were the parts no bigger in quantity then an atome But you ask whether Nature hath Infinite souls I answer That Infinite Nature is but one Infinite body divided into Infinite parts which we call Creatures and therefore it may as well be said That Nature is composed of Infinite Creatures or Parts as she is divided into Infinite Creatures or Parts for Nature being Material is dividable and composable The same may be said of Nature's Soul which is the Rational part of the onely infinite Matter as also of Nature's Life which is the sensitive part of the onely Infinite self-moving Matter and of the Inanimate part of the onely Infinite Matter which I call the body for distinction sake as having no self-motion in its own nature for Infinite Material Nature hath an Infinite Material Soul Life and Body But Madam I desire you to observe what I said already viz. that the parts of Nature are as apt to divide as to unite for the chief actions of Nature are to divide and to unite which division is the cause that it may well be said every particular Creature hath numerous souls for every part of rational Matter is a particular Soul and every part of the sensitive Matter is a particular Life all which mixed with the Inanimate Matter though they be Infinite in parts yet they make but one Infinite whole which is Infinite Nature and thus the Infinite division into Infinite parts is the cause that every particular Creature hath numerous Souls and the transmigration of parts from and to parts is the reason that not any Creature can challenge a single soul or souls to it self the same for life But most men are unwilling to believe that Rational Souls are material and that this rational Matter is dividable in Nature when as humane sense and reason may well perceive that Nature is active and full of variety and action and variety cannot be without motion division and composition but the reason that variety division and composition runs not into confusion is that first there is but one kind of Matter next that the division and composition of parts doth ballance each other into a union in the whole But to conclude those
space but from one side of the Circle to the other so that in his mind he brings two sides together and yet will have them distant but the motions of his thoughts being subtiler and swifter then his senses skip from side to side without touching the middle parts like as a Squirrel from bough to bough or an Ape from one table to another without touching the ground onely cutting the air Next he says That an absolute Vacuum is neither an Accident nor a Body nor yet Nothing but Something because it has a being which opinion seems to me like that of the divine Soul but I suppose Vacuum is not the divine Soul nor the divine Soul Vacuum or else it could not be sensible of the blessed happiness in Heaven or the Torments in Hell Again he says Let us screw our supposition one pin higher and farther imagine that God after the annihilation of this vast machine the Universe should create another in all respects equal to this and in the same part of space wherein this now consists First we must conceive that as the spaces were immense before God created the world so also must they eternally persist of infinite extent if he shall please at any time to destroy it Next that these immense spaces are absolutely immoveable By this opinion it seems that Gods Power cannot so easily make or annihilate Vacuum as a substance because he believes it to be before all Matter and to remain after all Matter which is to be eternal but I cannot conceive why Matter or fulness of body should not as well be Infinite and Eternal as his conceived Vacuum for if Vacuum can have an eternal and infinite being why may not fulness of body or Matter But he calls Vacuum Immovable which in my opinion is to make it a God for God is onely Immoveable and Unalterable and this is more Glorious then to be dependant upon God wherefore to believe Matter to be Eternal but yet dependent upon God is a more humble opinion then his opinion of Vacuum for if Vacuum be not created and shall not be annihilated but is Uncreated Immaterial Immoveable Infinite and Eternal it is a God but if it be created God being not a Creator of Nothing nor an annihilator of Nothing but of Something he cannot be a Creator of Vacuum for Vacuum is a pure Nothing But leaving Nothing to those that can make something of it I will add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant IX MADAM THat Learned Author of whom I made mention in my last is pleased to say in his Chapter of Time that Time is the Twin-brother to Space but if Space be as much as Vacuum then I say they are Twin-nothings for there can be no such thing as an empty or immaterial space but that which man calls space is onely a distance betwixt several corporeal parts and time is onely the variation of corporeal motions for were there no body there could not be any space and were there no corporeal motion there could not be any time As for Time considered in General it is nothing else but the corporeal motions in Nature and Particular times are the Particular corporeal motions but Duration is onely a continuance or continued subsistence of the same parts caused by the consistent motions of those parts Neither are Time Duration Place Space Magnitude c. dependents upon corporeal motions but they are all one and the same thing Neither was Time before nor can be after corporeal motion for none can be without the other being all one And as for Eternity it is one fixed instant without a flux or motion Concerning his argument of Divisibility of Parts my opinion is That there is no Part in Nature Individable no not that so small a part which the Epicureans name an Atome neither is Matter separable from Matter nor Parts from Parts in General but onely in Particulars for though parts can be separated from parts by self-motion yet upon necessity they must joyn to parts so as there can never be a single part by it self But hereof as also of Place Space Time Motion Figure Magnitude c. I have sufficiently discoursed in my former Letters as also in my Book of Philosophy and as for my opinion of Atoms their figures and motions if any such things there be I will refer you to my Book of Poems out of which give me leave to repeat these following lines containing the ground of my opinion of Atomes All Creatures howsoe're they may be nam'd Are of long square flat or sharp Atomes fram'd Thus several figures several tempers make But what is mixt doth of the four partake The onely cause why things do live and die 'S according as the mixed Atomes lie Thus life and death and young and old Are as the several Atoms hold Wit understanding in the brain Are as the several atomes reign And dispositions good or ill Are as the several atomes still And every Passion which doth rise Is as each several atome lies Thus sickness health and peace and war Are as the several atomes are If you desire to know more you may read my mentioned Book of Poems whose first Edition was printed in the year 1653. And so taking my leave of you I rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and Servant X. MADAM I Received the Book of your new Author that treats of Natural Philosophy which I perceive is but lately come forth but although it be new yet there are no new opinions in it for the Author doth follow the opinions of some old Philosophers and argues after the accustomed Scholastical way with hard intricate and nonsensical words Wherefore I shall not take so much pains as to read it quite over but onely pick out here and there some few discourses which I shall think most convenient for the clearing of my own opinion in the number of which is first that of Matter whereof the Author is pleased to proclaim the opinion that holds Matter to be Infinite not onely absurd but also impious Truly Madam it is easily said but hardly proved and not to trouble you with unnecessary repetitions I hope you do remember as yet what I have written to you in the beginning concerning the infiniteness of Nature or natural Matter where I have proved that it implies no impiety absurdity or contradiction at all to believe that Matter is Infinite for your Authors argument concluding from the finiteness of particular Creatures to Nature her self is of no force for though no part of Nature is Infinite in bulk figure or quantity nevertheless all the parts of Infinite Nature are Infinite in number which infinite number of parts must needs make up one Infinite body in bulk or quantity for as a finite body or substance is dividable into finite parts so an Infinite body as Nature or natural Matter must of necessity be dividable into infinite parts in number and yet each part must
There was and There shall be but onely There is Neither can it properly be said from this to that place but onely in reference to the several moving parts of the onely Infinite Matter And thus much to your Questions I add no more but rest MADAM Your faithful Friend and humble Servant XXX MADAM IN your last you were pleased to express that some men who think themselves wise did laugh in a scornful manner at my opinion when I say that every Creature hath life and knowledg sense and reason counting it not onely ridiculous but absurd and asking whether you did or could believe a piece of wood metal or stone had as much sense as a beast or as much reason as a man having neither brain blood heart nor flesh nor such organs passages parts nor shapes as animals To which I answer That it is not any of these mentioned things that makes life and knowledg but life and knowledg is the cause of them which life and knowledg is animate matter and is in all parts of all Creatures and to make it more plain and perspicuous humane sense and reason may perceive that wood stone or metal acts as wisely as an animal As for example Rhubarb or the like drugs will act very wisely in Purging and Antimony or the like will act very wisely in Vomiting and Opium will act very wisely in Sleeping also Quicksilver or Mercury will act very wisely as those that have the French disease can best witness likewise the Loadstone acts very wisely as Mariners or Navigators will tell you Also Wine made of Fruit and Ale of Malt and distilled Aqua-vitae will act very subtilly ask the Drunkards and they can inform you Thus Infinite examples may be given and yet man says all Vegetables and Minerals are insensible and irrational as also the Planets and Elements when as yet the Planets move very orderly and wisely and the Elements are more active nay more subtil and searching then any of the animal Creatures witness Fire Air and Water As for the Earth she brings forth her fruit if the other Elements do not cause abortives in due season and yet man believes Vegetables Minerals and Elements are dead dull senseless and irrational Creatures because they have not such shapes parts nor passages as Animals nor such exterior and local motions as Animals have but Man doth not consider the various intricate and obscure ways of Nature unknown to any particular Creature for what our senses are not capable to know our reason is apt to deny Truly in my opinion Man is more irrational then any of those Creatures when he believes that all knowledg is not onely confined to one sort of Creatures but to one part of one particular Creature as the head or brain of man for who can in reason think that there is no other sensitive and rational knowledg in Infinite Matter but what is onely in Man or animal Creatures It is a very simple and weak conclusion to say Other Creatures have no eyes to see no ears to hear no tongues to taste no noses to smell as animals have wherefore they have no sense or sensitive knowledg or because they have no head nor brain as Man hath therefore they have no reason nor rational knowledg at all for sense and reason and consequently sensitive and rational knowledg extends further then to be bound to the animal eye ear nose tongue head or brain but as these organs are onely in one kind of Natures Creatures as Animals in which organs the sensitive corporeal motions make the perception of exterior objects so there may be infinite other kinds of passages or organs in other Creatures unknown to Man which Creatures may have their sense and reason that is sensitive and rational knowledg each according to the nature of its figure for as it is absurd to say that all Creatures in Nature are Animals so it is absurd to confine sense and reason onely to Animals or to say that all other Creatures if they have sense and reason life and knowledg it must be the same as is in Animals I confess it is of the same degree that is of the same animate part of matter but the motions of life and knowledg work so differently and variously in every kind and sort nay in every particular Creature that no single Creature can find them out But in my opinion not any Creature is without life and knowledg which life and knowledg is made by the self-moving part of matter that is by the sensitive and rational corporeal motions and as it is no consequence that all Creatures must be alike in their exterior shapes figures and motions because they are all produced out of one and the same matter so neither doth it follow that all Creatures must have the same interior motions natures and proprieties and so consequently the same life and knowledg because all life and knowledg is made by the same degree of matter to wit the animate Wherefore though every kind or sort of Creatures has different perceptions yet they are not less knowing for Vegetables Minerals and Elements may have as numerous and as various perceptions as Animals and they may be as different from animal perceptions as their kinds are but a different perception is not therefore no perception Neither is it the animal organs that make perception nor the animal shape that makes life but the motions of life make them But some may say it is Irreligious to believe any Creature has rational knowledg but Man Surely Madam the God of Nature in my opinion will be adored by all Creatures and adoration cannot be without sense and knowledg Wherefore it is not probable that onely Man and no Creature else is capable to adore and worship the Infinite and Omnipotent God who is the God of Nature and of all Creatures I should rather think it irreligious to confine sense and reason onely to Man and to say that no Creature adores and worships God but Man which in my judgment argues a great pride self-conceit and presumption And thus Madam having declared my opinion plainly concerning this subject I will detain you no longer at this present but rest MADAM Your constant Friend and faithful Servant XXXI MADAM I Perceive you do not well apprehend my meaning when I say in my Philosophical Opinions That the Infinite degrees of Infinite Matter are all Infinite For say you the degrees of Matter cannot be Infinite by reason there cannot be two Infinites but one would obstruct the other My answer is I do not mean that the degrees of Matter are Infinite each in its self that is that the animate and inanimate are several Infinite matters but my opinion is that the animate degree of matter is in a perpetual motion and the inanimate doth not move of it self and that those degrees are infinite in their effects as producing and making infinite figures for since the cause which is the onely matter is infinite the