Sense or Common Notion found in all men that have not done violence to their own Nature unless by some other approved Faculty he can discover the contrary my Conclusion must stand for an undoubted Truth by Axiome 5. He pretends therefore some Demonstration of Reason which he would oppose against the dictate of this Inward Sense which it will not be amiss to examine that we may discover his Sophistry CHAP. III. 1. Mr. Hobbs his Arguments whereby he would prove all our actions necessitated His first Argument 2. His second Argument 3. His third Argument 4. His fourth Argument 5. What must be the meaning of these words Nothing taketh beginning from it self in the first Argument of Mr. Hobbs 6. A fuller and more determinate explication of the foregoing words whose sense is evidently convinced to be That no Essence of it self can vary its modification 7. That this is onely said by Mr. Hobbs not proved and a full confutation of his Assertion 8. Mr. Hobbs imposed upon by his own Sophistry 9. That one part of this first Argument of his is groundless the other sophisticall 10. The plain proposall of his Argument whence appeares more fully the weakness and sophistry thereof 11. An Answer to his second Argument 12. An Answer to the third 13. An Answer to a difficulty concerning the Truth and Falsehood of future Propositions 14. An Answer to Mr. Hobbs his fourth Argument which though slighted by himself is the strongest of them all 15. The difficulty of reconciling Free-will with Divine Prescience and Prophecies 16. That the faculty of Free-will is seldome put in use 17. That the use of it is properly in Morall conflict 18. That the Soule is not invincible there neither 19. That Divine decrees either finde fit Instruments or make them 20. That the more exact we make Divine Prescience even to the comprehension of any thing that implies no contradiction in it self to be comprehended the more cleare it is that mans Will may be sometimes free 21. Which is sufficient to make good my last Argument against Mr. Hobbs 1. HIS first Argument runs thus I will repeat it in his own words as also the rest of them as they are to be found in his Treatise of Liberty and Necessity I conceive saith he that nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the action of some other immediate agent without it self and that therefore when first a man hath an appetite or Will to something to which immediatly before he had no appetite nor Will the cause of his Will is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversy that of voluntary actions the Will is the necessary cause and by this which is said the Will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes and therefore are necessitated 2. His second thus I hold saith he that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessary cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needfull for the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily For whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been What followes is either the same or so closely depending on this that I need not adde it 3. His third Argument therefore shall be that which he urges from Future disjunctions For example let the case be put of the Weather 'T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore saith he it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain otherwise there is no necessity that the Proposition It shall rain or not rain should be true 4. His fourth is this That the denying of Necessity destroyeth both the Decrees and the Prescience of God Almighty For whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an Instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a man if he have liberty from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass 5. The Entrance into his first Argument is something obscure and ambiguous Nothing taketh beginning from it self But I shall be as candid and faithfull an Interpreter as I may If he mean by beginning beginning of Existence it is undoubtedly true That no Substance nor Modification of Substance taketh beginning from it self but this will not infer the Conclusion he drives at But if he mean that Nothing taketh beginning from it self of being otherwise affected or modified then before he must either understand by nothing no Essence neither Spirit nor Body or no Modification of Essence He cannot mean Spirit as admitting no such thing in the whole comprehension of Nature If Body it will not infer what he aims at unless there be nothing but Body in the Universe which is a meer precarious Principle of his which he beseeches his credulous followers to admit but he proves it no where as I have already noted If by Modification he mean the Modification of Matter or Body that runs still upon the former Principle That there is nothing but Body in the world and therefore he proves nothing but upon a begg'd Hypothesis and that a false one as I have elsewhere demonstrated Wherefore the most favourable Interpretation I can make is That he means by no thing no Essence nor Modification of Essence being willing to hide that dearly-hug'd Hypothesis of his That there is nothing but Body in the world under so generall and uncertain termes 6. The words therefore in the other senses having no pretence to conclude any thing let us see how far they will prevail in this taking no thing for no Essence or no Modification of Essence or what will come nearer to the Matter in hand no Faculty of an Essence And from this two-fold meaning let us examine two Propositions that will result from thence viz. That no Faculty of any Essence can vary its Operation from what it is but from the action of some other immediate agent without it self or That no Essence can vary its Modification or Operation by it self but by the action of some other immediate Agent without it Of which two Propositions the latter seemes the better sense by far and most naturall For it is very harsh and if truly looked into as false to say That the Mode
or Faculty of any Essence changes it self for it is the Essence it self that exerts it self into these variations of Modes if no externall Agent is the cause of these changes And Mr. Hobbs opposing an Externall Agent to this Thing that he saies does not change it self does naturally imply That they are both not Faculties but Substances he speakes of 7. Wherefore there remains onely the latter Proposition to be examined That no Essence of it self can vary its Modification That some Essence must have had a power of moving is plain in that there is Motion in the world which must be the effect of some Substance or other But that Motion in a large sense taking it for mutation or change may proceed from that very Essence in which it is found seemes to me plain by Experience For there is an Essence in us whatever we will call it which we find endued with this property as appears from hence that it has variety of perceptions Mathematicall Logicall and I may adde also Morall that are not any impresses nor footsteps of Corporeall Motion as I have already demonstrated and any man may observe in himself and discover in the writings of others how the Minde has passed from one of these perceptions to another in very long deductions of Demonstration as also what stilness from bodily Motion is required in the excogitation of such series of Reasons where the Spirits are to run into no other posture nor motion then what they are guided into by the Mind it self where these immateriall and intellectuall Notions have the leading and rule Besides in grosser Phantasmes which are supposed to be somewhere impressed in the Brain the composition of them and disclusion and various disposall of them is plainly an arbitrarious act and implies an Essence that can as it lists excite in it self the variety of such Phantasmes as have been first exhibited to her from Externall Objects and change them and transpose them at her own will But what need I reason against this ground of Mr. Hobbs so sollicitously it being sufficient to discover that he onely saies that No Essence can change the Modifications of it self but does not prove it and therefore whatever he would infer hereupon is meerly upon a begg'd Principle 8. But however from this precarious ground he will infer that whenever we have a Will to a thing the cause of this Will is not the Will it self but something else not in our own disposing the meaning whereof must be That whenever we Will some corporeall impress which we cannot avoid forces us thereto But the Illation is as weak as bold it being built upon no foundation as I have already shewn I shall onely take notice how Mr. Hobbs though he has rescued himself from the authority of the Schools and would fain set up for himself yet he has not freed himself from their fooleries in talking of Faculties and Operations and the absurditie is alike in both as separate and distinct from the Essence they belong to wich causes a great deal of distraction and obscurity in the speculation of things I speak this in reference to those expressions of his of the Will being the cause of willing and of its being the necessary cause of voluntary actions and of things not being in its disposing Whenas if a man would speak properly and desired to be understood he would say That the Subject in which is this power or act of willing call it Man or the Soul of Man is the cause of this or that voluntary action But this would discover his Sophistry wherewith haply he has entrapt himself which is this Something out of the power of the Will necessarily causes the Will the Will once caused is the necessary cause of voluntary actions and therefore all voluntary actions are necessitated 9. Besides that the first part of this Argumentation is groundless as I have already intimated the second is sophisticall that sayes That the Will is the necessary cause of voluntary actions For by necessary may be understood either necessitated forced and made to act whether it will or no or else it may signify that the Will is a requisite cause of voluntary actions so that there can be no voluntary actions without it The latter whereof may be in some sense true but the former is utterly false So the Conclusion being inferred from assertions whereof the one is groundless the other Sophisticall the Illation cannot but be ridiculously weak and despicable But if he had spoke in the Concrete in stead of the Abstract the Sophistry had been more grossly discoverable or rather the train of his reasoning languid and contemptible Omitting therefore to speak of the Will separately which of it self is but a blind Power or Operation let us speak of that Essence which is endued with Will Sense Reason and other Faculties and see what face this argumentation of his will bear which will then run thus 10. Some externall irresistible Agent does ever necessarily cause that Essence call it Soule or what you please which is endued with the faculties of Will and Understanding â—o Will. This Essence endued with the power of exerting it self into the act of Willing is the necessary cause of Voluntary actions Therefore all voluntary actions are necessitated The first Assertion now at first sight appears a gross falshood the Soule being endued with Understanding as well as Will and therefore she is not necessarily determined to will by externall impresses but by the displaying of certain notions and perceptions she raises in her self that be purely intellectuall And the second seems a very slim and lank piece of Sophistrie Both which my reasons already alledged doe so easily and so plainly reach that I need add nothing more but pass to his second Argument the form whereof in brief is this 11. Every Cause is a sufficient cause otherwise it could not produce its effect Every sufficient cause is a necessary cause that is to say will be sure to produce the effect otherwise something was wanting thereto and it was no sufficient cause And therefore every cause is a necessary cause and consequently every Effect or Action even those that are termed Voluntary are necessitated This reasoning looks smartly at first view but if we come closer to it we shall find it a pittifull piece of Sophistry which is easily detected by observing the ambiguity of that Proposition Every sufficient cause is a necessary cause For the force lyes not so much in that it is said to be Sufficient as in that it is said to be a Cause which if it be it must of necessity have an Effect whether it be sufficient or insufficient which discovers the Sophisme For these relative terms of Cause and Effect necessarily imply one another But every Being that is sufficient to act this or that if it will and so to become the Cause thereof doth neither act nor abstain from acting necessarily And therefore if it doe act
notion of a Spirit 1. AND thus we have fairly well gratified the Fancy of the Curious concerning the Extension and Indiscerpibility of a Spirit but we shall advance yet higher and demonstrate the possibility of this notion to the severest Reason out of these following Principles AXIOME XI A Globe touches a Plain in something though in the least that is conceivable to be reall  AXIOME XII The least that is conceivable is so little that it cannot be conceived to be discerpible into less  AXIOME XIII As little as this is the repetition of it will amount to considerable magnitudes AS for example if this Globe be drawn upon a Plain it constitutes a Line and a Cylinder drawn upon a Plain or this same Line described by the Globe multiplyed into it self constitutes a superficies c. This a man cannot deny but the more he thinks of it the more certainly true he will find it AXIOME XIV Magnitude cannot arise out of meer Non-Magnitudes FOR multiply Nothing ten thousand millions of times into nothing the Product will be still nothing Besides if that wherein the Globe touches a Plain were more then Indiscerpible that is purely Indivisible it is manifest that a Line will consist of Points Mathematically so called that is purely Indivisible which is the grandest absurdity that can be admitted in Philosophy and the most contradictions thing imaginable AXIOME XV. The same thing by reason of its extreme littleness may be utterly Indiscerpible though intellectually Divisible THis plainly arises out of the foregoing Principles For every Quantity is intellectually divisible but something Indiscerpible was afore demonstrated to be Quantity and consequently divisible otherwise Magnitude would consist of Mathematicall points Thus have I found a possibility for the Notion of the Center of a Spirit which is not a Mathematicall point but Substance in Magnitude so little that it is Indiscerpible but in virtue so great that it can send forth out of it self so large a Sphere of Secondary Substance as I may so call it that it is able to actuate grand Proportions of Matter this whole Sphere of life and activity being in the mean time utterly Indiscerpible 2. This I have said and shall now prove it by adding a few more Principles of that evidence as the most rigorous Reason shall not be able to deny them AXIOME XVI An Emanative Cause is the notion of a thing possible BY an Emanative Cause is understood such a Cause as meerly by Being no other activity or causality interposed produces an Effect That this is possible is manifest it being demonstrable that there is de facto some such Cause in the world because something must move it self Now if there be no Spirit Matter must of necessity move it self where you cannot imagine any activity or causality but the bare essence of the Matter from whence this motion comes For if you would suppose some former motion that might be the cause of this then we might with as good reason suppose some former to be the cause of that and so in infinitum AXIOME XVII An Emanative Effect is coexistent with the very substance of that which is said to be the Cause thereof THis must needs be true because that very Substance which is said to be the Cause is the adaequate immediate Cause and wants nothing to be adjoyned to its bare essence for the production of the Effect and therefore by the same reason the Effect is at any time it must be at all times or so long as that Substance does exist AXIOME XVIII No Emanative Effect that exceeds not the virtues and powers of a Cause can be said to be impossible to be produced by it THis is so plain that nothing need be added for either explanation or proof AXIOME XIX There may be a Substance of that high Vertue and Excellency that it may produce another Substance by Emanative causality provided that Substance produced be in due graduall proportions inferiour to that which causes it THis is plain out of the foregoing Principle For there is no contradiction nor impossibility of a Cause producing an Effect less noble then it self for thereby we are the better assured that it does not exceed the capacity of its own powers Nor is there any incongruity that one Substance should cause something else which we may in some sense call Substance though but Secondary or Emanatory acknowledging the Primary Substance to be the more adequate Object of divine Creation but the Secondary to be referrible also to the Primary or Centrall Substance by way of causall relation For suppose God created the Matter with an immediate power of moving it self God indeed is the Prime cause as well of the Motion as of the Matter and yet nevertheless the Matter is rightly said to move it self Finally this Secondary or Emanatory Substance may be rightly called Substance because it is a Subject indued with certain powers and activities and that it does not inhaere as an Accident in any other Substance or Matter but could maintaine its place though all Matter or what other Substance soever were removed out of that space it is extended through provided its Primary Substance be but safe 3. From these four Principles I have here added we may have not an imaginative but rationall apprehension of that part of a Spirit which we call the Secondary Substance thereof Whos 's Extension arising by graduall Emanation from the First and primest Essence which we call the Center of the Spirit which is no impossible supposition by the 16. 18. and 19. Axiomes we are led from hence to a necessary acknowledgment of perfect Indiscerpibility of parts though not intellectuall Indivisibility by Axiome 17. for it implyes a contradiction that an Emanative effect should be disjoyned from its originall 4. Thus have I demonstrated how a Spirit considering the lineaments of it as I may so call them from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible But now if any be so curious as to ask how the parts thereof hold together in a line drawn cross to these from the Center for Imagination it may be will suggest they lye all loose I answer that the conjecture of Imagination is here partly true and partly false or is true or false as she shall be interpreted For if she mean by loose actually disunited it is false and ridiculous but if only so discerpible that one part may be disunited from another that is not only true but necessary otherwise a Spirit could not contract one part and extend another which is yet an Hypothesis necessary to be admitted Wherefore this Objection is so far from weakning the possibility of this notion that it gives occasion more fully to declare the exact concinnity thereof To be brief therefore a Spirit from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible but in lines cross to this it is closely cohaerent but not indiscerpibly which cohaesion may consist in an immediate union of
too yea haply of Reason and Understanding For Sense being nothing else as some conceit but Motion or rather Reaction of a Body pressed upon by another Body it will follow that all the Matter in the world has in some manner or other the power of Sensation 3. Let us see now what this Position will amount to Those that make Motion and Sensation thus really the same they must of necessity acknowledg that no longer Motion no longer Sensation as Mr. Hobbs has ingenuously confessed Physic. Chap. 25. And that every Motion or Reaction must be a new Sensation as well as every ceasing of Reaction a ceasing of Sensation 4. Now let us give these busie active particles of the Matter that play up and down every where the advantage of Sense and let us see if all their heads laid together can contrive the Anatomicall fabrick of any Creature that lives Assuredly when all is summ'd up that can be imagined they will fall short of their account For I demand has every one of these particles that must have an hand in the framing of the Body of an Animal the whole design of the work by the impress of some Phantasme upon it or as they have severall offices so have they severall parts of the design If the first it being most certain even according to their opinion whom we oppose that there can be no knowledg nor perception in the Matter but what arises out of the Reaction of one part against another how is it conceivable that any one particle of Matter or many together there not existing yet in Nature any Animal can have the Idea impressed of that Creature they are to frame Or if one or some few particles have the sense of one part of the Animal they seeming more capable of this the parts being far more simple then the whole Compages and contrivement and other some few of other parts how can they confer notes by what language or speech can they communicate their counsell one to another Wherefore that they should mutually serve one another in such a design is more impossible then that so many men blind and dumb from their nativity should joyn their forces and wits together to build a Castle or carve a Statue of such a Creature as none of them knew any more of in several then some one of the smallest parts thereof but not the relation it bore to the whole 5. Besides this Sense being really the same with Corporeal Motion it must change upon new impresses of Motion so that if a particle by Sense were carried in this line it meeting with a counterbuffe in the way must have quite another Impress and Sense and so forget what it was going about and divert its course another way Nay though it scaped free Sense being Reaction when that which it beares against is removed Sense must needs cease and perfect Oblivion succeed For it is not with these particles as with the Spring of a Watch or a bent Crosbow that they should for a considerable time retain the same Reaction and so consequently the same Sense And lastly if they could it is still nothing to the purpose for let their Sense be what it will their motion is necessary it being meerly corporeall and therefore the result of their motion cannot be from any kind of knowledg For the corporeall motion is first and is onely felt not directed by feeling And therefore whether the Matter have any Sense or no what is made out of it is nothing but what results from the wild jumblings and knocking 's of one part thereof against another without any purpose counsell or direction Wherefore the ordinary Phaenomena of Nature being guided according to the most Exquisite Wisdome imaginable it is plain that they are not the effects of the meer motion of Matter but of some Immateriall Principle by Axiome 10. 6. And therefore the Ignorance of Second Causes is not so rightly said to be the Seed of Religion as Mr. Hobbs would have it as of Irreligion and Atheisme For if we did more punctually and particularly search into their natures we should clearly discern their insufficiency for such effects as we discover to be in the world But when we have looked so closely and carefully into the nature of Corporeall Beings and can finde no Causality in them proportionable to these Effects we speak of still to implead our selves rather of Ignorance then the Matter and Corporeall motion of Insufficiency is to hold an opinion upon humour and to transgress against our first and second Axiomes CHAP. XIII 1. The last proof of Incorporeall Substances from Apparitions 2. The first Evasion of the force of such Arguings 3. An answer to that Evasion 4. The second Evasion 5. The first kind of the second Evasion 6. A description out of Virgil of that Genius that suggests the dictates of the Epicurean Philosophy 7. The more full and refined sense of that Philosophy now a dayes 8. The great efficacy of the Stars which they suppose to consist of nothing but Motion and Matter for production of all manner of Creatures in the world 1. THE Third and last ground which I would make use of for evincing the Existence of Incorporeall Substances is such extraordinary effects as we cannot well imagine any naturall but must needs conceive some free or spontaneous Agent to be the Cause thereof when as yet it is clear that they are from neither Man nor Beast Such are speakings knocking 's opening of doores when they were fast shut sudden lights in the midst of a room floating in the aire and then passing and vanishing nay shapes of Men and severall sorts of Brutes that after speech and converse have suddainly disappeared These and many such like extraordinary effects which if you please you may call by one generall terme of Apparitions seem to me to be an undeniable Argument that there be such things as Spirits or Incorporeall Substances in the world and I have demonstrated the sequel to be necessary in the last Chapter of the Appendix to my Treatise against Atheisme and in the third Book of that Treatise have produced so many and so unexceptionable storyes concerning Apparitions that I hold it superfluous to adde any thing here of that kind taking far more pleasure in exercising of my Reason then in registring of History Besides that I have made so carefull choice there already that I cannot hope to cull out any that may prove more pertinent or convictive I having pen'd down none but such as I had compared with those severe lawes I set my self in the first Chapter of that third Book to prevent all tergiversations and evasions of gain-sayers 2. But partly out of my own observation and partly by information from others I am well assured there are but two wayes whereby they escape the force of such evident narrations The first is a firm perswasion that the very notion of a Spirit or Immateriall Substance is an Impossibility
made dying men visit their friends before their departure at many miles distance their Bodies still keeping their sick bed and those that have been well give a visit to their sick friends of whose health they have been over-desirous and solicitous For this Ecstasie is really of the Soul and not of the Blood or Animal Spirits neither of which have any Sense or Perception in them at all And therefore into this Principle is to be resolved that Story which Martinus Del-Rio reports of a Lad who through the strength of Imagination and Desire of seeing his Father fell into an Ecstasie and after he came to himself confidently affirmed he had seen him and told infallible circumstances of his being present with him 13. That Cardan and others could fall into an Ecstasie when they pleased by force of Imagination and Desire to fall into it is recorded and believed by very grave and sober Writers but whether they could ever doe it to a compleat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or local disjunction of the Soul from the Body I know none that dare affirm such events being rather the chances of Nature and Complexion as in the Noctambuli then the effects of our Will But we cannot assuredly conclude but that Art may bring into our own power and ordering that which natural causes put upon us sometimes without our leaves But whether those Oyntments of Witches have any such effect or whether those unclean Spirits they deal with by their immediate presence in their Bodies cannot for a time so suppress or alter their Vital fitness to such a degree as will loosen the Soul I leave to more curious Inquisitors to search after It is sufficient that I have demonstrated a very intelligible possibility of this actual separation without Death properly so called From whence the peremptory Confessions of Witches and the agreement of the story which they tell in several as well those that are there bodily as they that leave their Bodies behinde them especially when at their return they bring something home with them as a permanent sign of their being at the place is though it may be all the delusion of their Familiars no contemptible probability of their being there indeed where they declare they have been For these are the greatest evidences that can be had in humane affairs And nothing so much as the supposed Impossibility thereof has deterred men from believing the thing to be true CHAP. XVI 1. That Souls departed communicate Dreams 2. Examples of Apparitions of Souls deceased 3. Of Apparitions in fields where pitcht Battels have been fought as also of those in Churchyards and other vaporous places 4. That the Spissitude of the Air may well contribute to the easiness of the appearing of Ghosts and Spectres 5. A further proof thereof from sundry examples 6. Of Marsilius Ficinus his appearing after death 7. With what sort of people such examples as these avail little 8. Reasons to perswade the unprejudiced that ordinarily those Apparitions that bear the shape and person of the deceased are indeed the Souls of them 1. THE Examples of the other sort viz. of the appearing of the Ghosts of men after death are so numerous and frequent in all mens mouths that it may seem superfluous to particularize in any This appearing is either by Dreams or open Vision In Dreams as that which hapned to Avenzoar Albumaron an Arabian Physitian to whom his lately-deceased friend suggested in his sleep a very soverain Medicine for his sore Eyes Like to this is that in Diodorus concerning Isis Queen of AEgypt whom he reports to have communicated remedies to the AEgyptians in their sleep after her death as well as she did when she was alive Of this kinde is also that memorable story of Posidonius the Stoick concerning two young men of Arcadia who being come to Megara and lying the one at a Victuallers the other in an Inne he in the Inne while he was asleep dream'd that his Fellow-traveller earnestly desired him to come and help him as being assaulted by the Victualler and in danger to be killed by him But he after he was perfectly awake finding it but a Dream neglected it But faln asleep again his murdered friend appeared to him the second time beseeching him that though he did not help him alive yet he would see his Death revenged telling him how the Victualler had cast his Body into a Dung-cart and that if he would get up timely in the morning and watch at the Town-gate he might thereby discover the murder which he did accordingly and so saw Justice done on the Murderer Nor does the first Dream make the second impertinent to our purpose For as that might be from the strength of Imagination and desire of help in the distressed Arcadian impressed on the Spirit of the World and so transmitted to his friend asleep a condition fittest for such communications so it is plain that this after his Death must fail if his Soul did either cease to be or to act And therefore it is manifest that she both was and did act and suggested this Dream in revenge of the Murder Of which kinde there be infinite examples I mean of Murders discovered by Dreams the Soul of the person murdered seeming to appear to some or other asleep and to make his complaint to them But I will content my self onely to adde an Example of Gratitude to this of Revenge As that of Simonides who lighting by chance on a dead Body by the Sea side and out of the sense of Humanity bestowing Burial upon it was requited with a Dream that saved his life For he was admonisht to desist from his Voyage he intended by Sea which the Soul of the deceased told him would be so perillous that it would hazard the lives of the Passengers He believed the Vision and abstaining was safe those others that went suffered Shipwrack 2. We will adjoyn onely an Example or two of that other kind of Visions which are ordinarily called the Apparitions of the dead And such is that which Pliny relates at large in his Epistle to Sura of an house haunted at Athens and freed by Athenodorus the Philosopher after the Body of that person that appeared to him was digged up and interred with due solemnity It is not a thing unlikely that most houses that are haunted are so chiefly from the Soules of the deceased who have either been murdered or some way injured or have some hid treasure to discover or the like And persons are haunted for the like causes as well as houses as Nero was after the murdering of his Mother Otho pull'd out of his bed in the night by the Ghost of Galba Such instances are infinite as also those wherein the Soule of ones friend suppose Father Mother or Husband have appeared to give them good counsell and to instruct them of the event of the greatest affairs of their life The Ghosts also of deceased Lovers have been reported to adhere
error ac timor multum in hominibus possunt will prevail more with them then all the Stories the same Authour writes of Apparitions or whatever any one else can adde unto them And others that doe admit of these things praeconceptions from Education That the Soul when she departs this life is suddenly either twitched up into the Coelum Empyreum or hurried down headlong towards the Centre of the Earth makes the Apparitions of the Ghosts of men altogether incredible to them they always substituting in their place some Angel or Devil which must represent their persons themselves being not at leisure to act any such part 8. But Misconceit and Prejudice though it may hinder the force of an Argument with those that are in that manner entangled yet Reason cannot but take place with them that are free To whom I dare appeal whether considering the aereal Vehicles of Souls which are common to them with other Genii so that whatever they are fancied to doe in their stead they may perform themselves as also how congruous it is that those persons that are most concerned when it is in their power should act in their own affairs as in detecting the Murtherer in disposing their estate in rebuking injurious Executors in visiting and counselling their Wives and Children in forewarning them of such and such courses with other matters of like sort to which you may adde the profession of the Spirit thus appearing of being the Soul of such an one as also the similitude of person and that all this adoe is in things very just and serious unfit for a Devil with that care and kindness to promote and as unfit for a good Genius it being below so noble a nature to tell a Lie especially when the affair may be as effectually transacted without it I say I dare appeal to any one whether all these things put together and rightly weighed the violence of prejudice not pulling down the ballance it will not be certainly carried for the present cause and whether any indifferent Judge ought not to conclude if these Stories that are so frequent every where and in all Ages concerning the Ghosts of men appearing be but true that it is true also that it is their Ghosts and that therefore the Souls of men subsist and act after they have left these earthly Bodies CHAP. XVII 1. The preeminence of Arguments drawn from Reason above those from Story 2. The first step toward a Demonstration of Reason that the Soul acts out of her Body for that she is an immaterial Substance separable therefrom 3. The second That the immediate instruments for Sense Motion and Organization of the Body are certain subtile and tenuious Spirits 4. A comparison betwixt the Soul in the Body and the AEreal Genii 5. Of the nature of Daemons from the account of Marcus the Eremite and how the Soul is presently such having once left this Body 6. An Objection concerning the Souls of Brutes to which is answered First by way of concession 7. Secondly by confuting the Arguments for the former concession 8. That there is no rational doubt at all of the Humane Soul acting after death 9. A further Argument of her activity out of this Body from her conflicts with it while she is in it 10. As also from the general hope and belief of all Nations that they shall live after death 1. BUT we proceed now to what is less subject to the evasions and misinterpretations of either the Profane or Superstitious For none but such as will profess themselves meer Brutes can cast off the Decrees and Conclusions of Philosophy and Reason though they think that in things of this nature they may with a great deal of applause and credit refuse the testimony of other mens senses if not of their own all Apparitions being with them nothing but the strong surprisals of Melancholy and Imagination But they cannot with that ease nor credit silence the Deductions of Reason by saying it is but a Fallacy unlesse they can shew the Sophisme which they cannot doe where it is not 2. To carry on therefore our present Argument in a rational way and by degrees we are first to consider That according as already has been clearly demonstrated there is a Substance in us which is ordinarily called the Soul really distinct from the Body for otherwise how can it be a Substance And therefore it is really and locally separable from the Body Which is a very considerable step towards what we aim at 3. In the next place we are to take notice That the immediate Instrument of the Soul are those tenuious and aereal particles which they ordinarily call the Spirits that these are they by which the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers reasons and by moving which or at least directing their motion she moves likewise the Body and by using them or some subtile Matter like them she either compleats or at least contributes to the Bodies Organization For that the Soul should be the Vital Architect of her own house that close connexion and sure possession she is to have of it distinct and secure from the invasion of any other particular Soul seems no slight Argument And yet that while she is exercising that Faculty she may have a more then ordinary Union or Implication with the Spirit of Nature or the Soul of the World so far forth as it is Plastick seems not unreasonable and therefore is asserted by Plotinus and may justly be suspected to be true if we attend to the prodigious effects of the Mothers Imagination derived upon the Infant which sometimes are so very great that unless she raised the Spirit of Nature into consent they might well seem to exceed the power of any Cause I shall abstain from producing any Examples till the proper place in the mean time I hope I may be excused from any rashness in this assignation of the cause of those many and various Signatures found in Nature so plainly pointing at such a Principle in the World as I have intimated before 4. But to return and cast our eye upon the Subject in hand It appears from the two precedent Conclusions that the Soul considered as invested immediately with this tenuious Matter we speak of which is her inward Vehicle has very little more difference from the aereal Genii then a man in a Prison from one that is free The one can onely see and suck air through the Grates of the Prison and must be annoyed with all the stench and unwholsome fumes of that sad habitation whenas the other may walk and take the fresh air where he finds it most commodious and agreeable This difference there is betwixt the Genii and an incorporated Soul The Soul as a man faln into a deep pit who can have no better Water nor Air nor no longer enjoyment of the Sun and his chearful light and warmth then the measure and quality of the pit will permit him so she once immured
Fienus has defined in this matter who has I think behaved himself as cautiously and modestly as may be there will be enough granted to assure us of what we aime at For he does acknowledge that the Imagination of the Mother may change the figure of the Foetus so as to make it beare a resemblance though not absolutely perfect of an Ape Pig or Dog or any such like Animal The like he affirms of colours haires and excrescencies of several sorts that it may produce also what is very like or analogous to horns and hoofs and that it may encrease the bigness and number of the parts of the Body 4. And though he does reject several of the examples he has produced out of Authors yet those which he admits for true are Indications plain enough what we may expect in the Vehicle of a departed Soule or Daemon As that of the Hairy girle out of Marcus Damascenus that other out of Guilielmus Paradinus of a Child whose skin and nails resembled those of a Bear and a third out of Balduinus Ronsaeus of one born with many excrescencies coloured and figured like those in a Turky-cock and a fourth out of Pareus of one who was born with an head like a Frog as lastly that out of Avicenna of chickens with hawks heads All which deviations of the Plastick power hapned from the force of Imagination in the Females either in the time of Conception or gestation of their young 5. But he scruples of giving assent to others which yet are assented to by very learned writers As that of Black-moores being born of white Parents and white Children of black by the exposal of pictures representing an AEthiopian or European which those two excellent Physitians Fernelius and Sennertus both agree to He rejects also that out of Cornelius Gemma of a Child that was born with his Forehead wounded and running with blood from the husbands threatning his wife when she was big with a drawn sword which he directed towards her Forehead Which will not seem so incredible if we consider what Sennertus records of his own knowledg viz. That a Woman with child seeing a Butcher divide a Swines head with his Cleaver brought forth her Child with its face cloven in the upper jaw the palate and upper lip to the very nose 6. But the most notorious instances of this sort are those of Helmont De injectis materialibus The one of a Taylors wife at Mechlin who standing at her doore and seeing a souldiers hand cut off in a quarrel presently fell into labour being struck with horrour at the spectacle and brought forth a child with one hand the other arm bleeding without one of which wound the infant died by the great expense of blood Another woman the wife of one Marcus De Vogeler Merchant of Antwerp in the year 1602. seeing a souldier begging who had lost his right arme in Ostend-siege which he shewed to the people still bloody fell presently into labour and brought forth a Daughter with one arme struck off nothing left but a bloody stump to employ the Chirurgions skill this woman married afterwards to one Hoochcamer Merchant of Amsterdam and was yet alive in the year 1638. as Helmont writes He adds a third example of another Merchants wife which he knew who hearing that on a morning there were thirteen men to be beheaded this hapned at Antwerp in Duke D' Alva his time she had the curiosity to see the execution She getting therefore a place in the Chamber of a certain widow-woman a friend of hers that dwelt in the market-place beheld this Tragick spectacle upon which she suddainly fell into labour and brought forth a perfectly-formed infant onely the head was wanting but the neck bloody as their bodies she beheld that had their heads cut off And that which does still advance the wonder is that the hand arme and head of these infants were none of them to be found From whence Van-Helmont would infer a penetration of corporeal dimensions but how groundlessly I will not dispute here 7. If these Stories he recites be true as I must confess I doe not well know how to deny them he reporting them with so honest and credible circumstances they are notable examples of the power of Imagination and such as doe not onely win belief to themselves but also to others that Fienus would reject not of this nature onely we are upon of wounding the body of the Infant but also of more exorbitant conformation of parts of which we shall bring an instance or two anon In the mean time while I more carefully contemplate this strange virtue and power of the Soule of the Mother in which there is no such measure of purification or exaltedness that it should be able to act such miracles as I may call them rather then natural effects I cannot but be more then usually inclinable to think that the Plastick faculty of the Soule of the Infant or whatever accessions there may be from the Imagination of the Mother is not the adaequate cause of the formation of the Foetus a thing which Plotinus somewhere intimates by the by as I have already noted viz. That the Soule of the World or the Spirit of Nature assists in this performance Which if it be true we have discovered a Cause proportionable to so prodigious an Effect For we may easily conceive that the deeply-impassionated fancy of the Mother snatches away the Spirit of Nature into consent which Spirit may rationally be acknowledged to have a hand in the efformation of all vital Beings in the World and haply be the onely Agent in forming of all manner of Plants In which kinde whether she exert her power in any other Elements then Earth and Water I will conclude no further then that there may be a possibility thereof in the calmer Regions of Aire and AEther To the right understanding of which conjecture some light will offer it self from what we have said concerning the Visibility and Consistency of the aerial Daemons in their occursions one with another 8. But this is not the onely Argument that would move one to think that this Spirit of Nature intermeddles with the Efformation of the Foetus For those Signatures that are derived on the Infant from the Mothers fancy in the act of Conception cannot well be understood without this Hypothesis For what can be the Subject of that Signature Not the Plastick part of the Soul of the Mother for that it is not the Mothers Soul that efforms the Embryo as Sennertus ingeniously conjectures from the manner of the efformation of Birds which is in their Egges distinct from the Hen and they may as well be hatched without any Hen at all a thing ordinarily practised in AEgypt nor the Body of the Embryo for it has yet no Body nor its Soul for the Soul if we believe Aristotle is not yet present there But the Spirit of Nature is present every where which snatcht into
the Nymphs to whom though they allot a long Series of years yet they doe not exempt them from mortality and fate And Demetrius in Plutarch pronounces expresly out of Hesiod that their life will be terminated with the Conflagration of the World from what the Poet intimates AEnigmatically 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. But to leave these Poetical Riddles and take a more serious and distinct view of the condition of the Soul after the Conflagration of the Earth we shall finde five several sorts of Opinions concerning it The first hold That this unmerciful heat and fire will at last destroy and consume the Soul as well as the Body But this seems to me impossible that any created Substance should utterly destroy another Substance so as to reduce it to nothing For no part of Matter acting the most furiously upon another part thereof does effect that It can onely attenuate dissipate and disperse the parts and make them invisible But the Substance of the Soul is indissipable and indiscerpible and therefore remains entire whatever becomes of the Body or Vehicle 8. The second Opinion is That after long and tedious torture in these flames the Soul by a special act of Omnipotency is annihilated But me thinks this is to put Providence too much to her shifts as if God were so brought to a plunge in his creating a Creature of it self immortal that he must be fain to uncreate it again that is to say to annihilate it Besides that that divine Nemesis that lies within the compass of Philosophy never supposes any such forcible eruptions of the Deity into extraordinary effects but that all things are brought about by a wise and infallible or inevitable train of secondary Causes whether natural or free Agents 9. The third therefor â—â— to avoid these absurdities denies both absumption by Fire and annihilation but conceives That tediousness and extremity of pain makes the Soul at last of her self shrink from all commerce with Matter the immediate Principle of Union which we call Vital Congruity consisting of a certain modification of the Body or Vehicle as well as of the Soul which being spoiled and lost and the Soul thereby quite loosned from all sympathy with Body or Matter she becomes perfectly dead and sensless to all things by Axiome 36. and as they say will so remain for ever But this seems not so rational for as Aristotle somewhere has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wherefore so many entire immaterial Substances would be continued in being to all Eternity to no end nor purpose notwithstanding they may be made use of and actuate Matter again as well as ever 10. A fourth sort therefore of Speculators there is who conceive that after this solution of the Souls or Spirits of Wicked Men and Daemons from their Vehicles That their pain is continued to them even in that separate state they falling into an unquiet sleep full of furious tormenting Dreams that act as fiercely upon their Spirits as the external Fire did upon their Bodies But others except against this Opinion as a very uncertain Conjecture it supposing that which to them seems not so sound viz. That the Soul can act when it has lost all vital Union with the Matter which seems repugnant with that so intimate and essential aptitude it has to be united therewith And the Dreams of the Soul in the Body are not transacted without the help of the Animal Spirits in the Brain they usually symbolizing with their temper Whence they conclude that there is no certain ground to establish this Opinion upon 11. The last therefore to make all sure that there may be no inconvenience in admitting that the Souls or Spirits as well of evil Daemons as wicked Men disjoyned from their Vehicles by the force of that fatal Conflagration may subsist have excogitated an odde and unexpected Hypothesis That when this firing of the World has done due execution upon that unfortunate Crue and tedious and direful torture has we aried their afficted Ghosts into an utter recess from all Matter and thereby into a profound sleep or death that after a long Series of years when not onely the fury of the Fire is utterly slaked but that vast Atmosphere of smoak and vapours which was sent up during the time of the Earths Conflagration has returned back in copious showres of rain which will again make Seas and Rivers will binde and consolidate the ground and falling exceeding plentifully all over make the soil pleasant and fruitful and the Aire cool and wholsome that Nature recovering thus to her advantage and becoming youthful again and full of genital salt and moisture the Souls of all living Creatures belonging to these lower Regions of the Earth and Aire will awaken orderly in their proper places The Seas and Rivers will be again replenished with Fish the Earth will send forth all manner of Fowls four-footed Beasts and creeping things and the Souls of Men also shall then catch life from the more pure and balsamick parts of the Earth and be clothed again in terrestrial Bodies and lastly the AErial Genii that Element becoming again wholsome and vital shall in due order and time awaken and revive in the cool rorid Aire Which Expergeraction into life is accompanied say they with propensions answerable to those resolutions they made with themselves in those fiery torments and with which they fell into their long sleep 12. But the whole Hypothesis seems to be framed out of that dream of the Stoicks concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the World after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereof As if that of Seneca belonged to this case Epist. 36. Mors quam pertimescimus ac recusamus intermittit vitam non eripit Veniet iterum qui nos in lucem reponet dies quem multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret But how coursly the Stoicks Philosophize when they are once turned out of their rode-way of moral Sentences any one but moderately skilled in Nature and Metaphysicks may easily discern For what Errors can be more gross then those that they entertain of God of the Soul and of the Stars they making the two former Corporeal Substances and feeding the latter with the Vapours of the Earth affirming that the Sun sups up the water of the great Ocean to quench his thirst but that the Moon drinks off the lesser Rivers and Brooks which is as true as that the Ass drunk up the Moon Such conceits are more fit for Anacreon in a drunken fit to stumble upon who to invite his Companions to tipple composed that Catch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then for to be either found out or owned by a serious and sober Philosopher And yet Seneca mightily triumphs in this notion of foddering the Stars with the thick foggs of the Earth and declares his opinion with no mean