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
it addes Will to the Sufficiency of its power and if it did not act it is not because it had not sufficient power but because it would not make use of it So that we see that every sufficient Cause rightly understood without captiositie is not a necessary cause nor will be sure to produce the Effect and that though there be a sufficiency of power yet there may be something wanting to wit the exertion of the Will whereby it may come to pass that what might have acted if it would did not but if it did Will being added to sufficient Power that it cannot be said to be necessary in any other sense then of that Axiome in Metaphysicks Quicquid est quamdiu est necesse est esse The reason whereof is because it is impossible that a thing should be and not be at once But before it acted it might have chosen whether it would have acted or no but it did determine it self And in this sense is it to be said to be a free Agent not a necessary one So that it is manifest that though there be some prettie perversness of wit in the contriving of this Argument yet there is no solidity at all at the bottome 12. And as little is there in his third But in this I must confess I cannot so much accuse him of Art and Sophistrie as of ignorance of the rules of Logick for he does plainly assert That the necessity of the truth of that Proposition there named depends on the necessity of the truth of the parts thereof then which no grosser errour can be committed in the Art of reasoning For he might as well say that the necessity of the truth of a Connex Axiome depends on the necessity of the truth of the parts as of a Disjunct But in a Connex when both the parts are not onely false but impossible yet the Axiome is necessarily true As for example If Bucephalus be a man he is endued with humane reason this Axiome is necessarily true and yet the parts are impossible For Alexanders horse can neither be a man nor have the reason of a man either radically or actually The necessity therefore is only laid upon the connexion of the parts not upon the parts themselves So when I say To morrow it will rain or it will not rain this Disjunct Proposition also is necessary but the necessity lyes upon the Disjunction of the parts not upon the parts themselves For they being immediately disjoyned there is a necessity that one of them must be though there be no necessity that this must be determined rather then that As when a man is kept under custodie where he has the use of two rooms only though there be a necessity that he be found in one of the two yet he is not confined to either one of them And to be brief and prevent those frivolous both answers and replyes that follow in the pursuit of this Argument in Mr. Hobbs As the necessity of this Disjunct Axiome lyes upon the Disjunction it self so the truth of which this necessity is a mode must lye there too for it is the Disjunction of the parts that is affirmed and not the parts themselves as any one that is but moderately in his wits must needs acknowledg 13. There is a more dangerous way that Mr. Hobbs might have made use of and with more credit but yet scarce with better success which is the consideration of an Axiome that pronounces of a future Contingent such as this Cras Socrates disputabit For every Axiome pronouncing either true or false as all doe agree upon if this Axiome be now true it is impossible but Socrates should dispute to morrow or if it be now false it is impossible he should and so his Action of disputing or the omission thereof will be necessary for the Proposition cannot be both true and false at once Some are much troubled to extricate themselves out of this Nooze but if we more precisely enquire into the sense of the Proposition the difficultie will vanish He therefore that affirms that Socrates will dispute to morrow affirms it to use the distinction of Futurities that Aristotle somewhere suggests either as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is either as a thing that is likely to be but has a possibility of being otherwise or else as a thing certainly to come to pass If this latter the Axiome is false if the former it is true and so the liberty of Socrates his action as also of all like contingent effects are thus easily rescued from this sophistical entanglement For every Future Axiome is as incapable of our judgment unless we determine the sense of it by one of the forenamed modes as an Indefinite Axiome is before we in our minds adde the notes of Universality or Particularity Neither can we say of either of them that they are true or false till we have compleated and determined their sense 14. His fourth Argument he proposes with some diffidence and dislike as if he thought it not good Logick they are his own words to make use of it and adde it to the rest And for my own part I cannot but approve of the consistency of his judgment and coherency with other parts of his Philosophie For if there be nothing but Body or Matter in the whole comprehension of things it will be very hard to find out any such Deity as has the knowledg or foreknowledg of any thing And therefore I suspect that this last is onely cast in as argumentum ad hominem to puzzle such as have not dived to so profound a depth of naturall knowledg as to fancy they have discovered there is no God in the world 15. But let him vilifie it as he will it is the only Argument he has brought that has any tolerable sense or solidity in it and it is a Subject that has exercised the wits of all Ages to reconcile the Liberty of mans Will with the Decrees and Praescience of God But my Freeness I hope and Moderation shall make this matter more easy to me then it ordinarily proves to them that venture upon it My Answer therefore in brief shall be this 16. That though there be such a Faculty in the Soule of man as Liberty of Will yet she is not alwaies in a state of acting according to it For she may either degenerate so far that it may be as certainly known what she will doe upon this or that occasion as what an hungry Dog will doe when a crust is offered him which is the generall condition of almost all men in most occurrencies of their lives or else she may be so Heroically good though that happen in very few that it may be as certainly known as before what she will doe or suffer upon such or such emergencies and in these cases the use of Liberty of Will ceases 17. That the use of the Facultie of Free-will is properly
these parts and transverse penetration and transcursion of secondary substance thorough this whole Sphere of life which we call a Spirit Nor need we wonder that so full an Orbe should swell out from so subtil and small a point as the Center of this Spirit is supposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle somewhere sayes of the mind of man And besides it is but what is seen in some sort to the very eye in light how large a spheare of aire a little spark will illuminate 5. This is the pure Idea of a created Spirit in general concerning which if there be yet any cavill to be made it can be none other then what is perfectly common to it and to Matter that is the unimaginableness of Points and smallest Particles and how what is discerpible cannot at all hang together but this not hindering Matter from actuall existence there is no reason that it should any way pretend to the inferring of the impossibility of the existence of a Spirit by Axiome 7. But the most lubricous supposition that we goe upon here is not altogether so intricate as those difficulties in Matter For if that be but granted in which I find no absurdity That a Particle of Matter may be so little that it is utterly uncapable of being made less it is plain that one and the same thing though intellectually divisible may yet be really indiscerpible And indeed it is not only possible but it seems necessary that this should be true For though we should acknowledg that Matter were discerpible in infinitum yet supposing a Cause of Infinite distinct perception and as Infinite power and God is such this Cause can reduce this capacity of infinite discerpibleness of Matter into act that is to say actually and at once discerp it or disjoyn it into so many particles as it is discerpible into From whence it will follow that one of these particles reduced to this perfect Parvitude is then utterly indiscerpible and yet intellectually divisible otherwise magnitude would consist of meer points which would imply a contradiction We have therefore plainly demonstrated by reason that Matter consists of parts indiscerpible and therefore there being no other Faculty to give suffrage against it for neither sense nor any common notion can contradict it it remains by Axiome 5. that the Conclusion is true 6. What some would object from Reason that these perfect Parvitudes being acknowledged still intellectually divisible must still have parts into which they are divisible and therefore be still discerpible to this it is answered That division into parts does not imply any discerpibility because the parts conceived in one of these Minima Corporalia as I may so call them are rather essentiall or formall parts then integrall and can no more actually be dissevered then Sense and Reason from the Soul of a man For it is of the very Essence of Matter to be divisible but it is not at all included in the essence thereof to be discerpible and therefore where discerpibility fails there is no necessity that divisibility should faile also See the Preface Sect. 3. 7. As for the trouble of spurious suggestions or representations from the Fancy as if these perfect Parvitudes were round Bodyes and that therefore there would be Triangular intervals betwixt void of Matter they are of no moment in this case she alwayes representing a Discerpible magnitude instead of an Indiscerpible one Wherefore she bringing in a false evidence her testimony is to be rejected nay if she could perplex the cause far worse she was not to be heard by Axiome the 4. Wherefore Fancy being unable to exhibite the object we consider in its due advantages for ought we know these perfect Parvitudes may lye so close together that they have no intervals betwixt nay it seems necessary to be so For if there were any such intervalls they were capable of particles less then these least of all which is a contradiction in Reason and a thing utterly impossible But if we should gratify Fancy so far as to admit of these intervals the greatest absurdity would be that we must admit an insensible Vacuum which no Faculty will be able ever to confute But it is most rationall to admit none and more consonant to our determination concerning these Minima Corporalia as I call them whose largeness is to be limited to the least reall touch of either a Globe on a Plain or a Cone on a Plain or a Globe on a Globe if you conceive any reall touch less then another let that be the measure of these Minute Realities in Matter From whence it will follow they must touch a whole side at once and therefore can never leave any empty intervals Nor can we imagine any Angulosities or round protuberancies in a quantity infinitely little more then we can in one infinitely great as I have already declared in my Preface I must confess a mans Reason in this speculation is mounted far beyond his Imagination but there being worse intricacies in Theories acknowledged constantly to be true it can be no prejudice to the present Conclusion by the 4. and 7. Axiomes 8. Thus have we cleared up a full and distinct notion of a Spirit with so unexceptionable accuracy that no Reason can pretend to assert it impossible nor unintelligible But if the Theory thereof may seem more operose and tedious to impatient wits and the punctuality of the description the more hazardous and incredible as if it were beyond our Faculties to make so precise a Conclusion in a subject so obscure they may ease their understanding by contenting themselves with what we have set down Cap. 2. Sect. 11 12. and remember that that Wisdome and Power that created all things can make them of what nature He pleases and that if God will that there shall be a Creature that is penetrable and indiscerpible that it is as easy a thing for him to make one so of its own nature as one impenetrable and discerpible and indue it with what other properties he pleases according to his own will and purpose which induments being immediately united with the Subject they are in Reason can make no further demand how they are there by the 9. Axiome CHAP. VII 1. Of the Self-motion of a Spirit 2. Of Self-penetration 3. Of Self-contraction and dilatation 4. The power of penetrating of Matter 5. The power of moving 6. And of altering the Matter 1. WE have proved the Indiscerpibility of a Spirit as well in Center as Circumference as well in the Primary as Secondary Substance thereof to be a very consistent and congruous Notion The next property is Self-motion which must of necessity be an Attribute of something or other For by Self-motion I understand nothing else but Self-activity which must appertain to a Subject active of it self Now what is simply active of it self can no more cease to be active then to Be which is a sign that Matter
such as her stirring up her self to love God or contemplate any Immateriall Object or they are such as have an influence on the Body as when by vertue of our Will we put ourselves upon going to this or that place He distinguishes again our Perceptions into two sorts whereof the one has the Soule for their cause the other the Body Those that are caused by the Body are most-what such as depend on the Nerves But besides these there is one kind of Imagination that is to be referred hither and that properly has the Body for its cause to wit that Imagination that arises meerly from the hitting of the Animall Spirits against the tracts of those Images that externall Objects have left in the Brain and so representing them to the Conarion which may happen in the day-time when our Fancy roves and we doe not set our selves on purpose to think on things as well as it does in sleep by night Those Perceptions that arrive to the Soule by the interposition of the Nerves differ one from another in this that some of them refer to outward Objects that strike our Sense others to our Body such as Hunger Thirst Pain c. and others to the Soule it self as Sorrow Joy Fear c. Those Perceptions that have the Soule for their cause are either the Perceptions of her own Acts of Will or else of her Speculation of things purely intelligible or else of Imaginations made at pleasure or finally of Reminiscency when she searches out something that she has let slip out of her Memory 10. That which is observable in this Distribution is this That all those Cogitations that he calls Actions as also those kind of Perceptions whose cause he assignes to the Soule are in themselves and are acknowledged by him of that nature that they cannot be imitated by any creature by the meer organization of i'ts Body But for the other he holds they may and would make us believe they are in Bodies of Brutes which he would have meer Machina's that is That from the meer Mechanical frame of their Body outward Objects of Sense may open Pores in their Brains so as that they may determine the Animall Spirits into such and such Muscles for spontaneous Motion That the course of the Spirits also falling into the Nerves in the Intestines and Stomack Spleen Heart Liver and other parts may cause the very same effects of Passion suppose of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow in these brute Machina's as we feel in our Bodies though they as being senseless feel them not and so the vellication of certain Tunicles and Fibres in the Stomack and Throat may affect their Body as ours is in the Sense of Hunger or Thirst and finally that the hitting of the Spirits into the tracts of the Brain that have been signed by Externall Objects may act so upon their Body as it does upon ours in Imagination and Memory Now adde to this Machina of Des-Cartes the capacity in Matter of Sensation and Perception which yet I have demonstrated it to be uncapable of and it will be exquisitely as much as Mr. Hobbs himself can expect to arise from meer Body that is All the Motions thereof being purely Mechanicall the perceptions and propensions will be fatall necessary and unavoidable as he loves to have them But being all Cogitations that Des-Cartes terms Actions as also all those kind of Perceptions that he acknowledges the Soule to be the cause of are not to be resolved into any Mechanicall contrivance we may take notice of them as a peculiar rank of Arguments and such as that if it could be granted that the Soules of Brutes were nothing but sentient Matter yet it would follow that a Substance of an higher nature and truly Immateriall must be the Principle of those more noble Operations we find in our selves as appears from Axiome 20. and 26. CHAP. VI. 1. That no part of the Spinall Marrow can be the Common Sensorium without a Soule in the Body 2. That the Animal Spirits are more likely to be that Common Percipient 3. But yet it is demonstrable they are not 4. As not being so much as capable of Sensation 5. Nor of directing Motion into the Muscles 6. Much less of Imagination and rationall Invention 7. Nor of Memory 8. An answer to an Evasion 9. The Authors reason why he has confuted so particularly all the suppositions of the Seat of Common Sense when few of them have been asserted with the exclusion of a Soule 1. THere remain now onely Two Opinions to be examined the one That place of the Spinall Marrow where Anatomists conceive there is the nearest concurse of all the Nerves of the Body the other the Animall Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain As for the former viz. That part of the Spinall Marrow where the concurse of the Nerves are conceived to be as I have answered in like case so I say again that besides that I have already demonstrated that Matter is uncapable of Sense and that there is no modification thereof in the Spinall Marrow that will make it more likely to be indued with that Faculty then the pith of Elder or a mess of Curds we are also to take notice that it is utterly inept for Motion nor is it conceivable how that part of it or any other that is assigned to this office of being the Common Percipient in us of all Thoughts and Objects which must also have the power of moving our members can having so little agitation in it self as appearing nothing but a kind of soft Pap or Pulp so nimbly and strongly move the parts of our Body 2. In this regard the Animal Spirits seem much more likely to perform that office and those the importunity of whose gross fancyes constrains them to make the Soule Corporeall doe nevertheless usually pitch upon some subtile thin Matter to constitute her nature or Essence And therefore they imagine her to be either Aire Fire Light or some such like Body with which the Animall Spirits have no small affinity 3. But this opinion though it may seem plausible at first sight yet the difficulties it is involved in are insuperable For it is manifest that all the Arguments that are brought Chap. 2. Sect. 3. will recur with full force in this place For there is no Matter that is so perfectly liquid as the Animal Spirits but consists of particles onely contiguous one to another and actually upon Motion playing and turning one by another as busy as Atomes in the Sun Now therefore let us consider whether that Treasury of pure Animall Spirits contained in the Fourth Ventricle be able to Sustain so noble an office as to be the common Percipient in our Body which as I have often repeated is so complex a Function that it does not onely contain the perception of externall Objects but Motion Imagination Reason and Memory 4. Now at the very first dash the transmission of the image of the Object