Attribute in the Deity and which alone is enough to demonstrate That the Soul of man cannot perish in Death For suppose that God had made no promise to us either by any extraordinary Prophet or by the suggestion of our own natural Faculties that we shall be Immortal and that there was neither Merit nor Demerit in this life so that all plea from either the Divine Veracity or Justice were quite cut off his Goodness alone especially if we consider how capable the Soul is of after-subsistence is a sufficient assurance that we shall not fail to live after Death For how can that soveraign Goodness assisted by an omnipotent Knowledge fail to contrive it so it being so infinitely more conformable to his Transcendent Bounty to ordain thus then otherwise that is to say so soon as he created the World to make it so compleat as at once to bring into Being not onely all Corporeal Substance according as all men confess he did but also all Substances Immaterial or Incorporeal and as many of them as can partake of Life and of enjoyment of themselves and the Universe to set them upon living and working in all places and Elements that their Nature is able to operate in and therefore amongst other Beings of the Intellectual Order that the Souls of men also whereever they were or ever should be especially if it were not long of themselves should have a power of Life and Motion and that no other Nemesis should follow them then what they themselves lay the trains of nor this to utter annihilation but by way of chastisement or punishment and that they being of so multifarious a nature as to have such Faculties as are nearly a-kin to Brutes as well as such as have so close an affinity with those of the aereal Genii and celestial Angels that their Vital Congruity should be as multifarious and themselves made capable of a living Union with either Celestial AErial or Terrestrial Vehicles and that the leaving of one should be but the taking up of another so long as the Elements continue in their natural temper and as soon as the Laws of Generation will permit 11. These and a long series of other things consonant to these represent themselves to their view that have the favour of beholding the more hidden treasures of the Divine Benignity But they being more then the present occasion requires I shall content my self with what precisely touches the matter in hand which is That the Soul of Man being capable to act after this life in an AErial Vehicle as well as here in an Earthly and it being better that she do live and act then that she be idle and silent in death and it depending meerly upon the Will of God whether she shall or no He ordering the natures of things infallibly according to what is best must of necessity ordain that the Souls of men live and act after death This is an unavoidable Deduction of Reason to those that acknowledge the Being of God and rightly relish that transcendent Attribute in the Divine Nature For those that have a true sense thereof can as hardly deny this Conclusion as the Existence of the Deity Nor can they ever be perswaded that He who is so perfectly good in himself and to whom they have so long adhered in faithful obedience and amorous dedevotion has made them of such a nature that when they hope most to enjoy him they shall not be able to enjoy him at all nor any thing else as not being in a capacity to act but in an earthly Body But to those that be of a meer animal temper that relish no love but that of themselves and their own interest nor care for any but those that are serviceable to them and make for their profit these being prone to judge of God according to the vileness of their own Spirit will easily conceit that Gods care of us and tenderness over us is onely proportionable to the fruit he reaps by us which is just none at all 12. And therefore this Argument especially and also the two former though they be undeniable Demonstrations in themselves yet they requiring a due resentment of Morality that is of Veracity Justice and Goodness in him that is to be perswaded by them it will follow that those whose mindes are most blinded and debased by Vice will feel least the force of them and the Noblest and most generous Spirit will be the most firmly assured of the Immortality of the Soule BOOK III. CHAP. I. 1. Why the Authour treats of the state of the Soul after Death and in what Method 2. Arguments to prove that the Soule is ever united vitally with some Matter or other 3. Further Reasons to evince the same 4. That the Soule is capable of an aiery and aethereal Body as well as a terrestrial 5. That she ordinarily passes out of an earthly into an aereal Vehicle first 6. That in her aiery Vehicle she is capable of Sense Pleasure and Pain 7. That the main power of the Soule over her aereal Vehicle is the direction of Motion in the particles thereof 8. That she may also adde or diminish Motion in her aethereal 9. How the purity of the Vehicle confers to the quickness of Sense and Knowledge 10. Of the Soules power of changing the temper of her aereal Vehicle 11. As also the shape thereof 12. The plainness of the last Axiome 1. WE have I hope with undeniable evidence demonstrated the Immortality of the Soule to such as neither by their slowness of parts nor any prejudice of Immorâ—ality are made incompetent Judges of the truth of Demonstrations of this kind so that I have already perfected my main Design But my own curiosity and the desire of gratifying others who love to entertain themselves with speculations of this nature doe call me out something further if the very Dignity of the present Matter I am upon doth not justly require me as will be best seen after the finishing thereof Which is concerning the State of the Soule after Death Wherein though I may not haply be able to fix my foot so firmly as in the foregoing part of this Treatise yet I will assert nothing but what shall be reasonable though not demonstrable and far preponderating to whatever shall be alledged to the contrary and in such clear order and Method that if what I write be not worthy to convince it shall not be able to deceive or entangle by perplexedness and obscurity and therefore I shall offer to view at once the main Principles upon which I shall build the residue of my Discourse AXIOME XXVII The Soule separate from this Terrestrial Body is not released from all Vital Union with Matter 2. THis is the general Opinion of the Platonists Plotinus indeed dissents especially concerning the most divine Souls as if they at last were perfectly unbared of all Matter and had no union with any thing but God himself which I look upon as a
fancy proceeding from the same inequality of temper that made him surmise that the most degenerate Soules did at last sleep in the bodies of Trees and grew up meerly into Plantal life Such fictions as these of fancyfull men have much depraved the ancient Cabbala and sacred Doctrine which the Platonists themselves doe profess to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a holy Tradition received from the mouth of God or Angels But however Plotinus himself does not deny but till the Soule arrive to such an exceeding height of purification that she acts in either an aiery or celestial Body But that she is never released so perfectly from all Matter how pure soever and tenuious her condition of operating here in this life is a greater presumption then can be fetcht from any thing else that she ever is For we finde plainly that her most subtil and most intellectual operations depend upon the fitness of temper in the Spirits and that it is the fineness and purity of them that invites her and enables her to love and look after divine and intellectual Objects Which kind of Motions if she could exert immediately by her own proper power and essence what should hinder her but that having a will she should bring it to effect which yet we finde she cannot if the Spirits be indisposed Nor can the Soule well be hindred by the undue temper of the Spirits in these Acts if they be of that nature that they belong to the bare essence of the Soule quite praescinded from all Union with Matter For then as to these Acts it is all one where the Soule is that is in what Matter she is and she must be in some because the Universe is every where thick-set with Matter whether she be raised into the purest regions of the Aire or plunged down into the foulest Receptacles of Earth or Water for her intellectual actings would be alike in both What then is there imaginable in the Body that can hinder her in these Operations Wherefore it is plain that the nature of the Soule is such as that she cannot act but in dependence on Matter and that her Operations are some way or other alwaies modified thereby And therefore if the Soule act at all after death which we have demonstrated she does it is evident that she is not released from all vitall union with all kind of Matter whatsoever Which is not onely the Opinion of the Platonists but of Aristotle also as may be easily gathered out of what we have above cited out of him Lib. 2. Cap. 14. 3. Besides it seems a very wilde leap in nature that the Soul of Man from being so deeply and muddily immersed into Matter as to keep company with Beasts by vitall union with gross flesh and bones should so on a suddain be changed that she should not adhere to any Matter whatsoever but ascend into an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 competible haply to none but God himself unless there be such Creatures as the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pure Intellects This must seem to any indifferent man very harsh and incongruous especially if we consider what noble Beings there are on this side the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all the Philosophers that ever treated of them acknowledge to be vitally united with either aerial or aethereal Vehicles For of this condition are all the Genii or Angels It is sufficient therefore that the Soule never exceed the immateriality of those orders of Beings the lower sort whereof that they are vitally united to Vehicles of Aire their ignorance in Nature seems manifestly to bewray For it had been an easy thing and more for their credit to have informed their followers better in the Mysteries of Nature but that themselves were ignorant of these things which they could not but know if they were not thus bound to their aiery bodies For then they were not engaged to move with the whole course of the Aire but keeping themselves steddy as being disunited from all Matter they might in a moment have perceived both the diurnal and annual motion of the Earth and so have saved the Credit of their followers by communicating this Theory to them the want of the knowledge whereof spoiles their repute with them that understand the Systeme of the world better then themselves for all they boast of their Philosophy so as if it were the Dictate of the highest Angels AXIOME XXVIII There is a Triple Vitall Congruity in the Soule namely AEthereall AEriall and Terrestriall 4. THat this is the common Opinion of the Platonists I have above intimated That this Opinion is also true in it self appears from the foregoing Axiome Of the Terrestrial Congruity there can be no doubt and as little can there be but that at least one of the other two is to be granted else the Soule would be released from all vital union with Matter after Death Wherefore she has a vital aptitude at least to unite with Aire But Aire is a common Receptacle of bad and good Spirits as the Earth is of all sorts of men and beasts nay indeed rather of those that are in some sort or other bad then of good as it is upon Earth But the Soule of Man is capable of very high refinements even to a condition purely Angelicall Whence Reason will judge it fit and all Antiquity has voted it That the Souls of men arrived to such a due pitch of purification must at last obtain celestial Vehicles AXIOME XXIX According to the usual custome of Nature the Soul awakes orderly into these Vital Congruities not passing from one Extreme to another without any stay in the middle 5. THis Truth besides that at first sight it cannot but seem very reasonable according to that known Aphorism Natura non facit saltum so if it be further examined the solidity thereof will more fully appear For considering how small degrees of purification the Souls of almost all men get in this life even theirs who pass vulgarly for honest and good men it will plainly follow that very few arrive to their AEthereal Vehicle immediately upon quitting their Terrestrial Body that being a priviledge that has appertained to none but very Noble and Heroical Spirits indeed of which History records but very few But that there may be degrees of purity and excellency in the AErial Bodies is a thing that is not to be denied so that a just Nemesis will finde out every one after death AXIOME XXX The Soul in her AErial Vehicle is capable of Sense properly so called and consequently of Pleasure and Pain 6. THIS plainly appears from the 27. and 28. Axiomes For there is a necessity of the resulting of Sense from Vital Union of the Soul with any Body whatsoever and we may remember that the immediate instrument of Sense even in this earthly Body are the Spirits so that there can be no doubt of this Truth And Pleasure and Pain being
of all Philosophers in all Ages that held it Incorporeal 10. That the Gymnosophists of AEgypt the Indian Brachmans the Persian Magi and all the learned of the Jews were of this Opinion 11. A Catalogue of particular famous persons that held the same 12. That Aristotle was also of the same minde 13. Another more clear place in Aristotle to this purpose with Sennertus his Interpretation 14. An Answer to an Evasion of that Interpretation 15. The last and clearest place of all out of Aristotles Writings 237 Chap. 13. 1. The third part of the second Answer That the forgetting of the former state is no good argument against the Souls Praeexistence 2. What are the chief causes of Forgetfulness 3. That they all conspire and that in the highest degree to destroy the memory of the other state 4. That Mischances and Diseases have quite taken away the Memory of things here in this life 5. That it is impossible for the Soul to remember her former condition without a Miracle 6. The fourth part of the second Answer That the entrance of a Praeexistent Soul into a Body is as intelligible as either Creation or Traduction 252 Chap. 14. 1. The knowledge of the difference of Vehicles and the Souls Union with them necessary for the understanding how she enters into this Earthly Body 2. That though the name of Vehicle be not in Aristotle yet the thing is there 3. A clearing of Aristotles notion of the Vehicle out of the Philosophy of Des-Cartes 4 A full interpretation of his Text. 5. That Aristotle makes onely two Vehicles Terrestrial and AEthereal which is more then sufficient to prove the Souls Oblivion of her former state 6 That the ordinary Vehicle of the Soul after death is Aire 7. The duration of the Soul in her several Vehicles 8. That the Union of the Soul with her Vehicle does not consist in Mechanical Congruity but Vital 9. In what Vital congruity of the Matter consists 10. In what Vital congruity of the Soul consists and how it changing the Soul may be free from her aiery Vehicle without violent precipitation out of it 11. Of the manner of the descent of Souls into Earthly Bodies 12. That there is so little absurdity in the Praeexistence of Souls that the concession thereof can be but a very small prejudice to our Demonstrations of her Immortality 257 Chap. 15. 1. What is meant by the Separation of the Soul with a confutation of Regius who would stop her in the dead Corps 2. An answer to those that profess themselves puzled how the Soul can get out of the Body 3. That there is a threefold Vital Congruity to be found in three several Subjects 4. That this triple Congruity is also competible to one Subject viz. the Soul of Man 5. That upon this Hypothesis it is very intelligible how the Soul may leave the Body 6. That her Union with the aerial Vehicle may be very suddain and as it were in a moment 7. That the Soul is actually separate from the Body is to be proved either by History or Reason Examples of the former kinde out of Pliny Herodotus Ficinus 8. Whether the Ecstasie of Witches prove an actual separation of the Soul from the Body 9. That this real separation of the Soul in Ecstasie is very possible 10. How the Soul may be loosned and leave the Body and yet return thither again 11. That though Reason and Will cannot in this life release the Soul from the Body yet Passion may and yet so that she may return again 12. The peculiar power of Desire for this purpose 13. Of Cardans Ecstasies and the Ointment of Witches and what truth there may be in their Confessions 267 Chap. 16. 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 Church-yards and other vaporous places 4. That the Spissitude of the Aire 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 286 Chap. 17. 1. The praeeminence of Arguments drawn from Reason above those from Story 2. The first step towards 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 AErial 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 concesson 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 297 Chap. 18. 1. That the Faculties of our Souls and the nature of the immediate instrument of them the Spirits doe so nearly symbolize with those of Daemons that it seems reasonable if God did not on purpose hinder it that they would not fail to act out of this earthly Body 2. Or if they would his power and wisdome could easily implant in their essence a double or triple Vital Congruity to make all sure 3. A further demonstration of the present Truth from the Veracity of God 4. An Answer to an Objection against the foregoing Argument 5. Another Demonstration from His Justice 6. An Answer to an Objection 7. An Answer to another Objection 8. Another Argument from the Justice of God 9. An Objection answered 10. An invincible Demonstration of the Souls Immortality from the Divine Goodness 11. A more particular enforcement of that Argument and who they are upon whom it will work least 12. That the noblest and most vertuous Spirit is the most assurable of the Souls Immortality 311 BOOK III. Chap. 1. 1. WHY the Author treats of the state of the Soul after Death and in what Method 2. Arguments to prove that the Soul is ever united vitally with some Matter or other 3. Further Reasons to evince the same 4. That the Soul is capable of an aiery and aethereal Body as well as a terrestrial 5. That she ordinarily passes out of an earthly into an aerial Vehicle first 6. That in her aiery Vehicle she is capable of Sense Pleasure and Pain 7. That the main power of the Soul over her aerial
creatures that are less perfect may be usually Mechanicall 9. We have now so far forth as it is requisite for our design considered the Nature and Functions of the Soule and have plainly demonstrated that she is a Substance distinct from the Body and that her very Essence is spread throughout all the Organs thereof as also that the generall instrument of all her Operations is the subtile Spirits which though they be not in like quantity and sincerity every where yet they make all the Body so pervious to the impresses of Objects upon the externall Organs that like Lightning they pass to the Common Sensorium For it is not necessary that the Medium be so fine and tenuious as the Matter where the most subtile motion begins Whence Light passes both Aire and Water though Aire alone is not sufficient for such a motion as Light and Water almost uncapable of being the Seat of the fountain thereof This may serve to illustrate the passage of Sense from the Membranes or in what other seat soever the Spirits are most subtil and lucid through thicker places of the Body to the very Centre of Perception 10. Lastly we have discovered a kind of Heterogeneity in the Soule and that she is not of the same power every where For her Centre of Perception is confined to the Fourth Ventricle of the Brain and if the Sensiferous Motions we speak of be not faithfully conducted thither we have no knowledg of the Object That part therefore of the Soule is to be looked upon as most precious and she not being an independent Mass as Matter is but one part resulting from another that which is the noblest is in all reason to be deemed the cause of the rest For which reason as Synesius calls God on whom all things depend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so I think this Part may be called the Root of the Soule Which apprehension of ours will seem the less strange if we consider that from the highest Life viz. the Deity there does result that which has no Life nor Sense at all to wit the stupid Matter Wherefore in very good Analogie we may admit that that pretious part of the Soule in which resides Perception Sense and Understanding may send forth such an Essential Emanation from it self as is utterly devoid of all Sense and Perception which you may call if you will the Exteriour branches of the Soule or the Rayes of the Soule if you call that nobler and diviner part the Centre which may very well merit also the appellation of the Eye of the Soule all the rest of its parts being but meer darkness without it In which like another Cyclops it will resemble the World we live in whose one Eye is conspicuous to all that behold the light 11. But to leave such lusorious Considerations that rather gratifie our fancy then satisfy our severer faculties we shall content our selves hereafter from those two notorious Powers and so perfectly different which Philosophers acknowledg in the Soule to wit Perception and Organization onely to term that more noble part of her in the Common Sensorium the Perceptive and all the rest the Plastick part of the Soule CHAP. XII 1. An Answer to an Objection That our Arguments will as well prove the Immortality of the Souls of Brutes as of Men. 2. Another Objection inferring the Praeexistence of Brutes Souls and consequently of ours 3. The first Answer to the Objection 4. The second Answer consisting of four parts 5. First That the Hypothesis of Praeexistence is more agreeable to Reason then any other Hypothesis 6. And not onely so but that it is very solid in it self 7. That the Wisdome and Goodness of God argue the truth thereof 8. As also the face of Providence in the World 9. The second part of the second Answer That the Praeexistence of the Soul has the suffrage of all Philosophers in all Ages that held it Incorporeal 10. That the Gymnosophists of AEgypt the Indian Brachmans the Persian Magi and all the learned of the Jews were of this Opinion 11. A Catalogue of particular famous persons that held the same 12. That Aristotle was also of the same minde 13. Another more clear place in Aristotle to this purpose with Sennertus his Interpretation 14. An Answer to an evasion of that Interpretation 15. The last and clearest place of all out of Aristotles Writings 1. HAving thus discovered the Nature of the Soul and that she is a Substance distinct from the Body I should be in readiness to treat of her Separation from it did I not think my self obliged first to answer an envious Objection cast in our way whereby they would make us believe that the Arguments which we have used though they be no less then Demonstrations are meer Sophisms because some of them and those of not the least validity prove what is very absurd and false viz. That the Souls of Brutes also are Substances Incorporeal distinct from the Body from whence it will follow that they are Immortal But to this I have answered already in the Appendix to my Antidote c. Cap. 10. and in brief concluded That they are properly no more Immortal then the stupid Matter which never perishes and that out of a terrestrial Body they may have no more sense then it For all these things are as it pleases the first Creatour of them 2. To this they perversly reply That if the Souls of Brutes subsist after death and are then sensless and unactive it will necessarily follow that they must come into Bodies again For it is very ridiculous to think that these Souls having a Being yet in the world and wanting nothing but fitly-prepared Matter to put them in a capacity of living again should be always neglected and never brought into play but that new ones should be daily created in their stead for those innumerable Myriads of Souls would lie useless in the Universe the number still increasing even to infinity But if they come into Bodies again it is evident that they praeexist and if the Souls of Brutes praeexist then certainly the Souls of Men doe so too Which is an Opinion so wilde and extravagant that a wry mouth and a loud laughter the Argument that every Fool is able to use is sufficient to silence it and dash it out of countenance No wise man can ever harbour such a conceit as this which every Idiot is able to confute by consulting but with his own Memory For he is sure if he had been before he could remember something of that life past Besides the unconceivableness of the Approach and Entrance of these praeexistent Souls into the Matter that they are to actuate 3. To this may be answered two things The first That though indeed it cannot be well denied but that the concession of the Praeexistence of the Souls of Brutes is a very fair introduction to the belief of the Praeexistence of the Souls of Men also yet the sequel is
Soules makes the Soule a Discerpible essence it is unconceivable how these two parts should make up one Soule for the Infant a thing ridiculous at first view But if there be no decision of any parts of the Soule and yet the Soule of the Parent be the cause of the Soule of the Childe it is perfectly an act of Creation a thing that all sober men conclude incompetible to any particular Creature It is therfore plainly unintelligible how any Soul should pass from the Parents into the Body of the seed of the Foetus to actuate and inform it which might be sufficient to stop the mouth of the Opposer that pretends such great obscurities concerning the entrance of Praeexistent Souls into their Bodies CHAP. XIV 1. The knowledge of the difference of Vehicles and the Soules Union with them necessary for the understanding how she enters into this Earthly Body 2. That though the name of Vehicle be not in Aristotle yet the thing is there 3. A clearing of Aristotles notion of the Vehicle out of the Philosophy of Des-Cartes 4. A full interpretation of his Text. 5. That Aristotle makes onely two Vehicles Terrestriall and AEthereall which is more then sufficient to prove the Soul's Oblivion of her former state 6. That the ordinary Vehicle of the Soule after death is Aire 7. The duration of the Soule in her severall Vehicles 8. That the Union of the Soule with her Vehicle does not consist in Mechanicall Congruity but Vitall 9. In what Vitall congruity of the Matter consists 10. In what Vital congruity of the Soule consists and how it changing the Soule may be free from her aiery Vehicle without violent precipitation out of it 11. Of the manner of the descent of Souls into Earthly Bodies 12. That there is so little Absurdity in the Praeexistence of Soules that the concession thereof can be but a very small prejudice to our Demonstrations of her Immortality 1. BUT I shall spend my time better in clearing the Opinion I here defend then in perplexing that other that is so gross of it self that none that throughly understand the nature of the Soule can so much as allow the possibility thereof wherefore for the better conceiving how a Praeexistent Soule may enter this Terrestriall Body there are two things to be enquired into the difference of the Vehicles of Soules and the cause of their union with them The Platonists doe chiefly take notice of Three kindes of Vehicles AEthereal AEreal and Terrestrial in every one whereof there may be several degrees of purity and impurity which yet need not amount to a new Species 2. This notion of Vehicles though it be discoursed of most in the School of Plato yet is not altogether neglected by Aristotle as appears in his De Generat Animal Lib. 2. Cap. 3. where though he does not use the Name yet he does expresly acknowledge the Thing it self For he does plainly affirm that every Soule partakes of a Body distinct from this organized terrestriall Body and of a more divine nature then the Elements so called and that as one Soule is more noble then another so is the difference of this diviner Body which yet is nothing else with him then that warmth or heat in the seed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is not fire but a Spirit contained in the spumeous seed and in this Spirit a nature analogous to the element of the Stars 3. Of which neither Aristotle himself had nor any one else can have so explicite an apprehension as those that understand the first and second Element of Des-Cartes which is the most subtill and active Body that is in the World is of the very same nature that the Heaven and Stars are that is to say is the very Body of Light which is to be understood chiefly of the first Element though so mingled with other Matter here below that it does not shine but is the Basis of all that naturall warmth in all generations and the immediate instrument of the Soule when it organizeth any Matter into the figure or shape of an Animall as I have also intimated elsewhere when I proved that the Spirits are the immediate instrument of the Soule in all Vital and Animal functions In which Spirits of necessity is contained this Coelestiall Substance which keeps them from congealing as it does also all other liquid bodies and must needs be in the Pores of them there being no Vacuum in the whole comprehension of Nature 4. The full and express meaning therefore of Aristotles text must be this that in the spumeous and watry or terrene moisture of the seed is contained a Body of a more spirituous or aëreal consistency and in this aëreal or spirituous consistency is comprehended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a nature that is analogous or like to the Element of the stars namely that is of it self aethereal and lucid 5. And it is this Vehicle that Aristotle seems to assert that the Soule does act in separate from the Body as if she were ever either in this terrestrial Body or in her aethereal one which if it were true so vast a change must needs obliterate all Memory of her former condition when she is once plunged into this earthly prison But it seems not so probable to me that Nature admits of so great a Chasme nor is it necessary to suppose it for this purpose the descent of the Soule out of her aiery Vehicle into this terrestrial Body and besmearing moisture of the first rudiments of life being sufficient to lull her into an eternall oblivion of whatever hapned to her in that other condition to say nothing of her long state of Silence and Inactivity before her turn come to revive in an earthly body 6. Wherefore not letting go that more orderly conceit of the Platonists I shall make bold to assert that the Soule may live and act in an aëreal Vehicle as well as in the aethereal and that there are very few that arrive to that high happiness as to acquire a Coelestial Vehicle immediatly upon their quitting the terrestrial one that heavenly Chariot necessarily carrying us in triumph to the greatest happiness the Soule of man is capable of which would arrive to all men indifferently good and bad if the parting with this earthly Body would suddainly mount us into the heavenly Wherefore by a just Nemesis the Soules of Men that are not very Heroically vertuous will finde themselves restrained within the compass of this caliginous Aire as both Reason it self will suggest and the Platonists have unanimously determined 7. We have competently described the difference of those three kinds of Vehicles for their purity and consistency The Platonists adde to this the difference of duration making some of them of that nature as to entertain the Soule a longer time in them others a shorter The shortest of all is that of the Terrestrial Vehicle In the Aëreal the Soule may inhabit as they define many Ages and in the
living in these several Vehicles because that Divine Nemesis which is supposed to rule in the world would seem defective without this contrivance But without controversy Eternall Wisdome and Justice has forecast that which is the best and unless we will say nothing at all we having nothing to judge by but our own Faculties we must say that the Forecast is according to what we upon our most accurate search doe conceive to be the best For there being no Envy in the Deity as Plato somewhere has noted it is not to be thought but that He has framed our Faculties so that when we have rightly prepared our selves for the use of them they will have a right correspondency with those things that are offered to them to contemplate in the world And truly if we had here time to consider I doe not doubt but it might be made to appear a very rationall thing that there should be such an Amphibion as the Soule of man that had a capacity as some Creatures have to live either in the Water or on the Earth to change her Element and after her abode here in this Terrestrial Vehicle amongst Men and Beasts to ascend into the company of the AEreal Genii in a Vehicle answerable to their nature 5. Supposing then this triple capacity of Vital Congruity in the Soule of Man the manner how she may leave this Body is very intelligible For the Bodies fitness of temper to retain the Soule being lost in Death the lower Vitall Congruity in the Soule looseth its Object and consequently its Operation And therefore as the letting goe one thought in the Perceptive part of the Soule is the bringing up another so the ceasing of one Vitall Congruity is the wakening of another if there be an Object or Subject ready to entertain it as certainly there is partly in the Body but mainly without it For there is a vitall Aire that pervades all this lower world which is continued with the life of all things and is the chiefest Principle thereof Whence Theon in his Scholia upon Aratus interprets that Hemistich 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a secondary meaning as spoken of the Aire which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the naturall Jupiter in whom in an inferiour sense we may be said to live and move and have our Being for without Aire neither Fishes Fowls nor Beasts can subsist it administring the most immediate matter of life unto them by feeding refreshing their Animal Spirits Wherefore upon the cessation of the lowest Vitall Congruity that AEreal capacity awakening into Act and finding so fit Matter every where to employ her self upon the Soule will not faile to leave the Body either upon choice by the power of her own Imagination Will or else supposing the very worst that can happen by a naturall kinde of Attraction or Transvection she being her self in that stound and confusion that accompanies Death utterly unsensible of all things For the Aire without being more whole some and vitall then in the corrupt caverns of the dead Body and yet there being a continuation thereof with that without it is as easy to understand how that Principle of joyning therewith in the Plastick part of the Soule being once excited she will naturally glide out of the Body into the free Aire as how the Fire will ascend upwards or a Stone fall downwards for neither are the motions of these meerly Mechanicall but vitall or Magicall that cannot be resolved into meer Matter as I shall demonstrate in my Third Book 6. And being once recovered into this vast Ocean of Life and sensible Spirit of the world so full of enlivening Balsame it will be no wonder if the Soule suddainly regain the use of her Perceptive faculty being as it were in a moment regenerate into a naturall power of Life and Motion by so happy a concurse of rightly-prepared Matter for her Plastick part vitally to unite withall For grosser generations are performed in almost as inconsiderable a space of time if those Histories be true of extemporary Sallads sowne and gathered not many hours before the meale they are eaten at and of the suddain ingendring of Frogs upon the fall of rain whole swarms whereof that had no Being before have appeared with perfect shape and liveliness in the space of half an houre after some more unctuous droppings upon the dry ground as I find not onely recited out of Fallopius Scaliger and others but have been certainly my self informed of it by them that have been eye-witnesses thereof as Vaninus also professes himself to have been by his friend Johannes Ginochius who told him for a certain that in the month of July he saw with his own eyes a drop of rain suddenly turned into a Frog By such examples as these it is evident that the reason why Life is so long a compleating in Terrestrial generations is onely the sluggishness of the Matter the Plastick power works upon Wherefore a Soule once united with Aire cannot miss of being able in a manner in the twinckling of an eye to exercise all Perceptive functions again if there was ever any intercessation of them in the astonishments of Death 7. How the Soule may live and act separate from the Body may be easily understood out of what has been spoken But that she does so de facto there are but two wayes to prove it the one by the testimony of History the other by Reason That of History is either of persons perfectly dead or of those that have been subject to Ecstasies or rather to that height thereof which is more properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when the Soule does really leave the Body and yet return again Of this latter sort is that example that Pliny recites of Hermotimus Clazomenius whose Soule would often quit her Body and wander up and down and after her return tell many true stories of what she had seen during the time of her disjunction The same Maximus Tyrius and Herodotus report of Aristaeus Proconnesius Marsilius Ficinus adjoyns to this rank that narration in Aulus Gellius concerning one Cornelius a Priest who in an Ecstasie saw the Battel fought betwixt Caesar and Pompey in Thessalie his Body being then at Padua and yet could after his return to himself punctually declare the Time Order and Success of the Fight That in Wierus of the Weasell coming out of the Souldiers mouth when he was asleep is a more plain example which if it were true would make Aristaeus his Pigeon not so much suspected of fabulosity as Pliny would have it Severall Relations there are in the world to this effect that cannot but be loudly laughed at by them that think the Soule inseparable from the Body and ordinarily they seem very ridiculous also to those that think it is separable but as firmly believe that it is never nor ever can be separate but in Death 8. Bodinus has a very great desire notwithstanding
it is so incredible to others that the thing should be true it being so evincing an argument for the Soules Immortality And he thinks this Truth is evident from innumerable examples of the Ecstasies of Witches which we must confess with him not to be natural but that they amount to a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or carrying away the Soule out of the Body the lively sense of their meeting and dancing and adoring the Devill and the mutuall remembrance of the persons that meet one another there at such a time will be no infallible Demonstration that they were there indeed while their Bodies lay at home in Bed Conformity of their Confessions concerning the same Conventicle is onely a shrewd probability if it once could be made good that this leaving their Bodies were a thing possible For when they are out of them they are much-what in the same condition that other Spirits are and can imitate what shape they please so that many of these Transformations into Wolves and Cats may be as likely of the Soule having left thus the Body as by the Devils possessing the Body and transfiguring it himself And what these aiery Cats or Wolves suffer whether cuttings of their limbs or breaking the Back or any such like mischief that the Witch in her Bed suffers the like may very well arise from that Magick Sympathy that is seated in the Unity of the Spirit of the World and the continuity of the subtill Matter dispersed throughout The Universe in some sense being as the Stoicks and Platonists define it one vast entire Animal 9. Now that this reall Separation of the Soule may happen in some Ecstasies will be easily admitted if we consider that the Soule in her own Nature is separable from the Body as being a Substance really distinct therefrom and that all Bodies are alike penetrable and passable to her she being devoid of that corporeall property which they ordinarily call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore can freely slide through any Matter whatsoever without any knocking or resistance and lastly that she does not so properly impart Heat and Motion to the Body as Organization and therefore when the Body is well organized and there be that due temper of the Blood the Heart and Pulse will in some measure beat and the Brain will be replenish't with Spirits and therewith the whole Body though the Soule were out of it In which case saving that the Spirit of Nature cannot be excluded thence it would be perfectly Cartesius his Machina without Sense though seemingly as much alive as any animate Creature in a deep sleep Whence it appears that if the Soule could leave the Body that she might doe it for a certain time without any detriment thereto that is so long as she might well live without Repast Which fully answers their fears who conceit that if the Soule was but once out of the Body perfect Death must necessarily ensue and all possible return thither be precluded 10. But all the difficulty is to understand how the Soul may be loosned from the Body while the Body is in a fit condition to retain her That is a very great Difficulty indeed and in a manner impossible for any power but what is supernatural But it is not hard to conceive that this vital fitness in the Body may be changed either by way of natural Disease or by Art For why may not some certain Fermentation in the Body so alter the Blood and Spirits that the powers of the Plastick part of the Soul may cease to operate as well as sometimes the Perceptive faculties doe as in Catalepsies Apoplexies and the like Wherefore this passing of the Soul out of the Body in Sleep or Ecstasie may be sometime a certain Disease as well as that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that walk in their sleep Now if it should happen that some such distemper should arise in the Body as would very much change the Vital Congruity thereof for a time and in this Paroxysm that other Disease of the Noctambuli should surprise the party his Imagination driving him to walk to this or that place his Soul may very easily be conceived in this loosned condition it lies in to be able to leave the Body and pass in the Aire as other Inhabitants of that Element doe and act the part of separate Spirits and exercise such Functions of the perceptive faculty as they do that are quite released from Terrestrial Matter Onely here is the difference That that damp in the Body that loosned the Union of the Soul being spent the Soul by that natural Magick I have more then once intimated will certainly return to the Body and unite with it again as firm as ever But no man can when he pleases pass out of his Body thus by the Imperium of his Will no more then he can walk in his Sleep For this capacity is pressed down more deep into the lower life of the Soul whither neither the Liberty of Will nor free Imagination can reach 11. Passion is more likely to take effect in this case then either of the other two Powers the seat of Passions being originally in the Heart which is the chief Fort of these lower Faculties and therefore by their propinquity can more easily act upon the first Principles of Vital Union The effect of these has been so great that they have quite carried the Soul out of the Body as appears in sundry Histories of that kinde For both Sophocles and Dionysius the Sicilian Tyrant died suddainly upon the news of a Tragick Victory as Polycrita also a Noble-Woman of the Isle of Naxus the Poet Philippides and Diagoras of Rhodes upon the like excess of Joy We might adde examples of sudden Fear and Grief but it is needless It is a known and granted Truth that Passion has so much power over the vital temper of the Body as to make it an unfit mansion for the Soul from whence will necessarily follow her disunion from it Now if Passion will so utterly change the Harmony of the Blood and Spirits as quite to release the Soul from the Body by a perfect Death why may it not sometime act on this side that degree and onely bring a present intemperies out of which the Body may recover and consequently regain the Soul back again by virtue of that Mundane Sympathy I have so often spoke of 12. Now of all Passions whatever excess of Desire is fittest for this more harmless and momentany ablegation of the Soul from the Body because the great strength thereof is so closely assisted with the imagination of departing to the place where the party would be that upon disunion not amounting to perfect Death the power of Fancy may carry the Soul to the place intended and being satisfied and returned may rekindle life in the Body to the same degree it had before it was infested by this excess of Desire This is that if any thing that has
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
The winding up of those severall circuits of vitall congruity may indeed pass for an ingenious invention as of a thing possible in the Soules of Brutes but as the Schools say well A posse ad esse non valet consequentia As for that Argument from Divine Goodness it not excluding his Wisdom which attempers it self to the natures of things we not knowing the nature of the Soules of Brutes so perfectly as we doe our own we cannot so easily be assured from thence what will be in this case A Musitian strikes not all strings at once neither is it to be expected that every thing in Nature at every time should act but when it is its turn then touched upon it will give its sound in the interim it lies silent And so it may be with the Soules of Brutes for a time especially when the vitall temper of Earth and Aire and Sea shall fail yea and at other times too if none but Intellectual Spirits be fit to manage AEreall Vehicles I confess indeed that Salvation can no more belong to the Soules of Brutes then Conversion but that is as true of the Soules of Plants if they have any distinct from the Universall Spirit of Nature but yet it does not prove that the Soules of Vegetables shall live and act in Aiery Vehicles after an Herbe or Tree is dead and rotten here To that of conveniency of variety of Objects for the aiery Inhabitants I have answered already And for the Apparitions of Horses Doggs and the like they may be the transformation of the aerial Genii into these shapes Which though it be a sign that they would not abhor from the use and society of such aeriall Animals if they had them yet they may the better want them they being able so well themselves to supply their places We will briefly therefore conclude that from the meer light of Reason it cannot be infallibly demonstrated that the Soules of Brutes doe not live after death nor that it is any Incongruity in Nature to say they do Which is sufficient to enervate the present Objection 8. But for the life and activity of the Soules of Men out of this Body all things goe on hand-smooth for it without any check or stop For we finding the aerial Genii so exceeding near-a-kin to us in their Faculties we being both intellectuall Creatures and both using the same immediate instrument of Sense and Perception to wit aeriall Spirits insomuch that we can scarce discover any other difference betwixt us then there is betwixt a man that is naked and one clad in gross thick cloathing it is the most easy and naturall inference that can be to conclude that when we are separate from the Body and are invested onely in Aire that we shall be just like them and have the same life and activity they have For though a Brute fall short of this Priviledge it ought to be no disheartning to us because there is a greater cognation betwixt the Intellectual Faculties and the aiery or aethereal Vehicle then there is betwixt such Vehicles and those more low and sensuall powers common to us with Beasts And we finde in taking the fresh aire that the more fine and pure our Spirits are our thoughts become the more noble divine and the more purely intellectuall Nor is the step greater upwards then downwards For seeing that what in us is so Divine and Angelicall may be united with the body of a Brute for such is this Earthly cloathing why may not the Soule notwithstanding her terrestriall Congruity of life which upon new occasions may be easily conceived to surcease from acting be united with the Vehicle of an Angel So that there is no puzzle at all concerning the Soul of Man but that immediately upon Death she may associate her self with those aeriall Inhabitants the Genii or Angels 9. Which we may still be the better assured of if we consider how we have such Faculties in us as the Soul finds hoppled and fettered clouded and obscured by her fatal residence in this prison of the Body In so much that so far as it is lawful she falls out with it for those incommodations that the most confirmed brutish health brings usually upon her How her Will tuggs against the impurity of the Spirits that stir up bestial Passions that are notwithstanding the height and flower of other Creatures enjoyments and how many times her whole life upon Earth is nothing else but a perpetual warfare against the results of her union with this lump of Earth that is so much like to other terrestrial Animals Whence it is plain she finds her self in a wrong condition and that she was created for a better and purer state which she could not attain to unless she lived out of the Body which she does in some sort in divine Ecstasies and Dreams in which case she making no use of the Bodies Organs but of the purer Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain she acts as it were by her self and performs some preludious Exercises conformable to those in her aiery Vehicle 10. Adde unto all this that the Immortality of the Soul is the common and therefore naturall hope and expectation of all Nations there being very few so barbarous as not to hold it for a Truth though it may be as in other things they may be something ridiculous in the manner of expressing themselves about it as that they shall retire after Death to such a Grove or Wood or beyond such a Hill or unto such an Island such as was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Island where Achilles Ghost was conceived to wander or the Insulae Fortunatae the noted Elysium of the Ancients And yet it may be if we should tell these of the Coelum Empyreum and compute the height of it and distance from the Earth and how many solid Orbs must be glided through before a Soul can come thither these simple Barbarians would think as odly of the Scholastick Opinion as we do of theirs and it may be some more judicious and sagacious Wit will laugh at us both alike It is sufficient that in the main all Nations in a manner are agreed that there is an Immortality to be expected as well as that there is a Deity to be worshipped though ignorance of circumstances makes Religion vary even to Monstrosity in many parts of the world But both Religion and the belief of the Reward of it which is a blessed state after Death being so generally acknowledged by all the Inhabitants of the Earth it is a plain Argument that it is true according to the Light of Nature And not onely because they believe so but because they do so seriously either desire it or are so horribly afraid of it if they offend much against their Consciences which properties would not be in men so universally if there were no Objects in Nature answering to these Faculties as I have elsewhere argued in the like case CHAP.
misunderstood Experiments have made some very confident that there is a Vacuum in Nature and that every Body by how much more light it is so much less substance it has in it self A thing very fond and irrational at the first sight to such as are but indifferently well versed in the incomparable Philosophy of Renatus Des-Cartes whose dexterous wit and through insight into the nature and lawes of Matter has so perfected the reasons of those Phaenomena that Demooritus Epicurus Lucretius and others have puzzled themselves about that there seems nothing now wanting as concerning that way of Philosophizing but patience and an unprejudiced judgment to peruse what he has writ 7. According therefore to his Philosophy and the Truth there is ever as much Matter or Body in one consistency as another as for example there is as much Matter in a Cup of Aire as in the same Cup filled with Water and as much in this Cup of Water as if it were filled with Lead or Quicksilver Which I take notice of here that I may free the imagination of men from that ordinary and idiotick misapprehension which they entertain of Spirits that appear as if they were as evanid and devoid of Substance as the very shadowes of our Bodies cast against a Wall or our Images reflected from a River or Looking-glass and therefore from this errour have given them names accordingly calling the Ghosts of men that present themselves to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Umbrae Images and Shades The which the more visible they are they think them the more substantial fancying that the Aire is so condensed that there is not onely more of it but also that simply there is more Matter or Substance when it appears thus visible then there was in the same space before And therefore they must needs conceit that Death reduces us to a pittifull thin pittance of Being that our Substance is in a manner lost and nothing but a tenuious reek remains no more in proportion to us then what a sweating horse leaves behind him as he gallops by in a frosty morning Which certainly must be a very lamentable consideration to such as love this thick and plump Body they beare about with them and are pleased to consider how many pounds they outweighed their Neighbour the last time they were put in the ballance together 8. But if a kinde of dubious Transparency will demonstrate the deficiency of Corporeal Substance a Pillar of Crystal will have less thereof then one of Tobacco-smoak which though it may be so doubtful and evanid an Object to the Eye if we try it by the Hand it will prove exceeding solid as also these Ghosts that are said to appear in this manner have proved to them that have touched them or have been touched by them For it is a thing ridiculous and unworthy of a Philosopher to judge the measure of corporeal Matter by what it seems to our sight for so Air would be nothing at all or what it is to our handing or weighing of it for so indeed a Cup of Quick-silver would seem to have infinitely more Matter in it then one fill'd with Air onely and a vessel of Water less when it is plung'd under the water in the River then when it is carried in the Air. But we are to remember that let Matter be of what consistency it will as thin and pure as the flame of a candle there is not less of corporeal Substance therein then there is in the same dimensions of Silver Lead or Gold 9. So that we need not bemoan the shrivell'd condition of the deceased as if they were stript almost of all Substance corporeal and were too thinly clad to enjoy themselves as to any Object of Sense For they have no less Body then we our selves have onely this Body is far more active then ours being more spiritualized that is to say having greater degrees of Motion communicated unto it which the whole Matter of the world receives from some spiritual Being or other and therefore in this regard may be said the more to symbolize with that immaterial Being the more Motion is communicated to it As it does also in that which is the effect of Motion to wit the tenuity and subtilty of its particles whereby it is enabled to imitate in some sort the proper priviledge of Spirits that pass through all Bodies whatsoever And these Vehicles of the Soul by reason of the tenuity of their parts may well pass through such Matter as seems to us impervious though it be not really so to them For Matter reduced to such fluid subtilty of particles as are invisible may well have entrance through Pores unperceptible Whence it is manifest that the Soul speaking in a natural sense loseth nothing by Death but is a very considerable gainer thereby For she does not onely possess as much Body as before with as full and solid dimensions but has that accession cast in of having this Body more invigorated with Life and Motion then it was formerly Which consideration I could not but take notice of that I might thereby expunge that false conceit that adheres to most mens fancies of that evanid and starved condition of the other state CHAP. III. 1. That the natural abode of the Soul after death is the Air. 2. That she cannot quit the AErial Regions till the AEthereal Congruity of life be awakened in her 3. That all Souls are not in the same Region of the Aire 4. Cardans conceit of placing all Daemons in the upper Region 5. The use of this conceit for the shewing the reason of their seldome appearing 6. That this Phaenomenon is salved by a more rational Hypothesis 7. A further confutation of Cardans Opinion 8. More tending to the same scope 9. The Original of Cardans errour concerning the remote operations of Daemons 10. An Objection how Daemons and Souls separate can be in this lower Region where Winds and Tempests are so frequent 11. A preparation to an Answer from the consideration of the nature of the Winds 12. Particular Answers to the Objection 13. A further Answer from the nature of the Statick Faculty of the Soul 14. Another from the suddain power of actuating her Vehicle 15. What incommodations she suffers from haile rain c. 1. THose more particular Enquiries we intend to fall upon may be reduced to these few Heads viz. The place of the Souls abode Her employment and Her moral condition after Death That the place of Her abode is the Aire is the constant opinion of the ancient Philosophers and natural Theologers who doe unanimously make that Element the Receptacle of Souls departed which therefore they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because men deceased are in a state of invisibility as the place they are confined to is an Element utterly invisible of its own nature and is accloy'd also with caliginous mists and enveloped by vicissitudes with the dark shadow of
Government of Men does on several sorts of brute Beasts and the AEthereal Powers also have a Right and Exercise of Rule over the AErial Whence nothing can be committed in the World against the more indispensable Laws thereof but a most severe and inevitable punishment will follow every Nation City Family and Person being in some manner the Peculium and therefore in the tutelage of some invisible Power or other as I have above intimated 4. And such Transgressions as are against those Laws without whose observance the Creation could not subsist we may be assured are punished with Torture intolerable and infinitely above any Pleasure imaginable the evil Genii can take in doing of those of their own Order or us Mortals any mischief Whence it is manifest that we are as secure from their gross outrages such as the firing of our houses the stealing away our jewels or more necessary Utensils murdering our selves or children destroying our cattel corn and other things of the like sort as if they were not in rerum natura Unless they have some special permission to act or we our selves enable them by our rash and indiscreet tampering with them or suffer from the malice of some person that is in league with them For their greatest liberty of doing mischief is upon that account which yet is very much limited in that all these Actions must pass the consent of a visible person not hard to be discovered in these unlawful practices and easy to be punished by the Law of Men. 5. And the AErial Genii can with as much ease inflict punishment on one another as we Mortals can apprehend imprison and punish such as transgress against our Laws For though these Daemons be invisible to us yet they are not so to their own Tribe nor can the activity and subtilty of the Bad over-master the Good Commonwealths-men there that uphold the Laws better then they are amongst us Nor may the various Transfiguration of their shapes conceal their persons no more then the disguises that are used by fraudulent men For they are as able to discern what is fictitious from what is true and natural amongst themselves as we are amongst our selves And every AErial Spirit being part of some Political subdivision upon any outrage committed it will be an easy matter to hunt out the Malefactor No Daemon being able so to transfigure himself but upon command he will be forced to appear in his natural and usual form not daring to deny upon examination to what particular Subdivision he belongs Whence the easy discovery of their miscarriages and certainty of insupportable torment will secure the World from all the disorder that some scrupulous wits suspect would arise from this kinde of Creatures if they were in Being 6. To which we may adde also That what we have is useless to them and that it is very hard to conceive that there are many Rational Beings so degenerate as to take pleasure in ill when it is no good to themselves That Socrates his Aphorism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be in no small measure true in the other World as well as in this That all that these evil Spirits desire may be onely our lapse into as great a degree of Apostasy from God as themselves and to be full partakers with them of their false Liberty as debauched persons in this life love to make Proselytes and to have respect from their Nurslings in wickedness And several other Considerations there are that serve for the taking away this Panick fear of the incursations and molestations of these aerial Inhabitants and might further silence the suspicious Atheist which I willingly omit having said more then enough of this Subject already See Cap. 3. Sect. 7 8. 7. If any be so curious as to demand what kinde of Punishment this People of the Aire inflict upon their Malefactors I had rather referre them to the Fancies of Cornelius Agrippa De Occult. Philosoph Lib. 3. Cap. 41. then be laught at my self for venturing to descend to such particularities Amongst other things he names their Incarceration or confinement to most vile and squalid Habitations His own words are very significant Accedunt etiam vilissimorum ac teterrimorum locorum habitacula ubi AEtnaei ignes aquarum ingluvies fulgurum tonitruorum concussus terrarum voragines ubi Regio lucis inops nec radiorum Solis capax ignaráque splendoris syderum perpetuis tenebris noctis specie caligat Whence he would make us believe that the subterraneous caverns of the Earth are made use of for Dungeons for the wicked Daemons to be punished in as if the several Volcano's such as AEtna Vesuvius Hecla and many others especially in America were so many Prisons or houses of Correction for the unruly Genii That there is a tedious restraint upon them upon villanies committed and that intolerable is without all question they being endued with corporeal Sense and that more quick and passive then ours and therefore more subject to the highest degrees of torment So that not onely by incarcerating them keeping them in by a watch in the caverns of burning Mountains where the heat of those infernal Chambers and the steam of Brimstone cannot but excruciate them exceedingly but also by commanding them into sundry other Hollows of the ground noysome by several fumes and vapours they may torture them in several fashions and degrees fully proportionable to the greatest crime that is in their power to commit and farre above what the cruellest Tyranny has inflicted here either upon the guilty or innocent But how these Confinements and Torments are inflicted on them and by what Degrees and Relaxations is a thing neither easy to determine nor needful to understand Wherefore we will surcease from pursuing any further so unprofitable a Subject and come to the Third general Head we mentioned which is What the Moral condition of the Soul is when she has left this Body CHAP. XI 1. Three things to be considered before we come to the moral condition of the Soul after death namely her Memory of transactions in this life 2. The peculiar feature and individual Character of her AErial Vehicle 3. The Retainment of the same Name 4. How her ill deportment here lays the train of her Misery hereafter 5. The unspeakable torments of Conscience worse then Death and not to be avoided by dying 6. Of the hideous tortures of external sense on them whose searedness of Conscience may seem to make them uncapable of her Lashes 7. Of the state of the Souls of the more innocent and conscientious Pagans 8. Of the natural accruments of After-happiness to the morally good in this life 9. How the Soul enjoys her actings or sufferings in this Life for an indispensable Cause when she has passed to the other 10. That the reason is proportionably the same in things of less consequence 11. What mischief men may create to themselves in the other world by their Zealous mistakes in this
12. That though there were no Memory after Death yet the manner of our Life here may sow the seeds of the Souls future happiness or misery 1. FOR the better solution of this Question there is another first in nature to be decided namely Whether the Soul remembers any thing of this Life after Death For Aristotle and Cardan seem to deny it but I doe not remember any reasons in either that will make good their Opinion But that the contrary is true appears from what we have already proved Lib. 2. Cap. 11. viz. That the immediate seat of Memory is the Soul her self and that all Representations with their circumstances are reserved in her not in the Spirits a thing which Vaninus himself cannot deny nor in any part of the Body And that the Spirits are onely a necessary Instrument whereby the Soul works which while they are too cool and gross and waterish Oblivion creeps upon her in that measure that the Spirits are thus distempered but the disease being chased away and the temper of the Spirits rectified the Soul forthwith recovers the memory of what things she could not well command before as being now in a better state of Activity Whence by the 33. Axiome it will follow that her Memory will be rather more perfect after Death and Conscience more nimble to excuse or accuse her according to her Deeds here 2. It is not altogether beside the purpose to take notice also That the natural and usual Figure of the Souls AErial Vehicle bears a resemblance with the feature of the party in this life it being most obvious for the Plastick part at the command of the Will to put forth into personal shape to fall as near to that in this life as the new state will permit With which act the Spirit of Nature haply does concurre as in the figuration of the Foetus but with such limits as becomes the AErial Congruity of life of which we have spoke already as also how the proper Idea or Figure of every Soul though it may deflect something by the power of the Parents Imagination in the act of Conception or Gestation yet may return more near to its peculiar semblance afterwards and so be an unconcealable Note of Individuality 3. We will adde to all this the Retainment of the same Name which the deceased had here unless there be some special reason to change it so that their persons will be as punctually distinguisht and circumscribed as any of ours in this life All which things as they are most probable in themselves that they will thus naturally fall out so they are very convenient for administration of Justice and keeping of Order in the other State 4. These things therefore premised it will not be hard to conceive how the condition of the Soul after this life depends on her Moral deportment here For Memory ceasing not Conscience may very likely awake more furiously then ever the Mind becoming a more clear Judge of evil Actions past then she could be in the Flesh being now stript of all those circumstances and concurrences of things that kept her off from the opportunity of calling her self to account or of perceiving the ugliness of her own ways Besides there being that communication betwixt the Earth and the Aire that at least the fame of things will arrive to their cognoscence that have left this life the after ill success of their wicked enterprises and unreasonable transactions may arm their tormenting Conscience with new whips and stings when they shall either hear or see with their eyes what they have unjustly built up to run with shame to ruine and behold all their designs come to nought and their fame blasted upon Earth 5. This is the state of such Souls as are capable of a sense of dislike of their past-actions and a man would think they need no other punishment then this if he consider the mighty power of the Minde over her own Vehicle and how vulnerable it is from her self These Passions therefore of the Soule that follow an ill Conscience must needs bring her aiery body into intolerable distempers worse then Death it self Nor yet can she die if she would neither by fire nor sword nor any means imaginable no not if she should fling her self into the flames of smoaking AEtna For suppose she could keep her self so long there as to indure that hideous pain of destroying the vital Congruity of her Vehicle by that sulphureous fire she would be no sooner released but she would catch life again in the Aire and all the former troubles and vexations would return besides the overplus of these pangs of Death For Memory would return and an ill Conscience would return and all those busie Furies those disordered Passions which follow it And thus it would be though the Soule should kill her self a thousand and a thousand times she could but pain and punish her self not destroy her self 6. But if we could suppose some mens Consciences seared in the next state as well as this for certainly there are that make it their business to obliterate all sense of difference of Good and Evil out of their minds hold it to be an high strain of wit though it be nothing else but a piece of bestial stupidity to think there is no such thing as Vice and Vertue and that it is a principall part of perfection to be so degenerate as to act according to this Principle without any remorse at all these men may seem to have an excellent priviledge in the other world they being thus armour-proof against all the fiery darts of that domestick Devil As if the greatest security in the other life were to have been compleatly wicked in this But it is not out of the reach of meer Reason and Philosophy to discover that such bold and impudent wretches as have lost all inward sense of Good and Evil may there against their wills feel a lash in the outward For the divine Nemesis is excluded out of no part of the Universe and Goodness and Justice which they contemn here will be acquainted with them in that other state whether they will or no I speak of such course Spirits that can swallow down Murder Perjury Extortion Adultery Buggery and the like gross crimes without the least disgust and think they have a right to satisfy their own Lust though it be by never so great injury against their Neighbour If these men should carry it with impunity there were really no Providence and themselves were the truest Prophets and faithfullest Instructers of mankind divulging the choicest Arcanum they have to impart to them namely That there is no God But the case stands quite otherwise For whether it be by the importunity of them they injure in this life who may meet with them afterward as Cardan by way of objection suggests in his Treatise of this Subject or whether by a general desertion by all of the other world that are able
Nature and sufficiently proved its Existence Out of what has been said may be easily conceived why I give it this name it being a Principle that is of so great influence and activity in the Nascency as I may so call it Coalescency of things And this not onely in the production of Plants with all other Concretions of an inferiour nature and yet above the meer Mechanical lawes of Matter but also in respect of the birth of Animals whereunto it is preparatory and assistent I know not whether I may entitle it also to the guidance of Animals in the chiefest of those actions which we usually impute to natural Instinct Amongst which none so famous as the Birds making their Nests and particularly the artificial structure of the Martins nests under the arches of Church-windowes In which there being so notable a design unknown to themselves and so small a pleasure to present Sense it looks as if they were actuated by another inspired and carried away in a natural rapture by this Spirit of Nature to doe they know not what though it be really a necessary provision and accommodation for laying their Eggs and hatching their young in the efformation whereof this Inferiour Soule of the World is so rationally conceived to assist and intermeddle and therefore may the better be supposed to over-power the Fancy and make use of the members of the Birds to build these convenient Receptacles as certain shops to lay up the Matter whereon she intends to work namely the Eggs of these Birds whom she thus guides in making of their nests 9. But this argument being too lubricous I will not much insist upon it The most notable of those offices that can be assigned to the Spirit of Nature and that sutably to his name is the Translocation of the Souls of Beasts into such Matter as is most fitting for them he being the common Proxenet or Contractor of all natural Matches and Marriages betwixt forms and matter if we may also speak Metaphors as well as Aristotle whose Aphorisme it is that Materia appetit formam ut foemina virum This Spirit therefore may have not onely the power of directing the motion of Matter at hand but also of transporting of particular Souls and Spirits in their state of Silence and Inactivity to such Matter as they are in a fitness to catch life in again Which Transportation or Transmission may very well be at immense distances the effect of this Sympathy and Coactivity being so great in the working of Wines as has been above noted though a thing of less concernment Whence to conclude we may look upon this Spirit of Nature as the great Quarter-master-General of divine Providence but able alone without any under-Officers to lodge every Soule according to her rank and merit whenever she leaves the Body And would prove a very serviceable Hypothesis for those that fancy the praeexistence of humane Souls to declare how they may be conveighed into Bodies here be they at what distance they will before and how Matter haply may be so fitted that the best of them may be fetcht from the purest aethereal Regions into an humane Body without serving any long Apprentiship in the intermediate Aire as also how the Souls of Brutes though the Earth were made perfectly inept for the life of any Animal need not lye for ever useless in the Universe But such speculations as these are of so vast a comprehension and impenetrable obscurity that I cannot have the confidence to dwell any longer thereon especially they not touching so essentially our present designe and being more fit to fill a volume themseves then to be comprised within the narrow limits of my now almost-finish'd Discourse CHAP. XIV 1. Objections against the Souls Immortality from her condition in Infancy Old age Sleep and Sicknesses 2. Other Objections taken from Experiments that seem to prove her Discerpibility 3. As also from the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 4. And from our natural fear of Death 5. A Subterfuge of the adverso party in supposing but one Soule common to all Creatures 6. An Answer concerning the Littleness of the Soule in Infancy 7. As also concerning the weakness of her Intellectuals then and in Old age 8. That Sleep does not at all argue the Souls Mortality but rather illustrate her Immortality 9. An Answer to the Objection from Apoplexies and Catalepsies 10. As also to that from Madness 11. That the various depravations of her Intellectual Faculties doe no more argue her Mortality then the worser Modifications of Matter its natural Annihilability And why God created Souls sympathizing with Matter 1. AS for the Objections that are usually made against the Immortality of the Soule to propound them all were both tedious and useless there being scarce above one in twenty that can appear of any moment to but an indifferent Wit and Judgment But the greatest difficulties that can be urged I shall bring into play that the Truth we doe maintain may be the more fully cleared and the more firmly believed The most material Objections that I know against the Souls Immortality are these five The First is from the consideration of the condition of the Soule in Infancy and Old age as also in Madness Sleep and Apoplexies For if we doe but observe the great difference of our Intellectual operations in Infancy and Dotage from what they are when we are in the prime of our years and how that our Wit grows up by degrees flourishes for a time and at last decayes keeping the same pace with the changes that Age and Years bring into our Body which observes the same lawes that Flowers and Plants what can we suspect but that the Soule of Man which is so magnificently spoken of amongst the learned is nothing else but a Temperature of Body and that it growes and spreads with it both in bigness and virtues and withers and dies as the Body does or at least that it does wholly depend on the Body in its Operations and therefore that there is no sense nor perception of any thing after death And when the Soule has the best advantage of years she is not then exempted from those Eclipses of the powers of the Minde that proceed from Sleep Madness Apoplexies and other Diseases of that nature All which shew her condition whatever more exalted Wits surmise of her that she is but a poor mortal and corporeal thing 2. The Second Objection is taken from such Experiments as are thought to prove the Soule divisible in the grossest sense that is to say discerpible into pieces And it seems a clear case in those more contemptible Animals which are called Insects especially the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle describes them and doth acknowledge that being cut into pieces each segment will have its motion and sense apart to it self The most notable Instance of this kind is in the Scolopendra whose parts Aristotle Histor. Animal Lib. 4. Cap. 7.
affirmes to live a long time divided and to run backwards and forwards and therefore he will have it to look like many living Creatures growing together rather then one single one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De Juvent Senect Cap. 2. But yet he will not afford them the priviledge of Plants whose Slips will live and grow being set in the Earth But the instances that belong to this Objection ascend higher for they pretend that the parts of perfect Animals will also live asunder There are two main instances thereof The one that of the Eagle Fromondus mentions whose head being chopt off by an angry Clown for quarrelling with his dog the Body flew over the barn near the place of this rude execution This was done at Fromondus his fathers house nor is the story improbable if we consider what ordinarily happens in Pigeons and Ducks when their heads are cut off The other instance is of a Malefactour beheaded at Antwerp whose head when it had given some few jumps into the crowd and a Dog fell a licking the blood caught the Dogs eare in its teeth and held it so fast that he being frighted ran away with the mans head hanging at his eare to the great astonishment and confusion of the people This was told Fromondus by an eye-witness of the fact From which two examples they think may be safely inferred that the Souls of Men as well as of the more perfect kinde of Brutes are also discerpible That example in the same Authour out of Josephus Acosta if true yet is finally to this purpose For the speaking of the sacrificed Captive when his Heart was cut out may be a further confirmation indeed that the Brain is the Seat of the Common Sense but no argument of the Divisibility of the Soule she remaining at that time entire in the Body after the cutting out of the Heart whose office it is to afford Spirits which were not so far yet dissipated but that they sufficed for that suddain operation of life 3. The Third Objection is from the seldome appearāce of the Souls of the deceased For if they can at all appear why do they not oftner if they never appear it is a strong suspicion that they are not at all in Being 4. The Fourth is from the Fear of Death and an inward down-bearing sense in us at some times that we are utterly mortal and that there is nothing to be expected after this life 5. The Fifth and last is rather a Subterfuge then an Objection That there is but One Common Soul in all Men and Beasts that operates according to the variety of Animals and Persons it does actuate and vivificate bearing a seeming particularity according to the particular pieces of Matter it enforms but is one in all and that this particularity of Body being lost this particular Man or Beast is lost and so every living creature is properly and intirely mortal These are the reallest and most pertinent Objections I could ever meet withall or can excogitate concerning the Souls Immortality to which I shall answer in order 6. And to the First which seems to be the shrewdest I say that neither the Contractedness of the Soule in Infancy nor the Weakness of her Intellectual Operations either then or in extream Old age are sufficient proofs of her Corporeity or Mortality For what wonder is it that the Soule faln into this low and fatal condition where she must submit to the course of Nature and the lawes of other Animals that are generated here on Earth should display her self by degrees from smaller dimensions to the ordinary size of men whenas this faculty of contracting and dilating of themselves is in the very essence and notion of all Spirits as I have noted already Lib. 1. Cap. 5. So she does but that leisurely and naturally now being subjected to the lawes of this terrestrial Fate which she does exempt from this condition suddainly and freely not growing by Juxta-position of parts or Intromission of Matter but inlarging of her self with the Body meerly by the dilatation of her own Substance which is one and the same alwaies 7. As for the Debility of her Intellectuals in Infancy and Old age this consideration has less force to evince her a meer corporeal essence then the former and touches not our Principles at all who have provided for the very worst surmise concerning the operations of the Minde in acknowledging them of my own accord to depend very intimately on the temper and tenour of the Souls immediate instrument the Spirits which being more torpid and watry in Children and Old men must needs hinder her in such operations as require another constitution of Spirits then is usually in Age and Childhood though I will not profess my self absolutely confident that the Soule cannot act without all dependence on Matter But if it does not which is most probable it must needs follow that its Operations will keep the lawes of the Body it is united with Whence it is demonstrable how necessary Purity and Temperance is to preserve and advance a mans Parts 8. As for Sleep which the dying Philosopher called the Brother of Death I doe not see how it argues the Souls Mortality more then a mans inability to wake again but rather helps us to conceive how that though the stounds and agonies of Death seem utterly to take away all the hopes of the Souls living after them yet upon a recovery of a quicker Vehicle of Aire she may suddainly awake into fuller and fresher participation of life then before But I may answer also that Sleep being onely the ligation of the outward Senses and the interception of motion from the external world argues no more any radical defect of Life and Immortality in the Soul then the having a mans Sight bounded within the walls of his chamber by Shuts does argue any blindness in the immured party who haply is busy reading by candle-light and that with ease so small a print as would trouble an ordinary Sight to read it by day And that the Soule is not perpetually employed in sleep is very hard for any to demonstrate we so often remembring our dreams meerly by occasions which if they had not occurred we had never suspected we had dreamed that night 9. Which Answer as also the former is applicable to Apoplexies Catalepsies and whatever other Diseases partake of their nature and witness how nimble the Soule is to act upon the suppeditation of due Matter and how Life and Sense and Memory and Reason and all return upon return of the fitting temper of the Spirits suitable to that vital Congruity that then is predominant in the Soule 10. And as for Madness there are no Apprehensions so frantick but are arguments of the Souls Immortality not as they are frantick but as Apprehensions For Matter cannot apprehend any thing either wildly or soberly as I have already sufficiently demonstrated And it is as irrational for a man to conclude
that the depraved Operations of the Soule argue her Mortality as that the worser tempers or figures or whatever more contemptible modifications there are of Matter should argue its annihilation by the meer power of Nature which no man that understands himself will ever admit The Soule indeed is indued with several Faculties and some of them very fatally passive such as those are that have the nearest commerce with Matter and are not so absolutely in her own power but that her levity and mindlesness of the divine light may bring her into subjection to them as all are in too sad a sort that are incarcerate in this terrestrial Body but some have better luck then other some in this wild and audacious ramble from a more secure state Of which Apostasy if there be some that are made more tragick examples then others of their stragling from their soveraign Happiness it is but a merciful admonition of the danger we all have incurr'd by being where we are and very few so wel escaped but that if they could examine their Desires Designs and Transactions here by that Truth they were once masters of they would very freely confess that the mistakes and errours of their life are not inferiour to but of worse consequence then those of natural Fools and Mad-men whom all either hoot at for their folly or else lament their misery And questionless the Souls of Men if they were once reduced to that sobriety they are capable of would be as much ashamed of such Desires and Notions they are now wholly engaged in as any mad-man reduced to his right Senses is of those freaks he played when he was out of his wits 11. But the variety of degrees or kindes of depravation in the Intellective faculties of the Soule her Substance being indiscerpible cannot at all argue her Mortality no more then the different modifications of Matter the Annihilability thereof as I have already intimated Nor need a man trouble himself how there should be such a Sympathy betwixt Body and Soule when it is so demonstrable that there is For it is sufficient to consider that it is their immediate nature so to be by the will and ordinance of Him that has made all things And that if Matter has no Sense nor Cogitation it self as we have demonstrated it has not it had been in vain if God had not put forth into Being that Order of immaterial Creatures which we call Souls vitally unitable with the Matter Which therefore according to the several modifications thereof will necessarily have a different effect upon the Soule the Soule abiding still as unperishable as the Matter that is more mutable then she For the Matter is dissipable but she utterly indiscerpible CHAP. XV. 1. An Answer to the experiment of the Scolopendra cut into pieces 2. And to the flying of an headless Eagle over a barn as also to that of the Malefactours head biteing a Dog by the eare 3. A superaddition of a difficulty concerning Monsters born with two or more Heads and but one Body and Heart 4. A solution of the difficulty 5. An answer touching the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 6. As also concerning the fear of Death 7. And a down-bearing sense that sometimes so forcibly obtrudes upon us the belief of the Souls Mortality 8. Of the Tragical Pompe and dreadful Praeludes of Death with some corroborative Considerations against such sad spectacles 9. That there is nothing really sad and miserable in the Universe unless to the wicked and impious 1. NOR doe those Instances in the second Objection prove any thing to the contrary as if the Soule it self were really divisible The most forcible Example is that of the Scolopendra the motion of the divided parts being so quick and nimble and so lasting But it is easy to conceive that the activity of the Spirits in the Mechanical conformation of the pieces of that Insect till motion has dissipated them will as necessarily make them run up and down as Gunpowder in a squib will cause its motion And therefore the Soule of the Scolopendra will be but in one of those Segments and uncertain in which but likely according as the Segments be made For cut a Wasps head off from the Body the Soule retires out of the head into the Body but cut her in the wast leaving the upper part of the Body to the head the Soule then retires into that forepart of the Wasp And therefore it is no wonder that the head being cut off the Body of the Wasp will fly and flutter so long the Soule being still in it and haply conferring to the direction of the Spirits for motion not out of Sense but from custome or nature as we walk not thinking of it or play of the Lute though our minde be running on something else as I have noted before But when the wast is left to the head it is less wonder for then the Animal may not be destitute of sense and fancy to conveigh the Spirits to move the wings 2. The former case will fit that of the headless Eagle that flew over the Barn But the mans head that catcht the Dog by the ear would have more difficulty in it it not seeming so perfectly referrible to the latter case of the Wasp did not we consider how hard the teeth will set in a swoon As this Head therefore was gasping while the Dog was licking the blood thereof his ear chanced to dangle into the mouth of it which closing together as the ear hung into it pinched it so fast that it could not fall off Besides it is not altogether improbable especially considering that some men die upwards and some downwards that the Soul may as it happens sometimes retire into the Head and sometimes into the Body in these decollations according as they are more or less replenisht with Spirits and by the lusty jumping of this Head it should seem it was very full of them Many such things as these also may happen by the activity of the Spirit of Nature who its like may be as busy in the ruines of Animals while the Spirits last as it is in the fluid rudiments of them when they are generated But the former answers being sufficient it is needless to enlarge our selves upon this new Theme 3. To this second Objection might have been added such monstrous births as seem to imply the Perceptive part of the Soul divided actually into two or more parts For Aristotle seems expresly to affirm De Generat Animal Lib. 4. Cap. 4. that that monstrous birth that has two hearts is two Animals but that which has but one heart is but one From whence it will follow that there is but one Soul also in that one-hearted Monster though it have two or more heads whence it is also evident that the Perceptive part of that one Soule must be actually divided into two or more This opinion of Aristotle Sennertus subscribes to and therefore
De Subtilitate Lib. 19. in this manner 5. That his Father Facius Cardanus who confessed that he had the society of a familiar Spirit for about thirty years together told him this following Story often when he was alive and after his death he found the exact relation of it committed to writing which was this The 13. day of August 1491. after I had done my holy things at the 20. houre of the day there appeared to me after their usual manner seven men cloathed in silk garments with cloaks after the Greek mode with purple stockins and crimson Cassocks red and shining on their breasts nor were they all thus clad but onely two of them who were the chief On the ruddier and taller of these two other two waited but the less and paler had three attendants so that they made up seven in all They were about fourty years of age but lookt as if they had not reacht thirty When they were asked who they were they answered that they were Homines aerii AErial Men who are born and die as we but that their life is much longer then ours as reaching to 300. years Being asked concerning the Immortality of our Souls they answered Nihil quod cuique proprium esset superesse That they were of a nearer affinity with the Divi then we but yet infinitely different from them and that their happiness or misery as much transcended ours as ours does the brute Beasts That they knew all things that are hid whether Monies or Books And that the lowest sort of them were the Genii of the best and noblest men as the basest men are the trainers up of the best sort of Dogs That the tenuity of their Bodies was such that they can doe us neither good nor hurt saving in what they may be able to doe by Spectres and Terrours and impartment of Knowledge That they were both publick Professors in an Academy and that he of the lesser stature had 300. disciples the other 200. Cardan's Father further asking them why they would not reveal such treasures as they knew unto men they answered that there was a special law against it upon a very grievous penalty 6. These aerial Inhabitants stai'd at least three hours with Facius Cardanus disputing and arguing of sundry things amongst which one was the Original of the World The taller denied that God made the world ab aeterno the lesser affirmed that he so created it every moment that if he should desist but one moment it would perish Whereupon the othèr cited some things out of the Disputations of Avenroes which Book was not yet extant and named several other Treatises part whereof are known part not which were all of Avenroes his writing and withall did openly profess himself to be an Avenroist 7. The record of this Apparition Cardan found amongst his Fathers Papers but seems unwilling to determine whether it be a true history or a Fable but disputes against it in such a shuffling manner as if he was perswaded it were true and had a mind that others should think it so I am sure he most-what steers his course in his Metaphysical adventures according to this Cynosura which is no obscure indication of his assent and belief 8. That of the Death of the great God Pan you may read in Plutarch in his De defectu Oraculorum where Philippus for the proof of the Mortality of Daemons recites a Story which he heard from one AEmilianus a Roman one that was remov'd far enough from all either stupidity or vanity How his Father Epitherses being shipt for Italy in the evening near the Echinades the winde failed them and their Ship being carried by an uncertain course upon the Island Paxae that most of the Passengers being waken many of them drinking merrily after Supper there was a voice suddainly heard from the Island which called to Thamus by name who was an AEgyptian by birth and the Pilot of the Ship which the Passengers much wondred at few of them having taken notice of the Pilots name before He was twice called to before he gave any sign that he attended to the voice but after giving express attention a clear and distinct voice was heard from the Island uttering these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The company was much astonisht at the hearing of the voice and after much debate amongst themselves Thamus resolved that if the wind blew fair he would sail by and say nothing but if they were becalmed there he would doe his Message and therefore they being becalmed when they came to Palodes neither winde nor tide carrying them on Thamus looking out of the poop of the Ship toward the shore delivered his Message telling them that the great Pan was dead Upon which was suddainly heard as it were a joynt groaning of a multitude together mingled with a murmurous admiration 9. The opinion of Hesiod also is that the Genii or Daemons within a certain period of years doe die but he attributes a considerable Longaevity to them to wit of nine thousand seven hundred and twenty years which is the utmost that any allow them most men less Plutarch under the person of others has polisht this Opinion into a more curious and distinct dress for out of the mortality of the Daemons and the several ranks which Hesiod mentions of Rational Beings viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he has affixed a certain manner and law of their passing out of one state into another making them to change their Elements as well as Dignities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But other he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not having sufficient command of themselves are again wrought down into humane Bodies to live there an evanid and obscure life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he phrases it 10. These are the most notable Testimonies for the Mortality of Daemons that I have met withall and therefore the more worth our reviewing That Vision of Facius Cardanus if it be not a Fable contains many Paradoxes As first That these AErial Genii are born at set times as well as we Not that any she Daemons are brought to bed of them but that they seem to have a beginning of their Existence from which they may be reckoned to have continued some more years and some less A thing unconceivable unless we should imagine that there is still a lapse or descent of Souls out of the higher Regions of the Aire into these lower or that these that leave these earthly Bodies pass into the number of the aiery Daemons As neither their death can so well be understood unless we should fancy that their Souls pass into more pure Vehicles or else descend into Terrestrial Bodies For Cardan himself acknowledges they perish not which also is agreeable with his Opinion of the Praeexistence of our Souls Secondly That these AErial Genii live but about 300. years which is against He siod and the greatest number
of the Platonists unless they should speak of that particular Order themselves were of for it is likely there may be as much difference in their ages as there is in the ages of several kinds of Birds and Beasts Thirdly That our Souls are so farre mortal as that there is nothing proper to us remaining after death Fourthly That they were nearer allied to the Gods then we by farre and that there was as much difference betwixt them and us as there is betwixt us and Beasts Which they must understand then concerning the excellency of their Vehicles and the natural activity of them not the preeminency of their Intellectual Faculties Or if they doe they must be understood of the better sort of those AErial Spirits Or if they mean it of all their Orders it may be a mistake out of pride as those that are rich and powerful as well as speculative amongst us take it for granted that they are more judicious and discerning then the poor and despicable let them be never so wise Fifthly That they know all secret things whether hidden Books or Monies which men might doe too if they could stand by concealedly from them that hide them Sixthly That the lowest sort of them were the Genii of the Noblest men as the baser sort of Men are the Keepers and Educators of the better kinde of Dogs and Horses This clause of the Vision also is inveloped with obscurity they having not defined whether this meanness of condition of the Tutelar Genii be to be understood in a Political or Physical sense whether the meanness of rank and power or of natural wit and sagacity in which many times the Groom exceeds the young Gallant who assigns him to keep his Dogs and Horses Seventhly That such is the thinness and lightness of their Bodies that they can doe neither good nor hurt thereby though they may send strange Sights and Terrors and communicate Knowledge which then must be chiefly of such things as belong to their aerial Region For concerning matters in the Sea the Fishes if they could speak might inform men better then they And for their corporeal debility it is uncertain whether they may not pretend it to animate their Confabulators to a more secure converse or whether the thing be really true in some kindes of them For that it is not in all may be evinced by that Narration that Cardan a little after recites out of Erasmus of the Devil that carried a Witch into the Aire and set her on the top of a Chimney giving her a Pot and bidding her turn the mouth downwards which done the whole Town was fired and burnt down within the space of an hour This hapned April the 10. Anno 1533. The Towns name was Schiltach eight German miles distant from Friburg The Story is so well attested and guarded with such unexceptionable circumstances that though Cardan love to shew his wit in cavilling at most he recites yet he finds nothing at all to quarrel at in his Eighthly That there are Students and Professors of Philosophy in the AErial World and are divided into Sects and Opinions there as well as we are here Which cannot possibly be true unless they set some value upon knowledge and are at an eager loss how to finde it and are fain to hew out their way by arguing and reasoning as we doe Ninthly and lastly That they are reduced under a Political Government and are afraid of the infliction of punishment 11. These are the main matters comprehended in Facius his Vision which how true they all are would be too much trouble to determine But one clause which is the third I cannot let pass it so nearly concerning the present Subject and seeming to intercept all hopes of the Souls Immortality To speak therefore to the summe of the whole business we must either conceive these aerial Philosophers to instruct Facius Cardanus as well as they could they being guilty of nothing but a forward pride to offer themselves as dictating Oracles to that doubtful Exorcist for his son Cardan acknowledges that his Father had a form of Conjuration that a Spaniard gave him at his death or else we must suppose them to take the liberty of equivocating if not of downright lying Now if they had a minde to inform Facius Cardanus of these things directly as they themselves thought of them it being altogether unlikely but that there appeared to them in their aerial Regions such sights as represented the persons of men here deceased it is impossible that they should think otherwise then as we have described their Opinion in the fore-going Chapter that hold there is but one Soul in the World by which all living Creatures are actuated Which though but a meer possibility if so much yet some or other of these aerial Speculators may as well hold to it as some doe amongst us For Pomponatius and others of the Avenroists are as ridiculously pertinacious as they And therefore these Avenroistical Daemons answered punctually according to the Conclusions of their own School Nihil proprium cuiquam superesse post mortem For the Minde or Soul being a Substance common to all and now disunited from those Terrestrial Bodies which it actuated in Plato suppose or Socrates and these Bodies dead and dissipated and onely the common Soul of the World surviving there being nothing but this Soul and these Bodies to make up Socrates and Plato they conclude it is a plain case that nothing that is proper survives after death And therefore though they see the representation of Socrates and Plato in the other World owning also their own personalities with all the actions they did and accidents that befell them in this life yet according to the sullen subtilties and curiosities of their School they may think and profess that to speak accurately and Philosophically it is none of them there being no Substance proper to them remaining after death but onely the Soul of the World renewing the thoughts to her self of what appertained to those parties in this life 12. This is one Hypothesis consistent enough with the veracity of these Daemons but there is also another not at all impossible viz. That the Vehicles of the Souls of men departed are as invisible to this Order of the Genii that confabulated with Facius Cardanus as that Order is to us and that therefore though there be the appearances of the Ghosts of Men deceased to them as well as to us yet it being but for a time it moves them no more then our confirmed Epicureans in this world are moved thereby especially it being prone for them to think that they are nothing but some ludicrous spectacles that the universal Soule of the World represents to her self and other Spectatours when and how long a time she pleases and the vaporous reliques of the dead body administer occasion Now that the Vehicles of the Souls of men departed this life after they are come to a setled condition may be
farre thinner and more invisible then those of the fore-named Daemons without committing any inconcinnity in Nature may appear from hence For the excellency of the inward Spirit is not alwaies according to the consistency of the Element with which it does incorporate otherwise those Fishes that are of humane shape and are at set times taken in the Indian Sea should have an◠higher degree of Reason and Religion then we that live upon Earth and have bodies made of that Element Whence nothing hinders but that the Spirit of Man may be more noble then the Spirit of some of the aerial Daemons And Nature not alwaies running in Arithmetical but also it Geometrical Progression one Remove it one may reach far above what is before it for the present in the other degrees of Progression As a creeping worm is above a cad-worm and any four-footed beasts above the birds till they can use their leggs as well as they but they are no sooner even with them but they are straight far above them and cannot onely goe but fly As a Peasant is above an imprison'd Prince and has more command but this Prince can be no sooner set free and become even with the Peasant in his liberty but he is infinitely above him And so it may be naturally with the Souls of men when they are freed from this prison of the Body their steps being made in Geometrical Progression as soon as they seem equal to that Order of Daemons we speak of they may mount far above them in tenuity and subtilty of Body and so become invisible to them and therefore leave them in a capacity of falsly surmising that they are not at all because they cannot see them 13. But if they thought that there is either some particular Ray of the Soule of the World that belongs peculiarly suppose to Socrates or Plato or that they had proper Souls really distinct then it is evident that they did either equivocate or lye Which their pride and scorn of mankinde they looking upon us but as Beasts in comparison of themselves might easily permit they making no more conscience to deceive us then we doe to put a dodge upon a dog to make our selves merry But if they had a design to winde us into some dangerous errour it is very likely that they would shuffle it in amongst many Truths that those Truths being examined and found solid at the bottome we might not suspect any one of their dictates to be false Wherefore this Vision being ill meant the poison intended was that of the Souls Mortality the dangerous falseness of which opinion was to be covered by the mixture of others that are true 14. As for that Relation of AEmilianus which he heard from his Father Epitherses it would come still more home to the purpose if the conclusion of the Philologers at Rome after Thamus had been sent for and averred the truth thereof to Tiberius Caesar could be thought authentick namely that this Pan the news of whose death Thamus told to the Daemons at Palodes was the Son of Mercury and Penelope for then 't is plain that Pan was an humane Soule and therefore concerns the present question more nearly But this Narration being applicable to a more sacred and venerable Subject it looses so much of its force and fitness for the present use That which Demetrius adds concerning certain Holy Islands neare Britain had been more fit in this regard Whither when Demetrius came suddainly upon his arrival there happened a great commotion of the air mighty tempests prodigious whirlwinds After the ceasing whereof the Inhabitants pronounced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That some of a nature more then humane was dead Upon which Plutarch according to his usual Rhetorick descants after this manner 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. As the lightning of a lamp brings no grievance with it but the extinction of it is offensive to many sogreat Souls while they remain kindled into life shine forth harmlesly and benignly but their extinction or corruption often stirs up windes and tempests as in this present example and often infects the aire with pestilential annoiances 15. But the last Testimony is the most unexceptionable though the least pretending to be infallible and seems to strike dead both waies For whether the Souls of men that goe out of these earthly bodies be vertuous or vitious they must die to their AErial Vehicles Which seems a sad story at first sight and as if Righteousness could not deliver from Death But if it be more carefully perused the terrour will be found onely to concern the Wicked For the profoundest pitch of Death is the Descent into this Terrestrial Body in which besides that we necessarily forget whatever is past we doe for the present lead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a dark and obscure life as Plutarch speaks dragging this weight of Earth along with us as Prisoners and Malefactours doe their heavy shackles in their sordid and secluse confinements But in our return back from this state Life is naturally more large to them that are prepared to make good use of that advantage they have of their Aiery Vehicle But if they be not masters of themselves in that state they will be fatally remanded back to their former Prison in process of time which is the most gross Death imaginable But for the Good and vertuous Souls that after many Ages change their AErial Vehicle for an AEthereal one that is no Death to them but an higher ascent into life And a man may as well say of an Infant that has left the dark Wombe of his Mother that this change of his is Death as that a Genius dies by leaving the gross Aire and emerging into that Vehicle of Light which they ordinarily call AEthereal or Coelestial 16. There may be therefore by Axiome 36. a dangerous relapse out of the AErial Vehicle into the Terrestrial which is properly the Death of the Soule that is thus retrograde But for those that ever reach the AEthereal state the periods of life there are infinite though they may have their Perige's as well as Apoge's yet these Circuits being of so vast a compass and their Perige's so rare and short and their return as certain to their former Apsis as that of the Coelestial Bodies and their athereal sense never leaving them in their lowest touches towards the Earth it is manifest that they have arrived to that life that is justly styled Eternal 17. Whence it is plain that perseverance in Vertue if no external Fate hinder will carry Man to an Immortal life But whether those that be thus Heroically good be so by discipline and endeavour or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by a special favour and irresistible design of God is not to be disputed in this place though it be at large discussed somewhere in the Dialogues of Plato But in the mean time we will not doubt to conclude that there is no Internal impediment to those that
the Mysteries of Providence whose fetches are so large and Circuits so immense that they may very well seem utterly incomprehensible to the Incredulous and Idiots who are exceeding prone to think that all things will ever be as they are and desire they should be so though it be as rude and irrational as if one that comes into a Bad and is taken much with the first Dance he sees would have none danced but that or have them move no further one from another then they did when he first came into the room whenas they are to trace nearer one another or further off according to the measures of the Musick and the law of the Dance they are in And the whole Matter of the Universe and all the parts thereof are ever upon Motion and in such a Dance as whose traces backwards and forwards take a vast compass and what seems to have made the longest stand must again move according to the modulations and accents of that Musick that is indeed out of the hearing of the acutest ears but yet perceptible by the purest Minds and the sharpest Wits The truth whereof none would dare to oppose if the breath of the gainsayer could but tell its own story and declare through how many Stars and Vortices it has been strained before the particles thereof met to be abused to the framing of so rash a contradiction 8. We have now finisht our whole Discourse the summary result whereof is this That there is an incorporeal Substance and that in Man which we call his Soul That this Soul of his subsists and acts after the death of his Body and that usually first in an AErial Vehicle as other Daemons doe wherein she is not quite exempt from fate but is then perfect and secure when she has obtain'd her AEthereal one she being then out of the reach of that evil Principle whose dominion is commensurable with misery and death Which power the Persian Magi termed Arimanius and resembled him to Darkness as the other good Principle which they called Oromazes to Light styling one by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the other by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. Of which there can be no other meaning that will prove allowable but an adumbration of those two grand parts of Providence the one working in the Demoniacal the other in the Divine Orders Betwixt which natures there is perpetually more or less strife and contest both inwardly and outwardly But if Theopompus his prophecy be true in Plutarch who was initiated into these Arcana the power of the Benign Principle will get the upper hand at last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. At length Hades or Arimanius will be left in the lurch who so strongly holds us captive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and men shall then be perfectly happy needing no food nor casting any shadow For what shadow can that Body cast that is a pure and transparent light such as the AEthereal Vehicle is And therefore that Oracle is then fulfilled when the Soul has ascended into that condition we have already described in which alone it is out of the reach of Fate and Mortality 10. This is the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak according to the Persian Language with whose empty title Emperours and great Potentates of the Earth have been ambitious to adorn their memory after death but is so high a Priviledge of the Soul of Man that meer Political vertues as Plotinus calls them can never advance her to that pitch of Happiness Either Philosophy or something more sacred then Philosophy must be her Guide to so transcendent a condition And not being curious to dispute whether the Pythagoreans ever arrived to it by living according to the precepts of their Master I shall notwithstanding with confidence averre that what they aimed at is the sublimest felicity our nature is capable of and being the utmost Discovery this Treatise could pretend to I shall conclude all with a Distich of theirs which I have elswhere taken notice of upon like occasion it comprehending the furthest scope not onely of their Philosophy but of this present Discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To this sense Who after death once reach th' aethereal Plain Are straight made Gods and never die again The Contents of the several Chapters contained in this Treatise BOOK I. Chap. 1. 1. THE usefulness of the present Speculation for the understanding of Providence and the management of our lives for our greatest happiness 2. For the moderate bearing the death and disasters of our Friends 3. For the begetting true Magnanimity in us 4. and Peace and Tranquillity of Minde 5. That so weighty a Theory is not to be handled perfunctorily Pag. 1 Chap. 2. 1. That the Souls Immortality is demonstrable by the Authors method to all but meer Scepticks 2. An Illustration of his First Axiome 3. A confirmation and example of the Second 4. An explication of the Third 5. An explication and proof of the Fourth 6. A proof of the Fifth 7. Of the Sixth 8. An example of the Seventh 9. A confirmation of the truth of the Eighth 10. A demonstration and example of the Ninth 11. Penetrability the immediate property of Incorporeal substance 12. As also Indiscerpibility 13. A proof and illustration of the tenth Axiome 4 Chap. 3. 1. The general notions of Body and Spirit 2. That the notion of Spirit is altogether as intelligible as that of Body 3. Whether there be any Substance of a mixt nature betwixt Body and Spirit 16 Chap. 4. 1. That the notions of the several kinds of Immaterial Beings have no Inconsistency nor Incongruity in them 2. That the nature of God is as intelligible as the nature of any Being whatsoever 3. The true notion of his Ubiquity and how intelligible it is 4. Of the union of the Divine Essence 5. Of his power of Creation 20 Chap. 5. 1. The Definition belonging to all Finite and Created Spirits 2. Of Indiscerpibility a symbolical representation thereof 3. An Objection answered against that representation 24 Chap. 6. 1. Axiomes that tend to the demonstrating how the Centre or First point of the Primary Substance of a Spirit may be Indiscerpible 2. Several others that demonstrate how the Secondary Substance of a Spirit may be Indiscerpible 3. An application of these Principles 4. Of the union of the Secondary Substance considered transversly 5. That the notion of a Spirit has less difficulty then that of Matter 6. An answer to an Objection from the Rational faculty 7. Answers to Objections suggested from Fancy 8. A more compendious satisfaction concerning the notion of a Spirit 29 Chap. 7. 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 42 Chap. 8. 1. Four main Species of Spirits 2. How they are to be defined 3.
Vehicle is the direction of Motion in the particles thereof 8. That she may also adde or diminish Motion in her aethereal 9. How the purity of the Vehicle confers to the quickness of Sense and Knowledge 10. Of the Souls power of changing the temper of her aerial Vehicle 11. As also the shape thereof 12. The plainness of the last Axiome 326 Chap. 2. 1. Of the Dimensions of the Soul considered barely in her self 2. Of the Figure of the Souls Dimensions 3. Of the Heterogeneity of her Essence 4. That there is an Heterogeneity in her Plastick part distinct from the Perceptive 5. Of the acting of this Plastick part in her framing of the Vehicle 6. The excellency of Des-Cartes his Philosophy 7. That the Vehicles of Ghosts have as much of solid corporeal Substance in them as the Bodies of Men. 8. The folly of the contrary Opinion evinced 9. The advantage of the Soul for matter of Body in the other state above this 340 Chap. 3. 1. That the natural abode of the Soul after death is the Aire 2. That she cannot quit the AErial Regions till the AEthereal Congruity of life be awakened in her 3. That all Souls are not in the same Region of the Aire 4. Cardans conceit of placing all Daemons in the upper Region 5. The use of this conceit for the shewing the reason of their seldome appearing 6. That this Phaenomenon is salved by a more rational Hypothesis 7. A further confutation of Cardans Opinion 8. More tending to the same scope 9. The Original of Cardans errour concerning the remote operations of Daemons 10. An Objection how Daemons and Souls separate can be in this lower Region where Winds and Tempests are so frequent 11. A preparation to an Answer from the consideration of the nature of the winds 12. Particular Answers to the Objection 13. A further Answer from the nature of the Statick Faculty of the Soul 14. Another from the suddain power of actuating her Vehicle 15. What incommodations she suffers from hail rain c. 350 Chap. 4. 1. That the Soul once having quitted this earthly Body becomes a Daemon 2. Of the External Senses of the Soul separate their number and limits in the Vehicle 3. Of Sight in a Vehicle organized and unorganized 4. How Daemons and separate Souls hear and see at a vast Distance and whence it is that though they may so easily hear or see us we may neither see nor hear them 5. That they have Hearing as well as Sight 6. Of the Touch Smell Tast and Nourishment of Daemons 7. The external employment that the Genii and Souls deceased may have out of the Body 8. That the actions of Separate Souls in reference to us are most-what conformable to their life here on Earth 9. What their entertainments are in reference to themselves 10. The distinction of orders of Daemons from the places they most frequent 364 Chap. 5. 1. That the Separate Soul spends not all her time in Solitude 2. That her converse with us seems more intelligible then that with the Genii 3. How the Genii may be visible one to another though they be to us invisible 4. Of their approaches and of the limits of their swiftness of motion 5. And how they farre exceed us in celerity 6. Of the figure or shape of their Vehicles and of their privacy when they would be invisible 7. That they cannot well converse in a meer simple Orbicular form 8. That they converse in humane shape at least the better sort of them 9. Whether the shape they be in proceed meerly from the Imperium of their Will and Fancy or is regulated by a natural Character of the Plastick part of the Soul 10. That the personal shape of a Soul or Genius is partly from the Will and partly from the Plastick power 11. That considering how the Soul organizes the Foetus in the Womb and moves our limbs at pleasure it were a wonder if Spirits should not have such command over their Vehicles as is believed 12. A further Argument from an excessive vertue some have given to Imagination 376 Chap. 6. 1. More credible Instances of the effects of Imagination 2. A special and peculiar Instance in Signatures of the Foetus 3. That what Fienus grants who has so cautiously bounded the power of Fancy is sufficient for the present purpose 4. Examples approved of by Fienus 5. Certain Examples rejected by him and yet approved of by Fernelius and Sennertus 6. Three not orious Stories of the power of the Mothers Imagination on the Foetus out of Helmont 7. A conjectural inference from those Stories what influence the Spirit of Nature has in all Plastick operations 8. A further confirmation of the Conjecture from Signatures on the Foetus 9. An application thereof to the transfiguration of the Vehicles of Daemons 387 Chap. 7. 1. Three notable Examples of Signatures rejected by Fienus 2. And yet so farre allowed for possible as will fit our design 3. That Helmonts Cherry and Licetus his Crab-fish are shrewd Arguments that the Soul of the World has to doe with all Efformations of both Animals and Plants 4. An Example of a most exact and lively Signature out of Kircher 5. With his judgement thereupon 6. Another Example out of him of a Child with gray hairs 7. An application of what has been said hitherto concerning the Signatures of the Foetus to the transfiguration of the aiery Vehicles of separate Souls and Daemons 8. Of their personal transformation visible to us 398 Chap. 8. 1. That the Better sort of Genii converse in Humane shape the Baser sometimes in Bestial 2. How they are disposed to turn themselves into several Bestial forms 3. Of Psellus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Igneous splendours of Daemons how they are made 4. That the external beauty of the Genii is according to the degree of the inward vertue of their minds 5. That their aerial form need not be purely transparent but more finely opake and coloured 6. That there is a distinction of Masculine and Feminine Beauty in their personal figurations 407 Chap. 9. 1. A general account of the mutual entertains of the Genii in the other world 2. Of their Philosophical and Political Conferences 3. Of their Religious Exercises 4. Of the innocent Pastimes and Recreations of the better sort of them 5. A confirmation thereof from the Conventicles of Witches 6. Whether the purer Daemons have their times of repast or no. 7. Whence the bad Genii have their food 8. Of the food and feastings of the better sort of Genii 414 Chap. 10. 1. How hard it is to define any thing concerning the AErial or AEthereal Elysiums 2. That there is Political Order and Laws amongst these aiery Daemons 3. That this Chain of Government reaches down from the highest AEthereal Powers through the Aerial to the very Inhabitants of the Earth 4. The great security we live in thereby 5. How easily detectible and punishable wicked Spirits are
by those of their own Tribe 6. Other reasons of the security we find our selves in from the gross infestations of evil Spirits 7. What kinde of punishments the AErial Officers inflict upon their Malefactours 427 Chap. 11. 1. Three things to be considered before we come to the moral condition of the Soul after death namely her Memory of transactions in this life 2. The peculiar feature and individual Character of her AErial Vehicle 3. The Retainment of the same Name 4. How her ill deportment here lays the train of her Misery hereafter 5. The unspeakable torments of Conscience worse then Death and not to be avoided by dying 6. Of the hideous tortures of external sense on them whose searedness of Conscience may seem to make them uncapable of her Lashes 7. Of the state of the Souls of the more innocent and conscientious Pagans 8. Of the natural accruments of After-happiness to the morally good in this life 9. How the Soul enjoys her actings or sufferings in this Life for an indispensable Cause when she has passed to the other 10. That the reason is proportionably the same in things of less consequence 11. What mischief men may create to themselves in the other World by their Zealous mistakes in this 12. That though there were no Memory after Death yet the manner of our Life here may sow the seeds of the Souls future happiness or misery 435 Chap. 12. 1. What the Spirit of Nature is 2. Experiments that argue its real Existence such as that of two strings tuned Unisons 3. Sympathetick Cures and Tortures 4. The Sympathy betwixt the Earthly and Astral Body 5. Monstrous Births 6. The Attraction of the Loadstone and Roundness of the Sun and Stars 449 Chap. 13. 1. That the Descent of heavy Bodies argues the existence of the Spirit of Nature because else they would either hang in the Aire as they are placed 2. Or would be diverted from a perpendicular as they fall near a Plate of Metal set slooping 3. That the endeavour of the AEther or Aire from the Centre to the Circumference is not the cause of Gravity against Mr. Hobbs 4. A full confutation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion 5. An ocular Demonstration of the absurd consequence thereof 6. An absolute Demonstration that Gravity cannot be the effect of meer Mechanical powers 7. The Latitude of the operations of the Spirit of Nature how large and where bounded 8. The reason of its name 9. It s grand office of transmitting Souls into rightly prepared Matter 458 Chap. 14. 1. Objections against the Souls Immortality from her condition in Infancy Old age Sleep and Sicknesses 2. Other Objections taken from Experiments that seem to prove her Discerpibility 3. As also from the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 4. And from our natural fear of Death 5. A Subterfuge of the adverse party in supposing but one Soul common to all Creatures 6. An Answer concerning the Littleness of the Soul in Infancy 7. As also concerning the weakness of her Intellectuals then and in Old age 8. That Sleep does not at all argue the Souls Mortality but rather illustrate her Immortality 9. An Answer to the Objection from Apoplexies and Catalepsies 10. As also to that from Madness 11. That the various depravations of her Intellectual Faculties doe no more argue her Mortality then the worser Modifications of Matter its natural Annihilability And why God created Souls sympathizing with Matter 471 Chap. 15. 1. An Answer to the experiment of the Scolopendra cut into pieces 2. And to the flying of an headless Eagle over a barn as also to that of the Malefactors head biting a Dog by the eare 3. A superaddition of a difficulty concerning Monsters born with two or more Heads and but one Body and Heart 4. A solution of the difficulty 5. An Answer touching the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 6. As also concerning the fear of Death 7. And a down-bearing sense that sometimes so forcibly obtrudes upon us the belief of the Souls Mortality 8. Of the Tragical Pomp and dreadful Praeludes of Death with some corroborative Considerations against such sad spectacles 9. That there is nothing really sad and miserable in the Universe unless to the wicked and impious 481 Chap. 16. 1. That that which we properly are is both Sensitive and Intellectual 2. What is the true notion of a Soul being One. 3. That if there be but One Soul in the World it is both Rational and Sensitive 4. The most favourable representation of their Opinion that hold but One. 5. A confutation of the foregoing representation 6. A Reply to the confutation 7. An Answer to the Reply 8. That the Soul of Man is not properly any Ray either of God or the Soul of the World 9. And yet if she were so it would be no prejudice to her Immortality whence the folly of Pomponatius is noted 10. A further animadversion upon Pomponatius his folly in admitting a certain number of remote Intelligencies and denying Particular Immaterial Substances in Men and Brutes 491 Chap. 17. 1. That the Author having safely conducted the Soul into her AErial condition through the dangers of Death might well be excused from attending her any further 2. What reasons urge him to consider what fates may befall her afterwards 3. Three hazzards the Soul runs after this life whereby she may again become obnoxious to death according to the opinion of some 4. That the aerial Genii are mortal confirmed by three testimonies 5. The one from the Vision of Facius Cardanus in which the Spirits that appeared to him profest themselves mortal 6. The time they stayed with him and the matters they disputed of 7. What credit Hieronymus Cardanus gives to his Fathers Vision 8. The other testimony out of Plutarch concerning the Death of the great God Pan. 9. The third and last of Hesiod whose opinion Plutarch has polisht and refined 10. An Enumeration of the several Paradoxes contained in Facius Cardanus his Vision 11. What must be the sense of the third Paradox if those AErial Speculators spake as they thought 12. Another Hypothesis to the same purpose 13. The craft of these Daemons in shuffling in poysonous Errour amongst solid Truths 14. What makes the story of the death of Pan less to the present matter with an addition of Demetrius his observations touching the Sacred Islands near Britain 15. That Hesiod his opinion is the most unexceptionable and that the harshness therein is but seeming not real 16. That the AEthereal Vehicle instates the Soul in a condition of perfect Immortality 17. That there is no internal impediment to those that are Heroically good but that they may attain an everlasting happiness after Death 503 Chap. 18. 1. The Conflagration of the World an Opinion of the Stoicks 2. Two ways of destroying the World the Ancients have taken notice of and especially that by Fire 3. That the Conflagration of the World so farre as it respects us is to be understood onely of the burning of the Earth 4. That the ends of the Stoicks Conflagration are competible onely to the Earths burning 5. An acknowledgement that the Earth may be burnt though the proof thereof be impertinent to this place 6. That the Conflagration thereof will prove very fatal to the Souls of wicked Men and Daemons 7. Five several Opinions concerning their state after the Conflagration whereof the first is That they are quite destroy'd by Fire 8. The second That they are annihilated by a special act of Omnipotency 9. The third That they lie sensless in an eternal Death 10. The fourth That they are in a perpetual furious and painful Dream 11. The fifth and last That they will revive again and that the Earth and Aire will be inhabited by them 12. That this last seems to be fram'd from the fictitious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Stoicks who were very sorry Metaphysicians and as ill Naturalists 13. An Animadversion upon a self-contradicting sentence of Seneca 14. The unintelligibleness of the state of the Souls of the Wicked after the Conflagration 15. That the AEthereal Inhabitants will be safe And what will then become of Good men and Daemons on the Earth and in the Aire And how they cannot be delivered but by a supernatural power 524 Chap. 19. 1. That the Extinction of the Sun is no Panick feare but may be rationally suspected from the Records of History and grounds of Natural Philosophy 2. The sad Influence of this Extinction upon Man and Beast and all the aerial Daemons imprison'd within their several Atmospheres in our Vortex 3. That it will doe little or no damage to the AEthereal Inhabitants in reference to heat or warmth 4. Nor will they find much want of his light 5. And if they did they may pass out of one Vortex into another by the Priviledge of their AEthereal Vehicles 6. And that without any labour or toil and as maturely as they please 7. The vast incomprehensibleness of the tracts and compasses of the waies of Providence 8. A short Recapitulation of the whole Discourse 9. An Explication of the Persians two Principles of Light and Darkness which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when and where the Principle of Light gets the full victory 10. That Philosophy or something more sacred then Philosophy is the onely Guide to a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 538 FINIS Errata PAg. 222. l. 5. for Gamaitus read Gamaieu's 2â—4 l. 10. for Tyc r. Tye. 327. l. 2. for Immortality r. Immorality 458. l. 22. for stooping r. slooping 462. l. 13. for E F H r. angle E F H. 488. l. 9. for inclogg'd r. in clogg'd 521. l. 16. for lightning r. lighting 528. l. ult dele those
or Contradiction in the very termes And therefore such stories implying that which they are confident is impossible the Narration at the very first hearing must needs be judged to be false and therefore they think it more reasonable to conclude all those that profess they have seen such or such things to be mad-men or cheats then to give credit to what implyes a Contradiction 3. But this Evasion I have quite taken away by so clearly demonstrating that the notion of a Spirit implies no more contradiction then the notion of Matter and that its Attributes are as conceivable as the Attributes of Matter so that I hope this creep-hole is stopt for ever 4. The second Evasion is not properly an evasion of the truth of these stories concerning Apparitions but of our deduction therefrom For they willingly admit of these Apparitions and Prodigies recorded in History but they deny that they are any Arguments of a truly Spirituall and Incorporeall Substance distinct from the Matter thus changed into this or that shape that can walk and speak c. but that they are speciall effects of the influence of the Heavenly Bodyes upon this region of Generation and Corruption 5. And these that answer thus are of two sorts The one have great Affinity with Aristotle and Avenroes who look not upon the Heavenly Bodies as meer Corporeall Substances but as actuated with Intelligencies which are Essences separate and Immateriall But this Supposition hurts not us at all in our present design they granting that which I am arguing for viz. a Substance Incorporeall The use of this perverse Hypothesis is only to shuffle off all Arguments that are drawn from Apparitions to prove that the Souls of men subsist after death or that there are any such things as Daemons or Genii of a nature permanent and immortall But I look upon this Supposition as confutable enough were it worth the while to encounter it That of the Sadduces is far more firm they supposing their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be nothing else but the efficacy of the presence of God altering Matter into this or the other Apparition or Manifestation as if there were but one Soule in all things and God were that Soule variously working in the Matter But this I have already confuted in my Philosophicall Poems 6. The other Influenciaries hold the same power of the Heavens as these though they do not suppose so high a Principle in them yet they think it sufficient for the salving of all Sublunary Phaenomena as well ordinary as extraordinary Truly it is a very venerable Secret and not to be uttered or communicated but by some old Silenus lying in his obscure Grot or Cave nor that neither but upon due circumstances and in a right humour when one may find him with his veins swell'd out with wine and his Garland faln off from his head through his heedless drousiness then if some young Chromis and Mnasylus especially assisted by a fair and forward AEgle that by way of a love-srollick will leave the tracts of her fingers in the blood of Mulberies on the temples and forehead of this aged Satyre while he sleeps dog-sleep and will not seem to see for fear he forfeit the pleasure of his feeling then I say if these young lads importune him enough he will again sing that old song of the Epicurean Philosophy in an higher strain then ever which I profess I should abhor to recite were it not to confute it is so monstrous and impious But because no sore can be cured that is concealed I must bring this Hypothesis into view also which the Poet has briefly comprised in this summary Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta Semina terrarumque animaeque marisque fuissent Et liquidi simul ignis ut his exordia primis Omnia ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis 7. The fuller and more refined sense whereof now a daies is this That Matter and Motion are the Principles of all things whatsoever and that by Motion some Atomes or particles are more subtil then others and of more nimbleness and activity That motion of one Body against another does every where necessarily produce Sense Sense being nothing else but the Reaction of parts of the Matter That the subtiler the Matter is the Sense is more subtil That the subtilest Matter of all is that which constitutes the Sun and Stars from whence they must needs have the purest and subtilest Sense That what has the most perfect Sense has the most perfect Imagination and Memory because Memory and Imagination are but the same with Sense in reality the latter being but certain Modes of the former That what has the perfectest Imagination has the highest Reason and Providence Providence and Reason being nothing else but an exacter train of Phantasmes Sensations or Imaginations Wherefore the Sun and the Stars are the most Intellectuall Beings in the world and in them is that Knowledg Counsell and Wisdome by which all Sublunary things are framed and governed 8. These by their severall impresses and impregnations have filled the whole Earth with vital Motion raising innumerable sorts of Flowers Herbs and Trees out of the ground These have also generated the severall Kindes of living Creatures These have filled the Seas with Fishes the Fields with Beasts and the Aire with Fowles the Terrestriall matter being as easily formed into the living shapes of these severall Animals by the powerfull impress of the Imagination of the Sun and Stars as the Embryo in the womb is marked by the strong fancy of his Mother that bears him And therefore these Celestiall powers being able to frame living shapes of earthly matter by the impress of their Imagination it will be more easy for them to change the vaporous Aire into like transfigurations So that admitting all these Stories of Apparitions to be true that are recorded in Writers it is no Argument of the Existence of any Incorporeall Principle in the world For the piercing Fore-sight of these glorious Bodies the Sun and Stars is able to raise what Apparitions or Prodigies they please to usher in the Births or fore-signify the Deaths of the most considerable persons that appear in the world of which Pomponatius himself does acknowledg that there are many true examples both in Greek and Latine History This is the deepest Secret that old Silenus could ever sing to ensnare the ears of deceivable Youth And it is indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the very worst sense Horrendum mysterium a very dreadfull and dangerous Mystery saving that there is no small hope that it may not prove true Let us therefore now examine it CHAP. XIV 1. That the Splendor of the Celestiall Bodies proves no Fore-sight nor Soveraignty that they have over us 2. That the Stars can have no knowledg of us Mathematically demonstrated 3. The same Conclusion again demonstrated more familiarly 4. That the Stars cannot communicate Thoughts neither with the Sun nor
the Separation of the Soul with a confutation of Regius who would stop her in the dead Corps 2. An Answer to those that profess themselves puzled how the Soul can get out of the Body 3. That there is a threefold Vital Congruity to be found in three several Subjects 4. That this triple Congruity is also competible to one Subject viz. the Soul of Man 5. That upon this Hypothesis it is very intelligible how the Soul may leave the Body 6. That her Union with the aereal Vehicle may be very suddain and as it were in a moment 7. That the Soul is actually separate from the Body is to be proved either by History or Reason Examples of the former kinde out of Pliny Herodotus Ficinus 8. Whether the Exstasie of Witches prove an actual separation of the Soul from the Body 9. That this real separation of the Soul in Exstasie is very possible 10. How the Soul may be loosned and leave the Body and yet return thither again 11. That though Reason and Will cannot in this life release the Soul from the Body yet Passion may and yet so that she may return again 12. The peculiar power of Desire for this purpose 13. Of Cardans Exstasies and the Ointment of Witches and what truth there may be in their confessions 1. COncerning the actual and local Separation of the Soul from the Body it is manifest that it is to be understood of this Terrestrial Body For to be in such a separate state as to be where no Body or Matter is is to be out of the World the whole Universe being so thick set with Matter or Body that there is not to be found the least vacuity therein The question therefore is onely whether upon death the Soul can pass from the Corps into some other place Henricus Regius seems to arrest her there by that general law of Nature termed the law of Immutability whereby every thing is to continue in the same condition it once is in till something else change it But the application of this law is very grosly injust in this case For as I have above intimated the Union of the Soul with the Body is upon certain terms neither is every peece of Matter fit for every Soul to unite with as Aristotle of old has very solidly concluded Wherefore that condition of the Matter being not kept the Soul is no longer engaged to the Body What he here says for the justifying of himself is so arbitrarious so childish and ridiculous that according to the merit thereof I shall utterly neglect it and pass it by not vouchsafing of it any Answer 2. Others are much puzled in their imagination how the Soul can get out of the Body being imprisoned and lockt up in so close a Castle But these seem to forget both the nature of the Soul with the tenuity of her Vehicle and also the Anatomy of the Body For considering the nature of the Soul her self and of Matter which is alike penetrable every where the Soul can pass through solid Iron and Marble as well as through the soft Air and AEther so that the thickness of the Body is no impediment to her Besides her Astral Vehicle is of that tenuity that it self can as easily pass the smallest pores of the Body as the Light does Glass or the Lightning the Scabbard of a Sword without tearing or scorching of it And lastly whether we look upon that principal seat of the Plastick power the Heart or that of Perception the Brain when a man dies the Soul may collect her self and the small residue of Spirits that may haply serve her in the inchoation of her new Vehicle either into the Heart whence is an easy passage into the Lungs and so out at the Mouth or else into the Head out of which there are more doors open then I will stand to number These things are very easily imaginable though as invisible as the Air in whose element they are transacted 3. But that they may still be more perfectly understood I shall resume again the consideration of that Faculty in the Plastick part of the Soul which we call Vital Congruity Which according to the number of Vehicles we will define to be threefold Terrestrial AEreal and AEthereal or Coelestial That these Vital Congruities are found some in some kinde of Spirits and others in othersome is very plain For that the Terrestrial is in the Soul of Brutes and in our own is without controversie as also that the AEreal in that kinde of Beings which the Ancients called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and lastly that the Heavenly and AEthereal in those Spirits that Antiquity more properly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being Inhabitants of the Heavens For that there are such AEreal and AEthereal Beings that are analogous to Terrestrial Animals if we compare the nature of God with the Phaenomena of the world it cannot prove less then a Demonstration For this Earth that is replenisht with living Creatures nay put in all the Planets too that are in the world and fancy them inhabited they all joyned together bear not so great a proportion to the rest of the liquid Matter of the Universe that is in a nearer capacity of being the Vehicle of Life as a single Cumin-seed to the Globe of the Earth But how ridiculous a thing would it be that all the Earth beside being neglected onely one peece thereof no better then the rest nor bigger then the smallest seed should be inhabited The same may be said also of the compass of the Aire and therefore it is necessary to enlarge their Territories and confidently to pronounce there are AEthereal Animals as well as Terrestrial and AEreal 4. It is plain therefore that these three Congruities are to be found in severall Subjects but that which makes most to our purpose is to finde them in one and that in the Soule of Man And there will be an easy intimation thereof if we consider the vast difference of those Faculties that we are sure are in her Perceptive part and how they occasionally emerge and how upon the laying asleep of one others will spring up Neither can there be any greater difference betwixt the highest and lowest of these Vitall congruities in the Plastick part then there is betwixt the highest and lowest of those Faculties that result from the Perceptive For some Perceptions are the very same with those of Beasts others little inferiour to those that belong to Angels as we ordinarily call them some perfectly brutish others purely divine why therefore may there not reside so great a Latitude of capacities in the Plastick part of the Soule as that she may have in her all those three Vitall Congruities whereby she may be able livingly to unite as well with the Coelestial and AEreal Body as with this Terrestrial one Nay our nature being so free and multifarious as it is it would seem a reproach to Providence to deny this capacity of
in the Body cannot enjoy any better Spirits in which all her life and comfort consists then the constitution of the Body after such circuits of concoction can administer to her But those Genii of the Aire who possess their Vehicles upon no such hard terms if themselves be not in fault may by the power of their minds accommodate themselves with more pure and impolluted Matter and such as will more easily conspire with the noblest and divinest functions of their Spirit In brief therefore if we consider things aright we cannot abstain from strongly surmising that there is no more difference betwixt a Soule and an aëreal Genius then there is betwixt a Sword in the scabbard and one out of it and that a Soule is but a Genius in the Body and a Genius a Soule out of the Body as the Antients also have defined giving the same name as well as nature promiscuously to them both by calling them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have elsewhere noted 5. This is very consonant to what Michael Psellus sets down from the singular knowledge and experience of Marcus the Eremite in these matters who describes the nature of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being throughout Spirit and Aire whence they heare and see and feel in every part of their Body Which he makes good by this reason and wonders at the ignorance of men that doe not take notice of it viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is neither Bones nor Nerves nor any gross or visible part of the Body or of any Organ thereof whereby the Soule immediately exercises the functions of Sense but that it is the Spirits that are her nearest and inmost instrument of these operations Of which when the Body is deprived there is found no Sense in it though the gross Organs and parts are in their usuall consistency as we see in Syncopes and Apoplexies Which plainly shewes that the immediate Vehicle of Life are the Spirits and that the Soules connexion with the Body is by these as the most learned Physicians doe conclude with one consent Whence it will follow that this Vinculum being broke the Soule will be free from the Body and will as naturally be carried out of the corrupt carkass that now has no harmony with the Soule into that Element that is more congenerous to her the vital Aire as the Fire will mount upwards as I have already noted And so Principles of Life being fully kindled in this thinner Vehicle she becomes as compleat for Sense and Action as any other Inhabitants of these aiery regions 6. There is onely one perverse Objection against this so easy and naturall Conclusion which is this That by this manner of reasoning the Soules of Brutes especially those of the perfecter sort will also not onely subsist for that difficulty is concocted pretty well already but also live and enjoy themselves after death To which I dare boldly answer That it is a thousand times more reasonable that they doe then that the Soules of Men doe not Yet I will not confidently assert that they doe or doe not but will lightly examine each Hypothesis And first by way of feigned concession we will say They doe and take notice of the Reasons that may induce one to think so Amongst which two prime ones are those involved in the Objection That they doe subsist after death and That the immediate instrument of their Vitall Functions is their Spirits as well as in Man To which we may adde That for the present we are fellow-inhabitants of one and the same Element the Earth subject to the same fate of Fire Deluges and Earthquakes That it is improbable that the vast space of Aire and AEther that must be inhabited by living creatures should have none but of one sort that is the Angels or Genii good or bad For it would seem as great a solitude as if Men alone were the Inhabitants of the Earth or Mermaids of the Sea That the periods of vitall congruity wound up in the Nature of their Soules by that eternall Wisdome that is the Creatress of all things may be shorter or longer according as the property of their essence and relation to the Universe requires and that so their Descents and Returns may be accordingly swifter or slower That it is more conformable to the Divine goodness to be so then otherwise if their natures will permit it And that their existence would be in vain while they were deprived of vital operation when they may conveniently have it That they would be no more capable of Salvation in the other state then they are here of Conversion That the intellectual Inhabitants of the Aire having also externall and corporeall Sense variety of Objects would doe as well there as here amongst us on Earth Besides that Historyes seem to imply as if there were such kind of aereal Animals amongst them as Dogs Horses and the like And therefore to be short that the Soules of Brutes cease to be alive after they are separate from this Body can have no other reason then Immorality the Mother of Ignorance that is nothing but narrowness of spirit out of over-much self-love and contempt of other Creatures to embolden us so confidently to adhere to so groundless a Conclusion 7. This Position makes indeed a plausible shew insomuch that if the Objection drove one to acknowledge it for Truth he might seem to have very little reason to be ashamed of it But this Controversy is not so easily decided For though it be plain that the Soules of Beasts be Substances really separable from their Bodies yet if they have but one Vital congruity namely the Terrestriall one they cannot recover life in the Aire But their having one or two or more Vital congruities wholy depends upon his wisdome counsel that has made all things Besides the Souls of Brutes seem to have a more passive nature then to be able to manage or enjoy this escape of Death that free and commanding Imagination belonging onely to us as also Reminiscency But Brutes have onely a passive Imagination and bare Memory which failing them in all likelyhood in the shipwrack of their Body if they could live in the Aire they would begin the World perfectly on a new score which is little better then Death so that they might in this sense be rightly deemed mortall Our being Co-inhabitants of the same element the Earth proves nothing for by the same reason Worms and Fleas should live out of their Bodies and Fishes should not who notwithstanding their shape it may be a little changed for there is no necessity that these creatures in their aiery Vehicles should be exactly like themselves in their terrestriall ones might act and live in the more moist tracts of the Aire As for the supposed solitude that would be in the Aire it reaches not this Matter For in the lower Regions thereof the various Objects of the Earth and Sea will serve the turn
Poets and then when we have perused what the height and elegancy of their fancy has penn'd down to write under it An obscure Subindication of the transcendent pulcritude of the AErial Genii whether Nymphs or Heroes For though there be neither Lust nor difference of Sex amongst them whence the kindest commotions of minde will never be any thing else but an exercise of Intellectual love whose Object is Vertue and Beauty yet it is not improbable but that there are some general strictures of discrimination of this Beauty into Masculine and Feminine partly because the temper of their Vehicles may encline to this kinde of pulcritude rather then that and partly because several of these aerial Spirits have sustained the difference of Sex in this life some of them here having been Males others Females and therefore their History being to be continued from their departure hence they ought to retain some character especially so general a one of what they were here And it is very harsh to conceit that AEneas should meet with Dido in the other World in any other form then that of a Woman whence a necessity of some slighter distinction of habits and manner of wearing their hair will follow Which dress as that of the Masculine mode is easily fitted to them by the power of their Will and Imagination as appears from that Story out of Peramatus of the Indian Monster that was born with fleshy boots girdle purse and other things that are no parts of a man but his cloathing or utensils and this meerly by the Fancy of his Mother disturb'd and frighted either in sleep or awake with some such ugly appearance as that Monster resembled CHAP. IX 1. A general account of the mutual entertains of the Genii in the other World 2. Of their Philosophical and Political Conferences 3. Of their Religious Exercises 4. Of the innocent Pastimes and Recreations of the better sort of them 5. A confirmation thereof from the Conventicles of Witches 6. Whether the purer Daemons have their times of repast or no. 7. Whence the bad Genii have their food 8. Of the food and feastings of the better sort of Genii 1. WE have now accurately enough defined in what form or garb the aerial Genii converse with one another It remains we consider how they mutually entertain one another in passing away the time Which is obvious enough to conceive to those that are not led aside into that blind Labyrinth which the generality of men are kept in of suspecting that no representation of the state of these Beings is true that is not so confounded and unintelligible that a man cannot think it sense unless he wink with the inward eyes of his Minde and command silence to all his Rational Faculties But if he will but bethink himself that the immediate instrument of the Soul in this life is the Spirits which are very congenerous to the body of Angels and that all our passions and conceptions are either suggested from them or imprest upon them he cannot much doubt but that all his Faculties of Reason Imagination and Affection for the general will be in him in the other state as they were here in this namely that he will be capable of Love of Joy of Grief of Anger that he will be able to imagine to discourse to remember and the rest of such operations as were not proper to the Fabrick of this earthly Body which is the Officine of Death and Generation 2. Hence it will follow that the Souls of men deceaed and the rest of the aerial Daemons may administer much content to one another in mutual Conferences concerning the nature of things whether Moral Natural or Metaphysical For to think that the quitting the earthly Body entitles us to an Omnisciency is a Fable never enough to be laught at And Socrates somewhere in Plato presages that he shall continue his old Trade when he comes into the other World convincing and confounding the idle and vain-glorious Sophists whereever he went And by the same reason Platonists Aristotelians Stoicks Epicureans and whatever other sects and humors are on the Earth may in likelihood be met with there so far as that estate will permit though they cannot doubt of all things we doubt of here For these aerial Spirits know that themselves are and that the Souls of men subsist and act after death unless such as are too deeply tinctured with Avenroism But they may doubt whether they will hold out for ever or whether they will perish at the conflagration of the World as the Stoicks would have them It may be also a great controversie amongst them whether Pythagoras's or Ptolemies Hypothesis be true concerning the Motion of the Earth and whether the Stars be so bigge as some define them For these lower Daemons have no better means then we to assure themselves of the truth or falshood of these Opinions Besides the discourse of News of the affairs as well of the Earth as Aire For the aerial Inhabitants cannot be less active then the terrestrial nor less busie either in the performance of some solemn exercises or in carrying on designs party against party and that either more Private or more Publick the events of which will fill the aerial Regions with a quick spreading fame of their Actions To say nothing of prudential conjectures concerning future successes aforehand and innumerable other entertains of Conference which would be too long to reckon up but bear a very near analogy to such as men pass away their time in here 3. But of all Pleasures there are none that are comparable to those that proceed from their joynt exercise of Religion and Devotion For their Bodies surpassing ours so much in tenuity and purity they must needs be a fitter soil for the Divinest thoughts to spring up in and the most delicate and most enravishing affections towards their Maker Which being heightned by sacred Hymns and Songs sung with voices perfectly imitating the sweet passionate relishes of the sense of their devout minds must even melt their Souls into Divine Love and make them swim with joy in God But these kinds of exercises being so highly rapturous and ecstatical transporting them beyond the ordinary limits of their Nature cannot in Reason be thought to be exceeding frequent but as a solemn Repast after which they shall enjoy themselves better for a good space of time after 4. Wherefore there be other entertainments which though they be of an inferiour nature to these yet they farre exceed the greatest pleasure and contentments of this present state For the Animal life being as essential to the Soul as union with a Body which she is never free from it will follow that there be some fitting gratifications of it in the other World And none greater can be imagined then Sociableness and Personal complacency not onely in rational discourses which is so agreeable to the Philosophical Ingeny but innocent Pastimes in which the Musical and Amorous
conceives that that monstrous child that was borne at Emmaus in Theodosius his time with two heads and two hearts was two persons but that other borne Anno 1531. with two heads but one heart who lived till he was a man was but one person Which he conceives appears the plainer in that both the heads professed their agreement perpetually to the same actions in that they had the same appetite the same hunger and thirst spoke alike had the same desire to lye with their wife and of all other acts of exonerating nature But for that other that had two hearts and was divided to the Navel there was not this identity of affection and desire but sometimes one would have a mind to a thing and sometimes another sometimes they would play with one another and sometimes fight See Sennert Epitom Scient Natural Lib. 6. Cap. 1. 4. But I answer and first to Aristotles authority that he does not so confidently assert that every Monster that has but one heart is but one Animal For his words run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where he onely speaks hypothetically not peremptorily that the Heart is that part where the first Principle of life is and from which the rest of life in Soul or Body is to be derived For indeed he makes it elswhere the seat of Common Sense but that it is a mistake we have already demonstrated and himself seems not confident of his own Opinion and therefore we may with the less offence decline it and affirm and that without all hesitancy that a Monster is either one or more Animals according to the number of the heads of it and that there are as many distinct Souls as there are heads in a monstrous Birth But from the heads downwards the Body being but one and the heart but one that there must needs be a wonderful exact concord in the sense of affections in these heads they having their Blood and Spirits from one fountain and one common seat of their passions and desires But questionless whenever one head winked he could not then see by the eyes of the other or if one had pricked one of these heads the other would not have felt it though whatever was inflicted below it is likely they both felt alike both the Souls equally acting the Body of this Monster but the heads being actuated by them onely in several Which is a sufficient answer to Sennertus 5. The weakness of the third Objection is manifest in that it takes away the Existence of all Spirits as well as the Souls of the deceased Of whose Being notwithstanding none can doubt that are not dotingly incredulous We say therefore that the Souls of men being in the same condition that other Spirits are appear sometimes though but seldome The cause in both being partly the difficulty of bringing their Vehicles to an unnatural consistency and partly they having no occasion so to doe and lastly it being not permitted to them to doe as they please or to be where they have a minde to be 6. As for the Fear of Death and that down-bearing sense that sometimes so uncontroulably suggests to us that we are wholly mortal To the first I answer that it is a necessary result of our union with the Body and if we should admit it one of the imperfections or infirmities we contract by being in this state it were a solid Answer And therefore this fear and presage of ill in Death is no argument that there is any ill in it nor any more to be heeded then the predictions of any fanatical fellow that will pretend to prophecie But besides this it is fitting that there should be in us this fear and abhorrency to make us keep this station Providence has plac't us in otherwise every little pet would invite us to pack our selves out of this World and try our fortunes in the other and so leave the Earth to be inhabited onely by Beasts whenas it is to be ordered and cultivated by Men. 7. To the second I answer that such peremptory conclusions are nothing but the impostures of Melancholy or some other dull and fulsome distempers of blood that corrupt the Imagination but that Fancy proves nothing by Axiome 4. And that though the Soul enthroned in her AEthereal Vehicle be a very magnificent thing full of Divine Love Majesty and Tranquillity yet in this present state she is inclogg'd and accloy'd with the foulness and darkness of this Terrestrial Body she is subject to many fears and jealousies and other disturbing passions whose Objects though but a mockery yet are a real disquiet to her minde in this her Captivity and Imprisonment Which condition of hers is lively set out by that incomparable Poet and Platonist AEneid 6. where comparing that more free and pure state of our Souls in their celestial or fiery Vehicles with their restraint in this earthly Dungeon he makes this short and true description of the whole matter Igneus est ollis vigor coelestis origo Seminibus quantū non noxia corpora tardant Terrenique hebetant artus moribundáque membra Hinc metuunt cupiúntque dolent gaudéntque nec auras Respiciunt claust tenebris carcere caeco To this sense A fiery vigour from an heavenly source Is in these seeds so far as the dull force Of noxious Bodies does not them retard In heavy earth and dying limbs imbar'd Hence fool'd with fears foul lusts sharp grief vain joy In this dark Gaol they low and groveling lie Nor with one glance of their oblivious minde Look back to that free Aire they left behinde This is the sad estate of the more deeply-lapsed Souls upon Earth who are so wholly mastered by the motions of the Body that they are carried headlong into an assent to all the suggestions and imaginations that it so confidently obtrudes upon them of which that of our mortality is not the weakest But such melancholy fancies that would beare us down so peremptorily that we are utterly extinct in death are no more argument thereof then those of them that have been perswaded they were dead already while they were alive and therefore would not eat because they thought the dead never take any repast till they were cheated into an appetite by seeing some of their friends disguised in winding-sheets feed heartily at the table whose example then they thought fit to follow and so were kept alive 8. I cannot but confess that the Tragick pomp and preparation to dying that layes wast the operations of the minde putting her into fits of dotage or fury making the very visage look ghastly and distracted and at the best sadly pale and consumed as if Life and Soule were even almost quite extinct cannot but imprint strange impressions even upon the stoutest minde and raise suspicions that all is lost in so great a change But the Knowing and Benign Spirit though he may flow in tears at so dismal a Spectacle yet it does not at all suppress
in the World he must be forc'd to vaunt himself to be the Soul of the World But this boasting must suddainly fall again if he but consider that the Soul of the World will be every mans personal Ipseity as well as his whence every one man will be all men and all men but one Individual man which is a perfect contradiction to all the Laws of Metaphysicks and Logick 6. But reminded of these inconveniences he will pronounce more cautiously and affirm that he is not the Soul of the World at large but onely so far forth as she expedites or exerts her self into the Sense and Remembrance of all those Notions or Impresses that happen to her whereever she is joyned with his Body but that so soon as this Body of his is dissipated and dissolved that she will no longer raise any such determinate Thoughts or Senses that referre to that Union and that so the Memory of such Actions Notions and Impressions that were held together in relation to a particular Body being lost and laid aside upon the failing of the Body to which they did referre this Ipseity or Personality which consisted mainly in this does necessarily perish in death This certainly is that if they know their own meaning which many Libertines would have who are afraid to meet themselves in the other World for fear they should quarrel with themselves there for their transactions in this And it is the handsomest Hypothesis that they can frame in favour of themselves and farre beyond that dull conceit That there is nothing but meer Matter in the World which is infinitely more lyable to confutation 7. And yet this is too scant a covering to shelter them and secure them from the sad after-claps they may justly suspect in the other life For first it is necessary for them to confess that they have in this life as particular and proper sense of Torment of Pleasure of Peace and Pangs of Conscience and of other impressions as if they had an individual Soul of their own distinct from that of the World and from every ones else and that if there be any Daemons or Genii as certainly there are that it is so with them too We have also demonstrated that all Sense and Perception is immediately excited in the Soul by the Spirits wherefore with what confidence can they promise themselves that the death of this earthly Body will quite obliterate all the tracts of their Being here on earth whenas the subtiler ruines thereof in all likelihood may determine the Thoughts of the Soul of the World to the same tenour as before and draw from her the memory of all the Transactions of this life and make her exercise her judgement upon them and cause her to contrive the most vital exhalations of the terrestrial Body into an aerial Vehicle of like nature with the ferment of these material rudiments of life saved out of the ruines of death For any slight touch is enough to engage her to perfect the whole Scene and so a man shall be represented to himself and others in the other state whether he will or no and have as distinct a personal Ipseity there as he had in this life Whence it is plain that this false Hypothesis That we are nothing but the Soul of the World acting in our Bodies will not serve their turns at all that would have it so nor secure them from future danger though it were admitted to be true But I have demonstrated it false already from the notion of the Unity of a Soul Of the truth of which Demonstration we shall be the better assured if we consider that the subtile Elements which are the immediate conveyers of Perceptions in our Souls are continued throughout in the Soul of the World and insinuate into all living Creatures So that the Soul of the World will be necessarily informed in every one what she thinks or feels every where if she be the onely Soul that actuates every Animal upon Earth 8. That other conceit of our Souls being a Vital Ray of the Soul of the World may gain much countenance by expressions in ancient Authors that seem to favour the Opinion as that of Epictetus who saith that the Souls of men are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Philo calls the Minde of Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Trismegist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All which expressions make the Soul of man a Ray or Beam of the Soul of the World or of God But we are to take notice that they are but Metaphorical phrases and that what is understood thereby is that there is an emanation of a secondary substance from the several parts of the Soul of the World resembling the Rayes of the Sun Which way of conception though it be more easy then the other yet it has difficulties enough For this Vital Ray must have some head from whence it is stretched and so the Body would be like a Bird in a string which would be drawn to a great length when one takes long voyages suppose to the East or West Indies Or if you will not have it a linear Ray but an Orb of particular life every such particular Orb must be hugely vast that the Body may not travel out of the reach of the Soul Besides this Orb will strike through other Bodies as well as its own and its own be in several parts of it which are such incongruities and inconcinnities as are very harsh and unpleasing to our Rational faculties Wherefore that notion is infinitely more neat and safe that proportions the Soul to the dimensions of the Body and makes her independent on any thing but the Will of her Creator in which respect of dependence she may be said to be a Ray of him as the rest of the Creation also but in no other sense that I know of unless of likeness and similitude she being the Image of God as the Rays of Light are of the Sun 9. But let every particular Soul be so many Rayes of the Soul of the World what gain they by this whenas these Rayes may be as capable of all the several congruities of life as the Soul is in that sense we have described and therefore Personality Memory and Conscience will as surely return or continue in the other state according to this Hypothesis as the other more usual one Which also discovers the great folly of Pomponatius and of as many as are of the same leven with him who indeed is so modest and judicious as not to deny Apparitions but attributes all to the influence of the Stars or rather the Intelligencies of the Celestial Orbs. For they giving life and animation to brute Animals why may they not also upon occasion animate and actuate the Aire into shape and form even to the making of them speak and discourse one shape with another For so Pomponatius argues in his Book of the Immortality of the Soul from Aquinas his concession that Angels and Souls