〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but gives no Aswer to it Says Plato Origen and many Hebrews held Opinion the Adam's Soul and all other Souls did and do pre-exist and are thence called down as new Bodies require viz. from Superior Regions But this he says is both false and absurd And to prove this by Reason he says Pag. 619. cites Aristotle That the Soul is Actus Corporis Organici and therefore the Soul cannot be before the Body To this we easily assent and add That when the Body dies this Actus Corporis must cease for the same Reason He argues also That the Soul is a Spiritual Substance and it was not needful or proper to put that up at the Nostrils and that seems true but makes against his former Assertions Still there rises a new Difficulty viz. Whether this Soul if then created were created first within the Body or first without the Body and then was breathed or blown in The Text favours the later but the Author favours the former to the Intent that Men may not think Souls are still first created and then infused but think rather as he doth that Souls are created in their Bodies and to this end he approves Lombard's Invention of Creando infunditur Cites Essay 2.22 Cease ye from Man Cujus Anima in Naribus ejus est which we read whose Breath is in his Nostrils Pag. 620 The Soul of Man came to him from without although created within him He will have from without to signifie of another Nature or kind of Thing and not proceeding from the Body as the Beasts do But this he only says without offer of Proof for it Says The whole Soul comes together viz. Vegetative Sensitive and Rational whence it must come into the Body at the first Original of Life and there seems no doubt but there is a Vegetative Power and Principle in the Seed and likely for the Sensual and there appears no Reason against a like Course in the Rational these three being all Faculties of the same Soul from which none of them are separable Pag. 621. The Word signifying Spiraculum Vitarum is used as well concerning Beasts as Men. Pag. 624. Souls of Brutes are sometimes called Spirits in Scripture but never said to return to God Pag. 625. As God breathed into Adams Body the Breath of Life who thereupon rose from the Earth where he lay so shall his Breath effect Life in Bodies which shall rise at Sound of the Last Trumpet And as we read Ezek. 37. Pag. 667. Cites Gen. 1.28 God blessed the Man and Woman and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth as Ver. 22. he had said to other Creatures This seems to import Men do generate their Like as the Beasts do and the Creation of Souls for every fruitful Coition by Adultery Incest or Buggery is but a Fiction and not a likely or reasonable Contrivance Lib. 2. Cap. 1. Pag. 683. Mans Life consists in Heat and Moisture not simply but in Temperament with Cold and Dry and from the Four Elements The Four Complexions of Phlegm Sanguine Cholerick and Melancholy Health and Sickness Life and Death consist in a good and fit Temperature of these Humors and the Soul uses these as Instruments for Conservation of the Compositum the General Parts are Bones with their Nerves knitting them together and the Flesh with its Veins through which the Blood returns and Arteries through which the Vital or Animal Spirits have their Courses and God hath given to Men a more delicate Flesh and more Nice and tender Skin than to Beast Pag. 685. And the Temperament and Complexion of their Bodies are much finer Pag. 686. There are Three Principal Faculties of the Soul viz. Vegetation Sense and Motion 3. Intellect The Two later viz. Sense and Intellect are chiefly placed and acted in the Head and thence grow the Nerves passing to every Bone and Member Pag. 687. All Anatomists confess That in an Humane Body there are Innumerable Parts and Things which Men cannot find out and which are known only to God Pag. 689. The Common or Internal Sense cannot act without the Animal Spirits and the Soul uses these Spirits both for Understanding and for its other Actions which are to be performed in the Head and the Nerves which serve both for Sense and Motion through the whole Body have their Original from the Brain and are fixed in it or to it There the Soul reigns most effectually and who can express the various Instruments which God hath there provided for her Use Pag. 693. The Heart is the Original and Prime Instrument of Vegetation and Life which it communicates to the whole Body by its Intense Heat Motion and Rarefaction of the Blood and specially it communicates to the Head the Animal Spirits whereby Motion Sense and Cogitation are received and acted Thirdly The Heart is the Seat Fountain and Cause of all the Affections and there are two Principal Motions in it viz. that of the Systole and Diastole or of the Pulse effecting and Declaring Life the other Motion is of the Affections following the Conceptions or Intellect either with extraordinary Dilatation in the whole Body as in Accidents pleasing and joyous or with a like Compression or Contraction in Case of Accidents sorrowful or dspleasing Whence as Motion Sense and Intellect have their Original and Activity from and in the Brain and Head So Life and all the Affections are derived and acted from and in the Heart And betwixt the Heart and Head there is a wonderful Correspondence and Agreement to the Good and Benefit of the whole Compositum From the Heart Vital Spirits ascend to the Brain where they become Animal Spirits and by these Intelligence Cogitations and Notices of Things arise in the Mind from whence again such Cogitations and Notices strike upon the whole Heart exciting and stirring there the Affections and other Vegetative and Natural Motions which are either pleasing or displeasing tending to or towards Joy or Sorrow the one a great Help to and Supporter of Health and Life and the other great Hinderance to or a Destroyer of them both Pag. 694. The Liver is the Fountain of all the Veins and the Arteries through which the Vital Spirits do pass are always and in all Places conjoined with the Veins and upon them depend the Life and Motion of the Animal and the Soul uses the Blood and Spirits to such Purposes The Liver communicates Blood to the Heart and that again Vital Spirits to the Liver Pag. 195. And as Blood is never in the Veins without some Spirits so neither do the Spirits flow through the Arteries without some thin Rivage of Blood with them and as the Veins have need of the Arteries to stir the Blood in them so the Arteries of the Veins for Nourishment of the Spirits Pag. 696. Spirits of the Body are Vital or Animal and the Spirit is a Vapor drawn by Heat and Concoction of the Heart out of the purest Parts of the Blood
and then in kindled or inflamed first for Conserving of Life and next for being a Principle of Motion in the Animal extending to every Member and Part of it stirring them up and inabling them to the Performance of those Duties for which they were by God intended and ordained The Vital Spirit is Flammula quaedam bred in the Heart out of the purest Blood and thence by Vital Heat communicated and conveyed to the rest of the Members imparting Power and Activity to them by their Natural Heat and Motion and stirring them to act and perform those Duties for which by Nature and Creation they were ordain'd and made The Organs for conveying this Vital Spirit into all Parts and Members of the Body are the Arteries The Animal doth no otherwise differ from the Vital Spirit save that in being transferred to the Brain that hath Power to rarify and make it more Lucid and Subtil and then being from thence infused into the Nerves it incites and enables them to exercise their Faculties Powers and appointed Offices of Sensation and Motion And by both these sorts of Spirits the Principal Actions of Animals and even of Humane Bodies are effected Namely Life is preserved and thence proceed Nutrition Generation Sense Motion Cogitations and Affections Hence it hath come to Pass that some have thought these Spirits to be the very Soul it self or at least the immediate Instruments to it by which the Body both lives and moves Hoc postremum says our Author verum est To which we do not assent but rather hold with the former Lib. 2. Cap. 2. Pag. 697. Treats Ex Professo de Anima and cites out of Tully That Dicaearchus a Peripatetick Philosopher and Scholar to Aristotle held there was no more Soul in Man than in Beasts This says our Author though it should be the Opinion of all Philosophers we ought not to follow or believe them in it because the Scriptures says he are against it Pag. 69â— He takes it pro confesso as agreed on all hands that Souls of Beasts do die with their Bodies without a Principle of separately Subsisting after Death of the Body but there are many Disputes concerning Humane Souls 1. What a Humane Soul is 2 Concerning its Nature and Operations 3 Concerning its Original Whether by continual New Creations or that it grow Ex traduce from Generation or be pre-existent And if newly created then whether first created and then infused or be created within the Body Whether the Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational be all one same Soul in Man or that they be so distinct as that the two first may die and the third only be that which can separately subsist but the Question of the Souls Nature est per Difficilis per Obscura Tertullian S. Austin and Greg. Nyssen have written of it largely and Pomponacius and Simon Portius two famous Italian Philosophers have since taught That Aristotle held the Soul to be Mortal and that its Immortality cannot be proved by any sufficient Reasons But Men must be left to the Evidence of Faith for that Point and many there are who think there is not enough Evidence to be a sufficient Ground for that Faith Pag. 699. He therefore proposes his first Enquiry viz. What is the Nature and Essence of the Soul Upon this Query he propounds the Definitions made of the Soul by three Ancient Philosophers and very learned Men viz. Plato Aristotle and Galen the great Latin Physician but none of them come up to this Point and therefore he rejects them all especially that of Galen who says The Soul is but a Temperature and sutable Proportion of the Parts and Humours whereby the Animal hath Life and the Vse of all its Faculties And this Opinion he took from his Master Hyppocrates and endeavours to confirm it with divers Reasons and of this Opinion was then Dynarchus the Philosopher and Simmias and divers others The Author brings three Arguments against this Opinion but they are rather Sophistical than Solid He rejects also those of Plato and Aristotle But in lieu of them all he gives us one of his own Pag. 705. viz. A Humane Soul is a truly Spiritual Substance Incorporeal and Immaterial Upon this last Word he lays a great Stress For says he the Souls of Beasts are Essential Forms but drawn out of Matter from which they cannot be separated And there are those who think the Soul which is the Form to our Body to be neither Accident nor Body and that yet it is Material so as to depend upon Matter from which it cannot be separated and therefore must extinguish with Death of the Body Upon this therefore the whole Stress of the Question lies concerning the Mortality or Immortality of the Soul Whence says he this our Definition ought to be well and fully proved Says Humane Souls have the same Essence with Angelical Spirits their only Difference being that the one is Form to a Humane Body and the other not His Proofs he begins from Texts of Scripture but we yet in the Bounds of Nature and Reason will pass them over Animo revertendi and consider here his Arguments from Reason only to which he comes Pag. 709. 1. He says The Soul governs the Body and resists the Passions Complexion excites and begets Passions Here is the Soul contending against Passions and Natural Inclinations supporting them Ergo here is a Substantial Soul In Answer I say The Soul hath no greater Share in the Resisting than in the Exciting of Passions But that the Soul is the living and moving Principle in every Part and Member of the Body understanding and perceiving and remembring in the Head affecting and passionate in the Heart feeling and moving in the whole Body and in every member of it The Souls Regard and Care is for the whole Compositum to chuse the beneficial and to avoid the hurtful Things Hence Intellect and Passion are not one of them of the Soul and the other not the Soul but both are Faculties of the same Soul The Heart desires one thing as vitally Good or abhors it as Harmful The Intellect from common Sense and Understanding often opposes such Desires or Fears from Considerations more percipient and duly weighed and the Contest rises most often from the Nearness or Distance of what they contend about viz. Present or Future one Faculty affixing chiefly upon the Enjoyment and the other contemplating the Consequence withal Now if the Soul did govern the Body as our Author faith it doth the Contest could not be maintained against it by the Passions which should naturally be ordered to yield an easie Submission to it whereas it is too evident that the Passions do often over-power and over-rule the Intellect And as Aristotle hath told us their Contest is more like a Game at Tennis than a Government sometimes one of them prevails and sometimes the other So they look not like a Governor and a Governed but rather like Equal
help of other Circumstances of Time Place or Persons c. This we leave as doubtful Pag. 740. There are in Animals Three Sorts of Motion 1. Vital 2. Commanding or Stimulating 3. Prosecuting or Endeavouring That Commanding Force is in the Sensitive Appetite from whence all our Affections do arise and they reign and command in Animals Beasts and Men as Animal and act to Motion the whole Body or the several Members of it The Prime Vital Motion is that of the Pulse placed in the Heart the Seat of Life and Vital Motion acted by the Soul Pag. 741. The Actors in this Motion are the Inward Heat and Spirits viz. the Vital Spirits When this Motion ceases all Animals die and the Vital Spirits vanish But says he it doth not therefore follow that the Soul dies If he had proved or shall prove that there is a Soul in Man which did ever live doth live or can live in Separation from the Body we will admit of this Caution of his and not infer Death of such a Soul by the Ceasing of this Vital Motion in the Body Palpitations of the Heart agitated by the Affections and the Faculty of Respiration are also Vital Motions Appetive commanding Motion Pag. 724. is Vegetative Sensitive and Intellective It consists in prosecuting things liked and avoiding things disliked with Passion or at Leisure cites Matth. 15. They all proceed from the Heart and have their Rise from the Affections although many Causes may work in and upon them viz. Complexion of the Body Education Conversation Examples Doctrines c. their general Aspect is upon Pleasure or Pain to follow or avoid the Vigor of their Motion grows from Lust Wrath and Fear or present outward Sense greatly affected the Affections are not ill in themselves but useful helpful necessary for nothing is from God or Nature which is not Good the Evil which they produce is but by Accident Pag. 744. The Prosecutive Power lies in Local Motion This hath its Root in the Brain whence the Nerves and their Power and Motion are derived animated and enlivened by Spirits from the Heart This says he Galen teaches who is in that Point to be preferred before any other Testimony But it seems both he and Hyppocrates his Master were mistaken concerning Man's Compages of Body and Soul if our Author fall out to be right The Powers moving the Nerves and in them are the Vital and Animal Spirits and thence Motion is derived to the Muscles Bones Joints and every Member These Spirits which are partly Corporeal and partly quasi Incorporeal or Spiritual excited by the Soul omitting how or by what Means these Spirits move and guide the Nerves which are like Reins to the whole Body and they quicken and guide the Muscles and the small Cords or Strings which reach to them By these are the Bones Joints and Members of the Body moved And thus the moving Power of the Soul prosecutes the Mandates of the Appetite and Affections this seems a weak or foolish Sort of Soul that will or must use its Motive Powers to satisfie those Affections which drive to Action against the Will and Dictates of the Soul it self Whence we conclude it more likely that all these Motions are Natural and Animal that Intellect or Reason is one Natural Faculty in Man and that it is Chief and hath a Priority of Order and Power in him that Sense and the Affections are another Natural Faculty in Man and that Vital Inclinations and Powers of Vegetation are another Natural Faculty in him not divided by so many Souls but that one Soul serves all these Faculties viz. that Flaming Spirit or Principle of Life Motion and Action first breathed into Man by his Creator and once quite extinguished can never be again rekindled but from Heaven by miracle A Vital Spark or Origine of this Fire likely may be kindled in Heat of Coition lodged in the Matter by Ordinance of Nature and her Director This hath its appointed Natural Times and Means first of Vegetation and Motions then of Sense and Affections and lastly of Intellect and Reason The Matter Shape and Organs of the Body do by Degrees enlarge themselves and grow and they increase the Blood and Humors which nourish continually the Vital Active Flame whence the Increaseof Body and Soul goes on together till they arrive to their Fullness of Stature Proportions and Activities and in Ordinary Course of Nature they grow stand and decay together This Active is the Motive Principle enlivening and quickening all Man's Faculties to act according to their Natural Powers Propensities and Appointments If any Organ or Part of Matter be out of Order this Active Power not being Rational but in the proper Place for that Faculty cannot remedy that Want but can only put on to Action all that is in the Body fit for it inclining and helping them to and in the Actions that are proper or peculiar to them in the Heart the Primum Vivens and most Vital Part of the Body This Flame and Heat is most Predominant and Intense there the Blood is purified and ratified and refined there the Vital Spirits are generated and thence they are dispersed to several Parts of the Body but chiefly to the Head In the Heart therefore we place the Chief Seat of Life and Vegetation for whose Defence each other Part will be ready to expose it self knowing and feeling that the Loss of that Fort destroys the Microcosm The Place of next Value to this but of much greater Activity is the Head for there reside the Senses both Internal and External and there resides also the Rational Faculty viz. the Intellect and the Judgment so as these two Faculties of Sense and Reason are very close and near Borderers upon one another and although our Author go with the Stream of deriving Mens Affections all from the Senses therein seems to be an apparent Mistake for as we do allow to the Intellect a Will as well as to the Senses an Appetite so there must be allowed to Reason a Power of making and gaining the Affections of equal or greater Potency and Might then that which is attributed to the Senses Whence in Contests betwixt Reason and Sense or Will and Appetite that Part which prevails upon the Affections must be Victor over the other for the Affections stirred and gained excite move and sway the Heart which is drawn and bent by them to resolve and execute accordingly and there appears no such Difference between the Prevalency of either of these Faculties as that Men can determine which doth oftnest prevail or which of them is naturally endowed with the most strong and prevalent Power each have a Power in some Persons more than in others and in all Persons more at one Time or upon one Occasion then upon another In no Persons naturally doth the Stream run one Way but as S. Paul says 'T is not of willing or running but God gives the Victory perhaps often But
of a Mans Countenance Things which dull or unbred People do not well perceive or understand Our Author Baxter Pag. 38. is so moved with the Considerations as he there says That in their own low Concerns a Fox or a Dog nay even an Ass or a Goose have such Actions as we know not well how to ascribe to any thing below some kind of Reasoning or Perception of the same importance Whence he infers That the Difference betwixt Men and Beasts is rather in the Objects and Work of our Reason than in our Reason it self as such and that therefore the old difference of Man from Beast in the Word Rationale should be changed into Religiosum That Mans Genus shall be Animal still but his Characteristical Difference should be changed from Rationale to Religiosum We say further That in the Beasts there is a Sensitive Soul of a Flamy Airy Nature a Material Spirit extracted from the Blood and Humours of the Body actuated by Natural Heat and that Flammula Vitalis which pervades their whole Bodies and every part member and parcel of them passing with their blood into all places whither that can come This Spirit it is that directs and actuates the Motions works by the Senses forms the Voices imagines remembers and understands in the Head inlivens and moves the Heart and by which all other Faculties of the Beasts are stirr'd actuated put upon and supported in their Natural Imployments and Duties performed according to the Natural Operations of Spirits with great Mettle Quickness and Imperceptibility and this seems to be the State and Composition of the Beasts Whence we argue That all that is thus found in Beasts and by them performed springs from the motions and actings of a Material Spirit and the force and power of a Natural Flame What hinders then but that a Material Spirit in Man may as well perform the same productions in Body and Mind of those of his Kind and Species both his Motions Senses Affections Imagination Memory and Intellect and all his other Faculties with some more advantage in the degrees of them by how much the Spirits are more pure and subtil in the Humane Bodies the matter more fine and copious the receptacles of them large and the Organs every where properly fitted and terminating the product and performance to the Effect for which by the Creator they were intended and appointed and we conclude in Affirmative that it is likely to be so in very deed But in answer thereunto our Opposers bring in their lately delivered Assertion calculated as we have said and set on foot for such a time as this Viz. That Beasts do not perform their Functions of the Senses Affections Phantasie Memory and Intellect their Local Motion or any of them by the acting or energy of a Material Spirit But they soberly say Beasts are indowed with and actuated by an Immaterial Self-subsisting Spirit which pre-existed before it came into the Body of the Beast and shall subsist by it self after the death and corruption of its Body They do but say this without making or offering any Proof at all of it And one of their Associates in Opinion pinch'd with this Argument of what the Beasts can and do perform in this Kind takes quite another way and manner of evading from under the force and pressure of it Sir K. Digby to shew us there are more ways to the Wood than one takes a Course directly contrary to that of our fore-cited Authors for he fol. 205. and thence to 210. would perswade us and demonstrate as he says That Beasts are not to be esteemed so much as Voluntary Agents or that they have so much as the knowledge of what they do or why they do it but that they act stupidly by a natural sense of Heat and Cold and the density and rarity of their Blood and Members that they are meer Automata without so perceiving by their senses as to distinguish one thing from another He tells us That in his youth he saw two Machines the one at Toledo for raising Water to a great heighth the other at Segovia both set on work by the Current of a River This was used for the Coining of Money and of these Machines he gives us there the Description and then he compares all sorts of Plants both great and small to his Water-Engine at Toledo and all Sensible Living Creatures to his Machine at Segovia They move and work as that Machine doth and they do things that are very proper and useful for their Natures and contrive and act things sometimes very artificial and curious as he says we see in Spiders Webs and Birds Nests But the Animals know not what it is they do but are prompted so to act by a temperament in their Bodies which makes them uneasie and restless until they do act and employ themselves according to a propensity which they have in Nature but they have as little choice or perceiving either why or what they do as his Machine at Segovia of which he relates many Useful and Artificial Practices continually performed without sense or knowledge of any thing that it did and this seems the single Truth of his fore-cited Assertions But he proceeds upon a like Design to many more folio's It seems evident that these two Opinions of our Opposers are directly contrary one of them to the other and yet are intended both for one same purpose viz. to invalidate such an Argument as might be raised from the Nature Power and Practice of a Sensitive Soul that might perswade to the belief of what hath been before asserted by us of the Rational Faculties and Duties being possible and likely to be acted and performed by a Material Spirit if either of the fore-cited Opinions were true it were enough to rebate the edge of such an Argument and to invalidate the force of it but with those who do not believe the truth of either of them they will be of no force at all to the purpose We confide there is no need to labour in the Confutation of either of them for that they will hardly be acccepted or agreed to by Men of Reading and Reason and that therefore our repeated Argument will be of force and continue unimpeachable by either of these Allegations Whence we are at liberty to proceed in our farther Inquiries concerning the Soul We find that Aristotle who lived about Two thousand years ago wrote a Treatise intituled Of the Soul divided into Three Books and those into Chapters the First Book into Nine and the other Two each into Twelve and he treats therein as we have done of all the Three Known Souls viz. The Vegetative the Sensitive and the Rational and calls his Work A History of the Soul and in the very entrance thereunto the First Chapter of it he tells us It is extream difficult to detect the Essence of any thing or the Quid sit Yet that is the most sound Principle of Knowledge if it can
him Art 11. We do not well understand nor so as to say he is right or wrong in it Art 12. and 13. We observe in the 13. that he says The Motions of the Brain do excite divers Senses in the Soul This I deny and he offers no Proof of any thing that he says but goes on and says That besides exciting Senses in the Soul these Spirits can without the Soul move the Muscles and Members of the Body He offers our Winking in Proof of this but I deny his Assertion and judge his Proof very insufficient Art 16. Says All our Motions which are common to us with Beasts may be done by us without the Soul by a common Temperament of the Body and the Members and Organs of it acted by the Animal Spirits derived from the Heart and directed in the Brain All this I grant and do take these to be the main Ingredients for the Frame of a Material Spirit Art 17. Says He hath now left nothing for the Soul save only Cogitare-Cogitations he divides into two Sorts one of Actions the other of Passions or Affections the Actions are what the Soul wills to do the Passions are a sort of Perceptions or Apprehensions found in us which the Soul doth not make but receive from Representations of outward Things All these Cogitations of our Author we do reject and say That whilst the Man continues to be so the Soul and Body neither do nor can act or suffer Separately but always in Conjunction one with the other Art 18. and 19. He divides his Cogitative Wills and Perceptions as he pleases Art 20. and 21. And so for his Sorts of Imaginations and so on to Art 25. There he says The Perceptions or Passions of Joy Fear Anger and the like are referred only to the Soul either not considering or not enough rembering that these Passions are as fully visible in Beasts as in Men and if they be referrable only to the Soul then such a Soul as Beasts have may serve well enough for the Subsistence and Acting of them Art 28. Says No other Perceptions do so much agitate and shake the Soul as these Passions do but Beasts are as much transported by them as Men. Art 30. That the Soul is united to every Part of the Body and to all Parts of it Conjunction is granted And how this is done in the Case of a Material Soul is plain and easie but not how done in an intire Spiritual Substance for that is not yet declared by our Author and we know not that it is Intelligible For he says truly Such a Soul cannot be conceived by Parts nor what Extension it hath or consequently where it is and where it is not Art 31. But yet he says There is a Special Part in the Body where the Soul doth exercise her Functions more perceivably than in all the rest of the Body Some have thought this Place to be the Heart and others to be the Brain but our Author upon accurate Examination evidently knows it not to be in either of these but that it is in one Part of the Brain only viz. the Middle or most Inward Part of it There says he is a very small Glandula or Kernel seated in the Middle of the Brain hanging in the very Channel or Course of the Animal Spirits so as the smallest Motions of this Kernel can do much in altering the Course of these Spirits and the Mutations of the Soul by the Courses of the Spirits do help much to change the Motions of this Kernel Parturiunt Montes We see here what our Authors vast Cogitations concerning the Soul hath brought forth viz. a Glandula admodum parva a very small Kernel to be the Chair of State or the Prime Seat of Judgment for his Imagined Soul This seems to fall far short of our Flammula Vitalis which with the Blood pervades the whole Body and actuates the Heart the Brain and every other and most minute Parts of it living with and in the Animal and not quite extinguished but with our latest and last Breath He offers us not one Word concerning the Immaterial Soul of which if he had any thing to say though but out of his own Cogitations this were the proper Place and this Time his Kue to produce them but his Silence gives consent to an Assertion That he knows nothing of it neither Quod sit Quid sit Quando nor Quomodo to the Vbi only He offers this Guess under the Terms of his believed evident Knowledge His Friend Dr. More doth profess to disbelieve him in it and places the Seat of the Soul in the Fourth Ventricle of the Brain by divers Arguments which I who believe neither of them will not spend Time to examine Art 34. Now let us imagine says he as his Mode of Cogitation that the Soul hath her Seat principally in this Kernel and thence sends forth her Rays to all the rest of the Body by Activity of the Animal Spirits hence whatsoever the Soul her self may be her Rays are not an Immaterial but Material Spirits and one would think her Rays should he like her self Well but says he This Kernel which is the Principal Seat of the Soul can move these Spirits and can be moved by the Soul which is of such a Nature that she can receive into her self various Impressions viz. she may have so many Perceptions as there can be various Motions made in this Kernel Art 35. The Animal having two Organs for Seeing and Hearing and two Hands Arms Legs and Feet the two Organs for Sense receive each the Object which goes double towards the Brain till they come to this Kernel and there they join in one and the Kernel working immediately in the Soul shews it the Figure as now it is become one Object All this seems to shew no more but the Products of his own Imagination led by the Affection which now he bears to this Kernel as the Embrion of his own Brain and Invention Art 36. If the Objects perceived shew Danger they excite the Passion of Fear in the Soul Upon this I demand where Fear is excited in the Beasts which have not such Souls and by what other Means then it is excited in Men Art 38. By Motion of this Kernel Fear is induced into the Soul and though the Legs may run away without Knowledge of the Soul yet this violent Motion of them makes another Motion in the Kernel by whose Help the Soul is made acquainted with its Body's running away Behold the Natural and Remarkable Effects of Dividing the Soul from the Body and ascribing some Actions to the one and some to the other separately and without Concurrence of the other Art 40. The Principal Effect of Passion in Man is to incite and dispose him for Self-preservation either by Fight or Flight He might have omitted the Words in Man for the Case is the very same with Beasts Art 44. The Soul by Help of his Kernel can move the
but not so well Vehement excessive Objects of other Senses do only destroy the present Act or at most but the Organ But such Objects of the Touch may kill as vehement Heat Cold Hardship Smell or Taste can also kill but that comes from their Touches and such Power as an Aspect may have to that Purpose is by Power of what touches Prov. 2.4 Solomon directs Seek Knowledge and Truth as Silver and search for them as for hid Treasures And thus have we ransacked the Treasures of this Philosophical Treatise and Storehouse the best furnished towards the present Purpose of any Magazine which by Art or Nature we know to have been collected there hath no Part of it been left without our closest Scrutiny by which we seem to have found that the Philosopher had made a like Search to this very Purpose in the Times Ages and Writings of those who had lived before him and by such Search had found that Orpheus and Thales held Opinion That the whole World was Animatum and that there was in it an Universal Soul from whence the particular Souls were sent out to animate and inform all that were in Capacity to receive both the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational upon whose future Dissolution the Form Soul Virtue or Active Principle returned back to the Universal Soul or Spirit or Power and mixed therewithal as the Drops of Water returning are received and incorporated into their Ocean or Element And if this were true there must thence follow a Subsistence of Souls after Dissolution of the inspirited Bodies but not in their Individuations or Particulars Next came Pythagoras and he taught an Individuation of Souls That every Animal had its particular Form or Soul and the Souls of Men and Beasts were all of a Mode and transmigrated sometimes into Men and sometimes into Beasts according to their Deserts or as it happened or there was Need in the World This Opinion maintains and requires a Separate Subsistence of Souls after Death of the Body and that in every Particular or in their Proper Individuations and necessarily supposes a Pre-existence of Souls And there must be a great Stock Magazine or Provision of Souls whence all who have need may abundantly be supplied Likewise it supposes an Immortality in the Souls or else in length of time they might come to be clean spent and worn out Then came Democritus and he and Leucippus were of another Mind For they thought that upon the Aptitude and Fitness of the Body for the Receipt of a Soul the Vital Heat required and obtained a Respiration and therewithal the Globular or Fiery Atoms which fly about in the Air are drawn in at each Breathing and they give continual Supply to such Atoms as were in the Body before So long therefore as Animals breath and draw in such Atoms they may live but no longer for want of fresh Atoms or Fire for a continual Supply of their Souls This Opinion makes a Soul created by the Congregating of Globular Atoms not capable of a Separate Subsistence as a Soul but is again dissolved into its Atoms upon Death of the Body Then the Philosophers who more regarded Rational and Knowing Faculties in the Soul than its Vital and Moving ones such as Empedocles and Plato They thought the Soul to be a Compositum of the Elements amongst which Fire was most eminent and potent that all being wrought into an amicable Inclination and mixed in a sutable Proportion there rose from that Mixture a Spiritual Flame which they called a Harmony of them all during whose Continuance the Animal lives and hath Vigor in a like Proportion but in Death it ceases And if this be not the Soul which then leaves the Body what can Men think to be that Soul that then leaves it But if in truth this be the Soul which in Death leaves the Body then first it hath a Beginning but together with the Body and this is taken also away with Death of the Body for that there doth not come to Humane Perceivance or Knowledge of any other sort of Soul departing at Death but this only Flame by them called Harmony Other Opinions of Anaxagoras Heraclitus Almaeon Diogenes Hippo and Critias are also cited before And it seems the Opinion generally current was That the Soul was a distinct Principle from the Body and had a separate Subsistence after Death so strongly conceited as some killed themselves to enjoy Soul-felicities the sooner And this Ancient and General Conceit had so much Power even over Aristotle himself as to induce him to discourse of the Soul generally after the Mode of his Time viz. as of a Self-subsisting Principle and to affirm that a Part of it the Prime and Contemplative Part of it the Intellect actu is Self-subsisting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Immortal and Eternal And to prevent any Bodies demanding what this Soul is he says It is that only which it is and that only is Immortal and Eternal But he gives no manner of Confirmation from Reason or offers any Dilucidation or any farther Discourse upon the Thing But on the contrary whensoever he comes to argue from Reason upon this Point of Subsistence of the Soul in a State of Separation from the Body all his Arguments conclude against such Subsistence of a Soul in that Separate State for that it hath nothing to do wherein the Body joins not with it nor can do any thing not so much as move it self but by the Body nor act any thing in the Body but by the Animal Spirits cannot go out of the Body nor alter any thing in it cannot command the Passions Affections or Appetite but struggles with them after a Natural Manner and uses sometimes Natural Means both outward and inward to obtain Victory cannot punish a rebellious Opposer nor make a Hair White or Black or diminish or increase the Stature can finally do nothing but in a Natural Way and by Natural Means by the Organs bodily and the Animal Spirits and therefore in all his Arguments and Collections from Particulars or Experience the Soul seems to be a Natural Agent acting in and by the Body and employing chiefly the Heart as Vital and the Head as Sentient and Intellectual and all other Parts in Passions Affections Appetites and Motions And yet as this Life of the Soul is according to Nature the same Strength of Reason may seem to conclude for her a sutable Exit such as may best agree with a Natural or Material Spirit Des Caries in his Philosophical Principles Part 4. Sect. 197. mentions thus much shall we say or thus little of the Soul he says We do well enough comprehend how by the Bulk Figure and Motion of one Body divers Motions and Changes may be excited in another Body and such as have great Power to affect the same by acting upon the Senses But says he we cannot at all understand by what Mode these Bulk Figure and Motion do produce or effectually Work upon
Calamos cera conjungere plures instituit Lastly I have chosen the Organ as that Instrument whereunto Mankind may most sutably be compared and from hence shall begin to make general Observations upon these Instruments and Creatures comparando As the Whistle and Horn have no great Variety in their Sounds so have the Insects but something analogous in them to them to Flame and Blood and therefore may rather be counted Animata than Animalie and we shall but little insist upon them but chuse to observe rather upon our Third Instrument the Penny Pipe which can make a Variety of Sounds by several Stops upon it First it appears that this as all our other Instruments this and they all are acted and made sounding by one same Actor or Principle viz. Breath or Wind inspiring them And I say the like of the small Animals compared to it viz. Mice Moles c. we say that they as all other Animals are framed and acted after a similar Manner and as the rest of the greater Animals are and as Man their Supream also is for each of these small Animals have Skin Bone Flesh Blood Sinews Nerves Muscles Joints Heart Brain and Breath as well as the Horse or the Elephant or even as Man himself and act their Five Senses and Vital Faculties as other Animals do and have a Flame of Life or Glowing in their Flood which makes it Circulate Active and Moving as is done in other more large and potent Animals in a Proportion and Nature sutable to their beings The thing is all of a hind in them all as the Wind and Breath in the Musical Instruments the Wind in them doth not make a like Sound or Musick in them all but according to the structure and capacity of every one of them Now give a Penny Pipe into the best Artists hand and who hath a very good Breath yet he shall be able to make but very mean Musick with it sutable to the mean capacity of the Instrument and this is the Case of the Mouse or the Mole amongst Animals though they in their Structure Parts and Spirits are of the same Nature with the greater Animals yet such Spirit and Flame can do no more in those small and weak Bodies than the Capacities and Organs of them will extend unto and those Degrees of Power proportionate to its own Strength Nature and Constitution And so it is in every Degree of Animals one above another the Flame or Material Spirit of Life works in each of them proportionably to act and perform such things and in such manner as the Structure of their Bodies and the Figure Power and Order of their Members make them able and inclinable to act and gives them a Power to execute And just as in the Wind Instruments one sort of Spirit acts them all and one sort of Materials viz Hard Materials Wood or Metâ—al make the Body or gross and palpable parts of them and yet there is that vast Variety in the Musick and Sounds of them as if they were not at all of kin one of them to the other but rather as if they were quite different things in their Nature which plainly they are not for the Matter and Spirit in them all are alike It is true they are different Instruments and make very different Sounds and Sort of Musick And it seems the Case is the same amongst Animals Matter and Spirit are of like Nature in them all Man himself though Sanctius his Animal Mentisque capacius altae his Genus is the same with theirs he is Animal let the differentia be what it will Rationale or Religiosum Man is of the same Kind with the other Animals and is compared by David to the Beasts that perish utterly and so should Man have done unless God had promised and appointed a Resurrection for him and a Judgment upon him But all our Maintainers of the Immateriality exclaim and declaim upon the transcendent advantages which Men have over and beyond the Beasts in the Power and Activity of their Rational Faculty which mistakingly and yet generally they call the Soul of Man and seem so to esteem and think of it but to me it seems there is not a greater difference in Nature or Power betwixt Men and Beasts then in Musick there is between the Organ and the inferiour Instruments from the Trompet to the Penny Pipe or Whistle There is as great a transcendency in the Organ over or and above each of the other Instruments in the Musical Use of them as there is in Men over and above Beasts in the several Kinds of them These Machines viz. the Organ and the Man the one amongst Wind Instruments and the other amongst Animals must evidently be accounted for Superlative and Supream with whom none of the Inferiour Animals or Instruments can hold a reasonable Comparison but Ocularly visible it is that the Organ hath no other Spirit or Cause of its Sound Musick and Harmony but the same that acts in all the Inferiour Instruments And semblably it seems that although Man be a Superlative and Supream Animal yet he may be and is acted by a like Flame or Spirit as we agree doth actuate and enliven the other Animals of an Inferiour Nature or Degree inabling for Acts of Life and Vegetation Nourishment Digestion and Generation stirring their Affections of Lust Wrath and Fear Moving and acting their Five Senses to perceive their several Objects And all these and their Local Motions are as vigorous and perfectly acted in Beasts as in Men and this sort of Soul acts also in Brutes an Understanding Phancy Judgment and Memory true in their Kind but to a very low Degree in comparison with Faculties of those Kinds found amongst Men for that the Humane Head and Organs there placed are far more advantageously framed and fitted for such purposes And thus it seems there is set forth and shewed an apparent and pregnant likeness or similitude between the Correspondence which the Organ hath with the Inferiour Wind Instruments and that which Man hath with the Inferiour Animals And that this Comparison or Similitude may be helpfully used towards the Discovery of the Nature and Operations of an Humane Soul and some farther Assimilations may be made of Man to an Organ viz. First That as in an Organ the Wind cannot command or alter the Sound of any of the Pipes so as to make the Treble Mean Tenor or Bases sound otherwise than that Artist who made them intended them for So it is in Man his Spirit or Soul cannot act any of his Senses or Faculties to other then those very purposes for which the Divine Artificer made and intended them it cannot make the Hand see nor the Foot hear the Shoulders understand nor the Buttocks digest but it can only act every Part Member and Organ to those purposes intended by him that made them Secondly As when any of the Pipes in an Organ are ill made cracked or otherwise harmed the Wind cannot