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life_n body_n soul_n unite_v 6,137 5 9.8589 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A34555 A philosophicall discourse concerning speech, conformable to the Cartesian principles Englished out of French.; Discours physique de la parole. English Cordemoy, Géraud de, d. 1684. 1668 (1668) Wing C6282; ESTC R2281 53,423 154

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accustom our selves by admiring the structure of our Body to consider that 't is made by an incomparable Workman who is inimitable Besides if we are convinced that the Union of the Body and Soul proceeds only from the perfect correspondence which God hath establisht between the different changes of the brain and the different thoughts of the Soul we ought not to wonder that the one acts so easily upon the other and that their actions do always accompany one another so well as long as God Almighty preserves their Union But in regard that this is one of the most important verities that can fall under consideration it will not be amiss for the opening of all the difficulties thereof to observe that there are three kinds of Correspondencies between the Soul and the Body The first is natural and th●t is that necessary correspondence by which certain sensations rise alwayes in the Soul when certain motions are excited in the brain as motions are excited in the Body when the Soul hath a will to it And this correspondence cannot absolutely cease but with our life and that which wholly changes it causeth death Besides this there is a second Correspondence 'twixt the Idea's the Soul hath of things and the Impressions which those things leave in the brain This correspondence no more than the first cannot change altogether and whilst the Soul is united to the Body she never has the idea of things corporeal but their impression is in the brain But there is a third correspondence between the Name of every thing and its Idea which being only by Institution may be chang'd but yet in regard the sound of the first name men give to a thing is a sensation which the Soul strictly joyns to the Idea of that thing and since also the impression of that name is found joyn'd to that of the thing in the brain we find it a trouble to sever them Whence it is that when we begin to learn a Language we commonly explain by the first word by which we nam'd a thing the new word by which we intend to understand it in the tongue we are learning And there are even such whose brain is so disposed that when they learn a new Language they always joyn to the words of that which they already know the words of the second to represent to themselves what they signifie Others that have another disposition of the brain do so easily joyn the sound of a new word in it self to the Idea of the thing that that Idea is equally represented to them by the two words and they not obliged to think on the one to understand the other Thus one may so well joyn one and the same thought to many signes and to words of different Languages that one may with an equal facility use both to express it But with a very little consideration we may easily judge by the pains we find in the beginning to joyn the words of a new Tongue to the Image of every thing by the necessity we are in to joyn the image of a new word to that of an old which made it to be understood and even by the pains we experience in pronouncing those we learn that Speech indeed depends upon the relation and correspondency of many things and that if afterwards it becomes easie 't is only from the excellent composition of the brain and the admirable commerce between its motions and our thoughts For the rest me thinks if the Soul is oblig'd whilst she is united to the Body to joyn her thoughts to words which cannot be heard nor form'd without the organs of the tongue and the ear She might if that union ceased much more easily discover to every other Spirit what she did think And truly if it be a pain to him that examins it to conceive How the thought of a man that speaks is joyn'd to the motion of his brain and the motions of his brain to those of the parts serving for the Voice if it be difficult to comprehend How that Voice which is nothing but Air agitated strikes the ear and is able by moving the brain to excite in his soul that hears the sound of the words the Idea of the things signifi'd by them if that I say is so hard to conceive because we know there is so strange a difference between the nature of the Spirit and that of the Body we cannot but easily comprehend that if two Spirits were not united to Bodies they would find less difficulty to discover to one another their thoughts in regard there is naturally much more proportion between the thoughts of two like Spirits than between the thoughts and the motions of two Bodies and upon the least reflexion made on the facility and clearness with which one man conceives the thoughts of another by Speech we shall avow that a Soul might incomparably more clearly and more easily conceive the thoughts of another Spirit if both of them depended not from the organs of the Body For a spirit sure should more easily apprehend a thought which is a thing spiritual than the signe of that thought signes being things Corporeal Thus I esteem that 't is much more natural for spirits to manifest or to communicate to one another their thoughts in themselves and without any signes than to speak to one another that is to communicate their thoughts by signes that are of a nature so different from that of Thoughts The pains also which every one finds in conversation and on all occasions where men impart their thoughts by signes or speech is not to comprehend what another thinketh but to extricate his Thought from the signes or words which often agree not with it 'T is also the ignorance of the signes and words that is the cause why men bred in different Countries are a long while together without being able to understand one another But as soon as acquaintance hath afforded them all what 's requisite readily to unfold what every sign or word means they find no more trouble to conceive their thoughts of how different Nations soever they be Which evidently shews that men understand one another naturally that the thought of one is alwayes clear to another as soon as he can perceive it and that if there be men who conceive better than others what is said that facility of understanding comes from the structure of their brain which being so disposed as that the impressions I have spoken of are there more easily received better ranged and more distinctly marked makes the thoughts answering thereto to be also more easie more consequent and more clear whereas those who want that good conformation and disposition of the brain must needs be slower in conceiving by reason of that necessary correspondence and relation between the motions of the Brain and the thoughts of the Soul whilst she remains united to the Body But who seeth not that that entanglement would cease if the Soul were separated from