OF THE SOUL OF THE WORLD AND OF Particular Souls IN A Letter to Mr. Lock occasioned by Mr. Keil's Reflections upon an Essay lately published concerning Reason By the Author of that Essay Minut. Fael in Octav. Veritas obvia sed requirentibus Erasmus in Hyperaspist l. 2. Verborum umbris territamur quùm in re nihil sit absurdi LONDON Printed for Daniel Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar M DC XC IX TO JOHN LOCK Esq SIR IT may seem an improper way of making satisfaction for a former Trouble to give a new one yet since you have pardoned the Confidence that made a Present to you of my Essay concerning Reason and that some very sharp Reflections have been published on a part of that Essay I hold my self obliged to send you my Defence of it My Intention in this Address is not to ingage you in the Protection or to the Countenance of any Opinion further than as Reason allows it nor is it to insinuate that you are of mine to gain it the more Authority For tho I could not procure a greater Advantage to any Opinion I own than to have others perswaded that you are of it yet I must do you the justice to profess that I am wholly ignorant what yours is as to the Point in debate I only appeal unto you now as I did at first as to an Arbiter or Judg for which your excellent penetrating Understanding highly qualifies you without inviting you as a Party to come to my Assistance which at this time I hope I shall not need Mr. Keil in the Introduction to his Examination of Dr. Burnet's Theory of the Earth hath done me the Honor tho I am not sure he designed it for one to mention me with several very celebrated Persons but he doth it in that manner and with that Abatement that I have no great cause of being exalted on that regard After he had instanced in Spinosa Dr. More and Mr. Hobbs as Authors of great Discoveries which might well demand Esteem and Veneration if they were real he picks out some of their Opinions which he believed the most obnoxious that by them his Readers may see how well they deserve such a Character He then adds But a new Philosopher naming me who am not ambitious of that Title has much outdone any I have yet mentioned in a Book lately printed concerning Reason there he assures us that there is but one universal Soul in the World which is omnipresent and acts upon all particular Organized Bodies and makes them produce Actions more or less perfect in proportion to the good Disposition of their Organs So that in Beasts that Soul is the Principle of the sensitive and vital Functions in Men it does not only perform these but also all other rational Actions just as if you would suppose a Hand of a vast Extention and a prodigious number of Fingers playing upon all the Organ-pipes in the World and making every one sound a particular Note according to the Disposition and Frame of the Pipe So this universal Soul acting upon all Bodies makes every one produce various Actions according to the different Disposition and Frame of their Organs This Opinion he as confidently asserts to be true as other Men believe that it is salse tho it is impossible he should any other way be sure of it but by Revelation and I believe he will find but few that will take it upon his word Mr. Keil I hope will give me leave to tell him without offence that the Representation of my Opinion had he pleased to make it in my own Terms would have been less invidious and withal more just than it appears in his However since he hath endeavoured by a Comparison to illustrate or else to expose for I cannot well resolve which 't is the Sentiment I own and that this Comparison is capable of being applied unto it to good purpose I will my self make use of it my own way But first I must give a Plan of my true Notion which in short is this That the Mosaical Spirit called Gen. I. v. 2. the Spirit of God being a Spirit of Life and present every where in all the Parts of the Universe is the Original of all the Energy Motion and Action therein especially of that which is Animal And that particular Souls for such I acknowledg there be are Portions of that Spirit acting in the several particular Bodies in which they are according to the Capacities Dispositions and Qualities of those Bodies A Sentiment conformable to two received Maxims Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis Actus activorum sunt in patiente disposito To make it imaginable let us suppose a vast Organ consisting of innumerable Pipes of different Sizes and Fabrick and this Organ to be filled with Wind blown into it and the Wind to be received and some portion of it appropriated by each particular Pipe Imagine also innumerable Fingers playing upon those several Pipes For then each particular Pipe being played upon will by means of the Wind be made to sound a particular Note differing from the Notes of all the other Pipes according as its Qualities Dispositions and Fabrick differ The World is as such an Organ an orderly Aggregate and the several sorts of Bodies that compose it are as the several Pipes of that Organ the Mosaical Spirit present every where throughout the whole World is as the Wind which is blown into the Organ This Spirit is received and apportioned by the several particular Bodies as the Wind in an Organ by the several particular Pipes and as these inspired with Wind being played upon do sound different Notes or Tunes so those animated with their respective Portions of the Mosaical Spirit being impressed and acted upon by Objects do perform their several vital Functions according to their several Dispositions and Fabrick Thus far the Comparison plainly holds but it may be carried a greater length and made serve to illustrate what I say in my Essay concerning the nature of Animals of Spirits and of Souls For it may be added that as the power of making an Organ sound at all or the power of making a particular Pipe to sound a particular Note arises not solely from the frame of the Organ or from that of the Pipe for the Organ sounds not at all if it be not inspired with Wind and tho inspired with Wind and consequently tho it gives a Sound yet it will not sound to such and such a particular Tune if it be not played upon with the Fingers In like manner the Power of making a Body live or of any particular Instrument of it exercise any particular Action of Cogitation as of Seeing or of Hearing arises not solely from the frame of the Body or from that of the particular Instrument the Eye or the Ear for the Body lives not if it be not animated with some Portion of the Mosaical Spirit and if it be
to be Spirits that are always every where in waiting for an Office which is hard to be admitted I say and those too to be Spirits for that 't is certain that mere corporeal Souls as some call them suffice not for Animal Operations even tho we should conceive them as those do to consist of Flame for vital Actions and of Light for the sensitive ones for if Matter be not radically vital and so there be no need at all of Spirit or Mind and then there is no such thing it will be absolutely unconceivable how Flame and Light which are only Matter under greater comminution of its parts of a particular Texture and in rapid Motion can of themselves be vital and perceptive or make other things become so But to return Mr. Lewenhoec's Experiment of pepper'd Water every Drop whereof affords as he says so many thousands of Animalcles is a sensible Demonstration of an omnipresent vital Principle that acts as occasion is and a sensible Demonstration too of spontaneous equivocal Generations for so I call the Productions of Animals that do not come from Seeds in the common Acceptation of this word I acknowledg it almost a Scandal but to name equivocal Productions at this time they are now so generally disbelieved and exploded but for my part I am not ashamed to confess that as yet I have not observed so much said by the excellent Redi or by any other Author against the Reality of them as to oblige me to depart from a Sentiment that hath been the common Belief of most Inquirers into Nature in all Ages before this last And the Hypothesis of a mundane Soul will make Productions of that kind conceivable without which indeed it will be hard to apprehend how they can be Dr. Cox in a Process of extracting volatile Salt and Spirit out of Vegetables which is described in the Philosophical Transactions intimates this Observation That many of the Herbs putrefied and fermented after his way did swarm with Maggots especially at the Bottom and in the Middle where he tells us Flies and other Insects could have no access to deposite their Eggs and where the Heat is so violent that they could not possibly subsist Some years after that learned Person I find another the experienced Juncken in Processes of much a like nature making the like Observation that in the Putrefaction and Fermentation of the Vegetables great numbers of Insects and little Animals were generated tho as he says the Vessels were never so close stopp'd And indeed it is commonly observ'd that Putrefactions do terminate in Animals of one sort or other The Relations of Barnacles that are said to be Birds arising out of the putrefied Relicks of shipwrack'd Planks which Relations have been confirmed to me by an Eye-witness of unsuspected Credit are further confirmed by the Testimony of an Eagle-eyed Philosopher who tells us he hath seen a Creature of that kind for so I understand Julius Scaliger when in his 59 Exercitation against Cardan he says In Oceano Britannico magis mireris ignotam avem anatis facie rostro pendere de reliquiis putridis naufragiorum quoad absolvatur atque abeat quaesitum sibi pisces unde alatur hanc quoque vidimus nos To the former Story Scaliger in the same Exercitation adds another which he calls miraculous it is of an Oyster-shell not very great that was presented unto Francis King of France and contained in it a little Bird almost finished with Pinions Feet and the Bill sticking to the Extremities of the Shell This Bird he says some Learned Men believed a Transformation of the Oyster His own words are these Singularis nunc miraculi subtexenda historia est ubi de aquis agimus Allata est Francisco regi opt max. Concha non admodum magna cum aviculâ intus penè perfectâ alarum fastigiis rostro pedibus haerente extremis oris ostraci Viri docti mutatum in aviculam Ostreum ipsum existimarunt My Lord Bacon in his natural History Century 4th Exp. 228. tells us That if the Spirits be not merely detained but protrude a little and that Motion be confused and inordinate there followeth Putrefaction which ever dissolveth the consistence of the Body into much inequality as in Flesh rotten Fruits shining Wood c. and also in the Rust of Metals but if that Motion be in a certain order there followeth Vivification and Figuration as both in living Creatures bred of Putrefaction and in living Creatures perfect But if the Spirits issue out of the Body there followeth Desiccation c. In Experiment 339. his Lordship further tells us that all Moulds are Inceptions of Putrefaction as the Mould of Pyes and Flesh the Moulds of Oranges and Lemmons which Moulds afterwards turn into Worms or more odious Putrefactions c. And methinks the Production of Plants without Seed affords a very weighty Argument for the like Production of Animals My Lord Bacon gives us many Instances of the former in the 6th Century of his natural History where he tells us Experiment 563. That it is certain that Earth taken out of the Foundation of Vaults and Houses and Bottoms of Wells and then put into Pots will put forth sundry kinds of Herbs but some time is required for the Germination for if it be taken from a Fathom deep it will put forth the first year if much deeper not till after a year or two And in the 565th Experiment adds that the nature of the Plants growing out of the Earth so taken up doth follow the nature of the Mould it self as if the Mould be soft and fine it putteth forth soft Herbs as Grass Plantane and the like if the Earth be harder and coarser it putteth forth Herbs more rough as Thistles Furs c. Scaliger in his 323d Exercitation against Cardan speaking of the Production of Frogs that sometimes have been rained in great abundance of which there he gives several Instances tells Cardan who affirmed them to be bred of Frogs-Eggs or Spawn that they were spontaneous or equivocal as being Productions of a general Nature and not seminal ones which kind of Animal Productions he evinceth to be possible the same way that I have by shewing that there are the like in Plants Quid multa says he nonne quotidiana foetura caelestis genii quae natura est potentiam declarant Plantae nullis ortae seminiis My Lord Bacon assures us for a certain truth that Toads have been found in the middle of a Free-stone where it cannot be imagined that an Animal of that kind should come and lay her Eggs and I have been credibly informed that-very lately a living Toad was found in the Heart or Middle of a large Oak when it was felled The Animation of Horse-hairs lying in the Summer time in Pools has been observed of many some of which I have discoursed concerning it and an understanding Man of my acquaintance assured me that more than once he hath made an Experiment which
each for the Breath must be in them And where the Breath is in all each hath his Portion of it in particular and then may say as Job Chap. 27. v. 3. All the while my Breath is in me and the Spirit of God is in my Nostrils c. So long his Breath is in him as the Spirit of God is in his Nostrils Thus every Man hath his own Soul but this Soul is only a Portion of the Spirit of God that as a Soul does permeate the Universe so that it is as in Pythagoras's Expression which I find in Lucretius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Spark of Ether or as others choose to express it particula Aur ae Divinae which according to the grounds that I have laid in my Essay I would render a Portion of Mind in Matter So much for my Opinion from the Authority of Revelation As for that of Philosophy I produced in my Essay as Vouchers of my Hypothesis not only the great Philosopher last named who was Founder of the Italick Sect but also Zeno Seneca Plutarch Marcus Antoninus and Apuleius To all which from as many as would fill a Volume I will add a few more Thales the Father of the Ionick Sect held as Laertius tells us that Water was the Principle of all things and that the World was animated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In which Doctrines as is very probable he was instructed by the Mosaick Tradition of the Waters and the Spirit that moved upon them for unto this his Dogmata are very conformable There are in Plato so many Testimonies of a mundane Soul and his Opinion is so generally known that it were to overdo to instance Particulars I have mentioned Zeno Cittieus in my Essay but seeing he was Founder of the Stoick Sect and that I find in Laertius who wrote his Life a fuller State of his Opinion and in more particulars consonant to mine than what I have mentioned already I will produce him again He then as Laertius tells us asserted a Mind that permeated every Portion of the World after the same manner that the Soul in us doth permeate the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But through some more through others less 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For instance some he says it pervaded only as a Habit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as through the Bones and Nerves but through others as a Mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as through the understanding or rational part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Sentiment of a Divine Virtue that pervaded the whole Universe was in antient time so generally received that even the Tyrant Phalaris in an Epistle Consolatory written by him to the Children of Stesichorus if indeed he was the Author of those Epistles passing in his name mentions it as such an one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. which his honoured and very learned Translator renders thus Immortalis quippe Dei vis quae per universum diffunditur mihi nihil nisi haec ipsa harmonia videtur He is also understood by that excellent Person in his Annotations to mean the mundane Soul of the Pythagoreans when in his 104. Epistle which is to the Inhabitants of Catana he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Si enim Divinae sortis quemadmodum caetera naturae elementa c. And even Aristotle tho a great Opposer of the Platonick Soul yet being prevailed upon by irresistible Experience he in a Paragraph quoted out of him by Julius Scaliger in his 26th Exercitation against Cardan comes somewhat near to my Opinion For there he affirms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That both Animals and Plants are produced in the Earth and in the Waters for that there is as in the Earth Moisture so in the Water Spirit and throughout the Universe an animating vivifick Heat insomuch that after a sort it is true that all things are full of Soul To those Philosophers I will add the well-known Testimony of a Philosophical Poet Virgil Aen. 6. Principio coelum acterras camposque liquentes Lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per Artus Mens agitat molem magno se corpore miscet Rendered by Eugenius Philalethes thus The Heavens the Earth and all the liquid-Main nian The Moon 's bright Globe and Stars Tita A Spirit within maintains and their whole Mass doth pass A Mind which through each part infus'd Fashions and works and wholly doth transpierce All this great Body of the Universe I begin to be fatigued with the unpleasant Drudgery of quoting and transcribing and therefore wholly omitting modern Testimonies I will add but one more of the antient and that shall be from Cicero who l. 2. de natur Deor. introduces Balbus demonstrating that all things in the World are subject to a sentient perceptive nature and are administred and governed by it This he evidences by shewing that particular works of Nature have infinitely more of the Beauties of Art and Contrivance than the most noble Productions of Human Skill and yet that no particular Operation of Nature for example the Production of a Vine of a Tree or of that of the Body of any Animal can shew as to Conformation Order and Situation of Parts or as to Adjustment and Fitness of them for ends and uses that wonderful Sagacity that Subtilty of Invention or that wise Contrivance that shines with great brightness in the general frame of the World whence he confidently but justly infers that the whole World is under the Conduct and wise Administration of a sentient and perceptive Nature or else that nothing at all is so Aut igitur says he nihil est quod à sentiente Naturâ regatur aut mundum regi confitendum est This last Testimony as it is an Evidence so it is also an internal Argument and being taken from the Phaenomena of Nature reminds me of what I undertook to do in the third place which was to shew that my Opinion had Reasons for it in Nature and grounded upon things themselves And these I will now produce The First is taken from the Uniformity even in Difformity the mutual Relation and the Harmony of Parts that is in the World in its general Fabrick if it may be allowed to make a judgment of the whole Frame by that of a particular System which we our selves belong unto But I will not now insist any longer on this Argument because it is set out at large in my Essay in many Instances and the learned Reader will find more in Nemesius de nat Humanâ Again this Hypothesis accounts for another Phaenomenon that cannot be so well accounted for any other way that whenever any Matter becomes disposed for Animal Life this is presently afforded to it which how it should come to pass is easily conceived on supposal of a mundane Soul or a Principle of vital Energy diffused every where but otherwise one must imagine particular Souls and those too