THE Contrary Hypothesis laid down with an Account how far it agrees or disagrees with the Philosophy of Epicurus Lucretius Hobs c. The Method of the following Discourse Page 1. CHAP. II. The Immortality of the Soul proved by Scripture Page 12. CHAP. III. The Immortality of the Soul proved by such Arguments as are drawn from the Light of Natural Reason and the common Sense and Experience of Mankind The First Argument from the Powers and Faculties wherewith the Soul is endued Page 25. CHAP. IV. The Second Argument from the many gross and dangerous Absurdities wherewith the contrary Opinion is attended Page 49. CHAP. V. Some Subservient Considerations for the further Establishment of the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality p. 67. CHAP. VI. The Testimony of the Ancient Philosophers produced for a further Confirmation of this great Truth p. 79. CHAP. VII Our Author's Objections considered and answered p. 93. CHAP. VIII Of Materiality or Immateriality as they are ascribed to the Soul p. 103. CHAP. IX Directions to such as are in suspence as to the Immortality of the Soul shewing how they may arrive at a certainty in that matter p. 109. CHAP. X. Directions to such as believe the Immortality of the Soul shewing how they ought to improve so important a Doctrine p. 131. The Conclusion p. 161. THE Immortality of the SOUL ASSERTED c. CHAP. I. The contrary Hypothesis laid down with an Account how far it agrees or disagrees with the Philosophy of Epicurus Lucretius Hobs c. The Method of the following Discourse THE Principles of sound Philosophy well tried and digested do greatly improve Humane Understandings the Reasoning Faculty is cultivated and advanced by Exercise by accustoming our selves to think we learn in time to think better and to more purpose and every Truth which we meet with and really make our own prepares us for the discovery of some further Truth which is annexed to it and depends upon it And as our Knowledge increaseth so will also the sense of our Ignorance Hence it is easy to discern the Reasons why amongst so many Pretenders there are so few that deserve the name of Philosophers Some take the knowledge of Words Terms of Art and commonly received Forms of Expression for the knowledge of Things and these they swallow without chewing and upon all occasions bring up again as raw as they took them in and play with them as Boys do with Bubbles till Wise men laugh at them Others there are near a-kin to the former who suck in Opinions as the wild Asses do the Wind without distinguishing the wholsome from that which is corrupt Others can go no further than they are led by the Nose These are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a slavish Nature and he that can so far get the Ascendent over them as to insinuate himself into their esteem which is no hard matter to do may command their Understandings because they themselves never knew how to use them Others have Imaginations so little used to government that they cannot six their thoughts upon a serious enquiry after Truth but they quickly give them the slip and go to play with Impertinencies Some are so dull that they cannot apprehend any thing that lies out of the common Road and is not plain and obvious Others are so sloathful that they grow weary before they have half accomplish'd their search And others so foolishly conceited that they think it below them to alter their present Sentiments But the great hinderance of useful Knowledge is an in-bred radicated Enmity in Corrupt Nature against those Truths which have a nearer tendency to the reformation of ill Manners and the exercise of serious Religion Hinc origo mali And the Age in which we live affords many unhappy Instances of the Predominancy of this Corruption which makes a Learned Gentleman thus to reflect upon it viz. That we are fallen into an Age declining from God in which many are fond of those things which lead us farthest from him and seem most to secure us against him and the Rabble of Atheistical Epicurean Notions which have been so often routed and have fled before the World are now faced about and afresh recruited to assault this present Generation Sir Ch. Wolseley's Unreasonableness of Atheism pag. 37. A like Complaint we have in a late Judicious Philosopher who speaking of the Excellency of the Platonick Doctrine because it draws off our Minds from perishing Transitory things to the contemplation of more noble Intellectual Beings further adds Quâ quidem in re infinitum propè momentum est c. i. e. which is a matter of infinite moment for we are overwhelmed with a Rout of Philosophers who contend that nothing but Bodies can be understood Du Hamel de consens Vet. Nov. Philos Praefat. The like you may find in Ludovic Viv. de Veritat Fidei lib. 1. pag. 145. The Knowledge of Atheists saith Van Helmont wholly depends on a Brutal Beginning and they are unapt to understand those things which do exceed sense for that is the cause why they exclude themselves from the Intelligible World pag. 348. And I find that the late Ingenious E. of Rochester came at last to the same Apprehension viz. that That absurd and foolish Philosophy which the World so much admired propagated by the late Mr. Hobs and others had undone him and many more See his Funeral Sermon pag. 26. How far these Observations are pertinent to the matter in hand you shall see more by and by For my part I desire not to make any man's Opinions seem worse than they are much less to charge Atheism or Infidelity upon a Gentleman who in appearance disowns them You shall therefore hear him speak for himself The Opinion which he undertakes to maintain is this viz. That the Humane Soul is a material Spirit generated growing and falling with the Body and rising again with it at the sound of the voice of the Archangel and the Trump of God pag. 1. Hereupon he endeavours to persuade us that the Soul is nothing else but the inflamed glowing Particles of the Blood called Spirits which are says he the Active Principle of Life Motion Sense and Understanding in Man and Beast pag. 10. And hence he infers That the Soul cannot subsist act or suffer any thing in a state of Separation from the Body but that by Death the man's Faculty of thinking is certainly destroyed pag. 2 3 14 15. And yet he owns the Article of the Resurrection and the last Judgment appointed of God for the distributing of Recompences according to the behaviour which men have used in passing through the Trials and Temptations of this World pag. 6. You have here such a medly of Epicurean Dreams and Christian Doctrines mixt together as is not commonly to be met with The one part of his Hypothesis is below the common Reason and Sentiments of Mankind the other above the reach of the greatest Philosophers without the help of
unequal Tenuity and that Snow is white though when the Eye is affected with bilious Humours in the Jaundice it seems yellow and that the Heads of our Antipodes are as erect as our own whatever our imagination obstinately suggests to the contrary Now if the Mind was of the same nature with the corporeal Faculties their Judgment would be uniform Therefore how much soever Matter and Motion may be concerned in these erroneous Impressions which are made upon our Senses and Imaginations it must needs be some nobler Principle in us which supplies these defects and corrects the Errors which proceed from them Can Matter and Motion make such gross mistakes and rectify them when it has done This is to act above it self to do and undo and is altogether unconceivable and incredible to those who will not be imposed upon by an empty sound of words If you cannot explain the manner of Sensation it self by meer Matter and Motion how will you solve those Phaenomena which transcend the power both of Sense and Imagination What is that in Man which will not form its judgment of things according to the rude Votes of the Senses but consults some clearer Principle within it self Speak to the purpose or not at all 6thly The Soul has a Power of restraining and controlling the inordinate Efforts of the material Animal Spirits which argues that it is a Substance distinct from them The frequent Conflicts between Reason and the sensitive Appetite fully prove that there is in Man a Power superior to that of Matter and Motion The material Animal Spirits are much concerned in the disorders of Passion and Concupiscence But what is that Regent Predominant Principle which condemns and checks these unruly Motions of the bruitish Appetite and chuseth sometimes the most distastful things to Sense yea and can give the Body to be burned for high and weighty Reasons notwithstanding all the Recoils and Tumults of the Material Animal Spirits and useth the Body as its Instrument to serve its own Will and Pleasure What can this be but the Rational Intellectual Spirit which is capable of subsisting without the Body or else would never so consent to its Destruction But on the other hand when the Soul of a Man is so immers'd in Sensuality that it lets loose the Reins to Lust and Appetite and forgets its own Dignity and Prerogative we justly say the Beast rules and not the Man And I believe it will prove at last that the Soul must be accountable to its Maker for such mismanagement and so gross a neglect of its Duty To conclude this Argument If both the Sensitive and Intellectual Powers arise from no higher a Spring than Matter and Motion How come these Material Spirits so to struggle one with another and one part of them side with Reason the other fight against it If you think all this is nothing else but the striving of the ambitious Particles of Matter for superiority and pre-eminence you may think so still for me I am not at leasure to fight with Shadows 7thly There is in the Soul a natural apprehension of its own Immortality and by this God rules the World who needs not will not rule it in a way of deceit The belief of the Souls capacity of subsisting in a state of Separation from the Body is so apt to insinuate it self into the minds of Men and hath been so generally received and entertain'd in the World that it may justly be reckoned amongst the Notitiae Communes or natural Notions which are imprinted upon the minds of Men by the Author of Nature 'T is a Notion which hath endured the Test of all Ages and still prevailed Good Men believe and rejoyce in it Bad Men cannot shake off the fears of it Those that are of contrary Factions Opinions and Interests in other respects are yet agreed in this That the Soul is Immortal The illiterate Vulgar who are guided by the more simple Dictates of Nature have more deep impressions of this great truth than some of the Learned themselves who by their laborious trifling have disputed themselves into greater Ignorance and raised Devils which they have not the Wit or Honesty to lay again Not only the Civilized Greeks and Romans but the Barbarous Scythians Indians c. have believed it And what Salmasius says upon another account de Comâ is as applicable to the matter in hand Quanto magis Barbari tanto felicius faciliusque Naturam Ducem sequi putantur Eam detorquent aut ab eâ magis recedunt politiores Gentes The most Eminent of the Philosophers who have taken pains to cultivate their Understandings and to rescue them from the mistakes which Education Example or Inconsiderateness had betrayed them to have still seen Reason to stand up for this great Truth except a few self-conceited Epicureâ—ns who have been the scorn and by-word of all the rest and the Sadducees whom the Jewish Writers reckon among them Cicero observes that there is in the minds of Men Quasi saeculorum quoddam augurium futurorum Tusc Qu. lib. 1.331 A kind of presage of a future World Moreover these Persons who have endeavoured to run down the Notion of the Soul's Immortality have not been able to avoid the force of it in their own Breasts nor to secure themselves from the fear of what might befal them in a State of Separation from the Body finding something within themselves which bore witness to the Truth in despight of their stupid Opposition And what Seneca saith of Atheists may be applied to these Men viz. That though in the day-time and in company they may with some shew of confidence deny the Immortality of the Soul yet in the Night when they are alone sibi dubitant they are full of doubts about it The Giant Epicurus of whom Lucretius saith He was the first man who durst fight against Heaven Lib. 1. de Natura rerum was himself as fearful as any man of those things which he denied were to be feared viz. Death and the Deity As Cicero observes de Natur. Deor. Lib. 1. and so you find him arguing in Laertius That Death is not a thing to be jested with Vid. Laert. in Epicur 297. Whence the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet observes How hard it is for an Epicurean to silence his Conscience after he has prostituted it for whatever there be in the Air there is says he an Elastical power in Conscience that will bear it self up notwithstanding the weight that is laid upon it Orig. Sacr. 365. And 't is very observable that our Author himself though pag. 15. he says positively That by Death the man's Faculty of thinking is certainly destroyed yet else where he speaks more dubiously pag. 3 11 12. The Minds of such Persons says my Lord Bacon are always wavering and unsatisfied never able to smother the in-bred consciousness of their Immortality so as not to have continual suggestions of fear and scruple Have you not heard of some such Persons
can never be reconciled to or explicated by the rigid Laws of Matter and Motion but all our Actions must either arise from the fortuitous dances and friskings of Atoms up and down the Brain and Nerves or else be necessitated by the irresistible impulse of some Superior Cause and so there is a fatal determination which sits upon the Wheels of these Corporeal Motions And thus Mr. Hobs will have it That our Volitions are necessitated by Superior or Natural Causes as much as any motion in a Clock or Watch and that it is unconceivable that any Act or mode of Act can be without a necessitating Efficient Cause Thus he also affirms a certain connexion betwixt all our Thoughts and a necessary Fate in all things If this be true we must no more say that the Will cannot be compelled but rather that it is always so and by consequence the man that kills another is no more blame-worthy than the Sword wherewith he kills him both their Motions being alike necessitated and the Dog acts philosophically when he bites the Stone but considers not the Hand that threw it Neither is it to any more purpose to persuade men to Virtue than it would be to make a Learned Discourse of Harmony to a Lute instead of putting it in Tune As you like these Consequences you shall have more of them at another opportunity If you say your Opinion is not so gross as that of Mr. Hobs's I answer it had ill hap to be so like it Your words are pag. 2. We see in a Musical Organ every Pipe has its proper sound and function and the same Breath acts them all and therein appears a great effect and power of Matter and Motion rightly fabricated and acted by the hand of Artists and what then may not God do with them and by them when he pleaseth So that if our Material Spirits be inordinate in their motions you are in a ready way to make God the Author of sin by your Philosophy It were much better to say with Cicero Sentit animus se moveri quod cum sentit illud únà sentit se vi suâ non alienâ moveri nec accidere posse ut ipse unquam à se deseratur Ex quo efficitur aeternitas c. Tusc Qu. lib. 1.341 so be it we overlook not the Universal concourse of the First Cause with his Creatures but in a way suitable to their Natures 3dly If the Hypothesis which I am writing against be true no man can rationally believe a Future State of Retribution You have heard already how Individuation and Personality are overthrown by it and by consequence there can be no just room for Rewards and Punishments hereafter because the Person when he died had not the same Soul that he had a month before and why should one Soul be punished for another's Crimes and that other go free Our Author indeed owns the Articles of the Resurrection and Future Judgment 't is likely to serve a turn but what he builds up with one hand he pulls down with the other He says That Soul and Body as they fall together so shall rise again together Whereupon Judgment Rewards and Punishments shall ensue according as men have behaved themselves in this present world pag. 6. But the difficulty returns upon him Why should that Soul which according to his Hypothesis was no better than a little Wheat-flower Malt or it may be some Cordial Julap or other a few days before the man died be judged and punished for all the Faults which were committed long since Will you say that all the rest are past by and that he is only accountable for the Sins of the last Week or ten Days of his Life This would be to turn the Solemnity of the Resurrection and Final Judgment into a meer piece of Pageantry Moreover the Doctrine of the Resurrection cannot be known but by Supernatural Revelation and therefore 't is an Article of meer Belief There is much in it above the reach of Natural Reason and therefore I ask What must the poor Heathens do who know not that God has revealed any such thing Are they obliged to believe and prepare for a Future State or no If you say they are not they themselves will contradict you and so will the Scripture too which makes them inexcusable for their neglects Rom. 1.20 and that they could not be if there lay not upon them an obligation to the contrary Duties If you say they are so obliged you will be ill set to prove it according to your Hypothesis For if the Soul die with the Body and the Resurrection cannot be proved by Natural Reason how shall they believe without Objective Evidence 'T is true they commonly assert a Future State of Retribution and ground their belief of it upon the Immortality of the Soul which if your Opinion be admitted is an unsound Foundation Whence it appears that Natural Light taught them better things than you have learnt from Supernatural and it together And whatever uncertain hints may be found in any of their Writings as to the Resurrection derived perhaps by Tradition from the Jews or inserted afterwards by the pious Frauds as they call them of some well-meaning Christians we are sure they speak solidly and distinctly concerning the Soul's Immortality 4thly Our Author's Hypothesis makes such a sudden descent from the Angelical Spirits to meer matter and motion denying all the active Natures that are between as is absurd and not to be endured Such Jumps as these are not usual in Nature which is wont to act by due and orderly Gradations and not to take precipitous leaps from one extream to another He would not be thought to deny that there are Immaterial Intelligent Angelical Spirits pag. 6 15. And how unreasonable is it to suppose that there are no other Spirits or active Natures inferior to the Angels and differing in their several kinds and degrees of Perfection and Virtue from each other answerable to the several Operations whereunto they are designed by the Author of Nature But that all the great and wonderful Phanemena which we daily behold must be reduced to and solved by the supposed power of Matter and Motion How much doth the Wisdom of God shine forth in that admirable variety which is observable in the visible Corporeal World And are not spiritual or active Natures as noble as Bodies Why then should there not be a proportionable variety in the Spiritual Invisible World Especially when we observe such Vistigia or Images of the higher Natures in those that are lower Thus there is something in Plants like Sense and in Bruits like Reason and in Men there is somewhat which resembles the Deity Must we therefore say that God and the Creature are all one Or must we confound the inferior Orders of Creatures with those that are Superior and deny those active Natures which animate the visible World and distinguish one Species of Creatures from another While
all page 18. With God all things are possible and it seems he who made Matter out of nothing can make any thing out of Matter And to the same purpose page 14. he enumerates several Miracles As of Aaron 's blossoming Rod the staying of the Waters of Jordan the multiplication of Loaves and Fishes c. Thus you see he is so conscious of the weakness of his own Hypothesis that he is forced to fly to a miraculous Power to uphold it This is a ready way of explaining the Phaenomena of Nature But I reply 1st Is not the same Almighty Power able to uphold the Soul in a State of Subsistence separate from the Body 2dly Are the ordinary works of God in Nature and his extraordinary miraculous Works to be confounded 3dly Is it a valid way of arguing from the Power of God to his Will I readily grant That he can do all things which are Works of Power He can do all things which his infinite Wisdom sees fit to do he can do all things that he will do But doth it therefore follow that he will do all things that he can do Is it not horrid prophaneness to prostitute the Doctrine of the Divine Power to serve the ends of every trifling Hypothesis falsly called Philosophy Do we not know that ordinarily God works upon and by his Creatures in a way agreeable to the Natures which he has given them And what is there in a little Wheat-meal suitable to the production of Sense or Reason or Religion It is the part of a Philosopher humbly to contemplate what God hath done and to admire his Perfections shining forth in his Works and not to lay down Hypotheses contrary to the common Sense and Reason of Mankind and then to tell us that God can if he please make these Suppositions good Thus you see that our Author's Philosophy Anatomy and Theology are all alike absurd and that he hath made Miracles so common as will render them in a great measure useless for those extraordinary purposes whereunto they have mostly been designed and that he owns his Philosophy to be weak and impertinent when he is forced to have recourse to a supernatural miraculous Power to support it CHAP. V. Some subservient Considerations for the further establishment of the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality BEsides the forementioned Arguments there are several other Particulars which may justly render the Opinion of the Soul 's dying with the Body odious to all Men who have either the due use of Reason or any sense of Religion 1st This Opinion is highly injurious to Human Nature carrying in it a vile Depression of that whole Species or rank of Beings to which we belong What an unnatural thing is it for a Man to abuse his Reason in vilifying and degrading the reasonable Nature it self as if he repented that God had made him a Man and was ambitious to herd himself among the more ignoble Animals Praeclarum autem nescio quid adepti sunt qui didicerunt se cum tempus mortis venisset totos esse peritos Cic. Tusc lib. 1.339 This is to bid defiance to the Common Interest of Humanity and such a Person should be looked upon as a Traytor against the Prerogative and Dignity of all Mankind And which is more it is contrary to that Obligation and Duty which we owe to the Common Parent and Author of our Beings an ungrateful contempt of that Power Wisdom and Goodness which hath given us so excellent a Nature a casting Dirt upon the Master-piece of the visible Creation and so a robbing God of that Honour which belongs to him upon the account of so noble a Production Let us therefore be more just to our selves more thankful to our Great Creator than so bruitishly to abandon our hopes of Immortality and basely desert the Common Interest and Honour of Humane Race 2dly The whole frame of this unmanly Philosophy is built upon the most precarious unsatisfying Principles imaginable They beg the Question all along and then pretend they have solved the Phaenomena of Nature Cicero told their Predecessors long ago That they assigned Provinces to Atoms without proof And Gassendus is fain to confess that Objection to be true And Dr. Willis himself in whose Authority our Philosopher seems so much to acquiesce rejects the Atomical Hypothesis because it supposeth its Principles without proof and is not suited to the Solution of Natural Appearances See his Book de Fermentatione But because these are but General Charges we will descend to Particulars and shew briefly what a knack they have at Philosophizing upon difficult Points If you ask them how the Soul comes to be so quick and active in its Operations and to turn it self with such wonderful vivacity and readiness from one Object to another Democritus Epicurus and after them Lucretius will tell you That the Atoms prepared for this purpose are of a smooth Spherical Figure See Diog. Laert. in Democ. Epicur Lucret. lib. 3. de Natura rerum and so you know they must needs be very fit for quick motion If you desire an account of Sensation according to their Hypothesis they will tell you of a vis Mobilis Motus sensiferi and something else which they confess they know not what to call from whence it proceeds If you would have the Liberty of the Will explained they tell you It ariseth from a Motion of Declination whereby the Atoms always moving downwards by their own weight towards the Center of the World are carried somewhat obliquely towards some Point different from it And this you must know is the Clinamen Principiorum as Lucretius calls it Ac nos ideo conati sumus declinationem motuum asserere Atomis ut deduceremus qui posset fortuna humanis rebus intervenire ac illud quod in nobis est sive Liberum arbitrium minime periret In a word if you ask what the Soul is they can tell you It is Efflorescentia Materiae and compare it to the Spirit of sweet Oyntment or that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some sort of Spirit they know not what Nihil enim est apud ipsos quod non Atomorum turba conficiat Cic. Tusc Quaest lib. 1. Such nonsensical Gibberish as this they call Philosophy and pretend to explicate the great Works of Nature by it and would needs forsooth be accounted Wits into the bargain when they have amused their inconsiderate Admirers by such an empty sound of unintelligible words But can any Sober Impartial Enquirer be satisfied with such Answers as these And must we let go the Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality that we may fall down and worship that Image of Philosophy which these Men have set up No surely we ought rather to be affected with a generous resentment of so vile an Indignity done to the Nature of Man and with just abhorrence to oppose such wild and impertinent Extravagancies 3dly Such absurd Notions as these expose Philosophy it self to
Truth in his lucid Intervals He confesseth the Soul is something distinct from the Elements and makes it to be quintam quandam Naturam And the like they speak concerning the matter of the Heavens which yet the Peripateticks look not upon as corruptible In his Book de Generatione Animal lib. 2. cap. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. It remains that the Rational or Intellectual Soul only enter from without as being only of a nature purely Divine with whose Actions the Actions of this gross Body have no Communication Here he speaks like an Orthodox Scholar of his excellent Master Plato to whose footsteps the closer he keeps the less he ever wanders from the Truth Dr. More Immort Soul page 115. Elsewhere he says That the mind is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an impassible thing Xenocrates is fully of the same mind That all Souls are Immortal and that he who lives piously and holily on Earth shall certainly be blessed in a future State and shall enjoy more pure pleasures than he was capable of in this Prison of the Body Antisthenes from whom were derived both the Cynicks and Stoicks tells the Athenians glorying That they sprung from the Earth that they were no more noble than Snails and Locusts He exhorts to Piety and Justice as the way to Immortality Ejusmodi sibi viaticum dicebat comparare oportere quod Naufragium facienti simul enatare posset And amongst many other things he wrote 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 concerning the Invisible State Laert. in Antist I mention not the Gymnosophists Brachmans Druids c. What the Poets both Greek and Latin held in this matter is obvious even to School-Boys The Elysian Fields the Infernal Judges the Torments of Hell whereof they speak are so many Attestations to this great Truth Thus you see how generally the belief of the Immortality of the Soul obtain'd among the Ancient Ethnicks and shall any one who professeth to believe the Gospel deny it Who would not say Sit anima mea cum Philosophis I mean rather than with such Christians as these Object Some of the Philosophers whom you mention as Cicero Seneca and even Socrates himself speak sometimes doubtfully concerning the Immortality of the Soul Answ So much the more reason have we to be thankful for that clearer light by which Life and Immortality are so plainly set before us But yet you must remember it was only a certainty which these Philosophers professed to want and not a probability or Opinion that it was true As for Cicero he says he dares swear the Soul is Divine Tusc lib. 1.343 Seneca often asserts its Immortality And so did Socrates when he had to do with such as were capable of receiving and understanding that Doctrine as has been already proved And besides such was the modesty of that Philosopher that he was not wont to be positive in his Assertions but still upon all occasions to acknowledge his Ignorance As for the Epicureans Cicero tell us That all Learned Men contemned them And Austine says Quod ipsi Philosophi Epicurum Porcum nominaverunt Eusebius declares That Lucretius wrote his Poems in the Intervals of Madness Your Friend Dicaearchus is particularly derided by Cicero himself Tusc 335. I might easily mention many more of the Sayings of Ancient Philosophers which further hold forth their belief of the Soul's Immortality Anaxagoras was so intent upon his Philosophical Contemplations that he regarded not the Affairs of the Publick and when one asked him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have you no care of your Country Yes said he the greatest care of all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pointing towards Heaven Laert. pag. 34. Thraseas said Nero might kill him but could not destroy him And the like said Socrates long before concerning his Accusers Anaxarchus told the Tyrant You may break in pieces the Prison of Anaxarchus himself you cannot hurt Laert. 252. Epicarmus as cited by Clemens Alexandrinus says If thou be a good Man Death cannot hurt thee Thy Spirit will live happily in Heaven CHAP. VII Our Author's Objections considered and answered THAT our Philosopher may not think himself slighted I am obliged in civility to take some notice of his Objections such as they are though sufficiently answered in what hath been already said Object 1. The Brutes act sensibly and knowingly by a Material Spirit ergo Man may perform all his Natural Functions by the means of a like Spirit page 2. Answ 1. As for the Nature of Matter I shall shew you by and by how little it is understood by the wisest of you all and that while you are talking so confidently concerning it you do but wrangle in the dark about you know not what 2. I cannot but observe how poorly you shift off the most difficult part of your Work In the first Page we are encountered with a daring Assertion viz. That the Soul falls with the Body But if we seek for proof as 't is all the reason in the world we should there is scarce so much as a shadow of it Parturiunt Montes Not one of the Arguments which have been used both by Ancient and Modern Philosophers and Divines is answered Perhaps they were not worth taking notice of by so transcendent a Genius Did you expect that your bare Word must pass for an Answer or that any Man of Brains would be amused with two or three obscure Quotations out of Aristotle and Pliny You were not born soon enough thus to impose upon Mankind Ipse dixit is quite out of doors 3. As for the Souls of Brutes you say they are Material and take it for granted that they are Mortal from whence you would infer that the Soul of Man is so too But have you well considered the Answers which have been given to this Objection by many great Philosophers If not you are not fit to write about these Controversies If you have you ought to give some satisfactory Reply and not to put it off by saying Dr. W. thinks that such Arguers deserve not an Answer This is but a mean way of Philosophizing Some of the Platonists assign to the Brutes Souls Immaterial Beings diverse from the Body And the Peripateticks say They have Substantial Forms distinct from Matter And Porphyry is peremptory for their Immortality Besides what is said of an Anima mundi But however these Controversies be determined I think 't is easy to demonstrate that the Souls of Brutes are much more noble than the Material Spirits of their Blood But the Immortality of our own Souls depends not upon such Speculations as these We need not run to the Brutes for Arguments Let them do so whose Principles require it If you think you can fairly answer the Reasons which I have given from Scripture and Natural Light in this Point and when you have so done undertake to prove I do not say meerly to assert That the Souls of Brutes are Material and Mortal and by consequence that the Souls of Men are so