Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	animal_n	motion_n	nerve_n	1,659	5	10.9186	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44683	The living temple, or, A designed improvement of that notion that a good man is the temple of God by John Howe ...	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1675 (1675)	Wing H3032; ESTC R4554	157,616	292

to be restrained from putting us into motion and against a reluctant act of our will we are not moved but with great difficulty to them that will give themselves and us the trouble This being I say the case with us and it being also obvious to our observation that it is so very much alike in these mentioned respects with brute creatures how unconceivable is it that the directive principle of their motions and ours should be so vastly and altogether unlike whatsoever greater perfection is required with us as to those more noble and perfect functions and operations which are found to belong to us That is that in us an act of will should signifie so very much and be for the most part necessary to the beginning the continuing the stopping or the varying of our motions and in them nothing like it nor any thing else besides only that corporal principle which he assigns as common to them and us the continual heat in the heart which he calls a sort of fire nourished by the bloud of the veins the instruments of motion already mention'd and the various representations and impressions of external objects as there and elsewhere he expresses himself upon which last though much is undoubtedly to be attributed to it that so main a stress should be laid as to the diversifying of motion seems strange when we may observe so various motions of some silly creatures as of a fly in our window while we cannot perceive and can scarce imagine any change in external objects about them yea a swarm of flies so variously frisking and plying to and fro some this way others that with a thousand diversities and interferings in their motion and some resting while things are in the same state externally to them all So that what should cause or cease or so strangely vary such motions is from thence or any thing else he hath said left unimaginable As it is much more how in creatures of much strength as a Bear or a Lion a paw should be moved sometimes so gently and sometimes with so mighty force only by meer mechanism without any directive principle that is not altogether corporal But most of all how the strange regularity of motion in some creatures as of the Spider in making its web and the like should be owing to no other than such causes as he hath assigned of the motions in general of brute creatures And what though some motions of our own seem wholly involuntary as that of our eye-lids in the case which he supposes doth it therefore follow they must proceed from a principle only corporal as if our soul had no other act belonging to it but that of willing which he doth not down-right say but that it is its only or its chief act and if it be its chief act only what hinders but that such a motion may proceed from an act that is not chief or that it may have a power that may sometimes step forth into act and in greater matters than that without any formal deliberated command or direction of our will So little reason is there to conclude that all our motions common to us with beasts or even their motions themselves depend on nothing else than the conformation of the members and the course which the spirits excited by the heat of the heart do naturally follow in the brain the nerves and the muscles after the same manner with the motion of an automation c. But as to the matter of sensation his account seems much more defective and unintelligible that is how it should be performed as he supposes every thing common to us with beasts may be without a soul. For admit that it be as who doubts but it is by the instruments which he assigns we are still to seek what is the sentient or what useth these instruments and doth sentire or exercise sense by them That is suppose it be performed in the brain and that as he says by the help of the nerves which from thence like small strings are stretcht forth unto all the other members suppose we have the three things to consider in the nerves which he recites Their interiour substance which extends it self like very slender threds from the brain to the extremities of all the other members into which they are knit The very thin little skins which inclose these and which being continued with those that inwrap the brain do compose the little pipes which contain these threds and lastly the animal spirits which are convey'd down from the brain through these pipes Yet which of these is most subservient unto sense That he undertakes elsewhere to declare viz. that we are not to think which we also suppose some nerves to serve for sense others for motion only as some have thought but that the inclosed spirits serve for the motion of the members and those little threds also inclosed for sense Are we yet any nearer our purpose Do these small threds sentire are these the things that ultimately receive and discern the various impressions of objects And since they are all of one sort of substance how comes it to pass that some of them are seeing threds others hearing threds others tasting c. Is it from the divers and commodious figuration of the organs unto which these descend from the brain But though we acknowledge and admire the curious and exquisite formation of those organs and their most apt usefulness as organs or instruments to the purposes for which they are designed yet what do they signifie without a proportionably apt and able agent to use them or percipient to entertain and judge of the several notices which by them are only transmitted from external things That is suppose we a drop of never so pure and transparent liquor or let it be three diversly tinctured or coloured and lest they mingle kept asunder by their distinct infolding coats let these encompass one the other and together compose one little shining globe are we satisfied that now this curious pretty ball can see nay suppose we it never so conveniently situate suppose we the forementioned strings fastned to it and these being hollow well replenisht with as pure air or wind or gentle flame as you can imagine yea and all the before described little threds to boot can it yet do the feat nay suppose we all things else to concur that we can suppose except a living principle call that by what name you will and is it not still as uncapable of the act of seeing as a ball of clay or a pebble stone or can the substance of the brain it self perform that or any other act of sense for it is superfluous to speak distinctly of the rest any more than the pulp of an apple or a dish of curds So that trace this matter whither you will within the compass of your assigned limits and you are still at the same loss range through the whole

discovery of any rational faculty than some beasts to the impugning the universal rationality of mankind Besides that your contrary profession is no sufficient argument of your contrary perswasion much less that you never had any stamp or impression of a Deity upon your minds or that you have quite raz'd it out It is much to be suspected that you hold not your contrary perswasion with that unshaken confidence and freedom from all fearful and suspicious mis-givings as that you have much more reason to brag of your dis-belief for the strength than you have for the goodness of it And that you have those qualmish fits which bewray the impression at least to your own notice and reflection if you would but allow your selves the liberty of so much converse with your selves that you will not confess and yet cannot utterly deface But if in this you had quite won the day and were masters of your design were it not pretty to suppose that the common consent of mankind would be a good argument of the existence of a Deity If it be so universal as to include your vote and suffrage as no doubt it is without you a better than you can answer but that when you have made an hard shift to withdraw your assent you have undone the Deity and Religion Doth this cause stand and fall with you Unto which you can contribute about as much as the fly to the triumph was that true before which now your hard-la-boured dissent hath made false But if this impression were simply universal so as also to include you it matters not what men would say or object against it it is to be supposed they would be in no disposition to object any thing But what were to be said or what the case it self objectively considered would admit And though it would not as now it doth not admit of any thing to be said to any purpose yet the same thing were still to be said that you now say And if we should but again unsuppose so much of the former supposition as to imagine that some few should have made their escape and disburdened themselves of all apprehensions of God Would they not with the same impudence as you now do say that all Religion were nothing else but Enthusiastical Fanaticism And that all mankind besides themselves were enslaved fools And for the meer irresistableness of this impression 'T is true it would take away all disposition to oppose but it may be presumed this is none of the rational evidence which we suppose you to mean when you admit if you do admit that some way or other the existence of such a Being might be possibly made so evident as to induce a rational certainty thereof For to believe such a thing to be true only upon a strong impulse how certain soever the thing be is not to assent to it upon a foregoing reason Nor can any in that case tell why they believe it but that they believe it You will not sure think any thing the truer for this only that such and such believe it with a sturdy confidence 'T is true that the universality and naturalness of such a perswasion as pointing us to a common cause thereof affords the matter of an argument or is a medium not contemptible nor capable of answer as hath been said before But to be irresistibly captivated into an assent is no medium at all but an immediate perswasion of the thing it self without a reason Therefore must it yet be demanded of Atheistical persons what means that you yet have not would you think sufficient to have put this matter out of doubt Will you say some kind of very glorious apparitions becoming the majesty of such a one as this Being is represented would have satisfied But if you know how to phansie that such a thing as the Sun and other luminaries might have been compacted of a certain peculiar sort of atoms coming together of their own accord without the direction of a wise Agent yea and consist so long and hold so strangely regular motions How easie would it be to object that with much advantage against what any temporary apparition be it as glorious as you can imagine might seem to signifie to this purpose Would dreadful loud voices proclaiming him to be of whose existence you doubt have serv'd the turn It is likely if your fear would have permitted you to use your wit you would have had some subtil inventions how by some odd rancounter of angry atoms the air or clouds might become thus terribly vocal And when you know already that they do sometimes salute your ears with very loud sounds as when it thunders there is little doubt but your great wit can devise a way how possibly such sounds might become articulate And for the sense and coherent import of what were spoken you that are so good at conjecturing how things might casually happen would not be long in making a guess that might serve that turn also Except you were grown very dull and barren and that fancy that served you to imagine how the whole frame of the universe and the rare structure of the bodies of animals yea and even the reasonable soul it self might be all casual productions cannot now devise how by chance a few words for you do not say you expect long orations might fall out to be sense though there were no intelligent speaker But would strange and wonderful effects that might surprise and amaze you do the business we may challenge you to try your faculty and stretch it to the uttermost and then tell us what imagination you have formed of any thing more strange and wonderful than the already extant frame of nature in the whole and the several parts of it Will he that hath a while considered the composition of the world the exact and orderly motions of the Sun Moon and Stars the fabrick of his own body and the powers of his soul expect yet a wonder to prove to him there is a God But if that be the complexion of your minds that it is not the greatness of any work but the novelty and surprisingness of it that will convince you It is not rational evidence you seek Nor is it your Reason but your idle curiosity you would have gratified which deserves no more satisfaction than that fond wish that one might come from the dead to warn men on earth lest they should come into the place of torment And if such means as these that have been mentioned should be thought necessary I would ask are they necessary to every individval person so as that no man shall be esteemed to have had sufficient means of conviction who hath not with his own eyes beheld some such glorious apparition or himself heard some such terrible voice or been the immediate witness or subject of some prodigious wonderful work Yea or will tht once seeing hearing or feeling them suffice Is it not necessary there