this I will give you for it his own confession as he freely writ it in a private Letter to that Admirable Lady the Princess Elizabeth first Daughter to Frederick King of Bohemia who seems to have desir'd his Opinion on that important Question about which he sends her this Answer Pour ce qui c. i. e. As to the State of the Soul after this Life my knowledge of it is far inferiour to that of Monsieur he means Sir Kenelm Digby For setting aside that which Religion teaches us of it I confess that by meeâ— Natural Reason we may indeed make many conjectures to our own advantage and have fair Hopes but not any Assurance And accordingly in the next clause he gives the imprudence of quitting what is certain for an uncertainty as the cause why according to Natural Reason we are never to seek Death Nor do I wonder he should be of that mind For all that meer Reason can demonstrate may be reduced to these two things One that the Rational Soul being an Incorporeal Substance there is no necessity that it should perish with the Body so that if God have not otherwise appointed the Soul may survive the Body and last for ever The other that the Nature of the Soul according to Des Cartes consisting in its being a Substance that thinks we may conclude that though it be by death separate from the Body it will nevertheless retain the power of thinking But now whether either of these two things or both be sufficient to endear the state of separation after death to a considering man I think may be justly question'd For Immortality or Perseverance in Duration simply consider'd is rather a thing presuppos'd to or a requisite of Felicity than a part of it and being in it self an adiaphorous thing assumes the nature of the state or condition to which 't is joyn'd and does not make that state happy or miserable but makes the possessors of it more happy or more miserable than otherwise they would be And though some School-men upon Aery Metaphysical Notions would have men think it is more eligible to be wretched than not to be at all yet we may oppose to their speculative subtilties the sentiments of Mankind and the far more considerable Testimony of the Saviour of Mankind who speaking of the Disciple that betray'd him says That it had been good for that man if he had never been born And Eternity is generally conceived to aggravate no less the miseries of Hell than it heightens the joys of Heaven And here we may consider first That meer Reason cannot so much as assure us absolutely that the Soul shall survive the Body For the Truth of which we have not onely Cartesius's Confession lately recited but a probable Argument drawn from the nature of the thing since as the Body and Soul were brought together not by any meer Physical Agents and since their Association and Union whilst they continued together was made upon Conditions that depended solely upon Gods free and arbitrary Institution so for ought Reason can secure us of one of the Conditions of that Association may be That the Body and Soul should not survive each other Secondly supposing that the Soul be permitted to outlive the Body meer Reason cannot inform us what will become of her in her separate state whether she will be vitally united to any other kind of Body or Vehicle and if to some of what kind that will be and upon what terms the Union will be made For possibly she may be united to an unorganiz'd or very imperfectly organiz'd Body wherein she cannot exercise the same Functions she did in her Humane Body As we see that even in this Life the Souls of Natural Fools are united to Bodies wherein they cannot discourse or at least cannot Philosophize And 't is plain that some Souls are introduc'd into Bodies which by reason of Paralytical and other Diseases they are unable to move though that does not always hinder them from being obnoxious to feel pain So that for ought we naturally know a Humane Soul separated from the Body may be united to such a portion of Matter that she may neither have the power to move it nor the advantage of receiving any agreeable Informations by its interventions having upon the account of that Union no other sense than that of pain But let us now consider what will follow if I should grant that the Soul will not be made miserable by being thus wretchedly matched Suppose we then that she be left free to enjoy what belongs to her own nature That being onely the Power of always thinking it may well be doubted whether th'exercise of that Power wil suffice to make her happy You will perchance easily believe that I love as well as another to entertain my self with my own thoughts and to enjoy them undisturbed by visits and other avocations I would onely accompanied by a Servant and a Book go to dine at an Inn upon a Road to enjoy my thoughts the more freely for that day But yet I think the most contemplative men would at least in time grow weary of thinking if they received no supply of Objects from without by Reading Seeing or Conversing and if they also wanted the opportunity of executing their thoughts by moving the Members of their Bodies or of imparting them either by Discoursing or Writing of Books or by making of Experiments On this occasion I remember that I knew a Gentleman who was in Spain for a State-crime which yet he thought an Heroick action kept close prisoner for a year in a place where though he had allowed him a Diet not unfit for a Person of Note as he was yet he was not permitted the benefit of any Light either of the Day or Candles and was not accosted by any humane creature save at certain times by the Jaylor that brought him meat and drink but was strictly forbidden to converse with him Now though this Gentleman by his discourse appear'd to be a man of a lively humour yet being ask'd by me how he could do to pass the time in that sad solitude he confessed to me that though he had the liberty of walking too and fro in his Prison and though by often recalling into his mind all the adventures and other passages of his former life and by several ways combining and diversifying his Thoughts he endeavoured to give his mind as much variety of employment as he was able yet that would not serve his turn but he was often reduc'd by drinking large draughts of Wine and then casting himself upon his bed to endeavour to drown that Melancholly which the want of new objects cast him into And I can easily admit he found a great deal of difference between the sense he had of thinking when he was at liberty and that which he had when he was confin'd to that employment whose delightfulness like fire cannot last long when it is as his was denied
dark And first touching the Body of Man The Epicureans attributed its Original as that of all things else to the Casual Concourse of Atoms and the Stoicks absurdly and injuriously enough but much more pardonably than their follower herein Mr. Hobbs would have Men to spring up like Mushrooms out of the ground and whereas other Philosophers maintain conceits about it too wild to be here recited the Book of Genesis assures us that the Body of Man was first form'd by God in a peculiar manner of a Terrestrial Matter and 't is there described as having been perfected before the Soul was united to it And as Theology thus teaches us how the Body of Man had its first beginning so it likewise assures us what shall become of the Body after death though bare Natural Reason will scarce be pretended to reach to so abstruse and difficult an Article as that of a Resurrection which when propos'd by St. Paul produc'd among the Athenian Philosophers nothing else but wonder or laughter Not to mention that Theology teaches us divers other things about the Origine and Condition of Mens Bodies as That all Mankind is the Off-spring of One Man and one Woman That the first Woman was not made of the same Matter nor after the same Manner as the first Man but was afterwards taken from his side That both Adam and Eve were not as many Epicureans and other Philosophers fanci'd that the first men were first Infants whence they did as we do grow by degrees to be mature and compleat Humane Persons but were made so all at once and That hereafter as all mens Bodies shall rise again so they shall all or at least all those of the just be kept from ever dying a second time And as for the Humane Soul though I willingly grant that much may be deduc'd from the Light of Reason onely touching its Existence Properties and Duration yet Divine Revelation teaches it us with more clearness and with greater Authority as sure he that made our Souls and upholds them can best know what they are and how long he will have them last And as the Scripture expresly teaches us that the Rational Soul is distinct from the Body as not being to be destroy'd by those very Enemies that kill the Body so about the Origine of this Immortal Soul about which Philosophers can give us but wide and precarious conjectures Theology assures us that the Soul of man had not such an Origination as those of other Animals but was Gods own immediate Workmanship and was united to the Body already form'd And yet not so united but that upon their Divorce she will survive and pass into a state in which Death shall have no power over her I expect you will here object that for the knowledge of the Perpetual Duration of separate Souls we need not be beholding to the Scripture since the Immortality of the Soul may be sufficiently prov'd by the sole Light of Nature and particularly has been demonstrated by your great Des Cartes But you must give me leave to tell you that besides that a matter of that weight and concernment cannot be too well prov'd and consequently ought to procure a welcome for all good Mediums of Probation besides this I say I doubt many Cartesians do as well as others mistake both the difficulty under consideration and the scope of Des Cartes's Discourse For I grant that by Natural Philosophy alone the Immortality of the Soul may be prov'd against its usual Enemies Atheists and Epicureans For the ground upon which these men think it mortal being That 't is not a true substance but onely a modification of Body which consequently must perish when the frame or structure of the Body whereto it belongs is dissolv'd Their ground being this I say if we can prove by some Intellectual Operations of the Rational Soul which Matter however modifi'd cannot reach That it is a Substance distinct from the Humane Body there is no reason why the Dissolution of the Latter should infer the Destruction of the Former which is a simple Substance and as real a Substance as Matter it self which yet the Adversaries affirm to be Indestructible But though by the Mental Operations of the Rational Soul and perhaps by other Mediums it may against the Epicureans and other meer Naturalists who will not allow God to have any thing to do in the case be prov'd to be Immortal in the sense newly propos'd yet the same Proofs will not evince that absolutely it shall never cease to be if we dispute with Philosophers who admit as the Cartesians and many others do that God is the sole Creator and Preserver of all things For how are we sure but that God may have so ordain'd That though the Soul of Man by the continuance of his ordinary and upholding Concourse may survive the Body yet as 't is generally believ'd not to be created till it be just to be infus'd into the Body so it shall be annihilated when it parts with the Body God withdrawing at death that supporting influence which alone kept it from relapsing to its first Nothing Whence it may appear that notwithstanding the Physical proofs of the Spirituality and separableness of the Humane Soul we are yet much beholding to Divine Revelation for assuring us that its Duration shall be endless And now to make good what I was intimating above concerning the Cartesians and the scope of Des Cartes's Demonstration I shall appeal to no other than his own Expressions to evince that he consider'd this matter for the main as we have done and pretended to demonstrate that the Soul is a Distinct Substance from the Body but not that absolutely speaking it is Immortal Cur answers that excellent Author de immortalitate Animae nihil scripserim jam dixi in Synopsi mearum Meditationum Quod ejus ab omni corpore distinctionem satis probaverim supra ostendi Quod vero additis Ex distinctione Animae á corpore non sequi ejus Immortalitatem quia nihilominus dici potest illam à Deo talis naturae factam esse ut ejus Duratio simul cum Duratione vitae corporeae finiatur fateor á me refelli non posse Neque enim tantum mihi assumo ut quicquam de iis quae à libera Dei voluntate dependent humanae rationis vi determinare aggrediar Docet Naturalis cognitio c. Sed si de absoluta Dei potestate quaeratur an forte decreverit ut humanae animae iisdem Temporibus esse desinant quibus Corpora quae illis adjunxit solius Dei est respondere And if he would not assume to demonstrate by Natural Reason so much as the Existence of the Soul after death unless upon a supposition we may well presume that he would less take upon him to determine what shall be the condition of that Soul after it leaves the Body And that you may not doubt of
both fuel and vent And in a word though I most readily grant that Thinking interwoven with Conversation and Action may be a very pleasant way of passing ones Time yet Man being by nature a sociable creature I fear that alone would be a dry and wearisome Imployment to spend Eternity in Before I proceed to the next Section I must not omit to take notice That though the brevity I propos'd to my self keeps me from discoursing of any Theological Subjects save what I have touch'd upon about the Divine Attributes and the things I have mention'd about the Universe in general and the Humane Soul yet there are divers other things knowable by the help of Revelation and not without it that are of so noble and sublime a Nature that the greatest Wits may find their best Abilities both fully exercis'd and highly gratifi'd by making Enquiries into them I shall not name for proof of this the Adorable Mystery of the Trinity wherein 't is acknowledg'd that the most soaring Speculators are wont to be pos'd or to loose themselves But I shall rather mention the Redemption of Mankind and the Decrees of God concerning Men. For though these seem to be less out of the Ken of our Natural Faculties yet 't is into some things that belong to the former of them that the Scripture tells us The Angels desire to pry and 't was the consideration of the latter of them that made one that had been caught up into the Mansion of the Angels amazedly cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Not are these the onely things that the Scripture it self terms Mysteries though for brevities sake instead of specifying any of them I shall content my self to represent to you in general that since Gods wisdom is boundless it may sure have more ways than one to display it self And though the material World be full of the Productions of his Wisdom yet that hinders not but that the Scripture may be enobled with many excellent Impresses and as it were Signatures of the same Attribute For as I was beginning to say it cannot but be highly injurious to the Deity in whom all other True Perfections as well as Omniscience are both united and transcendent to think that he can contrive no ways to disclose his Perfections besides the ordering of Matter and Motion and cannot otherwise deserve to be the Object of Mens studies and their Admiration than in the capacity of a Creator And I think I might safely add that besides these Grand and Mysterious Points I came from mentioning there are many other noble and important things wherein unassisted Reason leaves us in the dark which though not so clearly reveal'd in the Scripture are yet in an inviting measure discover'd there and consequently deserve the indagation of a Curious and Philosophical Soul Shall we not think it worth enquiring whether the Satisfaction of Christ was necessary to appease the Justice of God and purchase Redemption for Mankind Or whether God as Absolute and Supreme Governour of the World might have freely remitted the Penalties of sin Shall we not think it worth the inquiring upon what Account and upon what Terms the Justification of Men â—â—wards God is transacted especially considering how much it imports us to know and how perplexedly a Doctrine not in it self abstruse is wont to be delivered Shall not we inquire whether or no the Souls of Men before they were united to their Bodies pre-existed in a happier state as many of the Ancient and Modern Jews and Platonists and besides Origen some Learned Men of our times do believe And shall not we be curious to know whether when the Soul leaves the Body it do immediately pass to Heaven or Hell as 't is commonly believed or for want of Organs be laid as it were asleep in an insensible and unactive state till it recover the Body at the Resurrection as many Socinians and others maintain Or whether it be conveyed into secret Recesses where though it be in a good or bad condition according to what it did in the Body 't is yet repriev'd from the flames of Hell and restrain'd from the Beatifick Vision till the Day of Judgment which seems to have been the opinion of many if not most of the Primitive Fathers and Christians Shall not we be curious to know whether at that great Decretory Day this vast Fabrick of the World which all confess must have its frame quite shatter'd shall be suffer'd to relapse into its first Nothing as several Divines assert or shall be after its Dissolution renew'd to a better state and as it were Transfigur'd And shall not we inquire whether or no in that future state of things which shall never have an end we shall know one another as Adam when he awak'd out of his profound sleep knew Eve whom he never saw before and whether those Personal Friendships and Affections we had for one another here and the pathetick Consideration of the Relations as of Father and Son Husband and Wife Chaste Mistris and Virtuous Lover Prince and Subject on which many of them were grounded shall continue Or whether all those things as antiquated and slight shall be obliterated and as it were swallowed up as the former Relation of a Cousin a great way off is scarce at all consider'd when the Persons come so to change their state as to be united by the strict Bonds of Marriage But 't were tedious to propose all the other Points whereof the Divine takes cognizance that highly merit an inquisitive mans curiosity and about which all the Writings of the old Greek and other Heathen Philosophers put together will give us far less information than the single Volume of Canonical Scripture I foresee indeed that it may nevertheless be objected that in some of these Inquiries Revelation incumbers Reason by delivering things which Reason is obliged to make its Hypothesis consistent with But besides that this cannot be so much as pretended of all if you consider how much unassisted Reason leaves us in the dark about these matters wherein she has not been able to frame so much as probable determinations especially in comparison of those probabilities that Reason can deduce from what it finds one way or other delivered in the Scripture If you consider this I say you will I presume allow me to say That the revealed Truths which Reason is obliged to comply with if they be burdens to it are but such Burdens as Feathers are to a Hawk which instead of hindring his flight by their weight enable him to soar toward Heaven and take a larger prospect of things than if he had not feathers he could possibly do And on this occasion Sir the greater Reverence I owe to the Scripture it self than to its Expositors prevails upon me to tell you freely that you will not do right either to Theology or the greatest Repository of its Truths the Bible if you imagine that there are no
them to a Philosophers esteem as the sight of one Eye skilfully dissected or the unadorn'd Account given of its Structure and the admirable uses of its several parts in Scheiner's Oculus and Des-Cartes's Excellent Dioptricks And though I do not think my self bound to acquiesce in and admire every thing that is propos'd as Mysterious and Rare by many Interpreters and Preachers yet I think I may safely compare several things in the Books we call the Scripture to several others in that of Nature in at least one regard For though I do not believe all the Wonders that Pliny Aelian Porta and other Writers of that stamp relate of the Generation of Animals yet by perusing such faithful and accurate accounts as sometimes Galen De usu Partium sometimes Vesalius sometimes our Harvey de Ovo and our later Anatomists and sometimes other true Naturalists give of the Generation of Animals and of the admirable Structure of their Bodies especially those of Men and such other parts of Zoology as Pliny and the other Writers I nam'd with him could make nothing considerable of by perusing these I say I receive more pleasure and satisfaction and am induc'd more to admire the works of Nature than by all their Romantic and Superficial Narratives And thus to apply this to our present Subject a close and critical account of the more vail'd and pregnant parts of Scripture and Theological Matters with such Reflections on them as their Nature and Collation would suggest to a Philosophical as well as Critical Speculator would far better please a Rational Considerer and give him a higher as well as a better grounded Veneration for the things explain'd than a great many of those sleighter or ill-founded Remarks wherewith the Expositions and Discourses of Superficial Writers though never so florid or witty gain the applause of the less discerning sort of men And here on this occasion I shall venture to add that I despair not but that a further use may be made of the Scripture than either our Divines or Philosophers seem to have thought on Some few Theologues indeed have got the name of Supralapsarians for venturing to look back beyond the Fall of Adam for God's Decrees of Election and Reprobation But besides that their boldness has been dislik'd by the generality of Divines as well as other Christians the Object of their Speculation is much too narrow to be any thing near and adequate to such an Hypothesis as I mean For me-thinks that the Encyclopedia's and Pansophia's that even men of an elevated Genius have aimed at are not diffus'd enough to comprehend all that the Reason of a Man improv'd by Philosophy and elevated by the Revelations already extant in the Scripture may by the help of free Ratiocination and the hints contain'd in those pregnant Writings with those assistances of God's Spirit which he is still ready to vouchsafe to them that duly seek them attain unto in this life The Gospel comprises indeed and unfolds the whole Mystery of Man's Redemption as far forth as 't is necessary to be known for our Salvation And the Corpusculariùm or Mechanical Philosophy strives to deduce all the Phoenomena of Nature from Adiaphorous Matter and Local Motion But neither the Fundamental Doctrine of Christianity nor that of the Powers and Effects of Matter and Motion seems to be more than an Epicycle if I may so call it of the Great and Universal System of God's Contrivances and makes but a part of the more general Theory of things knowable by the Light of Nature improv'd by the Information of the Scriptures So that both these Doctrines though very general in respect of the subordinate parts of Theology and Philosophy seem to be but members of the Universal Hypothesis whose Objects I conceive to be the Nature Counsels and Works of God as far as they are discoverable by us for I say not to us in this Life For those to whom God has vouchsafed the priviledge of mature Reason seem not to enlarge their thoughts enough if they think that the Omniscient and Almighty God has bounded the Operations of his Power and Wisdom and Goodness to the Exercise that may be given them for some Ages by the Production and Government of Matter and Motion and of the Inhabitants of the Terrestrial Globe which we know to be but a Physical Point in comparison of that Portion of Universal Matter which we have already discover'd For I account that there are four grand Communities of Creatures whereof things meerly Corporeal make but one the other three differing from these are distinct also from one another Of the first sort are the Race of Mankind where Intellectual Beings are vitally associated with Gross and Organical Bodies The second are Daemons or evil Angels and the third good Angels whether in each of those two kinds of Spirits the Rational Beings be perfectly free from all union with Matter though never so fine and subtile or whether they be united to Vehicles not Gross but Spirituous and ordinarily invisible to Us. Nor may we think because Angels and Devils are two names quickly utter'd and those Spirits are seldome or never seen by us there are therefore but few of them and the Speculation of them is not considerable For as their Excellency is great as we shall by and by shew so for their number they are represented in Scripture as an Heavenly Host standing on the right and left hand of the Throne of God And of the good Angels our Saviour Speaks of having more than twelve Legions of them at his command Nay the Prophet Daniel saith that to the Antient of days no less than millions ministred unto him and hundreds of millions stood before him And of the evil Angels the Gospel informs us that enough to call them a Legion which you know is usually reckon'd at a moderate rate to consist of betwixt six and seven thousand possess'd one single man For my part when I consider that matter how vastly extended and how curiously shap'd soever is but a brute thing that is onely capable of Local motion and its effects and consequents on other Bodies or the Brain of man without being capable of any True or at least any Intellectual Perception or true Love or Hatred and when I consider the Rational Soul as an immaterial and immortal Being that bears the Image of its Divine Maker being indow'd with a capacious Intellect and a Will that no Creature can force I am by these Considerations dispos'd to think the Soul of Man a nobler and more valuable Being than the whole Corporeal World which though I readily acknowledge it to be admirably contriv'd and worthy of the Almighty and Omniscient Author yet it consists but of an Aggregate of Portions of brute Matter variously shap'd and connected by Local Motion as Dow and Roles and Loves and Cakes and Vermicelli Wafers and Pie-crust are all of them diversified Meal but without any knowledge either of
Brooks And as a state of Celestial happiness is so great a Blessing that those things that afford us either greater assurances or greater foretastes of it are of the number of the greatest Contentments and Advantages that short of It we can enjoy so 't is hard for any Divine to receive so much of this kind of satisfaction as he who by skilfully looking into the Wonders of Nature has his apprehensions of God's power and manifold wisdom as an Apostle calls it elevated and enlarg'd As when the Queen of Sheba had particularly survey'd the astonishing Prudence that Solomon display'd in the ordering of his Magnificent Court she transportedly concluded those Servants of his to be happy enough to deserve a Monarchs Envy that were allowed the Honour and Priviledge of a constant and immediate Attendance on him The second Section I Doubt not but you have too good an Opinion of your Friend not to think that you may alledge in his favour that the chief thing which makes him prefer Physiology to all other kind of knowledge is That it enables those who are Proficients in it to do a great deal of good both by improving of Trades and by promoting of Physick it self And I am too mindful of what I writ to Pyrophilus to deny either that it can assist a man to advance Physick and Trades or that by so doing he may highly advantage Mankind And this I who would not lessen your Friends Esteem for Physicks but onely his Partiality willingly acknowledge to be so allowable an Endearment of Experimental Philosophy that I do not know any thing that to men of a Humane as well as Ingenious Disposition ought more to recommend the study of Nature except the opportunity it affords men to be Just and Grateful to the Author both of Nature and of Man I do not then deny that the true Naturalist may very much benefit Mankind but I affirm that if men be not wanting to themselves the Divine may benefit them much more It were not perchance either unseasonable or impertinent to tell you on this occasion that he who effectually teaches men to subdue their Lusts and Passions does as much as the Physician contribute to the preservation of their Bodies by exempting them from those Vices whose no less usual than destructive Effects are Wars and Duels and Rapines and Desolations and the Pox and Surfets and all the train of other Diseases that attend Gluttony and Drunkenness Idleness and Lust which are not Enemies to Mans Life and Health barely upon a Physical account but upon a Moral one as they provoke God to punish them with Temporal as well as Spiritual Judgments such as Plagues Wars Famines and other publick Calamities that sweep away a great part of Mankind besides those personal afflictions of Bodily Sickness and disquiets of Conscience that do both Shorten mens Lives and Imbitter them Whereas Piety having as the Scripture assures us Promises both of this Life and of that which is to come those Teachers that make men Virtuous and Religious by making them Temperate and Chaste and Inoffensive and Calm and Contented do not onely procure them great and excellent Dispositions to those Blessings both of the Right hand and of the Left which God's Goodness makes him forward to bestow on those who by Grace and Virtue are made fit to receive them but do help them to those Qualifications that by preserving the Mind in a calm and cheerful temper as well as by affording the Body all that Temperance can confer do both Lengthen their Lives and Sweeten them These things I say 't were not impertinent to insist on but I will rather chuse to represent to you That the Benefits which men may receive from the Divine surpass those which they receive from the Naturalist both in the Nobleness of the Advantages and in the Duration of them Be it granted then that the Naturalist may much improve both Physick and Trades yet since these themselves were devised for the service of the Body the one to preserve or restore his Health and the other to furnish it with Accommodations or Delights the boasted use of Natural Philosophy by its advancing Trades and Physick will still be to serve the Body which is but the Lodging and Instrument of the Soul and which I presume your Friend and which I am sure your self will be far from thinking the noblest part of Man I know it may be said nor do I deny it that divers Mechanical Arts are highly Beneficial not onely to the Inventors but to those Places and perhaps those States where such Improvements are found out and cherish'd But though I most willingly grant that this Consideration ought to recommend Experimental Philosophy as well to States as to private Persons yet besides that many of these Improvements do rather Transfer than Increase Mankind's goods and prejudice one sort of Men as much as they Advantage another as in the case of the Eastern Spices of whose Trade the Portugals and Dutch by their later Navigations did by appropriating it to themselves deprive the Venetians or else does but increase that which though very Beneficial to the Producers is not really so to Mankind in general Of which we have an Example in the Invention of Extracting Gold and Silver out of the Oar with Mercury For though it have vastly enrich'd the Spaniards in the West Indies yet 't is not of any solid advantage to the World no more than the Discovery of the Peruvian and other American Mines by which especially reckoning the multitudes of unhappy men that are made miserable and destroyed in working them Mankind is not put into a better condition than it was before And if the Philosopher's Stone it self supposing there be such a thing were not an Incomparable Medicine but were onely capable of transmuting other Metalls into Gold I should perhaps doubt whether the Discoverer of it would much advantage Mankind there being already Gold and Silver enough to maintain Trade and Commerce among men and for all other purposes I know not why a plenty of Iron and Brass and Quick-silver which are far more useful Metalls should not be more desirable But not to urge this we may consider that these Advancements of inriching Trades do still bring Advantages but to the outward man and those many Arts and Inventions that aim at the heightning the pleasures of the Senses belong but to the Body and even in point of gratifying That are not so requisite and important as many suppose Education Custome c. having a greater Interest than most imagine in the rellish men have even of Sensitive pleasures And as for Physick not to mind you that it has been Lowdly how Justly I here examine not complain'd of that the new Philosophy has made it far greater promises than have yet been perform'd I shall onely take notice that since all that Physick is wont to pretend to is to preserve health or restore it there are
Impressions on the Sensories they variously move the Fibres or Threds of the Nerves wherewith those parts are endow'd and by which the Motion is propagated to that little Kernel in the Brain call'd by many Writers the Conarion where these differing motions being perceiv'd by the there residing Soul become Sensations because of the intimate union and as it were Permistion as Cartesius himself expresses it of the Soul with the Body But now Sir give me leave to take notice that this Union of an Incorporeal with a Corporeal Substance and that without a Medium is a thing so unexampled in Nature and so difficult to comprehend that I somewhat question whether the profound Secrets of Theology not to say the adorable Mystery it self of the Incarnation be more abstruse than this For how can I conceive that a Substance purely immaterial should be united without a Physical Medium for in this case there can be none with the Body which cannot possibly lay hold on It and which It can pervade and flie away from at pleasure as Des-Cartes must confess the Soul actually does in Death And 't is almost as difficult to conceive how any part of the Body without excepting the Animal Spirits or the Conarion for these are as truly Corporeal as other parts of the Humane Statue can make Impressions upon a Substance perfectly Incorporeal and which is not immediately affected by the motions of any other parts besides the Genus Nervosum Nor is it a small difficulty to a meer Naturalist who as such does not in Physical matters take notice of Revelations about Angels to conceive how a finite Spirit can either move or which is much the same thing regulate and determine the motion of a Body But that which I would on this occasion invite you to consider is that supposing the Soul does in the Brain perceive the differing motions communicated to the outward Senses yet this however it may give some account of Sensation in general will not at all show us a satisfactory Reason of particular and distinct Sensations For if I demand why for Instance when I look upon a Bell that is ringing such a motion or impression in the Conarion produces in the mind that peculiar sort of perception Seeing and not Hearing and another motion though coming from the same Bell at the same time produces that quite differing sort of perception that we call Sound but not Vision what can be answered but that it was the good pleasure of the Author of Humane Nature to have it so And if the question be ask'd about the differing Objects of any one particular Sense as Why the great plenty of unperturbed Light that is reflected from Snow Milk c does produce a Sensation of whiteness rather than redness or yellowness Or why the smell of Castor or Assa foetida produces in most persons that which they call a Stink rather than a Perfume especially since we know some Hysterical Women that think it not onely a wholesome but a pleasing smell And if also you further ask why Melody and sweet things do generally delight us and discords and bitter things do generally displease us Nay why a little more than enough of some Objects that produce pleasure will produce pain as may be exemplifi'd in a cold hand as it happens to be held out at a just or at too near a distance from the fire If I say these and a thousand other questions of the like kind be ask'd the Answer will be but the general one that is already given that such is the nature of Man For to say that moderate Motions are agreeable to the nature of the Sensory they are excited in but violent and disorderly ones as jâ—ring Sounds and scorching Heat do put it into too violent a motion for its Texture will by no means satisfie For besides that this Answer gives no account of the variety of Sensations of the same kind as of differing Colours Tastes c. but reaches onely to Pleasure and Pain even as to these it will reach but a very little way unless the Givers of it can show how an Immaterial Substance should be more harm'd by the brisker motion of a Body than by the more languid And as you and your Friend think you may justly smile at the Aristotelians for imagining that they have given a tolerable account of the Qualities of Bodies when they have told us that they spring from certain substantial Forms though when they are ask'd particular Questions about these Incomprehensible Forms they do in effect but tell us in general that they have such and such Faculties or Effects because Nature or the Author of Nature endow'd them therewith so I hope you will give me leave to think that it may keep us from boasting of the Clearness and Certainty of our knowledge about the Operations of sensible Objects whilst as the Aristotelians cannot particularly show how their Qualities are produc'd so we cannot particularly explicate how they are perceiv'd the principal thing that we can say being in substance this that our Sensations depend upon such an union or permistion of the Soul and Body as we can give no Example of in all Nature nor no more distinct account of than that it pleased God so to couple them together But I beg your pardon for having detain'd you so long upon one Subject though perhaps it will not prove time mis-spent if it have made you take notice that in spight of the clearness and certainty for which your Friend so much prefers Physicks before Theology we are Yet to seek I say Yet because I know not what Time may Hereafter discover both for the Definition of a Corporeal Substance and a satisfactory account of the manner of Sensation though without the true Notion of a Body we cannot understand that Object of Physicks in general and without knowing the Nature of Sensation we cannot know That from whence we derive almost all that we know of any Body in particular If after all this your Friend shall say That Des-Cartes's account of Body and other things in Physicks being the best that men can give if they be not satisfactory it must be imputed to Humane Nature not to the Cartesian Doctrine I shall not stay to dispute how far the allegation is true especially since though it be admitted it will not prejudice my Discourse For whatsoever the Cause of the imperfection of our Knowledge about Physical matters be that there is an Imperfection in that Knowledge is manifest and that ought to be enough to keep us from being puffed up by such an imperfect Knowledge and from undervaluing upon its account the study of those mysteries of Divinity which by reason of the Nobleness and Remoteness of the Objects may much better than the Nature of Corporeal things which we see and feel and continually converse with have their obscurity attributed to the weakness of our humane Understandings And if it be a necessary Imperfection
its determinate Bulk and Figure And he that looks upon Sand in a good Microscope will easily perceive that each minute Grain of it has as well it s own size and shape as a Rock or Mountain And when we let fall a great stone and a pibble from the top of a high Building we find not but that the latter as well as the former moves conformably to the Laws of acceleration in heavy Bodies descending And the Rules of Motion are observ'd not onely in Canon Bullets but in Small Shot and the one strikes down a Bird according to the same Laws that the other batters down a Wall And though Nature or rather its Divine Author be wont to work with much finer materials and employ more curious contrivances than Art whence the Structure even of the rarest Watch is incomparably inferiour to that of a Humane Body yet an Artist himself according to the quantity of the matter he imploys the exigency of the design he undertakes and the bigness and shape of the Instruments he makes use of is able to make pieces of work of the same nature or kind of extremely differing bulk where yet the like though not equal Art and Contrivance and oftentimes Motion too may be observ'd As a Smith who with a Hammer and other large Instruments can out of masses of Iron forge great Bars or Wedges and make those strong and heavy Chains that were imploy'd to load Malefactors and even to secure Streets and Gates may with lesser Instruments make smaller Nails and Filings almost as minute as Dust and may yet with finer Tools make Links of a strange Slenderness and Lightness insomuch that good Authors tell us of a Chain of divers Links that was fastned to a Flea and could be mov'd by it and if I mis-remember not I saw something like this besides other Instances that I beheld with pleasure of the Littleness that Art can give to such pieces of Work as are usually made of a considerable bigness And therefore to say that though in Natural Bodies whose bulk is manifest and their structure visible the Mechanical Principles may be usefully admitted that are not to be extended to such portions of Matter whose parts and Texture are invisible may perhaps look to some as if a man should allow that the Laws of Mechanism may take place in a Town-Clock but cannot in a Pocket-Watch or to give you an instance mixt of Natural and Artificial as if because the Terraqueous Globe is a vast Magnetical Body of seven or eight thousand miles in Diameter one should affirm that Magnetical Laws are not to be expected to be of force in a spherical piece of Loadstone that is not perhaps an inch long And yet Experience shews us that notwithstanding the inestimable disproportion betwixt these two Globes the Terrella as well as the Earth hath its Poles Aequator and Meridians and in divers other Magnetical Properties emulates the Terrestrial Globe They that to solve the Phaenomena of Nature have recourse to Agents which though they involve no self-repugnancy in their very Notions as many of the Judicious think Substantial Forms and Real Qualities to do yet are such that we conceive not how they operate to bring effects to pass These I say when they tell us of such indeterminate Agents as the Soul of the World the Universal Spirit the Plastic Power and the like though they may in certain cases tell us some things yet they tell us nothing that will satisfie the Curiosity of an Inquisitive Person who seeks not so much to know what is the general Agent that produces a Phenomenon as by what Means and after what Manner the Phenomenon is produc'd The famous Sennerâ—us and some other Learned Physicians tell us of Diseases which proceed from Incantation but sure 't is but a very slight account that a sober Physician that comes to visit a Patient reported to be bewitch'd receives of the strange Symptoms he meets with and would have an account of if he be coldly answer'd That 't is a Witch or the Devil that produces them and he will never sit down with so short an account if he can by any means reduce those extravagant Symptoms to any more known and stated Diseases as Epilepsies Convulsions Hysterical Fits c. and if he can not he will confess his knowledge of this Distemper to come far short of what might be expected and attain'd in other Diseases wherein he thinks himself bound to search into the Nature of the Morbific Matter and will not be satisfi'd till he can probably at least deduce from that and the structure of an Humane Body and other concurring Physical Causes the Phaenomena of the Malady And it would be but little satisfaction to one that desires to understand the causes of what occurrs to observation in a Watch and how it comes to point at and strike the hours to be told That 't was such a Watch-maker that so contriv'd it Or to him that would know the true cause of an Eccho to be answer'd That 't is a Man a Vault or a Wood that makes it And now at length I come to consider that which I observe the most to alienate other Sects from the Mechanical Philosophy namely that they think it pretends to have Principles so Universal and so Mathematical that no other Physical Hypothesis can comport with it or be tolerated by it But this I look upon as an easie indeed but an important mistake because by this very thing that the Mechanical Principles are so universal and therefore applicable to so many things they are rather fitted to include than necessitated to exclude any other Hypothesis that is founded in Nature as far as it is so And such Hypotheses if prudently consider'd by a skilful and moderate person who is rather dispos'd to unite Sects than multiply them will be found as far as they have Truth in them to be either Legitimately though perhaps not immediately deducible from the Mechanical Principles or fairly reconcilable to them For such Hypotheses will probably attempt to account for the Phaenomena of Nature either by the help of a determinate number of material Ingredients such as the Tria Prima of the Chymists by participation whereof other Bodies obtain their Qualities or else by introducing some general Agents as the Platonic Soul of the World or the Universal Spirit asserted by some Spagyrists or by both these ways together Now to dispatch first those that I named in the second place I consider that the chief thing that Inquisitive Naturalists should look after in the explicating of difficult Phaenomena is not so much what the Agent is or does as what changes are made in the Patient to bring it to exhibit the Phaenomena that are propos'd and by what means and after what manner those changes are effected So that the Mechanical Philosopher being satisfied that one part of Matter can act upon another but by vertue of Local Motion or the effects and
Phaenomena And notwithstanding the Immateriality of a created Agent we cannot conceive how it should produce changes in a Body without the help of Mechanical Principles especially Local Motion and accordingly we find not that the Reasonable Soul in Man is able to produce what changes it pleases in the Body but is confin'd to such as it may produce by determining or guiding the Motions of the Spirits and other parts of the Body subservient to voluntary Motion V. And if the Agents or active Principles resorted to be not Immaterial but of a Corporeal Nature they must either in effect be the same with the Corporeal Principles above-nam'd or because of the great Universality Simplicity of ours the new ones propos'd must be less general than they and consequently capable of being subordinated or reduc'd to ours which by various Compositions may afford matter to several Hypotheses and by several Coalitions afford minute Concretions exceedingly numerous and durable and consequently fit to become the Elementary Ingredients of more compounded Bodies being in most Trials Similar and as it were the Radical parts which may after several manners be diversified as in Latin the Themes are by Prepositions Terminations c. and in Hebrew the Roots by the Haeemantic Letters So that the fear that so much of a New Physical Hypothesis as is true will overthrow or make useless the Mechanical Principles is as if one should fear that there will be a Language propos'd that is discordant from or not reducible to the Letters of the Alphabet FINIS Ps 145. Ps 147.5 Ps 113.6 Isa 40.15 Rom. j. 19 Genes vj. Numb xxvij 7 Genes xx Genes xviij 1 Kings iij. Jonah iv 1 Kings xxij from ver 19. to ver 24. Job j. 6 7 c. Job ij 3 See Heb. v. 9 Psal ciij. 17 18. Acts j. 21 1 Joh. iij. 20 Revel vij 9 Matth. xxvj 53. Dan. vij 10 Joh. j. 3 Heb. j. 7 Luke xx 35 36. Col. j. 16 Matth. xxiv 36 Mark xiij 32 Matth. xviij 10 Isa vj. 2 3 Matth. vj. 10 2 Sam. xiv 20 Mark xiij 32 2 King xix 35 1 Thess iv 16 Jude ix Dan. x. 13 21. Col. j. 16 Revel xij 7 Acts xij 7 8 9 10. Dan. x. 13 Acts xij 11 2 Kings vj. 17 Luke xxiv 4 Judg. xiij 6 Heb. j. 14 Revel xix 10 Revel xxij 9 Matth. xxviij 6 Revel xix 10 Joh. j. 3 Coloss j. 16 Matth. viij 7 Luke iv 33 Joh. viij 34. 1 Pet. v. 8 2 Cor. xj 3 Revel xij 9 Revel xij 7 Matth. xxv 41 1 Joh. iij. 8 Jude 6. Mark v. 9 10 13. Jam. iv 7 1 Pet. v. 9 1 Cor. vj. 3 Matth. xxv 41 Jam. ij 19 2 Pet. ij 4 Jude 6 13. Matth. xxv 41 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. iij. 6 2 Pet. iij. â— 10 13. Gen. ij 7 Acts xxiv 15 Acts xvij 20 32. Gen. ij Acts xvij 26 Gen. ij 21 22. Acts xxv 15 Luke xx 35 36. Matth. x. 28 Gen. ij 7. Zek. xij 1 Luke xx 35 36. Matt. xxv 46 Dâ—s Cartes Responsione ad Objectiones secundas pag. m. 95. Mark xiv 21 1 Pet. j. 12 Rom. xj 33 Gen. ij 21 22 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. v. 39 Acts xx 27 Matth. xxvj 53 Dan. vij 10 Mark v. 9 Luke viij 30 Dan. ij 31 32 c. Isa v. 4 Isa lxv 2 * * Rev. j. 3 To render the Original word observe or watch rather than keep seems more congruous to the sense of the Text and is a Criticism suggested to me by an eminent Mathematician as well as Divine who took notice that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is us'd by the Greeks as a term of Art to express the Astronomical Observation of Eclipses Planetary Conjunctions Oppositions and other Celestial Phaenomena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephis iij. 10 Isa vj. 2 3. Luke ij 13 14. Revel v. 11 12. Gen. ij 16 17. Seraph Love Psal xxxij 9 Deut. viij 10 11 12 13 14 18 Job xxxviij 5 6 7. Psa L.23 Hos xiv 2 Psal civ 24 Psal xix 1 Psal cxxxix 14 1 Tim. ij 4 Joh. xiij 7 Heb. v. 9 Joh. v. 39 Search or You search the Scriptures Coloss iij. 16 Prov. xxvj 10 Acts xvij 11 1 Peâ— j. 10 11. 1 Pet. j. â—2 Psal cxix 18 Revel j. Matth. xj 15 Mark iv â— 23. Luke viij 8 Matth. v. 8 1 Joh. iij. 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Medit. tertia sub finem Exod. xv 25 Matth. v. 29 30. 1 Tim. iij. 16 Tit. j. 1 Numb xxj 9 Diogenis Laertii libr. 10. Iob iv 19 Psal ciij. 14 1 Cor. 10.13 Job xviij 14 Dan. ix 21 22. Luke j. 11 26. Acts x. 4 5 6. 1 Pet. j. 12 Luke xxiv 45 Psal cxix 18 Acts xvij 24 25. Jam. ij 21 2 Chron. vj. 8 9. 2 Sam. vij ver 5. ver 11. Hab. j. 13 Matth. v. 6 2 Cor. v. 7 Luke xx 36 Ephes iij. 10 See Examples of this in my Notes about Sensation and Sensible Qualities Acts vij 56 2 Kings vj. 17 1 Cor. xiij 12 1 Joh. iij. 2 Gen. xxxvij Amos vj. 5 * * See the Requisites of a good Hypothesis See this Subject handled at large in an Appendix to the Author's Exâ—men of Antiperistasis * * In the History of Cold. * * Now publish'd in the Book of New Physico-Mechanical Experiments See a Tract on this Subject premis'd by the Authour to his Book of Cold. Amos vj. 5 1 Sam. ij 30 2. Chron. xxv 9 Rom. viij 18 Luke xxiij 15 â— Kings iij. 5 Phil. ij 6 Heb. xij 2 Rom. ij 7 Matth. v. 11 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉