if the soul were mortal CHAP. X. Declaring what the Soul of a man separated from his body is and of her knowledg and manner of working 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance 2. That a separated Soul is in no place and yet is not absent from any place 3. That a separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A description of the Soul 6. That a separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her body 7. That the least knowledge which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a complete knowledge of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the body 9. The former Peripateticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a separated soul compared to her operations in her body 11. That a separated soul is in a state of pure being and consequently immortal CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in ths world do cause in a soul after she is separated from her body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge 2. That the knowledge which a soul gets in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firm 3. That the soul of men addicted to science whilest they lived here are more perfect in the next world than the souls of unlearned men 4. That those souls which embrace virtue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which imbrace vice most miserable 5. The state of a vitious soul in the next life 6. The fundamenatl reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why mans soul requires to be in a body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality and not out of the falsity of her judgments CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a soul in the state she finds her self in at her first separation from her body 1. The explication and proof of that maxime that If the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are complete in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure spirits work instantaneously 4. That a soul separated from her body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5. That temporal sins are justly punished with eternal pains The Conclusion Preface THis Writing was design'd to have seen the light under the name of One Treatise But afer it was drawn in Paper as I cast a view over it I found the Proaemial part which Treats of Bodies so ample in respect of the other which was the End of it and for whose sake I medled with it that I readily apprehended my Reader would think I had gone much astray from my Text when proposing to speak of the Immortality of Mans Soul three parts of four of the whole Discourse should not so much as in one word mention that Soul whose nature and proprieties I aim'd at the discovery of To avoid this incongruity occasioned me to change the Name and Unity of the Work and to make the survay of Bodies a body by it self though subordinate to the Treatise of the Soul Which notwithstanding it be less in bulk than the other yet I dare promise my Reader that if he bestow the painsr equisite to perfect himself in it he will find as much time well spent in the due reading of it as in the reading of the former Treatise though far more large But I discern an Objection obvious to be made or rather a Question Why I should spend so much time in the consideration of Bodies wheras none that has formerly written of this Subject has in any measure done the like I might answer that they had on other occasions first written of the nature of Bodies as I may instance in Aristotle and sundry others who either have themselvs professedly treated the Science of Bodies or have supposed that part sufficiently perform'd by other pens But truly I was by an unavoidable necessity hereto obliged which is a current of doctrin that at this day much reigns in the Christian Schools where Bodies and their overations are explicated after the manner of spiritual things For we having very slender knowledge of Spiritual Substances can reach no further into their nature than to know that they have certain Powers or Qualities but can seldom penetrate so deep as to descend to the particulars of such Qualities or Powers Now our Modern Philosophers have introduced such a course of learning into the Schools that to all questions concerning the proper natures of Bodies and their operations 't is held sufficient to answer they have a Quality or a Power to do such a thing And afterwards they dispute whether this Quality or Power be an Entity distinct from its subject or no and how it is separable or unseparable from it and the like Consormable to this who will look into the Books which are in vogue in these Schools shall find such Answers and such controversies every where and few others As of the Sensible Qalities ask what it is to be white or red what to be sweet or sowr what to be odoriferous or stinking what to be cold or hot And you are presently paid with that it is a Sensible Quality which has the power to make a Wall white or red to make a Meat agreeable or disagreeable to the tast to make a grateful or ungrateful Smell to the nose c. Likewise they make the same Questions and Resolutions of Gravity and Levity as whether they be qualities that is Entities distinct from their subjects and whether they be active or passive which when they have disputed slightly and in common with Logical arguments they rest there without any further searching into the Physical causes or effects of them The like you shall find of all strange Effects of them The Loadstone and Electrical bodies are produced for miraculous and not understandable things and which must be acknowledg'd to work by hidden Qualities that mans wit cannot reach to And ascending to Living Bodies they give it for a Maxim that Life is the action of the same Entity upon it self that Sense is likewise a work of an intrinsecal power in the part we call Sense upon it self Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Even some Physicians that take upon them to teach the curing of our Bodies often pay us with such terms among them you have long discourses of a retentive of an expulsive of a purging of a consolidating Faculty
design'd to be in a 〈◊〉 Bâ—t â—er being in a Body is her being one thing with the Body she is sais â—o be in And so she is one part of a whole which from its weaker part is denominated to be a Body Again since the matter of any thing is to be prepared before the end is prepared for which that matter is to serve according to that Axiom Quodest primum in intentione est ultimum in executione we may not deny but that the Body is in being some time before the Soul or at least that it exists as soon as she doth And therfore it appears wholly unreasonable to say that the Soul was first made out of the Body and was afterwards thrust into it since the Body was prepared for the Soul before or at least as soon as she had any begining And so we may conclude that of necessity the Soul must be begun lay'd hatch'd and perfected in the Body And though it be true that such Souls as are separated from their Bodies in the first instant of their being there are notwithstanding imbued with the knowledg of all things yet is not their longer abode there in vain not only because therby the species is multiplied for nature is not content with barely doing that without addition ofsome good to the Soul it self as we for the wonderful and I may say infinite advantage that may therby accrew to the Soul if she make right use of it For as any act of the abstracted Soul is infinite in comparison of the acts which men exercise in this life according to what we have already shew'd so by consequence must any encrease of it be likewise infinite And therfore we may conclude that a long life well spent is the greatest and most excellent gift which nature can bestow on a man The unwary reader may perhaps have difficulty at our often repeating the infelicity of a miserable Soul since we say that it proceeds out of the judgments she had formerly made inthis life which without all doubt were false ones and nevertheless it is evident that no false judgments can remain in a Soul after she is separated from her Body as we have above determined How then can a Soul's judgments be the cause of her misery But the more heedful reader will have noted that the misery which we put in a Soul proceeds out of the Inequality not out of the Falsity of her judgments For if a man be inclined to a lesser good more than to a greater he will in action betake himself to the lessergood desert the greater wherin neither judgment is false nor either inclination is naught meerly out of the improportion of the two inclinations or judgments to the ir objects For that a Soul may be duely order'd and in a state of being well she must have a lesser inclination to a lesser good and a greater inclination to a greater good And in pure Spirits these inclinations are nothing else but the strength of their judgments which judgments in Soul's while they are in their Bodies are made by the repetition of more acts from stronger causes or in more favourable circumstances And so it appears how without any falsity in any judgment a Soul may become miserable by her conversation in this world where all her inclinations generally are good unless the disproportion of them make them bad CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a Soul in the state she finds her self in aâ— her first separation from her Body THus we have brought Mans Soul out of the Body shelived in here by which she convers'd had commerce with the other parts of this world we have assign'd her her first array and stole with which she may be seen in the next world so that now there remains only forus to consider what shallbetide her afterwards and whether any change may happen to and be made in her after the first instant of her being a pure Spirit separated from all consortship with material substances To determine this point the more clearly let us call tomind an Axiom which Aristotle gives us in his Logick That As it is true if the effect be there is a cause so likewise 't is most true that if the cause be in act or causing the effect must also be Which Axiom may be understood two ways One that if the cause hath its effect then the effect also is and this is no great mystery norfor it are any thanks due to the teacher itbeing but a repetition and saying-over-again of the same thing The other way is that if the cause be perfect in the nature of a cause then the effect is which is as much as to say that if nothing be wanting to the cause abstracting precisely from the effect then neither is the effect wanting And this is the meaning of Aristotle's Axiome of the truth evidence wherof in this sense if any man should make the least doubt it were easie to evince it As thus If nothing be wanting but the effect yet the effect doth not immediately follow it must needs be that it cannot follow at all for if it can and doth not then somthing more must be done to make it follow which is against the supposition that nothing was wanting but the effect for that for which it is to be done was wanting To say it will follow without any change is sensles for if it will follow without change it follows out of this which is already put but if it follow out of this which is precisely put then it follows against the supposition which was that it did not follow although this were put This then being evident let us apply it to our purpose and put three or more things namely A. B. C. and D wherof none can work otherwise than in a instant or indivisibly And I say that whatever these four things are able to do without respect to any other thing besides them is compleatly done in the first instant of their being put and if they remain for all eternity without communication or respect to any other thing there shall never be any innovation in any of them or any further working among them but they will alwaies remain immutable in the same state they were in at the very first instant of their being put For whatever A can do in the first instant is in that first instant actually done because he works indivisibly and what can be done precisely by A. by his action joyned to B. precisely follows out of A. and his action and out of B. and his action if B. have any action independent of A And because all these are in the same instant whatever follows precisely out of these and nothing else that is in the same instant and works indivisibly as they do is necessarily done in that very instant but all the actions of C. D. of whatever by reflection from them may be done by A. and
effects in their issue 4. Of antipathies 5. Of Sympathies 6. That the Antipathy of Beasts towards one another may be taken away by assuefaction 7. Of Longing marks seen in children Why divers men hate some certain meats and particularly Cheese 9. Concerning the providence of Arts in laying up store for winter 10. Concerning the Foreknowing of Beasts 1. What is a right apprehension of a thing 2. The very thing it self is truly in his understanding who rightly apprehends it 3. The apprehension of things coming to us by our senses are resolvable into other more simple apprehensions 4. The apprehension of a being is the most simple and basis of all the rest 5. The apprehension of a thing is in next degree to that of Being and it is the Basis of all the subsequent ones 6. The apprehension of things known to us by our senses consists in certain respects betwixt two things 7. Respect or relation hath not really any formal being but only in the apprehension of man 8. That Existence or being is the proper affection of man and that mans Soul is a comparing power 9. A thing by coming into the understanding of man looseth nothing of its own peculiar nature 10. A multitude of things may be united in mans understanding without being mingled or counfounded together 11. Of Abstracted and Concrete terms 12. Of Universal nâ—tions 13. Of apprehending a multitude under one notion 14. The power of the understanding reaches as far as the extent of being 1. How a Judgment is made by the Understanding 3. How the notions of a Substantive and an Adjective are united in the Soul by the common stock of Being 4. That a setled judgment becomes a part of our Soul 5. How the Soul comes to deem or settle a Judgment 6. Hâ—w Opinion is begotten in the Understanding 7. How Faith is begotten in the understanding 8. Why Truth is the perfection of a Reasonable Soul and why it is not found in Simple Apprehensions as well as in Enuntiations 9. What is a solid Judgment â—nd what a slight one 10. What is an acute judgment and what a dull one 11. In what consists quickness and clearness of judgment and their opposite vices 1. How discourse is made 2. Of the Figures and Moâ—ds of Syllogisms 3. That the life of man as man consists in Discourse and of the vast extent of it Dial. de Mundo 3. Of humane actions and of those that concern our selvs 5. Of humane actions as they concern our neighbours 6. Of Logick 7. Of Grammar 8. Of Rhetorick Horat. de Art Poet. 9. Of Poetry 10. Of the power of speaking 11. Of arts that concern dumb and insensible creatures 12. Of Arithmetick 13. Of Prudence 14. Observations upon what hath been said in this Chapter 1. That humane actions proceed from two several principles Understanding and Sense 2. How our general and inbred maximes concur to humane action 3. That the rules and maximes of Arts work positively in us though we think not of them 4. How the Understanding casts about when it wants sufficient grounds for action 5. How Reason rules over Sense and Passion 6. How we recal our thoughts from distractions 7. How Reason is somtimes overcome by Sense and Passion 1. The connection of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. The inexistence of corporeal things in the Soul by the power of apprehension proves her to be immaterial 3. The notion of Being which is innate in the Soul proves the same 4. The same is proved by the notion of respects 5. That corporeal things are spiritualiz'd in the understanding by means of the Souls working in and by respects 6. That the abstracting of notions from all particular individual accidents proves the immateriality of the Soul 7 Th◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same 9. The operations of the Soul drawing always from multitude to unity prove the same 10. The difference betwixt the notion of a thing in our Understanding and the imptession that corresponds to the same thing in our Fansie proves the same 11. The apprehension of negations and privations prove the same 1. The manner of judging or deeming by apprehending two things to be identified proves the Soul to be immaterial 2. The same is proved by the manner of apprehending Opposition in a negative judgment 3. That things in themselvs opposite to one another having no opposition in the Soul doth prove the same 4 That the First Truths are Identified to the Soul 5. That the Soul hath an infinite capacity and consequently is immaterial 6. That the opposition of contradictory Propositions in the Soul proves her immaterial 7. How Propositions of eternal Truth prove the immateriality of the Soul 〈◊〉 That in Discoursing the Soul contains more in it at the same time than is in the fantasie which proves her to be immaterial 2. That the nature of Discourse proves the Soul to be order'd to infinite knowledg and consequently to be immaterial 3. That the most natural objects of the Soul are immaterial and consequently the Soul her self is such 1. That the Souls being a power to order things proves it to be immaterial 2. That the Soul 's being able to move without being moved proves her to be immaterial 5. That the Soul 's proceeding to action with an Universality indifferency proves the same 4. That the quiet proceeding of reason proves the same 5. A Conclusion of what hath been said hitherto in this Second Treatise 1. That mans Soul is a Substance 2. That man is compounded of some other Substance besides his Body 3. That the Soul subsists of it self independently of the Body 4. Two other Arguments to prove the same on sitive the ther negt 5. The same is proved because the Soul cannot be obnoxious to the cause of immortality 6. The same is proved because the Soul hath no contrary 7. The same is proved from the end for which the Soul was created 8. The same is proved because she can move without being moved 9. The same is proved from her 〈◊〉 of operation which is grounded in being 10. Lastly it is proved from the Science of Morality the principles wherof would be destroy'd if the Soul were mortal 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing Act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance Thâ—t 〈◊〉 rated is in nâ— and ye absent any pâ— Bâ—eÌ„tius 3. That a Separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A Description of the Soâ—l 6. That a Separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her Body 5. That the least knowledg which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a compleat knowledg of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the Body 9. The former Peripapeticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a Separated Soul compared to her operations in her Body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledg 2. That the knowledges which a Soul gets in this life will make her knowledg in the next life more perfect and firm 3 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aâ— mâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 next woâ—d thâ— tâ—e Soâ—s of unlearned men 4. That those 〈◊〉 which embrace Vâ—rtue in 〈◊〉 world will be most perfect in the next and thâ—se which embrace Viâ—e â—st miserable 5. The 〈◊〉 of a 〈◊〉 Soul in the next life 6. The funda mental reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why Man's Soul requires to be in a Body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the Soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality not falsity of her judgments 1. The explication proof of that maxime that if the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are compleat in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure Spirits work instantaneously 4. That a Soul separated from her Body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5 That temporal sins are justly punish'd with eternal pains
not bound for the continuation of that things Being to prove that it is not changed but on the other side he tbat averrs it changed is bound to bring in his evidence of a sufficient cause to change it for to have a thing remain is natures own dictamen and follows out of the causes which gave it Being but to make an alteration supposes a change in the causes and therfore the obligation of proof lyes on that side Nevertheless to give satisfaction to those who are earnest to see every article positively proved we will make that part to our Province Let us then remember that Immortality signifies a negation or not-having of Mortality and that a positive term is required to express a change by since nature teaches us that whatever is will remain with the Being it hath unless it be forced out of it If then we shew that Mans Soul hath not those grounds in her which make all things we see to be mortal we must be allow'd to have acquitted our selvs of the charg of proving her Immortal For this end let us look round about us and inquire of all the things we meet with by what means they are changed and come to a period and are no more The pure Elements will tell you that they have their change by rarefaction and condensation and no otherwise Mixed bodies by alteration of their mixture Smal bodies by the activity of the Elements working upon them and by the means of rarefaction and condensation entring into their very constitution and breeding another temperament by separation of some of their parts and in their stead mingling others Plants and trees and other living creatures will tell you that their nourishment being insinuated through their whole bodies by subtile pores and blind passages if they either be stop'd by any accident or else fill'd with bad nourishment the mixture of the whole fails of it self and they come to die Those things which are violently destroy'd we see are made away for the most part by division so fire by division destroyes all that comes in its way so living creatures are destroy'd by parting their blood from their flesh or one member from another or by the evaporation or extinction of their natural heat In fine we are sure that all things which within our knowledg lose their Being do so by reason of their Quantity which by division or by rarefaction and compression gains some new temperature that doth not consist with their former temper After these premisses I need say no more the conclusion displays it self readily and plainly without any further trouble For if our labour hath been hitherto to shew that our Soul is indivisible and that her operations are such as admit not quantitative parts in her 't is clear she cannot be mortal by any of those ways wherby we see things round about us to perish The like argument we may frame out of Local motion For seeing that all the alterative actions we are acquainted with be perform'd by local motion as is deliver'd both in gross and by retail in our first Treatise and that Aristotle and all understanding Philosophers agree there can be no Local motion in an indivisible thing the reason wherof is evident to whomsoever reflects upon the nature of Place and of Local motion 't is manifest there can be no motion to hurt the Soul since she is concluded to be indivisible The common argument likewise used in this matter amounts to the same effect to wit that since things are destroy'd only by their contraries that thing which hath no contrary is not subject to destruction which principle both Reason and Experience every where confirm but a humane Soul is not subject to contrariety therfore such an one cannot be destroy'd The truth of the assumption may be known two ways First because all the contrarieties that are found within our cognisance rise out of the primary opposition of Rarity and Density from which the Soul being absolutely free she likewise is so from all that grows out of that root and Secondly we may be sure that our Soul can receive no harm from contrariety since all contraries are so far from hurting her as contrary wise the one helps her in the contemplation of the other And as for contradiction in thoughts which at different times our Soul is capable of admitting experience teaches us that such thoughts change in her without any prejudice to her substance they being accidents and having their contrariety only betwixt themselvs within her but no opposition at all to her which only is the contrariety that may have power to harm her and therfore whethersoever of such contrary thoughts be in the Soul pertains no more to her subsistence than it doth to the subsistence of a Body whether it be here or there on the right hand or on the left And thus I conceive my task is perform'd and that I am discharg'd of my undertaking to shew the Souls Immortality which imports no more than to shew that the causes of other things mortality do not reach her Yet being well perswaded that my Reader will not be offended with the addition of any new light in this dark subject I will strive to discover if it be possible some positive proof or guess out of the property and nature of the Soul it self why she must remain and enjoy another life after this To this end let us cast our eye back upon what hath been already said concerning her nature We found that Truth is the natural perfection of Mans Soul and that she cannot be assured of truth naturally otherwise than by evidence and therfore 't is manifest that evidence of truth is the full compleat perfection at which the Soul doth aim We found also that the Soul is capable of an absolute infinity of truth or evidence To these two we will ad only one thing more which of it self is past question and therfore needs no proof and then we will deduce our conclusion and this is that a mans Soul is a far nobler and perfecter part of him than his Body and therfore by the rules of nature and wisedom his Body was made for his Soul and not his Soul finally for his Body These grounds being thus lay'd let us examine whether our Soul doth in this life arrive to the end she was ordain'd for or no and if she do not then it must follow of necessity that our Body was made but for a passage by which our Soul should be ferried over into that state where she is to attain to that end for which her nature is fram'd and fited The great skill and artifice of Nature shewing and assuring us that she never fails of compassing her end even in her meanest works and therfore without doubt she would not break her course in her greatest whereof man is absolutely the head and chief among all those we are acquainted with Now what the end is to which our
Soul ayms is evident since the perfection of every thing in the end for which it is made the perfection then and end of the Soul being evidence she being capable of infinite evidence let us inquire whether in this life she may compass it or no. To determine this question let us compare infinite evidence to that evidence which the greatest and most knowing man that ever lived hath acquir'd by the work of nature alone or to the evidence which by aym we may imagine possible ever to happen any one man should arrive to and balancing them well together let us judg whether all that any man can know here is not in respect of what a mans Soul is capable of to be stiled as nothing and deservs not the name of evidence nor to be accounted of that nature And if our sentence conclude upon this let us acknowledg that our Soul arrives not to her perfection nor enjoys her end in this world and therfore must have infallibly an other habitation inthe next world to which nature intends her Experience teaches us that we cannot fully comprehend any one of natures works and those Philosophers who in a disciplinable way search into nature therfore are called Mathematicians after they have written large volums of some very slender subject ever find that they have left untouch'd an endless abyss of knowledg for whomsoever shall please to build upon their foundations that they can never arrive near saying all that may be said â—f hat subject though they have said never so much of it We may not then make difficulty to believe that the wisest and learnedest men in the world have reason to profess with the father of Philosophers that indeed they know nothing And if so how far are they from that happiness perfection which consists in knowing all things Of which full sea we nevertheless find even in this low ebb our Soul is a chanel capable and is framed a fit vessel and instrument to receive it when the tide shall come in upon it which we are sure it can not do till the banks of our Body which hinder it be broken down This last consideration without doubt hath added no small corroboration to our former proofs which are so numerous so clear as peradventure it may appear superfluous to say any more to this point since one convinceing argument establishes the verity of a conclusion as efficaciously as a hundred therfore Mathematicians use but one single proof in all their Propositions after which other supernumerary ones would be but tedious Nevertheless since all the several ways by which we may look into the nature of our Soul the importantest subject we can busie our thoughts upon cannot fail of being pleasing and delightful to us we must not omit to reflect a little upon that great property of our Soul by which she is able to move to work without her self being moved or touched To which adding that all Life consists in motion and that all motion of Bodies comes from some other thing without them we may evidently conclude that our Soul who can move withot receiving her motion from abroad hath in her se lf a spring of life for which she is not beholding as Bodies are o some extrinsecal cause of a nature like to her but only to him who gave her to be what she is But if she have such a spring of Life within her it were unreasonable to imagine that she died upon the occasion of the death of anohther thing that exercises no action of life but as it is caused by another Neither we may neglect that ordinary consideration which takes notice that our Soul makes use of Propositions of eternal truth which we have above produced among our proofs for her being of a spiritual nature and shall now imploy it for the proving her Immortal by considering that the notion of Being which settles these Propositions so as they fear no mutation or shaking by time is the very riot of the Soul that which gives her nature which shews it self in all her operations So that if from Being arrives to these Propositions to fear no time the like must of necessity betide also the substance of the Soul And thus we see that her nature is out of the reach of time that she can comprehend time and set it limits can think of things beyond it and cast about for them All which are clear testimonies that she is free and secure from the all-devouring and destroying tyranny of that Saturnial Conqueror of the whole world of matter and of Bodies whose servant is Death After all these proofs drawn from the nature of the Soul it self every one of them of force to convince her Immortality I must crave leave to add one consideration more though it seems to belong to anothers harvest namely to the Science of Morals and it is that the position of mortality in the Soul takes away all morality and changes men into beasts by taking away the ground of all difference in those things which are to govern our actions For supposing that the Soul dyes with the Body and seeing that man hath a comprehension or notion of time without end 't is evident that the spain of this life must needs appear contemptible to him that well considers and weighs it against the other infinite duration And by consequence all the goods and evils which are parts of this life must needs become as despicable and inconsiderable so that better or worse in this life hath not any appearance of difference between them at least not enough to make him labour with paâ—n to compass the one and eschew the other and for that end to cross his present inclination in any thing and engage himself in any the least difficult task And so it would ensue that if to an understanding man some course or actions were proposed as better than that he were going about or for the instant had a mind to he would relish it as a great Merchant or a Banquier would do whom dealing for Millions one should presse with earnestness to change his resolved course for the gain of a farthing more this way than the other which being inconsiderable he would not trouble his head with it nor stop at what he was in hand with In like manner whoever is perswaded that for an infinite of time he shall be nothing without sense of all things he scorns for this little twinkling of his life to take any present pains to be in the next moment well or to avoid being ill since in this case dying is a secure remedy to any present evil and he is as ready to die now as a hundred years hence Nor can he esteem the loss of a hundred years to be a matter of moment and therfore he will without any further guidance or discourse betake himself to do whatever his present inclination bears him to with most facility
absolutely necessary that the Soul must have here so much knowledg as to be able to determine that some one thing which hath connexion with all the rest is in such a time Bâ—t then why out of this very conception she should not be able to climb up by degrees to the knowledg of all other things whatever since there is a connexion between that and all the rest and 〈◊〉 untransible Gap or Chaos â—o 〈◊〉 them I prâ—ess I do nâ— see Which if it be so then the 〈◊〉 of an Abortive in his Mothers Womb if he once arrive to have Sense and from it to receive any impression in his Soul may for ought I know or can suspect to the contrary be endew'd in the next world with as much knowledg as the Soul of the greatest Clerk that ever lived and if an abortive do not arrive so far as to the knowledg of some one thing I know no reason why we should believe it arrived to the Nature of Man Whence it follows that this amplitude of knowledg is common to All Humane Souls of what pitch soever they seem to be here when they are separated from their Bodies as also that if any Error have crept into a mans judgment during this life whether it be of some universal conclusion or of some particular thing all such will be abolish'd then by the Truth appearing on the opposite side since two contradictory judgments cannot possess our Soul together as even in this world as well Experience as Reason teaches us But unawares I have engulf'd my self into a Sea of contradictions from no mean Adversaries for Alexander Aphrodiseus Pomponatius and the learnedest of the Peripatetick School will all rise up in main opposition against this doctrine of mine Shewing how in the Body all our Soul's knowledg is made by the working of our fansy and that there is no act of our Soul without speculation of fantasms residing in our memory therfore since when our Body is gone all those little Bodies of fantasms are gone with it what sign is there that any operation can remain And hence they infer that since every substance hath its Being for its operations sake and by consequence were vain and superfluous in the world if it could not enjoy and exercise its operation there is no necessity or end why the Soul of a man should survive his Body and consequently there is no reason to imagine other than that it perishes when the man dies This is the substance of their Argument which indeed is nothing else but to guess without ground or rather against all ground But however this is my comfort that I have to do with Peripateticks men that will hear and answer reason and to such I address my speech To joyn issue then with them and encounter them with their own weapons let us call to mind what Aristotle holds Light to be He saith that it is A suddain and momentary emananation of what it is following the precedent motion of some body but without motion in it self As for example when the Sun comes into our Horison says he the illumination of the Horison is an effect in an instant following from the motion which the Sun had since his setting in the other Hemisphere till he appear there again So that according to him the way of making this light is the Sun 's local motion but the effect or the being enlightned is a thing of a very different nature done without begining and continuing till the Sun depart again from our Horison And he explicates this action of illumination in the same manner doth he the actions of Sense and of Understanding Upon all which I urge that no Peripatetick will deny me but that as in every particular sensation or thinking there precedes a Corporal motion out of which it ensues so this general motion which we call the life of man precedes that twinkle or moment in which his Soul becomes an absolute spirit or inhabitant of the next world Wherfore it cannot be said that we introduce a doctrine aliene from the Peripatetical way of Philosophising if we put a momentary effect or motion according to their phrase of speaking to follow out of the course of Mans Life since they put diverse such effects to follow out of particular parts of it Now this momentary change or what they please to call it is that which makes at one blow all this knowledg we speak of For if we remember that knowledg is not a doing or motion but a Being as is agreed between the Peripateticks and us they cannot for the continuing it require inâ—uments and motors for they are necessary only for change not for Being Now all this mighty change which is made at the Souls delivery we conceive follows precisely out of the change of her Being For seeing it is supposed that her Being was before in a Body but is now out of a Body it must of necessity follow that all impediments which grew out of her being in a Body must be taken away by her being freed from it Among which impediments one is that Time is then required betwixt her knowledg of one thing and her knowledg of another thing and so her capacity that of it self is infinite becomes confined to that small multitude of objects which the division and straightness of time gives way to Now that which length of time could impart work in the body the same is intirely done in a moment by the changing of her manner of Being for by taking away the bonds by which she was enthrall'd in the body kept in to apprehend but according to its measure and constrain'd to enjoy her self as it were but at the Bodies permission she is put in free possession of her self and of all that is in her And this is nothing else but to have that large knowledg we have spoken of for her knowing all that is no other thing but her being her self perfectly Which will appear evident if we consider that her nature is to be a Knower and that Knowledg is nothing else but a Being of the Object in the Knower for thence it follows that to know all things is nought else but to be all things since then we concluded by our former discourse that all things were to be gather'd out of any one 't is clear that to be perfctly her self and any one thing is in truth to know all things And thus we see that for the Soul 's enjoying all this knowledg when she is out of the Body she needs no objects without her no phantasms no instruments no helps but that all that is requisite is contain'd absolutely in her being her self perfectly And so we retort our Adversaries Objection on themselvs by representing to them that since in their own Doctrine they require no body nor instruments for that precise action which they call Understanding it is without all ground for them to require bodies and instruments in the next life that the
mark begets still more and more strength and justness in the Arm that delivers it for it cannot be deny'd but the same cause which makes any thing must of necessity perfect and strengthen it by repeating its force and strokes We may then conclude that the knowledg of our Soul which is indeed her self will be in the next life more perfect and strong or more slack and weak according as in this life she hath often and vigorously or faintly and seldom busied her self about those things which beget such knowledg Now those things which men bestow their pains to know we see are of two kinds for Some thirst after the knowledg of Nature and of the variety of things which either 〈◊〉 seâ—es or their discourse tell them of but Others look no higher than to have an insight into humane action or to gain skill in some Art whereby they may acquire means to live These later curiosities are but of particulars that is of some one or few species or kinds whose common that comprehends them falls within the reach of every vulgar capacity and consequently the things which depend on them are low mean and contemptible whereas the beauty 〈◊〉 and excellency of the others is so much beyond them as they can be brought into no proportion to one another Now then if we consider what advantage the one sort of these men will in the next world have over the other we shall find that they who spend their life here in the study and con emplation of the first noble Objects will in the next have their universal knowledg that is their Soul strong and perfect while the others that play'd away their thoughts and â—me upon trifles and seldom rais'd their minds above the pitch of sense will be faint through their former laziness like Bodies benum'd with the Palsey and sickly through their ill diet as when a well shaped Virgin that having fed upon trash instead of nourishing meats languishes under a wearisom burthen of the Green-sickness To make this point yet more clear we may consider how the things which we gain knowledg of affect us under the title of Good and Convenient in two several manners One is when the appearance of Good in the abstracted nature of it and after examination of all circumstances carries our heart to the desire of the thing that appears so to us the other is when the semblance of good to our Own Particular persons without casting any further or questioning whether any other regard may not make it prejudicial causes in us a longing for the thing wherin such resemblance shines Now for the most part the knowledges which spring out of the latter objects are more cultivated by us than those which arise out of the other partly by reason of their frequent occurring either through necessity or judgment and partly by the addition which Passion gives to the impressions they make upon us For Passion multiplies the thoughts of such things more than of any others if reason do not cross and suppress her tumultuary motions which in most men she doth not The Souls then of such persons as giving way to their passion in this life busie themselves about such things as appear good to their own persons and cast no further must needs decede from their Bodies unequally builded if that expression may be permitted me and will be like a lame unwieldy Body in which the principal limbs are not able to govern and move the others because those principal ones are faint through want of spirits and exercise and the others are overgrown with hydropical and nocive humours The reason whereof is that in such Souls their judgments will be disproportion'd to one another one of them being unduly stronger than the other What effect this works in regard of knowledge we have already declared and no less will it have in respect of actions For suppose two judgments to be unequal and such as in the action one contradicts the other for example let one of my judgmens be that it is good for me to eat because I am an hungry and let the other be that it is good for me to study because I am shortly to give an account of my self if the one judgment be stronger than the other as if that of eating be stronger than that of studying it imports not that there is more â—eason all circumstances consider'd for studying because reasons move to action according to the measure in which the resolution taken upon them is strong or weak and therfore my action will follow the strongest judgment and I shall le ave my book to go to my dinner Now to apply this to the state of a Separated Soul We are to remember how the spiritual judgments which she collected in the Body remain in her after she is divested of it and likewise we are to consider how all her proceeding in that state is built not upon passion or any bodily causes or dispositions but meerly upon the quality and force of those spiritual judgments and then it evidently follows that if there were any such action in the next life the pure Soul would apply it self thereto according to the proportion of her judgments and as they are graduated andtqualified 'T is true there is no such action remaining in the next life yet nevertheless there remains in the Soul a disposition and a promptitude to such action and if we will frame a right apprehension of a Separated Soul we must conceit her to be of such a nature for then all is nature with her as hereafter we shall discourse as if she were a thing made for action in that proportion and efficacity which the quartering of her by this variety of judgments affords that is that she is so much the more fit for one action than for another were she to proceed to action as the judgment of the goodness of one of these actions is stronger in her than the judgment of the others goodness wich is in effect by how much the one is more cultivated than the other And out of this we may conclude that what motions follow in a man out of discourse the like will in a Separated Soul follow out of her spiritual judgments So that as he is joy'd if he possess his desired good and discontented and displeased if he miss of it and seizes greedily upon it when it is present to him and then cleaves fast to it and whiles he wants it no other good affects him but he is still longing after that Master-wish of his heart the like in every regard much more vehemently befalls a Separated Soul So that in fine she will be happy or miserable according as she built up her self by her spiritual judgments and affections in this life If knowledg and intellectual objects be the goods she thirsts after she what can be happier than she when she possesses the fulness of all that can be desired â—n that kind But if in
this world a man settles his heart constantly upon any transitory end as upon wealth corporeal delights honour power and the like which are too short breath'd attendants to follow him so long a journey as into the next then all the powers of his Soul even after she hath left her Body will be still longing after that dear Idol of her affections and for the want of it she will not value the great knowledg she shall then be indued with nor care for any good she possesses Like a man who being surrounded with a full sea and swoln tide of all specious objects that may please and delight him hath by unlucky chance suffered his violent affections and impotent desires to be intangled in some mean love that either neglects him or he is hinder'd from enjoing and therby that litle drop of gall or rather that privation of a mean contentment which truly in it self is nothing infects and poysons the whole draught of happiness that but for this woud swell him up to the height of his wishes But no comparisons of sorrows griefs or anguishes in this life where our earthly dwelling doth so clog and allay and dull the sense of our Soul which only feels and relishes either delight or wo can arrive to shadow out the misery of a Separated Soul so affected whose strains are so excessively vehement and whose nature is a pure activity and herself all sense all knowledg 'T is true I confess that in a man such motions in part proceed from passion and therfore I will allow that so much of them as have their origine meerly and only from thence shal dye with the Body and not have made any impression in the Separated Soul But besides the stream of passion we may in such motions observe also the work of reason for she both approves and employes her powers to compass and gain what the other presents and by legitimate discourse draws consequences out of that principle or judgment which makes the byas it then leans to and these are undeniable effects of a spiâ—itual judgment setled in the Soul And therfore as far as these motions proceed from spiritual judgments so far 't is clear they must remain in the Separated Soul Peradventure what I have said may be liable to a mistake as though I conceiv'd that these spiritual judgments are made in the Soul according to right reason and to legitimate discourse whereas I mean nothing less But esteeming an overstrong judgment in the Separated Soul to be proportionable to a passion in the Body I conceit that as passion sets reason on work to find out means whereby she may arrive to her ends so may this judgment set reason on float with those acts which follow consequently upon it though inconsequent to the whole body of reason because the disorder there is in the excess of this judgment over others whose force according to nature ought to be greater than it So that if we would frame a conception of a disorder'd Soul when it is out of the Body we may imagine it correspondent to a Body whose one part were biger than could stand in proportion with another as if the hand to use the example we brought before were greater than the arm could manage or the foot larger and heavier than the leg and thigh could wield To which add that every part were active and working of it self so as though it could not be govern'd yet would it continually have its own operation which would be contrary to the operation of the arm or leg and consequently it would ever be tending to imcompossible operations And by that means both one member would always disagree from the other and neither of them attain any effect at all not unlike the fansie of the Poets who fain'd a monster which the term'd Scylla whose inferiour parts were a company of Dogs ever snarling and quarreling among themselvs and yet were unseverable from one another as being comparts of the same substance But to declare this important doctrine more dogmatically let us consider that of necessity a disorder'd Soul hath these following judgments settled in her Namely that she is not well that she cannot be well without her desired good that it is impossible for her to compass that good and lastly that this state she is in is by all means possible to be avoided not by changing her judgment for that is her self but by procuring the satisfaction she desires and this with all the power and total inclination of her activity and possibility This then being the temper of a disorder'd Separated Soul it is easie to conceive what a said condition such an one remains then in which is infinitely more than any affliction that can happen to a man in this world for since even here all our joys and griefs proceed from our Soul we must needs allow that when she shall be free from the burthen of her Body which doth exceedingly impeach and limit her operations and activity all her actions will be then far greater and more efficacious But because this point is of highest consequence we may not slightsly pass it over but we will endeavour if we can to discover the wonderful efficacie and force of a Separated Soul's operations that from thence we may the better collect how great her happiness or misery will be in the next life Let us then consider how an Act or judgment of the Soul may be more forcible either by it self or by the multiplication of such helps as concur with it To begin with considering the Act in it self we know that the certainest way to measure the strength of it is to take a survey of the force which shews it self in its effect for they being relatives to one another each of them discovers the others nature Now this we will doe after our ordinary manner by comparing the spiritual effects issuing from a judgment in the Soul to material effects proceeding from the operations and motions of Bodies In these we may observe three things by which we may estimate their efficaciousness some actions dure a longer time others take up a greater place and others again work the like effect in a greater place and in a shorter time wich last sort of all others proceed from the most powerful and most forcible agents If then in these considerations we compare a Separated Soul to a Body what an infinity of strength and efficacity will the meanest of those pure substances have beyond the most powerful and active Body that can be imagined in nature For we have already shew'd how a Separated Soul comprehends at once all place and all times so that her activity requires no application to place or time but she is of her self mistress of both comprehending all quantity whatever in an indivisible apprehension and ranking all the parts of motion in their compleat and knowing at once order what is to happen in every one of them On the other
and blood can aâ—chieve so wondâ—ous an effect by such 〈◊〉 instruments as are used in the contriving of a man how can it be imagined but that 50 or an 100 years beating upon far more 〈◊〉 elements â—efined in so long a â—me as a child is 〈◊〉 a man arriving to his perfect discourse must necessarily 〈◊〉 out in such a Soul a strange and admirable excellencv abâ—ve the unlick'd form of an abortive Embryonâ— Surely those innumerable strokes every one of which makes a strong impression in the Soul upon whom they beat cannot choose but work a mighty difference in the subject that receivs them changing it strangely from the condition it was in before they begun to new mould it What if I should say the odds between two such Souls may peradventure be not unlike the difference between the two wits judgments of the subtilest Philosopher that ever was and of the dullest Child or Idiot living But this comparison falls too short by far even so much that there is no resemblance or proportion between the things compared For as the excess of great numbers one to another drowns the excess of small ones and makes it not considerable in respect of theirs though they should be in the same proportion so the advantages of a Soul forged to its highest perfection in a mans Body by its long abode there and making right use of that precious time allow'd it must needs in positive value though not in geometrical proportion infinitly exceed when it shall be deliver'd out of prison the advantages which the newly hatcht Soul of an abortive infant shall acquire at the breaking of its chains In this case I believe no man would be of Caesar's mind when he wished to be rather the first man in a contemptible poor Village he passed through among the desert mountains than the second man in Rome Let us suppose the wealth of the richest man in that barren habitation to be one hundred Crowns and that the next to him in substance had but half so much as he in like manner in that opulent City the head of the world where millions were as familiar as pence in other places let the excess of the richest mans wealth be but as in the former double over his that comes next him and there you shall find that if the poorest of the two be worth fifty millions the other hath fifty millions more than he wheras the formers petty treasure exceeds his neighbours but by fifty Crowns What proportion is there in the common estimation of affairs between that trivial sum and fifty millions Much less is there between the excellency of a Separated Soul first perfected in its Body and another that is let loose into compleat liberty before its Body arrived in a natural course to be deliver'd into this world and by its eye to enjoy the light of it The change of every Soul at its separation from the Body to a degree of perfection above what it enjoy'd in the Body is in a manner infinite and by a like infinite proportion every degree of perfection it had in the Body is also then multiply'd what a vast product then of infinity must necessarily be raised by this multiplying instant of the Souls attaining liberty in a well-moulded Soul infinitly beyond that perfection which the Soul of an Infant dying before it be born arrives to And yet we have determined that to be in a manner infinite Here our skill of Arithmetick and proportion fails us Here we find infinite excess over what we also know to be infinite How this can be the feeble eys of our limited understanding are too dull to penetrate into but that it is so we are sure the rigor of discourse convinces necessarily concludes it That assures us that since every impression upon the Soul while it is in its Body makes a change in it were there no others made but meerly the iterating of those acts which brought it from ignorance to knowledg that Soul upon which a hundred of those acts had wrought must have a hundred degrees of advantage over another upon which only one had beaten though by that one it acquired perfect knowledg of that thing And then in the separation these hundred degrees being each of them infinitely multiply'b how infinitly must such a Soul exceed in that particular though we know not how the knowledg of the other Soul which though it be perfect in its kind yet had but one act to forge it out When we arrive to understand the difference of knowledg between the superior and inferior ranks of Intelligences among whom the lowest knows as much as the highest and yet the knowledg of the highest is infinitly more perfect and admirable than the knowledg of his inferiors then not before we shall throughly comprehend this mystery In the mean time 't is enough for us that we are sure thus it fares with Souls and that by how much the excellency and perfection of an all-knowing and all-comprehending Soul deliver'd out of the Body of a wretched Embryon is above the vileness of that heavy lump of flesh it 〈◊〉 quited in its mothers womb even by so much and according to the same proportion must the excellency of a compleat Sâ—l compleated in its Body be in a pitch above the adorable mâ—esty wisdom and aâ—gustness of the greatest and most admired oracle in the world living embodyed in flesh and blood Which as it is in a height and eminency over such an excellent and admirable man infinitly beyond the excess of such a man over that silly lump of slesh which composes the most contempâ—ble Idiot or Embrvon so likewise is the excess of it over the Soul of an abortive Embryon though by the separation grown never so knowing and perfect infinitly greater than the dignity and wisedom of such a man is above the feebleness and misery of a new animated child Therfore have patience my Soul 〈◊〉 repine not at thy longer stay here in this veil of misery where thou art banish'd from those unspeakable joys thou seest at hand before thee Thou shalt have an overflowing reward for thy enduring and patienting in this thy darksome prison Deprive not thy self through mischievous hast of the great hopes and admirable felicity that attend thee canst thou but with due temper stay for it Be content to let thy stock lye out a while at interest thy profits will come in in vast proportions every year every day every hour will pay thee interest upon interest and the longer it runs on the more it multiplies And by the account thou shalt find if thou proceedest as thou should'st that one moment oft-times brings in a greater increase to thy stock of treasure than the many years thou didst live and trade before and the longer thou livest the thicker will these moments arrive to thee In like manner as in Arithmetical Numeration every addition of the least Figure multiplies the whole sum it
OF BODIES AND OF Mans Soul TO DISCOVER THE IMMORTALITY OF REASONABLE SOULS With two Discourses Of the Powder of Sympathy AND Of the Vegetation of Plants By Sir KENELM DIGBY Knight 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Animae naturam absque totius natura Sufficienter cognosci posse existimas Plato in Phoedr LONDON Printed by S. G. and B. G. for John Williams and are to be sold in Little Britain over against St. Buttolphs-Church M. DC LXIX TO MY SON KENELM DIGBY SON THe calamity of this time being such as hath bereft me of the ordinary means of expressing my affection to you I have been casting about to find some other way of doing that in such sort as you may receive most profit by it Therin I soon pitched on this consideration That Parents owe their Children not not onely Material Subsistence for their Body but much more Spiritual Contributions to their better part their Mind I am much bound to God that he hath endued you with one very capable of the best instructions and withal I therfore esteem my self oblig'd to do my utmost for moulding it to its most advantage If my aim therin prove successful you will with more ease digest those inconveniences and distresses which already you have begun to be acquainted with and that threaten daily worse to you For how can a man suffer his heart to be dejected at the privation of any temporal blessings while he considers the inanity of them and that nothing is worthy his serious thought but what may accomapnie him to his Eternal habitation What needs he fear the desolations of War and the worst they can do against him who have his Estate in their power when he may be rich with a much more nobler treasure that none but himself can rob him of without doubt he that shall seriously reflect on the excellency of his own nature and upon the admirable perfect and happy state he shall most certainlie arrive to if he but wean himself from those worldlie impediments that here clog his souls flight cannot choose but look with a disdainful eye upon the glittering trifles that weak spirits delight themselvs with If e deem it not requisite as of old the fahous Wise man did to throw away those encumbrances to the end he may the more freely attend to divine contemplation for worldy goods duly used may be very advantagious both to ones self and to others yet at least he will not repine at Fortunes recalling what she formerly had but lent him and permitted him the use of That then you may be arm'd against the worst may arrive to you in this unhappy state of affairs in our distressed Country I send you those considerations of the Nature and Immortality of Humane Souls which of late have been my chief entertainment The progress you have already made in the study of Philosophy hath I am perswaded enabled you ro benefit your self with what I have written on this subject on the serious examining of which if you will employ but half the time that I have done in spining out my thoughts and weaving them into the piece you see I doubt not but you will therby receive so much contentment as well as profit that you will not repent you of your pains Besides that Intellectual entertainments are the purest and the noblest and the most proportionate to Mans Nature and prove the most delightful to him when they are duly relished You will presently agree that the matter I handle is the most important and weighty within the whole Extent of humane nature for a worthy person to employ himself about The advantage that Man hath over unreasonable creatures is that what he doth is by election and he is himself master of all his actions wheras they are impelled by outward causes to all they do It is properly said of them that aguntur magis quà m agunt He only is free and in all varieties of circumstances hath the power to choose one and reject another Now to have this election wisely made and becoming a Man requires that it be steer'd by knowledg To do any thing well a man must first know throughly all that concerns the action he is about and chiefly the end of it And certainly of all his actions the government of himself is the most important and nearliest concerning him The end of that government and of all a Man's aims is by all men agreed to be Beatitude that is his being completely well and in a condition of enjoying the most happienss that this nature is capable of For arrival wherto 't is impossible to pitch upon the direct and sure means unless it be first determin'd whether the Beatitude we speak of belong to this life or be not to be attaind'd til we come to the next or rather whether or no there be another life besides this to be happy in For if there remains an Eternitie to us after the short revolution of time we so swiftly run over here on Earth 't is clear that all the happiness which can be imagin'd in this fleeting state is not valuable in respect of the future nor any thing we do here is considerable otherwise than as it conduces to the making our condition then better or worse Now the way to be sure of this is either Infallible Authority or Evident Science They that rely on the first depend of others and they only know are absolutely complete of themselvs and have within themselvs the Principles wherby to govern their Actions in what is of highest consequence to them 'T is true every body is not of a strain of Wit and Judgment to be of this Rank and who are not must be contented to believe others and be satisfied with what is taught them But he that will be of a superiour Orbe must make this his study This is the adequate entertainment of a worthy person To conceive how high and excellent this Science of governing a Man in order to Beatitude in the next world is we may consider how among all arts that concern this life the art of a States-man to whom belongs to see a Common-wealth well govern'd is by much the noblest All other arts are but ministerial to him He makes use of the Souldier of the Lawyer of the Orator of the Antiquary of the Physician as best conduces to the end he aims at of making the Common wealth he governs happy and flourishing All other meaner Trades serve him in a yet lower degree Yet after all he must take his measures from the Metaphysician or Divine For since the government of a Society of men aims at giving them the best being they are capable of and since Man's well-being here in this life is but instrumentally good as being the means for him to be well in the next life 't is evident the States-man's art is but instrumental to That which shews how every particular man must govern his life
oftentimes works strange effects in their issue 4. Of Antipathies 5. Of Sympathies 6. That the Antipathy of beasts towards one another may be taken away by assuefaction 7. Of longing marks seen in children 8. Why divers men hate some certain meats particularly Cheese 9. Concerning the providence of Ants in laying up in store for winter 10. Concerning the foreknowing of beasts The Conclusion of the first Treatise TABLE Of the Second TREATISE CONCERNING Mans Soul PREFACE CHAP. I. OF simple Apprehensions 1 what is a right apprehension of a thing 2. The very thing it self is truly in his understanding who rightly apprehends it 3. The apprehensions of things coming to us by our senses are resolvable into other more simple apprehensions 4. The apprehension of a Being is the most simple and Basis of all the rest 5. The apprehension of a thing is in next degree to that of Being and it is the Basis of all the subsequent ones 6. The apprehension of things known to us by our senses consists in certain respects betwixt two things 7. Respect or relation hath not really any formal being but only in the apprehension of man 8. That Existence or Being is the proper affection of man and that mans soul is a comparing power 9. A thing by coming into the understanding of man loses nothing of its own peculiar nature 10. A multitude of things may be united in mans understanding without being mingled or confounded together 11. Of abstracted and concrete terms 12. Of universal notions 13. Of apprehending a multitude under one notion 14. The power of the understanding reaches as far as the extent of Being CHAP. II. Of thinking and knowing 1. How a judgment is made by the understanding 2. That two or more apprehensions are identified in the soul by uniting them in the stock of being 3. How the notions of a substantive an adjective are united in the soul by the common stock of being 4. That a setled judgment becomes a part of our soul. 5. How the soul comes to deem or settle a judgment 6. How opinion is begotten in the understanding 7. How faith is begotten in the unstanding 8. Why truth is the perfection of a reasonable Soul and why it is not found in simple apprehensions as well as in Enuntiations 9. What is a solid judgment and what a slight one 10. What is an acute judgment and what a dull one 11. In what consists quickness and clearness of judgment and their opposite vices CHAP. III. Of Discoursing 1. How discourse is made 2. Of the figures and moods of syllogisms 3. That the life of man as man consists in discourse and of the vast extent of it 4. Of humane actions and of those that concern our selvs 5. Of humane actions as they concern our neighbours 6. Of Logick 7. Of Grammar 8. Of Rhetorick 9. Of Poetry 10. Of the power of speaking 11. Of arts that concern dumb and insensible creatures 12. Of Arithmetick 13. Of Prudence 14. Observations upon what has been said in this Chapter CHAP. IV. How a Man proceeds to Action 1. That humane actions proceed from two several principles understanding and sense 2. How our general and inbred maximes concur to Humane Actions 3. That the rules and maximes of arts works positively in us though we think not of them 4. How the understanding casts about when it wants sufficient grounds for action 5. How reason rules over sense and passion 6. How we recall our thoughts from distractions 7. How reason is sometimes overcome by sense and passion CHAP. V. Containing proofs out of our Single apprehensions that our Soul is Incorporeal 1. The connexion of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. The existence of corporeal things in the soul by the power of apprehension proves her to be immaterial 3. The notion of Being which is innate in the Soul proves the same 4. The same is proved by the notion of respects 5. That corporeal things are spiritualized in the understanding by means of the souls working in and by respects 6. That the abstracting of Notions from all particular and individual accidents proves the the immateriality of the soul. 7. That the universality of abstracted notions proves the same 8. That collective apprehensions proves the same 9. The operations of the soul drawing always from multitude to unity prove the same 10. The difference betwixt the notion of a thing in our understanding and the impression that corresponds to the same thing in our phansie proves the same 11. The apprehension of negations and privations proves the same CHAP. VI. Containing proofs out of our souls operations in knowing or deeming any thing that she is of a spiritual nature 1. The manner of judging or deeming by apprehending two things to be identified proves the soul to be immaterial 2. The same is proved by the manner of apprehending opposition in a negative judgment 3. That things in themselvs opposite to one another having no opposition in the soul proves the same 4. That the first truths are identified to the soul. 5. That the soul hath an infinite capacity and consequently is immaterial 6. That the opposition of contradictory propositions in the soul proves her immateriality 7. How propositions of eternal truth prove the immateriality of the soul. CHAP. VII That our Discoursing proves our Soul to be incorporeal 1. That in discoursing the soul contains more in it at the same time than is in the phantasy which proves her to be immaterial 2. That the nature of discourse proves the soul to be order'd to infinite knowledge and consequently immaterial 3. That the most natural objects of the soul are immaterial and consequently the soul her self is such CHAP. VIII Cantaining proofs out of our manner of proceeding to action that our Soul is incorporeal 1. That the souls being a power to order things proves her to be immaterial 2. That the Souls being able to move without being moved proves her to be immaterial 3. That the souls proceeding to action with an universality and indifferency proves the same 4. That the quiet proceeding of reason proves the same 5. A conclusion of what hath been said hitherto in this second Treatise CHAP. IX That our soul is a Substance and Immortal 1. That Mans soul is a substance 2. That man is compounded of some other substance besides his body 3. That the Soul subsists of it self independently of the body 4. Two other arguments to prove the same one positive the other negative 5. The same is proved because the soul cannot be obnoxious to the cause of mortality 6. The same is proved because the Soul hath no contrary 7. The same is proved from the end for which the Soul was created 8. The same is proved because she can move without being moved 9. The same is proved from her manner of operation which is grounded in being 10. Lastly it is proved from the science of Morality the principles wherof would be destroyed
and so of every thing that either passes in our body or is apply'd for remedy And the meaner sort of Physicians know no more but that such faculties are though indeed they that are truly Physicians know also in what they consist without which knowledg it is much to be fear'd Physicians will do more harm than good But to return to our subject This course of doctrine in the Schools hath forced me to a great deal of pains in seeking to discover the nature of all such actions or of the main part of them as were famed for incomprehensible For what hope could I have out of the Actions of the Soul to convince the nature of it to be incorporeal If I could give no other account of Bodies Operations than that they were perform'd by qualities occult specifical or incomprehensible Would not my Adversary presently answer that any operation out of which I should press the Souls being spiritual was perform'd by a corporeal occult quality and that as he must acknowledg it to be incomprehensible so must I likewise acknowledg other qualities of Bodies to be as incomprehensible and therfore could not with reason press him to shew how a Body was able to do such an operation as I should infer must of necessity proceed from a spirit since that neither could I give account how the Loadstone drew Iron or looked to the North how a stone and other heavy things were carried downwards how sight or fantasie was made how Digestion or purging were effected and many other such questions which are so slightly resolv'd in the Schools Besides this Reason the very desire of knowledge in my self and a willingness to be available to others at the least so far as to set them on seeking for it without having a prejudice of impossibility to attain it was to me a sufficient motive to inlarge my discourse to the Bulk it is risen to For what a misery is it that the Flower and best Wits of Christendom which flock to the Universities under pretence and upon hope of gaining knowledge should be there deluded and after many years of toyl and expence be sent home again with nothing acquired more than a faculty and readiness to talk like Parrats of many things but not to understand so much as any one and withal with a perswasion that in truth nothing can be known For setting knowledge aside what can it avail a man to be able to talk of any thing What are those wranglings where the discovery of Truth is neither sought nor hoped for but meerly Vanity and Ostentation Doth not all tend to make one seem and appear that which indeed he is not Nor let any body take it ill at my hands that I speak thâ— of the Modern Schools for indeed it is rather themselvs than I that say it Excepting Mathematicks let all the other Schools pronounce their own minds and say ingenuosly whether they themselvs believe they have so much as any one Demonstration from the beginning to the end of the whole course of their Learning And if all or the most part will agree that any one position is demonstrated perfectly and as it ought to be and as thousands of conclusions are demonstrated in Mathematicks I am ready to undergo the blame of having calumniated them and will as readily make them amends But if they neither will nor can then their own Verdict clears me and it is not so much I as they that make this profession of the shallowness of their Doctrine And to this purpose I have often heard the Lamentations of divers as great wits as any that converse in the Shools complaining of this defect But in so great an evidence of the effect proofs are superfluous Wherfore I will leave this Subject to declare what I have here design'd and gone about towards the Remedy of this inconvenience Which is that whereas in the Schools there is a loose method or rather none but that it is lawful by the liberty of a Commentator to handle any Question in any place which is the cause of the slightness of their doctrine and can never be the way to any Science or Certitude I have taken my beginnings from the commonest things that are in Nature Namely from the Notions of Quantity and its first Differences which are the most simple and radical Notions that are and in which all the rest are to be grounded From them I endeavour byimmediate composition of them and derivation from them to bring down my discouse to the Elements which are the primary and most simple bodies in nature From these I proceed to Compounded Bodies first to those that are call'd Mixed and then to living bodies declaring in common the Proprieties and operations that belong to them And by occasion as I pass along I light here and there on those operations which seem most admirable in nature to shew how they are or at least may be performed that though I miss in particular of the industry of Nature yet I may nevertheless hit my intent which is to trace out a way how these and such like Operations may be effected by an Exact disposition and ordering though intricate of Quantitative and Corporeal parts and to shew that they oblige us not to recur to hidden and unexplicable qualities And if I have declared so many of these as may beget a probable perswasion in my Reader that the rest which I have not touched may likewise be display'd and shew'd to spring out of the same grounds if curious and constant searchers into Nature will make it their task to penetrate into them I have therein obtain'd my desire and intent Which is only to shew from what principles all kinds of corporeal operations proceed and what kind of operations all these must be which may issue out of these principles to the end that I may from thence make a step to raise my discourse to the contemplation of the Soul and shew that her Operations are such as cannot proceed from those principles which being adequate and common to all Bodies we may rest assured that what cannot issue from them cannot have a Body for its source I will therefore end this Preface with entreating my Reader to consider that in a discourse proceeding in such order as I have declared he must not expect to understand and be satisfied with what is said in any middle or latter part unless he first have read and understood what goes before Wherefore if he cannot resolve with himself to take it along orderly as it lyes from the begining he shall do himself as well as me right not to meddle at all with this Book But if he will employ any time upon it to receive advantage by it he must be content to take the pains to understand throughly every particular as it is set down And if his memory will not serve him to carry every one along with him yet at least let him be sure to remember the Place where
in society together and converse with one another wheras the other has no further extent then among such persons as have agreed together to explicate and design among themselvs particular notions peculiar to their arts and affairs Of the first kind are those ten general heads which Aristotle calls Predicaments under which he who was the most judicious orderer of notions and director of mens conceptions that ever lived hath comprised whatever has or can have a being in nature For when any object occurs to our thoughts we either consider the essential and fundamental Being of it or we refer it to some species of Quantity or we discover some Qualities in it or we perceive that it Does or Suffers somthing or we conceive it in some determinate Place or Time and the like Of all which every man living that injoys but the use of reason finds naturally within himself at the very first naming of them a plain complete and satisfying notion which is the same without any the least variation in all mankind unless it be in such as have industriously and by force and with much labour perplex'd and deprav'd those primary and sincere impressions which nature had freely made in them Of the second sort are the particular words of art by which learned men use to express what they mean in Sciences and the names of Instruments and of such things as belong to Trades and the like as a Sine a Tangent an Epicycle a Deferent an Axe a Trowel and such others the intelligence of which belongs not to the generality of mankind but only to the Geometricians Astronomers Carpenters Masons and such persons as converse familiarly and frequently with those things To learn the true signification of such words we must consult with those that have the knowledge and practice of them as in like manner to understand the other kind of plain language we must observe how the words that compose it are apprehended used and applyed by mankind in general and not receive into this examination the wrested or Metaphorical senses of any learned men who seek oftentimes beyond any ground in nature to frame a general notion that may comprehend all the particular ones which in any sense proper or improper may arise out of the use of one word And this is the cause of great errours in discourse so great and important as I cannot too much inculcate the caution requisite to the avoyding of this rock Which that it may be the better apprehended I will instance in one example of a most plain and easie conception wherin all mankind naturally agrees how the wresting it from its proper genuine and original signification leads one into strange absurdities and yet they pass for subtil speculations The notion of being in a place is naturally the same in all men living Ask any simple Artisan Where such a man such a house such a tree or such a thing is and he will answer you in the very same manner as the learnedest Philosopher would doe He 'l tell you the Man you ask for is in such a Church sitting in such a Piew and in such a Corner of it that the House you inquire after is in such a Street and next to such two Buildings on each side of it that the Tree you would find out is in such a Forest upon such a Hill near such a Fountain and by such a Bush that the Wine you would drink of is in such a Cellar in such a Part of it and in such a Cask In conclusion no man living that speaks naturally and freely out of the notion he finds clearly in his understanding will give you other answer to the question of where a thing is then such a one as plainly expresses his conceit of being in place to be no other then bodies being environ'd and inclos'd by some one or several others that are immediate to it as the place of a liquour is the vessel that contains it and the place of the vessel is such a part of the chamber or house that it rests on together with the ambient Air which has a share in making up the places of most things And this being the answer that every man whatever will readily give to this question and every asker being fully satisfied with it we may safely conclude That all their notions and conceptions of being in a place are the same and consequently that it is the natural and true one But then some others considering that such conditions as these will not agree to other things which they likewise conceit to be in a place for they receive it as an axiome from their sense that whatever is must be somwhere and whatever is no where is not at all they fall to casting about how they may frame some common notion to comprehend all the several kinds of being in place which they imagine in the things they discourse of If there were nothing but Bodies to be rank'd by them in the Predicament of Place then that description I have already set down would be allow'd by them as sufficient But since that Spirits and Spiritual things as Angels Rational Souls Verities Sciences Arts and the like have a being in Nature and yet will not be comprised in such a kind of place as a Body is contain'd in they rack their thoughts to speculate out some common notion of being in place which may be common to these as well as to Bodies like a common accident agreeing to divers subjects And so in the end they pitch on an Entity which they call an Ubi and they conceit the nature and formal reason of that to be the ranking of any thing in a place when that Entity is thereto affixed And then they have no further difficulty in setling an Angel or any pure Spirit or immaterial Essence in a place as properly and as completely as if it were a Corporal Substance 'T is but assigning an Ubi to such a Spirit and he is presently riveted to what place you please And by multiplying the Ubis any individual body to which they are assign'd is at the same instant in as many distant places as they allot it different Ubis And if they assign the same Ubi to several bodies so many several ones as they assign it to will be in one and the same place And not only many bodies in one place but even a whole body in an indivisible by a kind of Ubi that has a power to resume all the extended parts and inclose them in a point of place All which prodigious conceits and impossibilities in nature spring out of their mistake in framing Metaphysical and abstracted conceptions instead of contenting themselvs with those plain easie and primary notions which Nature stamps alike in all men of common sense and understanding As who desires to be further instructed in this particular may perceive if he take the pains to look over what Mr. White hath discours'd of Place in the
this end That we may live well wheras these immediately teach it These are the fruits in general that I hope may in some measure grow out of this discourse in the hands of equal and judicious Readers but the particular aim of it is to shew what actions can proceed from a Body and what cannot In the conduct wherof one of our chief endeavours has been to shew that those actions which seem to draw strongly into the order of bodies the unknown nature of certain Entities named Qualities either do or may proceed from the same causes which produce those known effects that all sides agree do not stand in need of any such mystical Phylosophy And this being the main hinge upon which hangs and moves the full and clear resolving of onr main and great question Of the immortallity of the Soul I assure my self the pains I have taken in this particular will not be deem'd superfluous or tedious and withall I hope I have employ'd th'em with so good succes as henceforward we shall not be any more troubled with objections drawn from their hidden and incomprehensible nature and that we stand upon even ground with those of the cnotrary opinion for since we have shew d how all actions may be perform'd among Bodies without having any recourse to such Entities and Qualities as they pretend and paint out to us 't is now their parts if they will have them admitted to prove that in nature there are such Having then brought the Phylosophy of Bodies to these terms that which remains for us to perform is to shew that those actions of our Souls for which we call her a Spirit are of such a nature as cannot be reduced to those principles by which all corporeal actions are effected For the proof of our original intent no more than this can be exacted at our hands so that if our positive proofs shall carry us yet beyond this it cannot be denyd but that we give over-measure and illustrate with a greater light what is already sufficiently discerned In our proceeding we have nature preceding as for laying for our ground the natural conceptions which mankind makes of Quantity we find that a Body is a meer passive thing consisting of divers parts which by motion may be diversly ordered and consequently that it is capable of no other change or operation than such as Motion may produce by various ordering the divers parts of it And then seeing that Rare and Dense is the primary and adequate division of Bodies it follows evidently that what cannot be effected by the various disposition of rare and dense parts cannot proceed or be effected by a pure body And consequently it will be sufficient for us to shew that the Motions of our Soules are such And they who will not agree to this conclusion must take upon them to shew that our first premise is defective by proving that other unknown ways are necessary for bodies to be wrought on or work by and that the motion and various ordering of rare and dense parts in them is not cause sufficient for the effects we see among them Which whoever shall attempt to do must remember he has this disadvantage before he begins that whatever has been hitherto discover'd 〈◊〉 the science of Bodies by the help either of Mathematicks or Physicks has all been resolvd and faln into this way which we declare Here I should set a period to all further discourse conceurning this first Treatise of Bodies did not I apprehend that the prejudice of Aristotle's Authority may dispose many to a harsh conceit of the draught we have made But if they knew how little reason they have to urge that against us they would not cry us down for contradicting that Oracle of nature not only because he himself both by word and example exhorts us when verity leads us another way to forsake the tracts which our Forefathers have beaten for us so we do it with respect and gratitude for the much they have left us nor yet because Christian Religion as it will not hear of any man purely such free from sin so it inclines to perswade us that no man can be exempt from errour and therfore it savours not well to defend peremptorily any mans sayings especially if they be many as uncontroulable howbeit I intend not to prejudice any person that to defend a worthy Authors honour shall indeavour to vindicate him from absurdities and gross errors nor lastly because it ever hath been the common practice of all grave Peripateticks and Thomists to leave their Masters some in one article some in another But indeed because the very truth is that the way we take is directly the same solid way which Aristotle walked in before us and they who are scandalised at us for leaving him are exceedingly mistaken in the matter and out of the sound of his words not rightly understood frame a wrong sense of the doctrine he hath left us which generally we follow Let any unpartial Aristotelian answer whether the conceptions we have delivered of Quantity of Rarity and Density of the four first Qualities of the combinations of the Elements of the repugnance of vacuities be not exactly and rigorously Aristotles Whether the motion of weighty and light things and of such as are forced be not by him as well as by us attributed to extern causes In which all the difference between us is that we enlarge our selvs to more particulars than he hath done Let any man read his Books of Generation and Corruption and say whether he doth not expresly teach that Mixtion which he delivers to be the generation or making of a mixt body is done por minima that is in our language and in one word by Atomes signifies that all the qualities which are natural ones following the composition of the Elements are made by the mingling of the least parts or atomes of the said Elements which is in effect to say that all the Nature of Bodies their Qualities and their Operations are compassed by the mingling of atomes the shewing and explicating of which hath been our labour in this whole Treatise Let him read his Books of Meteors and judg whether he doth not give the causes of all the effects he treats of there by mingling and separating of great and little gross and subtile fiery and watery aiery and earthy parts just as we do The same he doth in his Problems and in his Perva naturalia and in all other places wherever he hath occasion to render Physically the causes of Physical effects The same do Hippocrates and Galen the same their Master Democritus and with them the best sort of Physicians The same do Alchymists with their Master Geber whose Maxime to this purpose we cited above the same do all natural Philosophers either antient Commentators on Aristotle or modern enquirers into natural effects in a sensible and understandable way as who will take the paines to look into them will
Which being so no body can quarrel with us for Aristotle's sake who as he was the greatest Logician and Metaphysician and universal Scholar peradventure that ever lived and so highly esteem'd that the good turn which Sylla did the world in saving his works was thought to recompence his many outragious cruelties and tyranny so his name must never be mention'd among Scholars but with reverence for his unparalleld'd worth and with gratitude for the large stock of knowledge he hath enriched us with Yet withal we are to consider that since his reign was but at the beginning of Sciences he could not choose but have some defects and shortnesses among his many great and admirable perfections SECOND TREATISE DECLARING THE NATURE AND OPERATIONS OF MANS SOUL OUT OF WHICH THE IMMORTALITY OF REASONABLE SOULS IS CONVINCED LONDON Printed in the Year 1669. PREFACE 'T Is now high time for us to cast an Eye on the other Leaf of our Accounts or peradventure I may more properly say to fall to the perusal of our own accounts for hitherto our time and pains have been taken up in examining and casting the accounts of others to the end that from the Foot and Total of them we may drive on our own the more smoothly In ours then we shall meet with a new Capital we shall discover a new World of a quite different strain and nature from that which all this while we have imploy'd our selves about We will enter into them with taking a survey of the great Master of all that large Family we have so summarily view'd I mean of Man as Man that is not as he is subject to those Laws wherby other bodies are govern'd for therin he hath no preeminence to raise him out of their throng but as he exceeds the rest of Creatures subject to his managing and rules over nature her self making her serve his designes and subjecting her noblest powers to his Laws and is distinguish'd from all other creatures whatever To the end we may discover whether that principle in him from whence those actions proceed which are properly his be but some refined composition of the same kind we have already treated of or whether it derives its Sourse and Origine from some higher Spring and Stock and be of a quite different nature Having then by our former Treatise master'd the oppositions which else would have taken arms against us when we should have been in the midst of our edifice and clear'd the objections which lay in our way from the perverse Qualities of the Souls Neighbours the several Common-wealths of Bodies we must now begin with David to gather together our Materials and take a survey of our own provisions that so we may proceed with Solomon to the sacred building of Gods Temple But before we go about it it will not be amiss that we shew the reason why we have made our Porch so great and added so long an entry that the house is not likely to have therto a correspondent bulk and when the necessity of doing so shall appear I hope my pains will meet with a favourable censure and receive a fair admittance We proposed to our selves to shew That our Souls are immortal wherupon casting about to find the grounds of Immortality and discerning it to be a negative we conceiv'd that we ought to begin our search with enquiring what Mortality is and what be the causes of it Which when we should have discover'd and brought the Soul to their test if we found they trench'd not upon her nor any way concern'd her condition we might safely conclude that of necessity she must be immortal Looking then into the causes of mortality we saw that all Bodies round about us were Mortal whence perceiving that Mortality extended it self as far corporeity we found our selvs obliged if we would free the Soul from that Law to shew that she is not corporeal This could not be done without enquiring what corporeity was Now it being a rule among Logicians that a definition cannot be good unless it comprehend and reach to every particular of that which is defined we perceiv'd it impossible to know compleatly what a Body is without taking a general view of all those things which we comprise under the name and meaning of Bodies This is the cause we spent so much time in the First Treatise and I hope to good purpose for there we found that the nature of a Body consisted in being made of parts that all the Differences of Bodies are reduced to having more or less parts in comparison to their substance thus and thus order'd and lastly that all their operations are nothing else but Local Motions which follows naturally out of having parts So as it appears evidently from hence that if any thing have a being and yet have no parts it is not a body but a substance of another quality and condition and consequently if we can find the Soul's being to be without parts and that her operations are no local translation we evidently conclude her to be an immaterial or spiritual substance Peradventure it may be objected that all this might have been done a much more shorter way than we have taken and that we needed not have branc'd our discourse into so many particulars nor driven them so home as we have done but might have taken out our first rise from this ground which is as evident as light of reason can make it that seeing we know bigness and a body to be one and the same as well in the notion as in the thing it must of necessity follow that what hath not parts nor works nor is wrought upon by Division is not a Body I confess this Objection appears very reasonable and the consideration of it weigh'd so much with me as were all men of a free judgment and not imbued with artificial errours I would for its sake have saved my self a great deal of pains but I find as in the former Treatise I have frequently complain'd that there is crept into the world a Fansy so contrary to this pregnant truth and that it is so deeply setled in many mens minds not of the meanest note as all we have said is peradventure too little to root it out If any satisfied with the rational Maxime we even now mentioned therfore not deeming it needful to employ his time in reading the former Treatise should wish to know how this is come to pass I shall here represent to to him the Summe of what I have more at large scatter'd in several places of the former Treatise And shall intreat him to consider how Nature teaches us to call the Proprieties of things wherby one is distinguished from another the Qualities of those things and that according to their varieties they have divers names suited out to divers of them some being called Habits others Powers and others by other names Now what Aristotle and the Learned Grecians meant by these things is clear by the examples
side who shall consider that he knows the thing which he rightly apprehends that it works in him and makes him work agreeable to its nature and that all the properties and singularities of it may be display'd by what is in him and are as it were unfolded in his mind he can neither deny nor doubt but that it is there in an admirable and spiritual manner If you ask me how this comes to pass and by what artifice Bodies are thus spiritualized I confesse I shall not be able to satisfie you but must answer that it is done I know not how by the power of the Soul Shew me a Soul and I will tell you how it works but as we are sure there is a Soul that is to say a Principle from whence these operations spring though we cannot see it so we may and do certainly know that this mystery is as we say though because we understand not the true and compleat na-nature of a Soul we can as little express the manner how it is done by a Soul Yet before we take our leave of this matter of Apprehensions we will in due place endeavour to say somthing towards the clearing of this obscure point Our second consideration upon the nature of Apprehension was that our primary and main notion is of Being This discovers some little glimpse of the nature of the Soul For 't is manifest that she applyes this notion as well to no-parts as to parts Which we prov'd in the first Treatise when we shew'd that we have a particular notion of Substance distinct from the notion of Quantity for Quantity and Parts being the same it follows that if there be a notion supposed by Quantity as in Substance there is it must of necessity abstract from parts and consequently we may conclude that the notion of Being which is indifferently applyable either to Quantity or Substance of its own nature wholly abstracts either from Parts or no-Parts I then infer that since this notion of Being is the very first and virgin notion our Soul is imbued with or capable of and is the root of all other notions and into which she resolvs every other notion so as when we have sifted and searsed the essence of any notion whatever we can discover nothing deeper than this or precedent to it and that it agrees so compleatly with our Soul as she seems to be nothing else but a capacity fitted to Being it cannot be denied but that our Soul must needs have a very near affinity and resemblance of nature with it But 't is evident that Being hath not of it self any parts in it nor of it self is capable of division and therfore 't is as evident that the Soul which is fram'd as it were by that patern and Idea and fitted for Being as for its End must also of it self be void of parts and incapable of division For how can parts be fitted to an indivisible thing And how can two such different natures ever meet proportionably If it be objected that the very notion of Being from whence we estimate the nature of the Soul is accommodable to parts as for example we see that Substance is endew'd with Quantity We answer that even this corroborates our proof For since all the substances which our senses are acquainted with have parts and cannot be without parts and yet nevertheless in our Soul the notion of such substance is found without parts 't is clear that such substance hath this meerly from our Soul and because it hath this indivisibility from our Soul it follows that our Soul hath a power and nature to bestow indivisibility upon what comes into her And since it cannot be deny'd but that if any substance were once existent without parts it could never after have parts 't is evident that the nature of the Soul is incapable of parts because it is existent without parts And that it is in such sort existent is clear for this effect of the Souls giving indivisibility to what she receives into her proceeds from her as she is existent Now since this notion of Being is of all others the first and Original notion that is in the Soul it must needs above all others savour most of the proper and genuine nature of the Soul in and by which it is what it is and hath its indivisibility If then it be press'd how can Substance in reality or in things be accommodated to Quantity since of it self it is indivisible We answer that such Substance as is the subject of and hath Quantity is not indivisible for such Substance cannot be subsistent without Quantity and when we frame a notion of it as indivisible 't is an effect of the force of our Soul that is able to draw a notion out of a thing that hath parts without drawing the notion of the parts Which shews manifestly that in her there is a power above having of parts and this vertue in her argues her existence to be such Our last consideration upon the nature of Appehension was how all that is added to the notion of Being is nothing else but respects of one thing to another and how by these respects all the things of the world come to be in our Soul The evidence we may draw from hence of our Souls immateriality will be not a whit less than either of the two former For let us cast our looks over all that comes into our senses see if from one end to another we can meet with such a thing as we call a respect it hath neither figure nor colour nor smell nor motion nor taste nor touch it hath no similitude to be drawn from by means of our senses To be like to be half or be cause or effect what is it The things indeed that are so have their resemblances and pictures but which way should a Painter go about to draw a likeness or to paint a half or a cause or an effect If we have any understanding we cannot chuse but understand that these notions are extremely different from whatever comes in to us by the mediation of our senses and then if we reflect how the whole negotiation of our understanding is in by respects must it not follow necessarily that our Soul is of an extream different nature from our Senses and Imagination Nay If we look well into this argument we shall see that wheras Aristotle pretends that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d non prius fuit in sensu this Maxime is so far from true in rigour of the words that the quite contrary follows undeniably out of it to wit that Nihil est in intellectu quâ—d fuit prius in sensu Which I do not say to contradict Aristotle for his words are true in the meaning he spoke them but to shew how things are so much changed by coming into the understanding into the Soul that although on the one side they be the very same things yet on the
other side there remains no likeness at all between them in themselvs as they are in the understanding which is a most evident proof when the weight of it is duly consider'd that the nature of our Soul is mainly different from the nature of all corporeal things that come into our sense By this which we now come from declaring the admiration how corporeal things can be in the Soul and how they are spiritualiz'd by being there will in part be taken away For reflecting that all the notions of the Soul are nothing but the general notion of a Substance or thing joyn'd with some particular respect if we consider that the respects may be so order'd that one respect may be included in another we shall see that there may be some one respect which may include all those respects that explicate the nature of some one thing in this case the general notion of a thing coupled with this respect will contain all whatever is in the thing as for example the notion of a Knife that it is a thing to cut with includes as we have formerly declared all that belongs to a Knife And thus you see how the mystical phrase of corporeal things being spiritualiz'd in the Soul signifies no more but that the similitudes which areoftthem in the Soul are Respects Thus having collected out of the nature of Apprehension in common as much as we conceive needful in this place to prove our assertion our next work must be to try if we can do the like by reflecting on particular apprehensions We consider'd them of two sorts calling one kind universal ones and the other collective ones In the universal ones we took notice of two conditions the abstraction and the universality of them Now truly if we had no other evidence but what will rise from the first of these that alone would convince and carry the conclusion For though among corporeal things the same may be now in one place now in another or somtimes have one figure sometimes another and still be the same thing as for example wax or water yet it is impossible to imagin any bodily thing whatever to be at any time without all kind of figure or without any place at all or indifferent to this or to that and nevertheless all things whatever when they are universally apprehended by the Soul have this condition in her by reason of their abstraction there which in themselvs is impossible to them When we say water fire gold silver bread c. do we mean or express any determinate figure If we do none but that precise figure will serve or content us but 't is evident that of a hundred different ones any and every one doth alike intirely satisfy us When we call for Mony if we reflect upon our fansy peradventure we shall find there a purse of Crowns nevertheless if our messenger brings us a purse of Pistols we shall not except against it as not being what we intended in our mind because it is not that which was painted in our fansy 'T is therfore evident that our meaning and our fansy were different for otherwise nothing would have satisfy'd us but that which was in our fansy Likewise in the very word which is the picture of our notion we see an indifferency for no Dictionary will tell us that this word Mony doth not signify as well Pistols as Crowns and accordingly we see that if our meaning had been precisely of Crowns we should have blamed our selvs for not having named Crowns and not him that brought us Pistols when we spoke to him by the name of Mony ' T◠most clear therfore that our understanding or meaning is 〈◊〉 fix'd or determin'd to any one particular but equally 〈◊〉 to all and consequently that it cannot be like any thing which enters by the Senses and therfore not corporeal The second condition of Universal Apprehensions is their universality which adds to their abstraction one admirable parcularity and it is that they abstract in such sort as to express at the same time even the very thing they abstract from How is it possible that the same thing can be and not be in the same notion Yet let a man consider what he means when he saith every man hath two eyes and he shall see that he expresses nothing wherby any one man is distinguish'd from another and yet the force of this word Every expresses that every man is distinguish'd from another so that in truth he expresses particularity it self in common Now let our smartest and ingeniousest adversary shew or imagine if he can how this may be done in a picture or in a statue or in any resemblance of a body or bodily thing but if he cannot let him acknowledg an eminent and singular propriety in the Soul that is able to do it Let us reflect that particularity in a body is a collection of divers qualities circumstances as that it is white of such a figure in such a place in such a time and an infinitude of such like conditions conglobated together then if our Soul be a Body the expression of the particularity of a Body in the Soul must be a participation in her of such a conglobation or of such things conglobated Now let us imagine if we can how such a participation should be in common and should abstract from all colour all place and all those things of which the conglobation consists and yet we see that in the Soul this is done and he who saith Every man doth not express any colour place or time and nevertheless by saying so he expresses that in every man there is a conglobation of colour place and time For it could not be Every one unless there were such conglobations to make Every one one and if any conglobation were expressed in this term Every one it would not be Every one but only one alone Now if any coordination of parts can unfold and lay open this riddle I wil renounce all Philosophy Understanding Collective Apprehensions will afford us no meaner testimony than the other two for the spirituality of our Soul For though it may seem to us before we reflect throughly on the matter that we see or otherwise discern by our sense the Numbers of things as that the men in the next room are Three that the Chairs there are Ten and the like of other things yet after due consideration we shall find that our eye or sense tells us but singly of each one that it is One and so runs over every one of them keeping them still each by themselvs under their own several unities but then the Understanding comes and joyns under one notion what the Sense kept asunder in so many several ones as there are things The notion of three or ten is not in the things but in our mind for why three rather than five or ten rather than twelve if the matter of which we
the man which also is the effect of her being fixed to Existence for by reason of that she still apprehends every impression as a thing But now whether her apprehension includes the very impression which is in the sense or in the fansie so that by its own likeness it be in the Soul or whether the impression in the fansie makes a change in the Soul which we cannot discern in it self but conceive it to be the impression which is in the fansie because that impression is at the first continually present at the said mutation is more obscure and hard to discover But when we reflect that after some time words succeed in lie u of this impression and perform the same effect as the original impression in what language soever they be utter'd so they be understood we may conclude out of this evident sign that the impression is in the understanding not in its own likeness but in another shape which we do not discover and which is excitated as well by the name as by the impression in a man that is used to the names Again in a man that learns things by himself these impressions serve for words and not for things for such a man never looks into his fansie to discourse on any thing but only upon the mutation he conceivs is made in the extern sense out of which he gathers by little and little the nature of the thing whose notion was made at first in him by this impression Whence is manifest that our knowledg is a different thing from the Phantasmes which beat at the Souls door as the thing signifi'd is from the sound of the word or as the Wine in the Cellar is from the Bush and therfore 't is impossible that the Soul in which that knowledg resides and which indeed is that knowledg should be a corporeal thing since of all bodily things the motions that are made by the sensible qualities arrive nearest to a spiritual nature It remains now that we should argue for the immateriality of the Soul out of the extent of our apprehension which seems to be so excessive as not to be comprehensible by the limitations of bodies therfore cannot belong to a body but because all that needs to be said in this particular follows plainly out of grounds already urged that this point contains not any notable particularity deserving mention here we will not enlarge our selvs any further upon it but pass on to the next line of operations proper to our mind Only we may not omit taking notice of the expressions which our mind makes of Nothing or as Logicians term it of Negations and Privations which argue an admirable power in the Soul and of a quite different strain from all corporeal things and evidently convince the immateriality of it For it cannot be doubted but that the Soul knows what she means when she discourses of Nothing Now if all her knowledg were nothing else but corporeal phantasms or pictures made by corporeal things how should she come to have a notion of Nothing for since it is most clear that somthing cannot be like Nothing and that there cannot be a participation of what is not how can we conceive that there should be a similitude made of Nothing The way therfore that the Soul takes in this operation is that comparing two things together and finding that the one of them is not the other she reflects upon her own action and dividing in it the thing said from the saying she takes the thing said for a Quality or Property or Predicate as Logicians call it of that thing which she denies to be the other thing and then she gives it a positive name after she hath first made a positive notion to which the name may agree As for example when the Soul considers a man that hath not the power to see as soon as she hath to her self pronounced that he hath not such a power she takes the not power to see for a quality of that man and then gives the name of blindness to that not power of seeing which though of it self it be nothing yet by being that which satisfies her act when she saies that he hath not the power of seeing it seems to be ranked among those things to which names are due for it hath a notion and the having a notion is the claim or merit or dignity in vertue wherof things are prefer'd to names Now then let us enquire how the power of Rarity and Density or the Multiplication and Order of Parts can be rais'd and refined to the state of being like nothing or the similitude of a negation or what Operation of Rarity or Density can forge out this notion of blindness which we have explicated and when we find it beyond their reach to compass we must acknowledg that the Soul is another kind of engine than all those which are in the store-house of Bodies CHAP. VI. Containing proofs out of our Soul's operations in knowing or deeming any thing that she is of a spiritual nature OUr next consideration shall be to see what testimony our manner of Judging yields us of the nature of the Soul concerning which three things offer themselvs worthy the reflecting on which are our Manner of Thinking the Opposition which frequently occurrs in our Thoughts and the Nature of Truth and of Falshood As for the first we may remember how we have shew'd that all judgment or deeming is but an apprehension of identification or somthing immediately following out of it and that a setled judgment or assent of the mind is as it were a limb or branch or graft in our Soul so that we find our perceiving of identification between two things or our seeing that the one is the other is that by which our Soul encreases Now because when two things are identified the one reaches not further than the other 't is clear that this encrease of the Soul is not made by parts which being added one to another cause it to be greater and therfore since this course is the only means of increase in bodies and quantity 't is clear that the nature of the Soul is quite different from the nature of all corporeal or Quantitative things Again 't is against the nature of identification to be of parts and therfore they who take quantity to be one thing and not many things tied together acknowledg that truly there are no parts in it And this is so rigorously true that although we speak of two things that in reality are identify'd one with another yet if our words be such as imply that our understanding considers them as distinct parts and by abstraction gives them the nature of parts then they are no longer identify'd but in good Logick we ought in this case to deny the one of the other As for example though the hand and the foot be the same thing as we have declared in our first Treatise yet because
in the name Hand there is a secret exclusion of any thing that is not in the definition of a hand it follows that in our speech we must say that a hand is not a foot Likewise though it be confessed that the Thing which is rationality is also risibility nevertheless it is a solecism in Logick to say that rationality is risibility because it is the nature of these abstracted names to consine their significations to one definition and the definitions of these two terms are diverse Out of this consideration it follows clearly that seeing the nature of parts is contrary to the nature of identity and that the Soul in her judgments works altogether by identity 't is impossible that her operations should consist of parts or in any sort resemble any proceeding of Quantitative things The like will be convinced out of the Oppositions we find in our thoughts In it we may consider two things first the generation of it next the incompossibility of Opposites in the Soul To begin with the first We see that in speaking opposition is produced by the addition of this word Not as when we say not a man not a peny not a word and therfore it follows that in our Soul there is a notion of it correspondent to the word that expresses it Now seeing that a notion is a thing and that it is the likeness of its object or rather the same with the object let us cast about how we should of parts and of quantity make a nothing or an identification to Not and when we find that it is ridiculous and absurd to go about it let us conclude that the manner of working which our Soul uses is far different from that which is used in bodies and among material things And if you object that not only a body but even any other substance whatever suppose it as spiritual as you will cannot be either like or identified to nothing and therfore this argument will as well prove that the Soul is not a thing or substance as that it is not a body We answer that it is evident out of what we have already said that the Understanding is not the Objects it understands by way of Similitude but by a higher means which we have shew'd to be by way of Respects Now then the respect which the thing hath to another thing by not having such a respect to it as a third thing formerly consider'd hath thereto may be express'd in way of Respects though it cannot in way of Similitude and so our understanding is able to express what neither our fansie nor any corporeal thing can arrive to the expression of As when first we find that one man hath a respect to the wall which we call the power of seeing if afterwards we find that another man hath a respect to the wall of impotence that he cannot see it this second respect the understanding hath a power to express as well as the first as we have touch'd above As for the opposition that occurrs in our thoughts we may consider it of two kinds The one is of the things or objects that come into our thoughts or Soul and this is not properly an opposition in the Soul For though the things be opposite by their own nature in themselvs yet they do not exercise their opposition in the Soul Nay though the opposition be even in the Soul it self if the Soul with this opposition be consider'd as an object it makes no opposition in her for so you may consider your Soul learned and unlearned ignorant and knowing good and bad and the like all which are oppositions in a Soul supposed to be so qualified but none in a Soul that considers them No more than fire and water heavy things and light white and black being and not being an affirmative proposition and its negative and the like all which are in themselvs so contrary and opposite to one another that they cannot consist together in one subject they have an incompossibility among themselvs wherever the one of them is by its very entrance it drives out its opposite and yet in the Soul they agree together without reluctance she knows and considers and weighs both sides of the scale at the same time and ballances them evenly one against another For unless both the opposites were in the same instant in the same comparing power that power could not by one act whose begining implys its ending judg the difference and opposition of them as when we say black is contrary to white or darkness is the want of light we pronounce one common Not being of both extremes We may then boldly conclude that since no body whatever can entertain at the same time and in the same place these quarrelling Antagonists but that by their conflict they presently destroy one another and peradventure the body too into which they presse for entrance and the entire possession of which each of them strives for those of them I mean that are proportion'd to the reception of bodies and that the Soul imbibes them together without any difficulty or contract and preservs them always friends even in the face of one another lodges them together in the same bed and that in a word there opposite things enjoy an admirable and unknown manner of Being in the Soul which hath no parallel in bodily things we may I say boldly conclude that the Soul it self in which all these are is of a nature and hath a manner of Being altogether unlike the nature of bodies and their manner of Being Out of this agreeing of all Objects in the Soul their having no opposition there even whiles she knows the opposition that is between them in themselvs there follows another consideration of no less importance which is that the amplitude of our Soul in respect of knowledg is absolutely infinite that is to say she is capable of knowing at the same time objects without end or measure For the explicating wherof we are to consider that the latter conclusions which the Soul gains knowledg of hang to the former by identification or by the Soul 's seeing that two notions are identified because they are identified to athird as is before expressed the first principles which seem to be immediately joyn'd to the Soul have the identity of their terms plain and evident even in the very terms themselvs Nay if we insist further we shall find that the First Truths must have an identification to the very Soul it self For it being evident that Truth or Falshood is not in the Soul but so far forth as she applys her self to the external object or to the existence of things in themselvs and that we find that the Souls knowing with evidence that any thing is or hath being implys her knowing that her self is for she cannot know that a thing seems so to her or makes such an impression in her without knowing that her self is though peradventure
she may not know what her self is but takes her self to be no other thing than the body of the man in which she is 't is evident that the First Truths which enter into the Soul to wit that this or that seems so or so to her and these truths no Scepticks ever doubted of are identify'd with the Soul it self since an object seeming to be such or such is nothing else but the Soul is so qualified And in this we find that the certainty of the first Principles as for example of this Proposition That the whole is bigger than the Part will depend in a particular Soul of her certainty of her own Being For though this Proposition would have a necessity in the very connexion of the terms notwithstanding there were not in nature any Whole or Part yet this necessity would not be a necessity of Existence or Being in the object but a necessity of connexion as it were of two parts of the Soul and so if Verity and Falsity be not perfectly in the Soul but in the comparison to actual existence the Soul would not be perfectly true or to say more properly would not have the perfection of truth in her by having or knowing this Proposition unless withal she were certain that there were existent an object of this Proposition of which as we have said she cannot be certain without being certain of her own Being So that in effect the identification of other things among themselvs by which such things are known comes at last to be retrived in the existence of the Soul it self and to be in the Soul by the identification of those other things to her self Now then to proceed to the proof of our proposed conclusion 't is clear that the adding of one thing to another doth out of the force of this addition perfect the thing to which the addition is made if the advenient thing be added in such way as the former is apt to receive it but 't is evident that the Soul is made fit by former Propositions to be identify'd to later for we see that the former ones draw on and infer the later therfore it follows that the more is added to the Soul the greater is her aptitude to have more or to be more encreased and consequently that the more is added to her the more may still be added and the more capable and more earnest she is to have more Wherfore it cannot be deny'd but that since in the nature of the objects there is no impediment to hinder their being together in the Soul as we have proved a little above and that in her by receiving new objects there is a continual encrease of capacity to receive more she hath an amplitude to knowledg absolutely infinite in such a manner as we have above expressed Now to apply to our purpose what we have gather'd by this discourse 't is clear that these two conditions of one thing not driving ou◠another and infinity of accessions openly disclaim from Quantity and matter for we see that what hath Quantity 〈◊〉 a Body cannot admit a new thing into it unless some other thing first go out to make room for the advenient one and as for infinitude it breeds a Sea of contradictions if it be but thought of in Quantity and therfore we may conclude that the Soul to whom these two conditions belong is not quantitative or corporeal but immaterial and of a spiritual nature The second kind of opposition that occurrs in our thoughts or Soul is of Contradictory Propositions It hath its origine in the opposition of Being to not-Being and is when a thing is identify'd to the Soul in such sort as we have said that a Judgment or Deeming makes the object become as it were a limb or part of the Soul And because the conflict of two such Propositions if they were together in the Soul would make her be somthing contrary to the nature of Being if any thing can be contrary to Being which in the Schools they call ens non ens the impossibility of her admiting into her self two such Propositions together testifies her firm cleaving and fixedness to Being and so confirms and brings new evidence to that argument for the Souls spirituality which in the first Chapter of this part we drew from the nature of Being As for Truth and Falshood they spring from the same root as the last as being qualities consequent to the opposition of affirmative and negative Propositions wherof if the one be true the other must necessarily be false and therfore we need not spend time in seting down any particular considerations of these since what we have said of the other is applyable to them but 't is sufficient that we thus note them to give the Reader occasion to reflect on them Among Propositions there are some which Logicians term of eternal Truth and out of these there are ingenious men who imagine that the immortality of the Soul may be immediately deduced Herein they rove not quite from the mark though withall I must needs say they do not directly hit it To understand the utmost that may be infer'd out of such Propositions we may note two conditions in them the first is that generally these Propositions are universal ones and therby have that force to convince the spirituality of the Soul which we have explicated and shew'd to belong to universal terms the second is that in these Propositions there is a necessity of connexion between their terms such an one or at least very like thereto as we explicated in those Propositions which bear their evidence plain in their very terms And out of this we may draw another argument for the spirituality of the Soul For we see that all corporeal agents and patients are defectible and contingent that is to say somtimes or if you will most times they attain their effect but withall somtimes be it never so seldom they miss of it and accordingly it happens somtimes that our eyes our ears our touch and the rest of our senses are deceiv'd though for the most part they give us true information of what they converse with But these Propositions of eternal verity never fail they have in themselvs an indefectibility insuperable And consequently they give evidence that the Souls nature is of a higher degree of constancy and certainty than what falls within the compass of Bodies and is of a nobler and different strain from all corporeal things for this certainty is entail'd upon such Propositions by the force of Being which is the proper object of the Soul and they have their Being as limbs and parts of the Soul As for the term of Eternal verity it is not to be taken positively as if these Propositions or their objects have any true eternity or perseverance without begining or ending but only negatively that is that there can be no time in which they are false and therfore we cannot out of
their having such a kind of Eternity belonging to them argue a capacity of infinite time or duration in our Soul that comprehends them CHAP. VII That our Discoursing proves our Soul to be incorporeal HAving thus run over those proofs for the immateriality of our Soul which arise out of her manner of working when she judges in the next place we are to enquire what others her manner of Discoursing will afford us We are sure that since our Discourse is composed of Judgments and of single Apprehensions it cannot choose but furnish us with all those Pregnant Arguments that we drew from them But that will not serve our turn we look after new Evidence and we shall see it will give it us with full hands It consists in this that when we Discourse we may easily perceive there is more at one time in our Mind than we can discover to be in our Fantasie For we find that in our Fantasie as one Proposition comes another is gone and though they that are gone seem to be ready at a call yet they are not in presence as being things which consist in motion and that require place and therefore the one justles the other out of the place it possessed But if it fared in like manner in our inward Soul we could never attain to knowledg For 't is manifest that our Soul is not assured of a Conclusion but by her seeing the Premises if then the Premises be taken away the Conclusion that rests upon them falls to the ground but they are taken away if they be out of our mend therfore when our understanding yields its assent to a Conclusion it must of necessity have the Premises still in it But we must not rest here this consideration will carry us on a wonderous deal farther We know that he who goes to frame a new demonstration in any Subject must be certain he takes nothing contrary to what he hath learned in many Books likewise that he who will make a Latine Verse or reads a Poem knows there is nothing in all that Poem contrary to his 〈◊〉 dia do we not then manifestly perceive a certain remainder of all these in his Soul The like is in all aâ— in which â—e that goes about any work according to art shews he hath in his head all the rules of that art though he do not distinctly remember or call them to mind while he works For if he have them not how doth he work by them Since then 't is clear he thinks not of them at that time 't is as clear that more is in the Soul at one time than is in his Fantasie or than can be there by material bodies which we have shew'd is the way wherby all things come into the Fantasie though it be the nimblest and the subtilest Agent of all corporeal things whatever Another consideration wherby to evince the immateriality of the Soul concerns the proceeding of Syllogisms by links fast'ned to one another whence we may take notice that every one of them is a step to another and consequently 't is manifest that according to the nature of the Soul they must be altogether in her since if any one were absent all the rest that follow'd and depended upon that one would have no grounding or fixedness in the Soul Now if to this we add that what is to be known is absolutely and liquidly infinite there cannot be brought or expected a more pregnant and home-wit ness of our Souls spirituality it following out of these grounds that the Soul by its nature is not only capable of but expresly order'd to an infinite knowledg of infinite objects altogether For these two finite infinite science are so vastly different from one another that if the same subject be capable of both it must of necessity be order'd to infinite as to its chiefest act and end And thus out of capacity in this subject its being ordered is well infer'd though in other matters peradventure the consequence may not be good And accordingly who looks into Geometry Arithmetick Logick or even nature it self will evidently see that the objects of knowledg are every way and in every Science multipliable without end Neither ought this to be neglected that a great part of the Souls objects and indeed of those that are most natural to her is above the capacity and out of the reach of material things All Metaphysicks abstract from quantity the investigation of God of Angels of the Soul it self either concludes immateriality or at least works about it What shall I say of Logical notions those which are call'd the second intentions about which there is so much business both in the Schools and in the World 'T is sufficient that we have already express'd how all our notions are respective But in particular the motives of humane actions are very abstracted considerations as for example Hope of things to Come Memory of things Past Vertue Vice Honour Shame and the like To these let us add that when we teach or explicate any thing to ignorant persons we must frame our own apprehensions to their capacity and speak such things as they may comprehend which capacity or extent of comprehension we cannot see or perceive by any sense but judg it meerly by our Reason and Understanding Wherfore since our operation is mainly and chiefly on and by such motives as are not liable to material principles and compositions it is evident that the spring-head from whence such operation flows must also be immaterial and incorporeal I am not ignorant that this Argument uses to be answer'd by urging that the Soul likewise knows Deafness Dumbness Blindness and such other notions of Nothings and yet is not from thence infer'd to be Nothing it conceives God and Eternity and yet it is neither from it self as God is nor eternal In like manner say they it may know incorporeal things and yet not be therfore it self incorporeal To this I reply first wishing them not to mistake me but to give my argument its full force and weight for there is a very great difference between the knowing of a thing in a strained toilsome and confused manner and the having a thing for its ordinary matter and subject of negotiation this argues connaturality between the Soul and what it is so conversant about but that doth not Now what is inferr'd out of whole Sciences and Arts concerns a main stock of the Souls business and not some extraordinary vertue or powers she hath But to come up to close to the answer I say that if we being throughly acquainted with material things can find that it is not in the possibility of any such to be the likeness of an immaterial thing and from thence inferr that our Soul for being fraught with immaterial notions is not material our conclusion is well collected and a very good one for the premises out of which we gather it are within our kenning and therfore if
there were any defect in the consequence we should easily perceive it Whence it appears clearly that there is no parity between the deduction of our conclusion and that other which the objection urges that our Soul because it can know eternal things is also eternal for Eternity is a thing beyound our comprehension and therfore it ought not to be expected at our hands that we should be able to give an account where the brack is and to say the truth if knowledg be trken properly we do not know Eternity however by supernatural helps we may come to know it but in that case the helps are likely to be proportionable to the effect Neither are Negations properly known seeing there is nothing to be known of them And thus we see that these objections proceed from the equivocation of the word knowledg somtimes used properly othertimes apply'd abusively CHAP VIII Containing proofs out of our manner of proceeding to Action that our Soul is incorporeal I Doubt not but what we have already said hath sufficiently convinced our Souls being immaterial to whomsoever is able to penetrate the force of the arguments we have brought for proof therof and will take the pains to consider them duly which must be done by serious and continued reflection and not by cursory reading or by interrupted attempts yet since we have still a whole field of proofs untouch'd and in so important a matter no evidence can be too clear nor any pains be accounted lost that may redouble the light although it shine already bright enough to discern what we seek we will make up the concert of unanimous testimonies to this already establish'd truth by adding those arguments we shall collect out of the maner ofour Soulsproceeding to action to the others we have drawn from our observations upon her Apprehensions her Judgments and her Discourses Looking then into this matter the first consideration we meet with is that our Understanding is in her own nature an orderer that her proper work is to rank to put things in order For if we reflect on the works and arts of men as a good life a common-wealth an army a house a garden all artefacts what are they but compositions of well order'd parts And in every kind we see that he is the Master the Architect is accounted the wisest to have the best understanding who can best or most or further than his fellows set things in order If then to this we joyn that Quantity is a thing whose nature consists in a capacity of having parts and multitude and consequently is the subject of ordering and ranking doth it not evidently follow that our Soul compared to the whole mass of bodies to the very nature of corporeity or quantity is as a proper agent to its proper matter to work on Which if it be it must necessarily be of a nobler strain of a different higher nature than it and consequently cannot be a body or be composed of Quantity for had matter in it self what it expects and requires from the agent it would not need the agents help but of it self were fit to be an Agent Wherfore if the nature of corporeity or of body in its full latitude be to be order'd it follows that the thing whose nature is to be an orderer must as such be not a body but of superiour nature and exceeding a Body which we express by calling it a spiritual thing Well then if the Soul be an orderer two things belong necessarily to her one is that she have this order within her self the other that she have power to communicate it to such things as are to be order'd The first she hath by Science of which enough already hath been said towards proving our intent Next that her nature is communicative of this order is evident out of her action and manner of working But whether of her self she be thus communicative or by her conjunction to the Body she informs appears not from thence But where experience falls short Reason supplies and shews us that of her own nature she is communicative of order For since her action is an ordering and in this line there are but two sorts of things in the world namely such as order and such as are to be order'd 't is manifest that the action must by nature and in the universal consideration of it begin from the orderer in whom order hath its life and Subsistence and not from that which is to receive it then since ordering is motion it follows evidently that the Soul is a mover and begInner of motion But since we may conceive two sorts of movers the one when the agent is moved to move the other when of it self it begins the motion without being moved we are to enquire to which of these two the Soul belongs But to apprehend the question rightly we will illustrate it by an example Let us suppose that some action is fit to begin at ten of the clock Now we may imagine an agent to begin this action in two different manners one that the clock striking ten breeds or stirrs somwhat in him from whence this action follows the other that the agent may of his own nature have such an actual comprehension or decurrence of time within himself as that without receiving any warning from abroad but as though he mov'd and order'd the clock as well as his own instruments he may of himself be fit and ready just at that hour to begin that action not as if the clock told him what hour it is but as if he by governing the clock made that hour to be as well as he causes the action to begin at that hour In the first of these manners the agent is moved to move but in the second he moves of himself without being moved by any thing else And in this second way our Soul of her own nature communicates her self to quantitative things and gives them motion which follows out of what we have already proved that a Soul in her own nature is the subject of an infinite knowledg and therfore capable of having such a general comprehension as well of time the course of all other things as of the particular action she is to do and consequently stands not in need of a Monitor without her to direct her when to begin If then it be an imprevaricable law with all bodies that none whatever can move unless it be moved by another it follows that the Soul which moves without being stirr'd or excitated by any thing elseis of a higher race than they and consequently is immaterial and void of Quantity But let me not be mistaken in what I come from saying as though my meaning were that the Soul exercises this way of moving her self and of ordering her actions while she is in the Body for how can she seeing she is never endew'd with compleat knowledg requisite for any action never fully
comprehending all the circumstances or it But what I intend is that the nature of the Soul consider'd in it self is such as hath a capacity and may reach to this manner of working whence I infer that she is not a Body but a Spirit without determining whether she work thus in the body or out of it that enquiry belongs not to this place it will follow by and by But for the present having consider'd to what kind of working the nature of the Soul in abstract is capable of attaining we will conclude this Chapter with reflecting on those actions of hers which fall daily under our remark as being exercised in the Body In all of them we may observe that she proceeds with a certain Universalitity indifferency beyond the practice of all other creatures whatever For example if a man be spoken to or ask'd of a hundred several things that he never thought of before in all his life he will immediately shape pertinent replie's to all that is said return fiting answers to every question As Whither such a man goes How long this staff is What colour that mans cloaths are of c. To all which to as many things more as you will so they be within the compass of his knowledg he straight answers differently and to the purpose Whence 't is manifest that his answers do not proceed upon set gimals or strings wherof one being struck moves the rest in a set order which we have shew'd is the course in all actions done by Beasts but out of a principle within him which of it self is indifferent to all things and therfore can readily apply it self to the answer according as by the question it is moved And the like may be observ'd in his actions which he varyes according to the occasions presented I remember how Sir Phillip Sidney the Phoenix of the age he lived in the glory of our Nation the patern to posterity of a compleat a Gallant a perfect Gentleman aptly calls our hands the Instruments of Instruments from Aristotle who terms them Organa organorum or universal instruments fitly moulded to be employ'd in any service Nature hath to all other Creatures appropriated their instruments to determinate actions but to Man she hath in these given such as might be apply'd to any kind of work whatever And accordingly we see that the same kind of Bird still builds her nest and breeds her young in the same way without any the least variation at all but men build their Houses as they please sometimes upon hills somtimes in vales somtimes under the earth and somtimes upon the tops of trees and the manners of breeding or instructing their Children are as divers as the Customs of Nations and Towns And in all other actions our Masters note it for a property peculiar to Man that he uses to arrive to the same end by divers means as to transport our selvs to some place we would go to either by water or by horse or by coach or by litter as we please wheras we see no such variety in like actions of other living creatures All which being so we may conclude that the Souls proceeding either to answers or to action argues clearly that she hath within her self such an indifferency as is joyn'd with a means to determine this indifferency the contrary wherof we see in all corporeal Engines for they have every step in the whole course of their ways chaulk'd out to them by their very framing as hath been amply declared in the first Treatise and have the determination of the work from end to end set down and given them by their artificer and maker And therfore 't is most evident that the Soul cannot he a thing composed or framed of material and quantitative parts seeing she hath not her ways set down to her but frames them of her self according to the accidents that occurr The same nature of the Soul discovers it self in the quiet proceeding of Reason when it works with greatest strength and vigour as well knowing that its efficaciousness consists not in the multitude of parts which Passion breeds but in the well ordering of those it already hath under its command Wheras the strength of Quantity and the encrease of its strength consists in the multitude of its parts as will evidently appear to whom shall consider this point deeply Thus we have in a summary manner gone through all the Operations of the Soul which in the begining of this latter Treatise we heap'd together as Materials wherwith to raise an immaterial and spiritual building Neither I hope will our Reader be offended with us for being more succinct and concise in all our discourse concerning our Soul than where we deliver'd the doctrine of Bodies for the difficultness of this subject and the nicety required to the expressing our conceptions concerning it wherin as the proverb is a hair is to be cloven would not allow us that liberty of ranging about as when we treated of Bodies What occurrs among them may be illustrated by examples within our own orb and of their own pitch but to display the operations of a Soul we can find no instances able to reach them they would rather embroil and darken them For the exact propriety of words must be strictly and rigorously observ'd in them and the Reader shall penetrate more into the nature and depth of them by serious meditation and reflection upon the hints we have here given efficacious enough I hope to excite those thoughts he should have for this purpose and to steer them the right way than by much and voluminous reading or hearing long and polish'd discourses on this subject For my part if what I have here said should to any man appear not sufficient to convince that our Soul is of a spiritual and far different nature from all such things as in our First Treatise we have discours'd on and taken for the heads and most general kinds of Bodies to which all other particular ones and their motions may be reduced I shall become a suitor to him to take This Subject into his handling where it begins to be unwieldy for mine and to declare to us upon the principles we have setled in the first Treatise and upon considering the nature of a Body which is the first of all our notions how these particulars we have reflected upon in mans actions can be drawn out of them For I can find no possible means to link them together a vast and impenetrable Ocean lyes between the discoveries we have made on each side of its shores which forbids all commerce between them at least on the dark Bodies side which hath not wings to soar into the region of Intellectual light By those principles we have traced out the course and progress of all operations belonging to Sense and how Beasts do or may perform all their actions even to their most refined and subtilest operations but beyond
them we have not been able to carry these grounds nor they us Let him then take the pains to shew us by what Figures by what First Qualities by what Mixtion of Rare and Dense parts an Universal Apprehension an evident Judgment a legitimate Consequence is made and the like of a mans determination of himself to answer pertinently any question of his choosing this way before that c. Which if he can do as I am sure he cannot I shall allow it to be reason and not obstinacy that works in his mind and carrys him against our Doctrine But if he cannot and that there is no appearance nor possibility as indeed there is not that these actions can be effected by the ordering of material parts and yet he will be still unsatisfy'd without being able to tell why for he will be unwilling to acknowledg that these abstracted Speculations do not sink into him and that nothing can convince him but what his Senses may be judges of and he may handle and turn on every side like a brick or tile and will be still importune with cavillous scruples and wild doubts that in truth and at the bottome signifie nothing we will leave him to meditate at his leisure upon what we have said while we proceed on to what follows out of this great principle That Our Soul is Incorporeal and Spiritual CHAP. IX That our Soul is a Substance and Immortal HAving concluded that our Soul is immaterial and indivisible to proceed one step further it cannot be deny'd but that it is either a Substance or an Accident If the later it must be of the nature of the substance whose accident it is for so we see all accidents are but in man when his Soul is excluded there is no spiritual substance at all wherof we have any notice and therfore if it be an accident it must be a corporeal one or some accident of a body as some figure temperature harmony or the like and consequently divisible but this is contrary to what is proved in the former Chapters and therefore it cannot be a corporeal accident Neither can it be a spiritual accident for to what spiritual substance should it belong when as nothing in man can be suspected to be spiritual but it self Seeing then that it can be no accident a substance it must be and must have its Existence or Being in it self Here we have passed the Rubicon of experimental knowledg we are now out of the bounds that experience hath any jurisdiction over and from henceforth we must in all our searches and conclusions rely only upon the single evidence of Reason And even this last conclusion we have been fain to deduce out of the force of abstracted reasoning upon what we had gather'd before not by immediate reflection upon some action we observe proceeding from a man yet withal nature flashes out by a direct beam some little glimmering of the verity of it to the eye of Reason within us For as when we see a Clock move or a Mill or any thing that goes by many wheels if we mark that there are two contrary motions in two divers parts of it we cannot think that those contrary motions belong to one and the same continued body but shall presently conclude there must be in that Engine two several bodies compacted together So in Man though his Body be the first mover that appears to us yet seeing that in his actions some effects shew themselvs which 't is impossible should proceed from a Body 't is evident that in him there is some other thing besides that one which we see And consequently we may conclude that he is composed of a Body and somwhat else that is not-a-Body which somewhat else being the spring from whence those actions flow that are of a different strain from those derived from the body must necessarily be a Spiritual Substance But while we are examining how far our present considerations and short discourses may carry us as it were experimentally to confirm this truth we must not omit what Avicenna in his Book De Anima Almahad and Monsier des Cartes in his Method press upon the same occasion Thus they say or to like purpose If I cast with my self who I am that walk or speak or think or order any thing my reason will answer me that although my legs or tongue were gone and that I could no longer walk or speak yet were not I gone and I should know and see with my understanding that I were still the very same thing the same Ego as before The same as of my tongue or legs would reason tell me of my eys my ears my smelling tasting and feeling either all of them together or every one of them single that were they all gone still should I remain As when in a dream where I use none of all these I both am and know my self to be Reason will tell me also that although I were not nourished so I were not wasted which for the drâ—ft of the argument may be supposed yet still I should continue in Being Whence it would appear that my heart liver lungs kidneys stomach mouth and what other parts of me soever that serve for the nourishment of my body might be sever'd from me and yet I remain what I am Nay if all the beautiful and airy fantasms which fly about so nimbly in our brain be nothing else but signs to and in our Soul of what is without us 't is evident that though peradventure she would not without their service exercise that which by error we mis-name Thinking yet the very same Soul and Thinker might be without them all and consequently without brain also seeing that our brain is but the play-house and scene where all these faery masks are acted So that in conclusion Reason assures us that when all Body is abstracted in us there still remains a Substance a Thinker an Ego or I that in it self is no whit diminished by being as I may say strip'd out of the case it was inclos'd in And now I hope the intelligent Reader will conceive I have perform'd my promise and shewed the Soul of man to be an Immortal Substance For since it is a Substance it hath a Being and since it is an immaterial Substance it hath a Being of its own force without needing a consort body to help it sustain its Existence for to be a substance is to be the subject of Existence and consequently to be an immaterial substance is to be a subject capable of Existence without the help of matter or Quantity It cannot therfore be required of me to use any further industry to prove such a Soul immortal but who will contradict her being so is obliged to shew that she is mortal for it follows in reason that she will keep her Being unless by some force she be bereav'd of it It being a rule that whoever puts a thing to be is
upon this resolution that if any thing cross him he will presently forgo his life as a trifle not worth the keeping And thus neither virtue nor honor nor more pleasure than what at the present tickles him falls into his account which is the overthrow of the whole body of Morality that is of Mans Action and Nature But all they who look into Sciences cross that for an erroneous and absurd position which takes away the Principles of any Science and consequently the position of the Souls Mortality is to be esteem'd such There remains yet one consideration more and peradventure more important than any we have yet mention'd to convince the Souls Immortality which is that spiritual things are in a state of Being But we shall not be able to declare this till we have proceeded a little further CHAP. X. Declaring what the Soul of a Man separated from his Body is and of her knowledg and manner of working UNhappy man how long wilt thou be inquisitive and curious to thine own peril Hast thou not already paid too dear for thy knowing more than thy share Or hast thou not heard that Who will pry into Majesty shall be oppressed by the glory of it Some are so curious shall I say or so ignorant as to demand what a humane Soul will be after she is deliver'd from her Body and unless they may see a picture of her and have wherby to fansie her they will not be perswaded but that all are dreams which our former discourses have concluded As if he who finds himself dazled with looking upon the Sun had reason to complain of that glorious body and not of his own weak eys that cannot entertain so resplendent a light Wherfore to frame some conceit of a separated Soul I will endeavour for their satisfaction to say somwhat of her future state Let us then first consider what a thought is I do not mean that corporeal spirit which beats at our common sense but that which is within in the inward Soul whose nature we find by discourse and effects though we cannot see it in it self To this purpose we may observe that if we are to discourse or do any thing we are guided the right way in that subject we have in hand by a multitude of particular thoughts which are all of them terminated in that discourse or action and consequently every act of our mind is as it were an actual rule or direction some part of such discourse or action so that we may conceive a compleat thought compounded of many particular ones to be a thing that orders an entire discourse or action of our life A thought being thus described let us in the next place try if we can make an apprehension what a Science or an Art is as what the Science of Astronomy or the Art of playing on the Organs is when the Astronomer thinks not of the motions of the Heavens nor the Organist of playing on his instrument which science and art nevretheless even then resides in the Astronomer and Organist And we find that these are but the results of many former compleat thoughts as being those very thoughts in remainder whatever this may signifie Lastly Let us conceive if we can a power or capacity to being To which capacity if any Being be brought 't is unseparably glew'd and riveted to it by its very being a being and if any two things be brought to it by the virtue of one being common to both those things that both of them by this one being become one betwixt themselvs and with this capacity And that so there is no end or period of this addition of things by the mediation of being but that by links rings all the things that are in the world may hang together betwixt themselvs and to this power if all of them may be brought to it by the Glew and virtue of being in such sort as we have formerly declared passes in the Soul Now let put this together and make up such a thing as grows out of the capacity to Being thus actuated cleaving to all things that any way have being and we shall see that it becomes a whole entire World order'd and clinging together with a great strength and necessity as can proceed from the nature of being of contradiction And our reason wil tell us that such a thing if it be active can frame a World such as we live in and are a smal parcel of if it have matter to work on and can order whatever hath Being any way that it is capable of being order'd to do by it and make of it whatever can be done by and made of such matter All these conceptions especially by the assistance of the last may serve a little to shadow out a perfect Soul which is A knowledg an art a rule a direction of all things and all this by being all things in a degree strain proper and peculiar to it self And an imperfect Soul is a participation of this Idea that is a knowledg a rule and a direction for as much as it is and as it attains to Now as in our thoughts it is the corporeal part only which makes a noise and shew outwardly but the spiritual thought is no otherwise perceiv'd than in its effect ordering the bodily acts so we must not conceive this knowledg to be a motion but meerly a thing or Being out of which the ordering and moving of other things flows it self remaining fixed and immoveable And because all that is joyn'd to it is there riveted by Being or identification and that when one thing is an other the other is again it t is impossible that one should exceed the other and be any thing that is not it and therfore in the Soul there can be no parts no accidents no additions no appendences nothing that sticks to it and is not it but whatever is in her is Soul and the Soul is all that which is within her So that all that is of her and all that belongs to her is nothing but one pure simple Substance peradventure Metaphysically or formally divisible in such sort as we have explicated in the first Treatise of the divisibility between quantity and Substance but not quantitatively as Bodies are divisible In fine Substance it is and nothing not Substance all that is in it being joyn'd and imp'd into it by the very nature of Being which makes Substance This then is the substantial conceit of a Humane Soul strip'd of her Body Now to conceive what proprieties this Substance is furnish'd with let us reflect on the notions we frame of things when we consider them in Common as when we think of a man of bread of some particular virtue of a vice or of whatever else And let us note how in such our discourse detemines no place nor time nay if it should it would marr the discourse as Logicians shew when they teach us that Scientifical
Syllogisms cannot be made without Universal propositions So that we see unless these things be strip'd from Place and Time they are not according to our meaning and yet nevertheless we give them both the name and nature of a Thing or of a Substance or of a living Thing or of whatsoever else may by manner of our conceiving or endeavors be freed from the subjection to Time and Place Thus then we plainly see that it is a very different thing to be and to be in a place and therfore out of a Things being in no Place it cannot be infer'd That it is not or is no Substance nor contrariwise out of its being can it be infer'd that it is in a Place There is no man but of himself perceives the false consequence of this Argument A thing Is therefore it is Hot or Cold and the reason is because hot and cold are particular accidents of a body and therfore a body can be without either of them The like proportion is between Being in general and Being a Body or Being in a Body for both these are particulars in respect of Being but to be in a place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Body and so what is not in a Body is not in a Place therfore as it were an absurd illation to say it is therfore it is in a Body no less is it to say it is therfore it is somwhere which is equivalent to in some Body And so a great Master peradventure one of the greatest and judiciousest that ever have been tells us plainly that of it self 't is evident to those who are truly learned that Incorporeal Substances are not in Place and Aristotle teaches us that the Universe is not in Place But now to make use of this discourse we must intimate what 't is we level at in it We direct it to two ends First to lead on our thoughts and help our apprehension in framing some conception of a Spiritual Substance without residence in Place and to prevent our fancies checking at such abstraction since we see that we use it in our ordinary speech when we think not on it nor labour for it in all universal and indefinite terms Next to trace out an eminent propriety of a Separated Soul namely that she is no where and yet upon the matter every where that she is bound to no place and yet remote from none that she is able to work upon all without shifting from one to another or coming neer any and that she is free from all without removing or parting from any one A second propriety not much unlike the first we shall discover in a Separated Soul if we compare her with Time We have heretofore explicated how Time is the motion of the Heavens which give us our motion which measures all particular motions and which comprehends all bodies and makes them awaite his leisure From the large Empire of this proud Commander a Separated Soul is free For though she consist with time that is to say she is while time is yet is she not in time nor in any of her actions expects time but she is able to frame time to spin or weave it out of her self and master it All which will appear manifestly if we consider what it is to be in time Aristotle shews us that to be comprehended under time or to be in time is to be one of those moveables whose being consisting in motion takes up but a part of time and hath its terms before and behind in time is measured by it and must expect the flowing of it both for being and action Now all this manifestly belongs to Bodies whose both action and being is subject to a perpetual local motion and alteration and consequently a Separated Soul who is totally a being and hath her whole operation altogether as being nothing but her self when we speak of her perfective operation cannot be said to be in time but is absolutely free from it though time glide by her as it doth by other things And so all that she knows or can do she does and knows at once with one act of the understanding or rather She is indeed and really all that and therfore she doth not require time to mannage or order her thoughts nor do they succeed one another by such vicissitudes as men are forced to think of things by because their fansie and the Images in it which beat upon the Soul to make her think whiles she is in the body are corporal and therfore require time to move in and give way to one another but she thinks of all the things in the world and of all that she can think of together and at once as hereafter we intend to shew A third propriety we may conceiveto be in a Separated Soul by apprehending her to be an activity which that we may rightly understand let us compare her in regard of working with a Body Reflecting then upon the nature of Bodies we shall find that not any of them will do the functions they are framed for unless some other thing stir them up and cause them so to do As for example a Knife if it be thrust or pressed will cut otherwise it will lye still and have no effect and as it fares with a knife so with those bodies which seem most to move themselvs as upon a little consideration will appear plainly A Beast seems to move it self but if we call to mind what we have delivered upon this subject in the First Treatise we shall find that when ever he begins to move he either perceivs somthing by his Sense which causes his motion or elâ—e he remembers somthing that is in his brain which works the like effect Now if Sense presents him an object that causes his motion we see manifestly it is an external cause which makes him move But if Memory do it we shall find that stirr'd by some other part as by the stomack or the heart which is empty or heated or hath receiv'd some other impression from another body so that sooner or later we shall discover an outward mover The like is in natural motions as in Heavy things their easie following if they be sucked another way than downwards testifies that their motion downwards hath an extrinsecal motor as is before declared And not only in these but throughout in all other corporal things So that in a wotd all Bodies are of this nature that unless some other thing press and alter them when they are quiet they remain so and have no activity otherwise than from an extrinsecal mover but of the Soul we have declared the contrary and that by its nature motion may proceed from it without any mutation in it or without its receiving any order direction or impulse from an extrinsecal cause So that now suming up together all we have said upon this occasion we find a Soul exempted from the Body to be An indivisible
Substance exempted from Place and Time yet present to both an actual and present knowledg of all things that may be known and a skil or rule even by what it self is to all things whatever This she is if she be perfect but if she be imperfect then is she all this to the proportion of her growth if so I may say and she is powerful according to the measure of her knowledg and of her will So that in fine a Separated Soul is of a nature to have and to know and to govern all things I may reasonably suspect that my saying how imperfect Souls are rules to the proportion of their growth may have occasion'd great reflection and bred some trouble in the curious and heedful Reader I confess this expression was deliver'd by me only to free my self for the present from the labour of shewing what knowledg every Separated Soul hath but upon second thoughts I find that such sliding over this difficult point will not serve my turn nor save me the pains of untying this knot for unless I explicate what I mean by that speech I shall leave my Reader in great doubt and anxiety Which to free him from I must wade a little further in this question of the extent of a separated Souls knowledg into which I have thus upon the by engaged my self But let him first be advertis'd that I do not here meddle with what a Separated Soul may know by Revelatation or by Supernatural means but that I only track out her natural paths and guess at what she is or knows by that light which her conversation in her body affords us Our entrance into this matter must be to consider what mutation in respect of knowledg a Soul's first change out of her Body makes in her for it is not unlikely but nature may some way enlighten us so far as to understand what must follow out of the negation of the Bodies consortship added to what we know of her and Natures other works in this world This then first occurrs that surely she cannot choose but still know in that state all that she knew while she was in the Body since we are certain the Body hath no part in that which is true knowledg as is above declared when we shew'd first that all true knowledg is respective secondly that the first impressions of the fansy do not reach to the interiour Soul and lastly that she works by much more than what hath any actual correspondence in the fansy and that all things are united to her by the force of Being From which last it follows that all things she knows are her self and she is all that she knows wherefore if she keeps her self and her own Being she must needs keep the knowledg of all that she knew in this world Next she must undoubtedly know then somwhat more than she knew in the Body For since out of the things she already knows others will follow by the meer ordering and connexion of them and the Souls proper work is to order things we cannot doubt but that both the things she knows in this world must of necessity be order'd in her to the best advantage and likewise that all that will be known which wants no other cause for the knowing of it but the ordering of these things For if the nature of a thing were Order who can doubt but what were put into that thing were put into Order Now that the nature of the Soul is such we collect easily For since all order proceeds from her it must be acknowledg'd that Order is first in her but what is in her is her nature her nature then is Order and what is in her is order'd In saying of which I do not mean that there is such an order between the notions of a Separated Soul as is between material things that are order'd by the Soul while she is in the Body for since the Soul is an adaequate cause of such order that is to say a cause which can make any one such and the whole kind of it it follows that such order is not in her for if it were she would be cause of her self or of her own parts Order therfore in her must signifie a thing more eminent than such inferiour Order in which resides the power of making that inferiour Order and this is nothing else but the connexion of her notions by the necessity of Being which we have often explicated And out of this eminent or superiour kind of Order our conclusion follows no less than if the inferiour Order which we see in our fansies while our Soul is in our Body did reside in our interiour Soul for it is the necessity of identification which doth the effect and makes the Soul know and the order of fantasms is but a precedent condition in the bodily Agent that it may work upon the Soul and if more fantasms than one could be together this order would not be necessary Out of this a notable and vast conclusion manifestly follows to wit that if a Soul can know any one thing more when she is out of the Body than what she knew while she was in the Body without any manner of doubt she knows all that can be drawn and forced out of these knowledges which she had in her Body How much this is and how far it will reach I am afraid to speak Only I intreat Mathematicians and such as are acquainted with the manner how Sciences proceed to consider how some of their Definitions are made to wit by composing together sundry known terms and giving a new name to the compound that results out of them Wherfore clear it is that out of fewer notions had at the first the Soul can make many more and the more she hath or makes the more she can multiply Again the Maximes which are necessary to be added to the Definitions for gaining of knowledg we see are also compounded of ordinary and known terms So that a Separated Soul can want neither the Definitions nor the Maximes out of which the Books of Sciences are composed and therfore neither can the Sciences themselves be wanting to her Now if we consider that in the same fashion as Demonstrations are made and knowledg is acquired in one Science by the same means there is a transcendence from Science to Science and that there is a connexion among all the Sciences which fall into the consideration of man and indeed among all at least corporal things for of spiritual things we cannot so assuredly affirm it though their perfection may perswade us that there is rather a greater connexion among them than among corporal things it will follow that a Soul which hath but any indifferent knowledg in This World shall be replenish'd with all knowledg in the Next But how much is this indifferent knowledg that for this purpose is requir'd in this world Upon mature consideration of this point 't is true I find it
Soul may there be that which they acknowledg she is in her Body without any such helps And as for that Axiom or Experience that the Soul doth not understand unless she speculate phantasms as on the one side I yield to it and confess the experience after the best and seriousest trial I could make of it so on the other side when I examine the matter to the bottom I find that it comes not home to our Adversaries intention For as when we look on a thing we conceive we work on that thing whereas in truth we do but set our selves in such a position that the thing seen may work on us in like manner our looking on the phantasms in our brain is not our Soul's action upon them but our letting them beat at our common sense that is our letting them work on our Soul The effect wherof is that either our Soul is better'd in her self as when we study and contemplate or else that she betters somthing without us as when by this thinking we order any action But if they will have this Axiom avail them they should shew that the Soul is not of her self a knowledg which if they be able to do even then when to our thinking she seems not so much as to think we will yield they have reason But that they 'l find impossible for she is always of her self a knowledg though in the Body she never expresses so much but when she is put to it Or else they should shew that this knowledg which the Soul is of her self will not by changing the manner of her Existence become an actual knowledg instead of the habitual knowledg which now appears in her But as these Aristotelians embrace and stick to one Axiom of their Patron so they forego and prevaticate against another For as it is Aristotle's doctrine that a Substance is for its Operation and were in vain and superfluous if it could not practise it so likewise it is his confessed doctrine that Matter is for its Form and not the Form for the Matter And yet these men pretend that the Soul serves for nothing but the governing of the body wheras contrariwise both all Aristotle's doctrine and common sense convinces that the Body must be for the Soul Which if it be nothing can be more consentaneous to Reason than to conceive that the durance which the Soul hath in the Body is assign'd her to work and mould in her the Future State which she is to have after this life and that no more Operations are to be expected from her after this life but instead of them a setled state of Being seeing that even in this life according to Aristotle's doctrine the proper operations of the Soul are but certain Being So that we may conclude that if a Soul were grown to the perfection which her nature is capable of she would be nothing else but a constant Being never changing from the happiness of the best Being And though the Texts of Aristotle which remain to us be uncertain peradventure not so much because they were originally such in themselves as through the mingling of some comments into the body of the text yet if we had his Book which he wrote of the Soul upon the death of his friend Eudemus 't is very likely we should there see his evident assertion of her Immortality since it had been very impertinent to take occasion upon a Friends death to write of the Soul if he intended to conclude that of a dead man there were no Soul Out of this discourse it appears how those Actions which we exercise in this life are to be understood when we hear them attributed to the next for to think they are to be taken in their direct plain meaning and in that way in which they are perform'd in this world were a great simplicity and were to imagine a likeness between Bodies and Spirits We must therfore elevate our minds when we would penetrate into the true meaning of such expressions and consider how all the actions of our Soul are eminently comprehended in the Universality of knowledg we have already explicated And so the Apprehensions Judgments Discourses Reflections Talkings-together and all other such actions of ours when they are attributed to separated Souls are but inadaequate names and representations of their instantaneal sight of all things For in that they cannot choose but see others minds which is that we call talking and likewise their own which we call reflection the rest are plain parts of and plainly contain'd in knowledg discourse being but the falling into it judgment the principles of it and single apprehensions the components of judgments Then for such actions as are the begining of operation there can be no doubt but that they are likewise to be found and are resumed in the same Universality as love of good consultation resolution prudential election and the first motion for who knows all things cannot choose but know what is good and that good is to be prosecuted and who sees compleatly all the means of effecting and attaining to his intended good hath already consulted and resolv'd of the best and who understands perfectly the matter he is to work on hath already made his prudential Election so that there remains nothing more to be done but to give the first impulse And thus you see that this Universality of knowledg in the Soul comprehends all is all performs all and no imaginable good or happiness is out of her reach A noble creature and not to be cast away upon such trash as most men employ their thoughts in Upon whom it is now time to reflect and to consider what effects the divers manners of living in this world work upon her in the next if first we acquit our selves of a promise we made at the end of the last Chapter For it being now amply declared that the state of a Soul exempted from her Body is a state of pure Being it follows manifestly that there is neither action nor passion in that state Which being so it is beyond all opposition that the Soul cannot dye For 't is evident that all corruption must come from the action of another thing upon that which is corrupted and therfore that thing must be capable of Being made better and worse Now then if a Separated Soul be in a final state where she can neither be better'd or worsened as she must be if she be such a thing as we have declared it follows that she cannot possibly lose the Being which she hath And since her passage out of the Body doth not change her nature but only her state 't is clear that she is of the same nature even in the body though in this her durance she be subject to be forged as it were by the hammers of corporeal objects beating upon her yet so that of her self she still is what she is And therefore as soon as she is out of the passible
oore in which she suffers by reason of that oore she presently becomes impassible as being purely of her own nature a fixed substance that is a pure Being Both which states of the Soul may in some sort be adumbrated by what we see passes in the coppelling of a fixed metal For as long as any lead or dross or allay remains with it it continues melted flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without any mixture and singly it self it contracts it self to a narrower room and at that very instant ceases from all motion grows hard permanent resistent to all operations of fire and suffers no change or diminution in its substance by any outward violence we can use to it CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in this world cause in a Soul after she is separated from her Body ONe thing may peradventure seem of hard digestion in our past discourse and it is that out of the grounds we have laid it seems to follow that all Souls will have an equality since we have concluded that the greatest shall see or know no more than the least And indeed there appears no cause why this great and noble creature should ly imprison'd in the obscure dungeon of noisom flesh if in the first instant in which it hath its first knowledg it hath then already gain'd whatever it is capable of gaining in the whole progress of a long life afterwards Truly the Platonick Philosophers who are perswaded that a humane Soul doth not profit in this life nor acquired any knowledg here as being of her self compleatly perfect and that all our discoursings are but her remembrings of what she had forgotten will find themselvs ill bestead to render a Philosophical and sufficient cause of her being lock'd into a Body For to put forgetfulness in a pure Spirit so palpable an effect of corporeity and so great a corruption in respect of a creature whose nature is to know of it self is an unsufferable error Besides when they tell us she cannot be changed because all change would prejudice the spiritual nature which they attribute to her but that well she may be warned and excited by being in a Body they meerly trifle For either there is some true mutation made in her by that which they call a warning or there is not If there be not how becomes it a warning to her or what is it more to her than if a straw were wag'd at the Antipodes But if there be some mutation be it never so little made in her by a corporeal motion what should hinder why she may not by means of her Body attain to Science she never had as well as by it receive any the least intrinsecal mutation whatever For if once we admit any mutability in her from any corporeal motion 't is far more conformable to reason to suppose it in regard of that which is her natural perfection and of that which by her operation we see she hath immediately after such corporeal motions and wherof before them there appear'd in her no marks at all than to suppose it in regard of a dark intimation of which we neither know it is nor how it is performed Surely no Rational Philosopher seeing a thing whose nature is to know have a Being wheras formerly it existed not and observing how that thing by little and little gives sign of more and more knowledg can doubt but that as she could be changed from not Being to Being so may she likewise be changed from less knowing to more knowing This then being irrefragably setled that in the Body she encreases in knowledg let us come to our difficulty and examine what this encrease in the Body avails her Since as soon as she parts from it she shall of her own nature enjoy and be replenish'd with the knowledg of all things why should she laboriously strive to anticipate the geting of a few drops which but encrease her thirst and anxiety when having but a little patience she shall at one full and everlasting draught drink up the whole sea of it We know that the Soul is a thing made proportionably to the making of its Body seeing it is the Bodies compartner and we have concluded that while it is in the Body it acquires perfection in that way which the nature of it is capable of that is in knowledg as the Body acquires perfection in its way which is in strength and agility Now then let us compare the proceedings of the one with those of the other substance and peradventure we may gain some light to discern what advantage it may prove to a Soul to remain long in its Body if it make right use of its dwelling there Let us consider the Body of a Man well and exactly shaped in all his members yet if he never use care nor pains to exercise those well framed limbs of his he will want much of those corporeal perfections which others will have who employ them sedulouslâ— Though his leggs arms and hands be of an exact symmetry yet he will not be able to run to wrestle or to throw a dart with those who labour to perfect themselvs in such exercises Though his fingers be never so neatly moulded or composed to all advantages of quick and smart motion yet if he never learn'd and practis'd on the Lute he will not be able with them to make any musick upon that instrument even after he sees plainly and comprehends fully all that the cunning Lutenist doth neither will he be able to play as he doth with his fingers which of themselvs are peradventure less apt to those voluble motions than his are That which makes a man dexterous in any of these Arts or in any other operations proper to any of the parts or limbs of his body is the often repetitions of the same Acts which amend and perfect those limbs in their motions and make them fit and ready for the actions they are design'd to In the same manner it fares with the Soul whose essence is that which she knows her several knowledges may be compared to arms hands fingers leggs thighs c. in a Body and all her knowledges taken together compose as I may say and make her up what she is Now those limbs of hers though they be when they are at the worst entire and well shaped in bulk to use the comparison of Bodies yet they are susceptible of further perfection as our corporeal limbs are by often and orderly usage of them When we iterate our acts of understanding any object the second act is of the same nature as the first the third as the second and so of the rest every one of which perfects the understanding of that thing and of all that depends on the knowledg of it and makes it become more vigorous and strong Even the often throwing of a Boul at the same
side an Incorporated Soul by reason of her being confined to the use her Senses can look on but one single definite place or time at once and needs a long chain of many discourses to comprehend all the circumstances of any one action and yet after all how short is she of comprehending all So that comparing one of these with the other 't is evident that the proportion of a Separated Soul to one in the Body is as all time or all place in respect of any one piece or least parcel of them or as the entire absolute comprehender of all time and all place is to the discoverer of a small measure of them For whatever a Soul wills in that state she wills it for the whole extent of her duration because she is then out of the state or capacitity of changing and wishes for whatever she wishes as for her absolute good and therfore employs the whole force of her judgment upon every particular wish Likewise the eminencie which a Separated Soul hath over place is also then entirely employ'd upon every particular wish of hers since in that state there is no variety of place left her to wish for such good in one place and to refuse it in another as while she is in the Body hapneth to every thing she desires Wherefore whatever she then wishes for she wishes for it according to her comparison to place that is to say that as such a Soul hath a power to work at the same time in all places by the absolute comprehension which she hath of place in abstract so every wish of that Soul if it were concerning a thing to be made in place were able to make it in all places through the excessive force and efficacy which she employs upon every particular wish The third effect by which among bodies we gather the vigour and energy of the cause that produces it to wiâ— the doing of the like action in a lesser time in a larger extent is but a combination of the two former 〈◊〉 therfore it requires no further particular insistance upon it to shew tha◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this the proportion of a Separated to an 〈◊〉 Soul must needs be the self same as in the other seeing a Separated Soul's activity is upon all place is in an Indivisible of time Therfore to shut up this point there remains only for us to consider what addition may be made to the efficacity of a judgment by the concurrence of other extrinsecal helps We see that when an understanding man will settle any judgment or conclusion in his mind he weighs throughly all that follows out of such a judgment and considers likewise all the antecedents that lead him to iâ— and if after due reflection and examination of whatever concerns this conclusion which he is establishing in his mind he finds nothing to cross it but that every particular and circumstance goes smoothly along with and strengthens it he is then satisfied and quiet in his thoughts and yields a full assent therto which assent is the stronger the more concurrent testimonies he has for it And though he should have a perfect demonstration or sight of the thing in it self yet every one of the other extrinsecal proofs being as it were a new perswasion hath in it a further vigour to strengthen and content his mind in the fore-had demonstration for if every one of these be in it self sufficient to make the thing evident it cannot happen that any one of them should hinder the others but contrariwise every one of them must needs concurr with all the rest to the effectual quieting of his understanding in its assent to that judgment Now then according to this rate let us calculate if we can what concurrence of proofs and witnesses a Separated Soul will have to settle and strengthen her in every one of her judgments We know that all verities are chain'd and connected one to another and that there is no true conclusion so far remote from any other but may by more or less consequences and discourses be deduced evidently out of it it follows then that in the abstracted Soul where all such consequences are ready drawn and seen in themselvs without extention of time or employing of pains to collect them every particular verity bears testimony to any other so that every one of them is believ'd and works in the sence and virtue of all Out of which it is manifest that every judgment in such a Separated Soul hath an infinite strength and efficacity over any made by an embodyed one To sum all up in a few words We find three roots of infinity in every action of a Separated Soul compar'd to one in the Body First the freedom of her essence or substance it self Next that quality of hers by which she comprehends place and time that is all permanent and successive quantity and Lastly the concurrence of infinite knowledges to every action of hers Having then this measure in our hands let us apply it to a Well-order'd and to a Disorder'd Soul passing out of this world let us consider the oneset upon those goods which she shall there have present and shall fully enjoy the other languishing after and pining away for those which are impossible for her ever to obtain What joy what content what exultation of mind in any living man can be conceiv'd so great as to be compared with the happiness of one of these Souls And what grief what discontent what misery can be like the others These are the different effects which the divers manners of living in this world cause in Souls after they are deliver'd from their Bodies Out of which and the discourse that hath discover'd these effects to us we see a clear resolution of that so main and agitated question among the Philosophers Why a rational Soul is imprison'd in a gross Body of Flesh and Blood In truth the question is an illegitimate one as supposing a false ground for the Soul 's being in the Body is not an imprisonment of a thing that was existent before the Soul and Body met together but her being there is the natural course of begining that which can no other way come into the lists of nature For should a Soul by the course of nature obtain her first being without a Body either she would in the first instant of her being be perfect in knowledg or she would not if she were then would she be a perfect compleat immaterial substance not a Soul whose nature is to be a copartner to the Body and to acquire her perfection by the medâ—ation and service of corporeal senseâ— but if she were not perfect in Science but were only a capacity therto and like white paper in which nothing were yet written then unless she were 〈◊〉 into a Body she could never arrive to know any thing because motion alteration are effects peculiar to Bodies Therfore 〈◊〉 be agreed that she is naturally
B. being all of them indivisible and following precisely out of some of the forenamed actions follow out of things being in this instant and because they are indivisible they may be in this instant therfore all is done in this instant Now supposing all to be done that can be done by them in this instant and that nothing can follow from them unless it follow precisely out of what is in this instant that it is all indivisible it follows clearly that whatever concerning them is not in this instant can never be These two conclusions being thus demonstrated let us in the next place determine how all actions of pure Spirits which have no respect to Bodies must of necessity be indivisible that is must include no continuate Succession by which I mean such a Succession as may be divided into parts without end For if we look well into it we shall find that a continuate Succession cannot be a thing which hath in it self a Being because the essence of such a Succession consists in having some of its parts already past others of them yet to come but on the other side 't is evident that no such thing can be whose essential ingredients are not it self and therfore it follows evidently that such a thing as we call Succession can have no being in it self since one essential part of it never is with the other Therfore such a Succession must have its being in some permanent thing which must be divisible for that is essentially required in Succession but permanent divisibility is that which we call Bigness or Quantity from which pure Spirits are free Wherfore 't is most evident that all their actions in respect of themselvs are absolutely indivisible Now to make use of this doctrine to our intent we say that Since our Soul when it is separated from our Body is a pure Spirit or Understanding and that all her actions are indivisible that all actions of other Spirits upon her must likewise be such and by consequence that there can be no continuate succession of action among them we must of necessity conclude that according to the private nature of the Soul and according to the common notion of spiritual things there can be no change made in her after the first instant of her parting from her Body but what happiness or misery betides her in that instant continues with her for all eternity Yet it is not my mind to say that by the course of the universal resolutions from which she is not wholly exempt and from supernatural administration of corporeal things there may not result some change in her But the consideration of that matter I remit to those Treatises to which it belongs as not depending nor ensuing from the particular nature of the Soul and therefore not falling under our discussion in this place This same conclusion may be proved by another argument besides this which we have now used and it is this Whatever works purely by understanding or mind cannot be changed in its operations unless its understanding or mind be alter'd but this cannot happen unless either it learn somwhat it knew not before or forgeting a foreknown truth it begin afterwards to think a falsity This second part is impossible as we have already shew'd when we prov'd that falshood could have no admitance into a Separated Soul and the former is as impossible it being likewise proved that at her first instant of separation she knows all things Wherfore we may hence confidently conclude that no change of mind that is no change at all can happen to an Abstracted Soul And thus by discourse we may arrive to quit our selvs easily of that famous objection so much pestering Christian Religion How God can in justice impose eternal pains upon a Soul for one sin acted in a short space of time For we see it follows by the necessary course of nature that if a man die in a disorderly affection to any thing as to his chief good he eternally remains by the necessity of his own nature in the same affection and there is no imparity that to eternal sin there should be imposed eternal punishment CONCLUSION ANd now I hope I may confidently say I have been as good as my word and I doubt not but my Reader will find it so if he spend but half as much time in perusing these two Treatises as the composing them hath cost me They are too nice and indeed unreasonable who expect to attain without pains to that which hath cost others years of toil Let them remember the words of holy Job that Wisedom is not found in the hand of those that live at their ease Let them cast their eyes on every side round about them and then tell me if they meet with any employment that may be compared to the attaining to these and such like principles wherby a man is enabled to govern himself understandingly and knowingly towards the happiness both of the next life and of this and to comprehend the Wise-mans theme What is good for a man in the days of his vanity whiles he plays the stranger under the Sun Let us fear Gods judgments Let us carefully pursue the hidden bounties he hath treasured up for us Let us thank him for the knowledg he hath given us and admire the excellency of Christian Religion which so plainly teaches us that to which it is so extreme hard to arrive by natural means Let us bless him that we are born to it and let us sing to him that It is he who preaches his Doctrine to Jacob and gives his Laws to Israel He hath not done the like to all Nations nor hath he manifested his secret Truths to them BUt before I cut off this thrid which hath cost me so much pains to spin out to this Length I must crave my Readers leave to make some use of it for my own behoof Hitherto my discourse hath been directed to him now I shall intreat his patience that I may reflect it in a word or two upon my self And as I am sure I have profited my self not a little by talking all this while to him that obliging me to polish my conceptions with more care and to range them into better order than while they were but rude meditations within my own brest so I hope that a little conversation with my self upon this important subject which is to be studied for use and practice not for speculative Science may prove advantagious to him if his warmed thoughts have tuned his Soul to such a key as I am sure these considerations have wound up mine to To thee then my Soul I now address my speech For since by long debate and toilsome rowing against the impetuous tides of ignorance and false apprehensions which overflow the banks and hurry thee headlong down the stream while thou art imprisoned in thy clayie mansion we have with much ado arrived to aim at some little
we should be certain that thy parting from this life waft thee over to assured happiness For thou well know'st that there are noxious actions which deprave infect the Soul while it is forging and moulding here in its Body and tempering for its future Being and if thou should'st sally hence in such a pervers disposition unhappiness would betide theeinstead of thy presumed Bliss I see some men so ravenous after those pleasures which cannot be enjoy'd out of the Body that if those impotent desires accompany their Souls into Eternity I cannot doubt of their enduring an eternity of Misery I cannot doubt of their being tormented with such a dire extremity of unsatisfiable desire and violent grief as were able to tear all this world into pieces were it converted into one heart and to rive in sunder any thing less than the necessity of contradiction How high the Bliss of a well-govern'd Soul is above all power of quantity so extreme must be the ravenous inclemency and Vulture-like cruelty of such an uncompassable desire gnawing eternally upon the Soul for the same reason holds in both and which way soever the gravitation and desires of a Separated Soul carry it it is hurried on with a like impetuosity and unlimited activity Let me then cast a heedful and wary eye on the actions of the generality of mankind from whence I may guess at the weal or wo of their future state and if I find that the greatest number weighs down in the scale of misery have I not reason to fear lest my lot should prove among theirs For the greatest part sweeps along with it every particular that hath not some particular reason to exempt it from the general law Instead then of a few that wisely settle their hearts on legitimate desires what multitudes of wretched men do I see some hungry after Flesh and Blood others gaping after the empty wind of Honour and Vanity others breathing nothing but Ambitious thoughts others grasping all and grov'ling upon heaps of melted Earth So that they put me all in a horror and make me fear lest very few they be that are exempted from the dreadful fate of this incomprehensible misery to which I see and grieve to see the whole face of mankind desperately turned May it not then be my sad chance to be one of their unhappy number Be content then fond man to live Live yet till thou hast first secured the passage which thou art but once to venture on Be sure before thou throwst thy self into it to put thy Soul into the Scales ballance all thy thoughts examine all thy inclinations put thy self to the test try what dross what pure gold is in thy self and what thou findest wanting be sure to supply before nature calls thee to thy dreadful account 'T is soon done if thou beest what thy nature dictates thee to be Follow but evident reason and knowledg and thy wants are supply'd thy accounts made up The same evershining truth which makes thee see that two and two are four will shew thee without any contradiction how all these base allurements are vain and idle and that there is no comparison between the highest of them and the meanest of what thou maist hope for hast thou but strength to settle thy heart by the steerage of this most evident Science In this very moment thou maist be secure But the hazard is great in missing to examine thy self truly and throughly And if thou miscarry there thou art lost for ever Apply therfore all thy care all thy industry to that Let that be thy continual study and thy perpetual entertainment Think nothing else worth the knowing nothing else worth the doing but screwing up thy Soul to this height but directing it by this level by this rule Then fear not nor admit the least doubt of thy being happy when thy time shall come and that time shall have no more power over thee In the mean season spare no pains forbear no diligence employ all exactness burn in Summer freeze in Winter watch by night labour by day joyn months to months entail years upon years Think nothing sufficient to prevent so main a hazard and deem nothing long or tedious in this life to purchase so happy an Eternity The first discoverers of the Indies cast themselvs among swarms of Man eaters they fought and strugled with unknown ways so horrid ones that often times they perswaded themselvs they climb'd up mountains of waters and straight again were precipitated headlong down between the cloven sea upon the foaming sand from whence they could not hope for a resource Hunger was their food Snakes and Serpents were their dainties sword and fire were their daily exercise and all this only to be masters of a little Gold which after a short possession was to quit them for ever Our searchers after the Northern passage have cut their way through mountains of ice more affrightful and horrible than the Simplegades They have imprison'd themselvs in half-year nights they have chain'd themselvs up in perpetual stone-cleaving colds some have been found closely embracing one another to conserve as long as they were able a little sewell in their freezing hearts at length petrefy'd by the hardness of that unmerciful winter Others have been made the prey of inhumane men more savage than the wildest Beasts others have been never found nor heard of so that surely they have proved the food of ugly monsters of that vast icy Sea And these have been able and understanding men What motives what hopes had these daring men What gains could they promise themselvs to countervail their desperate attempts They aim'd not so much as at the purchase of any treasure for themselvs but meerly to second the desires of those that set them on work or to fill the mouths of others from whence some few crumes might fall to them What is required at thy hands my Soul like this And yet the hazard thou art to avoid and the wealth thou art to attain imcomparably over-sets all that they could hope for Live then and be glad of long and numerous years that like ripe fruit thou maiest drop securely into that passage which duely entred into shall deliver thee into an eternity of Bliss and unperishable happinesâ— And yet my Soul be thou not too sore agast with the apprehension of the dreadful hazard thou art in Let not a tormenting fear of the dangers that surround thee make thy whole life here bitter and uncomfortable unto thee Let the serious and due consideration of them arm thee with caution and wisedom to prevent miscarriage by them But to look upon them with horrour and affrightedness would freez thy spirits and benum thy actions and peradventure engulf thee through pusillanimity in as great mischâ—iefs as thou seekest to avoid 'T is true the harm which would accrue from misgoverning thy passage out of this life is unspeakable is unimaginable But why shouldst thou take so deep thoughts of
the hazard thou runst therin as though the difficulty of avoiding it were so extream as might amount to an impossibility I allow the thoughts that arm thee with wise caution to secure thy self cannot be too deep nor too serious but when thou hast providently stored thy self with such call thy spirits manfully about thee And to encourage thee to fight confidently or rather to secure thee of victory so thouwilt not forsake thy self turn thine eyes round about thee and consider how wise Nature that hath prescribed an end and period to all her Plants hath furnish'd them all with due and orderly means to artain therto and though particulars somtimes miscarry in their journey since contingency is entayl'd to all created things yet in the generality and for the most part they all arrive to the scope she levels them at Why then should we imagine that so judicious and far-looking an Architect whom we see so accurate in his meaner works should have framed this masterpiece of the world to perish by the way never to attain that great end for which he made it even after 't is prepared and arm'd with al advantagious circumstances agreeable to its nature That Artificer we know deserves the stile of silly who frames such tools as fail in their performance when they are appli'd to the action for which they were intended We see all sorts of Trees for the most part bear their fruit in due season which is the end they are design'd to and the last and highest emolument they are made to afford us Few Beasts we see there are but contribute to our service what we look for from them The Swine affords good flesh the Sheep good wool the Cow good milk the Sable warm and soft fur the Ox bends his sturdy neck to the yoak the spiritful Horse dutifully bears the Souldier and the sinewy Mule and stronger Camel Convey weighty merchandise Why then shal even the better sort of Mankind the chief the top the head of all the works of Nature be apprehended to miscarry from his end in so vast a proportion as that it should be deem'd in a manner impossible even for those few for so they are in respect of the other numerous multitude of the worser sort to attain to that felicity which is natural to them Thou my Soul art the form and that supream part of me which gives being both to me and to my body who then can doubt but that all the rest of me is framed fitting and serviceable for thee For what reason were there that thou should'st be implanted in a soil which cannot bear thy fruit The form of a Hog I see is engrafted in a body fit and appropriated for a Swines operations the form of a Horse of a Lion of a Wolf all of them have their organs proportioned to the mastering piece within them their Soul And is it credible that only Man should have his inferiour parts rais'd so highly in rebellion against his Soul the greatest Mistress beyond proportion among all forms as that it shall be impossible for her to suppress their mutinies though she guide her self never so exactly by the prescripts of that rule which is born with her Can it be suspected that his form which is infinitely mounted above the power of Matter should through the very necessity and principles of its own nature be more liable to contingency than those that are engulfed and drown'd in It since we know that contingency defectibility and change are the chidren of gross and mishapen matter Alas it is too true that nature is in us unhappily wrested from her original and due course We find by sad experience that although her depravation be not so total as to blind entirely the eye of Reason she sees by yet it is so great as to carry vehemently our affections quite cross to what she proposes us as Best However let the Incentives of flesh blood be never so violent to tumble humane nature down the hill yet if a contrary force more efficacious than they with all their turhulent misty steams impel it another way it must needs obey that stronger power Let us then examine whose motives the Soul's or the Sense's in their own nature work most efficaciously in Man We are sure that what pleasure he receivs he receivs by means of his Soul even all corporal pleasure for be the working object never so agreeable and pleasing to him he reaps thence smal delight if in the mean time his Soul's attention be carried another way from it Certainly then those things must affect the Soul most powerfully which are connatural to her and which she seises on and relishes immediately rather those impure ones which come sophisticated to her through the muddy channels of the Senses And accordingly all experience teaches us that her pleasures when they are fully savored are much stronger than the pleasures of our Senses Observe but the different comportments of an Ambitious and of a Sensual man and you will evidently perceive far stronger motions and more vehement strains in the former who hath his desires bent to the satisfaction of his Mind than in the other who ayms but at the pleasures of his Body Let us look upon the common face of mankind and we shall see the most illustrious and noble part taken with Learning with Power with Honour and the other part which makes Sense their Idol moves in a lower and baser orbe under the others is in a servile degree to them Since then humane nature is of it self more inclined to the contentments of the active mind than of the dull sense who can doubt but that the way of those pure contentments must be far sweeter than the gross and troubled streams of sensual pleasures Which if it be certainly man in his own nature is more apt to follow that and when he chances to wander out of that smooth and easie road his steps are painful and wearisome ones and if he do not presently perceive them such it is because it fares with him as with those that walk in their sleep and stray into rough and stony passages or among thistles and briars whiles peradventure some illuding dream bewitches their fansies and perswades them they are in some pleasant garden till waking if at least they wake before they fall into a deadly precipice they find their feet all gored and their bodies all scratch'd and torn If any sensual man should doubt of this great truth and find it hard to perswade himself that intellectual pleasures which to his depraved taste seem cold and flat ones should be more active and intense than those feculent ones which so violently transport him let him but exercise himself a while in those entertainments which delight the mind taking leave during that space of those unruly ones which agitate the body and continue doing thus till by long practice he hath made them easie and babituated himself to them And I will engage