much to my self as peremptorily to affirm that the Indiscerpibility of a Spirit arises that way that I have set down that is to say that God has made a particular Spirit just in that manner that I have delineated For his Wisdome is infinite and therefore it were an impious piece of boldness to confine him to one certain way of framing the nature of a Being that is of endowing it with such attributes as are essential to it as Indiscerpibility is to the Soule of Man But onely to have said in general it is possible there may be a particular Essence of its immediate nature penetrable indiscerpible and not particularly to have described the manner how it may be so might have seemed to many more slight and unsatisfactory Deceit lurking in Universals as the Proverb has it And therefore for the more fully convincing of the adverse party I thought fit to pitch upon a punctual description of some one way how the Soule of Man or of a Daemon may be conceived necessarily indiscerpible though dilatable not being very sollicitous whether it be just that way or no but yet well assured that it is either that way or some better But this one way shewes the thing possible at large As that mean contrivance of an Indian Canoa might prove the possibility of Navigation And that is all that I was to aime at in that place So in my description of the state of the other world I am not very sollicitous whether things be just so as I have set them down but because some men utterly misbelieve the thing because they can frame no particular conceit what the Receptions and Entertains of those AErial Inhabitants may be or how they pass away their time with many other intricacies which use to entangle this Theory I thought it of main concernment to take away this objection against the Life to come viz. That no man can conceive what it is and therefore it is not at all which is the ordinary Exception also against the Existence of all Incorporeal Substances by a punctual and rational Description of this future state Which I exhibite to the world as an intelligible Hypothesis and such as may very wel be even according to the dictates of our own Faculties being in the mean time fully assured that things are either thus or after a better or more exact order But as I said to propound some particular probable way I thought it of no small service to those who totally distrust all these things for that reason mainly as being such as we can make no rational representation of to the understandings of men 8. But there are also particular Objections The first whereof is against our AErial and AEthereal Elysiums which forsooth to make their reproach more witty they will parallel with the Mahometan Paradise But besides that I doe in the very place where I treat of these things suspend my assent after the description of them there is nothing there offered in their description but if it were assented to might become the most refined spirit in the World For there is nothing more certain then that the love of God and our Neighbour is the greatest happiness that we can arrive unto either in this life or that which is to come And whatever things are there described are either the Causes Effects or Concomitants of that noble and divine Passion Neither are the External incitements thereto which I there mention rightly to be deemed Sensual but Intellectual For even such is also sensible Beauty whether it shew it self in Feature Musick or whatever graceful Deportments and comely Actions as Plotinus has well defined And those things that are not properly Intellectual suppose Odours and Sapours yet such a Spirit may be transfused into the Vehicles of these AErial Inhabitants thereby that may more then ordinarily raise into act their Intellectual Faculties Which he that observes how our Thoughts and Inclinations depend immediately on a certain subtile Matter in our Bodies will not at all stick to acknowledge to be true And therefore whatever our Elysiums seem to the rash and injudicious they are really no other thing then pure Paradises of intellectual pleasure divine Love and blameless Friendship being the onely delight of those places 9. The next Objection is concerning the state of the Wicked as if I had made their condition too easy for them But this methinks any man might be kept off from if he would but consider that I make the rack of Conscience worse then a perpetually-repeated death Which is too too credible to come to pass there when as we finde what execution Passions will doe upon us even in this life the Sicilian Tyrants having not found out a more exquisite torture then they And as for those Souls that have lost the sense of Conscience if any can doe so I have allotted other punishments that are more corporeal and little inferiour to the fire of that great Hell that is prophesied of as the portion of the Devils and the damned at the last Day By which neither then nor before could they be tortured if we appeal to humane Reason whom alone we appeal to as judge in this Treatise if they were not vitally united with corporeal Vehicles 10. The two last Exceptions are the one touching the Soul of the World the other the Spirit of Nature The first is against our over-favourable representation of their Opinion that make but one Soul in the whole Universe induing her with Sense Reason and Understanding which Soul they will have to act in all Animals Daemons themselves not excepted In all which say they it is one and the same Universal Soul that Hears Sees Reasons Understands c. This Opinion I think I have confuted Lib. 3. Cap. 16. as sufficiently as any one Error can be confuted in all Natural Philosophy And that favourable representation I have made there of it Sect. 4. has that in it whereby unless a man be very remiss and mindless he may easily demonstrate the falsness of the Supposition For though we may well enough imagine how the Body being unchanged and this Soul of the Universe exquisitely the same every where that though the party change place and shift into another part of the Soul of the World he may retain the same Opinions Imaginations and Reasonings so farre forth as they depend not on Memory this Universal Soul raising her self into the same Thoughts upon the same Occasions yet Memory is incompetible unto that part which has not had the perception before of what is remembred For there is necessarily comprehended in Memory a Sense or Perception that we have had a Perception or Sense afore of the thing which we conceive our selves to remember To be short therefore and to strike this Opinion dead at one stroke They that say there is but one Soule of the World whose perceptive Power is every where they must assert that what one part thereof perceives all the
must needs break off as not being able alone to reach the Effect which necessarily leads them to a more confirmed discovery of the Principle we contend for namely the Spirit of Nature which is the vicarious power of God upon the Matter and the first step to the abstrusest mysteries in Natural Theologie which must needs highly gratify them in point of Religion 15. And truly for this very cause I think it is the most sober and faithful advice that can be offered to the Christian World that they would encourage the reading of Des-Cartes ' in all publick Schools or Universities That the Students of Philosophy may be throughly exercised in the just extent of the mechanical powers of Matter how farre they will reach and where they fall short Which will be the best assistance to Religion that Reason and the knowledge of Nature can afford For by this means such as are intended to serve the Church will be armed betimes with sufficient strength to grapple with their proudest Deriders or Opposers Whenas for want of this we see how liable they are to be contemned and born down by every bold though weak pretender to the Mechanick Philosophy 16. These are the main passages I could any way conceive might be excepted against in the ensuing Discourse which yet are so innocent and firm in themselves and so advantageously circumstantiated in the places where they are found that I fear the Reader may suspect my judgement and discretion in putting my self to the trouble of writing and him of reading so long and needless a Preface Which oversight though it be an argument of no great wit yet it may be of much Humanity and of an earnest desire of doing a publick good without the least offence or dis-satisfaction to any that are but tolerable Retainers to Reason and Ingenuity But for those that have bid adieu to both and measure all Truths by their own humoursome fancy making every thing ridiculous that is not sutable to their own ignorant conceptions I think no serious man will hold himself bound to take notice of their perverse constructions and mis-representations of things more then a religious Eremite or devout Pilgrim to heed the ugly mows and grimaces of Apes and Monkies he may haply meet with in his passage through the Wilderness THE IMMORTALITY of the SOULE CHAP. I. 1. The usefulness of the present Speculation for the understanding of Providence and the management of our lives for our greatest happiness 2. For the moderate bearing the death and disasters of our Friends 3. For the begetting true Magnanimitie in us 4. and Peace and Tranquillitie of minde 5. That so weighty a Theory is not to be handled perfunctorily 1. OF all the Speculations the Soul of man can entertain her self withall there is none of greater moment or of closer concernment to her then this of her own Immortality and Independence on this terrestriall body For hereby not onely the intricacies and perplexities of Providence are made more easy and smooth to her and she becomes able by unravelling this clue from end to end to pass and repass safe through this Labyrinth wherein many both anxious and careless Spirits have lost themselves but also which touches her own interest more particularly being once raised into the knowledge and belief of so weighty a Conclusion she may view from this Prospect the most certain and most compendious way to her own Happiness which is the bearing a very moderate affection to what ever tempts her during the time of this her Pilgrimage and a carefull preparing of her self for her future condition by such Noble actions and Heroicall qualifications of mind as shall render her most welcome to her own Countrey 2. Which Belief and Purpose of hers will put her in an utter incapacity of either envying the life or successes of her most imbittered Enemies or of over-lamenting the death or misfortunes of her dearest Friends she having no friends but such as are friends to God and Vertue and whose afflictions will prove advantages for their future Felicitie and their departure hence a passage to present possession thereof 3. Wherefore being fully grounded and rooted in this so concerning a Perswasion she is freed from all poore abject thoughts and designes and as little admires him that gets the most of this World be it by Industry Fortune or Policie as a discreet and serious man does the spoiles of School-boyes it being very inconsiderable to him who got the victory at Cocks or Cob-nut or whose bag returned home the fullest stuffed with Counters or Cherry-stones 4. She has therefore no aemulation unless it be of doing good and of out-stripping if it were possible the noblest examples of either the present or past Ages nor any contest unless it be with her self that she has made no greater proficiency towards the scope she aimes at and aiming at nothing but what is not in the power of men to confer upon her with courage she sets upon the main work and being still more faithfull to her self and to that Light that assists her at last tasts the first fruits of her future Harvest and does more then presage that great Happiness that is accrewing to her And so quit from the troubles and anxieties of this present world staies in it with Tranquillitie and Content and at last leaves it with Joy 5. The Knowledge therefore and belief of the Immortalitie of the Soule being of so grand Importance we are engaged more carefully and punctually to handle this so weighty a Theory which will not be performed by multiplying of words but by a more frugall use of them letting nothing fall from our pen but what makes closely to the matter nor omitting any thing materiall for the evincing the truth thereof CHAP. II. 1. That the Soules Immortality is demonstrable by the Authors method to all but meeâ— Scepticks 2. An Illustration of his Firsâ— Axiome 3. A confirmation and example oâ— the Second 4. An explication of the Third 5. An explication and proof of the Fourth 6. A proof of the Fifth 7. Of the Sixth 8. An example of the seventh 9. A confirmation of the truth of the Eighth 10. A demonstration and example of the Ninth 11. Penetrability the immediate properâ—â— of Incorporeall substance 12. As also Indiscerpibility 13. A proof and illustration of the tenth Axiome 1. ANd to stop all Creep-holes and leave no place for the subterfuges and evasions of confused and cavilling spirits I shall prefix some few Axiomes of thaâ— plainness and evidence that no man in his wits but will be ashamed to deny them if he will admit any thing at all to be true But as for perfect Scepticisme it is a disease incurable and a thing rather to be pittied or laught at then seriously opposed For when a man is so fugitive and unsetled that he will not stand to the verdict of his own faculties one can no more fasten any thing upon him then he can write
error ac timor multum in hominibus possunt will prevail more with them then all the Stories the same Authour writes of Apparitions or whatever any one else can adde unto them And others that doe admit of these things praeconceptions from Education That the Soul when she departs this life is suddenly either twitched up into the Coelum Empyreum or hurried down headlong towards the Centre of the Earth makes the Apparitions of the Ghosts of men altogether incredible to them they always substituting in their place some Angel or Devil which must represent their persons themselves being not at leisure to act any such part 8. But Misconceit and Prejudice though it may hinder the force of an Argument with those that are in that manner entangled yet Reason cannot but take place with them that are free To whom I dare appeal whether considering the aereal Vehicles of Souls which are common to them with other Genii so that whatever they are fancied to doe in their stead they may perform themselves as also how congruous it is that those persons that are most concerned when it is in their power should act in their own affairs as in detecting the Murtherer in disposing their estate in rebuking injurious Executors in visiting and counselling their Wives and Children in forewarning them of such and such courses with other matters of like sort to which you may adde the profession of the Spirit thus appearing of being the Soul of such an one as also the similitude of person and that all this adoe is in things very just and serious unfit for a Devil with that care and kindness to promote and as unfit for a good Genius it being below so noble a nature to tell a Lie especially when the affair may be as effectually transacted without it I say I dare appeal to any one whether all these things put together and rightly weighed the violence of prejudice not pulling down the ballance it will not be certainly carried for the present cause and whether any indifferent Judge ought not to conclude if these Stories that are so frequent every where and in all Ages concerning the Ghosts of men appearing be but true that it is true also that it is their Ghosts and that therefore the Souls of men subsist and act after they have left these earthly Bodies CHAP. XVII 1. The preeminence of Arguments drawn from Reason above those from Story 2. The first step toward a Demonstration of Reason that the Soul acts out of her Body for that she is an immaterial Substance separable therefrom 3. The second That the immediate instruments for Sense Motion and Organization of the Body are certain subtile and tenuious Spirits 4. A comparison betwixt the Soul in the Body and the AEreal Genii 5. Of the nature of Daemons from the account of Marcus the Eremite and how the Soul is presently such having once left this Body 6. An Objection concerning the Souls of Brutes to which is answered First by way of concession 7. Secondly by confuting the Arguments for the former concession 8. That there is no rational doubt at all of the Humane Soul acting after death 9. A further Argument of her activity out of this Body from her conflicts with it while she is in it 10. As also from the general hope and belief of all Nations that they shall live after death 1. BUT we proceed now to what is less subject to the evasions and misinterpretations of either the Profane or Superstitious For none but such as will profess themselves meer Brutes can cast off the Decrees and Conclusions of Philosophy and Reason though they think that in things of this nature they may with a great deal of applause and credit refuse the testimony of other mens senses if not of their own all Apparitions being with them nothing but the strong surprisals of Melancholy and Imagination But they cannot with that ease nor credit silence the Deductions of Reason by saying it is but a Fallacy unlesse they can shew the Sophisme which they cannot doe where it is not 2. To carry on therefore our present Argument in a rational way and by degrees we are first to consider That according as already has been clearly demonstrated there is a Substance in us which is ordinarily called the Soul really distinct from the Body for otherwise how can it be a Substance And therefore it is really and locally separable from the Body Which is a very considerable step towards what we aim at 3. In the next place we are to take notice That the immediate Instrument of the Soul are those tenuious and aereal particles which they ordinarily call the Spirits that these are they by which the Soul hears sees feels imagines remembers reasons and by moving which or at least directing their motion she moves likewise the Body and by using them or some subtile Matter like them she either compleats or at least contributes to the Bodies Organization For that the Soul should be the Vital Architect of her own house that close connexion and sure possession she is to have of it distinct and secure from the invasion of any other particular Soul seems no slight Argument And yet that while she is exercising that Faculty she may have a more then ordinary Union or Implication with the Spirit of Nature or the Soul of the World so far forth as it is Plastick seems not unreasonable and therefore is asserted by Plotinus and may justly be suspected to be true if we attend to the prodigious effects of the Mothers Imagination derived upon the Infant which sometimes are so very great that unless she raised the Spirit of Nature into consent they might well seem to exceed the power of any Cause I shall abstain from producing any Examples till the proper place in the mean time I hope I may be excused from any rashness in this assignation of the cause of those many and various Signatures found in Nature so plainly pointing at such a Principle in the World as I have intimated before 4. But to return and cast our eye upon the Subject in hand It appears from the two precedent Conclusions that the Soul considered as invested immediately with this tenuious Matter we speak of which is her inward Vehicle has very little more difference from the aereal Genii then a man in a Prison from one that is free The one can onely see and suck air through the Grates of the Prison and must be annoyed with all the stench and unwholsome fumes of that sad habitation whenas the other may walk and take the fresh air where he finds it most commodious and agreeable This difference there is betwixt the Genii and an incorporated Soul The Soul as a man faln into a deep pit who can have no better Water nor Air nor no longer enjoyment of the Sun and his chearful light and warmth then the measure and quality of the pit will permit him so she once immured
Fienus has defined in this matter who has I think behaved himself as cautiously and modestly as may be there will be enough granted to assure us of what we aime at For he does acknowledge that the Imagination of the Mother may change the figure of the Foetus so as to make it beare a resemblance though not absolutely perfect of an Ape Pig or Dog or any such like Animal The like he affirms of colours haires and excrescencies of several sorts that it may produce also what is very like or analogous to horns and hoofs and that it may encrease the bigness and number of the parts of the Body 4. And though he does reject several of the examples he has produced out of Authors yet those which he admits for true are Indications plain enough what we may expect in the Vehicle of a departed Soule or Daemon As that of the Hairy girle out of Marcus Damascenus that other out of Guilielmus Paradinus of a Child whose skin and nails resembled those of a Bear and a third out of Balduinus Ronsaeus of one born with many excrescencies coloured and figured like those in a Turky-cock and a fourth out of Pareus of one who was born with an head like a Frog as lastly that out of Avicenna of chickens with hawks heads All which deviations of the Plastick power hapned from the force of Imagination in the Females either in the time of Conception or gestation of their young 5. But he scruples of giving assent to others which yet are assented to by very learned writers As that of Black-moores being born of white Parents and white Children of black by the exposal of pictures representing an AEthiopian or European which those two excellent Physitians Fernelius and Sennertus both agree to He rejects also that out of Cornelius Gemma of a Child that was born with his Forehead wounded and running with blood from the husbands threatning his wife when she was big with a drawn sword which he directed towards her Forehead Which will not seem so incredible if we consider what Sennertus records of his own knowledg viz. That a Woman with child seeing a Butcher divide a Swines head with his Cleaver brought forth her Child with its face cloven in the upper jaw the palate and upper lip to the very nose 6. But the most notorious instances of this sort are those of Helmont De injectis materialibus The one of a Taylors wife at Mechlin who standing at her doore and seeing a souldiers hand cut off in a quarrel presently fell into labour being struck with horrour at the spectacle and brought forth a child with one hand the other arm bleeding without one of which wound the infant died by the great expense of blood Another woman the wife of one Marcus De Vogeler Merchant of Antwerp in the year 1602. seeing a souldier begging who had lost his right arme in Ostend-siege which he shewed to the people still bloody fell presently into labour and brought forth a Daughter with one arme struck off nothing left but a bloody stump to employ the Chirurgions skill this woman married afterwards to one Hoochcamer Merchant of Amsterdam and was yet alive in the year 1638. as Helmont writes He adds a third example of another Merchants wife which he knew who hearing that on a morning there were thirteen men to be beheaded this hapned at Antwerp in Duke D' Alva his time she had the curiosity to see the execution She getting therefore a place in the Chamber of a certain widow-woman a friend of hers that dwelt in the market-place beheld this Tragick spectacle upon which she suddainly fell into labour and brought forth a perfectly-formed infant onely the head was wanting but the neck bloody as their bodies she beheld that had their heads cut off And that which does still advance the wonder is that the hand arme and head of these infants were none of them to be found From whence Van-Helmont would infer a penetration of corporeal dimensions but how groundlessly I will not dispute here 7. If these Stories he recites be true as I must confess I doe not well know how to deny them he reporting them with so honest and credible circumstances they are notable examples of the power of Imagination and such as doe not onely win belief to themselves but also to others that Fienus would reject not of this nature onely we are upon of wounding the body of the Infant but also of more exorbitant conformation of parts of which we shall bring an instance or two anon In the mean time while I more carefully contemplate this strange virtue and power of the Soule of the Mother in which there is no such measure of purification or exaltedness that it should be able to act such miracles as I may call them rather then natural effects I cannot but be more then usually inclinable to think that the Plastick faculty of the Soule of the Infant or whatever accessions there may be from the Imagination of the Mother is not the adaequate cause of the formation of the Foetus a thing which Plotinus somewhere intimates by the by as I have already noted viz. That the Soule of the World or the Spirit of Nature assists in this performance Which if it be true we have discovered a Cause proportionable to so prodigious an Effect For we may easily conceive that the deeply-impassionated fancy of the Mother snatches away the Spirit of Nature into consent which Spirit may rationally be acknowledged to have a hand in the efformation of all vital Beings in the World and haply be the onely Agent in forming of all manner of Plants In which kinde whether she exert her power in any other Elements then Earth and Water I will conclude no further then that there may be a possibility thereof in the calmer Regions of Aire and AEther To the right understanding of which conjecture some light will offer it self from what we have said concerning the Visibility and Consistency of the aerial Daemons in their occursions one with another 8. But this is not the onely Argument that would move one to think that this Spirit of Nature intermeddles with the Efformation of the Foetus For those Signatures that are derived on the Infant from the Mothers fancy in the act of Conception cannot well be understood without this Hypothesis For what can be the Subject of that Signature Not the Plastick part of the Soul of the Mother for that it is not the Mothers Soul that efforms the Embryo as Sennertus ingeniously conjectures from the manner of the efformation of Birds which is in their Egges distinct from the Hen and they may as well be hatched without any Hen at all a thing ordinarily practised in AEgypt nor the Body of the Embryo for it has yet no Body nor its Soul for the Soul if we believe Aristotle is not yet present there But the Spirit of Nature is present every where which snatcht into
Government of Men does on several sorts of brute Beasts and the AEthereal Powers also have a Right and Exercise of Rule over the AErial Whence nothing can be committed in the World against the more indispensable Laws thereof but a most severe and inevitable punishment will follow every Nation City Family and Person being in some manner the Peculium and therefore in the tutelage of some invisible Power or other as I have above intimated 4. And such Transgressions as are against those Laws without whose observance the Creation could not subsist we may be assured are punished with Torture intolerable and infinitely above any Pleasure imaginable the evil Genii can take in doing of those of their own Order or us Mortals any mischief Whence it is manifest that we are as secure from their gross outrages such as the firing of our houses the stealing away our jewels or more necessary Utensils murdering our selves or children destroying our cattel corn and other things of the like sort as if they were not in rerum natura Unless they have some special permission to act or we our selves enable them by our rash and indiscreet tampering with them or suffer from the malice of some person that is in league with them For their greatest liberty of doing mischief is upon that account which yet is very much limited in that all these Actions must pass the consent of a visible person not hard to be discovered in these unlawful practices and easy to be punished by the Law of Men. 5. And the AErial Genii can with as much ease inflict punishment on one another as we Mortals can apprehend imprison and punish such as transgress against our Laws For though these Daemons be invisible to us yet they are not so to their own Tribe nor can the activity and subtilty of the Bad over-master the Good Commonwealths-men there that uphold the Laws better then they are amongst us Nor may the various Transfiguration of their shapes conceal their persons no more then the disguises that are used by fraudulent men For they are as able to discern what is fictitious from what is true and natural amongst themselves as we are amongst our selves And every AErial Spirit being part of some Political subdivision upon any outrage committed it will be an easy matter to hunt out the Malefactor No Daemon being able so to transfigure himself but upon command he will be forced to appear in his natural and usual form not daring to deny upon examination to what particular Subdivision he belongs Whence the easy discovery of their miscarriages and certainty of insupportable torment will secure the World from all the disorder that some scrupulous wits suspect would arise from this kinde of Creatures if they were in Being 6. To which we may adde also That what we have is useless to them and that it is very hard to conceive that there are many Rational Beings so degenerate as to take pleasure in ill when it is no good to themselves That Socrates his Aphorism 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be in no small measure true in the other World as well as in this That all that these evil Spirits desire may be onely our lapse into as great a degree of Apostasy from God as themselves and to be full partakers with them of their false Liberty as debauched persons in this life love to make Proselytes and to have respect from their Nurslings in wickedness And several other Considerations there are that serve for the taking away this Panick fear of the incursations and molestations of these aerial Inhabitants and might further silence the suspicious Atheist which I willingly omit having said more then enough of this Subject already See Cap. 3. Sect. 7 8. 7. If any be so curious as to demand what kinde of Punishment this People of the Aire inflict upon their Malefactors I had rather referre them to the Fancies of Cornelius Agrippa De Occult. Philosoph Lib. 3. Cap. 41. then be laught at my self for venturing to descend to such particularities Amongst other things he names their Incarceration or confinement to most vile and squalid Habitations His own words are very significant Accedunt etiam vilissimorum ac teterrimorum locorum habitacula ubi AEtnaei ignes aquarum ingluvies fulgurum tonitruorum concussus terrarum voragines ubi Regio lucis inops nec radiorum Solis capax ignaráque splendoris syderum perpetuis tenebris noctis specie caligat Whence he would make us believe that the subterraneous caverns of the Earth are made use of for Dungeons for the wicked Daemons to be punished in as if the several Volcano's such as AEtna Vesuvius Hecla and many others especially in America were so many Prisons or houses of Correction for the unruly Genii That there is a tedious restraint upon them upon villanies committed and that intolerable is without all question they being endued with corporeal Sense and that more quick and passive then ours and therefore more subject to the highest degrees of torment So that not onely by incarcerating them keeping them in by a watch in the caverns of burning Mountains where the heat of those infernal Chambers and the steam of Brimstone cannot but excruciate them exceedingly but also by commanding them into sundry other Hollows of the ground noysome by several fumes and vapours they may torture them in several fashions and degrees fully proportionable to the greatest crime that is in their power to commit and farre above what the cruellest Tyranny has inflicted here either upon the guilty or innocent But how these Confinements and Torments are inflicted on them and by what Degrees and Relaxations is a thing neither easy to determine nor needful to understand Wherefore we will surcease from pursuing any further so unprofitable a Subject and come to the Third general Head we mentioned which is What the Moral condition of the Soul is when she has left this Body CHAP. XI 1. Three things to be considered before we come to the moral condition of the Soul after death namely her Memory of transactions in this life 2. The peculiar feature and individual Character of her AErial Vehicle 3. The Retainment of the same Name 4. How her ill deportment here lays the train of her Misery hereafter 5. The unspeakable torments of Conscience worse then Death and not to be avoided by dying 6. Of the hideous tortures of external sense on them whose searedness of Conscience may seem to make them uncapable of her Lashes 7. Of the state of the Souls of the more innocent and conscientious Pagans 8. Of the natural accruments of After-happiness to the morally good in this life 9. How the Soul enjoys her actings or sufferings in this Life for an indispensable Cause when she has passed to the other 10. That the reason is proportionably the same in things of less consequence 11. What mischief men may create to themselves in the other world by their Zealous mistakes in this
Nature and sufficiently proved its Existence Out of what has been said may be easily conceived why I give it this name it being a Principle that is of so great influence and activity in the Nascency as I may so call it Coalescency of things And this not onely in the production of Plants with all other Concretions of an inferiour nature and yet above the meer Mechanical lawes of Matter but also in respect of the birth of Animals whereunto it is preparatory and assistent I know not whether I may entitle it also to the guidance of Animals in the chiefest of those actions which we usually impute to natural Instinct Amongst which none so famous as the Birds making their Nests and particularly the artificial structure of the Martins nests under the arches of Church-windowes In which there being so notable a design unknown to themselves and so small a pleasure to present Sense it looks as if they were actuated by another inspired and carried away in a natural rapture by this Spirit of Nature to doe they know not what though it be really a necessary provision and accommodation for laying their Eggs and hatching their young in the efformation whereof this Inferiour Soule of the World is so rationally conceived to assist and intermeddle and therefore may the better be supposed to over-power the Fancy and make use of the members of the Birds to build these convenient Receptacles as certain shops to lay up the Matter whereon she intends to work namely the Eggs of these Birds whom she thus guides in making of their nests 9. But this argument being too lubricous I will not much insist upon it The most notable of those offices that can be assigned to the Spirit of Nature and that sutably to his name is the Translocation of the Souls of Beasts into such Matter as is most fitting for them he being the common Proxenet or Contractor of all natural Matches and Marriages betwixt forms and matter if we may also speak Metaphors as well as Aristotle whose Aphorisme it is that Materia appetit formam ut foemina virum This Spirit therefore may have not onely the power of directing the motion of Matter at hand but also of transporting of particular Souls and Spirits in their state of Silence and Inactivity to such Matter as they are in a fitness to catch life in again Which Transportation or Transmission may very well be at immense distances the effect of this Sympathy and Coactivity being so great in the working of Wines as has been above noted though a thing of less concernment Whence to conclude we may look upon this Spirit of Nature as the great Quarter-master-General of divine Providence but able alone without any under-Officers to lodge every Soule according to her rank and merit whenever she leaves the Body And would prove a very serviceable Hypothesis for those that fancy the praeexistence of humane Souls to declare how they may be conveighed into Bodies here be they at what distance they will before and how Matter haply may be so fitted that the best of them may be fetcht from the purest aethereal Regions into an humane Body without serving any long Apprentiship in the intermediate Aire as also how the Souls of Brutes though the Earth were made perfectly inept for the life of any Animal need not lye for ever useless in the Universe But such speculations as these are of so vast a comprehension and impenetrable obscurity that I cannot have the confidence to dwell any longer thereon especially they not touching so essentially our present designe and being more fit to fill a volume themseves then to be comprised within the narrow limits of my now almost-finish'd Discourse CHAP. XIV 1. Objections against the Souls Immortality from her condition in Infancy Old age Sleep and Sicknesses 2. Other Objections taken from Experiments that seem to prove her Discerpibility 3. As also from the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 4. And from our natural fear of Death 5. A Subterfuge of the adverso party in supposing but one Soule common to all Creatures 6. An Answer concerning the Littleness of the Soule in Infancy 7. As also concerning the weakness of her Intellectuals then and in Old age 8. That Sleep does not at all argue the Souls Mortality but rather illustrate her Immortality 9. An Answer to the Objection from Apoplexies and Catalepsies 10. As also to that from Madness 11. That the various depravations of her Intellectual Faculties doe no more argue her Mortality then the worser Modifications of Matter its natural Annihilability And why God created Souls sympathizing with Matter 1. AS for the Objections that are usually made against the Immortality of the Soule to propound them all were both tedious and useless there being scarce above one in twenty that can appear of any moment to but an indifferent Wit and Judgment But the greatest difficulties that can be urged I shall bring into play that the Truth we doe maintain may be the more fully cleared and the more firmly believed The most material Objections that I know against the Souls Immortality are these five The First is from the consideration of the condition of the Soule in Infancy and Old age as also in Madness Sleep and Apoplexies For if we doe but observe the great difference of our Intellectual operations in Infancy and Dotage from what they are when we are in the prime of our years and how that our Wit grows up by degrees flourishes for a time and at last decayes keeping the same pace with the changes that Age and Years bring into our Body which observes the same lawes that Flowers and Plants what can we suspect but that the Soule of Man which is so magnificently spoken of amongst the learned is nothing else but a Temperature of Body and that it growes and spreads with it both in bigness and virtues and withers and dies as the Body does or at least that it does wholly depend on the Body in its Operations and therefore that there is no sense nor perception of any thing after death And when the Soule has the best advantage of years she is not then exempted from those Eclipses of the powers of the Minde that proceed from Sleep Madness Apoplexies and other Diseases of that nature All which shew her condition whatever more exalted Wits surmise of her that she is but a poor mortal and corporeal thing 2. The Second Objection is taken from such Experiments as are thought to prove the Soule divisible in the grossest sense that is to say discerpible into pieces And it seems a clear case in those more contemptible Animals which are called Insects especially the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle describes them and doth acknowledge that being cut into pieces each segment will have its motion and sense apart to it self The most notable Instance of this kind is in the Scolopendra whose parts Aristotle Histor. Animal Lib. 4. Cap. 7.
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL So farre forth as it is demonstrable from the Knowledge of NATURE and the Light of REASON By HENRY MORE Fellow of Christ's Colledge in Cambridge 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythag. Quid jucundius quà m scire quid simus quid fuerimus quid erimus atque cum his etiam divina atque suprema illa post obitum MundÃque vicissitudines Cardanus LONDON Printed by I. Flesher for William Morden Bookseller in Cambridge 1659. To the Right Honourable EDWARD Lord Viscount CONWAY and KILULTA My Lord THough I be not ignorant of your Lordships aversness from all addresses of this kinde whether it be that your Lordship has taken notice of that usual vanity of those that dedicate Books in endeavouring to oblige their Patrons by over-lavish praises such as much exceed the worth of the party they thus unmeasurably commend or whether it be from a natural modesty that cannot bear no not so much as a just representation of your own vertues and abilities or lastly from a most true observation that there are very few Treatises writ which are any thing more then meer Transcriptions or Collections out of other Authors whose Writings have already been consecrated to the Name and Memory of some other worthy Persons long since deceased so that they doe but after a manner rob the dead to furnish themselves with Presents to offer to the living Yet notwithstanding this averseness of your Lordship or whatever grounds there may be surmised thereof I could not abstain from making this present Dedication Not so much I confess to gratify your Lordship though it be none of the best Complements as for mine own satisfaction and content For I doe not take so great pleasure in any thing as in the sense and conscience of the fitness sutableness of mine own actions amongst which I can finde none more exactly just befitting then this there being many considerations that give you a peculiar right and title to the Patronage of this present Discourse For besides your Lordships skill in Philosophy real sense of Piety two such endowments as are rarely to be found together especially in Persons of high quality and yet without which matters of this nature can neither be read with any relish nor easily understood there are also other things still more peculiar which naturally doe direct and determine me to the choice I have made For whether I consider the many civilities from your self nearest Relations especially from your noble vertuous Lady whom I can never think on but with admiration nor mention without the highest respect or whether I recollect with my self the first occasion of busying my thoughts upon this Subject which was then when I had the honour and pleasure of reading Des-Cartes his Passions with your Lordship in the Garden of Luxenburg to pass away the time In which Treatise though there be nothing but what is handsome and witty yet all did not seem so perfectly solid and satisfactory to me but that I was forced in some principal things to seek satisfaction from my self or lastly call to minde that pleasant retirement I enjoyed at Ragley during my abode with your Lordship my civil treatment there from that perfect and unexceptionable pattern of a truly Noble Christian Matron the Right Honourable your Mother the solemness of the Place those shady Walks those Hills Woods wherein often having lost the sight of the rest of the World and the World of me I found out in that hidden solitude the choicest Theories in the following Discourse I say whether I considered all these circumstances or any of them I could not but judge them more then enough to determine my choice to so worthy a Patron Nor could the above-mentioned surmises beat me from my design as not at all reaching the present case For as for my part I am so great a Lover of the Truth and so small an Admirer of vulgar Eloquence that neither the presage of any gross Advantage could ever make me stoop so low as to expose my self to the vile infamy or suspicion of turning Flatterer nor yet the tickling sense of applause vain-glory to affect the puffy name title of an Orator So that your Lord p might be secure as touching the first surmise And verily for the second though I confess I might not be at all averse froÌ„ making a just true representation of your Lordships Vertues and Accomplishments yet considering the greatness of them the meanness of mine own Rhetorick I found it not so much as within my power if I would to entrench upon your Lordships modesty and therefore I must leave it to some more able Pen to do you the World that right whether you will or no. And lastly for that scruple concerning the theft or petty sacriledge of several Plagiaries who as it were rob the Monuments of the dead to adorn the living it is the onely thing that I can without vanity profess that what I offer to your Lop. is properly my own that is to say that the invention application and management of the Reasons and Arguments comprised in this Book whether for confutation or confirmation is the genuine result of my own anxióus and thoughtful mind no old stuff purloined or borrowed from other Writers What truth solidity there is in my Principles and Reasonings were too great a piece of arrogance for me to predetermine This must be left to the judgements of such free discerning spirits as your Lordship With whom if what I have writ may find acceptance or a favourable censure it will be the greater obligation encouragement to My Lord Your Honours humbly devoted servant Henry More The Contents of the Preface 1. The Title of the Discourse how it is to be understood 2. The Authors submission of his whole Treatise to the infallible Rule of Sacred Writ 3. A plain and compendious Demonstration that Matter consists of parts indiscerpible 4. An answer to an Objection touching his Demonstration against the Suns superintendency over the affairs of the Earth 5. A confirmation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion that Perception is really one with Corporeal Motion and Reaction if there be nothing but Matter in the World 6. An Apologie for the Vehicles of Daemons and Souls separate 7. As also for his so punctually describing the state of the other life and so curiously defining the nature of a particular Spirit 8. That his Elysiums he describes are not at all Sensual but Divine 9. That he has not made the state of the wicked too easy for them in the other world 10. That it is not one Universal Soule that hears sees and reasons in every man demonstrated from the Acts of Memory 11. Of the Spirit of Nature that it is no obscure Principle nor unseasonably introduced 12. That he has absolutely demonstrated the Existence thereof 13. That the admission of that Principle need be no hinderance to the progress
of Mechanick Philosophy 14. The great pleasure of that study to pious and rational persons 15. Of what concernment it would be if Des-Cartes were generally read in all the Universities of Christendome 16. An excuse of the prolixity of his Preface from his earnest desire of gratifying the publick without the least offence to any rational or ingenuous Spirit THat the present Treatise may pass more freely and smoothly through the hands of men without any offence or scruple to the good and pious or any real exception or probable cavil from those whose Pretensions are greater to Reason then Religion I shall endeavour in this Preface to prevent them by bringing here into view and more fully explaining and clearing whatever I conceive obnoxious to their mistakes and obloquies 1. And indeed I cannot be well assured but that the very Title of my Discourse may seem liable to both their dislikes To the dislike of the one as being confident of the contrary conclusion and therefore secure That that cannot be demonstrated to be true which they have long since judged not worthy to be reckoned in the rank of things probable it may be not so much as of things possible To the dislike of the other as being already perswaded of the truth of our conclusion upon other and better grounds which would not be better if the natural light of Reason could afford Demonstration in this matter And therefore they may haply pretend that so ambitious a Title seems to justle with the high Prerogative of Christianity which has brought life and immortality to light But of the former I demand by what faculty they are made so secure of their being wholly mortal For unless they will ridiculously conceit themselves inspired when as they almost as little believe there is either God or Spirit as that they have in them an Immortal Soule they must either pretend to the experience of Sense or the clearness of Reason The former whereof is impossible because these bold denyers of the Immortality of the Soule have not yet experienced whether we subsist after Death or no. But if they would have us believe they have thus concluded upon rational grounds I dare appeale unto them if they can produce any stronger reasons for their Cause then what I have set down Lib. 3. Cap. 14. and if I have not fully and fundamentally answered them If they will say their confidence proceeds from the weak arguings of the adverse party I answer it is weakly done of them their own Arguments being as unconcluding as they can fancy their adversaries to be so secure that Truth is on their own part rather then on theirs But this can touch onely such managements of this Cause as they have seen already and censured But that is nothing to me who could never think I stood safe but upon my own leggs Wherefore I shall require them onely to peruse what I have written before they venture to judge thereof and after they have read if they will declare that I have not demonstrated the Cause I have undertook I think it reasonable just that they punctually shew in what part or joynt of my Demonstration they discern so weak a coherence as should embolden them still to dissent from the Conclusion But to the other I answer with more modesty and submission That the Title of my Book doth not necessarily imply any promise of so full and perfect a Demonstration that nothing can be added for the firmer assurance of the Truth but onely that there may be expected as clear a Proof as Natural Reason will afford us From which they should rather inferre that I doe acknowledge a further and a more palpable evidence comprehended in Christian Religion and more intelligible and convictive to the generality of the World who have neither leisure nor inclination to deal with the spinosities and anxieties of humane Reason and Philosophy But I declined the making use of that Argument at this time partly because I have a design to speak more fully thereof in my Treatise Of the Mystery of Christian Religion if God so permit and partly because it was unsutable to the present Title which pretends to handle the matter onely within the bounds of natural Light unassisted and unguided by any miraculous Revelation 2. Which will be a pleasant spectacle to such as have a Genius to these kinde of Contemplations and wholly without danger they still remembring that it is the voice of Reason Nature which being too subject to corruption may very well be defectuous or erroneous in some things and therefore never trusting their dictates and suggestions where they clash with the Divine Oracles they must needs be safe from all seduction though I profess I doe not know any thing which I assert in this Treatise that doth disagree with them But if any quicker-sighted then my self do discover any thing not according to that Rule it may be an occasion of humble thankfulness to God for that great priviledge of our being born under an higher and exacter light whereby those that are the most perfectly exercis'd therein are inabled as well to rectify what is perverse as to supply what is defectuous in the light of Nature and they have my free leave afore-hand to doe both throughly all along the ensuing Discourse And this may serve by way of a more general Defence But that nothing may be wanting I shall descend to the making good also of certain particulars as many as it is of any consequence further to clear and confirme 3. In the First Book there occurre onely these two that I am aware of The one concerning the Centre of a particular Spirit whose Idea I have described and demonstrated possible The other concerns my Demonstration of the Impossibility of the Suns seeing any thing upon Earth supposing him meerly corporeal In the making good the former I have taken the boldness to assert That Matter consists of parts indiscerpible understanding by indiscerpible parts particles that have indeed real extension but so little that they cannot have less and be any thing at all and therefore cannot be actually divided Which minute extension if you will you may call Essential as being such that without that measure of it the very Being of Matter cannot be conserved as the extension of any Matter compounded of these you may if you please term Integral these parts of this compounded Matter being actually and really separable one from another The Assertion I confess cannot but seem paradoxical at first sight even to the ingenious and judicious But that there are such indiscerpible particles into which Matter is divisible viz. such as have essential extension and yet have parts utterly inseparable I shall plainly and compendiously here demonstrate besides what I have said in the Treatise it self by this short Syllogism That which is actually divisible so farre as actual division any way can be made is divisible into parts indiscerpible But Matter I mean that
Integral or compound Matter is actually divisible as farre as actual division any way can be made It were a folly to goe to prove either my Proposition or Assumption they being both so clear that no common notion in Euclide is more clear into which all Mathematical Demonstrations are resolved It cannot but be confessed therefore That Matter consists of indiscerpible particles and that Physically and really it is not divisible in infinitum though the parts that constitute an indiscerpible particle are real but divisible onely intellectually it being of the very essence of whatsoever is to have parts or extension in some measure or other For to take away all Extension is to reduce a thing onely to a Mathematical point which is nothing else but pure Negation or Non-entity and there being no medium betwixt extended and not-extended no more then there is betwixt Entity and Non-entity it is plain that if a thing be at all it must be extended And therefore there is an Essential Extension belonging to these indiscerpible particles of Matter which was the other property which was to be demonstrated I know unruly Fancy will make mad work here and clamour against the Conclusion as impossible For finite Extension will she say must needs have Figure and Figure extuberancy of parts at such a distance that we cannot but conceive them still actually divisible But we answer that when Matter is once actually divided as farre as possibly it can it is a perfect contradiction it should be divided any further as it is also that it cannot be divided actually as farre as it can actually be divided And no stronger Demonstration then this against them can be brought against us by either Fancy or Reason and therefore supposing we were but equal in our reasoning this is enough to give me the day who onely contend for the possibility of the thing For if I bring but fully as good Demonstration that it is as the other that it is not none can deny me but that the thing is possible on my side But to answer the above-recited Argument though they can never answer ours I say those indiscerpible particles of Matter have no Figure at all As infinite Greatness has no Figure so infinite Littleness has none also And a Cube infinitely little in the exactest sense is as perfect a contradiction as a Cube infinitely great in the same sense of Infinity for the angles would be equal in magnitude to the Hedrae thereof Besides wise men are assured of many things that their Fancy cannot but play tricks with them in as in the Infinity of Duration and of Matter or at least of Space Of the truth whereof though they are never so certain yet if they consider this infinite Matter Space or Duration as divided suppose into three equal parts all which must needs be infinite or else the whole will not be so the middle part of each will seem both finite and infinite for it is bounded at both ends But every thing has two handles as Epictetus notes and he is a fool that will burn his fingers with the hot handle when he may hold safe by the other that is more tractable and cool 4. Concerning my Demonstration of the Impossibility of the Suns being a Spectator of our particular affairs upon Earth there is onely this one Objection viz. That though the Sun indeed by reason of his great distance cannot see any particular thing upon Earth if he kept always in that ordinary shape in which we should suppose that if he were devoid of sense he would doe yet he having life and perception he may change some part of his Body as we doe our Eye in contracting or dilating the pupil thereof into so advantageous a Figure that the Earth may be made to appear to him as bigge as he pleases Though some would be more ready to laugh at then answer to so odde a surmise which supposes the Sun blinking and peering so curiously into our affairs as through a Telescope yet because it comes in the way of reasoning I shall have the patience seriously to return this reply First that this Objection can pretend to no strength at all unless the body of the Sun were Organical as ours is when as he is nothing but fluid Light so that unless he hath a spiritual Being in him to which this Light should be but the Vehicle this arbitrarious figuring of his fluid Matter cannot be effected But to grant that there is any such incorporeal Substance in the Sun is to yield me what I contend for viz. That there are Immaterial Substances in the World But that there is no such Divine Principle in him whereby he can either see us or aim at the producing any apparition on the Earth in reference to any one of us by the activity of that Spirit in him it is apparent from the scum and spots that lie on him Which is as great an Argument that there is no such Divinity in him as some would attribute to him such as Pomponatius Cardan Vaninus and others as the dung of Owls and Sparrows that is found on the faces and shoulders of Idols in Temples are clear evidences that they are but dead Images no true Deities Lastly though we should suppose he had a particular sentient and intelligent Spirit in him yet the consideration of the vast distance of the Earth from him and the thickness of her Atmosphere with other disadvantages I have already mentioned in my Treatise makes it incredible that he should be able to frame his Body into any Figure so exquisite as will compensate these insuperable difficulties 5. In my Second Book the first Exception is concerning the 20. Axiome which say they I have not proved but onely brought in the testimony of Mr. Hobbs for the support thereof which therefore onely enables me to argue with him upon his own Principles wherein others will hold themselves unconcerned But I answer first that it will concern all his followers as well as himself so that it is no contemptible victory to demonstrate against all those so confident Exploders of Immaterial Substances that their own acknowledged Principles will necessarily inferre the Existence of them in the World But in the next place it will not be hard to produce undeniable Reasons to evince the truth of the above-named Axiome viz. That Sense and Perception in Matter supposing nothing but Matter in the World is really the same with Corporeal Motion and Reaction For it is plain in Sensation there being alwayes external motion from Objects when our Senses are affected And that inward Cogitation is thus performed appears from the heat that Thinking casts a man into Wherefore generally all Cogitation is accompanied with motion corporeal And if there be nothing but Body or Matter in the World Cogitation it self is really the same thing with Corporeal Motion Moreover as in Sensation the Corporeal Motion is first and Perception followes so it is necessary that
rest perceives or else that perceptions in Daemons Men and Brutes are confined to that part of this Soul that is in them while they perceive this or that If the former they are confutable by Sense and Experience For though all Animals lie steeped as it were in that subtile Matter which runs through all things and is the immediate Instrument of Sense and Perception yet we are not conscious of one anothers thoughts nor feel one anothers pains nor the pains and pleasures of Brutes when they are in them at the highest Nor yet doe the Daemons feel one anothers affections or necessarily assent to one anothers opinions though their Vehicles be exceeding pervious else they would be all Avenroists as well as those that appeared to Facius Cardanus supposing any were Wherefore we may generally conclude that if there were such an Universal Soul yet the particular perceptions thereof are restrained to this or that part in which they are made which is contrary to the Unity of a Soul as I have already said in its due place But let us grant the thing for indeed we have demonstrated it to be so if there be such an Universal Soule and none but it then the grand absurdity comes in which I was intimating before to wit That that part of the Soule of the world that never perceived a thing shall notwithstanding remember it that is to say that it shall perceive it has perceived that which it never perceived And yet one at Japan may remember a countrieman arrived thither that he had not seen nor thought of for twenty years before Nay which is more to the purpose supposing the Earth move what I write now the Earth being in the beginning of Aries I shall remember that I have written when she is in the beginning of Libra though that part of the Soule of the World that possesses my Body then will be twice as distant from what does guide my hand to write now as the Earth is from the Sun Wherefore it is plain that such an Universal Soule will not salve all Phaenomena but there must be a particular Soule in every man And yet I dare say this wilde opinion is more tenable then theirs that make nothing but meer Matter in the world But I thought it worth the while with all diligence to confute them both the better of them being but a more refined kinde of Atheisme tending to the subversion of all the Fundamentals of Religion and Piety amongst men 11. As for the Spirit of Nature the greatest exceptions are that I have introduced an obscure Principle for Ignorance and Sloth to take sanctuary in and so to enervate or foreslack the usefull endeavours of curious Wits and hinder that expected progress that may be made in the Mechanick Philosophy and this to aggravate the crime before a competent search be made what the Mechanical powers of Matter can doe For what Mechanical solutions the present or foregoing Ages could not light upon the succeeding may and therefore it is as yet unseasonable to bring in any such principle into Natural Philosophy To which I answer That the principle we speak of is neither obscure nor unseasonable nor so much introduced by me as forced upon me by in vitable evidence of Reason That it is no obscure Principle the clear Description I have given of it Lib. 3. Cap. 12. will make good Those that pretend that the introduction thereof is unseasonable I demand of them when they will think it to be seasonable For this simple surmise That although all the Mechanical solutions of some Phaenomena which have been hitherto offer'd to the world be demonstrably false yet future Ages may light upon what is true can be held nothing else by the judicious but a pittiful subterfuge of fearful Souls that are very loath to let in any such affrightful Notion as an Immaterial or Spiritual Substance into the world for fear the next step must be the acknowledgment also of a God from whom they would fain hide themselves by this poore and precarious pretence But I say if the introduction of this Principle be not seasonable now it will never be seasonable For that admirable Master of Mechanicks Des-Cartes has improved this way to the highest I dare say that the wit of man can reach to in such Phaenomena as he has attempted to render the causes of But how in sundry passages he falls short in his account I have both in the forenamed and following Chapter as also elsewhere taken notice I will instance here onely in the Phaenomenon of Gravity wherein I think I have perfectly demonstrated that both he and Mr. Hobbs are quite out of the story and that the causes they assign are plainly false And that I have not mentioned the opinions of others in this way it was onely because I lookt upon them as less considerable 12. But you 'l say that though these be all mistaken yet it does not follow but that there may arise some happy Wit that will give a true Mechanical solution of this Probleme But I answer that I have not onely confuted their Reasons but also from Mechanical principles granted on all sides and confirmed by experience demonstrated that the descent suppose of a Stone or Bullet or any such like heavy Body is enormously contrary to the Lawes of Mechanicks and that according to them they would necessarily if they lye loose recede from the Earth and be carried away out of our sight into the farthest parts of the Aire if some power more then Mechanical did not curbe that Motion and force them downwards towards the Earth So that it is plain that we have not arbitrariously introduced a Principle but that it is forced upon us by the undeniable evidence of Demonstration From which to suspend our assent till future Ages have improved this Mechanical Philosophy to greater height is as ridiculous as to doubt of the truth of any one plain and easy Demonstration in the first Book of Euclide till we have travelled through the whole field of that immense study of Mathematicks 13. Nor lastly needs the acknowledgment of this Principle to damp our endeavours in the search of the Mechanical causes of the Phaenomena of Nature but rather make us more circumspect to distinguish what is the result of the meer Mechanical powers of Matter and Motion and what of an higher Principle For questionless this secure presumption in some that there is nothing but Matter in the world has emboldned them too rashly to venture on Mechanical solutions where they would not hold because they were confident there were no other solutions to be had but those of this kinde 14. Besides that to the rational and religious there is a double pleasure to carry them on in this way of Philosophy The one from the observation how far in every thing the concatenation of Mechanical causes will reach which will wonderfuly gratify their Reason The other from a distinct deprehension where they
The necessary cohaesion of which Attributes with the Subject is as little demonstrable as the former For supposing that which I cannot but assert to be evidently true That there is no Substance but it has in some sort or other the Three dimensions This Substance which we call Matter might as well have been penetrable as impenetrable and yet have been Substance But now that it does so certainly and irresistibly keep one part of it self from penetrating another it is so we know not why For there is no necessary connexion discernible betwixt Substance with three dimensions and Impenetrability For what some alledge that it implyes a contradiction That extended substance should run one part into another for so part of the Extension and consequently of the Substance would be lost this I say if nearly looked into is of no force For the Substance is no more lost in this case then when a string is doubled and redoubled or a piece of wax reduced from a long figure to a round The dimension of Longitude is in some part lost but without detriment to the Substance of the wax In like manner when one part of an extended Substance runs into another something both of Longitude Latitude and Profundity may be lost and yet all the Substance there still as well as Longitude lost in the other case without any loss of the Substance And as what was lost in Longitude was gotten in Latitude or Profundity before so what is lost here in all or any two of the dimensions is kept safe in Essential Spissitude For so I will call this Mode or Property of a Substance that is able to receive one part of it self into another Which fourth Mode is as easy and familiar to my Understanding as that of the Three dimensions to my Sense or Fancy For I mean nothing else by Spissitude but the redoubling or contracting of Substance into less space then it does sometimes occupy And Analogous to this is the lying of two Substances of several kindes in the same place at once To both these may be applied the termes of Reduplication and Saturation The former when Essence or Substance is but once redoubled into it self or into another the latter when so oft that it will not easily admit any thing more And that more extensions then one may be commensurate at the same time to the same Place is plain in that Motion is coextended with the Subject wherein it is and both with Space And Motion is not nothing wherefore two things may be commensurate to one space at once 12. Now then Extended Substance and all Substances are extended being of it self indifferent to Penetrability or Impenetrability and we finding one kind of Substance so impenetrable that one part will not enter at all into another which with as much reason we might expect to find so irresistibly united one part with another that nothing in the world could dissever them For this Indiscerpibility has as good a connexion with Substance as Impenetrability has they neither falling under the cognoscence of Reason or Demonstration but being immediate Attributes of such a Subject For a man can no more argue from the Extension of Substance that it is Discerpible then that it is Penetrable there being as good a capacity in Extension for Penetration as Discerption I conceive I say from hence we may as easily admit that some Substance may be of it self Indiscerpible as well as others Impenetrable and that as there is one kind of Substance which of it's own nature is Impenetrable and Discerpible so there may be another Indiscerpible and Penetrable Neither of which a man can give any other account of then that they have the immediate Properties of such a Subject AXIOME X. The discovery of some Power Property or Operation incompetible to one Subject is an infallible argument of the existence of some other to which it must be competible 13. AS when Pythagoras was spoken unto by the River Nessus when he passed over it and a Tree by the command of Thespesion the chief of the Gymnosophists saluted Apollonius in a distinct and articulate voice but small as a womans it is evident I say That there was something there that was neither River nor Tree to which these salutations must be attributed no Tree nor River having any Faculty of Reason nor Speech CHAP. III. 1. The general notions of Body and Spirit 2. That the notion of Spirit is altogether as intelligible as that of Body 3. Whether there be any Substance of a mixt nature betwixt Body and Spirit 1. THE greatest and grossest obstacle to the belief of the Immortality of the Soul is that confident opinion in some as if the very notion of a Spirit were a piece of Non-sense and perfect Incongruity in the conception thereof Wherefore to proceed by degrees to our maine designe and to lay our foundation low and sure we will in the first place expose to view the genuine notion of a Spirit in the generall acception thereof and afterwards of several kindes of Spirits that it may appear to all how unjust that cavill is against Incorporeall substances as if they were meer Impossibilities and contradictious Inconsistencies I will define therefore a Spirit in generall thus A substance penetrable and indiscerpible The fitness of which definition will be the better understood if we divide Substance in generall into these first kindes viz. Body and Spirit and then define Body to be A Substance impenetrable and discerpible Whence the contrary kind to this is fitly defined A Substance penetrable and indiscerpible 2. Now I appeale to any man that can set aside prejudice and has the free use of his Faculties whether every term in the definition of a Spirit be not as intelligible and congruous to reason as in that of a Body For the precise notion of Substance is the same in both in which I conceive is comprised Extension and Activity either connate or communicated For matter it self once moved can move other matter And it is as easy to understand what Penetrable is as Impenetrable and what Indiscerpible as Discerpible and Penetrability and Indiscerpibility being as immediate to Spirit as Impenetrability and Discerpibility to Body there is as much reason to be given for the attributes of the one as of the other by Axiome 9. And Substance in its precise notion including no more of Impenetrability then Indiscerpibility we may as well wonder how one kind of Substance can so firmly and irresistibly keep out another Substance as Matter for example does the parts of Matter as that the parts of another Substance hold so fast together that they are by no means Discerpible as we have already intimated And therefore this holding out in one being as difficult a business to conceive as the holding together in the other this can be no prejudice to the notion of a Spirit For there may be very fast union where we cannot at all imagine the cause thereof
can be given of any thing then that it implyes a contradiction to be otherwise 5. That power also of creating things of nothing there is a very close connexion betwixt it and the Idea of God or of a Being absolutely perfect For this Being would not be what it is conceived to be if it were destitute of the power of Creation and therefore this Attribute has no less cohaerence with the Subject then that it is a contradiction it should not be in it as was observed of the foregoing Attribute of Indiscerpibilitie in God But to alledge that a man cannot imagine how God should create something of nothing or how the Divine Essence holds so closely and invincibly together is to transgress against the 3. 4. and 5. Axiomes and to appeal to a Faculty that has no right to determine the case CHAP. V. 1. The Definition belonging to all Finite and Created Spirits 2. Of Indiscerpibility a symbolical representation thereof 3. An Objection answered against that representation 1. WE have done with the notion of that Infinite and Uncreated Spirit we usually call God we come now to those that are Created and Finite as the Spirits of Angels Men and Brutes we will cast in the Seminal Forms also or Archei as the Chymists call them though haply the world stands in no need of them The Properties of a Spirit as it is a notion common to all these I have already enumerated in my Antidote Lib. 1. cap. 4. Self-motion Self-penetration Self-contraction and dilatation and Indivisibility by which I mean Indiscerpibility to which I added Penetrating Moving and Altering the matter We may therefore define this kind of Spirit we speak of to be A substance Indiscerpible that can move it self that can penetrate contract and dilate it self and can also penetrate move and alter the matter We will now examine every term of this Definition from whence it shall appear that it is as congruous and intelligible as those Definitions that are made of such things as all men without any scruple acknowledg to exist 2. Of the Indiscerpibility of a Spirit we have already given rational grounds to evince it not impossible it being an Immediate attribute thereof as Impenetrability is of a Body and as conceivable or imaginable that one Substance of it's own nature may invincibly hold its parts together so that they cannot be disunited nor dissevered as that another may keep out so stoutly and irresistibly another Substance from entring into the same space or place with it self For this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Impenetrability is not at all contained in the precise conception of a Substance as Substance as I have already signified But besides that Reason may thus easily apprehend that it may be so I shall a little gratifie Imagination and it may be Reason too in offering the manner how it is so in this kind of Spirit we now speak of That ancient notion of Light and Intentional species is so far from a plain impossibility that it has been heretofore generally and is still by very many persons looked upon as a Truth that is That Light and Colour doe ray in such sort as they are described in the Peripatetical Philosophie Now it is observable in Light that it is most vigorous towards its fountain and fainter by degrees But we will reduce the matter to one lucid point which according to the acknowledged Principles of Opticks will fill a distance of space with its rays of light Which rayes may indeed be reverberated back towards their center by interposing some opake body and so this Orbe of light contracted but according to the Aristotelean Hypothesis it was alwayes accounted impossible that they should be clipt off or cut from this lucid point and be kept apart by themselves Those whom dry Reason will not satisfy may if they please entertain their Fancy with such a representation as this which may a little ease the anxious importunity of their mind when it too eagerly would comprehend the manner how this Spirit we speak of may be said to be Indiscerpible For think of any ray of this orbe of light it does sufficiently set out to the imagination how Extension and Indiscerpibility may consist together See further in my Antidote Lib. 1. cap. 4. as also the Appendix cap. 3. and 10. 3. But if any object That the lucid Center of this orbe or the Primary substance as I call it in the forecited places is either divisible or absolutely indivisible and if it be divisible that as concerning that Inmost of a Spirit this representation is not at all serviceable to set off the nature thereof by shewing how the parts there may hold together so indiscerpibly but if absolutely indivisible that it seems to be nothing To this I answer what Scaliger somewhere has noted That what is infinitely great or infinitely small the imagination of man is at a loss to conceive it Which certainly is the ground of the perplexedness of that Probleme concerning Matter whether it consists of points or onely of particles divisible in infinitum But to come more closely to the business I say that though we should acknowledg the Inmost Center of life or the very first point as I may so call it of the primary Substance for this primary Substance is in some sort gradual to be purely indivisible it does not at all follow no not according to Imagination it self that it must be nothing For let us imagine a Perfect Plain and on this Plain a perfect Globe we cannot conceive but this Globe touches the Plain and that in what we ordinarily call a point else the one would not be a Globe or the other not a Plain Now it is impossible that one body should touch another and yet touch one another in nothing Wherefore this inmost Center of life is something and something so full of essential vigour and virtue that though gradually it diminish yet can fill a certain Sphere of Space with its own presence and activity as a spark of light illuminates the duskish aire Wherefore there being no greater perplexity nor subtilty in the consideration of this Center of life or Inmost of a Spirit then there is in the Atomes of Matter we may by Axiome 7. rightly conclude That Indiscerpibility has nothing in the notion thereof but what may well consist with the possibility of the existence of the Subject whereunto it belongs CHAP. VI. 1. Axiomes that tend to the demonstrating how the Center or First point of the Primary Substance of a Spirit may be Indiscerpible 2. Several others that demonstrate how the Secondary Substance of a Spirit may be Indiscerpible 3. An application of these Principles 4. Of the union of the Secondary Substance considered transversly 5. That the notion of a Spirit has less difficulty then that of Matter 6. An answer to an Objection from the Rational faculty 7. Answers to Objections suggested from Fancy 8. A more compendious satisfaction concerning the
notion of a Spirit 1. AND thus we have fairly well gratified the Fancy of the Curious concerning the Extension and Indiscerpibility of a Spirit but we shall advance yet higher and demonstrate the possibility of this notion to the severest Reason out of these following Principles AXIOME XI A Globe touches a Plain in something though in the least that is conceivable to be reall  AXIOME XII The least that is conceivable is so little that it cannot be conceived to be discerpible into less  AXIOME XIII As little as this is the repetition of it will amount to considerable magnitudes AS for example if this Globe be drawn upon a Plain it constitutes a Line and a Cylinder drawn upon a Plain or this same Line described by the Globe multiplyed into it self constitutes a superficies c. This a man cannot deny but the more he thinks of it the more certainly true he will find it AXIOME XIV Magnitude cannot arise out of meer Non-Magnitudes FOR multiply Nothing ten thousand millions of times into nothing the Product will be still nothing Besides if that wherein the Globe touches a Plain were more then Indiscerpible that is purely Indivisible it is manifest that a Line will consist of Points Mathematically so called that is purely Indivisible which is the grandest absurdity that can be admitted in Philosophy and the most contradictions thing imaginable AXIOME XV. The same thing by reason of its extreme littleness may be utterly Indiscerpible though intellectually Divisible THis plainly arises out of the foregoing Principles For every Quantity is intellectually divisible but something Indiscerpible was afore demonstrated to be Quantity and consequently divisible otherwise Magnitude would consist of Mathematicall points Thus have I found a possibility for the Notion of the Center of a Spirit which is not a Mathematicall point but Substance in Magnitude so little that it is Indiscerpible but in virtue so great that it can send forth out of it self so large a Sphere of Secondary Substance as I may so call it that it is able to actuate grand Proportions of Matter this whole Sphere of life and activity being in the mean time utterly Indiscerpible 2. This I have said and shall now prove it by adding a few more Principles of that evidence as the most rigorous Reason shall not be able to deny them AXIOME XVI An Emanative Cause is the notion of a thing possible BY an Emanative Cause is understood such a Cause as meerly by Being no other activity or causality interposed produces an Effect That this is possible is manifest it being demonstrable that there is de facto some such Cause in the world because something must move it self Now if there be no Spirit Matter must of necessity move it self where you cannot imagine any activity or causality but the bare essence of the Matter from whence this motion comes For if you would suppose some former motion that might be the cause of this then we might with as good reason suppose some former to be the cause of that and so in infinitum AXIOME XVII An Emanative Effect is coexistent with the very substance of that which is said to be the Cause thereof THis must needs be true because that very Substance which is said to be the Cause is the adaequate immediate Cause and wants nothing to be adjoyned to its bare essence for the production of the Effect and therefore by the same reason the Effect is at any time it must be at all times or so long as that Substance does exist AXIOME XVIII No Emanative Effect that exceeds not the virtues and powers of a Cause can be said to be impossible to be produced by it THis is so plain that nothing need be added for either explanation or proof AXIOME XIX There may be a Substance of that high Vertue and Excellency that it may produce another Substance by Emanative causality provided that Substance produced be in due graduall proportions inferiour to that which causes it THis is plain out of the foregoing Principle For there is no contradiction nor impossibility of a Cause producing an Effect less noble then it self for thereby we are the better assured that it does not exceed the capacity of its own powers Nor is there any incongruity that one Substance should cause something else which we may in some sense call Substance though but Secondary or Emanatory acknowledging the Primary Substance to be the more adequate Object of divine Creation but the Secondary to be referrible also to the Primary or Centrall Substance by way of causall relation For suppose God created the Matter with an immediate power of moving it self God indeed is the Prime cause as well of the Motion as of the Matter and yet nevertheless the Matter is rightly said to move it self Finally this Secondary or Emanatory Substance may be rightly called Substance because it is a Subject indued with certain powers and activities and that it does not inhaere as an Accident in any other Substance or Matter but could maintaine its place though all Matter or what other Substance soever were removed out of that space it is extended through provided its Primary Substance be but safe 3. From these four Principles I have here added we may have not an imaginative but rationall apprehension of that part of a Spirit which we call the Secondary Substance thereof Whos 's Extension arising by graduall Emanation from the First and primest Essence which we call the Center of the Spirit which is no impossible supposition by the 16. 18. and 19. Axiomes we are led from hence to a necessary acknowledgment of perfect Indiscerpibility of parts though not intellectuall Indivisibility by Axiome 17. for it implyes a contradiction that an Emanative effect should be disjoyned from its originall 4. Thus have I demonstrated how a Spirit considering the lineaments of it as I may so call them from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible But now if any be so curious as to ask how the parts thereof hold together in a line drawn cross to these from the Center for Imagination it may be will suggest they lye all loose I answer that the conjecture of Imagination is here partly true and partly false or is true or false as she shall be interpreted For if she mean by loose actually disunited it is false and ridiculous but if only so discerpible that one part may be disunited from another that is not only true but necessary otherwise a Spirit could not contract one part and extend another which is yet an Hypothesis necessary to be admitted Wherefore this Objection is so far from weakning the possibility of this notion that it gives occasion more fully to declare the exact concinnity thereof To be brief therefore a Spirit from the Center to the Circumference is utterly indiscerpible but in lines cross to this it is closely cohaerent but not indiscerpibly which cohaesion may consist in an immediate union of
have now firmly made good that the notion of a Spirit implyes no contradiction nor incompossibility in it but is the notion or Idea of a thing that may possibly be Which I have done so punctually and particularly that I have cleared every Species of Substances Incorporeall from the imputation of either obscurity or inconsistency And that I might not seem to take advantage in pleading their cause in the absence of the adverse party I have brought in the most able Advocate and the most assured that I have hitherto ever met withall and dare now appeal to any indifferent Judge whether I have not demonstrated all his Allegations to be weak and inconclusive Wherefore having so clearly evinced the possibility of the Existence of a Spirit we shall now make a step further and prove That it is not onely a thing possible but that it is really and actually in Nature CHAP. XI 1. Three grounds to prove the Existence of an Immateriall Substance whereof the first is fetcht from the Nature of God 2. The second from the Phaenomenon of Motion in the world 3. That the Matter is not self-moveable 4. An Objection that the Matter may be part self-moved part not 5. The first Answer to the Objection 6. The second Answer 7. Other Evasions answered 8. The Conclusion That no Matter is self-moved but that a certain quantity of motion was impressed upon it at its first Creation by God 1. THere be three main Grounds from whence a man may be assured of the Existence of Spirituall or Immateriall Substance The one is the consideration of the transcendent excellency of the nature of God who being according to the true Idea of Him an Essence absolutely perfect cannot possibly be Body and consequently must be something Incorporeall and seeing that there is no contradiction in the notion of a Spirit in generall nor in any of those kinds of Spirits which we have defined where the notion of God was set down amongst the rest and that in the very notion of him there is contained the reason of his Existence as you may see at large in my Antidote Lib. 1. Cap. 7. 8 certainly if we find any thing at all to be we may safely conclude that He is much more For there is nothing besides Him of which one can give a reason why it is unless we suppose him to be the Author of it Wherefore though God be neither Visible nor Tangible yet his very Idea representing to our Intellectuall Faculties the necessary reason of his Existence we are by Axiome 5. though we had no other Argument drawn from our Senses confidently to conclude That He is 2. The second ground is the ordinary Phaenomena of Nature the most generall whereof is Motion Now it seems to me demonstrable from hence that there is some Being in the world distinct from Matter For Matter being of one simple homogeneal nature not distinguishable by specificall differences as the Schools speak it must have every where the very same Essentiall properties and therefore of it self it must all of it be either without motion or else be self-moving and that in such or such a tenor or measure of Motion there being no reason imaginable why one part of the Matter should move of it self lesse then another and therefore if there be any such thing it can onely arise from externall impediment 3. Now I say if Matter be utterly devoid of Motion in it self it is plain it has it's motion from some other Substance which is necessarily a Substance that is not Matter that is to say a Substance Incorporeall But if it be moved of it self in such or such a measure the effect here being an Emanative effect cannot possibly fail to be where-ever Matter is by Axiome 17. especially if there be no externall impediment And there is no impediment at all but that the terrestriall parts might regain an activity very nigh equall to the aethereall or rather never have lost it For if the Planets had but a common Dividend of all the motion which themselves and the Sun and Stars and all the AEthereall matter possess the matter of the Planets being so little in comparison of that of the Sun Stars and AEther the proportion of motion that will fall due to them would be exceeding much above what they have For it would be as if four or five poor men in a very rich and populous city should by giving up that estate they have in a levelling way get equall share with all the rest Wherefore every Planet could not faile of melting it self into little less finer Substance then the purest AEther But they not doing so it is a signe they have not that Motion nor Agitation of themselves and therefore rest content with what has extrinsecally accrued to them be it less or more 4. But the pugnacious to evade the stroke of our Dilemma will make any bold shift and though they affront their own faculties in saying so yet they will say and must say That part of the Matter is self-moving part without motion of it self 5. But to this I answer That first this evasion of theirs is not so agreeable to experience but so far as either our Sense or Reason can reach there is the same Matter every where For consider the subtilest parts of Matter discoverable here below those which for their Subtilty are invisible and for their Activity wonderfull I mean those particles that cause that vehement agitation we fell in Windes They in time loose their motion become of a visible vaporous consistency and turn to Clouds then to Snow or Rain after haply to Ice it self but then in process of time first melted into Water then exhaled into Vapours after more fiercely agitated do become Wind again And that we may not think that this Reciprocation into Motion and Rest belongs onely to Terrestriall particles that the Heavens themselves be of the same Matter is apparent from the Ejections of Comets into our Vortex and the perpetuall rising of those Spots and Scum upon the Face of the Sun 6. But secondly to return what is still more pungent This Matter that is Self-moved in the impressing of Motion upon other Matter either looses of its own motion or retains it still entire If the first it may be despoiled of all its motion And so that whose immediate nature is to move shall rest the entire cause of its motion still remaining viz. it self which is a plain contradiction by Axiome 17. If the second no meaner an inconvenience then this will follow that the whole world had been turned into pure AEther by this time if not into a perfect flame or at least will be in the conclusion to the utter destruction of all corporeall Consistencies For that these Self-moving parts of Matter are of a considerable copiousness the event does testify they having melted almost all the world already into Suns Stars and AEther nothing remaining but Planets and Comets to be
in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain CHAP. VIII 1. The first reason of his Opinion the convenient Situation of these Spirits 2. The second that the Spirits are the immediate instrument of the Soule in all her functions 3. The proof of the second Reason from the generall Authority of Philosophers and particularly of Hippocrates 4. From our Sympathizing with the changes of the Aire 5. From the celerity of Motion and Cogitation 6. From what is observed generally in the Generation of things 7. From Regius his experiment of a Snaile in a glass 8. From the running round of Images in a Vertigo 9. From the constitution of the Eye and motion of the Spirits there 10. From the dependency of the actions of the Soule upon the Body whether in Meditation or corporeall Motion 11. From the recovery of Motion and Sense into a stupified part 12. And lastly from what is observed in swooning fits of paleness and sharpness of visage c. 13. The inference from all this That the Spirits in the fourth Ventricle are the seat of Common Sense and that the main use of the Brain and Nerves is to preserve the Spirits 1. THat which makes me embrace this Opinion rather then any other is this That first this situation of the common Sensorium betwixt the Head and the trunk of the Body is the most exactly convenient to receive the impresses of Objects from both as also to impart Motion to the Muscles in both the Head and in the Body In which I look upon it as equall with the last Opinion and superiour to all them that went before For whatever may be objected is already answered in what I have said to the last Objection against Des-Cartes 2. But now in the second place wherein this opinion of mine has a notorious advantage above all else that I know It is most reasonable that that Matter which is the immediate instrument of all the Animal functions of the Soule should be the chiefest Seat from whence and where she exercises these functions and if there be any place where there is a freer plenty of the purest sort of this Matter that her peculiar residence should be there Now the immediate instrument of the functions of the Soule is that thinner Matter which they ordinarily call Animal Spirits which are to be found in their greatest purity and plenty in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain From whence it must follow that that precious and choice part of the Soule which we call the Centre of perception is to be placed in that Ventricle not in any pith of the Brain thereabout but in the midst of these Spirits themselves for that is the most naturall situation for the commanding them into the parts of the Head and Body besides a more delicate and subtile use of them at home in pursuing various imaginations and inventions 3. That this thin and Spirituous Matter is the immediate engine of the Soule in all her operations is in a manner the generall opinion of all Philosophers And even those that have placed the Common Sensorium in the Heart have been secure of the truth of this their conceit because they took it for granted that the left Ventricle thereof was the fountain of these pure and subtile Spirits and please themselves very much in that they fancied that Oracle of Physitians the grave and wise Hippocrates to speak their own sense so fully and significantly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say That the mind of man is in the left Ventricle of his Heart and that it is not nourished from meats and drinks from the belly but by a clear and luminous Substance that redounds by separation from the blood which is that which happens exactly in the Brain For the Spirits there are nothing else but more pure and subtill parts of the blood whose tenuity and agitation makes them separate from the rest of the mass thereof and so replenish the Ventricles of the Brain 4. Moreover our sympathizing so sensibly with the changes of the Aire which Hippocrates also takes notice of that in clear Aire our thoughts are more clear and in cloudy more obscure and dull is no slight indication that that which conveighs Sense Thoughts and Passions immediately to the Soule is very tenuious and delicate and of a nature very congenerous to the Aire with which it changes so easily 5. The strange Agility also of Motions and Cogitations that we find in our selves has forced the most sluggish witts even such as have been so gross as to deem the Soule Corporeall yet to chuse the freest subtilest and most active Matter to compound her of that their imaginations could excogitate And Lucretius the most confident of the Epicurean Sect thinks he has hit the naile on the head in his choice De rerum Nat. lib. 3. where he concludes thus Nunc igitur quoniam est animi natura reperta Mobilis egregie per quam constare necesse est Corporibus parvis laevibus atque rotundis whose testimony I account the better in this case by how much the more crass Philosopher he is the necessity of the tenuity of particles that are to pervade the Body of a Man being convinced hence to be so plain that the dimmest eyes can easily discover it 6. But we will advance higher to more forcible Arguments amongst which this I think may find some place That we cannot discover any immediate operation of any kind of Soule in the world but what it first works upon that Matter which participates in a very great measure of this fineness and tenuity of parts which will easily yield and be guided as may be universally observed in all Generations where the Body is alwaies organized out of thin fluid liquor that will easily yield to the plastick power of the Soule In which I doe not doubt but it takes the advantage of moving the most subtile parts of all first such as Des-Cartes his first and second element which are never excluded from any such humid and tenuious substance which elements of his are that true Heavenly or AEthereal matter which is every where as Ficinus somewhere saith Heaven is and is that fire which Trismegist affirms is the most inward vehicle of the minde and the instrument that God used in the forming of the world and which the Soul of the world where-ever she acts does most certainly still use 7. And to make yet a step further That ocular demonstration that Henricus Regius brings Philos. Natur. lib. 4. cap. 16. seems to me both ingenious and solid It is in a Snail such as have no shells moving in a glass so soon as she begins to creep certain Bubbles are discovered to move from her tail to her head but so soon as she ceases moving those Bubbles cease Whence he concludes That a gale of spirits that circuit from her head along her back to her tail and thence along her belly to her head again is the cause of her
progressive motion 8. That such thin Spirits are the immediate instruments of Sense is also discovered by what is observed in a Vertigo For the Brain it self is not of such a fluid substance as to turn round and to make external Objects seem to doe so Wherefore it is a sign that the immediate corporeal instrument of conveying the images of things is the Spirits in the Brain 9. And that they are the chief Organ of Sight is plain in the exteriour parts of the Eye for we may easily discern how full they are of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure and lucid substance which Hippocrates speaks of though he seat it in a wrong place and how upon the passions of the minde these Spirits ebbe or flow in the Eye and are otherwise wonderful-significantly modified insomuch that the Soul even seems to speak through them in that silent voice of Angels which some fancy to be by nothing but by dumb shews but I doe not at all believe it It is also plain enough that dimness of sight comes from deficiency of these Spirits though the parts of the Eye otherwise be entire enough The wider opening also of the pupill of one Eye upon the shutting of the other does indicate the flux and more copious presence of Spirits there as Galen has ingeniously collected 10. To which we may adde that in those more noble operations of the Minde when she meditates and excogitates various Theorems that either she uses some part of the Body as an Instrument then or acts freely and independently of the Body That the latter is false is manifest from hence that then the change of Air or Distemper and Diseasedness could not prejudice her in her Inventive and purely Intellectuall Operations but it is manifest that they doe and that a mans Minde is much more cloudy one time then another and in one Country then another whence is that proverbiall Verse Boeotûm crasso jurares aere natum If she uses any part of the Body it must be either these animal Spirits or the Brain That it is not the Brain the very consistency thereof so clammy and sluggish is an evident demonstration which will still have the more force if we consider what is most certainly true That the Soul has not any power or else exceeding little of moving Matter but her peculiar priviledge is of determining Matter in motion which the more subtile and agitated it is the more easily by reason of its own mobility is it determined by her For if it were an immediate faculty of the Soul to contribute motion to any matter I doe not understand how that faculty never failing nor diminishing no more then the Soul it self can fail or diminish that we should ever be weary of motion In so much that those nimble-footed Maenades or she-Priests of Bacchus with other agile Virgins of the Country which Dionysius describes dancing in the flowry meadows of Maeander and Cayster might if life and limbs would last be found dancing there to this very day as free and frolick as wanton Kids as he pleases to set out their activity and that without any lassitude at all For that immediate motive faculty of the Soul can still as fresh as ever impart motion to all the Body and sooner consume it into air or ashes by heating and agitating it then make her self weary or the Body seem so Wherefore it is plain that that motion or heat that the Soul voluntarily confers upon the Body is by vertue of the Spirits which she when they are playing onely and gently toying amongst themselves sends forth into the exteriour members and so agitates and moves them but they being so subtile and dissipable the Soul spends them in using of them and they being much spent she can hardly move the Body any longer the sense whereof we call Lassitude These are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Hippocrates and the Souls immediate engine of motion through all the parts of the Body 11. As they are also of Sense in the more remote parts as well as in the Head as Spigelius handsomely insinuates by that ordinary example of a mans legge being stupified or asleep as some call it by compression or whatever hinderance may be of the propagation of the Spirits into that part For as sense and motion is restored a man may plainly feel something creep into it tingling and stinging like Pismires as he compares it which can be nothing but the Spirits forcing their passage into the part Wherein what they suffer is made sensible to the Soul they being her immediate Vehicle of life and sense 12. Lastly in swooning fits when motion and sense fails the exteriour parts are pale and fallen the Face looking more lean and sharp of which there can be no other meaning then that that benign gale of vital air that fill'd up the parts before is now absent and retreated from them that is that the fluid Spirits are retired without which no sense nor motion can be performed whence it is apparent that they are the immediate instrument of both 13. I have proved that the Animal Spirits are the Souls immediate organ for sense and motion If therefore there be any place where these Spirits are in the fittest plenty and purity and in the most convenient situation for Animal functions that in all reason must be concluded the chief seat and Acropolis of the Soul Now the Spirits in the middle ventricle of the brain are not so indifferently situated for both the Body and the Head as those in the fourth are nor so pure The upper Ventricles being two are not so fit for this office that is so very much one and singular Besides that the sensiferous impresses of motion through the eyes play under them to say nothing how the Spirits here are less defaecate also then in the fourth Ventricle Wherefore there being sufficient plenty and greatest purity and fittest situation of the Spirits in this fourth Ventricle it is manifest that in these is placed the Centre of Perception that they are the common Sensorium of the Soul And that as the Heart pumps out Blood perpetually to supply the whole Body with nourishment and to keep up the bulk of this edifice for the Soul to dwell in as also from the more subtile and agile parts thereof to replenish the Brain and Nerves with Spirits which are the immediate instrument of the Soul for Sense and Motion so it is plain likewise that the main use of the Brain and Nerves is to keep these subtile Spirits from over speedy dissipation and that the Brain with its Caverns is but one great round Nerve as the Nerves with their invisible porosities are but so many smaller productions or slenderer prolongations of the Brain CHAP. IX 1. Several Objections against Animal Spirits 2. An Answer to the first Objection touching the Porosity of the Nerves 3. To the second and third from the Extravasation of the
Spirits and pituitous Excrements found in the Brain 4. To the fourth fetcht from the incredible swiftness of motion in the Spirits 5. To the last from Ligation 6. Undeniable Demonstrations that there are Animall Spirits in the Ventricles of the Brain 1. BEfore we proceed to our other two Enquiries we are forced to make a stop a while and listen to some few Objections made by some late Authours who against the common stream of all other Philosophers Physitians and Anatomists are not ashamed to deny that there are any such things as Spirits in the Body or at least that there are any in the Ventricles of the Brain For as for the Nerves say they they have no Pores or Cavities to receive them and besides it is plain that what is fluid in them is nothing but a milky white juice as is observed in the pricking of a Nerve And as for the Ventricles of the Brain those Cavities are too big and the Spirits if they issue into them will be as extravasated Blood whence they must needs be spoiled and corrupt Besides that they will evaporate at those passages through which the mucous or pituitous excrements pass from the Brain Whose appearance there is say they another great argument that these Ventricles were intended onely for receptacles and conveyances of such excrementitious Humours which the Brain discharges it self of Lastly if Spontaneous Motion be made by means of these Spirits it could not be so extremely sudden as it is for we can wagge our finger as quick as thought but corporeal Motion cannot be so swift And if the Spirits be continued from the Head to the Finger suppose in the ligation of the Nerve there would be sense from the Ligature to the Fingers end which is say they against Experience These are the main Objections I have met withall in Hofman and others but are such as I think are very easily answered and indeed they doe in some sort clash some of them one with another 2. For how can the Nerves derive juice if they have no Pores or are not so much as passable to these thin active Spirits we speak of or from whence can we better conceive that juice to arise then from these Spirits themselves as they loose their agitation and flag into a more gross consistency 3. Neither can the Spirits be looked upon as extravasated in the Ventricles of the Brain more then the Blood in the Auricles or Ventricles of the Heart Nor is there any fear of their sliding away through the Infundibulum the pituitous excrements having no passage there but what they make by their weight as well as their insinuating moistness which always besmearing these parts makes them more impervious to the light Spirits whose agility also and componderancy with the outward Aire renders them uncapable of leaving the Caverns in which they are That arguing from the pituitous excrements found there that they were made onely for a Receptacle of such useless redundancy is as ineptly inferred as if a man should argue from what is found in the Intestinum rectum that the Stomack and all the Intestines were made for a Receptacle of Stercoreous excrement The Spirits in the Ventricles of the Brain playing about and hitting against the sides of the Caverns they are in will in process of time abate of their agitation the grosser parts especially and so necessarily come to a more course consistency and settle into some such like moist Sediment as is found at the bottome of the Ventricles which nature dischargeth through fit passages whereby the Spirits are left more pure But because this necessary faeculency is found in these Cavities to conclude that that is the onely use of them is as ridiculous as to inferre That because I spit at my Mouth and blow my Nose that that was the chief end and use of these two parts of my Body or that my Eyes were not made for seeing but weeping 4. The nature of the swiftness of Motion in these Spirits is much like that of Light which is a Body as well as they But that Lucid Matter in the Sun does not so soon as he appears upon the Horizon fly so many thousand miles in a moment to salute our eyes but Motion is propagated as it were at once from the Sun to our Eye through the aethereal Matter betwixt Or suppose a long Tube as long as you will and one to blow in it in a moment so soon as he blows at one end the Motion will be felt at the other and that downwards as well as upwards and as easily to satisfie that other frivolous Objection I find in Hofman as if it were so hard a business that these Spirits should be commanded downwards into the Nerves But the Opposers of this ancient and solid Opinion are very simple and careless 5. That of the Ligature proves nothing For though the Nerve betwixt the Ligature and the Finger be well enough stored with Spirits yet the Centre of Perception being not there and there being an interruption and division betwixt the Spirits that are continued to their Common Sensorium and these on the other side of the Ligature 't is no more wonder that we feel nothing on this side of the Ligature then that we see nothing in our neighbours garden when a wall is betwixt though the Sun shine clearly on both sides of the wall 6. We see how invalid their Arguments are against this received Opinion of almost all both Physitians and Philosophers It is needless to produce any for the confirmation of it those which we have made use of for proving that the Spirits are the immediate Instrument of the Soule being of equall force most of them to conclude their existence in the Body And yet for an overplus I will not much care to cast in a brief suggestion of the use of the Lungs which the best Physitians and Anatomists adjudge to be chiefly for conveighing prepared aire to the Heart as also of the Rete mirabile and Plexus Choroides whose bare situation discover their use that they may more plentifully evaporate the thinner and more agile particles of the Blood into the Ventricles of the Brain The Diastole also of the Brain keeping time with the Pulse of the Heart is a manifest indication what a vehement steam of Spirits by the direct and short passage of the Arteriae Carotides are carried thither For if one part of the Blood be more fiery and subtill then another it will be sure to reach the Head From whence considering the sponginess laxness of the Brain and thinness of the Tunicles in the little Arteries that are there it will follow by Mechanical necessity that the Ventricles thereof will be filled with that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Hippocrates so fitly describes though he fancy the Seat of it in an unfitting place But the purest of these Spirits being in the fourth Ventricle as Bartholine and others have judiciously concluded it follows plainly
puncture of Pores or in a continued modified Motion of the parts thereof some in this manner and others in that is a thing as I have already proved utterly impossible If there be any Marks in it it must be a kind of Brachygraphie some small dots here and there standing for the recovering to Memory a series of things that would fill it may be many sheets of paper to write them at large As if a man should tie a string about a friends finger to remember a business that a whole daies discourse it may be was but little enough to give him full instructions in From whence it is plain that the Memory is in the Soule and not in the Brain And if she doe make any such Marks as we speak of she having no perception of them distinct from the representation of those things which they are to remind her of she must not make them by any Cognitive power but by some such as is Analogous to her Plastick Faculty of organizing the Body where she acts and perceives it not 5. But whether the Soule act thus or no upon the Brain is a Matter of uncertain determination nor can it be demonstrated by any experiment that I know And therefore if we will contain our selves within the capacities of the Spirits which I have so often affirmed to be the immediate instrument of the Soule in all her operations that Position will be more unexceptionable And truly I doe not understand but that they and the Soule together will perform all the Functions of Memory that we are conscious to our selves of And therefore I shall conclude that Memory consists in this That the Soule has acquired a greater Promptitude to think of this or that Phantasm with the circumstances thereof which were raised in her upon some occasion Which Promptitude is acquired by either the often representation of the same Phantasme to her or else by a more vivid impress of it from its novelty excellency mischievousness or some such like condition that at once will pierce the Soule with an extraordinary resentment or finally by voluntary attention when she very carefully and on set purpose imprints the Idea as deeply as she can into her inward Sense This Promptitude to think on such an Idea will lessen in time and be so quite spent that when the same Idea is represented again to the Soule she cannot tell that ever she saw it before But before this inclination thereto be quite gone upon this proneness to return into the same conception with the circumstances the Relative Sense of having seen it before which we call Memory does necessarily emerge upon a fresh representation of the Object 6. But Forgetfulness arises either out of meer Desuetude of thinking on such an Object or on others that are linked in with it in such a Series as would represent it as past and so make it a proper Object of Memory Or else for that the Spirits which the Soule uses in all her Functions be not in a due temper which may arise from overmuch Coolness or Waterishness in the Head to which alone Sennertus ascribes Obliviousness 7. The last thing we are to consider is Spontaneous Motion Which that it is performed by the continuation of the Spirits from the Seat of Common Sense to the Muscles which is the gross Engine of Motion is out of doubt The manner how it is we partly feel and see that is to say we find in our selves a power at our own pleasure to move this or the other member with very great force and that the Muscle swels that moves the part which is a plain indication of influx of Spirits thither directed or there guided by our meer Will a thing admirable to consider and worth our most serious meditation That this direction of the impresse of Motion is made by our meer Will and Imagination of doing so we know and feel it so intimately that we can be of nothing more sure That there is some fluid and subtile Matter which we ordinarily call Spirits directed into the Muscle that moves the Member its swelling does evidence to our sight as also the experience that moderate use of wine which supplyes Spirits apace will make this motion the more strong As for the manner whether there be any such Valvulae or no in the Nerve common to the opposite Muscles as also in those that are proper to each it is not materiall This great priviledge of our Soules directing the motion of Matter thus is wonderfull enough in either Hypothesis But I look upon the Fibrous parts of the Muscle as the main engine of motion which the Soule moistning with that subtil liquor of the Animal Spirits makes them swell and shrink like Lute-strings in rainy weather And in this chiefly consists that notable strength of our Limbs in spontaneous motion But for those conceived Valvulae that Experience has not found out yet nor sufficient Reason they are to wait for admission till they bring better evidence For the presence of the Animal Spirits in this Fibrous flesh and the command of the Soule to move is sufficient to salve all Phaenomena of this kind For upon the Will conceived in the Common Sensorium that part of the Soule that resides in the Muscles by a power near a-kin to that by which she made the Body and the Organs thereof guides the Spirits into such Pores and parts as is most requisite for the shewing the use of this excellent Fabrick 8. And in virtue of some such power as this doe we so easily walk though we think not of it as also breath and sing and play on the Lute though our Mindes be taken up with something else For Custome is another Nature and though the Animal Spirits as being meerly corporeall cannot be capable of any habits yet the Soule even in that part thereof that is not Cognitive may and therefore may move the Body though Cogitation cease provided the members be well replenished with Spirits whose assistance in naturall motions of Animals is so great that their Heads being taken off their Body for a long time will move as before as Chalcidius relates of Wasps and Hornets who will fly about and use their wings a good part of an houre after they have lost their Heads which is to be imputed to the residence of their Soule in them still and the intireness of the Animal Spirits not easily evaporating through their crustaceous Bodies For it is but a vulgar conceit to think that the Head being taken off the Soule must presently fly out like a Bird out of a Basket when the Lid is lifted up For the whole World is as much throng'd with Body as where she is and that Tye of the Spirits as yet not being lost it is a greater engagement to her to be there then any where else This motion therefore in the Wasp that is so perfect and durable I hold to be vitall but that in the parts of dismembred
it is so incredible to others that the thing should be true it being so evincing an argument for the Soules Immortality And he thinks this Truth is evident from innumerable examples of the Ecstasies of Witches which we must confess with him not to be natural but that they amount to a perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or carrying away the Soule out of the Body the lively sense of their meeting and dancing and adoring the Devill and the mutuall remembrance of the persons that meet one another there at such a time will be no infallible Demonstration that they were there indeed while their Bodies lay at home in Bed Conformity of their Confessions concerning the same Conventicle is onely a shrewd probability if it once could be made good that this leaving their Bodies were a thing possible For when they are out of them they are much-what in the same condition that other Spirits are and can imitate what shape they please so that many of these Transformations into Wolves and Cats may be as likely of the Soule having left thus the Body as by the Devils possessing the Body and transfiguring it himself And what these aiery Cats or Wolves suffer whether cuttings of their limbs or breaking the Back or any such like mischief that the Witch in her Bed suffers the like may very well arise from that Magick Sympathy that is seated in the Unity of the Spirit of the World and the continuity of the subtill Matter dispersed throughout The Universe in some sense being as the Stoicks and Platonists define it one vast entire Animal 9. Now that this reall Separation of the Soule may happen in some Ecstasies will be easily admitted if we consider that the Soule in her own Nature is separable from the Body as being a Substance really distinct therefrom and that all Bodies are alike penetrable and passable to her she being devoid of that corporeall property which they ordinarily call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore can freely slide through any Matter whatsoever without any knocking or resistance and lastly that she does not so properly impart Heat and Motion to the Body as Organization and therefore when the Body is well organized and there be that due temper of the Blood the Heart and Pulse will in some measure beat and the Brain will be replenish't with Spirits and therewith the whole Body though the Soule were out of it In which case saving that the Spirit of Nature cannot be excluded thence it would be perfectly Cartesius his Machina without Sense though seemingly as much alive as any animate Creature in a deep sleep Whence it appears that if the Soule could leave the Body that she might doe it for a certain time without any detriment thereto that is so long as she might well live without Repast Which fully answers their fears who conceit that if the Soule was but once out of the Body perfect Death must necessarily ensue and all possible return thither be precluded 10. But all the difficulty is to understand how the Soul may be loosned from the Body while the Body is in a fit condition to retain her That is a very great Difficulty indeed and in a manner impossible for any power but what is supernatural But it is not hard to conceive that this vital fitness in the Body may be changed either by way of natural Disease or by Art For why may not some certain Fermentation in the Body so alter the Blood and Spirits that the powers of the Plastick part of the Soul may cease to operate as well as sometimes the Perceptive faculties doe as in Catalepsies Apoplexies and the like Wherefore this passing of the Soul out of the Body in Sleep or Ecstasie may be sometime a certain Disease as well as that of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that walk in their sleep Now if it should happen that some such distemper should arise in the Body as would very much change the Vital Congruity thereof for a time and in this Paroxysm that other Disease of the Noctambuli should surprise the party his Imagination driving him to walk to this or that place his Soul may very easily be conceived in this loosned condition it lies in to be able to leave the Body and pass in the Aire as other Inhabitants of that Element doe and act the part of separate Spirits and exercise such Functions of the perceptive faculty as they do that are quite released from Terrestrial Matter Onely here is the difference That that damp in the Body that loosned the Union of the Soul being spent the Soul by that natural Magick I have more then once intimated will certainly return to the Body and unite with it again as firm as ever But no man can when he pleases pass out of his Body thus by the Imperium of his Will no more then he can walk in his Sleep For this capacity is pressed down more deep into the lower life of the Soul whither neither the Liberty of Will nor free Imagination can reach 11. Passion is more likely to take effect in this case then either of the other two Powers the seat of Passions being originally in the Heart which is the chief Fort of these lower Faculties and therefore by their propinquity can more easily act upon the first Principles of Vital Union The effect of these has been so great that they have quite carried the Soul out of the Body as appears in sundry Histories of that kinde For both Sophocles and Dionysius the Sicilian Tyrant died suddainly upon the news of a Tragick Victory as Polycrita also a Noble-Woman of the Isle of Naxus the Poet Philippides and Diagoras of Rhodes upon the like excess of Joy We might adde examples of sudden Fear and Grief but it is needless It is a known and granted Truth that Passion has so much power over the vital temper of the Body as to make it an unfit mansion for the Soul from whence will necessarily follow her disunion from it Now if Passion will so utterly change the Harmony of the Blood and Spirits as quite to release the Soul from the Body by a perfect Death why may it not sometime act on this side that degree and onely bring a present intemperies out of which the Body may recover and consequently regain the Soul back again by virtue of that Mundane Sympathy I have so often spoke of 12. Now of all Passions whatever excess of Desire is fittest for this more harmless and momentany ablegation of the Soul from the Body because the great strength thereof is so closely assisted with the imagination of departing to the place where the party would be that upon disunion not amounting to perfect Death the power of Fancy may carry the Soul to the place intended and being satisfied and returned may rekindle life in the Body to the same degree it had before it was infested by this excess of Desire This is that if any thing that has
to their Paramours after they had left their Bodies taking all opportunities to meet them in Solitude whether by day or by night 3. There be also other more fortuitous occursions of these deceased Spirits of which one can give no account unless it be because they find themselves in a more easy capacity to appear As haply it may be in Fields after great slaughters of Armies and in publick Buriall-places Though some would ridiculously put off these Apparitions by making them nothing but the reek or vapour of the Bodies of the dead which they fancy will fall into the like stature and shape with the man it comes from Which yet Cardan playes the fool in as well as Vaninus and others as he does also in his account of those Spectra that appear so ordinarily in Iseland where the Inhabitants meet their deceased friends in so lively an Image that they salute them and embrace them for the same persons not knowing of their death unless by their suddain disappearing or by after-information that they were then dead This he imputes partly to the Thickness of the Aire and partly to the foule food and gross spirits of the Islanders and yet implies that their fancies are so strong as to convert the thick vaporous aire into the compleat shape of their absent and deceased acquaintance and so perswade themselves that they see them and talk with them whenas it is nothing else but an aiery Image made by the power of their own Fancy But certainly it had been better flatly to have denied the Narration then to give so slight and unprobable reason of the Phaenomenon 4. That the Spissitude of the Aire in that place may contribute something to the frequency of these Spectra is rationall enough For it being more thick it is the more easily reduced to a visible consistency but must be shaped not by the fancy of the Spectatour for that were a monstrous power but by the Imagination of the Spirit that actuates its own Vehicle of that gross Aire For the same reason also in other places these Apparitions haply appear oftner in the Night then in the Day the Aire being more clammy and thick after the Sun has been some while down then before To which also that custome of the Lappians a people of Scandia seems something to agree who as Caspar Peucerus relates are very much haunted with Apparitions of their deceased friends For which trouble they have no remedy but burying them under their Hearth Which Ceremony can have no naturall influence upon these Lemures unless they should hereby be engaged to keep in a warmer aire consequently more rarified then if they were interred elsewhere Or rather because their Bodies will sooner putrify by the warmth of the hearth whenas otherwise the coldness of that Clime would permit them to be sound a longer time and consequently be fit for the Souls of the deceased to have recourse to and replenish their Vehicle with such a Cambium or gluish moisture as will make it far easier to be commanded into a visible consistence 5. That this facilitates their condition of appearing is evident from that known recourse these infestant Spirits have to their dead Bodies As is notorious in the History of Cuntius which I have set down at large in my Antidote Lib. 3. Cap. 9. and of the Silesian Shoomaker and his Maid in the foregoing Chapter To which you may adde what Agrippa writes out of the Cretian Annals How there the Catechanes that is the Spirits of the deceased Husbands would be very troublesome to their Wives endeavour to lye with them while they could have any recourse to their dead Bodies Which mischief therefore was prevented by a Law that if any Woman was thus infested the Body of her Husband should be burnt and his Heart struck through with a stake Which also put a speedy end to those stirs and tragedies the Ghost of Cuntius and those others caused at Pentsch and Breslan in Silesia The like disquietnesses are reported to have hapned in the year 1567. at Trawtenaw a city of Bohemia by one Stephanus Hubener who was to admiration grown rich as Cuntius of Pentsch and when he died did as much mischief to his fellow-Citizens For he would ordinarily appear in the very shape he was when he was alive and such as he met would salute them with so close embraces that he caused many to fall sick and several to die by the unkinde huggs he gave them But burning his Body rid the Town of the perilous occursations of this malicious Gobling All which instances doe prove not onely the appearing of Souls after they have left this life but also that some thickning Matter such as may be got either from Bodies alive or lately dead or as fresh as those that are but newly dead as the Body of this Hubener was though it had lyen 20 weeks in the Grave or lastly from thick vaporous Air may facilitate much their appearing and so invite them to play tricks when they can doe it at so cheap a rate though they have little or no end in doing them but the pleasing of their own either ludicrous or boisterous and domineering humour 6. But of any private person that ever appeared upon design after his death there is none did upon a more noble one then that eximious Platonist Marsilius Ficinus who having as Baronius relates made a solemn vow with his fellow-Platonist Michael Mercatus after they had been pretty warmly disputing of the Immortality of the Soul out of the Principles of their Master Plato that whether of them two died first should appear to his friend and give him certain information of that Truth it being Ficinus his fate to die first and indeed not long after this mutual resolution he was mindful of his promise when he had left the Body For Michael Mercatus being very intent at his Studies betimes on a morning heard an horse riding by with all speed and observed that he stopped at his window and therewith heard the voice of his friend Ficinus crying out aloud O Michael Michael vera vera sunt illa Whereupon he suddenly opened the window and espying Marsilius on a white Steed called after him but he vanisht in his sight He sent therefore presently to Florence to know how Marsilius did and understood that he died about that hour he called at his window to assure him of his own and other mens Immortalities 7. The Examples I have produced of the appearing of the Souls of men after death considering how clearly I have demonstrated the separability of them from the Body and their capacity of Vital Union with an aiery Vehicle cannot but have their due weight of Argument with them that are unprejudiced But as for those that have their minds enveloped in the dark mist of Atheism that lazy and Melancholy saying which has dropt from the careless pen of that uncertain Writer Cardan Orbis magnus est aevum longum
The winding up of those severall circuits of vitall congruity may indeed pass for an ingenious invention as of a thing possible in the Soules of Brutes but as the Schools say well A posse ad esse non valet consequentia As for that Argument from Divine Goodness it not excluding his Wisdom which attempers it self to the natures of things we not knowing the nature of the Soules of Brutes so perfectly as we doe our own we cannot so easily be assured from thence what will be in this case A Musitian strikes not all strings at once neither is it to be expected that every thing in Nature at every time should act but when it is its turn then touched upon it will give its sound in the interim it lies silent And so it may be with the Soules of Brutes for a time especially when the vitall temper of Earth and Aire and Sea shall fail yea and at other times too if none but Intellectual Spirits be fit to manage AEreall Vehicles I confess indeed that Salvation can no more belong to the Soules of Brutes then Conversion but that is as true of the Soules of Plants if they have any distinct from the Universall Spirit of Nature but yet it does not prove that the Soules of Vegetables shall live and act in Aiery Vehicles after an Herbe or Tree is dead and rotten here To that of conveniency of variety of Objects for the aiery Inhabitants I have answered already And for the Apparitions of Horses Doggs and the like they may be the transformation of the aerial Genii into these shapes Which though it be a sign that they would not abhor from the use and society of such aeriall Animals if they had them yet they may the better want them they being able so well themselves to supply their places We will briefly therefore conclude that from the meer light of Reason it cannot be infallibly demonstrated that the Soules of Brutes doe not live after death nor that it is any Incongruity in Nature to say they do Which is sufficient to enervate the present Objection 8. But for the life and activity of the Soules of Men out of this Body all things goe on hand-smooth for it without any check or stop For we finding the aerial Genii so exceeding near-a-kin to us in their Faculties we being both intellectuall Creatures and both using the same immediate instrument of Sense and Perception to wit aeriall Spirits insomuch that we can scarce discover any other difference betwixt us then there is betwixt a man that is naked and one clad in gross thick cloathing it is the most easy and naturall inference that can be to conclude that when we are separate from the Body and are invested onely in Aire that we shall be just like them and have the same life and activity they have For though a Brute fall short of this Priviledge it ought to be no disheartning to us because there is a greater cognation betwixt the Intellectual Faculties and the aiery or aethereal Vehicle then there is betwixt such Vehicles and those more low and sensuall powers common to us with Beasts And we finde in taking the fresh aire that the more fine and pure our Spirits are our thoughts become the more noble divine and the more purely intellectuall Nor is the step greater upwards then downwards For seeing that what in us is so Divine and Angelicall may be united with the body of a Brute for such is this Earthly cloathing why may not the Soule notwithstanding her terrestriall Congruity of life which upon new occasions may be easily conceived to surcease from acting be united with the Vehicle of an Angel So that there is no puzzle at all concerning the Soul of Man but that immediately upon Death she may associate her self with those aeriall Inhabitants the Genii or Angels 9. Which we may still be the better assured of if we consider how we have such Faculties in us as the Soul finds hoppled and fettered clouded and obscured by her fatal residence in this prison of the Body In so much that so far as it is lawful she falls out with it for those incommodations that the most confirmed brutish health brings usually upon her How her Will tuggs against the impurity of the Spirits that stir up bestial Passions that are notwithstanding the height and flower of other Creatures enjoyments and how many times her whole life upon Earth is nothing else but a perpetual warfare against the results of her union with this lump of Earth that is so much like to other terrestrial Animals Whence it is plain she finds her self in a wrong condition and that she was created for a better and purer state which she could not attain to unless she lived out of the Body which she does in some sort in divine Ecstasies and Dreams in which case she making no use of the Bodies Organs but of the purer Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain she acts as it were by her self and performs some preludious Exercises conformable to those in her aiery Vehicle 10. Adde unto all this that the Immortality of the Soul is the common and therefore naturall hope and expectation of all Nations there being very few so barbarous as not to hold it for a Truth though it may be as in other things they may be something ridiculous in the manner of expressing themselves about it as that they shall retire after Death to such a Grove or Wood or beyond such a Hill or unto such an Island such as was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Island where Achilles Ghost was conceived to wander or the Insulae Fortunatae the noted Elysium of the Ancients And yet it may be if we should tell these of the Coelum Empyreum and compute the height of it and distance from the Earth and how many solid Orbs must be glided through before a Soul can come thither these simple Barbarians would think as odly of the Scholastick Opinion as we do of theirs and it may be some more judicious and sagacious Wit will laugh at us both alike It is sufficient that in the main all Nations in a manner are agreed that there is an Immortality to be expected as well as that there is a Deity to be worshipped though ignorance of circumstances makes Religion vary even to Monstrosity in many parts of the world But both Religion and the belief of the Reward of it which is a blessed state after Death being so generally acknowledged by all the Inhabitants of the Earth it is a plain Argument that it is true according to the Light of Nature And not onely because they believe so but because they do so seriously either desire it or are so horribly afraid of it if they offend much against their Consciences which properties would not be in men so universally if there were no Objects in Nature answering to these Faculties as I have elsewhere argued in the like case CHAP.
the proper modifications of Sense and there being no Body but what is passible it is evident that these Vehicles of Air are subject to Pain as well as Pleasure in this Region where ill things are to be met with as well as good AXIOME XXXI The Soul can neither impart to nor take away from the Matter of her Vehicle of Air any considerable degree of Motion but yet can direct the particles moved which way she pleases by the Imperium of her Will 7. THE reasonableness of this Axiome may be evinced partly out of the former for considering the brushiness and angulosity of the parts of the Air a more then ordinary Motion or compressive Rest may very well prove painful to the Soul and dis-harmonious to her touch and partly from what we may observe in our own Spirits in this Body which we can onely direct not give Motion to nor diminish their Motion by our Imagination or Will for no man can imagine himself into Heat or Cold the sure consequences of extraordinary Motion and Rest by willing his Spirits to move faster or slower but he may direct them into the Organs of spontaneous Motion and so by moving the grosser parts of the Body by this direction he may spend them and heat these parts in the expence of them and this is all we can doe and partly from that Divine Providence that made all things and measures out the Powers and Faculties of his Creatures according to his own Wisdome and Counsel and therefore has bound that state of the Soul to straighter conditions that is competible to the bad as well as to the good AXIOME XXXII Though the Soul can neither confer nor take away any considerable degree of Motion from the Matter of her Aiery Vehicle yet nothing hinders but that she may doe both in her AEthereal 8. THE reason hereof is because the particles of her AEthereal Vehicle consist partly of smooth sphaericall Figures and partly of tenuious Matter so exceeding liquid that it will without any violence comply to any thing whenas the Aire as may be observed in Winde-Guns has parts so stubborn and so stiff that after they have been compressed to such a certain degree that the barrel of the Piece grows hot again they have not lost their shapes nor virtue but like a spring of Steel liberty being given they return to their natural posture with that violence that they discharge a Bullet with equal force that Gun-powder does Besides that the Goodness of that Deity on whom all Beings depend may be justly thought to have priviledged the AEthereal Congruity of Life which awakes onely in perfectly-obedient Souls such as may be trusted as throughly faithful to his Empire with a larger power then the other there being no incompetibleness in the Subject For it is as easy a thing to conceive that God may endow a Soul with a power of moving or resting Matter as of determining the motions thereof AXIOME XXXIII The purer the Vehicle is the more quick and perfect are the Perceptive Faculties of the Soul 9. THE truth of this we may in a manner experience in this life where we finde that the quickness of Hearing Seeing Tasting Smelling the nimbleness of Reminiscency Reason and all other Perceptive Faculties are advanced or abated by the clearness or foulness and dulness of the Spirits of our Body and that Oblivion and Sottishness arise from their thickness and earthiness or waterishness or whatsoever other gross consistency of them which distemper removed and the Body being replenished with good Spirits in sufficient plenty and purity the Minde recovers her activity again remembers what she had forgot and understands what she was before uncapable of sees and hears at a greater distance and so of the rest AXIOME XXXIV The Soul has a marvellous power of not onely changing the temper of her Aiery Vehicle but also of the external shape thereof 10. THE truth of the first part of this Axiome appears from daily experience for we may frequently observe how strangely the Passions of the Mind will work upon our Spirits in this state how Wrath and Grief and Envy will alter the Body to say nothing of other Affections And assuredly the finer the Body is the more mutable it is upon this account so that the Passions of the Minde must needs have a very great influence upon the Souls AEreal Vehicle which though they cannot change into any thing but Air yet they may change this Air into qualifications as vastly different as Vertue is from Vice Sickness from Health Pain from Pleasure Light from Darkness and the stink of a Gaol from the Aromatick odours of a flourishing Paradise 11. The truth of the latter part is demonstrable from the latter part of the 31. Axiome For supposing a power in the Soul of directing the motions of the particles of her fluid Vehicle it must needs follow that she will also have a power of shaping it in some measure according to her own Will and Fancy To which you may adde as no contemptible pledge of this Truth what is done in that kinde by our Will and Fancy in this life as onely because I will and fancy the moving of my Mouth Foot or Fingers I can move them provided I have but Spirits to direct into this motion and the whole Vehicle of the Soul is in a manner nothing else but Spirits The Signatures also of the Foetus in the Womb by the Desire and Imagination of the Mother is very serviceable for the evincing of this Truth but I shall speak of it more fully in its place AXIOME XXXV It is rational to think that as some Faculties are laid asleep in Death or after Death so others may awake that are more sutable for that state 12. THE truth of this Axiome appears from hence That our Souls come not by chance but are made by an All-wise God who foreseeing all their states has fitted the Excitation or Consopition of Powers and Faculties sutably to the present condition they are to be in AXIOME XXXVI Whether the Vital Congruity of the Soul expire as whose period being quite unwound or that of the Matter be defaced by any essential Dis-harmony Vital Union immediately ceases 13. THis last Axiome is plain enough of it self at first sight and the usefulness thereof may be glanced at in his due place These are the main Truths I shall recurre to or at least suppose in my following Disquisitions others will be more seasonably delivered in the continuation of our Discourse CHAP. II. 1. Of the Dimensions of the Soul considered barely in her self 2. Of the Figure of the Souls Dimensions 3. Of the Heterogeneity of her Essence 4. That there is an Heterogeneity in her Plastick part distinct from the Perceptive 5. Of the acting of this Plastick part in her framing of the Vehicle 6. The excellency of Des-Cartes his Philosophy 7. That the Vehicles of Ghosts have as much of solid corporeal Substance in
them then to any terrestrial animal 13. And yet they need not be so cautious to keep out of danger they having a power to grapple with the greatest of it which is their Statick faculty which arises from the power of directing the motion of the particles of their Vehicle For they having this power of directing the motion of these particles which way they please by Axiome 31. it necessarily followes that they can determinate their course inwards or toward the Centre by which direction they will be all kept close together firm and tight which ability I call the Statick power of the Soule Which if it can direct the whole agitation of the particles of the Vehicle as well those of the first and second Element as those of the Aire and that partly towards the Centre and partly in a countertendency against the storme this force and firmness will be far above the strongest windes that she can possibly meet with 14. Wherefore the Soules Vehicle is in no danger from the boisterousness of the Winds and if it were yet there is no fear of cessation of Life For as the Wind blowes off one part of Aire it brings on another which may be immediately actuated by the presence of the Soule though there be no need to take refuge in so large an Hypothesis And it is more probable that she is more peculiarly united to one part of the Aire then another and that she dismisses her Vehicle but by degrees as our Spirits leasurely pass away by insensible Perspiration 15. We see how little the Souls Vehicle can be incommodated by storms of Winde And yet Rain Haile Snow and Thunder will incommodate her still less For they pass as they doe through other parts of the Aire which close again immediately and leave neither wound nor scarre behinde them Wherefore all these Meteors in their Mediocrity may be a pleasure to her and refreshment and in their excess no long pain nor in their highest rage any destruction of life at all From whence we may safely conclude that not onely the Upper Region but this Lower also may be inhabited both by the deceased Souls of Men and by Daemons CHAP. IV. 1. That the Soule once having quitted this earthly Body becomes a Daemon 2. Of the Externall Senses of the Soule separate their number and limits in the Vehicle 3. Of Sight in a Vehicle organized and unorganized 4. How Daemons and separate Souls hear and see at a vast Distance and whence it is that though they may so easily hear or see us we may neither see nor hear them 5. That they have Hearing as well as Sight 6. Of the Touch Smell Tast and Nourishment of Daemons 7. The external employment that the Genii and Souls deceased may have out of the Body 8. That the actions of Separate Souls in reference to us are most-what conformable to their life here on Earth 9. What their entertainments are in reference to themselves 10. The distinction of orders of Daemons from the places they most frequent 1. THE next thing we are to enquire into is the Employment of the Soul after Death how she can entertain her self and pass away the time and that either in Solitude in Company or as she is a Political member of some Kingdome or Empire Concerning all which in the general we may conclude that it is with her as with the rest of the AErial Genii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Soul having once put off this terrestrial Body becomes a Genius her self as Maximus Tyrius Xenocrates Philo and others expresly affirm But we shall consider these things more particularly 2. As for those employments wherewith she may entertain her self in solitude they are either Objects of the External Senses or of the Inward Minde Concerning the former whereof it is more easie to move Questions then satisfy them as Whether she have the same number of Senses she had in this life That she is endued with Hearing Sight and Touch I think there can be no scruple because these will fall to her share necessarily whether her Vehicle be organized or not and that of Seeing and Touch is the most uncontrovertible of all For the sense of visible Objects being discovered to us by transmission of Motion through those Spherical particles that are continued along from the Object through the Aire to our very Organ of Sight which sees meerly by reason of these particles vitally united with the Soul the same particles pervading all the Souls Vehicle it is impossible but that she should see But the Question is whether she sees in every part thereof To which I must answer No partly from what I have already declared concerning the Heterogeneity of her Plastick part and partly from a gross inconvenience that would follow this Supposition For if we should grant that the Soul saw in every part of her Vehicle every Object that is near would not onely seem double but centuple or millecuple which would be a very ugly enormity and defacement of Sight Wherefore we have with very good reason restrained the Visive faculty of the Soul in this state of Separation as well as it was in the Terrestrial Body 3. But this hinders nothing but that the Soul when she lies in one Homogeneal orb of Aire devoid of organization may see round about her behinde before above beneath and every way But if she organize her Vehicle Sight may haply be restrain'd as in us who cannot see behinde us Which Consideration we toucht upon before 4. It is plain therefore that these AErial Spirits though we cannot see them cannot miss of seeing us and that it may be from a mighty distance if they can transform their Vehicle or the Organ of Sight into some such advantageous Figure as is wrought in Dioptrick Glasses Which power will infinitely exceed the contracting and dilating of the pupil of our Eye which yet is a weaker and more defectuous attempt towards so high a Priviledge as we speak of which notwithstanding may seem very possible in Spirits from 31. and 34. Axiomes The same also may be said of their Hearing For the same principle may enable them to shape themselves Organs for the receiving of Sounds of greater art and excellency then the most accurate Acoustick we read of or can excogitate Wherefore it is a very childish mistake to think that because we neither see the shape nor hear the discourse of Spirits that they neither hear nor see us For soft Bodies are impressible by hard ones but not on the contrary as melted Wax will receive the Signature of the Seal but the Seal is not at all impressed upon by the Wax And so a solid Body will stop the course of the Aire but the Aire will not stop the course of a solid Body and every inconsiderable terrestrial consistency will reflect Light but Light scarce moves any terrestrial Body out of its place but is rebounded back by it That therefore that is most
in Fishes or Birds who are fain to sustain themselves by these instruments from sinking to the bottome of either Element but it is meerly by the direction of the agitation of the particles of their Vehicle toward the place they aime at and in such a swiftness or leasureliness as best pleases themselves and is competible to their natures For they can goe no swifter then the whole summe of agitation of the particles of their Vehicle will carry so much Matter nor indeed so swift for it implies that their Vehicles would be turned into an absolutely hard Body such as Brass or Iron or whatever we find harder so that necessarily they would fall down to the Earth as dead as a Stone Those therefore are but phantastick conceits that give such agility to Spirits as if they could be here and there and every where at once skip from one Pole of the World to another be on the Earth again in a moment whenas in truth they can pass with no greater swiftness then the direction of such a part of the agitation of the particles of their Vehicles will permit as may be spared from what is employed in keeping them within a tolerable compass of a due aerial fluidity 5. And this alone will suffice to make them exceed us in activity and swiftness by many degrees For their whole Vehicle is haply at least as thin and moveable as our animal Spirits which are very few in comparison of this luggage of an earthly Body that they are to drive along with them But the spiritual Bodies of the Genii have nothing to drive along with them but themselves and therefore are more free and light compared to us then a mettl'd Steed that has cast his Rider compared with a Pack-horse loaden with a sack of Salt 6. The next thing to be considered touching the mutual conversation of these aerial Genii is the shape they appear in one to another of what Figure it is and whether the Figure be Natural or Arbitrarious or Mixt. For that they must appear in some Figure or other is plain in that their Vehicles are not of an infinite extension It is the more general Opinion that there is no particular Figure that belongs unto them naturally unless it be that which of all Figures is most simple and most easy to conform to even by external helps which is the equal compression of the Aire on every side of the Vehicle by which means drops of Dew and Rain and pellets of Hail come so ordinarily into that shape Which also will more handsomely accord with the nature of the Soul supposing she consist of Central and Radial essence as I have above described and the Common Sensorium be placed in the midst In this Figure may the Soul reside in the Aire and haply melt her self I mean her Vehicle into near so equal a liquidity with that part of that Element adjacent to her that it may be in some measure like our retiring into secrecy from the sight of men when we desire to be private by our selves 7. But she may if she will and likely with farre more ease change this consistency of her AErial Body into such a degree of thickness that there may be a dubious discovery of her as in the glimpse of a Fish under the water and may still make her self more visible to her fellow Genii though keeping yet this simple Orbicular form But what converse there can be betwixt two such heaps of living Aire I know not They may indeed communicate their affections one to another in such a way as is discovered in the Eye wherein the motions of the Spirits doe plainly indicate the Passions of the Minde so that it may seem possible in this simple Figure to make known their joy or grief peaceableness or wrath love or dislike by the modification of the motion of the Spirits of their Vehicle But how there can well be entertained any Intellectual or Rational Conference without any further organization of their Aiery Bodies I profess my self at a loss to understand 8. Wherefore the Genii and separate Souls whatever their shape be in private appear in a more operose and articulate form when they are to converse with one another For they can change their Figure in a manner as they please by Axiome 34. Which power I conceive will be made use of not onely for service but ornament and pulcritude And the most unexceptionable Beauty questionless is that of Man in the best patterns chuse what Sex you will and far above the rest of Creatures which is not our judgement onely but His that made us For certainly he would give to the Principal of terrestrial Animals the noblest form and shape which though it be much obscured by our unfortunate Fall yet questionless the defacement is not so great but that we may have a near guess what it has been heretofore It is most rational therefore to conclude that the AErial Genii converse with one another in Humane shape at least the better sort of them 9. But the difficulty now is whether that Humane shape that the Soul transforms her Vehicle into be simply the effect of the Imperium of her Will over the Matter she actuates or that her Will may be in some measure limited or circumscribed in its effect by a concomitant exertion of the Plastick power so that what proceeds from the Will may be onely more general that is That the Souls Will may onely command the Vehicle into an Animal form but that it is the form or shape of a Man may arise in a more natural way from the concomitant exertion of the Plastick vertue I say in a more easy and natural way For vehemency of desire to alter the Figure into another representation may make the appearance resemble some other creature But no forced thing can last long The more easy and natural shape therefore that at least the better Genii appear in is Humane which if it be granted it may be as likely that such a determinate Humane shape may be more easy and natural then another and that the Soul when she wills to appear in personal Figure will transform her Vehicle into one constant likeness unless she disguise her self on set purpose That is the Plastick power of every Soul whether of Men or of the other Genii does naturally display it self into a different modification of the Humane shape which is the proper Signature of every particular or individual person which though it may be a little changed in Generation by vertue of the Imagination of the Parents or quality of their seed yet the Soul set free from that Body she got here may exquisitely recover her ancient form again 10. Not that the Plastick virtue awakened by the Imperium of her Will shall renewall the lineaments it did in this Earthly Body for abundance of them are useless and to no purpose which therefore Providence so ordaining will be silent in this
aiery figuration and onely such operate as are fit for this separate state and such are those as are requisite to perfect the visible feature of a Person giving him all parts of either ornament or use for the pleasure of rational converse nor that this Efformative power does determine the whole appearance alone for these aerial Spirits appear variously clad some like beautiful Virgins others like valiant Warriours with their Helmets and Plumes of feathers as Philostratus would make us believe Achilles did to Apollonius But there is a mixt action and effect resulting partly from the freeness of the Will and Imagination and partly from the natural propension of the Plastick virtue to cast the Vehicle into such a personal shape 11. Which Prerogative of the Soul in having this power thus to shape her Vehicle at will though it may seem very strange because we doe not see it done before our eyes nor often think of such things yet it is not much more wonderful then that she organizes the Foetus in the womb or that we can move the parts of our Body meerly by our Will and Imagination And that the aerial Spirits can doe these things that they can thus shape their Vehicles and transform themselves into several Appearances I need bring no new instances thereof Those Narrations I have recited in my Third Book against Atheism doe sufficiently evince this Truth And verily considering the great power acknowledged in Imagination by all Philosophers nothing would seem more strange then that these Aiery Spirits should not have this command over their own Vehicles to transform them as they please 12. For there are some and they of no small note that attribute so wonderful effects to that Faculty armed with confidence and belief to which Passion Fear may in some manner be referred as being a strong belief of an imminent evil and that it will surely take effect as also vehement Desire as being accompanied with no small measure of perswasion that we may obtain the thing desired else Desire would not be so very active I say they attribute so wonderful force to Imagination that they affirm that it will not onely alter a mans own Body but act upon anothers and that at a distance that it will inflict diseases on the sound and heal the sick that it will cause Hail Snows and Winds that it will strike down an Horse or Camel and cast their Riders into a ditch that it will doe all the feats of Witchcraft even to the making of Ghosts and Spirits appear by transforming the adjacent Aire into the shape of a person that cannot onely be felt and seen but heard to discourse and that not onely by them whose Imagination created this aiery Spectrum but by other by-standers whose Fancy contributed nothing to its existence To such an extent as this have Avicenna Algazel Paracelsus Pomponatius Vaninus and others exalted the power of humane Imagination which if it were true this transfiguration of the Vehicles of the separate Souls and Genii were but a trifle in comparison thereof CHAP. VI. 1. More credible Instances of the effects of Imagination 2. A special and peculiar Instance in Signatures of the Foetus 3. That what Fienus grants who has so cautiously bounded the power of Fancy is sufficient for the present purpose 4. Examples approved of by Fienus 5. Certain Examples rejected by him and yet approved of by Fernelius and Sennertus 6. Three notorious Stories of the power of the Mothers Imagination on the Foetus out of Helmont 7. A conjectural inference from those Stories what influence the Spirit of Nature has in all Plastick operations 8. A further confirmation of the Conjecture from Signatures on the Foetus 9. An application thereof to the transfiguration of the Vehicles of Daemons 1. BUT I shall contain my belief within more moderate bounds that which the most sober Authors assent to being sufficient for our turn and that is the power of Imagination on our own Bodies or what is comprehended within our own viz. the Foetus in the Womb of the Mother For that Imagination will bring real and sensible effects to pass is plain in that some have raised diseases in their own Bodies by too strongly imagining of them by fancying bitter or soure things have brought those real sapours into their mouths at the remembring of some filthy Object have faln a vomiting at the imagining of a Potion have faln a purging and many such things of the like nature Amongst which that of prefixing to ones self what time in the morning we will wake is no less admirable then my Which alterations upon the Spirits for the production of such qualities is every jot as hard as the ranging them into new figures or postures But the hardest of all is to make them so determinately active as to change the shape of the Body by sending out knobs like horns as it hapned to Cyppus of which Agrippa speaks in his Occult. Philosoph Which I should not have repeated here had I not been credibly informed of a later example of the like effect of Imagination though upon more fancyful grounds That feare has killed some and turned others gray is to be referred to Imagination also the latter of which examples is a signe that the Plastick power of the Soule has some influence also upon the very haires which will make it less marvellous that the Souls Vehicle may be turned into the live effigies of a Man not a haire that is necessary to the perfecting of his representation being excluded free Imagination succeeding or assisting the Plastick power in the other state 2. But of all Examples those of the Signatures of the Foetus by the Imagination of the Mother come the nearest to our purpose For we may easily conceive that as the Plastick power in the Foetus is directed or seduced by the force of the Mothers Fancy so the Efformative virtue in Souls separate and the Genii may be governed and directed or perverted by the force of their Imagination And so much the more surely by how much the union is more betwixt the Imagination of the Soule and her own Plastick faculty then betwixt her and the Plastick power of another Soule and the capacity of being changed greater in the yielding aerial Vehicle then in the grosser rudiments of the Foetus in the Womb. 3. And yet the effects of the force of the Mothers Imagination in the signing of the Foetus is very wonderful and almost beyond belief to those that have not examined these things But the more learned sort both of Physitians and Philosophers are agreed on the truth thereof as Empedocles Aristotle Pliny Hippocrates Galen and all the modern Physitians being born down into assent by daily experience For these Signatures of less extravagance and enormity are frequent enough as the similitude of Cherries Mulberries the colour of Claret-wine spilt on the woman with child with many such like instances And if we stand but to what
consent by the force of the Imagination of the Mother retains the Note and will be sure to seal it on the Body of the Infant For what rude inchoations the Soul of the World has begun in the Matter of the Foetus this Signature is comprehended in the whole design and after compleated by the presence and operation of the particular Soul of the Infant which cooperates conformably to the pattern of the Soul of the World and insists in her footsteps who having once begun any hint to an entire design she is alike able to pursue it in any place she being every where like or rather the same to her self For as our Soul being one yet upon the various temper of the Spirits exerts her self into various imaginations and conceptions so the Soul of the World being the same perfectly every where is engaged to exert her efformative power every where alike where the Matter is exactly the same Whence it had been no wonder if those Chickens above-mentioned with Hawks heads had been hatched an hundred miles distant from the Hen whose Imagination was disturbed in the act of Conception because the Soul of the World had begun a rude draught which it self would as necessarily pursue every where as a Geometrician certainly knows how to draw a Circle that will fit three Points given 9. This Opinion therefore of Plotinus is neither irrational nor unintelligible That the Soul of the World interposes and insinuates into all generations of things while the Matter is fluid and yielding Which would induce a man to believe that she may not stand idle in the transfiguration of the Vehicles of the Daemons but assist their fancies and desires and so help to cloath them and attire them according to their own pleasures or it may be sometimes against their wills as the unwieldiness of the Mothers Fancy forces upon her a Monstrous birth CHAP. VII 1. Three notable Examples of Signatures rejected by Fienus 2. And yet so farre allowed for possible as will fit our design 3. That Helmonts Cherry and Licetus his Crab-fish are shrewd arguments that the Soul of the World has to do with all Efformations of both Animals and Plants 4. An Example of a most exact and lively Signature out of Kircher 5. With his judgement thereupon 6. Another Example out of him of a Child with gray hairs 7. An application of what has been said hitherto concerning the Signatures of the Foetus to the transfiguration of the aiery Vehicles of separate Souls and Daemons 8. Of their personal transformation visible to us 1. THose other Examples of the Signation of the Foetus from the Mothers Fancy which Fienus rejecteth the one of them is out of Wierus of a man that threatned his wife when she was bigge with child saying she bore the Devil in her womb and that he would kill him whereupon not long after she brought forth a Child well shaped from the middle downwards but upwards spotted with black and red spots with eyes in its forehead a mouth like a Satyre ears like a Dog and bended horns on its head like a Goat The other out of Ludovicus Vives of one who returning home in the disguise of a Devil whose part he had acted on the Stage and having to doe with his wife in that habit saying he would beget a Devil on her impregnated her with a Monster of a shape plainly diabolical The third and most remarkable is out of Peramatus of a Monster born at S. Laurence in the West-Indies in the year 1573 the narration whereof was brought to the Duke of Medina Sidonia from very faithful hands How there was a Child born there at that time that besides the horrible deformity of its mouth ears and nose had two horns on the head like those of young Goats long hair on the body a fleshy girdle about his middle double from whence hung a peece of flesh like a purse and a bell of flesh in his left hand like those the Indians use when they dance white boots of flesh on his legges doubled down In brief the whole shape was horrid and diabolical and conceived to proceed from some fright the Mother had taken from the antick dances of the Indians amongst whom the Devil himself does not fail to appear sometimes 2. These Narrations Fienus rejecteth not as false but as not being done by any natural power or if they be that the descriptions are something more lively then the truth But in the mean time he does freely admit that by the meer power of Imagination there might be such excrescencies as might represent those things that are there mentioned though those diabolical shapes could not have true horns hoofs tail or any other part specifically distinct from the nature of Man But so farre as he acknowledges is enough for our turn 3. But Fortunius Licetus is more liberal in his grants allowing not onely that the Births of women may be very exqulsitely distorted in some of their parts into the likeness of those of Brutes but that Chimaerical imaginations in Dreams may also effect it as well as Fancies or external Objects when they are awake Of the latter sort whereof he produces an Example that will more then match our purpose of a Sicilian matron who by chance beholding a Crab in a Fishermans hand new caught and of a more then ordinary largeness when she was brought to bed brought forth a Crab as well as a Child perfectly like those that are ordinarily caught in the Sea This was told him by a person of credit who both knew the Woman and saw the Crab she brought forth Helmonts Cherry he so often mentions and how it was green pale yellow and red at the times of year other Cherries are is something of this nature that is to say comes near to the perfect species of a Cherry as this did of a Crab the plantal life of a Cherry being in some measure in the one as the life of an Animal was perfectly in the other Which confirms what we said before that strength of our Desire and Imagination may snatch into consent the Spirit of Nature and make it act which once having begun leaves not off if Matter will but serve for to work upon and being the same in all places acts the same upon the same Matter in the same circumstances For the Root and Soul of every Vegetable is the Spirit of Nature in virtue whereof this Cherry flourisht and ripened according to the seasons of the Country where the party was that bore that live Signature These two instances are very shrewd arguments that the Soul of the World has to doe with all Efformations of either Plants or Animals For neither the Childs Soul nor the Mothers in any likelihood could frame that Crab though the Mother might by that strange power of Desire and Imagination excite the Spirit of the World that attempts upon any Matter that is fitted for generation some way or other to make
vaporous Aire whence their food must be very dilute and flashie and rather a mockery then any solid satisfaction and pleasure 8. But those Superiour Daemons which inhabit that part of the Aire that no storm nor tempest can reach need be put to no such shifts though they may be as able in them as the other For in the tranquillity of those upper Regions that Promus-Condus of the Universe the Spirit of Nature may silently send forth whole Gardens and Orchards of most delectable fruits and flowers of an aequilibrious ponderosity to the parts of the Aire they grow in to whose shape and colours the transparency of these Plants may adde a particular lustre as we see it is in precious Stones And the Chymists are never quiet till the heat of their fancy have calcined and vitrified the Earth into a crystal-line pellucidity conceiting that it will be then a very fine thing indeed and all that then growes out of it which desirable Spectacle they may haply enjoy in a more perfect manner whenever they are admitted into those higher Regions of the Aire For the very Soile then under them shall be transparent in which they may trace the very Roots of the Trees of this Superiour Paradise with their eyes and if it may not offend them see this opake Earth through it bounding their sight with such a white splendour as is discovered in the full Moon with that difference of brightness that will arise from the distinction of Land and Water and if they will recreate their palats may tast of such Fruits as whose natural juice will vie with their noblest Extractions and Quintessences For such certainly will they there find the blood of the Grape the rubie-coloured Cherries and Nectarines And if for the compleating of the pleasantness of these habitations that they may look less like a silent and dead solitude they meet with Birds Beasts of curious shapes and colours the single accents of whose voices are very grateful to the ear and the varying of their notes perfect musical harmony they would doe very kindly to bring us word back of the certainty of these things and make this more then a Philosophical Conjecture But that there may be Food and Feasting in those higher aerial Regions is less doubted by the Platonists which makes Maximus Tyrius call the Soul when she has left the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the above-cited Oracle of Apollo describes the felicity of that Chorus of immortal Lovers he mentions there from feasting together with the blessed Genii 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets may not be a meer fable For the Spirit of Nature which is the immediate instrument of God may enrich the fruits of these AErial Paradises with such liquors as being received into the bodies of these purer Daemons and diffusing it self through their Vehicles may cause such grateful motions analogical to our tast and excite such a more then ordinary quickness in their mindes and benign cheerfulness that it may far transcend the most delicate Refection that the greatest Epicures could ever invent upon Earth and that without all satiety and burdensomeness it filling them with nothing but Divine Love Joy and Devotion CHAP. X. 1. How hard it is to define any thing concerning the AErial or AEthereal Elysiums 2. That there is Political order and Lawes amongst these aiery Daemons 3. That this Chain of Government reaches down from the highest AEthereal Powers through the AErial to the very Inhabitants of the Earth 4. The great security we live in thereby 5. How easily detectible and punishable wicked Spirits are by those of their own Tribe 6. Other reasons of the security we find our selves in from the gross infestations of evil Spirits 7. What kind of punishments the AErial Officers inflict upon their Malefactours 1. I Might enlarge my self much on this Subject by representing the many Concamerations of the AErial and AEthereal Elysiums depainting them out in all the variety of their Ornaments but there is no prudence of being lavish of ones pen in a matter so lubricous and Conjectural Of the bare existence whereof we have no other ground then that otherwise the greatest part of the Universe by infinite measure and the most noble would lye as it were uncultivate like a desart of Sand wherein a man can spie neither Plant nor living Creature Which though it may seem as strange as if Nature should have restrained all the Varieties she would put forth to one contemptible Mole-hil and have made all the rest of the Earth one Homogeneal surface of dry clay or stone on which not one sprig of Grass much less any Flower or Tree should grow nor Bird nor Beast be found once to set their foot thereon yet the Spirits of us Mortals being too pusillanimous to be able to grapple with such vast Objects we must resolve to rest either ignorant or sceptical in this matter 2. And therefore let us consider what will more easily fall under our comprehension and that is the Polity of the aiery Daemons Concerning which that in general there is such a thing among them is the most assuredly true in it self and of the most use to us to be perswaded of To know their particular orders and customes is a more needless Curiosity But that they doe lye under the restraint of Government is not onely the opinion of the Pythagoreans who have even to the nicity of Grammatical Criticisme assigned distinct names to the Law that belongs to these Three distinct ranks of Beings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 calling the Law that belongs to the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the third 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it is also the easy and obvious suggestion of ordinary Reason that it must needs be so and especially amongst the AErial Genii in these lower Regions they being a mixt rabble of good and bad wise and foolish in such a sense as we may say the Inhabitants of the Earth are so and therefore they must naturally fall under a Government and submit to Lawes as well for the same reasons as Men doe For otherwise they cannot tolerably subsist nor enjoy what rights may some way or other appertain to them For the Souls of men deceased and the Daemons being endued with corporeal Sense by Axiome 30. and therefore capable of Pleasure and Pain and consequently of both Injury and Punishment it is manifest that having the use of Reason they cannot fail to mould themselves into some Political form or other and so to be divided into Nations and Provinces and to have their Officers of State from the King on his Throne to the very lowest and most abhorred Executioners of Justice 3. Which invisible Government is not circumscribed within the compass of the aiery Regions but takes hold also on the Inhabitants of the Earth as the
12. That though there were no Memory after Death yet the manner of our Life here may sow the seeds of the Souls future happiness or misery 1. FOR the better solution of this Question there is another first in nature to be decided namely Whether the Soul remembers any thing of this Life after Death For Aristotle and Cardan seem to deny it but I doe not remember any reasons in either that will make good their Opinion But that the contrary is true appears from what we have already proved Lib. 2. Cap. 11. viz. That the immediate seat of Memory is the Soul her self and that all Representations with their circumstances are reserved in her not in the Spirits a thing which Vaninus himself cannot deny nor in any part of the Body And that the Spirits are onely a necessary Instrument whereby the Soul works which while they are too cool and gross and waterish Oblivion creeps upon her in that measure that the Spirits are thus distempered but the disease being chased away and the temper of the Spirits rectified the Soul forthwith recovers the memory of what things she could not well command before as being now in a better state of Activity Whence by the 33. Axiome it will follow that her Memory will be rather more perfect after Death and Conscience more nimble to excuse or accuse her according to her Deeds here 2. It is not altogether beside the purpose to take notice also That the natural and usual Figure of the Souls AErial Vehicle bears a resemblance with the feature of the party in this life it being most obvious for the Plastick part at the command of the Will to put forth into personal shape to fall as near to that in this life as the new state will permit With which act the Spirit of Nature haply does concurre as in the figuration of the Foetus but with such limits as becomes the AErial Congruity of life of which we have spoke already as also how the proper Idea or Figure of every Soul though it may deflect something by the power of the Parents Imagination in the act of Conception or Gestation yet may return more near to its peculiar semblance afterwards and so be an unconcealable Note of Individuality 3. We will adde to all this the Retainment of the same Name which the deceased had here unless there be some special reason to change it so that their persons will be as punctually distinguisht and circumscribed as any of ours in this life All which things as they are most probable in themselves that they will thus naturally fall out so they are very convenient for administration of Justice and keeping of Order in the other State 4. These things therefore premised it will not be hard to conceive how the condition of the Soul after this life depends on her Moral deportment here For Memory ceasing not Conscience may very likely awake more furiously then ever the Mind becoming a more clear Judge of evil Actions past then she could be in the Flesh being now stript of all those circumstances and concurrences of things that kept her off from the opportunity of calling her self to account or of perceiving the ugliness of her own ways Besides there being that communication betwixt the Earth and the Aire that at least the fame of things will arrive to their cognoscence that have left this life the after ill success of their wicked enterprises and unreasonable transactions may arm their tormenting Conscience with new whips and stings when they shall either hear or see with their eyes what they have unjustly built up to run with shame to ruine and behold all their designs come to nought and their fame blasted upon Earth 5. This is the state of such Souls as are capable of a sense of dislike of their past-actions and a man would think they need no other punishment then this if he consider the mighty power of the Minde over her own Vehicle and how vulnerable it is from her self These Passions therefore of the Soule that follow an ill Conscience must needs bring her aiery body into intolerable distempers worse then Death it self Nor yet can she die if she would neither by fire nor sword nor any means imaginable no not if she should fling her self into the flames of smoaking AEtna For suppose she could keep her self so long there as to indure that hideous pain of destroying the vital Congruity of her Vehicle by that sulphureous fire she would be no sooner released but she would catch life again in the Aire and all the former troubles and vexations would return besides the overplus of these pangs of Death For Memory would return and an ill Conscience would return and all those busie Furies those disordered Passions which follow it And thus it would be though the Soule should kill her self a thousand and a thousand times she could but pain and punish her self not destroy her self 6. But if we could suppose some mens Consciences seared in the next state as well as this for certainly there are that make it their business to obliterate all sense of difference of Good and Evil out of their minds hold it to be an high strain of wit though it be nothing else but a piece of bestial stupidity to think there is no such thing as Vice and Vertue and that it is a principall part of perfection to be so degenerate as to act according to this Principle without any remorse at all these men may seem to have an excellent priviledge in the other world they being thus armour-proof against all the fiery darts of that domestick Devil As if the greatest security in the other life were to have been compleatly wicked in this But it is not out of the reach of meer Reason and Philosophy to discover that such bold and impudent wretches as have lost all inward sense of Good and Evil may there against their wills feel a lash in the outward For the divine Nemesis is excluded out of no part of the Universe and Goodness and Justice which they contemn here will be acquainted with them in that other state whether they will or no I speak of such course Spirits that can swallow down Murder Perjury Extortion Adultery Buggery and the like gross crimes without the least disgust and think they have a right to satisfy their own Lust though it be by never so great injury against their Neighbour If these men should carry it with impunity there were really no Providence and themselves were the truest Prophets and faithfullest Instructers of mankind divulging the choicest Arcanum they have to impart to them namely That there is no God But the case stands quite otherwise For whether it be by the importunity of them they injure in this life who may meet with them afterward as Cardan by way of objection suggests in his Treatise of this Subject or whether by a general desertion by all of the other world that are able
confined onely to our furtherance of what is of the highest and most indispensable consideration here but in proportion touches all transactions that proceed from a vertuous and good principle whereof there are several degrees amongst which those may not be esteemed the meanest that refer to a National good And therefore those that out of a natural generosity of Spirit and successful fortitude in Warre have delivered their Country from bondage or have been so wise and understanding in Politicks as to have contrived wholsome Laws for the greater happiness and comfort of the People while such a Nation prospers and is in being it cannot but be an accrument of happiness to these so considerable Benefactors unless we should imagine them less generous and good in the other World where they have the advantage of being Better And what I have said in this more notable instance is in a degree true in things of smaller concernment which would be infinite to rehearse But whole Nations with their Laws and Orders of Men and Families may fail and therefore these accessions be cut off but he that laies out his pains in this life for the carrying on such designs as will take place so long as the World endures and must have a compleat Triumph at last such a one laies a train for an everlasting advantage in the other World which in despite of all the tumblings and turnings of unsetled fortune will be sure to take effect 11. But this matter requires Judgement as well as Heat and Forwardness For pragmatical Ignorance though accompanied with some measure of Sincerity and well-meaning may set a-foot such things in the World or set upon record such either false or impertinent and unseasonable Principles as being made ill use of may very much prejudice the Cause one desires to promote which will be a sad spectacle for them in the other State For though their simplicity may be pardonable yet they will not fail to finde the ill effect of their mistake upon themselves As he that kills a friend in stead of an enemy though he may satisfy his Conscience that rightly pleads his innocency yet he cannot avoid the sense of shame and sorrow that naturally follows so mischievous an error 12. Such accruencies as these there may be to our enjoyments in the other World from the durable traces of our transactions in this if we have any Memory of things after Death as I have already demonstrated that we have But if we had not but Aristotles and Cardan's Opinion were true yet Vertue and Piety will not prove onely useful for this present state Because according to our living here we shall hereafter by a hidden concatenation of Causes be drawn to a condition answerable to the purity or impurity of our Souls in this life that silent Nemesis that passes through the whole contexture of the Universe ever fatally contriving us into such a state as we our selves have fitted our selves for by our accustomary actions Of so great consequence is it while we have opportunity to aspire to the best things CHAP. XII 1. What the Spirit of Nature is 2. Experiments that argue its real Existence such as that of two strings tuned Unisons 3. Sympathetick Cures and Tortures 4. The Sympathy betwixt the Earthly and Astral Body 5. Monstrous Births 6. The Attraction of the Loadstone and Roundness of the Sun and Stars 1. WE had now quite finished our Discourse did I not think it convenient to answer a double expectation of the Reader The one is touching the Spirit of Nature the other the producing of Objections that may be made against our concluded Assention of the Souls Immortality For as for the former I can easily imagine he may well desire a more punctual account of that Principle I have had so often recourse to then I have hitherto given and will think it fit that I should somewhere more fully explain what I mean by the terms and shew him my strongest grounds why I conceive there is any such Being in the World To hold him therefore no longer in suspence I shall doe both in this place The Spirit of Nature therefore according to that notion I have of it is A substance incorporeal but without Sense and Animadversion pervading the whole Matter of the Universe and exercising a plastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts it works upon raising such Phaenomena in the World by directing the parts of the Matter and their Motion as cannot be resolved into meer Mechanical powers This rude Description may serve to convey to any one a conception determinate enough of the nature of the thing And that it is not a meer Notion but a real Being besides what I have occasionally hinted already and shall here again confirm by new instances there are several other considerations may perswade us 2. The first whereof shall be concerning those experiments of Sympathetick Pains Asswagements and Cures of which there are many Examples approved by the most scrupulous Pretenders to sobriety and judgment and of all which I cannot forbear to pronounce that I suspect them to come to pass by some such power as makes strings that be tuned Unisons though on several Instruments the one being touched the other to tremble and move very sensibly and to cast off a straw or pin or any such small thing laid upon it Which cannot be resolved into any Mechanical Principle though some have ingeniously gone about it For before they attempted to shew the reason why that string that is not Unison to that which is struck should not leap and move as it doth that is they should have demonstrated that by the meer Vibration of the Aire that which is Unison can be so moved for if it could these Vibrations would not fail to move other Bodies more movable by farre then the string it self that is thus moved As for example if one hung loose near the string that is struck a small thred of silk or an hair with some light thing at the end of it they must needs receive those reciprocal Vibrations that are communicated to the Unison string at a far greater distance if the meer motion of the material Aire caused the subsultation of the string tuned Unison Which yet is contrary to experience Besides that if it were the meer Vibration of the Aire that caused this tremor in the Unison string the effect would not be considerable unless both the strings lay well-nigh in the same Plane and that the Vibration of the string that is struck be made in that Plane they both lie in But let the string be struck so as to cut the Plane perpendicularly by its tremulous excursions or let both the strings be in two several Planes at a good distance above one another the event is much-what the same though the Aire cannot rationally be conceived to vibrate backwards and forwards but well-nigh in the very Planes wherein the strings are moved All
separate may figure the Aire into shape and speak through it Quare igitur Intelligentiae moventes corpora coelestia haec facere non possunt cum suis instrumentis quae tot ac tanta possunt quae faciunt Psittacos Picos Corvos Merulas loqui And a little after he plainly reasons from the power the Intelligencies have of generating Animals that it is not at all strange that they should raise such kinde of Apparitions as are recorded in History But if these Celestial Intelligencies be confined to their own Orbs so as that no secondary Essence reach these inferiour Regions it is impossible to conceive how they can actuate the Matter here below But if there be any such essential emanations from them whereby they actuate the Matter into these living Species we see in the World of Men and Brutes nothing hinders but the same emanations remaining may actuate the Aire when this earthly fabrick fails and retain the memory of things transacted in this life and that still our Personality will be conserved as perfect and distinct as it was here 10. But this conceit of Pomponatius is farre more foolish then theirs that make onely one Anima Mundi that passes through all the Matter of the World and is present in every place to doe all feats that there are to be done But to acknowledge so many several Intellectual Beings as there be fancied Celestial Orbs and to scruple or rather to seem confident that there are not so many particular Souls as there be Men here on Earth is nothing but Humour and Madness For it is as rational to acknowledge eight hundred thousand Myriads of Intellectual and Immaterial Beings really distinct from one another as eight and an infinite number as but one that could not create the Matter of the World For then two Substances wholly independent on one another would be granted as also the Infinite parts of Matter that have no dependence one on the other Why may not there be therefore infinite numbers of Spirits or Souls that have as little dependence one on another as well as there should be eight Intelligencies whenas the motions and operations of every Animal are a more certain argument of an Immaterial Being residing there then the motions of the Heavens of any distinct Intelligencies in their Orbs if they could be granted to have any And it is no stranger a thing to conceive an Infinite multitude of Immaterial as well as Material Essences independent on one another then but two namely the Matter and the Soule of the World But if there be so excellent a principle existent as can create Beings as certainly there is we are still the more assured that there are such multitudes of spiritual Essences surviving all the chances of this present life as the most sober and knowing men in all Ages have professed there are CHAP. XVII 1. That the Authour having safely conducted the Soule into her AErial condition through the dangers of Death might well be excused from attending her any further 2. What reasons urge him to consider what fates may befall her afterwards 3. Three hazzards the Soule runs after this life whereby she may again become obnoxious to death according to the opinion of some 4. That the aerial Genii are mortal confirmed by three testimonies 5. The one from the Vision of Facius Cardanus in which the Spirits that appeared to him profest themselves mortal 6. The time they stayed with him and the matters they disputed of 7. What credit Hieronymus Cardanus gives to his Fathers Vision 8. The other testimony out of Plutarch concerning the Death of the great God Pan. 9. The third and last of Hesiod whose opinion Plutarch has polisht and refined 10. An Enumeration of the several Paradoxes contained in Facius Cardanus his Vision 11. What must be the sense of the third Paradox if those AErial Speculatours spake as they thought 12. Another Hypothesis to the same purpose 13. The craft of these Daemons in shuffling in poysonous errour amongst solid Truths 14. What makes the story of the death of Pan less to the present matter with an addition of Demetrius his observations touching the Sacred Islands neare Britain 15. That Hesiod his opinion is the most unexceptionable and that the harshness therein is but seeming not real 16. That the AEthereal Vehicle instates the Soule in a condition of perfect Immortality 17. That there is no internal impediment to those that are Heroically good but that they may attain an everlasting happiness after Death 1. WE have now maugre all the oppositions and Objections made to the contrary safely conducted the Soule into the other state and installed her into the same condition with the AErial Genii I might be very well excused if I took leave of her here and committed her to that fortune that attends those of the Invisible World it being more seasonable for them that are there to meditate and prefigure in their mindes all futurities belonging to them then for us that are on this side the passage It is enough that I have demonstrated that neither the Essence nor Operations of the Soule are extinct by Death but that they either not intermit or suddainly revive upon the recovery of her aiery Body 2. But seeing that those that take any pleasure at all in thinking of these things can seldome command the ranging of their thoughts within what compass they please and that it is obvious for them to doubt whether the Soule can be secure of her permanency in life in the other world it implying no contradiction That her Vital Congruity appropriate to this or that Element may either of it self expire or that she may by some carelesness debilitate one Congruity and awaken another in some measure and so make her self obnoxious to Fate we cannot but think it in a manner necessary to extricate such difficulties as these that we may not seem in this after-game to loose all we won in the former and make men suspect that the Soule is not at all immortal if her Immortality will not secure her against all future fates 3. To which she seems liable upon three accounts The one we have named already and respects an intrinsecal Principle the Periodical terms of her Vital Congruity or else the Levity and Miscarriage of her own Will Which obnoxiousness of hers is still more fully argued from what is affirmed of the AErial Genii whose companion and fellow-Citizen she is whom sundry Philosophers assert to be Mortal The other two hazards she runs are from without to wit the Conflagration of the World and the Extinction of the Sun 4. That the AErial Genii are mortal three main Testimonies are alledged for it The Vision of Facius Cardanus the Death of the great God Pan in Plutarch and the Opinion of Hesiod I will set them all down fully as I finde them and then answer to them The Vision of Facius Cardanus is punctually recited by his son Hieronymus in his
strains of eloquence but I loving solid sense better then fine words shall not take the pains to recite them 13. At what a pitch his understanding was set may be easily discerned by my last quotation wherein there seems a palpable contradiction Veniet iterum qui nos in lucem reponet dies quem multi recusarent nisi oblitos reduceret If nos how oblitos If oblitos how nos For we are not we unless we remember that we are so And if mad-men may be said and that truly to be besides themselves or not to be themselves because they have lost their wits certainly they will be far from being themselves that have quite lost the Memory of themselves but must be as if they had never been before As Lucretius has excellently well declared himself De rerum naturâ Lib. 3. Nee si materiam nostram conlegerit aetas Post obitū rursumque redegerit ut sita nunc est Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae Pertineat quicquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum Interrupta semel cum sit retinentia nostri Where the Poet seems industriously to explode all the hopes of any benefit of this Stoical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to profess that he is as if he had never been that cannot remember he has ever been before From whence it would follow that though the Souls of men should revive after the Conflagration of the World yet they have not escaped a perpetual and permanent death 14. We see therefore how desperately undemonstrable the condition of the Soule is after the Conflagration of the Earth all these five Opinions being accompanied with so much lubricity and uncertainty And therefore they are to be looked upon rather as some Night-landskap to feed our amused Melancholy then a clear and distinct draught of comprehensible Truth to inform our Judgment 15. All that we can be assured of is that those Souls that have obtained their aethereal Vehicles are out of the reach of that sad fate that followes this Conflagration and that the wicked Souls of Men and Daemons will be involved in it But there are a middle sort betwixt these concerning whom not onely curiosity but good will would make a man sollicitous For it is possible that the Conflagration of the World may surprise many thousands of Souls that neither the course of Time nor Nature nor any higher Principle has wrought up into an AEthereal Congruity of life but yet may be very holy innocent and vertuous Which we may easily believe if we consider that these very Earthly Bodies are not so great impediments to the goodness and sincerity of the Minde but that many even in this life have given great examples thereof Nor can that AErial state be less capable of nor wel be without the good Genii no more then the Earth without good men who are the most immediate Ministers of the Goodness and Justice of God But exemption from certain fates in the world is not alwaies entailed upon Innocency but most ordinarily upon natural power And therefore there may be numbers of the good Genii and of very holy and innocuous Spirits of men departed the consistency of whose Vehicles may be such that they can no more quit these aerial Regions then we can fly into them that have heavy bodies without wings To say nothing of those vertuous and pious men that may haply be then found alive and so be liable to be overtaken by this storm of fire Undoubtedly unless there appear before the approach of this fate some visible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Jupiter Sospitator as the heathens would call him they must necessarily be involved in the ruine of the wicked Which would be a great eye-sore in that exact and irreprehensible frame of Providence that all men promise to themselves who acknowledge that there is a God Wherefore according to the light of Reason there must be some supernatural means to rescue those innocuous and benign Spirits out of this common calamity But to describe the manner of it here how it must be done would be to entitle natural Light and Philosophy to greater abilities then they are guilty of and therefore that Subject must be reserved for its proper place CHAP. XIX 1. That the Extinction of the Sun is no Panick feare but may be rationally suspected from the Records of History and grounds of Natural Philosophy 2. The sad Influence of this Extinction upon Man and Beast and all the aerial Daemons imprison'd within their several Atmospheres in our Vortex 3. That it will doe little or no damage to the AEthereal Inhabitants in reference to heat or warmth 4. Nor will they find much want of his light 5. And if they did they may pass out of one Vortex into another by the Priviledge of their AEthereal Vehicles 6. And that without any labour or toile and as maturely as they please 7. The vast incomprehensibleness of the tracts and compasses of the waies of Providence 8. A short Recapitulation of the whole Discourse 9. An Explication of the Persians two Principles of Light and Darkness which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when and where the Principle of Light gets the full victory 10. That Philosophy or something more sacred then Philosophy is the onely Guide to a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. THE last danger that threatens the separate Soule is the Extinction of the Sun which though it may seem a meer Panick fear at first sight yet if the matter be examined there will appear no contemptible reasons that may induce men to suspect that it may at last fall out there been at certain times such near offers in Nature towards this sad accident already Pliny though he instances but in one example yet speaks of it as a thing that several times comes to pass Fiunt saith he prodigiosi longiores solis defectus qualis occiso Dictatore Caesare Antoniano bello totius anni pallore continuo The like happened in Justinians time as Cedrenus writes when for a whole year together the Sun was of a very dim and duskish hue as if he had been in a perpetuall Eclipse And in the time of Irene the Empress it was so dark for seventeen dayes together that the ships lost their way on the sea and were ready to run against one another as Theophanes relates But the late accurate discovery of the spots of the Sun by Shiner and the appearing and disappearing of fixt Stars and the excursions of Comets into the remoter parts of our Vortex as also the very intrinsecal contexture of that admirable Philosophy of Des-Cartes doe argue it more then possible that after some vast periods of time the Sun may be so inextricably inveloped by the Maculae that he is never free from that he may quite loose his light 2. The Preambles of which Extinction will be very hideous and intolerable to all the Inhabitants of
the Planets in our Vortex if the Planets have then any Inhabitants at all For this defect of light and heat coming on by degrees must needs weary out poor mortals with heavy languishments both for want of the comfort of the usual warmth of the Sun whereby the Bodies of men are recreated and also by reason of his inability to ripen the fruits of the Soile whence necessarily must follow Famine Plagues Sicknesses and at length an utter devastation and destruction of both Man and Beasts Nor can the AErial Daemons scape free but that the vital tye to their Vehicles necessarily confining them to their several Atmospheres they will be inevitably imprisoned in more then Cimmerian darkness For the Extinction of the Sun will put out the light of all their Moons and nothing but Ice and Frost and flakes of Snow and thick mists as palpable as that of AEgypt will possess the Regions of their habitation Of which sad spectacle though those twinkling eyes of heaven the Stars might be compassionate spectatours yet they cannot send out one ray of light to succour or visit them their tender and remote beams not being able to pierce much less to dissipate the clammy and stiff consistency of that long and fatal Night 3. Wherefore calling our mind off from so dismal a sight let us place it upon a more hopeful Object and consider the condition of those Souls that have arrived to their AEthereal Vehicle and see how far this fate can take hold of them And it is plain at first sight that they are out of the reach of this misty dungeon as being already mounted into the secure mansions of the purer AEther The worst that can be imagined of them is that they may finde themselves in a condition something like that of ours when we walk out in a clear starlight frosty night which to them that are sound is rather a pleasure then offence And if we can beare it with some delight in these Earthly Bodies whose parts will grow hard and stiff for want of due heat it can prove nothing else but a new modification of tactual pleasure to those AEthereal Inhabitants whose bodies are not constipated as ours but are themselves a kinde of agile light and fire All that can be conceived is that the spherical particles of their Vehicles may stand a little more closely and firmly together then usual whence the triangular intervals being more straight the subtilest element will move something more quick in them which will raise a sense of greater vigour and alacrity then usual So little formidable is this fate to them in this regard 4. But their light you 'l say will be obscured the Sun being put out whose shining seems to concern the Gods as well as Men as Homer would intimate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I answer that that of Homer is chiefly to be understood of the AErial Daemons not the AEthereal Deities who can turn themselves into a pure actual Light when they please So that there is no fear but that their personal converse will be as chearful and distinct as before white letters being as legible upon black paper as black upon white But this is to suppose them in the dark which they are not but in a more soft and mild light which is but a change of pleasure as it is to see the Moon shine fair into a roome after the putting out of the Candle And certainly the contribution of the light of the Stars is more to their quick and tender Senses then the clearest Moon-shine night is to ours though we should suppose them no nearer any Star then we are But such great changes as these may have their conveniences for such as Providence will favour as well as their inconveniences And the Extinction of our Sun may be the Augmentation of Light in some Star of a neighbouring Vortex Which though it may not be able to pierce those Cimmerian Prisons I spake of before yet it may give sufficient light to these Spirits that are free Besides that the Discerption and spoil of our Vortex that will then happen will necessarily bring us very much nearer the Centre of some other whose Star will administer sufficient light to the AEthereal Genii though it be too weak to relieve the AErial And that so remote a distance from these central Luminaries of the Vortices is consistent with the perfectest happiness we may discern partly in that the Coelestial Matter above Saturn till the very marge of the Vortex is more strongly agitated then that betwixt him and the Sun and therefore has less need of the Suns beams to conserve its agility and liquidity and partly in that those huge vast Regions of Aither would be lost and in vain in a manner if they were not frequented by AEthereal Inhabitants which in all reason and likelihood are of the noblest kinde according to the nature of their Element And therefore all the AEthereal People may retire thither upon such an exigency as this and there rest secure in joy and happiness in these true Intermundia Deorum which Epicurus dream'd of 5. Which we may easily admit if we consider the grand Priviledges of the AEthereal Vehicle wherein so great a power of the Soul is awakened that she can moderate the motion of the particles thereof as she pleases by adding or diminishing the degrees of agitation Axiome 32. whereby she is also able to temper the solidity thereof and according to this contemperation of her Vehicle to ascend or descend in the Vortex as she lists her self and that with a great variety of swiftness according to her own pleasure By the improvement of which Priviledge she may also if she please pass from one Vortex into another and receive the warmth of a new Vesta so that no fate imaginable shall be ever able to lay hold upon her 6. Nor will this be any more labour to her then sailing down the stream For she having once fitted the agitation and solidity of her Vehicle for her celestial voiage will be as naturally carried whither she is bound as a stone goes downward or the fire upward So that there is no fear of any lassitude no more then by being rowed in a Boat or carried in a Sedan For the celestial Matter that environs her Vehicle works her upward or downward toward the Centre or from the Centre of a Vortex at its own proper pains and charges Lastly such is the tenuity and subtilty of the Senses of the AEthereal Inhabitants that their prevision and sagacity must be beyond all conceit above that of ours besides that there will be warnings and premonitions of this future disaster both many and those very visible and continued before the Sun shall fail so far as that they shall at all be concerned in his decay so that the least blast of misfortune shall never be able to blow upon them nor the least evil imaginable overtake them 7. This is a small glance at
by those of their own Tribe 6. Other reasons of the security we find our selves in from the gross infestations of evil Spirits 7. What kinde of punishments the AErial Officers inflict upon their Malefactours 427 Chap. 11. 1. Three things to be considered before we come to the moral condition of the Soul after death namely her Memory of transactions in this life 2. The peculiar feature and individual Character of her AErial Vehicle 3. The Retainment of the same Name 4. How her ill deportment here lays the train of her Misery hereafter 5. The unspeakable torments of Conscience worse then Death and not to be avoided by dying 6. Of the hideous tortures of external sense on them whose searedness of Conscience may seem to make them uncapable of her Lashes 7. Of the state of the Souls of the more innocent and conscientious Pagans 8. Of the natural accruments of After-happiness to the morally good in this life 9. How the Soul enjoys her actings or sufferings in this Life for an indispensable Cause when she has passed to the other 10. That the reason is proportionably the same in things of less consequence 11. What mischief men may create to themselves in the other World by their Zealous mistakes in this 12. That though there were no Memory after Death yet the manner of our Life here may sow the seeds of the Souls future happiness or misery 435 Chap. 12. 1. What the Spirit of Nature is 2. Experiments that argue its real Existence such as that of two strings tuned Unisons 3. Sympathetick Cures and Tortures 4. The Sympathy betwixt the Earthly and Astral Body 5. Monstrous Births 6. The Attraction of the Loadstone and Roundness of the Sun and Stars 449 Chap. 13. 1. That the Descent of heavy Bodies argues the existence of the Spirit of Nature because else they would either hang in the Aire as they are placed 2. Or would be diverted from a perpendicular as they fall near a Plate of Metal set slooping 3. That the endeavour of the AEther or Aire from the Centre to the Circumference is not the cause of Gravity against Mr. Hobbs 4. A full confutation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion 5. An ocular Demonstration of the absurd consequence thereof 6. An absolute Demonstration that Gravity cannot be the effect of meer Mechanical powers 7. The Latitude of the operations of the Spirit of Nature how large and where bounded 8. The reason of its name 9. It s grand office of transmitting Souls into rightly prepared Matter 458 Chap. 14. 1. Objections against the Souls Immortality from her condition in Infancy Old age Sleep and Sicknesses 2. Other Objections taken from Experiments that seem to prove her Discerpibility 3. As also from the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 4. And from our natural fear of Death 5. A Subterfuge of the adverse party in supposing but one Soul common to all Creatures 6. An Answer concerning the Littleness of the Soul in Infancy 7. As also concerning the weakness of her Intellectuals then and in Old age 8. That Sleep does not at all argue the Souls Mortality but rather illustrate her Immortality 9. An Answer to the Objection from Apoplexies and Catalepsies 10. As also to that from Madness 11. That the various depravations of her Intellectual Faculties doe no more argue her Mortality then the worser Modifications of Matter its natural Annihilability And why God created Souls sympathizing with Matter 471 Chap. 15. 1. An Answer to the experiment of the Scolopendra cut into pieces 2. And to the flying of an headless Eagle over a barn as also to that of the Malefactors head biting a Dog by the eare 3. A superaddition of a difficulty concerning Monsters born with two or more Heads and but one Body and Heart 4. A solution of the difficulty 5. An Answer touching the seldome appearing of the Souls of the deceased 6. As also concerning the fear of Death 7. And a down-bearing sense that sometimes so forcibly obtrudes upon us the belief of the Souls Mortality 8. Of the Tragical Pomp and dreadful Praeludes of Death with some corroborative Considerations against such sad spectacles 9. That there is nothing really sad and miserable in the Universe unless to the wicked and impious 481 Chap. 16. 1. That that which we properly are is both Sensitive and Intellectual 2. What is the true notion of a Soul being One. 3. That if there be but One Soul in the World it is both Rational and Sensitive 4. The most favourable representation of their Opinion that hold but One. 5. A confutation of the foregoing representation 6. A Reply to the confutation 7. An Answer to the Reply 8. That the Soul of Man is not properly any Ray either of God or the Soul of the World 9. And yet if she were so it would be no prejudice to her Immortality whence the folly of Pomponatius is noted 10. A further animadversion upon Pomponatius his folly in admitting a certain number of remote Intelligencies and denying Particular Immaterial Substances in Men and Brutes 491 Chap. 17. 1. That the Author having safely conducted the Soul into her AErial condition through the dangers of Death might well be excused from attending her any further 2. What reasons urge him to consider what fates may befall her afterwards 3. Three hazzards the Soul runs after this life whereby she may again become obnoxious to death according to the opinion of some 4. That the aerial Genii are mortal confirmed by three testimonies 5. The one from the Vision of Facius Cardanus in which the Spirits that appeared to him profest themselves mortal 6. The time they stayed with him and the matters they disputed of 7. What credit Hieronymus Cardanus gives to his Fathers Vision 8. The other testimony out of Plutarch concerning the Death of the great God Pan. 9. The third and last of Hesiod whose opinion Plutarch has polisht and refined 10. An Enumeration of the several Paradoxes contained in Facius Cardanus his Vision 11. What must be the sense of the third Paradox if those AErial Speculators spake as they thought 12. Another Hypothesis to the same purpose 13. The craft of these Daemons in shuffling in poysonous Errour amongst solid Truths 14. What makes the story of the death of Pan less to the present matter with an addition of Demetrius his observations touching the Sacred Islands near Britain 15. That Hesiod his opinion is the most unexceptionable and that the harshness therein is but seeming not real 16. That the AEthereal Vehicle instates the Soul in a condition of perfect Immortality 17. That there is no internal impediment to those that are Heroically good but that they may attain an everlasting happiness after Death 503 Chap. 18. 1. The Conflagration of the World an Opinion of the Stoicks 2. Two ways of destroying the World the Ancients have taken notice of and especially that by Fire 3. That the Conflagration of the World so farre as it respects us is to be understood onely of the burning of the Earth 4. That the ends of the Stoicks Conflagration are competible onely to the Earths burning 5. An acknowledgement that the Earth may be burnt though the proof thereof be impertinent to this place 6. That the Conflagration thereof will prove very fatal to the Souls of wicked Men and Daemons 7. Five several Opinions concerning their state after the Conflagration whereof the first is That they are quite destroy'd by Fire 8. The second That they are annihilated by a special act of Omnipotency 9. The third That they lie sensless in an eternal Death 10. The fourth That they are in a perpetual furious and painful Dream 11. The fifth and last That they will revive again and that the Earth and Aire will be inhabited by them 12. That this last seems to be fram'd from the fictitious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Stoicks who were very sorry Metaphysicians and as ill Naturalists 13. An Animadversion upon a self-contradicting sentence of Seneca 14. The unintelligibleness of the state of the Souls of the Wicked after the Conflagration 15. That the AEthereal Inhabitants will be safe And what will then become of Good men and Daemons on the Earth and in the Aire And how they cannot be delivered but by a supernatural power 524 Chap. 19. 1. That the Extinction of the Sun is no Panick feare but may be rationally suspected from the Records of History and grounds of Natural Philosophy 2. The sad Influence of this Extinction upon Man and Beast and all the aerial Daemons imprison'd within their several Atmospheres in our Vortex 3. That it will doe little or no damage to the AEthereal Inhabitants in reference to heat or warmth 4. Nor will they find much want of his light 5. And if they did they may pass out of one Vortex into another by the Priviledge of their AEthereal Vehicles 6. And that without any labour or toil and as maturely as they please 7. The vast incomprehensibleness of the tracts and compasses of the waies of Providence 8. A short Recapitulation of the whole Discourse 9. An Explication of the Persians two Principles of Light and Darkness which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when and where the Principle of Light gets the full victory 10. That Philosophy or something more sacred then Philosophy is the onely Guide to a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 538 FINIS Errata PAg. 222. l. 5. for Gamaitus read Gamaieu's 2â—4 l. 10. for Tyc r. Tye. 327. l. 2. for Immortality r. Immorality 458. l. 22. for stooping r. slooping 462. l. 13. for E F H r. angle E F H. 488. l. 9. for inclogg'd r. in clogg'd 521. l. 16. for lightning r. lighting 528. l. ult dele those
as in such Bodies which are exceeding hard where no man can fancy what holds the parts together so strongly and there being no greater difficulty here then that a man cannot imagine what holds the parts of a Spirit together it will follow by Axiome 7. that the notion of a Spirit is not to be excepted against as an incongruous notion but is to be admitted for the notion of a thing that may really exist 3. It may be doubted whether there may not be Essences of a middle condition betwixt these Corporeal and Incorporeal Substances we have described and that of two sorts The one Impenetrable and Indiscerpible the other Penetrable and Discerpible But concerning the first if Impenetrability be understood in reference to Matter it is plaine there can be no such Essence in the world and if in reference to its own parts though it may then look like a possible Idea in it self yet there is no footsteps of the existence thereof in Nature the Souls of men and Daemons implying contraction and dilatation in them As for the latter it has no priviledge for any thing more then Matter it self has or some Mode of Matter For it being Discerpible it is plain it's union is by Juxtaposition of parts and the more penetrable the less likely to conveigh sense and motion to any distance Besides the ridiculous sequel of this supposition that will fill the Universe with an infinite number of shreds and rags of Souls and Spirits never to be reduced again to any use or order And lastly the proper notion of a Substance Incorporeal fully counter-distinct to a Corporeal Substance necessarily including in it so strong and indissoluble union of parts that it is utterly Indiscerpible whenas yet for all that in this general notion thereof neither sense nor cogitation is implyed it is most rational to conceive that that Substance wherein they are must assuredly be Incorporeal in the strictest signification the nature of cogitation and communion of sense arguing a more perfect degree of union then is in meer Indiscerpibility of parts But all this Scrupulositie might have been saved For I confidently promise my self that there are none so perversly given to tergiversations and subterfuges but that they will acknowledge whereever I can prove that there is a Substance distinct from Body or Matter that it is in the most full and proper sense Incorporeal CHAP. IV. 1. That the notions of the several kindes of Immateriall Beings have no Inconsistencie nor Incongruitie in them 2. That the nature of God is as intelligible as the nature of any Being whatsoever 3. The true notion of his Ubiquity and how intelligible it is 4. Of the union of the Divine Essence 5. Of his power of Creation 1. WE have shewn that the notion of a Spirit in general is not at all incongruous nor impossible And it is as congruous consistent and intelligible in the sundry kindes thereof as for example that of God of Angels of the Souls of Men and Brutes and of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Seminal Forms of things 2. The notion of God though the knowledge thereof be much prejudiced by the confoundedness and stupidity of either superstitious or profane men that please themselves in their large Rhetorications concerning the unconceiveableness and utter incomprehensibleness of the Deity the one by way of a devotional exaltation of the transcendency of his nature the other to make the belief of his exsistence ridiculous and craftily and perversly to intimate that there is no God at all the very conception of him being made to appear nothing else but a bundle of inconsistencies and impossibilities Nevertheless I shall not at all stick to affirm that His Idea or Notion is as easy as any Notion else whatsoever and that we may know as much of him as of any thing else in the world For the very Essence or naked Substance of nothing can possibly be known by Axiome 8. But for His Attributes they are as conspicuous as the attributes of any Subject or Substance whatever From which a man may easily define him thus God is a Spirit eternal infinite in essence and goodness omniscient omnipotent and of himself necessarily existent I appeal to any man if every term in this Definition be not sufficiently intelligible For as for Spirit that has been already defined and explained By Eternal I understand nothing here but Duration without end or beginning by Infiniteness of essence that his Essence or Substance has no bounds no more then his Duration by Infinite in goodness such a benign will in God as is carried out to boundless and innumerable benefactions by Omnisciency and Omnipotency the ability of knowing or doing any thing that can be conceived without a plain contradiction by Self-existency that he has his Being from none other and by necessary Existence that he cannot fail to be What terms of any Definition are more plain then these of this or what Subject can be more accurately defined then this is For the naked Subject or Substance of any thing is no otherwise to be known then thus And they that gape after any other Speculative knowledg of God then what is from his Attributes and Operations they may have their heads and mouths filled with many hot scalding fancies and words and run mad with the boysterousness of their own Imagination but they will never hit upon any sober Truth 3. Thus have I delivered a very explicite and intelligible notion of the nature of God which I might also more compendiously define An Essence absolutely perfect in which all the terms of the former Definition are comprehended and more then I have named or thought needful to name much less to insist upon as his power of Creation and his Omnipresence or Ubiquity which are necessarily included in the Idea of absolute perfection The latter whereof some ancient Philosophers endeavoring to set out have defined God to be a Circle whose Center is every where and Circumference no where By which description certainly nothing else can be meant but that the Divine Essence is every where present with all those adorable Attributes of Infinite and absolutely perfect Goodness Knowledg and Power according to that sense in which I have explained them Which Ubiquity or Omnipresence of God is every whit as intelligible as the overspreading of Matter into all places 4. But if here any one demand How the parts as I may so call them of the Divine Amplitude hold together that of Matter being so discerpible it might be sufficient to remind him of what we have already spoken of the general notion of a Spirit But besides that here may be also a peculiar rational account given thereof it implying a contradiction that an Essence absolutely perfect should be either limited in presence or change place in part or whole they being both notorious Effects or Symptoms of Imperfection which is inconsistent with the nature of God And no better nor more cogent reason
things I say are beyond the powers of Matter I have fully enough declared proved in a large Letter of mine to V. C. and therefore that I may not actum agere shall forbear speaking any farther thereof in this place To which you may adde that meer corporeal motion in Matter without any other guide would never so much as produce a round Sun or Star of which figure notwithstanding Des-Cartes acknowledges them to be But my reasons why it cannot be effected by the simple Mechanical powers of Matter I have particularly set down in my Letters to that excellent Philosopher CHAP. XIII 1. That the Descent of heavy Bodies argues the existence of the Spirit of Nature because else they would either hang in the Aire as they are placed 2. Or would be diverted from a perpendicular as they fall near a Plate of Metall set stooping 3. That the endeavour of the AEther or Aire from the Centre to the Circumference is not the cause of Gravity against Mr. Hobbs 4. A full confutation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion 5. An ocular Demonstration of the absurd consequence thereof 6. An absolute Demonstration that Gravity cannot be the effect of meer Mechanical powers 7. The Latitude of the operations of the Spirit of Nature how large and where bounded 8. The reason of its name 9. It s grand office of transmitting Souls into rightly-prepared Matter 1. AND a farther confirmation that I am not mistaken therein is what we daily here experience upon Earth which is the descending of heavy Bodies as we call them Concerning the motion whereof I agree with Des-Cartes in the assignation of the immediate corporeal cause to wit the AEtherial matter which is so plentifully in the Air over it is in grosser Bodies but withall doe vehemently surmise that there must be some immaterial cause such as we call the Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soule of the World that must direct the motions of the AEtherial particles to act upon these grosser Bodies to drive them towards the Earth For that surplusage of Agitation of the globular particles of the AEther above what they spend in turning the Earth about is carried every way indifferently according to his own concession by which motion the drops of liquors are formed into round figures as he ingeniously concludes From whence it is apparent that a bullet of iron silver or gold placed in the aire is equally assalted on all sides by the occursion of these aethereal particles and therefore will be moved no more downwards then upwards but hang in aequilibrio as a piece of Cork rests on the water where there is neither winde nor stream but is equally plaied against by the particles of water on all sides 3. Nor can the endeavour of the celestial Matter from the centre to the circumference take place here For besides that Des-Cartes the profoundest Master of Mechanicks has declin'd that way himself though Mr. Hobbs has taken it up it would follow that near the Poles of the Earth there would be no descent of heavy Bodies at all and in the very Clime we live in none perpendicular To say nothing how this way will not salve the union of that great Water that adheres to the body of the Moon 6. Adde unto all this that if the motion of gross Bodies were according to meer Mechanical laws a Bullet suppose of Lead or Gold cast up into the aire would never descend again but would persist in a rectilinear motion For it being farre more solid then so much Aire AEther put together as would fill its place and being moved with no less swiftness then that wherewith the Earth is carried about in twenty four hours it must needs break out in a straight line through the thin aire and never return again to the Earth but get away as a Comet does out of a Vortex And that de facto a Canon Bullet has been shot so high that it never fell back again upon the ground Des-Cartes does admit of as a true experiment Of which for my own part I can imagine no other unexceptionable reason but that at a certain distance the Spirit of Nature in some regards leaves the motion of Matter to the pure laws of Mechanicks but within other bounds checks it whence it is that the Water does not swill out of the Moon 7. Now if the pure Mechanick powers in Matter and Corporeal motion will not amount to so simple a Phaenomenon as the falling of a stone to the Earth how shall we hope they will be the adaequate cause of sundry sorts of Plants and other things that have farre more artifice and curiosity then the direct descent of a stone to the ground Nor are we beaten back again by this discovery into that dotage of the confounded Schools who have indued almost every different Object of our Senses with a distinct Substantial form and then puzzle themselves with endless scrupulosities about the generation corruption and mixtion of them For I affirm with Des-Cartes that nothing affects our Senses but such variations of Matter as are made by difference of Motion Figure Situation of parts c. but I dissent from him in this in that I hold it is not meer and pure mechanical motion that causes all these sensible Modifications in Matter but that many times the immediate Director thereof is this Spirit of Nature I speak of one and the same every where and acting alwaies alike upon like occasions as a clear-minded man and of a solid judgment gives alwaies the same verdict in the same circumstances For this Spirit of Nature intermedling with the efformation of the Foetus of Animals as I have already shewn more then once where notwithstanding there seems not so much need there being in them a more particular Agent for that purpose 't is exceeding rational that all Plants and Flowers of all sorts in which we have no argument to prove there is any particular Souls should be the effects of this Universal Soule of the World Which Hypothesis besides that it is most reasonable in it self according to that ordinary Axiome Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora is also very serviceable for the preventing many hard Problems about the Divisibility of the Soules of Plants their Transmutations into other Species the growing of Slips and the like For there is one Soule ready every where to pursue the advantages of prepared Matter Which is the common and onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of all Plantal appearances or of whatever other Phaenomena there be greater or smaller that exceed the pure Mechanical powers of Matter We except onely Men and Beasts who having all of them the capacity of some sort of enjoyments or other it was fit they should have particular Souls for the multiplying of the sense of those enjoyments which the transcendent Wisdome of the Creatour has contrived 8. I have now plainly enough set down what I mean by the Spirit of