even their Powers to conceive or apprehend the true and next reasons or causes of such Performances To such purpose Phil. Melanchthon lib. de anima p. 20. He had just before recited Certas descriptiones Philisophicas quae si de pecudis anima tantum quaereretur utcunque monstrarent aliquid quod cogitari potest in materia fons esse actionum nondum tamen penitus haec perspicimus cur ita factum sit sapientia est artificis non nostra Pag. 112. he says Maxime admirandum est cerebrum quod est domicilium ac officina cogitationum And altho we do not thorowly know the Substance and Operation of the Brain nor the ubi or quomodo such things are wrought in it but must leave such Knowledge to the Wisdom of the Creator Yet thus much says he Men may know of it oriri ejus materiam à subtilissima parte seminis plena spirituum quae in formatione foetus in illam hominis arcem summam quasi exaestuat cum epar cor venulae inchoantur And this derivation of the Brain and its daily and known Performances make it look very like a matâ—ria Cogitativa and as such it shall be left here notwithstanding our Author the Preachers pretences to the contrary In this page he handles Matter as if three of the Elements viz. Water Air and Fire were no parts of Matter which I pass for an apparent mistake And he says Matter cannot acquire Motion of itself without thrusting of some other Body or intrinsical Motion of an immaterial Spirit This is denied before and instances given of the Wind and Fire which move themselves and other things about them during the whole continuance of their own being P. 18. He says no parts of Matter considered in themselves are hot or cold white or black bitter or sweet and that they have neither light or colour heat or sound these are not says he in Bodies absolutely considered but in our Eyes Ears and other Organs of Sense I answer Quod non ego credulus illi I grant Men cannot perceive such qualities in Matter but by means of their Senses but withal do believe that there are Light and Bodies illuminating tho Men should not see them so Sounds not heard so Heat without Mens feeling it discoverable enough by seeing it at a distance consumption of the fewel and the scorcht blackness of such parts of the fewel as are left after such a fire But yet he will prove what he said to be true by an instance For says he If glass that hath no colour at all be broke and braid into small parcels those small parcels will look to be of a white colour and yet truly they have no more colour in them than they had before and that truly is none at all I grant him there is in this instance a deceptio visus and that the thing appears otherwise than it is Shall it be concluded that because our Senses are deceived in some things therefore we cannot trust them in any thing there seems small foundation for such a conclusion And I will thereupon put him another instance viz. Put a strait Stick into the water presently it will appear crooked but take it out and it will look strait again and was always so notwithstanding its appearance He may as well pretend to infer that there are really no crooked sticks in Nature as that Matter hath no real Qualities because Men are deceived in thinking his bray'd-Glass to be white And yet he says P. 19. That he hath sufficiently proved his Assertion But I beg his pardon for thinking he is mistaken He says there That the Qualities in Bodies can no more be conceived to be real than Roses or Honey can be thought to smell and taste their own sweetness Had he said than Roses have a sweet smell or Honey a sweet taste the saying might have been both coherent and true whereas now it seems to be neither P. 20. He pretends to believe and persuade that the Body of Man is a Senseless piece of Matter which hath neither colour warmth softness c. He says he hath proved this but I do not know where and I beg his pardon for not believing him For I must adhere to Thomas Didymus against him trusting my own Senses in their healthy and sound Condition to judge of their proper Objects placed at a reasonable distance and the fitting Sphere of their Activity and assisted by the ordinary Powers of Human Perception or Judgment which easily discovers that the Sight is deceived when it takes his bray'd-Glass to be really white or my Stick in the water to be really crooked He says farther It is not Blood and Bones that can judge nor can the Head or Brain do it as being only Body and not imaginative P. 21. But says he Our opposers may reply and so they do That the Animal Spirits and Insensible Particles there residing viz. in the Head and Brain do actuate the common Sense Phancy Memory Judgment and other Powers of the Understanding To this he replies the thing cannot be so for that their Spirits must have each a determinate Figure as Cubes Spheres Cones c. But this is not granted him for I say rather that these Spirits in the Head are Particles of the purest Blood Inflamed glowing and lucid irradiating the Brain and all the Ventricles or Concavities of it with the appendances of Apprehension and Memory thereunto belonging He says We do not grind inanimate Corn into Living and Rational Meal and that Nails Hair Horns and Hoofs may bid as fair for Understanding as the finest Animl Spirit of them all To this I answer That the inflamed glowing Particles of Blood called Spirits are not in themselves Sentient or Intelligent but they are the Actus primus corporis Organici viz. The Active Principle of Life Motion Sense and Understanding in Man and Beast stimulating and acting every Part and Organ of the Body to the performance of those Duties for which by the Great Creator they were intended and made Those Spirits therefore Act the Eye to see the Ear to hear the Tongue to speak the Liver to make blood the Heart to purifie and refine it the Understanding or Brain to apprehend judge and remember It cannot make one Organ perform the Function of another Organ but acts every Organ according to its proper Use and natural Capacity And therefore it is not the Soul or the Body that act inable or govern the Man but the Man by the activity of his Soul and the aptitude of his bodily Organs doth all those things which we daily see are done amongst us not by Soul or Body singly but by the Virtues and Contexture of both together For his saying that Men cannot grind Corn into Living and Rational Meal If it have a meaning it seems to intend that Corn cannot be so used as to effect Life and Rationality in Men and if it be taken in that sense the
opinion seems to be a very clear mistake For every days Experience shews that Corn ground and made into Bread is one of the strongest supports of Life both for Man and Beast that concocted in the Stomach is converted into Blood in the Liver purified in the Heart sent thence by the Arteries into the Head and Brain where becoming a Spirit inflam'd and lucid it acts in all the Organs the Powers of Life Motion Senses and Understanding And if such Corn be Brewed into Drink we know it may be made so spirited as a little of it will very much revive quicken and cherish the Natural Faculties of Man and Beast and particulary the discerning and rational Powers of Mankind in increasing activity and mettle both in Body and Soul We say of Wine Moderate sumptum acuit ingenium 1 Esdras 3. Wine makes the mind of a Beggar equal to that of a King and turns every thought into jollity This grows from the subtilty and activity of that Liquor and the many and strong Spirits which are in it apt to take fire and be inflamed and to burn till the whole Spirit of it be consumed And the Soul Material is not only refresh'd and strengthened by Corn and Wine as well as the Body but the Soul generally of any sort material or immaterial cannot live or continue in the Body without Breath Blood and daily or sufficient Nourishment For the Blood Moses calls it the life of the creature and says the life is in the blood and as the life it makes atonement upon the Altar As to the Breath all Men know that if it be stopt but for a few moments the Soul if Material will be extinguished and if Immaterial will be dislodged and driven away from its Body not able to subsist there even for a short time without breath which how it should be so very needful for an Immaterial Soul I cannot conceive Well but farther the Man must have daily or sufficient Nourishment or else the Soul as well as the Body will find want of it and the Man will decay by degrees till for want of a supply death and dissolution must follow if a supply be not had in time competent We read 1 Sam. 30. that David at Ziklag found an Egyptian in the field famished for he had neither eaten nor drunk in three days and three nights but they gave him Fruit and Water upon which the Man's Spirit came again to him so Judg. 15. Sampson ready to die for thirst pray'd and God clave a hollow place in the Jaw-bone and there came water thereout and when Sampson had drunk his Spirit came again and he revived In both these cases if necessary Nourishment had not come in due time the Persons had died for upon nourishment they revived and Sampson's Spirit came again to him and he revived I demand what sort of Spirit was this which came again and revived Sampson it seems not one that was Immaterial because that needs not nor is capable of nourishment and therefore I conclude it was a Material Spirit which needed Nourishment and was capable of being refreshed and revived by it as adding new Fuel for supporting the flame of Life almost extinguished for want of needful Nourishment And yet upon this revival we find the Egyptians Understanding Memory and Senses were presently recovered of which before his eating he had little or no use at all Whence it appears that rational Powers are acted by this Spirit which depends upon Nourishment as failing and reviving with it And from all this it seems one may venture to conclude that Corn may be converted into a living and rational Activity as being a proper Nourishment for Man and Beast and for their Bodies and Souls one as well as the other as being so for the Man who is a Contexture of both His six next Pages viz. from 22 to 28 are intended to confute those who affirm that the great or little Worlds were not created by God but that they derive themselves from an accidental Concourse and Cohesion of Atoms That all were the Works of God I am ready to grant and to maintain as well as he but in his design to prove God's Providence and Creation by the Immateriality of human Souls I judge he hath taken a wrong Sow by the ear The Creation of the World by God I grant to be true that the human Soul is Immaterial I hold not to be true and I can but be sorry to find our Preacher fallen into the Inconvenience of endeavouring to prove that which is true by that which perhaps is not true P. 28. He says Men will object the Powers and Actions of some Brutes nearly approaching to human Reason and with some visible Glimpses of Understanding and say they if these things can be performed by the pure Mechanism of their Bodies then it is but raising our Conceptions and supposing Men to be Engines of a finer make and contexture and the business is done for then the Objectors will say there needs no Immaterial Soul nor any Soul at all for the acting of human Faculties but the Mechanism of human Bodies should be enough to act their Faculties and perform all that by Men is usually and naturally performed P. 29. He quotes the other Opinion viz. That Brutes have degrees of Reason and their full Senses and Affections and Motions and therefore have Souls and those Immaterial Our Preacher passes over both these Opinions as very indifferent things to him which of them be true or whether either or neither of them be so I have shewn before that both these Opinions are erroneous which he thought not fit to assert here where it seems he properly ought to have done it altho I doubt not but that he believes them to be so He says We need not be concerned about the Truth in this point viz. whether the Brutes are Machines or have Immortal Souls but I say if either of these Opinions be true the whole Fabrick of Nature and Science would thereby be drawn into very great Differences and Alterations and the point is not indifferent to others whatsoever it be to him Well but says he if Men be Machines they can have neither Reason nor Sense He should have gone on and said but we know that Men have Sense and Reason and therefore they are not bare Machines as some pretend to make men believe but instead of that fairer and truer Inference it pleases him to deliver a Paradoxical and fallacious Axiom of his own uncoherently enough introduced viz. Omnipotency it self cannot create cogitative Body because of an Incapacity in the Subject I have before spoken concerning Earth pulverized and rarified into the tenuity of a Cloud impregnated with steams and juices no less but more fine and active than the Vegetable Souls or Spirits of Plants mixed and irrigated and as it were steep'd and soak'd by and with innumerable Rivages and Sources proceeding from Fountains and Cisterns with which the outward
OBSERVATIONS upon a Sermon Intituled A Confutation of Atheism from the Faculties of the Soul aliàs Matter and Motion cannot think Preached April 4. 1692. By way of REFUTATION THE whole Sermon is comprehended in 39 pages the first 12 of which or to page 12 are employed as an Introduction or Apparatus to his Text and Design and page 12 the Preacher says he intends to prove that the Life Motion Essence and Nature of Man is derived from God and may direct Men to the knowledge of him but all this need not be proved to Men of my opinion who do willingly agree the Truth of his Assertion P. 13. he says he will prove That there is an Immaterial Substance in Man which we call Soul and Spirit essentially distinct from our Bodies And this if he shall substantially perform it shall pass for heroic and above all ordinary power but presently he seeks to avoid and shift off his performance of Proving by saying that the thing is evident in it self But this I do utterly deny and think the contrary more evident viz. That the humane Soul is a material Spirit generated growing and falling with the Body and rising again with it at the sound of the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God And upon this Difference between our Positions the state of our present Controversie will depend I have denied this his Assertion That the thing is self-evident Why but says he There is something in Man's Composition that thinks deliberates consents and actuates all humane Sensations and Powers these Activities cannot come from nothing therefore they come from an immaterial Soul or Spirit in Man To this I answer his Consequence is not good viz. These Powers come from something ergo from an Immaterial Spirit for they may come from a Material Spirit In proof whereof I argue à simili The Plants live grow flourish and fructifie by a Material Spirit The Insects act admirably by a like Spirit The Brutes act sensibly and knowingly by a like Spirit ergo Man may perform all his natural Functions by the like means of a Material Spirit inspiring and acting the proper Organs which God hath made apt for such purposes We see in a Musical Organ every Pipe hath its proper Sound and Function and the same Breath acts them all and therein appears a great Effect and Power of Matter and Motion rightly fabricated and acted by the hand of Artists and what then may not God do with them and by them when he pleaseth I take a second Exception to his saying there is something in Man's Composition that thinks argues c. He says there is no Man so sceptical as to deny this or to doubt of it but his Mistake is great in it for I do believe that there is not any particular thing in Man's composition that thinks argues c. but that it is the Man himself viz. the whole Composition of Soul and Body by a divine and admirable Contexture united which thinks argues and doth all other natural things which God hath given him a Power and Propensity to do It is not the Preacher's something in Man that doth all those things which he mentions but it is the Man that doth them not that something which he will surmise to be the Soul for that cannot act without the bodily Organs not think without the Brain nor remember without the Organ of Memory any more than see without an Eye or speak without a Tongue or generate without a proper Organ for that purpose And this needs be no news to our Preacher for his Master Aristotle in his treatise of the Soul lib. 2. cap. 5. counts it a great impropriety of speaking to say that the Soul is sorrowful fearful sensitive or rational angry or the like and that one may say as properly that the Soul weaves or builds and that it is not proper to say the Soul learns or reasons but the Man doth so viz. the whole Compositum of Soul and Body doth them further he saith there To love hate think or use reason are not properly Affections or Actions of the Soul but of him who hath the Soul In his 1. cap. dicti Lib. he questions whether the Soul have any Affections or Actions not communicated to the Compositum or Person but kept as peculiar to itself Finally he says It seems to him that the Soul hath neither Desire Anger Fear c. nor can do or suffer by them without the Body nor that it can so much as perceive or be sensible without it the very Intellect he thinks either is the Phansie or cannot be acted without it and then cannot the Soul use it without help of the bodily Organs Dicaearchus maintains his Master's doctrine in this point and Pliny in his Natural History lib. 7. cap. 55. says the like Shew if you can says he what is the Substance and Body of the Soul as it were what kind of Matter is it apart from the Body where lieth the Cogitation which she hath how doth she see or hear what toucheth she nay what one thing doth she how is she employed or if there be none of all this in her what good can be to her without them surely these are but Imaginations of Men who fain would live always And there is the like Foolery in preserving of Mens Dead Bodies yea such is the Folly and Vanity of Men that they think the human Soul extends naturally to future Ages and that Ghosts separated from their Bodies have Sense and thereupon render Men them honour and worship making a God of him who is not so much as a Man as if the manner of Mens Breathing differ'd from that of other Creatures These were all persons eminently learn'd and yet they denied that Man's Powers were acted by any particular or specifical something that was in him and affirmed as I do that all are Actions of the Compositum or the Man a Contexture of Soul and Body and by no means can our Preacher's something perform such Offices without the divine and admirable Contexture of Soul and Body for that the one of these without the other can do no such things nor can probably do or suffer anything at all P. 14. Our Preacher says Such Powers and Actions must have an Efficient Cause and I grant it and assign the Contexture of Soul and Body in Man as the Efficient and proper Cause of all such Actions Then he says that Cogitation Volition and Sensation are neither inherent in Matter as such nor acquirable to Matter by any Motion or Modification of it To this I answer that Sensation and Perception are inherent in Man and Beast and to each of them belonging as they are divine Compositions or rather Contextures of Soul and Body Gen. 2.7 says God formed Man of the dust of the ground so c. 3. v. 19. God says to Man out of the ground wast thou taken for dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return We know
World daily communicates for supplying the daily Decays of them I conceive Matter thus constituted impregnated irrigated and enlivened may by Divine Power be made cogitative That the Insects work according to Rules of Art and Science I know none who can observe them and deny it that Brutes have their Senses Affections Passions Appetites and Motions all Men do grant but the most blind and wilful among the Cartesians also that they have Phansie Memory and Perceivances acted in and by their Brains and Dr. Willis dict lib. p. 59. says in Hominibus Brutis eadem prorsus est conformatio organorum animalium And the Evidences that Cogitation and all other rational Acts in Men depend upon the Brain and are performed in it and by it seem to me so clear and undeniable as that joined to the rest it may pass for a strong Proof that the Brain of Man is cogitative Matter or very like it And as to his phrasing it that Omnipotence it self cannot make cogitative Body there may be applied a Saying of Dr. Willis p. 5. such Men it seems do think quod Deus nihil amplius fabricare valeat quam quod homo possit concipere aut effingere Well but our Preacher says this cannot be done because of the Incapacity of the Subject to this I answer that Aaron's Rod laid upon the Tabernacle was dry Wood and seemed to be under an incapacity of bearing Fruit and yet in the morning by Divine Power it had budded and brought forth Blossoms and yielded Almonds the Red Sea stood like Walls and Jordan staid its Waters from running downwards the Chaldean Fire forbore to burn God's Servants or so much as to singe their Cloths all which are Acts beyond the natural Capacities of the Agents of them and so was the multiplying of the Loaves and Fishes under the Gospel and what will our Preacher say to Matth. 19.24 Hath a Camel the Capacity of going through the Eye of a needle Christ says with Men this is impossible but not with God for with him all things are possible whence it seems possible with him to make cogitative Body notwithstanding our Preachers assurance to the contrary That the cogitative Power very much depends upon the good Disposition Soundness and Temperament of the Brain is a thing so well known as it seems to need very little confirmation David Psal 146.3 says When the breath of man goeth forth he shall turn again to his earth and then all his thoughts perish the new Translation reads Mans breath goeth forth he returns to his earth and that very day his thoughts perish The perishing of his Thoughts may be expounded his Intentions or Designs but more literally and fully it seems to intend the Man's power and faculty of Thinking for the Man dead can think no more But what is it that dies our Preacher will deny that his Soul dies and yet by Death the Man's Faculty of Thinking is certainly destroyed viz. by Death of the Body and the Parts and Organs of it ergo the Body or some Organs of it are materia cogitativa And the same may be further proved ex principiis for during Childhood and whilst the cogitative Parts and Organs are immature we think like Children but grown to maturity we put away childish Thoughts or modes of Thinking and yet then if the Brain happen to be clouded with Fumes from the Spleen or other Distempers or even by those from Wine or Strong-drink the Man cannot think orderly or rationally and in phrenetick Distempers Mens Thoughts rave and rove without Order or any Coherence or Connexion at all in Diseases where the Head is stupified as Apoplexies the Man becomes temporally incapable of any Thoughts at all From all which I collect that the Particles of Blood inflamed ascending from the Heart unto the Head are there further rarified and made lucid irradiating the Brain and the Ventricles thereof and that to these Spirits and Organs God hath imparted a discerning Faculty or Power and that when these Organs are sound and perfect and the flaming Particles clear bright and lucid they work to a perfection of degrees in the Minds Reason and Thoughts of Men unto which God adds when he pleases afflatum divini numinis and that accumulates an excellency of Perfection to Man and in him of thinking inventing and discerning P. 31. Our Preacher says he hath sufficiently shewn that Sense and Perception can never be the product of any kind of Matter or Motion And if this be true let our Readers make themselves the Judges Well but says he if this cannot be corporeal it must come from an incorporeal Substance within us If he will take a material Spirit for an incorporeal Substance we are agreed but if he will have this incorporeal Substance to be an immaterial intelligent angelical Spirit I answer he hath not proved the necessity of its being so nor that the thing is so nay here he confesses we cannot conceive the manner of our Souls Action and Passion nor what hold it can lay on the Body when it voluntarily moves it this is what we cannot conceive of such a Soul But I desire him to tell us what he doth conceive or know concerning such a Soul that he will evince to Reason quod sit quid sit unde oritur quando ingreditur ubi residet quomodo operatur an separatim subsistit quo avolat deficiente corpore If he can teach scientifically concerning these Points his word will be better taken in many other things and yet even then I could hardly credit his next Assertion viz. tho we cannot conceive the Soul nor its Actings yet we are as certain of them as of any Mathematical Truth whatsoever which I both can conceive and may be easily demonstrated to me The Truth and Reasonableness of this Assertion shall be left to those who are at leisure to consider of them P. 32. He confesses his Ignorance in causes of Mens Pleasure Pain Sleep Activity he says this Knowledge exceeds Man's narrow Faculties and is out of the reach of our Discovery he discerns excellent Final Causes of the vital Conjunction of Body and Soul but the Instrumental he knows not nor how they are united or tied together he resolves all into God's good Pleasure but he shews us no Evidence that it is or ever was his Pleasure to inform Mankind by an Immaterial Intelligent Spirit which is capable of living in a State of Separation from the Body And if Corporeal Powers be confessedly too hard for him it may seem strange he should attempt upon the Disquisition concerning the Being and Operations of an Immaterial Soul in Man without so much as offering to make any positive proof of the Thing from the Grounds either of Reason or Scripture I am not able to credit his bare Word for it nor his negative proof that it must be so because he thinks it cannot be otherwise These persuasions seem of small force with those who think the