may easily abstain from winking But if fear surprise him the Soule is to be entitled to the action and not the meer Mechanisme of the Body Wherefore this is no proof that the Phaenomena of Passions with their consequences may be salved in brute Beasts by pure Mechanicks and therefore neither in Men but it is evident that they arise in us against both our Will and Appetite For who would bear the tortures of Fears and Jealousies if he could avoid it And therefore the Soule sends not nor determines the Spirits thus to her own Torture as she resides in the Head Whence it is plain that it is the effect of her as she resides in the Heart and Stomack which sympathize with the horrid representation in the Common Sensorium by reason of the exquisite unity of the Soul with her self of the continuity of Spirits in the Body the necessary instrument of all her Functions And there is good reason the Heart Stomack should be so much affected they being the chief Seats of those Faculties that maintain the life of the Body the danger whereof is the most eminent Object of Fear in any Animal 7. From this Principle I conceive that not onely the Sympathy of parts in one particular Subject but of different and distant Subjects may be understood such as is betwixt the party wounded and the Knife or Sword that wounded him besmeared with the Weapon-salve and kept in a due temper Which certainly is not purely Mechanical but Magical though not in an unlawful sense that is to say it is not to be resolved into meer Matter of what thinness or subtilty soever you please but into the Unity of the Soul of the Universe and Continuity of the subtile Matter which answers to our Animal Spirits And in this sense it is that Plotinus sayes that the World is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the grand Magus or Enchanter And I doe not question but that upon this score meerly without the association of any Familiar Spirit several odde things may be done for evil as well as good For this Spirit of the World has Faculties that work not by Election but fatally or naturally as several Gamaitus we meet withall in Nature seem somewhat obscurely to subindicate Of this Principle we shall speak more fully in its due place 8. But we have yet a more clear discovery that our Soul is not confined to any one part of the Head but possesses the whole Body from the Perception of Pain in the parts thereof For it is plainly impossible that so high a torture as is felt but in the pricking of a Pin can be communicated to the Centre of Perception upon a meer Mechanical account For whether the immediate Instrument of Sense be the Pith of the Nerves as Des-Cartes would have it or whether it be the Spirits as is most true it is ridiculous to think that by the forcible parting of what was joyned together at ease when this case is not communicated to either the Spirits or Pith of the Nerves from the place of the Puncture to the very seat of Common Sense that the Soul there seated should feel so smart a torment unless that her very Essence did reach to the part where the pain is felt to be For then the reason of this is plain that it is the Unity of Soul possessing the whole Body and the Continuity of Spirits that is the cause thereof And it is no wonder if the continuation and natural composure of the Spirits be Rest and Ease to the Soul that a violent disjoyning and bruising of them and baring the Soul of them as I may so speak should cause a very harsh and torturous sense in the Centre of Perception This Argument bears undeniable Evidence with it if we doe but consider the fuzziness of the Pith of the Nerves and the fluidity of the Spirits and what little stress or crouding so small a thing as a Pin or Needle can make in such soft and liquid Matter CHAP. XI 1. That neither the Soul without the Spirits nor the Spirits without the presence of the Soul in the Organ are sufficient causes of Sensation 2. A brief declaration how Sensation is made 3. How Imagination 4. Of Reason and Memory and whether there be any Marks in the Brain 5. That the Spirits are the immediate Instrument of the Soul in Memory also and how Memory arises 6. As also Forgetfulness 7. How spontaneous Motion is performed 8. How we walk sing and play though thinking of something else 9. That though the Spirits be not alike fine every where yet the Sensiferous Impression will pass to the Common Sensorium 10. That there is an Heterogeneity in the very Soul her self and what it is in her we call the Root the Centre and the Eye and what the Rayes and Branches 11. That the sober and allowable Distribution of her into Parts is into Perceptive and Plastick 1. AFter our evincing that the Soul is not confined to the Common Sensorium but does essentially reach all the Organs of the Body it will be more easy to determine the Nature of Sensation and other Operations we mentioned For we have already demonstrated these two things of main consequence That the Spirits are not sufficient of themselves for these Functions nor the Soul of her self without the assistance of the Spirits as is plain in the interception or disjunction of the Spirits by Ligature or Obstruction whence it is that Blindness sometimes happens meerly for that the Optick Nerve is obstructed 2. Wherefore briefly to dispatch our third Querie I say in general That Sensation is made by the arrival of motion from the Object to the Organ where it is received in all the circumstances we perceive it in and conveyed by vertue of the Souls presence there assisted by her immediate Instrument the Spirits by vertue of whose continuity to those in the Common Sensorium the Image or Impress of every Object is faithfully transmitted thither 3. As for Imagination there is no question but that Function is mainly exercised in the chief seat of the Soul those purer Animal Spirits in the fourth Ventricle of the Brain I speak especially of that Imagination which is most free such as we use in Romantick Inventions or such as accompany the more severe Meditations and Disquisitions in Philosophy or any other Intellectuall entertainments For Fasting fresh Aire moderate Wine and all things that tend to an handsome supply and depuration of the Spirits make our thoughts more free subtile and clear 4. Reason is so involved together with Imagination that we need say nothing of it apart by it self Memory is a Faculty of a more peculiar consideration and if the Pith of the Brain contribute to the Functions of any power of the mind more then by conserving the Animal Spirits it is to this But that the Brain should be stored with distinct images whether they consist of the Flexures of the supposed Fibrillae or the orderly
is not active of it self because it is reducible to Rest Which is an Argument not only that Self-activity belongs to a Spirit but that there is such a thing as a Spirit in the world from which activity is communicated to Matter And indeed if Matter as Matter had motion nothing would hold together but Flints Adamant Brass Iron yea this whole Earth would suddenly melt into a thinner Substance then the subtil Aire or rather it never had been condensated together to this consistency we finde it But this is to anticipate my future purpose of proving That there are Spirits existing in the world It had been sufficient here to have asserted That Self-motion or Self-activity is as conceivable to appertain to Spirit as Body which is plain at first sight to any man that appeales to his own Faculties Nor is it at all to be scrupled at that any thing should be allowed to move it self because our adversaries that say there is nothing but Matter in the world must of necessity as I have intimated already confess that this Matter moves it self though it be very incongruous so to affirm 2. The congruity and possibility of Self-penetration in a created Spirit is to be conceived partly from the limitableness of the Subject and partly from the foregoing attributes of Indiscerpibility and Self-motion For Self-penetration cannot belong to God because it is impossible any thing should belong to him that implyes imperfection and Self-penetration cannot be without the lessening of the presence of that which does penetrate it self or the implication that some parts of that essence are not so well as they may be which is a contradiction in a Being which is absolutely perfect From the Attributes of Indiscerpibility and Self-motion to which you may adde Penetrability from the generall notion of a Spirit it is plain that such a Spirit as we define having the power of Motion upon the whole extent of its essence may also determine this Motion according to the Property of its own nature and therefore if it determine the motion of the exteriour parts inward they will return inward towards the center of essentiall power which they may easily doe without resistance the whole Subject being penetrable and without damage it being also indiscerpible 3. From this Self-penetration we doe not only easily but necessarily understand Self-contraction and dilatation to arise For this self-moving Substance which we call a Spirit cannot penetrate it self but it must needs therewith contract it self nor restore it self again to it's former state but it does thereby dilate it self so that we need not at all insist upon these termes 4. That power which a Spirit has to penetrate Matter we may easily understand if we consider a Spirit only as a Substance whose immediate property is Activity For then it is not harder to imagine this Active Substance to pervade this or the other part of Matter then it is to conceive the pervading or disspreading of motion it self therein 6. The last Terme I put in the Definition of a Spirit is the power of altering the Matter which will necessarily follow from it's power of moving it or directing its motion For Alteration is nothing else but the varying of either the Figures or postures or the degrees of motion in the particles all which are nothing else but the results of locall motion Thus have we cleared the intelligibility and possibility of all the Termes that belong to the Notion of a created Spirit in generall at least of such as may be rationally conceived to be the causes of any visible Phaenomena in the world We will now descend to the defining of the chief Species thereof CHAP. VIII 1. Four main Species of Spirits 2. How they are to be defined 3. The definition of a Seminall Forme 4. Of the Soule of a Brute 5. Of the Soule of a Man 6. The difference betwixt the Soule of an Angel and an humane Soule 7. The definition of an Angelical Soule 8. Of the Platonicall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 9. That Des Cartes his Demonstration of the Existence of the Humane Soule does at least conclude the possibility of a Spirit 1. WE have enumerated four kindes of Spirits viz. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Seminall Formes the Soules of Brutes the Humane Soule and that Soule or Spirit which actuates or informes the vehicles of Angels For I look upon Angels to be as truly a compound Being consisting of Soule and Body as that of Men and Brutes Their Existence we shall not now goe about to prove for that belongs to another place My present design is onely to expound or define the notion of these things so far forth as is needful for the evincing that they are the Ideas or Notions of things which imply no contradiction or impossibility in their conception which will be very easy for us to perform the chief difficulty lying in that more General notion of a Spirit which we have so fully explained in the foregoing chapters 2. Now this General notion can be contracted into Kindes by no other Differences then such as may be called peculiar powers or properties belonging to one Spirit and excluded from another by the 8. Axiome From whence it will follow that if we describe these several kindes of Spirits by immediate and intrinsecall properties we have given as good Definitions of them as any one can give of any thing in the world 3. We will begin with what is most simple the Seminal Formes of things which for the present deciding nothing of their existence according to their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 possibilis we define thus A Seminal Forme is a created Spirit organizing duely prepared matter into life and vegetation proper to this or the other kind of plant It is beyond my imagination what can be excepted against this description it containing nothing but what is very cohaerent and intelligible For in that it is a Spirit it can move Matter intrinsecally or at least direct the motion thereof But in that it is not an Omnipotent Spirit but Finite and Created it 's power may well be restrained to duely prepared Matter both for vital union and motion He that has made these particular Spirits varying their Faculties of Vital union according to the diversity of the preparation of Matter and so limiting the whole comprehension of them all that none of them may be able to be vitally joyned with any matter whatever and the same first Cause of all things that gives them a power of uniting with and moving of matter duely prepared may also set such lawes to this motion that when it lights on matter fit for it it will produce such and such a Plant that is to say it will shape the matter into such Figure Colour and other properties as we discover in them by our Senses 4. This is the first degree of Particular Life in the world if there be any purely of this degree
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
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
particular But now as Aristotle has somewhere noted the Essences of things are like Numbers whose Species are changed by adding or taking away an Unite adde therefore another Intrinsecall power to this of Vegetation viz. Sensation and it becomes the Soule of a Beast For in truth the bare Substance it self is not to be computed in explicite knowledg it being utterly in it self unconceivable and therefore we will onely reckon upon the Powers A Subject therefore from whence is both Vegetation and Sensation is the general notion of the Soule of a Brute Which is distributed into a number of kindes the effect of every Intrinsecal power being discernible in the constant shape and properties of every distinct kind of Brute Creatures 5. If we adde to Vegetation and Sensation Reason properly so called we have then a setled notion of the Soule of Man which we may more compleatly describe thus A created Spirit indued with Sense and Reason and a power of organizing terrestrial matter into humane shape by vital union therewith 6. And herein alone I conceive does the Spirit or Soule of an Angel for I take the boldness to call that Soule what ever it is that has a power of vitally actuating the Matter differ from the Soule of a Man in that the Soule of an Angel may vitally actuate an aëreal or aethereal body but cannot be born into this world in a terrestrial one 7. To make an end therefore of our Definitions an Angelical Soule is very intelligibly described thus A created Spirit indued with Reason Sensation and a power of being vitally united with and actuating of a Body of aire or aether onely Which power over an aëreal or aethereal Body is very easily to be understood out of that general notion of a Spirit in the foregoing Chapters For it being there made good that union with Matter is not incompetible to a Spirit and consequently nor moving of it nor that kind of motion in a Spirit which we call Contraction and Dilatation these powers if carefully considered will necessarily infer the possibility of the Actuation and Union of an Angelical Soule with an aethereal or aiery Body 8. The Platonists write of other orders of Spirits or Immaterial Substances as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But there being more Subtilty then either usefulness or assurance in such like Speculations I shall pass them over at this time having already I think irrefutably made good That there is no incongruity nor incompossibility comprised in the Notion of Spirit or Incorporeal Substance 9. But there is yet another way of inferring the same and it is the Argument of Des-Cartes whereby he would conclude that there is de facto a Substance in us distinct from Matter viz. our own Minde For every Real affection or Property being the Mode of some Substance or other and reall Modes being unconceivable without their Subject he inferres that seeing we can doubt whether there be any such thing as Body in the world by which doubting we seclude Cogitation from Body there must be some other Substance distinct from the Body to which Cogitation belongs But I must confess this Argument will not reach home to Des-Cartes his purpose who would prove in Man a substance distinct from his body For being there may be modes common to more Subjects then one and this of Cogitation may be pretended to be such as is competible as well to substance Corporeal as Incorporeal it may be conceived apart from either though not from both And therefore his argument does not prove that That in us which does think or perceive is a Substance distinct from our Body but onely That there may be such a Substance which has the power of thinking or perceiving which yet is not a Body For it being impossible that there should be any real mode which is in no Subject and we clearly conceiving Cogitation independent for existence on Corporeal Substance it is necessary That there may be some other Substance on which it may depend which must needs be a Substance Incorporeal CHAP. IX 1. That it is of no small consequence to have proved the Possibility of the Existence of a Spirit 2. The necessity of examining of Mr. Hobbs his Reasons to the contrary 3. The first Excerption out of Mr. Hobbs 4. The second Excerption 5. The third 6. The fourth 7. The fifth 8. The sixth 9. The seventh 10. The eighth and last Excerption 1. I Have been I believe to admiration curious and sollicitous to make good that the Existence of a Spirit or Incorporeal Substance is possible But there is no reason any one should wonder that I have spent so much pains to make so small and inconsiderable a progresse as to bring the thing only to a bare possibility For though I may seem to have gained little to my self yet I have thereby given a very signal overthrow to the adverse party whose strongest hold seems to be an unshaken confidence That the very notion of a Spirit or Substance Immaterial is a perfect Incompossibility and pure Non-sense From whence are insinuated no better Consequences then these That it is impossible that there should be any God or Soule or Angel Good or Bad or any Immortality or Life to come That there is no Religion no Piety nor Impiety no Vertue nor Vice Justice nor Injustice but what it pleases him that has the longest Sword to call so That there is no Freedome of Will nor consequently any Rational remorse of Conscience in any Being whatsoever but that all that is is nothing but Matter and corporeal Motion and that therefore every trace of mans life is as necessary as the tracts of Lightning and the fallings of Thunder the blind impetus of the Matter breaking through or being stopt every where with as certain and determinate necessity as the course of a Torrent after mighty stormes and showers of Rain 2. And verily considering of what exceeding great consequence it is to root out this sullen conceit that some have taken up concerning Incorporeal Substance as if it bore a contradiction in the very termes I think I shall be wanting to so weighty a Cause if I shall content my self with a bare recitation of the Reasons whereby I prove it possible and not produce their Arguments that seem most able to maintain the contrary And truly I doe not remember that I ever met with any one yet that may justly be suspected to be more able to make good this Province then our Countreyman Mr. Hobbs whose inexuperable confidence of the truth of the Conclusion may well assure any man that duely considers the excellency of his natural Wit and Parts that he has made choice of the most Demonstrative Arguments that humane Invention can search out for the eviction thereof 3. And that I may not incurre the suspicion of mistaking his Assertion or of misrepresenting the force of his Reasons I shall here punctually set them down in
Mechanicall congruities and not pitch upon any thing that by the advantage of this Supposall That there is a Soule in man may goe for possible but to chuse what is most handsome and convenient 12. That the whole Brain is not the Seat of Common Sense appears from the wounds and cuts it may receive without the destruction of that Faculty for they will not take away Sense and Motion unless they pierce so deep as to reach the Ventricles of the Brain as Galen has observed 13. Nor is it in Regius his small solid particle For besides that it is not likely the Centre of Perception is so minute it is very incongruous to place it in a Body so perfectly solid more hard then Marble or Iron But this Invention being but a late freak of his petulant fancy that has an ambition to make a blunder and confusion of all Des-Cartes his Metaphysicall Speculations and therefore found out this rare quirk of wit to shew how though the Soule were nothing but Matter yet it might be incorruptible and immortal it was not worth the while to take notice of it here in this Hypothesis which we have demonstrated to be true viz. That there is a Soule in the Body whose nature is immateriall or incorporeall 14. Nor are the Membranes in the Head the common Sensorium neither those that envelop the Brain for they would be able then to see the light through the hole the Trepan makes though the party Trepan'd winked-with his eyes to say nothing of the conveyance of the Nerves the Organs of externall Sense that carry beyond these exteriour Membranes and therefore point to a place more inward that must be the Recipient of all their impresses nor any Internall membrane as that which bids fairest for it the Septum Lucidum as being in the midst of the upper Ventricle But yet if the levell of Motion through the externall Senses be accurately considered some will shoot under and some in a distant parallel so that this Membrane will not be struck with all the Objects of our Senses Besides that it seems odd and ridiculous that the centre of Perception should be either driven out so into plates or spread into hollow convexities as it must be supposed if we make either the externall or internall Membranes of the Brain the Seat of Common Sense 15. The most likely place is some one of those that the three last Opinions point at viz. either the Conarion or the Concurse of the Nerves in the fourth Ventricle or the Animal Spirits there 16. The first is Des-Cartes Opinion and not rashly to be refused neither doe I find any Arguments hitherto that are valid enough to deface it Those that are recited out of Bartholine and subscribed to by the learned Author of Adenographia in my apprehension have not the force to ruin it we will first repeat them and then examine them The first is that this Glandula is too little to be able to represent the Images of all that the Soule has represented to her The second that the externall Nerves doe not reach to the Glandula and that therefore it cannot receive the impress of sensible Objects The third that it is placed in a place of excrements which would soile the species of things The fourth that the species of things are perceived there where they are carried by the Nerves But the Nerves meet about the beginning or head of the Spinall Marrow a more noble and ample place then the Glandula pinealis To the first I answer That the amplitude of that place where the Nerves meet in the Spinall Marrow is not large enough to receive the distinct impresses of all the Objects the mind retains in Memory Besides that the other parts of the Brain may serve for that purpose as much as any of it can For it is the Soule it self alone that is capable of retaining so distinct and perfect representations though it may make an occasionall use of some private marks it impresses in the Brain which haply may be nothing at all like the things it would remember nor of any considerable magnitude nor proportion to them such as we observe in the words Arx and Atomus where there is no correspondency of either likeness or bigness betwixt the words and the things represented by them To the second That though there be no continuation of Nerves to the Conarion yet there is of Spirits which are as able to conveigh the impresses of Motion from externall Sense to the Conarion as the Aire and AEther the impress of the Stars unto the Eye To the third That the Glandula is conveniently enough placed so long as the Body is sound for no excrementitious humours will then overflow it or besmeare it But in such distempers wherein they doe Apoplexies Catalepsies or such like diseases will arise which we see doe fall out let the seat of Common Sense be where it will To the last I answer that the Nerves when they are once got any thing far into the Brain are devoid of Tunicles and be so soft and spongy that the motion of the Spirits can play through them and that therefore they may ray through the sides and so continue their motion to the Conarion whereever their extremities may seem to tend 17. But though these Arguments doe not sufficiently confute the Opinion yet I am not so wedded to it but I can think something more unexceptionable may be found out especially it being so much to be suspected that all Animals have not this Conarion and then that what pleased Des-Cartes so much in this Invention was that he conceited it such a marvelous fine instrument to beat the Animal Spirits into such and such Pores of the Brain a thing that I cannot at all close with for reasons above alledged Besides that Stones have been found in this Glandula and that it is apparent that it is environ'd with a net of veines and arteries which are indications that it is a part assigned for some more inferiour office But yet I would not dismiss it without fair play 18. Wherefore that opinion of the forecited Author who places the Seat of Common Sense in that part of the Spinall Marrow where the Nerves are suspected to meet as it is more plain and simple so it is more irrefutable supposing that the Soul's Centre of perception whereby she does not onely apprehend all the Objects of the externall Senses but does imagine reason and freely command and determine the Spirits into what part of the Body she pleases could be conveniently seated in such dull pasty Matter as the Pith of the Brain is a thing I must needs profess that pleases not my Palate at all and therefore I will also take leave of this opinion too and adventure to pronounce That the chief Seat of the Soule where she perceives all Objects where she imagines reasons and invents and from whence she commands all the parts of the Body is those purer Animal Spirits
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
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
in the Body cannot enjoy any better Spirits in which all her life and comfort consists then the constitution of the Body after such circuits of concoction can administer to her But those Genii of the Aire who possess their Vehicles upon no such hard terms if themselves be not in fault may by the power of their minds accommodate themselves with more pure and impolluted Matter and such as will more easily conspire with the noblest and divinest functions of their Spirit In brief therefore if we consider things aright we cannot abstain from strongly surmising that there is no more difference betwixt a Soule and an aëreal Genius then there is betwixt a Sword in the scabbard and one out of it and that a Soule is but a Genius in the Body and a Genius a Soule out of the Body as the Antients also have defined giving the same name as well as nature promiscuously to them both by calling them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I have elsewhere noted 5. This is very consonant to what Michael Psellus sets down from the singular knowledge and experience of Marcus the Eremite in these matters who describes the nature of these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being throughout Spirit and Aire whence they heare and see and feel in every part of their Body Which he makes good by this reason and wonders at the ignorance of men that doe not take notice of it viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it is neither Bones nor Nerves nor any gross or visible part of the Body or of any Organ thereof whereby the Soule immediately exercises the functions of Sense but that it is the Spirits that are her nearest and inmost instrument of these operations Of which when the Body is deprived there is found no Sense in it though the gross Organs and parts are in their usuall consistency as we see in Syncopes and Apoplexies Which plainly shewes that the immediate Vehicle of Life are the Spirits and that the Soules connexion with the Body is by these as the most learned Physicians doe conclude with one consent Whence it will follow that this Vinculum being broke the Soule will be free from the Body and will as naturally be carried out of the corrupt carkass that now has no harmony with the Soule into that Element that is more congenerous to her the vital Aire as the Fire will mount upwards as I have already noted And so Principles of Life being fully kindled in this thinner Vehicle she becomes as compleat for Sense and Action as any other Inhabitants of these aiery regions 6. There is onely one perverse Objection against this so easy and naturall Conclusion which is this That by this manner of reasoning the Soules of Brutes especially those of the perfecter sort will also not onely subsist for that difficulty is concocted pretty well already but also live and enjoy themselves after death To which I dare boldly answer That it is a thousand times more reasonable that they doe then that the Soules of Men doe not Yet I will not confidently assert that they doe or doe not but will lightly examine each Hypothesis And first by way of feigned concession we will say They doe and take notice of the Reasons that may induce one to think so Amongst which two prime ones are those involved in the Objection That they doe subsist after death and That the immediate instrument of their Vitall Functions is their Spirits as well as in Man To which we may adde That for the present we are fellow-inhabitants of one and the same Element the Earth subject to the same fate of Fire Deluges and Earthquakes That it is improbable that the vast space of Aire and AEther that must be inhabited by living creatures should have none but of one sort that is the Angels or Genii good or bad For it would seem as great a solitude as if Men alone were the Inhabitants of the Earth or Mermaids of the Sea That the periods of vitall congruity wound up in the Nature of their Soules by that eternall Wisdome that is the Creatress of all things may be shorter or longer according as the property of their essence and relation to the Universe requires and that so their Descents and Returns may be accordingly swifter or slower That it is more conformable to the Divine goodness to be so then otherwise if their natures will permit it And that their existence would be in vain while they were deprived of vital operation when they may conveniently have it That they would be no more capable of Salvation in the other state then they are here of Conversion That the intellectual Inhabitants of the Aire having also externall and corporeall Sense variety of Objects would doe as well there as here amongst us on Earth Besides that Historyes seem to imply as if there were such kind of aereal Animals amongst them as Dogs Horses and the like And therefore to be short that the Soules of Brutes cease to be alive after they are separate from this Body can have no other reason then Immorality the Mother of Ignorance that is nothing but narrowness of spirit out of over-much self-love and contempt of other Creatures to embolden us so confidently to adhere to so groundless a Conclusion 7. This Position makes indeed a plausible shew insomuch that if the Objection drove one to acknowledge it for Truth he might seem to have very little reason to be ashamed of it But this Controversy is not so easily decided For though it be plain that the Soules of Beasts be Substances really separable from their Bodies yet if they have but one Vital congruity namely the Terrestriall one they cannot recover life in the Aire But their having one or two or more Vital congruities wholy depends upon his wisdome counsel that has made all things Besides the Souls of Brutes seem to have a more passive nature then to be able to manage or enjoy this escape of Death that free and commanding Imagination belonging onely to us as also Reminiscency But Brutes have onely a passive Imagination and bare Memory which failing them in all likelyhood in the shipwrack of their Body if they could live in the Aire they would begin the World perfectly on a new score which is little better then Death so that they might in this sense be rightly deemed mortall Our being Co-inhabitants of the same element the Earth proves nothing for by the same reason Worms and Fleas should live out of their Bodies and Fishes should not who notwithstanding their shape it may be a little changed for there is no necessity that these creatures in their aiery Vehicles should be exactly like themselves in their terrestriall ones might act and live in the more moist tracts of the Aire As for the supposed solitude that would be in the Aire it reaches not this Matter For in the lower Regions thereof the various Objects of the Earth and Sea will serve the turn
fancy proceeding from the same inequality of temper that made him surmise that the most degenerate Soules did at last sleep in the bodies of Trees and grew up meerly into Plantal life Such fictions as these of fancyfull men have much depraved the ancient Cabbala and sacred Doctrine which the Platonists themselves doe profess to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a holy Tradition received from the mouth of God or Angels But however Plotinus himself does not deny but till the Soule arrive to such an exceeding height of purification that she acts in either an aiery or celestial Body But that she is never released so perfectly from all Matter how pure soever and tenuious her condition of operating here in this life is a greater presumption then can be fetcht from any thing else that she ever is For we finde plainly that her most subtil and most intellectual operations depend upon the fitness of temper in the Spirits and that it is the fineness and purity of them that invites her and enables her to love and look after divine and intellectual Objects Which kind of Motions if she could exert immediately by her own proper power and essence what should hinder her but that having a will she should bring it to effect which yet we finde she cannot if the Spirits be indisposed Nor can the Soule well be hindred by the undue temper of the Spirits in these Acts if they be of that nature that they belong to the bare essence of the Soule quite praescinded from all Union with Matter For then as to these Acts it is all one where the Soule is that is in what Matter she is and she must be in some because the Universe is every where thick-set with Matter whether she be raised into the purest regions of the Aire or plunged down into the foulest Receptacles of Earth or Water for her intellectual actings would be alike in both What then is there imaginable in the Body that can hinder her in these Operations Wherefore it is plain that the nature of the Soule is such as that she cannot act but in dependence on Matter and that her Operations are some way or other alwaies modified thereby And therefore if the Soule act at all after death which we have demonstrated she does it is evident that she is not released from all vitall union with all kind of Matter whatsoever Which is not onely the Opinion of the Platonists but of Aristotle also as may be easily gathered out of what we have above cited out of him Lib. 2. Cap. 14. 3. Besides it seems a very wilde leap in nature that the Soul of Man from being so deeply and muddily immersed into Matter as to keep company with Beasts by vitall union with gross flesh and bones should so on a suddain be changed that she should not adhere to any Matter whatsoever but ascend into an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 competible haply to none but God himself unless there be such Creatures as the Platonists call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or pure Intellects This must seem to any indifferent man very harsh and incongruous especially if we consider what noble Beings there are on this side the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all the Philosophers that ever treated of them acknowledge to be vitally united with either aerial or aethereal Vehicles For of this condition are all the Genii or Angels It is sufficient therefore that the Soule never exceed the immateriality of those orders of Beings the lower sort whereof that they are vitally united to Vehicles of Aire their ignorance in Nature seems manifestly to bewray For it had been an easy thing and more for their credit to have informed their followers better in the Mysteries of Nature but that themselves were ignorant of these things which they could not but know if they were not thus bound to their aiery bodies For then they were not engaged to move with the whole course of the Aire but keeping themselves steddy as being disunited from all Matter they might in a moment have perceived both the diurnal and annual motion of the Earth and so have saved the Credit of their followers by communicating this Theory to them the want of the knowledge whereof spoiles their repute with them that understand the Systeme of the world better then themselves for all they boast of their Philosophy so as if it were the Dictate of the highest Angels AXIOME XXVIII There is a Triple Vitall Congruity in the Soule namely AEthereall AEriall and Terrestriall 4. THat this is the common Opinion of the Platonists I have above intimated That this Opinion is also true in it self appears from the foregoing Axiome Of the Terrestrial Congruity there can be no doubt and as little can there be but that at least one of the other two is to be granted else the Soule would be released from all vital union with Matter after Death Wherefore she has a vital aptitude at least to unite with Aire But Aire is a common Receptacle of bad and good Spirits as the Earth is of all sorts of men and beasts nay indeed rather of those that are in some sort or other bad then of good as it is upon Earth But the Soule of Man is capable of very high refinements even to a condition purely Angelicall Whence Reason will judge it fit and all Antiquity has voted it That the Souls of men arrived to such a due pitch of purification must at last obtain celestial Vehicles AXIOME XXIX According to the usual custome of Nature the Soul awakes orderly into these Vital Congruities not passing from one Extreme to another without any stay in the middle 5. THis Truth besides that at first sight it cannot but seem very reasonable according to that known Aphorism Natura non facit saltum so if it be further examined the solidity thereof will more fully appear For considering how small degrees of purification the Souls of almost all men get in this life even theirs who pass vulgarly for honest and good men it will plainly follow that very few arrive to their AEthereal Vehicle immediately upon quitting their Terrestrial Body that being a priviledge that has appertained to none but very Noble and Heroical Spirits indeed of which History records but very few But that there may be degrees of purity and excellency in the AErial Bodies is a thing that is not to be denied so that a just Nemesis will finde out every one after death AXIOME XXX The Soul in her AErial Vehicle is capable of Sense properly so called and consequently of Pleasure and Pain 6. THIS plainly appears from the 27. and 28. Axiomes For there is a necessity of the resulting of Sense from Vital Union of the Soul with any Body whatsoever and we may remember that the immediate instrument of Sense even in this earthly Body are the Spirits so that there can be no doubt of this Truth And Pleasure and Pain being
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
to protect such Monsters as I describe being haply far less in proportion to the number of the other state then these here are to this they will be necessarily exposed to those grim and remorsless Officers of Justice who are as devoid of all sense of what is good as those that they shall punish So that their penalty shall be inflicted from such as are of the same principles with themselves who watch for such booties as these and when they can catch them dress them and adorn them according to the multifarious petulancy of their own unaccountable humours and taking a speciall pride and pleasure in the making and seeing Creatures miserable fall upon their prey with all eagerness and alacrity as the hungry Lions on a condemned malefactour but with more ferocity and insultation by far For having more wit and if it be possible less goodness then the Soule they thus assault they satiate their lascivient cruelty with all manner of abuses and torments they can imagine giving her onely so much respite as will serve to receive their new inventions with a fresher smart and more distinct pain Neither can any Reason or Rhetorick prevail with them no Expostulation Petition or Submission For to what purpose can it be to expostulate about injury and violence with them whos 's deepest reach of wit is to understand this one main Principle That every ones Lust when he can act with impunity is the most sacred and soveraign Law Or what can either Petitions or Submissions doe with those who hold it the most contemptible piece of fondness and filliness that is to be intreated to recede from their own Interest And they acknowledging no such thing as Vertue and Vice make it their onely interest to please themselves in what is agreeable to their own desires and their main pleasure is to excruciate and torture in the most exquisite wayes they can as many as Opportunity delivers up to their power And thus we see how in the other life the proud conceited Atheist may at last feel the sad inconvenience of his own Practises and Principles For even those that pleased themselves in helping him forward while he was in this life to that high pitch of wickedness may haply take as much pleasure to see him punisht by those grim Executioners in the other Like that sportful cruelty which some would appropriate to Nero's person of causing the Vestal virgins to be ravisht and then putting them to death for being so 7. But this Subject would be too tedious and too Tragical to insist on any longer Let us cast our eyes therefore upon a more tolerable Object and that is The state of the Soul that has according to the best opportunity she had of knowledge liv'd vertuously and conscientiously in what part or Age of the world soever For though this Moral Innocency amongst the Pagans will not amount to what our Religion calls Salvation yet it cannot but be advantageous to them in the other state according to the several degrees thereof they being more or less Happy or Miserable as they have been more or less Vertuous in this life For we cannot imagine why God shoud be more harsh to them in the other world then in this nothing having happened to them to alienate his affection but Death which was not in their power to avoid and looks more like a punishment then a fault though it be neither to those that are well-meaning and consciencious and not professed contemners of the wholsome suggestions of the light of Nature but are lovers of Humanity and Vertue For to these it is onely an entrance into another life Ad amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas Which Truth I could not conceal it being a great prejudice to Divine Providence to think otherwise For to those that are free her wayes will seem as unintelligible in overloading the simple with punishment as in not rewarding the more perfectly righteous and illuminate For from a fault in either they will be tempted to a misbelief of the whole and hold no Providence at all 8. Let there therefore be peculiar priviledges of Morality every where to those that pass into the other State For unless God make a stop on purpose it will naturally follow that Memory after Death suggesting nothing but what the Conscience allows of much Tranquillity of minde must result from thence and a certain health and beauty of the AErial Vehicle also better Company and Converse and more pleasant Tracts and Regions to inhabit For what Plotinus speaks of the extreme degrees Ennead 4. Lib. 4. Cap. 45. is also true of the intermediate else Divine Justice would be very maime For a man saith he having once appropriated to himself a pravity of temper and united with it is known well what he is and according to his nature is thrust forward to what he propends to both here and departed hence and so shall be pulled by the drawings of Nature into a sutable place But the Good man his Receptions and Communications shall be of another sort by the drawing as it were of certain hidden strings transposed and pulled by Natures own fingers So admirable is the power and order of the Universe all things being carried on in a silent way of Justice which none can avoid and which the wicked man has no perception nor understanding of but is drawn knowing nothing whither in the Universe he ought to be carried But the good man both knows and goes whither he ought and discerns before he departs hence where he must inhabit and is full of hopes that it shall be with the Gods This large Paragraph of Plotinus is not without some small Truth in it if rightly limited and understood but seems not to reach at all the Circumstances and accruments of happiness to the Soul in the other State which will naturally follow her from her transactions in this life 9. For certainly according to the several degrees of Benignity of Spirit and the desire of doing good to mankinde in this life and the more ample opportunities of doing it the felicity of the other World is redoubled upon them there being so certain communication and entercourse betwixt both And therefore they that act or suffer deeply in such Causes as God will maintain in the World and are just and holy at the bottome and there are some Principles that are indispensably such which Providence has countenanced both by Miracles the suffrages of the Wisest men in all Ages and the common voice of Nature those that have been the most Heroical Abetters and Promoters of these things in this life will naturally receive the greater contentment of Minde after it being conscious to themselves how seriously they have assisted what God will never desert and that Truth is mighty and must at last prevail which they are better assured of out of the Body then when they were in it 10. Nor is this kinde of access of Happiness to be