from Body therefore some have been so foolish as to conclude that it is not the Action or Accident of that Body in which it is but a real Substance by it self And 't is upon this Account that when a Man is dead and buried they will say his Soul that is his Life can walk separated from the Body and is seen by Night among the Graves whereas Life is only a Name of Nothing and the Soul or Mind of Man is in reality Nothing else but the result of Motion in the Organical Parts of his Body 'T is like the forms and qualities of Other things depending purely on the Mechanism Modification and Motion of the Parts of Matter according as it happens to be variously disposed figured and agitated and consequently it can be nothing at all distinct from that Body whose Form or Quality it is And this Soul or Mind or any other Faculty or Quality in Man coming once to be conceived as a thing distinct from the Body and being Invisible and Insensible hath been called by such Names as we use to give to fine Subtile and aereal Bodies Such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritus and the like which do properly signifie the Wind or which is near akin to it the Breath of Man And so Mr. Hobbs tells us that in order to express our greater honour of God the name of Spirit hath been given to him likewise as better expressing to vulgar Apprehensions his fine aereal and Subtile Nature than the grosser word of Body But however Philosophers and Men of sense must take care and not be imposed upon by insignificant words so far as to imagine there can in reality be any such thing as an Incorporeal Substance for that is when throughly considered an absolute Contradiction and Nonsense 'T is nothing but an empty Name with which some poor Wretches are frighted as the Birds are from the Corn by an empty Doublet a Hat and a Crooked Stick as he is pleased to express himself And this is the summ of what this mighty Philosopher advances against Immaterial Substances Spinoza is the only Man besides which I have met with that aims at disproving the Existence of Incorporeal Beings Which in his Opera posthuma he pretends demonstratively to do But his chief and indeed only Argument is this as I hinted before that there is but one only Substance in the World and That is God Matter or Body he asserts to be one of the Attributes of this Substance or the Mode by which God is considered as Res extensa from whence he concludes that there can be no Substance but what is corporeal because Body is an Essential Property of his one only Substance the Divine Nature The Precariousness of which Obscure and Metaphysical way of Arguing I shall plainly shew below And Thus having given you the sum of what these Writers advance against the Doctrine of Incorporeal Substances I shall next proceed to Refute it and to shew you how weak and inconclusive their Arguments and Objections are In order to which I say In the First place 1. That 't is a very precarious and groundless way of arguing to deny the Existence of any thing only from our particular Apprehensions and Conceptions not being able to master it For it will not in the least follow that there can be no such thing as an Incorporeal Substance or a Spirit because some few Men pretend that they cannot conceive how any such thing can possibly be And I have already shewed that we have very just reason to allow the truth of and to be satisfied of the Existence of many things whose Nature neither we nor perhaps any one else can fully Understand and Comprehend These Gentlemen pretend that they cannot conceive or have any Idea of an Incorporeal Substance But yet they think I suppose that they have a clear Idaea and Conception of Body Tho' should you put them to describe it they would be very much at a loss For as one hath well observed Mr. Lock in his Essay of Humane Understanding Book 2. c. 23. if we carefully examine our Idea of Substance we shall find that it is a kind of complex one consisting as it were of several Idea's coexisting together which because we are apt to conceive as one thing we give it the General Name of Substance as imagining that word to express something tho' in reality we know not what which is the support of these Accidents or Qualities which occasion the Idea's we have in our Minds of it Let us therefore take any corporeal Substance as suppose Gold and inquire in our Mind what is that Support Substratum or Substance in which the Accidents of Yellowness great Specifick Weight and strange Ductility under the Hammer do inhere all which concurr to give us that complex Idea which we have of Gold Shall we not find our selves put to it how to conceive or to have a clear Idea of this If we should say that the subject of these Properties are the solid extended Parts we shall not be much the nearer Satisfaction for our Mind will be inquisitive agen what is the Support or Subject of that Extension and Impenetrability We may say indeed that 't is the Substance it self which is a word that we use and implies something or other that is the Support of these Properties but what that is we have I think no clear and certain Idea When yet we have clear and distinct Conceptions enough of these Properties which we find in this Body and from whence we pronounce it to be Gold So if on the other hand we take any Incorporeal Substance as suppose the Mind or Soul of Man and enquire what is the true Support of that Self-moving Power that Reasoning and Cogitative Faculty and that Liberty or Freedom of Action which we plainly perceive to be inherent in it we shall indeed be at a loss but yet no more than we were before in reference to Gold For as from considering the Properties peculiar to that Body we were satisfied that they must be inherent in something tho' how or in what we have no clear Idea so when we consider Life Cogitation and Spontaneous Motion in our Soul we know very well that those more real Properties must have something also for their Support or some Substance to inhere in tho' what that is and the peculiar manner of this we are wholly ignorant of But then we have as just reason to believe that this Substance is real as that the Substance of Gold is so For Cogitation Life and Spontaneous Action are Properties undoubtedly of as real a Nature as great Intensive Weight Yellowness and Ductility can possibly be And as we cannot but conclude both these to be real Substances so we cannot also but conceive them as Natures absolutely distinct and different from each other and which can have no necessary dependance upon and relation to each other for
Point Mr. Hobbs that lofty Pretender to Philosophy declares that to say there is any Immaterial Substance is not so much an Error as it is Nonsense 't is using an Insignificant word whereby we conceive nothing but the Sound And in his Kingdom of Darkness where he undertakes to correct the University Learning he is very Angry with Aristotle's Metaphysicks because it brought in as he saith tho' falsly as I shall prove hereafter the Doctrine or Notion of Separated Essences and also of Immateriality and Incorporeity for what is not Corporeal he saith is Nothing and consequently no where And this he undertakes to prove from a Passage which he seems to have borrowed from Ocellus Lucanus tho' without naming him and which tho' it be a poor Sophism and much worse than those he is condemning yet he boldly lays it down as a Demonstration The Universe saith he is Corporeal that is to say Body and hath the Dimensions of Magnitude namely length breadth and depth also every Part of Body is Body and consequently every Part of the Universe is Body and that which is not Body is no Part of the Universe And because the Universe is all that which is no Part of the Universe is Nothing and consequently no where In another place he saith That no Man can conceive any thing but he must conceive it in some place of some Determinate Magnitude and as that which may be divided into Parts And again p. 17. and 207. he tells us That an Incorporeal Substance is a Contradictory and Inconsistent Name 't is all one as if a Man should say an Incorporeal Body which words when they are joined together do destroy one another and therefore Body and Substance are all one Elsewhere he tells us That the proper Signification of the word Spirit in common speech is either a subtile fluid and invisible Body or else a Ghost or other Idle Phantasm of our Imagination and a little after he asserts that to Men that understand the meaning of the words Substance and Incorporeal they imply a Contradiction and that to say an Angel or Spirit is an Incorporeal Substance is to say in effect there is no Angel nor Spirit And this Notion he defends in his Answer to Bishop Bramhall's Book written against his Leviathan and perseveres in asserting that God himself is a Most Pure simple and corporeal Spirit and he defines a Spirit in General to be a thin fluid transparent and invisible Body Thus also Spinoza in his Opera Posthuma p. 13. determines Extended Substance that is Body to be one of the Infinite Attributes of the Deity and this he undertakes to demonstrate from hence that there is not as he saith any Other Substance but God and who consequently is a Corporeal as well as a Cogitative Being Deus est res extensa This you perceive is the plain sense of these Writers That there is no other Substance but Body and consequently to talk of a Spirit or an Incorporeal Substance is to them perfect Nonsense and Contradiction But tho' this be their Opinion and Assertion yet they did not Invent it nor first find it out they are as far from being Originals in this as in other things for herein they do but Copy the Sentiments of the Ancient Atheists and tread exactly in their Steps That there was nothing but Body in the World was long ago the Assertion of such unthinking Men as our Modern Atheists are Plato tells us That there were some in his Time who asserted nothing to be Substance but what they could feel and which would resist their Touch and these Men affirmed Body and Substance to be the same thing and what they were not able to lay hold of and to grasp with their Hands they said was really nothing at all And if any one happened to talk with them about any thing that was not Body they would ridicule and despise him and not hear a word more that he should say Aristotle acquaints us That just such were the Atheistical Principles of his Contemporaries They affirm saith he Matter or Body to be the only Substance and that all other things are only Passions and Affections of it And in another place he saith that these Men asserted all things to be one That there is but one Nature only which is the Matter of all Things and this is Corporeal and hath magnitude And this was long before the Opinion also of Leucippus and Democritus Epicurus argues against Plato that there can be no Incorporeal Deity not only because no Man can frame a conception of an Incorporeal Substance but also because whatever is Incorporeal must needs want Sense and Prudence and Pleasure all which things are included in the Notion of God And therefore an Incorporeal Deity saith he is a Contradiction And his Followers as appears by Lucretius continued in the same Opinion that there is no other Substance in Nature but Body and they had no Notion of any Incorporeal thing but their Vacuum or Empty space which was really nothing at all Sextus Empiricus tells us that all the Epicureans and some of the Stoicks as Basileides in particular maintained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was nothing Incorporeal or Immaterial By these Testimonies we see plainly that the Modern Atheists transcribe the Ancient Opinions exactly and have been able to add very little to them And the Notion that Mr. Hobbs seems so fond of and which he would fain set up as his own Discovery That a Spirit is nothing but a Thin fluid and transparent Body seems to me to be plainly taken from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Aristotle tells us was the Definition that some then gave of a Spirit or the Soul of Man And thus having truly stated the Case and shewed you what the Sentiments of the Ancient and Modern Atheists were and are as to the Matter before us I shall now proceed to Examine by what Reasons and Arguments they endeavour to support their Assertion That there is no such thing as any Incorporeal Substance but that whatever really is is Body And here I find their main and chief Argument to be This that an Immaterial Substance is an Unconceivable Thing 'T is what no Man can possibly have any notion or conception of 't is a perfect contradiction in Terms and consequently Nonsense and Impossible This is every where almost the Language of Mr. Hobbs as I have before observed He also pretends to discover the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the true Cause of this Fiction about Immaterial Substances The Notion he tells us took its rise from the Abuse of abstracted Words and such-like Metaphysical and Scholastical Terms which some have fansied as real Entities separated and distinct from the Subject or Matter of which they are Attributes or Qualities only Thus for Instance because we can consider Thinking or a Reasoning Power alone by it self and distinct
we can never imagine that Gold can be ever brought to think reason or move it self spontaneously any more than we can conceive a Soul or Mind to be yellow heavy or ductile That is we have quite different Idea's of each of them and which nothing but wilful or long habituated Ignorance can ever make us confound together And thus it appears to me that we may have as clear an Idea of Incorporeal Substance as we have of Body and that the former is no more unconceivable than the latter And therefore 't is as absurd to argue against the Existence of a Spirit only from our not having any clear Idea of the Substance of a Spirit as it would be to say there is no such thing as Body because we don't know exactly what the Substance of Body is which I dare say no Man can affirm that he doth 'T is very possible that Men may be so blinded and prejudiced by false Principles so stupified by Ignorance Idleness or Vice and so engaged and enslaved to a peculiar sett of Notions which advance and support that way of acting and proceeding which they take delight in that a great many things may appear Unconceivable and Impossible to them which shall be far from being so to others whose Minds are free and more enured to thinking Should you tell a Man who is a Stranger to Geometry and Astronomy of the many admirable and surprizing Truths that can certainly be demonstrated from the Principles of those Noble Sciences he would boldly pronounce them Impossible and all your Discourse and Proof should you attempt any such thing would to such a Person be Nonsense and your words meer empty and insignificant Sounds And there are many Persons in the World on whom the clearest and strongest Method of Reasoning that ever was will make no manner of impression at all because their Minds are not at all enured to a close way of Arguing and Thinking And truly the Atheistical Writers do discover so poor a Knowledge in Philosophy and so very little acquaintance with true Reasoning and Science that 't is no wonder at all that they should not be able to conceive and comprehend a great many things which others are very well satisfied with I know very well saith the Ingenious Person before cited that People whose Thoughts are immersed in Matter and who have so subjected their Minds to their Senses that they seldom reflect on any thing beyond them are apt to say they cannot comprehend a thinking thing which perhaps is true c. And therefore such a Philosopher as Mr. Hobbs that defines Knowledge to be Sense and saith that the Mind of Man is nothing but Motion in the Organical Parts of his Body may easily be infatuated so far as to assert that there is no other Substance but Body and that a Spirit or Incorporeal Being is a Nonsensical Contradictory and Impossible Notion While Others who can raise their Minds a little higher and who can penetrate farther into things will be fully satisfied that such Philosophy is Nonsense and Impossibility As indeed some Persons in all Ages of the World of which we have any Account have ever been For 2. Which is another very good Ground from whence to refute this absurd Opinion that there is no such thing as an Incorporeal Being I say there have been always many Persons in the World that have firmly believed and embraced the Doctrine of Immaterial Substances and who have also asserted the Deity to be of that Nature And this will Undeniably refute the two great Points of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion For if it be proved plainly that there hath been all along a received Belief and Opinion that there are Immaterial Substances and that God himself is such an One it is then most clear and certain that the Notion is neither inconceivable contradictory nor nonsense and also that it did not take its Rise and Original only from the Abuse of the Philosophy of Aristotle Not the former for what is in its own Nature unconceivable nonsensical and absurd could never sure gain an Admittance into the Belief of so many great Men as we shall see presently this Opinion did Not the latter for what was commonly received in the World before the time of Aristotle could never be derived only from his and the Schoolmen's Philosophy as Mr. Hobbs is pleased to say this Belief of Immaterial Substances was And that there was always in the World a Notion and Belief of another more noble Substance than Body and that the Deity was of an Incorporeal or Spiritual Nature we have the united Suffrages of all the Ancient Writers that are preserved down to our time Cicero tells us That the Heathen Philosophers generally defined God to be Mens pura sincera soluta libera ab omni concretione mortali and speaking of Thales Milesius in particular he saith of him Aquam dixit esse Initium Rerum Deum autem cum Mentem quae ex aquâ cuncta fingeret Now this Mind they all distinguished plainly from Matter and looked upon it as a much more Noble Principle than 't was possible to conceive Matter to be Lactantius acquaints of Pythagoras Quòd unum deum confitetur dicens Incorporalem esse mentem quae per omnem Naturam diffusa intenta vitalem sensum cunctis Animalibus tribuat And Plutarch gives us much the same Account of him in his Books De Placitis Philosophorum viz. That he made two Principles one Active which was Mind or God The other Passive or the Matter of the World And those Verses of Empedocles are very remarkable wherein speaking of the Deity he asserts Him not to be of Humane shape And also that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. That he is no way perceivable by any of our Senses which is as much as to say he is Incorporeal And in the next Lines he doth expresly tell us what he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A sacred and ineffable Mind which by swift Thoughts moves and actuates the whole World Anaxagoras also asserted That an ordering and regulating Mind was the first Principle of all things and this Mind he made as Aristotle saith of him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The only pure simple and unmixt thing in the World thereby plainly distinguishing it from Matter the Parts of which he who was as Sextus Empericus calls him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knew very well to be promiscuously blended and mixed togethere very where Sextus also tells us That That Mind which Anaxagoras asserted to be God was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Active Principle in opposition to Matter which is a Passive one and this is agreeable to what the Poets say of Spiritus intus alit mens agitat molem c. We are told likewise by Sextus That Xenophanes held 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is but One God and he Incorporeal And
Incorporeal Substances and that the Deity was also of that Nature himself as I think I have sufficiently proved in this Discourse and therefore those confident Modern Writers who say that the Ancients never had any Notion of an Immaterial Being betray equally their Ignorance with their Assurance for the Doctrine of Immaterial Substances was as well the Concomitant as indeed it is the Necessary result of this kind of Philosophy The Embracers of it found plainly that they had a clear and distinct Idea of two Things viz. Passive Matter and Active Power and these they found were perfectly distinct from each other and no way dependent at all upon each other To the former of these they only attributed extension and impenetrability and a Power of being variously figured modified disposed and moved To the latter they ascribed Cogitation Life Sensation and the Power of Motion which they plainly saw did belong to this and could not do so to the other And these Two they made the Two Great Principles or General Heads of Being in the Universe and called them by two vastly different Names as I have before shewed viz. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The one Passive Matter or Bulk and the other Self-Activity or Life In the former of these viz. Passive Matter they found that there was nothing Real besides its Bulk or impenetrably extended Parts and that consequently all Forms and Qualities in Bodies were no real Entities distinct from the Body in which they inhered but only the Parts of the Body differently modified disposed and agitated and therefore they held that when any Body received a new Form or Quality differing from what it had before there was no new Entity produced any more than an old one destroyed for that they look't upon to be perfectly Impossible And this was the true Ground of that Fundamental Axiom of theirs That Nothing could be made or produced out of Nothing which they did not as the Modern Atheists do advance at all in Opposition to a Creative and Almighty Power 's producing all things at first from Nothing but purely against the producibleness of real Entities out of Nothing in an Usual and Natural way which those that assert Forms and Qualities to be Substantial and Real Beings must needs grant to be daily done But it was this and this only that that Axiom was levelled against And hence it was that they asserted the Deity and the Souls of Men to be real Entities distinct from Matter and not to be producible out of the Power of Matter as all Qualities which are nothing but Modes of it they maintained were and this made them perhaps have recourse to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prae-existence and Transmigration of Souls for they could never believe their Souls were as one expresses it younger than their Bodies and that they perished when the Bodies died And therefore nothing can be plainer than that the very Principles of this Philosophy did lead Men to the Acknowledgment of Incorporeal Substances and forced them to believe Life Motion and Cogitation to be things that could not be Modifications of Matter nor perishable and producible as the common Qualities and Forms of Body or extended Bulk are And thus when it is rightly considered and throughly understood the Atomical or Mechanical Philosophy is so far from being any way instrumental to the leading Men into Atheism that there is none other that doth so truly distinguish between Matter and Incorporeal Beings none that renders the Operations and Qualities of Bodies so Intelligible and none that prepares so clear natural and easie a way for the Demonstration of Immaterial Substances as this kind of Philosophy doth Indeed as almost all things are so This is capable of and hath been made use of to ill Purposes by its Atheistical Votaries who did anciently as they do now assert that Cogitation Life Sensation and Active Power were all producible out of bare Matter without a Deity But as this was what the True Atomists never could think possible so it is really involved with the most monstrous Absurdities that ever any Opinion was and which therefore ought not to be charged on the Philosophy it self but only on that Dark Unintelligible and Inconsistent System of it which the Ignorant Atheists have Compiled and that only to render it subservient to their wicked Designs of excluding the Idea's of God and of Incorporeal Substances out of the World Tho' God be thanked they do in this Point so far fail of Success that nothing can be clearer than that 't is utterly impossible to account for any first Cause of things for Cogitation Life Sensation or Motion according to their Principle that there is no other Substance but Body And this necessarily leads me to another very good Argument for the Necessity of allowing Incorporeal Substances and to prove that God himself is of that Nature or a Spirit viz. The strange Absurdities of the contrary Opinion But these being very many and it being of great moment truly to clear up this Point in an Age wherein Men are so fond of Corporealism I shall deferr this till my next Discourse wherein I shall finish this and my remaining Arguments to Prove God to be a Spirit and that there are Beings of an Immaterial and Incorporeal Nature The End of the Fourth Sermon THE Fifth Sermon JOHN iv 24 God is a Spirit I Have already shewn the Meaning and Import of these Words and what we understand by God's being a Spirit I have shewn you also the Atheist's Objections against the Immaterial Nature of God and the Existence of Incorporeal Substances and have endeavoured to Refute them from Two Arguments I have proved 1. That 't is a precarious and unfair way of Arguing against the Existence of any thing only because our particular Apprehensions and Conceptions cannot master it And that it will not follow That there is no such thing as an Incorporeal Substance on the Account only of some Mens declaring that they cannot conceive how any such thing can be Where likewise I shewed That the Notion of a Spirit or an Immaterial Substance is as Intelligible as that of Body and that we have as much reason to believe the Existence of the former as of the latter 2. I have plainly proved That the Notion of Incorporeal Substances hath all along been believed and received by many Knowing and Judicious Men amongst the most Ancient Writers and Philosophers and consequently that it can neither be Nonsence and Impossible nor of so late an Original as the perverted Philosophy of Aristotle both which the Atheists are pleased to assert 3. I proceed now to speak to a Third Argument To prove the Deity to be of a Spiritual or Immaterial Nature and that there are Incorporeal Substances And this I shall draw from the many and strange Absurdities of the contrary Opinion That there is nothing but Matter
in the World And if these can fully be made to appear I hope the Doctrine involved with them will also appear false and precarious and that the contrary Opinion of the Real Existence of Incorporeal Beings will find an easie admittance into our Faith But here I must premise as taken for granted That we are all agreed on the Definition of or know what we mean by Matter or Body viz. That it is Substance Impenetrably extended whereby we distinguish it from Spirit which is a Thinking Substance without Corporeal Extension or without having Partes extra Partes For if this be not the Notion which our Adversaries have of it as well as we 'T is in vain to dispute about it at all If therefore they have any other Idea of it that is different from this let them produce it and make it as clear and Intelligible as this is for without doing so they do nothing to the purpose And if they have not a clear and distinct Idea of Matter or Body how come they so boldly to say that Matter and Substance are all one how can they distinguish the Idea's of Body and Spirit so plainly as to be sure there can be no such thing as an Incorporeal Substance but that it implies a Contradiction Unless they fully know what Matter or Body is there may be Millions of Varieties and Degrees of Immaterial Substances or there may be no such thing as Body at all for any thing they can prove to the contrary The Atheist must then do one of these two things he must either establish a new Notion of Matter that shall be so intelligible and plain that all Mankind shall as readily acquiesce in it as they do in the old and common one or else he must resolve to keep to That The former of these he hath not yet done nor I believe is very ready to do but when he doth it 't will be time enough to consider it In the mean while I will readily join Issue with him on the common and received Notion of Body And from thence undertake to maintain That nothing is more absurd and unaccountable than their Assertion That there is no other Substance but Matter or Body in the World For First Had there been nothing else but Matter in the World from Eternity and if there be nothing else now there never was any thing else I cannot possibly see how these Gentlemen can account for Motion or shew us how Matter came first to be moved And Matter without Motion sure could never be God never be the Cause of any thing nor could it ever produce act or do any thing whatever Before Motion began Matter could have been nothing but an heavy lifeless Lump of vast extended Bulk which must have lain also for ever in the same dead and unactive Position if nothing had been superinduced to put it into Motion and Action And no one sure can be so stupid as to call this a Deity This is as Mr. Blount rudely and irreverently expresseth himself worse than to suppose a Hum-Drum-Deity chewing of his own Nature a Droning God that sits hoarding up of his Providence from his Creatures And this even he can't but acknowledge is an Atheism no less Irrational than to deny the very Essence of a Divine Being I hope therefore they will grant that Matter without Motion cannot be suppos'd to be a Deity And if so then the Divine Nature whatever it be must be something distinct from and more Noble than Matter and more akin to Motion than to Matter or Body in general or to it quatenus Matter as the Schools speak And indeed Motion taken in this sense not for a translation of Body from one place to another but for the Active Cause of Motion may be very well said to be Incorporeal or the Deity it self But how came this Motion into Matter at first and which way did Matter attain this Divine Activity or God-like Energy Here they must assert one of these three things either 1. That Motion came into Matter from something without it and distinct from it Or 2. That Motion is Essential to Matter and Co-eternal with it Or 3. That it came into it afterwards by Chance or without any Cause at all The First of these they will not say I doubt because it 's Truth but however if they do our Controversie is at an end for we believe that 't was a Divine and powerful Mind perfectly distinct from and more Noble than Matter who first made it and moved it and doth still continue to modifie and dispose it according to his Infinite Wisdom and Providence And one would think no Man can be so senseless as to maintain the last viz. That Motion came into Matter without any Cause at all and that it was Chance only that first produced it for Chance here signifies nothing in reality And truly Men that will be so ridiculously absurd as to assert that a Body or Particle of Matter that is once at rest may move by Chance only or may Chance to move of it self though there be nothing to cause its Motion deserve no serious Refutation but ought to be treated only as we do Fools and Madmen with silent Pity and Compassion And yet so very fond are some Persons of any thing that opposes Truth that they will run into the greatest Absurdities to maintain it For a late Corporealist is pleas'd to say That Matter can move of it self and to shew his deep Skill in Philosophy he tells us that Wind Fire and very fine-sifted small Dust are Matter and yet Self movers And of Wind and Fire he profoundly asserts That they cannot lose their Motion or cease Moving so long as they continue to be Wind and Fire That is As long as Wind and Fire are in Motion they cannot cease to move This indeed is a very deep and important Discovery But yet 't is what hardly any Man would have publish'd in Print but one that concludes a Body must needs move of it self only because he can't see with his Eyes the Cause or Origin of its Motion And yet even this he may often see in the case of Fire if he will but vouchsafe to observe how 't is usually kindled A little Consideration would have satisfied him also that Winds may be produced in the Atmosphere by the Air 's being moved some way by Heat Compression or some other Accidental Cause as well as in an Eolipile or a Pair of Bellows And as for his fine Dust's rising up in a Cloud of it self had he understood that the Agitation of any Fluid will keep the small Particles of any heavier Matter mixed with it from descending to the bottom of it nay and raise them up from thence too and had he not forgotten that this was the case here the Air being so agitated by the Motion of Sifting he would not sure have been so silly as to have brought these as Instances of Spontaneous Motion
Man and Beast and do act the Understanding or Brain to apprehend judge and remember Now by this 't is plain that he supposes Cogitation Understanding Consciousness and Liberty and all the Faculties of the Soul of Man to be nothing but the result of some peculiar Motions in a Fitly organized Body The Animal Spirits he thinks are like the Elastick Particles in the Spring of a Watch tho' they cannot tell what a Clock it is themselves yet they can by means of the Spring which they actuate do that and many other things that the Movement shall be fitted for Or to make use of a Comparison of his own The Animal Spirits may do as the Wind doth in the Chest of an Organ tho' it can make no Musick of it self yet by being communicated so as to inspire the several Pipes it may actuate them into a very fine Harmony It is not my Business nor Design to discourse here of the Soul of Man but yet I would fain beg these Corporealists clearly to explain how Self-Consciousness Reflection and Liberty of Action can possibly be accounted for by this Hypothesis For this necessarily makes Men meer Machines at long run An Engine is never the more free and conscious to its self of its own Operations for being fine and curiously contrived And the wonderful Clock at Strasburgh knows no more what it doth nor is it any more the Spontaneous Cause of its so many and curious Motions than the Ancient Clepsydra or a modern Hour-glass knoweth what it is about when it rudely measureth the Duration of any Part of Time For whatever is performed by meer Matter and Motion must needs be necessary in every step and degree of its course be the way of acting in the Engine never so curious and never so remote from the cognisance of our Senses They know well enough as I shall shew below that there is no possible room for freedom of Action Consciousness of any Operation nor for a Cogitative and Reasoning Power according to this way of explicating the Operations of the Humane Soul For in the Animal Spirits they grant there is no such thing they are only a fiery and briskly agitated Fluid which serves to actuate any Part of the Rational Machine pro re natâ And these several Parts or Organs of the Machine can no more produce any such thing without the Animal Spirits than the Hand or Dial-Plate of a Watch can or any other Part of a curious Instrument If therefore you enquire of them wherein they place this Cogitation Self-Consciousness and Liberty they will tell you 't is in the Man 't is in the whole 't is neither his Soul alone nor his Body alone 't is no Spiritual Substance distinct from Matter but 't is the whole Man that thinks reasons and acts freely by the form of the whole But this is very unaccountable and is what neither they nor any one else I believe can ever apprehend or conceive that Liberty should be the result of Necessarily moved Matter that Cogitation should arise from Senseless and Unthinking Atoms and that Knowledge and Consciousness of its own Operations should come into any Engine by its being finely and curiously contrived and be nothing but the necessary result of bare local Motion and rightly Organized Matter These Absurdities some other Corporealists clearly perceiving and being fully convinced that 't is impossible to account for Cogitation Consciousness and the like from bare Matter and Motion and to educe the Perfections of the Deity out of the Power of Matter only These I say had recourse to another way of maintaining their beloved Assertion that there is no other Substance but Body They assert that Cogitation is Essential to Matter or as Spinoza words it All Substance is essentially Cogitative and Extended so that as there is no Substance but what is Material so there is none but what is Cogitative too Indeed as I shewed you before he asserts that there is but One only Substance which is God or in other words Universal Matter and Cogitation and Extension he saith are the two Infinite Attributes or else the Affections of the Attributes of the Deity And this with a great deal of Assurance as the way of these Writers is he pretends to demonstrate Mathematically by a Pompous tho' a very Obscure Apparatus of Definitions Axioms Postulates and Propositions But it is not calling a thing a Demonstration that will make it to be so nor concluding with Quod erat Demonstrandum that will make every body acquiesce in a Proposition when it is either perfectly unintelligible or false And yet such are those that Spinoza brings to prove and support this strange Opinion The Monstrous Absurdities of which I shall now consider And First 'T is plain That if Cogitation be as Essential to Matter as Extension Then all and every Particle of it must needs be a Thinking Substance or Body by it self Distinct from all Other Particles of Matter in the World There is no one doubts but 't is so in reference to the proper and allowed Affections of Body Impenetrability and Extension Every least Particle or Atom of Matter hath these Properties as compleat within it self as they are in the whole Bulk of the Universe or in any larger Body whatsoever These are also individually distinct in each Particle so that its Properties though of the same kind are not the very same with those of other Parts of Matter Now if to each such Particle of Matter Cogitation be also added then every Atom in the Universe will be a Thinking Intelligent and Reasoning Being distinct from all the rest and have its own proper and peculiar Faculties and Operations 't will be a different Person from all Others and every Individual Particle of Matter will be so from it and from every one else in the World Every Atom also will be equal to any of the rest in respect of this Cogitative Power will have it in the very same Proportion and not be wiser or more foolish duller or more ingenious than its neighbours And if this be so as it must necessarily be if all Matter be Essentially Cogitative then there must either be no God at all or else every Particle of Matter must be a distinct God by it self and so the most ridiculous Polytheism that ever was imagin'd must be introduced and allowed of For if there be any such things as Perfect Knowledge Power Wisdom and Goodness every one of these Particles must have it For 't is impossible Infinite or Perfect Power Wisdom Knowledge and Goodness can be produced out of finite the lesser can never produce the greater nor any thing make or give that which it hath not within it self And therefore it plainly follows that either there is no Deity at all or else that every Particle of Matter must be a God by it self according to this Hypothesis For finite or imperfect Cogitation can no more be the Cause of Infinite than