in their Forms of Benediction celebrated the power of God above the ordinary Laws of Nature and whatever hopes the Heathens may have they cannot have firm assurance that their Souls shall be permitted to enjoy that duration which they are by nature capable of or that if they shall be permitted to survive their bodies they shall have a great or endless happiness For when they consider that there is God and that how virtuous soever they have bin yet their own consciences bearing witness they have too often transgressed his Laws they may be justly suspicious either of annihilation or at best of a low degree of felicitie and this suspition will be encreased if with you they gaze at his irresistible power and look not with hope upon his Philanthropie and therefore such salvation as signifieth the advancement of the Soul of man to the utmost height of blessedness is not of Nature or humane merit but of grace and an effect of the merits of our Lord who having overcome death did open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers But yet of this bounty we in some measure partake if we dye as Christians so soon as ever we have lay'd down this burthen of the flesh and of this we are assured by Revelation especially by that in the New Testament therein we read that our Saviour promised to the repenting Thief that very day a place in Paradise that is in some Region of happy Souls which the Jews were wont to call Paradise or the Garden of pleasure That besides the bodily life there is a Soul in man which cannot be touched by the sword or utmost violence of our Enemies That St. Stephen in the very Article of death commended his Spirit into the hands of Christ beseeching the same Jesus to receive it That the dead who dye in the Lord are from henceforth or immediately in an happy estate Neither can we with tolerable sense expound the Article of Christs descending into Hell or into Hades that is the state of the dead as also his preaching to Spirits in prison unless we suppose him to have had an immaterial Soul whereby his Spirit might be in the state of separate Spirits as well as his body was in the state of dead bodies their corruption excepted for to mean All of the body is to say in effect twice over that he was dead and buried and so to commit Tautology in the most compendious systeme of the Christian Faith Neither must we forget the wish of St. Paul who desired to be dissolved that he might be with Christ esteeming that far better for his own Person though his continuance in the world was of more advantage to the Christian church Now it cannot but be imagined that S. Paul exspected so soon as ever he had quitted this earthly Tabernacle to be received by Christ into the mansions prepared above for seeing his inclinations were so poised betwixt the thoughts of the benefit of the Church and the delay of his consummate happiness that he knew not which way to turn the scale there is no doubt but he would have preferred the advantage of the Church for which he would gladly spend and be spent before sâ—ch an Estate wherein for more then sixteen hundred years he should not so much as think of Christ or his holy Gospel but be as if he had never bin Mr. Hobbes There are other places perhaps more pertinent to which I will return an answer And first there are the words of Solomon Ecclesiastes 12.7 Then shall the dust return to dust as it was and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it which may bear well enough if there be no other Text directly against it this interpretation that God only knows but man not what becomes of a mans Spirit when he expireth and the same Solomon in the same book Chap. 3. v. 20 21. delivereth the same sentence in the sense I have given it his words are All go man and beast to the same place all are of the dust and all turn to dust again who knoweth that the Spirit of man goeth upward and that the Spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth that is none knows but God nor is it an unusual phrase to say of things we understand not God knows what and God knows where But what interpretation shall we give besides the literal sense of the words of Solomon Eccles. 3.19 That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts even one thing befalleth them as the one dyeth so doth the other yea they have all one breath one Spirit so that a man hath no preheminence above a beast for all is vanity By the litteral sense here is no natural immortalitie of the Soul Stud. You would here impose upon me by confounding the sense of those several verses which are to be interpreted apart from each other And that we may aright conceive the meaning of them and not say only though perhaps with reason we may do it I 'm sure with Authority that Solomon here and in other places doth personate the Atheist it is fit that we observe how the Preacher in this book sets forth the beginning progress and ripeness of his disquisition concerning the happiness of man Wherefore in the begining of his enquiry he setteth down his raw apprehensions and he relateth in the first and second Chapters how he once thought folly equal with wisdom and that there was nothing better then to eat and drink and what adventures and trials he made towards the better understanding of what was good for the sons of men and in this third Chapter he declareth how full of mystery he found the workes of God v. 11. and how little was manifest especially to sensual men of the future state but in the eleventh and twelfth Chapters wherein he declareth his advanced judgement and calleth men off from the world to the thoughts of the day of account and to the early remembrance of their Creator to the fear of God and the observance of his commands he layeth it down as a positive doctrine a doctrine apt to promote such observance fear and remembrance which at first was delivered by him as a probleme or as the mistake of worldly men that when the wheel shall be broken at the Cistern and the circle of our blood utterly disturbed then the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it But if the Spirit be the breath and life and not an immaterial substance why make you it so hard to know what becomes of it so that only God can understand it for might we not say that the machine of the body is dissolved the breath vanisheth in the soft air the motion is gone from the carcasse into ambient bodies we might then with equal admiration say of a Clock broken all to peices and in rest God knoweth what is become of it for in both instances there
reason on their side when they affirm that the kingdom of glory is in the highest Heavens and not on earth which if men rise the same they were when they acted in the present world retaining all their parts howsoever new-moulded then according to your Hypothesis which conceiveth man to be wholly material the whole earth will be little enough to give the Blessed space wherein to move with pleasure and we shall be as much in the dark for the place of the damned as the place it self is said to be Our blessed Saviour hath assur'd us that we shall in the Resurrection be like the Angels And St. Paul hath also informed Christians that they shall be indued with Coelestial Bodies when they have put off these earthly Sepulchres in which their nobler mindes lay entombed and that this body of flesh and bloud for of that is his whole discourse and not of any moral body of sin and corruption shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And from hence Athenagoras hath been taught to say that in the Resurrection we shall not be as flesh though we bear flesh about us Now this Angelical Coelestial Body seemeth very unagreeable to the condition of Inhabitants upon earth neither had innocent Adam such a body in Paradise And it is also to be noted that the Blessed cannot by any means enjoy such Coelestial Bodies according to the principles by you delivered and of this I above have given some intimation For if man be onely a piece of well-disposed matter and is devoyd of an immaterial soul upon the permanent oneness of which dependeth chiefly his individuation he is no more the same person upon so great an alteration made in the contexture of the body then a spire of Grass is the same with part of the flesh of an Ox into which after digestion it is transform'd But why doth it seem to you incredible that holy men shall be caught up with Enoch and Elias and St. Paul and enjoy their happiness in Heavenly Regions when there are so many places of Scripture which look that way Our blessed Lord administreth comfort to such as bear his Cross by telling them that their reward is great in Heaven And he adviseth all his followers to lay up for themselves treasures not on earth but in the heavens that their hearts may with the greater facility be lifted up by Divine and Heavenly Meditation And he spake these words of consolation to his Disciples who began to be most deeply concerned at the thoughts of his departure Let not your heart be troubled ye believe in God believe also in me In my Fathers house are many mansions if it were no so I would have told you And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto my self that where I am there ye may be also This then was the Doctrine of Christ as also of his Apostles St. Paul delivereth this Doctrine with much confidence saying We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens And he blesseth God for the faith of the Colossians and for the hope which was laid up for them in the Heavens And he comforteth the Thessalonians after this manner The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the Arch-angel and with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first then we which are alive and remain shall he caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. The Author also of the Epistle to the Hebrews extolleth the patience of the afflicted Converts and likewise insinuateth the great Reason which they had to take joyfully the spoiling of their earthly goods because they had in Heaven a better and enduring substance Mr. Hobbes I have with much patience attended to your citations there is reason that now you should listen to such as on my side may be produced We finde written in in St. Iohn That no man hath ascended into heaven but he that came down from heaven even the son of man that is in heaven yet Christ was then not in Heaven but upon the earth The like is said of David Acts 2.34 where St. Peter to prove the Ascension of Christ using the words of the Psalmist Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell nor suffer thine holy One to see corruption saith they were spoken not of David but of Christ and to prove it addeth this reason For David is not ascended into Heaven But to this a man may easily answer and say that though their bodies were not to ascend till the general day of Judgement yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour who proving the Resurrection out of the words of Moses saith thus That the dead are raised even Moses shewed at the bush when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Iacob For he is not a God of the dead but of the living for they all live to him But if these words be to be understood onely of the immortality of the soul they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove which was the Resurrection of the body that is to say the immortality of man Therefore our Saviour meaneth that those Patriarchs were immortal not by a property consequent to the Essence and Nature of Mankinde but by the Will of God that was pleased of his meer Grace to bestow eternal life upon the faithful And though at that time the Patriarchs and many other faithful men were dead yet as it is in the Text they lived to God that is they were written in the Book of Life with them that were absolved of their sins and ordained to life eternal at the Resurrection Stud. Our Lord design'd to prove a future state against the Sadduces who denyed not onely the Resurrection of the body but likewise the existence of Angel or Spirit and the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do not always imply the raising of the body but being used without the addition of flesh or body do usually denote the future life and the awakening and advancing of the Soul or the conserving or keeping of it alive as God is said to have raised up Pharaoh that is to have kept him still alive And whereas you suggest that the Patriarchs were alive onely by destination it is an exposition derived by you from your Hypothesis that man is wholly mortal and not from the letter of the words where Christ speaketh in the present and not the future time affirming that the Patriarchs live already and not that they shall be awakened unto
England that Article though it consisteth in declaring the Power of the King in affairs both Civil and Ecclesiastical yet bears the Tide Of the Civil Magistrate But I have busied my self too long in a nicety â—f words which improve the memory but give not much advantage to the nobler faculty of reason It is time then that we look back upon our main Subject the Creation of the World If you have any further matter to deliver in relation to that Subject I am ready to attend to you and it Mr. Hobbes Something I have to say but there is little coherence of it with our former discourse I add however seeing you seem to have required something more that upon supposition of the Being of a God it follows not that he created the World Although it were demonstrated that a Being infinite independent omnipotent did exist yet could it not rightly be thence inferred that a Creator do's exist also Unless a maâ— should think that because there is a Being which we believe to have created all things therefore the World was created by Him Stud. Seeing dependent nature is so far removed from a power of making that it cannot so much as move it self but will if once moved be without impediment in perpetual motion and arreâ— alwayes if once at rest without fresh impulse froâ— some neighboring body we must of necessity have recourse to a Creator and because we suppose already in the Idea of God such infinitâ—â—ower as excludes the like power from all things else it cannot but follow that there being a World He was the Maker of it Seeing by the Hypothesis the impotent World exists and an infinite power also who else can be imagined this Omnipotent Architect This absurd Assertion puts me in mind of Heraclitus who having denied that any of the Gods were Creators subjoyned also that neither had any man created the world fearing sayes Plutarch in a dry jest lest after he had overthrown the power of the Deities we might suspect some mortal man had been the Author of such a Master-piece The like consequence is natural from the attribute of divine wisdome which being infinite can appertain but to one Essence If then the world be mâ—de in number and weight and measure it is demonstrable from thence both that there is an eternal Geometer as also that if such a one existeth the world which could not so frame it self was his Artifice And doubtless the disposition of the parts of the greater world and even the oeconomy of the parts of the lesser that of man implying most wise designs do necessarily inferr Gassendus himself confessing it the Being of a Creator We need not search further than to some one particular Note in the situation of the heart which is a kind of Box containing many wonders one within another It is to be observed that in man and in almost all such Animals as live of flesh that the situation of the heart is not in the center but in the superior part of the Body that it may the more readily convey to the head a due portion of bloud For seeing that the trajection and distribution of the bloud dependeth wholly upon the Systole of the heart and that the liquor cast forth does not so easily ascend as it flows into vessels paralel or inferior if the seat of the heart were more removed from the head the head would be rendred impotent for want of bloud unless the heart were framed with a far greater strength whereby it might with more potent violence force up its liquor But in such Animals whose neck is extended by nature as it were on purpose to meet their provisions the heart is placed without any prejudice in the center because the head being frequently pendulous the bloud runs to it in a wide and daily supplyed Channel Go now that I may bespeak you in the way of Gassendus and applaud your wit in saying that that was done by chance which could not have been more wisely contrived Mr. Hobbes In this Argument I my self in my Book de Homine have not denied the frame of nature to argue design and I have there spoken to this purpose Stud. Please to spare the Translation of the place for there is as I remember a conceit in the words which will be lost in English Mr. Hobbes Mock on I am not ashamed of the words and they are these Ad sensus procedo satis habens si hujusmodi res attigero tantùm planiùs autem tract andas aliis reliquero qui si machinas omnes tum Generationis tum Nutritionis satis perspexerint nec tamen eas à Mente aliqui conditas ordinatasque ad sua quasque officia viderine ipsi profecto sine Mente esse censendi sunt Stud. Seeing thus much is acknowledged from you in reference to the Body how great may that conviction be of the existence of a Creator which ariseth from the consideration of Souls and Angels whilest Thought is much more admirable than motion and incorporeal spirit than matter Mr. Hobbes Incorporeal Substance is a note which you shake too too often and here with much absurdity For to say an Angel or Spirit is an incorporeal substance is to say in effect there is no Angel or Spirit at all The Universe being the aggregate of all bodies there is no real part thereof that is not also body The substance of invisible Agents is by some conceived to be the same with that which appeareth in a dream or in a looking-glass to them that are awake But the opinion that such Spirits were incorporeal could never enter into the mind of any man by nature However that name will serve our purpose for the Introduction of the Fourth Head of our Discourse The Nature of Angels Stud. To requite your Quibble that Note of Incorporeal Angel ought not to have offended your purged â—ars seeing the old Philosophers thence derived the harmony of the celestial Orbs. But to be in good earnest you seem by denying Intelligencies or Incorporeal Angels not only to contend with those despised Philosophers but to encounter almost the whole world Mr. Hobbes It is true that the Heathens and all Nations of the World have acknowledged that there be Spirits which for the most part they hold to be Incorporeal whereby it might be thought that a man by natural reason may arrive without the Scriptures to the knowledge of this that Spirits are but the erroneous collection thereof by the Heathens may proceed from the ignorance of the Causes of Ghosts and Phantasms and such other apparitions that is to say from the ignorance of what those things are which are called Spectra Images that appeâ—r in the dark to children and such as have strong fears and other strange imaginations By the name of Angel is signified generally a Messenger and most often a Messenger of God and by a Messenger
creature And likewise of Man God made him of the dust of the Earth and breathed in his face the breath of life Et factus est homo in animam viventem that is And man was made a living creature And after Noah came out of the Ark God saith He will no more smite Omnem animam viventem that is Every living creature And Deut. 12.23 Eat not the blood for the blood is the soul that is the Life From which places if by Soul were meant a substance incorporeal with an existence separated from the body it might aswell be inferred of any other living Creatures as of Man Stud. To argue from one sense of an equivocal word to the universal acceptance of it becomes not a man of ordinary parts Nephesh Soul as well as Ruach Spirit is a word of various signification in the Old Testament and in many places it denotes will lust or pleasure We read in the Psalmes this phrase To bind his Princes Benaphscho according to his soul or at his pleasure And again Deliver me not Benephesch unto the soul or will of mine Enemies When the word is improperly attributed to God in Scripture this usually is the sense of it You would now esteem me absurd enough if I went about to infer from hence either that the essence of the Soul consisteth in Will and Pleasure or that the Deity had a Soul that is Life that is Motion The Soul being the spring of bodily life in man it might by an easie Metonymie be used as in the recited places in expressing Life In that place where the Blood is call'd the Soul or Life it was not the design of Moses to set forth Philosophically the inward essence of a Beast but to let the people understand that the blood of a Beast which was sprinkled upon the Altar being an embleme of the life of Man forfeited through disobedience and an instrument in expiation they should abstain out of reverence to that Mystery from a rude quaffing and devouring of it But what answer have you in readiness to those places where the Scripture speaks distinctly of Body and Soul Mr. Hobbes Body and Soul is no more than Body and Life or Body alive In those places of the New Testament where it is said that any man shall be cast body and soul into hell-fire it is no more than body and life that is to say they shall be cast alive into the perpetual fire of Gehenna Stud. Your Gloss is extreamly wide of the unwrested meaning of the holy Text. For our Saviour counselleth his Apostles not to fear them that can kill the body but are not able to kill the soul making a manifest distinction thereby betwixt the Soul and the Life of the Body for if the Soul were nothing but the Life of the body it were in the power of every man to kill our Souls unto whose sword and malice our lives lay do open And thus you see instead of removing truth which in me you call a prejudice you have laid a stumbling block in the way an occasion of falling into error But let us leave the explication of Scripture in which you are for the greater part unhappy and attempt the explication of the exalted mechanism of Living Man wherein you have laboured so many years and concerning which you have raised the expectations of many Mr. Hobbes The cause of Sense is the external body or object which presseth the organ proper to each sense either immediately as in the Tast and Touch or mediately as in Seeing Hearing and Smelling which pressure by the mediation of nerves and other strings and membranes of the body continued inwards to the brain and heart causeth there a resistance or counter-pressure or endeavour of the heart to deliver it self which endeavour because outward seemeth to be some matter without and the seeming or fancy is that which men call Sense Stud. You do not here at all surprize me as if some new Philosophy for the main not heard of in former ages had to your immortal renown been first discover'd by you For it has been said of old that All variety in bodies ariseth from motion and that Sensation is a perception of that manner in which impressing bodies affect us For Aristotle hath recited an ancient saying of Philosophers who holding that Phantaâ—ms were not the things themselves but only in our Senses express'd their opinion by asserting that there was no blackness without Sight nor without Taste And Des-cartes in his Meteors published in French together with his Method Dioptriques and Geometry as soon as I was born explained the nature of Colours light and vision otherwise than by intentional Species and told us that by cold and heat are to understood perceptions occasioned by the less or more vehement touch of little bodies upon the capillaments of the nerves which serve in our organs to that purpose Yet I am not tir'd in hearing such Hypotheses repeated or varied please then to proceed and if it liketh you particularly in the explication of the nature of Vision wherein the Doctrine of Phantasms is most concern'd Mr. Hobbes In every great agitation or concussion of the brain as it happeneth from a stroke especially if the stroke be upon the Eye whereby the Optick-nerve suffereth any great violence there appeareth before the Eyes a certain light which light is nothing without but an apparition only all that is real being the concussion of motion of the parts of that nerve from which experience we may conclude that apparition of light is really nothing but motion within and image and colour is but an apparition to us of that motion agitation or alteration which the object worketh in the brain or spirits or some internal substance in the head Stud. This exposition of Light by the crouding of the parts though it be not wholly to be rejected yet may it I think be rendred suspicious for a time by that which deserves at least the name of a puzzling Objection Let us then suppose unto our selves such a circumference as is surrounded with Eyes for in every point of enlightned space and at all times there may be Vision I say then that the part in the Center being equally crouded on all sides no motion or pressure can be thence conveighed Diametrically from Eye to Eye which is against the Hypothesis mention'd This Scruple concerneth also the Philosophy of Des-cartes against whose Globuli in Vision there hath likewise of late been this Exception made They have been supposed in a right line to move after the manner of Jack-wheels the one from East to West moving the next from West to East from whence it has been concluded that the motion being thus disturbed the knowledg of the Object cannot distinctly be attained to by the endeavour of the last Globulus But to on it what he himself hath written concerning the Collateral Globuli I observe that the Globuli are so
and are unwilling to allow to others their turns of speaking For the rest I might alledge with truth enough by way of excuse the performance of this Labour in the short space of the last Winter-Quarter but the Apology it self the great haste in those twelve Artiâ—les might perhaps seem a crime and a matter of greater guilt then the errour of Ovid who made the Sun to post through all the twelve Signes of the Zodiack in a single day The whole such as it is is most humbly submitted to the Candor and Charity of your Lordship of which that it is great I have good assurance seeing your Honour hath pleased to receive into the number of your dependants My Lord Your Lordships most obliged though unworthy Servant Tho. Tenison Camb. Iune 4. 1670 A TABLE Of the Contents THe Introduction Page Mr. Hobbes and the Student meet at Buxton-well 2. An instance of the train of imagination occasioned there 4 5. Mr. Hobbes his fear suspitious nature expressed in the instance of S. Roscius and parallel'd with the Character of Epicurus in Cicero 5. The entrance into the Dialogue The Students caution about Moroseness Profaneness c. Mr. Hobbes accus'd by des Cartes in one of his Epistles as a man with whom no correspondence is to be held Des Cartes himself noted for prophaning the holy Text. 5 6. Mr. Hobbes defence against the charge of Moroseness c. 7. Why des Cartes an Enemie to Mr. Hobbes and how they differ in the explaining of Sense ibid. Mr. Hobbes Creed in 12 Articles repeated 8 9. Mr. Hobbes boasts of the good effect of his Leviathan upon many of our Gentry 9. Article 1. Concerning the existence and immaterial nature of God 9. c. What Mr. Hobbes meaneth Atheistically in his pretended argument for the existence of a God 10. Mr. Hobbes opinion concerning the corporeitie of God noted by des Cartes and further shewed out of his Leviathan 10 11. The absurd consequences of that opinion which in effect denyeth the being of a God one of them noted by Athenagoras 12 13. Mr. Hobbes self-contradiction whilest he saith all is body yet denyeth parts in God 14. Mr. Hobbes denieth incorporeal substances because the terms are not in Scripture 15. His self-contradiction and improprietie of speech 16. Against Mr. Hobbes that the Scripture favours the doctrine of incorporeal substances 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cited by Ignatius out of the N. T. 17. Against Mr. Hobbes that both Plato and Aristotle wrote of incorporeal substances 17 18. Mr. Hobbes argueth against incorporeal substances from Tertullian and the Doctors of the Greek Church 19. Against Mr. Hobbes that the incorporeitie of God is asserted by Athenagoras Theophilus Aut. Tatianus Eusebius Athanasius c. 19 20. Des Cartes accuseth Mr. Hobbes of making false illations whatsoever the premisses be 20. An answer out of other places in Tertullian to the words cited by Mr. Hobbes 22. Mr. Hobbes writes the same over and over especially about incorporeal substances 23. That Mr. Hobbes fixeth a wrong sense upon the words substance and matter 24 25. A saying of Marcellus concerning the making words free 24. Mr. Hobbes doctrine concerning the incomprehensible nature of God 26. How God is incomprehensible 27 28. Against Mr. Hobbes that we may have an Idea of God what an Idea is 31 32. That Mr. Hobbes is not advanc'd above the power of imagination 32 33. That Mr. Hobbes condemneth himself by granting a conception of Vacuum 35. Of the Antients calling God the place of all things 36. The first Article concluded with the Apostrophe of Arnobius 36 37. Article 2. Concerning the Trinity 37 38. Mr. Hobbes monstrous explication of that mystery 38. Mr. Hobbes submitteth to the Annotations of the Assembly 40. Pope Alexanders absurd proof of the Trinity noted by Enjedinus ibid. According to Mr. Hobbes there may be more then 100 persons in the Deity 41. Concerning Adam Abraham Moses Saul Christ c. as representing Gods person ibid. Against Mr. Hobbes that Father in the old Testament is used somtimes in reference to Christ. 42. A text cited by Just. Martyr disagreeing with the vulgar copy ibid. The Trinity according to the explication of Mr. Hobbes no mystery at all 43. Article 3. Of the Origin of the Vniverse 43 44. c. Mr. Hobbes conception of a great bulk of matter arising out of a point 44. Against Mr. Hobbes that men are not wearied in ascending by effects and causes to the first 45. Mr. Hobbes supposing an eternal cause in motion supposeth an eternal cause to be no eternal 46. The school of Epicurus noted by Cicero as deficient touching the source of motion 47. Against Mr. Hobbes that the Creation is to be proved by reason not authority 48 49. Mr. Hobbes is followed in his digression about the word Magistrate and refuted and places out of Varro Cicero Tertullian Grotius our Articles are to that purpose cited and Castalio's niceness taxed 49 50 51. Against Mr. Hobbes that if God is it follows he is Creator of the order of the world of the scituation of the heart 52 53. Mr. Hobbes in De homine confesseth that the order of the parts of the body doth inferre the existence of an intelligent framer of them 54. Article 4. Concerning the incorporeal and permanent nature of Angels Mr. Hobbes supposeth them as phantasms in dreams or pictures in a looking-glass 55. c. Whâ—t Spirit and Angel signifie according to Mr. Hobbes at large 56 57. Against Mr. Hobbes that the being of Angels and Spirits may be proved from natural reasoning and the old Testament 58. Against Mr. Hobbes that Religion ariseth not from tales publickly allowed 50. Of Cardan and his Genius ibid. Concerning Witches Sybills Oracles that they ceased not as Mr. Hobbes saith at Christs coming Concerning Michael Nostredamus 61 62. Against Mr. Hobbes that the Angels sent to Abraham and Lot were not meer apparitions 65. That Christ was not tempted as Mr. Hobbes saith in a Vision ibid. Scultetus's mistake of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. Hobbes his of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ibid. That the N. T. asserteth the existence of Angels â—piscopius mistake concerning Christ appearing aâ— a meer Spectre to the Disciples 66 67. Mr. Hobbes late confession of Angels as permanent â—nd substantial from the places in the N. T. Against Mr. Hobbes that the Scripture speaks of the creâ—tion of Angels 68 69. Of the â—ord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Col. 1. the reading of Irenaeus noted 70. Mr. Hobbes mistake about the word Ghost 71. Of his verses of the Peak ibid. Conclusion of the first dialogue 73. Beginning of the second dialogue Article 5. Concerning the Soul and perception in matter 75. According to Mr. Hobbes the Soul is the organized body in due moâ—ion and the Scripture meaneth by Soul bodily life 75 76. This refuted Why blood called the life not to be eaten 76. Mr. Hobbes hypothesis concerning sensation be putteth
satisfaction to find all this in the sequel of our Discourse confirmed to me by experience But whatsoever your behaviour is like to be I cannot but fear having been conversant in your Leviathan that your opinions will deserve reproof I have sometimes heard the substance of them comprized in twelve Articles which sound harshly to men profeâ—â—ing Christianity and they were delivered under the Title of the Hobbist's Creed in such phrase and order as followeth I believe that God is Almighty matter that in him there are three Persons he having been thrice represented on earth that it is to be decided by the Civil Power whether he created all things else that Angels are not Incorporeal substances those words implying a contradiction but preternatural impreâ—â—â—ons on the brain of man that the Soul of man is the temperament of his Body that the Liberty of Will in that Soul is physically necessary that the prime â—aw of nature in the soul of man is that of self-Love that the Law of the Civil Sovereign is the obliging Rule of good and evil just and unjust that the Books of the Old and New Testament are made Canon and Law by the Civil Powers that whatsoever is written in these Books may lawfully be denied even upon oath after the laudable doctrine and practice of the Gnosticks in times of persecution when men shall be urged by the menaces of Authority that Hell is a tolerable condition of life for a few years upon earth to begin at the general Resurrection and that Heaven is a blessed estate of good men like that of Adam beâ—ore his fall beginning at the general Resurrection to be from thenceforth eternal upon Earth in the Holy-Land These Articles as they are double in their number so do they a thousand times exceed in mischievous error those six so properly called bloody ones in the dayes of King Henry the eighth Nay Sir I beseech you set not so uneasily neither prepare to vent your passion for if it shall appear in the pursuit of this disputation that this charge which is now drawn up is false I will not persist in it but be zealous in moving all your slanderers to lay themselves at those Feet of yours at which as you your self have written so very many of our English Gentry have with excellent effect sate for instruction At present I desire to take no other advantage from that presumed Creed than may be derived from the method in which the Articles of it are propounded as also from the particular subjects contained in them without any forestalling assent or dissent of mind For from thence we may fitly borrow both the Heads and the Order of such a discourse as will lead us without confusion throughout all those Opinions with which you are said to have debauched Religion Let us then take our beginning from the first Article that fundamental principle which being removed all real Religion falls to the ground that is to say the Existence of a God Are you then convinced that God is Mr. Hobbs I am For the effects we acknowledge naturally do include a Power of their producing before they were produced and that Power presupposeth something Existent that hath such Power and the thing so existing with power to produce if it were not eternal must needs have been produced by somewhat before it and that again by somewhat else before that till we come to an eternal that is to say the First Power of all Powers and â—â—rst Cause of all Causes and this is it which all men conceive by the name of God Stud. By this argument unwary men may be perhaps deceived into a good opinion of your Philosophy as if by the aids of it you were no weak defender of natural Religion but such as with due attention search your Books they cannot miss a Key wherewith they may decypher those mysterious words and shew that in their true and proper meaning they undermine Religion in stead of laying the ground-work of it Des-Cartes in an Epistle to Father Mersennus makes mention though with much neglect of your opinion concerning a Corporeal God this it seems you had broached in a studied Letter which passed through divers hands about that time when All things Sacred began to be most rudely invaded to wit the commencement of our Civil Wars And in diver Books since that time published you have often insinuated and sometimes directly asserted that whatsoever existeth is material Seing then it is absurd to say that Matter can create Matter it followeth that the effects you speak of in your argument are not to be understood of the very Essences of bodies which in your Book de Corpore you conceive to be neither generated nor destroyed but of those various changes which by motion are caused in nature your sense then amounteth to this impious assertion that in the chain of natural causes subordinate to each other that portion of matter which in one rank of causes and effects for you admit of an eternal cause or of causes being it self eternally moved gave the first impulse to another body which also moved the neighboring Body so forward in many links of succession 'till the motion arrived at any effect which we take notice of is to be called God In the like sense the Atheist Vaninus called nature the Queen and Goddesse of Mortals being as saith a learned Writer a sottish Priest of the said Goddess and also a most infamous sacrifice Mr. Hobbes This principle that God is not incorporeal is the doctrin which I have sometimes written and when occasion serves maintain I say therefore that the world I mean not the Earth only that denominates the lovers of it worldly men but the Universe that is the whole Mass of all things that are is corporeal that is to say body and hath the dimensions of magnitude namely length breadth and depth also every part of body is likewise body and hath the like dimensions consequently every part of the universe is body that which is not body is no part of the â—niverse and because the universe iâ— all that which is no part of it is nothing and consequently no where nor do's it follow from hence that Spirits are nothing for they have dimensions and are therefore really bodies though that name in common speech be given to such bodies only as are visible or palpable that is that have some degree of opacity But for Spirits they call them incorporeal which is a name of more honor and may therefore with more piety be attributed to God himself in whom we consider not what attribute expresseth best his nature which is incomprehensible but what best expresseth our desire to honor him Stud. If every part of body be body not only â—s to us but in it self there seemeth to be such an inexhaustibleness in the least atome as will render it as infinite as the whole Mass of the
notion which may be delivered in another form of words And moreover when you say that Plato and Aristotle could not conceive a spirit by reason that with them it signified a wind to be incorporeal therein also you ought not to have used such confidence in your assertion for if wind be motion and motion be so unglued and loose as to pass from Body to Body I know not whether the nâ—me of wind may not more promote than obstruâ—t the apprehension of an incorporeal Being We are informed by Sextus Empiricus that some of the Antients contended expresly for the incorporeity of motion I mean by motion that force so little yet understood which is the cause of the translation of bodies and not as you somewhere speak the relinquishing of one place and acquiring another But leaving this subtiler Consideration I will proceed to shew that neither the Scripture nor the School of Plato or Aristotle is wholly unacquainted with the Doctrine of an incorporeal spirit Concerning the holy Scripture it saith that God created all things and filleth all things and therefore it teacheth that he is immaterial And for the very term we may perhaps meet with it in the words of our blessed Lord who appearing to the doubting and amazed Disciples encouraged and confirmed their faith by saying to them Lay hold of me handle me and see that I am not an incorporeal Daemon you will now tell me that I follow not the true Copy of the New Testament in the translation of this produced Text. I defend my self by answering that I follow holy Ignatius who in his undoubted Epistle to those of Smyrna cited both by Eusebius and St. Hierome bringeth in our Lord using these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This excellent person who saw our Lord after his resurrection did either cite the words exactly or else which also strengtheneth my cause he eâ—press'd the sence of them according as it was received in the incorruptest Age of the Christian Church Concerning the Philosophy of Plato in relation to the Question which lay before us there is nothing more received than that he affirmed the most celestial parts of matter neither to be God or Angel or spirit of man but to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as is the phrase of Hierocles the spiritual Chariots of prae-existing Angels or of departed minds In the beginning of the Dialogue with the Jew Trypho Iustin Martyr at large relating his small proficiency under the Tutorage of a Stoick a Peripatetick and a Pythagorean adds also that he adjoyn'd himself at last to a Platonist of great fame that he improved daily by his instruction that he was extreamly pleas'd amongst other parts of science by him taught with the notion of incorporeal beings and if I well remember the great admirer of Plato Psellus has call'd the Soul an immaterial and incorporeal fire And touching Plato himself I am sure that I have read this Maxime in his Politicus that incorporeal Beings which are of all others the most glorious and great are only conspicuous to the faculty of Reason which though it be there said by Hospes yet it is approved of by Plato himself under the name of Socrates who reply'd that he had excellently spoken Neither will I pass by the testimony of Aristotle who by his separate Intelligences meaneth saith Ben Maimon the same with those who maintain the existence of incorporeal Angels And concerning the rational soul he teacheth that it is separable from the body because it is not the Entelech of any body having a while before enquired whether it be endued with any peculiar function not arising from this compounded estate He also denieth that motion can arise from a body Mr. Hobbes It is manifest by your thick quotations that you are much in love with Authority to that therefore in the second place I will refer you Know then that whatsoever can be inferr'd from the denying of incorporeal substances makes Tertullian one of the antientest of the Fathers and most of the Doctors of the Greek Church as much Atheists as my self Stud. You have not by this means advanc'd your hopes of victory for I shall make it evident that the Forces in whose numbers you trust are falsly muster'd The Fathers of the Greek Church believe in the same sence with the Doctors of our own that God is a Spirit for Ignatius and Iustin Martyr you have heard already on what side they stand Athenagoras in his Embassie in behalf of the Christians to M. Aurelius Antoninus and L. Aurelius Commodus discourseth to this purpose The Athenians did most justly condemn Diagoras for sacrilegious impiety who rather than his Coleworts should remain unboylâ—d would cut in pieces the Statue of Hercules who also did expresly affirm that there was no God at all But as for us who separate God from matter and teach that God is one thing and matter another the reproach of Atheism is most unreasonably and injuriously charg'd upon our Creed The same Athenagoras in a few Pages after this discourse again professeth not as his private opinion but as the faith of the Christians of that Age that God admitteth not of any division neither consisteth of any parts Then for Theophiluâ— the Patriarch of Antioch who likewise writeth not as a private man but as a common Apologist for the Christians he tells Antolycus the Heathen that God is every where and that every thing is in God Had he believed God to have been a Body he would not have placed all other Beings in his boundless Essence unless we shall take the boldness to accuse the holy Patriarch of that fault which Des-Cartes imagined he had espied in your self of failing whatsoever the Premisses be in the Illations deduced from them If we consult Tatianus in his Oration contra Graecos we shall likewise obtain his suffrage for the immateriality of the first cause There are said Tatianus who do maintain that God is a Body I am not of the same belief with them for my perswasion is that he is incorporeal Eâ—sebius may be produc'd in the same place both against your self touching the materiality and against Idolaterâ— touching the worship of Angels for thus he speaks We have learn't to honour the incorporeal powers according to the degree of their dignity ascribing divine honour to God alone St. Athanasius tells the Followers of Sabellius that it is a very childish and foolish conceit by the eye or by the circumscription of place to comprehend that which is incorporeal understanding this speech of the infinite Majesty of Almighty God St. Chrysostome in the same place affirmeth God and the soul of man to be incorporeal I might here subjoyn in favour of the common opinion St. Irenâ—eus St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen St. Gregory Nyssen St. Epiphanius and a long order of others if it were not a needless labour and would
of God is signified any thing that makes known his extraordinary presence that is to say the extraordinary manifestation of his Power especially by a Dream or Vision That Angels are Spirits is often repeated in Scripture but by the name of Spirit is signified both in Scripture and vulgarly both amongst Iews and Gentiles sometimes thin bodies as the Air the Wind the Spirits vital and animal of living Creatures and sometimes the Images that rise in the fancy in Dreams and Visions which are not real substances nor last any longer than the dream or vision they appear in which Apparitions though no real substances but accidents of the brain yet when God raiseth them supernaturally to signifie his will they are not unproperly termed Gods Messengers that is to say his Angels And as the Gentiles did vulgarly conceive the imagery of the brain for things really subsistent without them and not dependent on the fancy and out of them framed their opinions of Daemons good and evil which because they seemed to subsist really they called substances and because they could not feel them with their hands incorporeal So also the Iews upon the same ground without any thing in the Old Testament that constrain'd them thereunto had generally an opinion except the Sect of the Sadducees that those Apparitions which it pleased God sometimes to produce in the fancy of men for his own service and therefore called them his Angels were substances not dependent on the fancy but permanent Creatures of God whereof those which they thought were good to them they esteemed the Angels of God and those they thought would hurt them they called evil Angels or evil Spirits such as was the Spirit of Python and the Spirits of mad men of Lunaticks and Epilepticks for they esteemed such as were troubled with such diseases Daemoniacks But if we consider the places of the Old Testament where Angels are mentioned we shall find that in most of them there can nothing else be understood by the word Angel but some Image raised supernaturally in the fancy to signifie the presence of God in the execution of some supernatural work and therefore in the rest where their nature is not exprest it may be understood in the same manner Concerning Spirits which some call incorporeal and some corporeal it is not possible by natural means only to come to knowledge of so much as that there are such things Stud. Touching the incorporeal nature of Angels I will evince the necessity of it by proving when we come to examine the nature of mans Soul that matter is not capable of Cogitation At present I will consider your two Assertion now delivered that the existence of Angels as permanent substances is not to be collected from natural Reason and that the Writings of the Old Testament speak not in favour of such Doctrine Concerning the first it is wont to be said that strange presages of mind and warnings in dreams wonderfull effects in men snatch'd away and mountains and buildings removed and demolished by power invisible real apparitions to many men at once predictions of Oracles confessions and exploits of Wizards and Witches do by natural argumentation prove the existence of Angels as also that these are apt instruments to beget terrour in the minds of wicked men in order to their speedy reformation Mr. Hobbes I know that from fear of Power invisible feigned by the mind or imagined from Tales publickly allowed ariseth Religion not allowed Superstition Stud. If these be meer Tales the publick allowance of them cannot make them to become Religion For God being infinitely powerfull and wise refuseth to be served by the effects of solly and ignorance neither standeth he in need of pious frauds and stratagems wherewith to bring to pass his holy designs for they are arguments of impotency in those who use them and the truths of Religion appear most genuine when there is due trial made of them by exposing them to the light But if these things which I have mention'd be Tales and Fables all thoughts of which do often shake the higher Powers who are said to feign them then the faith almost of mankind is call'd in question and the most knowing persons are accused of eredulity or imposture These Stories have not been meerly believed by children and short sighted people but by Socrates Plotinus Synesius Dion Iosephus Pomponatius Cardan and his Transcriber Caesar Vanine and divers others not ideots in Philosophy nor yet some of them zealots in Religion Cardan a man who would speak liberally of himself not dissembling his very follies and vices has in his Life written by his own hand spent an whole Chapter in discoursing about his good Genius and therein he insisteth upon such evidences as made it manifest to him that his Imagination did not impose upon him He also foretold the year and day of his death which because some will not allow to have been done by skill they have said that by starving his body he effected it becoming a self-destroyer to gain the reputation of a Prophet If there may exist such Inhabitants of the air and there is nothing in nature which doth hinder such Beings more than it doth the existence of understanding creatures upon earth and there is reason enough to perswade us that all Regions of the Universe are some way peopled why should it then seem incredible that they sometimes bestow a Visit upon mortal men Were all Body and Matter the air as well as earth might be folded into shapes which think and direct their motions at pleasure Although some Stories are hatchâ—d in Chimney-corners or in the disturbed imaginations of fearfull people and are told by such as love to hear themselves talk and to be believed and are of easie confutation it followeth not thence though it be the common reason that all are fables Then as is usually said all Histories would be condemned because there is such a vast crowd of Romances which multiply with the number of idle and sensual persons and your Thucydides would fall into the dis-repute of Amadis de Gaule I could tell of one who wearing good Cloathes and denying the existence of real Wizards and Witches before vulgar Judges and by staying in his Chamber from Church procured amongst the people the esteem due to a man of a shrewd head-piece and one that saw behind the Curtain though I am well confirmed that his ignorance was the Mother and his laziness the Nurse of his in-devotion Mr. Hobbes Necromancy Witch-craft charming and conjuring the Liturgy of Witches is but juggling and confederate knavery The Priests at Delphi Delos Ammon were Impostors the Leaves of the Sybils the Fragments of which seem to be the invention of later times and the Prophesies of Nostradamus are from the same Forge Stud. For the Sybils the learned D. Blondel has not ineffectually cast away his studies in relation to my self Concerning Oracles although I understâ—nd by divers
Authors and particularly by your Thucydides that they gave some Answers dubious and others false and divers true but such as a prudent man might have return'd out of deep insight into civil affairs yet without a suspicion of antient Historians too uncharitable I cannot prevail upon my mind to think that the Priests had no assistance from Daemons I know not what other judgement to make of the Answer which the Pythia gave to Craesus an instance to which you cannot be a stranger He enquir'd at Delphos touching the proper means for the loosning the tongue of that beloved Son of his who was apt for every thing besides speech The Pythia returned answer that there was no great reason for his solicitousness about the dumbness of the Child seeing when he should first speak the hour would be unhappy to his Father The event was agreeable to the prediction his Son first crying out when Sardis being taken Craesus was ready to fall by the inglorious hand of a common Persian I could if you requir'd it produce strange Instances in times not so remote from our own a good while after the coming of our Lord notwithstanding that you have asserted that in the planting of the Christian Religion the Oracles ceased in all parts of the Roman Empire Marcellinus would have un-deceivâ—d you and even Iulian the Apostate who in his works is frequent in the mention of present Oracles and particularly in an Epistle to Maximus the Cynic which being private and to a Philosopher doth argue that he wrote as he believ'd He there tells Maximus who was brought into some danger under Constantius that he had consulted the Gods concerning his estate being far distant from him and solicitous for his welfare and that he could not do it in person but by others not be able to hear immediately as he suspected ill tidings of his Friend as likewise that the Oracle had return'd answer that the Philosopher was in some trouble but not pressed with such extremity as giveth unnatural counsell Touching Michel Nostradamus Physician in Ordinary to Henry the Second of France I have read his Centuries with very little edification Yet when I remember that in sixty six I beheld London in the Flames I know not how to despise that Stanza of his which if it has not satisfied our reason I 'm sure it has astonished the imaginations of many But whether he spake the words and we contriv'd the sense I leave under debate But be these things as they will this I am enough confirmed in that such as publickly deny Witch-craft are sawcy affronters of the Law and therefore for their opinion which rather establisheth irreligion than subverts the faith they ought to be chastiz'd from those Chairs of Justice which they have reproachfully stain'd with the bloud of many innocent and mis-perswaded people Mr. Hobbes As for Witches I think not that their Witch-craft is any real power but yet that they are justly punished for the belief they have that they can do such mischief joyned with their purpose to do it if they can Stud. I have heard it elsewhere said that our Witches are justly hang'd because they think themselves so and suffer deservedly for believing they did mischief because they mean it But methinks that Law were to be accused of unreasonable severity which should take away the life of those knowingly and deliberately who before they make confession of their inefficacious malice are in no sort hurtfull to the Common-wealth which is not concerned in our thoughts and when they make confession not of any evil practices but of their delusions of distemper'd fancy appear to be possessed with madness rather than a Daemon and ought rather to be provided for in Bedlam than executed at Tyburn But could we grant it to be a piece of â—ustice yet would that evasion be too thin to shelter those from the censure of the Law who as I think do most insolently revile it by denying all real confederacy with Daemons For the Statute of King Iames whom you somewhere honour with the attribute of most wise condemns to death only such Authors of Enchantment and Witch-craft as are convicted of real effects And it is not felony without Clergy though it be imprisonment with shame of the Pillory to attempt to tell of stollen goods or to destroy or hurt mans body by Conjuration The Statute also mentioneth the making Covenants with some evil and wicked Spirit as a practice granted and notorious But passing from the Law of our Sovereign to that of Moses let us Secondly Consider Whether thereby you are not also condemned in the Article of the permanent substances of Angels It is thought by learned men that Moses and the Prophets had so conspicuously taught the Being of Angels that the very Sadducees denied not absolutely the existence of such Spirits but their natural Being and duration conceiving by their appearing and disappearing on a sudden that God had created them upon account of some extraordinary Embassie and the service being done reduced them to their first nothing The Old Testament describes Angels by such Offices of standing before the Throne of God and ministring perpetually to the Favourites of God as shew at once their unfancied existence and their permanency It were a voluminous labour to write each Authority in the old Law and it were also a superfluous one seeing the bare instances of Lot and Abraham are so pregnant with evidence that no reason can overthrow it though a boisterous impudence may turn it aside Mr. Hobbes Why may not the Angels that appeared to Lot be understood of Images of men supernaturally formed in the fancy That to Abraham was also of the same nature an Apparition Stud. The Angels sent to Lot were not meer Phantasms for the Texts seems as much an historical Relation as any pasâ—age in the Acts and Monuments of Gods Church the very History of the Passion scarce excepted And in truth you have bidden very fair towards a phantastical Cross by affirming our Saviour to have been tempted in a Vision Were that true it would be but a faint encouragement which the Author to the Hebrews thought a sufficient motive to animate our hopes in the day of the spiritual battel to consider with our selves that our Saviour imagined himself to be tempted and therefore will succour us that are really tempted Scultetus was betray'd into this error by his mistake of the Greek word rendred a Pinacle having read it seems in Iosephus that the Pinacles of the Temple were so very sharp as not to sustain a bird without piercing its feet Whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified a Battlement of the Temple a support easie and sufficient on which Saint Iames the Just was placed and thence by the violence of bloody men was thrown down headlong And for your self you fell into this conceit by being ignorant or by
up as we say our Memories and perhaps in vain Mr. Hobbes This is Re-conning And our thoughts run in the same mannâ—r as one would sweep a room to find a Jewel or as a Spaniel ranges the field 'till he find a scent or as a Man should run over the Alphabet to start a rime Stud. This business of the Brain is set on work by the Will or Desire and so far from being caused by Mechanick impulse that it is occasioned by a Privation or in your way by the missing of parts But to connect my Discourse to those words wherein you interrupted me when after all rubbings up of Memory we despair of finding this much-sought Name aâ— laâ—t pâ—rhaps by accidence we espy it on a Monument or Medal or in a Book or hear it oâ— something of like sound with it pronounced by another straightway there aâ—iseth in us not only â— Pâ—rception of this Name by this new Motion which is the whole Mechanick causality but also a knowledg that this was thâ— gâ—oat we swept for the Name sought after a rejâ—ycing in the discovery The sound was not able to produce in us any other Image than we held of old when we first read or heard the word by what token then could it be known to be the lost Name found if Mâ—mory be performed without an Immaterial Soul Having mentioned Obâ—â—vion I will go on by shewing that according to your Principles almost every thing would be as deeply and as soon forgotten as I wish your Doctrines were concerning God and his Angels and the Souâ—s of Men. Attend then to the meaning of Heraclitus who was wont to say That no Man bathed twice in the same River and of a Modern Physitian who hath told us That no Man sits down the same to a second Meal The Spirits which with the greatest reason are supposed to be most the Soul and to rebound because it is not so proper to say That the Nerves and Membranes rebound from the Spinal Marrow â—o the plexus retiformis are always shifting postures and places and many of them transpire daily whilst new parts of the Blood are exalted and conveighed into their room In Children the Organs are changed by accession of Parts and in all in the space perhaps of less than seven years the whole Sentient whatsoever it is is for the main vanished ' though the Texture be alike as was the form of Structure in the Ship of Theseus How then as Raimundus Martini argueth Can any person 〈◊〉 himâ—â—lâ— after seventy years to be individually the same it he be not endued with a Spiritual and Incorruptible Soul which remaineth the same intirely throughout that space but consisteth only of a Body in Motion with perpetual flux of Parts Or by what fetch or wit can it bâ— explaned how the new addâ—d Matter by new pressure can remember what was perceived by the former whose Motion is scattered with it selâ— If we should suppose the Pâ—rts to remain and yet the Motion to hâ—vâ— pâ—rished it is all one to them when they are moved by a fresh impulse as if they never had been moved but at that time Now that the Motion pâ—risheth daily in effect that is that 〈◊〉 far varieth in its degrees and determinations as not to be in capacity of reprâ—senting the Object as it did in its unchanged condition will I think be concluded by premises by your self laid down Do you not then not only ascribe to the several Senses proper Organs and in them proper parts which have animation but also affirm the Heart to be the common seat of Sense Mr. Hobbes The Heart is a common Organ to all the Senses whereas that which reacheth from the Eye to the roots of the Nerves is proper only to sight The proper Organ oâ— Hearing is the Tympanum of the Ear and its own Nâ—rve from which to the Heart the Organ is common In the proper Organs of Smell and Taste are nervous Membranes in the Palate and Tongue for the Taste and in the Nostrils for the Smell and from the roots of those Nerves to the Heart all is common Lastly the proper Organ of Touch are Nerves and Membranes dispersed through the whole Body which Membranes are derived from the root of the Nerves And all things else belonging alike to all the Senses seem to be administred by the Arteries and not by the Nerves Stud. The Spirits then moved in Vision by the Object return by counter-pressure to the Retina and from thence by such Arteries as you make conjecture of unto the Heart the source of Spirits Mr. Hobbes Conceptions and apparitions w ch are nothing really but Motion in some Internal Substance of the Head stop not there but the Motion proceedeth to the Heart And as in sense that which is really within us is only Motion but in apparence to the Sight light and colour to the Ear sound c. So when the action of the Object is continued from the Eyes Ears and other Organs to the Heart the real effect there is nothing but Motion or Endeavour which consisteth in Appetite or Aversion to or from the Object moving But the apparence or sense of that Motion is that we either call delight or trouble of Mind Stud. It is then impossible to remember seeing the Motion in passing to the heart and in being in the heart whilst it is dilated in receiving blood from the Vena Cava and contracted in forcing what is receiv'd into the Habit of the Body for the vulgar Systole is the Diastole of the Heart and vice versa must needs be either communicated to other parts already in Motion or encreased by the receit of Motion from such infinite parts of blood justling with it or at least varied once and again in its determinations rebounding often from divers terms wherefore it must be suppos'd to perish not properly indeed seeing no Motion is lost any other way than money is said to be lost when it passeth from one Gamster to another but to all the intents and purposes of representing the Object which to awaken a new Sensation must come into the Brain by a new Impulse So that Motion in the Blood from the Impression of an outward Object is like that of water by a stone cast in it is propagated from one circle to another 'till at length it passeth undiscerned into a foreign subject But it is time to hasten our pace in the present Controversie In which I could not to say truth have been very brief if I had but made a short rehearsal of the very heads of such Arguments as overthrow the Doctrine of Thinking Matter Let us then pass by these lower powers of Sense and Fancy and Memory and consider the more advanced faculty of Reason and here we shall perceive by the manner of Mental working that Reason is a power superiour to Imagination and much more to all the causality of corporeal pressure
is only a dissolution of the contexture of the parts and the motion convey'd to other portions of neighbouring matter Why also do you vary from the translation of the Hebrew copy in Chap. 3. v. 21. for instead of Who knoweth the spirit of man that is ascending and the Spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth You have thus rendred the words Who knoweth that the spirit of man goeth upward for there is great difference betwixt this saying Who knoweth that Mr. Hobbes is a Mathematician and this Who knoweth Mr. Hobbes who is a Mathematician The former disposition of Solomon's words supposeth a Spirit and the ascent of it and withall our ignorance of the nature of the Soul the latter leaveth it doubtful whether the Spirit ascendeth or not It is well though I believe you knew it not your self that the Seventie Interpreters are a little on your side Mr. Hobbes But what is on your part to be said to those words of Solomon in Chap. 4. ver 3. of Ecclesiastes Better is he that hath not yet been then both they that is then they that live or have lived which if the Soul of all them that have lived were immortal were a hard saying for then to have an immortal Soul were worse then to have no Soul at all Stud. To this the easie truth is to be replyed that the wise man preferreth a condition of not being if we suppose him speaking in his own Person before a life of misery and doubtless it is better to have no Soul then to have a Soul immortal together with immortal grief and the saying is common amongst Diviâ—es that it had bin better for Dives to have had no tongue then to have bin possessed of it meerly as a subject for the fury of the infernal flames to prey upon and I think also it is the natural sense of mankind Wherefore though Iob was a man of great fortitude of spirit and one who feared by impatience to offend God Yet when his calamities as so many waves in thick succession were ready to over-whelme him he began to curse the day of his Nativitie Mr. Hobbes There is yet another place in the book of Ecclesiastes which confirmeth my opinion of the state of the dead It is said in Chap. 9. ver 5. That the living know they shall dye but the dead know not any thing that is naturally and before the resurrection of the body Stud. For answer to this citation I â—efeâ— you to Diodati whose notes you have no reason to despise seeing you have submitted the declaration of your judgement to the Annotations of the Assembly who pleased to transcribe so very many places out of the aforesaid Authour observe therefore the context and his interpretation which I may represent to you in this Paraphrase Ver. 3. By reason of this indifferency of events mentioned by Solomon in the beginning of the Chapter worldly men dally with 'till they die iâ— their sins Ver. 4. For whilst life doth last the gate of hope and repentance is open though men make not use of this opportunity in order to their salvation For a living dogg that is to say a great sinner alive is happier whilst God grants to him life and opportunitie of conversion then a lesser sinner compared to a Lyon which is a more noble and not so unclean a beast as a dogg who dyeth in his impenitencie and so is past all remedy Ver. 5. For the living know they shall die and through the fear of death may be induced to repentance whilst there is space for it but the dead know not any thing not in this sense that their souls do loose all knowledge conscience or remembrance but in this because it availeth them nothing to Salvation and they understand not now the things that belong to their peace for they are by the absence of opportunity quite hidden from their eyes neither have they any more a reward set down for virtue whilst a man liveth in this world which is the place appointed for us to labour and run our race in for the memory of them is forgotten God hath for ever cast them off according to that of David Like the slain that lye in the grave whom thou remembrest no more and they are cut off from thy hand And this sense of the place is confirmed by the tenth verse where Solomon presseth men to a speedie exercise of religion in these words Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledg nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest Mr. Hobbes What answer have you to the words of Iob Chap. 14. ver 7. There is hope of a tree if it be cast down though the root thereof wax old and the stock thereof dye in the ground yet when it senteth the water it will bud and bring forth boughs like a plant but man dyeth and wasteth away yea man giveth up the ghost and where is he And ver 12. man lyeth down riseth not till the heavens be no more But when is it that the heavens shall be no more S. Peter tells us that it is at the general resurrection Stud. It hath been thought by some a sufficient answer to this place to understand it of entire man as he consisteth of soul and body seeing man is not man ariseth not ' though the soul existeth and ascendeth before the consummate estate of both in the great day of the Messiah I know also that the Jews consider Iob as a Gentile who had no assurance of a future state and that he speaketh in the seventh Chapter as much against the resurrection of the body as the immortalitie of the soul. As the cloud saith Iob is consumed and vanisheth away so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more And there are many who expound the letter in the 19 Chap. and 25 26. verses of the restitution of Iobs body tormented with worms to soundness of health and of the blessings descending upon him in his latter daies even to the eclipsing the glories of his first posteritie Mr. Hobbes What need is there of answer upon answer in the present case for this doctrine of the natural immortalitie of the soul which you so eagerly conted for is unnecessary to the Christian faith For supposing that when a man dies there remaineth nothing of him but his carcass cannot God that raised inanimated dust and clay into a living creature by his word as easily raise a dead carcass to life again and continue him alive for ever or make him dye again by another word Stud. If you attempt thus to explain the resurrection of entire man you will be pressed with such a weighty inconvenience as cannot by the utmost strength of your wit be ever sustained For if man be not raised up by a reunion of his immaterial soul to the main Stamina of such a