of Paracelsus A Description of Mercury p. 132 41. An Objection of reducing Things by Fire into three Principles answered Aristotle's Three Principles likewise answered p. 138 42. Of Elements when distinguish'd from Principles A short Description of the Air the Earth the Water and the Fire That by the Words Heaven and Earth are to be understood the Form and the Matter p. 141 43. That Elements and Principles may be termed Equivocal and that there are but Two p. 147 44. An Answer to S s touching Four Elements wherein 't is shewed that there are but Two Elements that of Water the Passive Matter and the Solar Influx the Form p. 148 45. Some Aristotelian Hypotheses examined and compared with those of Democritus That the Elements are not contrary and opposite as Aristotle holds but agreeing and alike in a remiss degree according to Democritus p. 150 46. Of the Primary Qualities in Bodies according to Aristotle whence proceed their Effects and of the Atomical Physiology of Leucippus Epicurus and Democritus Both Opinions examined p. 152 47. Reasons against both and for a middle Opinion p. 157 48. Of the Original of Qualities Herein the Creation is considered and that according to Moses p. 164 49. That these Words The Spirit of God moved on the Face of the Waters are not to be understood of the Holy Ghost p. 167 50. Of the First Day 's Work The Creation of Matter and Form and dividing the Light or Form from the grosser Matter p. 168 51. Of the Second Day 's Work or the Expansion and Division of the Waters above from those below p. 169 52. Of the Third Day 's Work The Generation of Plants p. 171 53. Of the Fourth Day 's Work The Collecting of the Light or Form into the Body of the Sun ibid 54. Of the Fifth Day 's Work The Generation of Fish and Fowl by the Union of Water and the Form p. 172 55. Of the Sixth Day 's Work The Creation of Beasts and Reptiles and lastly Man ibid. 56. How the Earth comes to be filled with variety of Bodies abounding with different Qualities p. 173 57. That the various Accidents and Qualities of Bodies proceed from the various Intension and Remission of the Form not according to Des Cartes from the different Magnitude and Figure of their Principles This illustrated by several Instances p. 176 58. The Conclusion p. 184 LICENSED January 2d 1691 2. Ja. Fraser OF Transmigration c. THis Opinion of Transmigration of Souls which is father'd upon Pythagoras is mistaken every where but very grosly believed in Pegu Magor and other parts of Asia For believing that the Soul doth pass into some other Creature after its departure from the Humane Body they abstain from no sort of respect to the most contemptible Creatures and superstitiously avoid doing any hurt to that Animal whose Body they think contains the Soul of their deceased Father Now how they could tell or why they should think that this or that Beast is thus animated rather than another I confess is strange and what is more so it seems from the Belief of those in Bengall and other Parts of the East-Indies who imagine that the Souls of Good Men pass into Cows and such useful Creatures and the Souls of Bad Men into Crows and such hurtful Birds or Beasts that these People think it of the Immortal Rational Soul rather than the Sensitive For the Faculties of the Rational Soul are exerted naturally in the kind Offices of Beneficence and Humanity but those of the Sensitive only in Growth and Sense It looks as if Folly begot and Superstitious Fancy propagated this Opinion Though to do Right to Pythagoras who was doubtless a great Man the absurdity of this Opinion is as far remote from his Sentiments as the Manichaean Heresie is different from the Christian Religion But Philosophy and Religion have both suffered alike by Ignorant Expositors For what will not a wild Fancy and little Judgment center'd in a Man fond of his own Thoughts produce What strange Opinions in Religion What barbarous Cruelties by Humane Sacrifices to the Heathen Gods hath the World been filled with Nor is Philosophy it self exempt from very odd Conceits Thus are the best Things corrupted But to return to our Author whose Opinion asserted is That the Soul after its departure from the Body passes into some other Animal This is as strongly put as any thing said of him for we have all by Tradition will bear 〈◊〉 Opinion I propose to defend and free it from the Absurdities Men have put upon it and restore it to its native Sence But let me 〈◊〉 here That I do not intend this Migration of the Rational Soul but of the Sensitive and Vegetative Spirit which Terms of Soul and Spirit being often used as Synonyma's have given occasion especially to the Ignorant to mistake the meaning of Pythagoras He that considers the Frame of this World the Contexture of Man and the perpetual Vicissitude and Change of Things will easily believe that either God makes new Matter and Form daily to supply the perishing old or that Things pass and are changed into one another by a continual Circulation But we all know that the Eternal having made the World by his Wisdom and Power does preserve it now by his Providence and Goodness so that we must be forc'd to acknowledge not a new Creation but a Mutation of Things that begets this Variety Man indeed is endowed with something more than the rest of the Creatures he hath a Rational Soul that should sit President in his Body govern his Passions and direct his Affections How little it does so proceeds from the Vileness of our Wills rather than the Degeneracy of our Nature but we would excuse our selves Besides this he hath a Vegetative or Sensitive Spirit which is perfectly distinct from the Rational Soul as well as Body It seems to be a Medium to unite two Extreams of a Divine Immortal Ray and Gross Matter I am not discoursing now of the Government of the Mind over the Sensitive Part and what Obedience the one ought to pay the other nor how they contend for Dominion like Prerogative and Liberty in a disturb'd State But I am laying the Foundation of the Reasonableness of Pythagoras his Opinion which is the Transmigration of Souls or Spirits for these Terms are used equivocally To go to the bottom of this Question 't is fit to consider Nature in her several Provinces Mineral Vegetable and Animal for all created Beings on this side Heaven may be placed under one of these Heads nor are the meanest of them without a Spirit or Vital Principle which is all one and these like the Sensitive Souls of Animals evaporate on the Dissolution or Destruction of their Bodies To say how these Spirits leave their Habitations before I offer how they enter may be improper I shall speak therefore of this first and then of the other Nor will it be impertinent to the
that all Plants of the same sort have much the same Figure and Colour 'T is not certainly from their manner of pressing through the Earth that they obtain the same likeness for how should it happen that the Species of every Herb should have such a particular manner of pressing through the Earth as to make it always retain the same shape But I rather conceive that the saline Particles that joyn with the Vapour being so and so modified for they must have some Figure do determine the genéral Moisture as well to a constant uniform Figure and Colour as to a particular internal Nature and Quality Not unlike the very minute Seeds that we see whose Taste does more truly demonstrate the Nature of its Plant it produces than the Microscope can find out its Figure and yet its Figure is owing to the Modification of the Seed Thus Minerals and Vegetables seem to be made not by Creation as at first out of nothing but by the Union of Matter and Form blessed from the beginning by the Word of God Crescite multiplicamini This for the first sort of Natural Productions As for the latter i. e. the sowing of Seeds and planting of Trees which came in with the Curse their Production may justly be called Artificial but neither are they produced without the assistance of the Universal Spirit for being sown in the Earth the moist Vapour wherein the Universal Spirit rests dissolves the Body of the Seed whose vital Principle being let loose becomes active and vigorous and meeting with the Vapour of the Earth like dear Friends embrace and unite and being of an homogeneous Nature grow up together the General Moisture being first determin'd by the Particular The Growth of Plants is the same the porous Roots sucking in the moist Vapour which is assimilated into the Nature of the Tree by its specificated Virtue As for the Generation of Animals they are not unlike the Production of Vegetables rais'd by particular Seed The describing of which may offend a chaste Ear or excite a lascivious Mind therefore I omit it But this Opinion it 's plain the Learned Ancients were of when they declar'd That Man was not propagated by Coition only but that the Universal Spirit which flows principally from the Sun has a hand in it And therefore they affirmed That Sol Homo generant Hominem which I shall explain more particularly hereafter For as Man is not supported by Bread and Meat only in his sensitive Capacity but by a secret Food of Life that is in the Air so neither is he generated by the Union of Two Sperms only without the assistance of that secret Spirit that enters the closest Caverns whence 't is said Non datur Vacuum It being now said how the Spirit enters and vivifies Matter it remains that we give an account how it leaves it again and what then becomes of it There are various ways of dissolving Nature in all the Parts of her Dominion Animals are destroy'd either by the Consumption through the length of Time of their Radical Moisture the Oil that maintains the Flame or by accident or violence when the Sensitive Spirit for we speak not of the Rational leaves its Habitation and returns into the common Receptacle of Sensitive and Vegetative Spirits the Air from whence it came Minerals and Vegetables are destroyed by Fire and evaporate likewise into the Air I mean the volatil Here it was we found them at first and here in a little circulation of Time we may perceive them again Now being let loose from that Prison where the Spirits 〈◊〉 Forms were detained and specificated a little Time restores them to their native Simplicity and Universality and flowing in an Ocean where the Celestial Influence are continually descending and Vapours ascending like the Angels on Jacob's Ladder they receive new impresses 〈◊〉 Virtue to fit them for farther Service Thus Nature is never idle and thus with Plato all things are in a continual Alteration and Fluctuation Nothing according to Pythagoras is simply new nor any thing according to Trismegistus dies but all things pass and are changed into something else For all mix'd Bodies are made of the Elements into which after a little time they are resolved again Thus Porphyry tells us that every Irrational Power is resolved into the Life of the Whole And thus these Spirits being ready and fit to impregnate new Matter and She 〈◊〉 to desire it according to the Axiom of Materia appetit Formam ut Foemina Virum the same Spirit which animated one Body may on its Dissolution animate another which I take to be the meaning of Pythagoras his Transmigration of Souls or Spirits Hence Lucretius Huic accedit uti quicque in 〈◊〉 Corpora rursum Dissolvit Natura neque ad 〈◊〉 interimit Res. Nature the Form from Bodies oft unties New Bodies to inform whence nothing dies If this be not so I would fain know what becomes of the Form that animates Minerals Vegetables and Animals not to speak of their Bodies which are only changed not annihilated Can that Spirit that gives Life and Motion that partakes of the Nature of Light be reduced to nothing Can that Sensitive Spirit in Brutes that exercises Memory one of the Rational Faculties die and become nothing If you say they breath their Spirits into the Air and there vanish that is all I contend for The Air indeed is the proper place to receive them being according to Laertius full of Souls and according to Epicurus full of Atoms or intelligible Bodies unapparent the Principle 〈◊〉 all Things For even this Place wherein we walk and Birds flie though it is properly rather Water rarefied that Air as I have proved by a Magnet attracting it yet it is thus much of a spiritual Nature that it is invisible therefore well may be the Receiver of Forms since the Forms of all Bodies are 〈◊〉 we can only hear and see its Effects the Air it self is too fine and above the Capacity of the Eye What then is the AEther that is in the Region above And what are the Influences or Forms that descend from thence The Pythagoreans held that the Souls of Creatures are a portion of AEther and all Philosophers agree that AEther is incorruptible and what is so is so far from being annihilated when it gets rid of the Body that it lays a good claim to Immortality Treasures fallen into the Sea are lost only to them that cannot find them witness our late Expedition The Spirit is not lost but moving in the Air in its natural Sphere where it obtains new Strength and Vigor It passes into the Air as the Rivers flow into the Sea Omnia mutantur nihil interit errat illinc Huc venit hinc illuc quo 〈◊〉 bet occupat Artus Spiritus c. Ovid. Met 〈◊〉 Lib. XV. The Spirit never dies 〈◊〉 here and there Though all things
change it wanders through the Air. But do not Animals convey a Sensitive Spirit as 〈◊〉 as Body in Generation How then descends a Form I agree they give a Portion on of Specifick Spirit yet this hinders not but that as the Body is supported by Food in which there is a portion of Spirit and as the Animal Spirits that are continually flowing forth are supplied by the Influx of new and assisted by the Universal so in the Business of Generation as well as afterwards the Specifick Spirit is enlarged and multiplied by the Influx of the General or Universal Now this is more or less according to the activity of the Specifick Spirit which being of the nature of Light doth attract its like with more or less vigor not much unlike an enkindled though not flaming Lamp whose Smoak or Effluviums reaching a neighbouring Light attracts it and becomes enlightned by it at a distance and by how much the Effluviums are more powerful they attract a greater Proportion of Light For Light naturally joyns and unites with Light as Fire with Fire and the Souls of Animals the Rational excepted are a Ray of Heavenly Light Hence it comes to pass that in Men Horses and other Animals you shall have a vast difference the Race of some appearing always full of Life and as it were all Spirit whilst that of others are always heavy and dull and as it were half animated And thus it is in several Plants which every Gardener knows by experience for you shall have in the same kind some produce great increase and others very little in the same Soil Now I see no Reason why the Universal Spirit may not joyn with the Specifick in Generation as well as afterwards And why not in that of Animals as well as in the Production of Vegetables For though it is in the moist Vapour latent in the Earth as I hinted before and imbibed more or less plentifully according to the activity of the Form so is it more intensely in the Air in its proper Sphere for the Universal Spirit lodging principally there permeates through all the Parts of the Universe and is that Nature that is always ready and at hand to vivifie disposed Matter That the Universal Spirit does multiply the animal one after the Birth is obvious to the Understanding of all Men for that portion of animal Spirit that animates an Infant would scarce give motion to a Manly Bulk But I think we may with as much reason deny the Growth and Increase of the Body as that of the Spirit All Men that know the Benefit of good air and the Mischief of bad must acknowledge it How do the weak and languishing in a good air recover Strength and obtain new Spirit and Vigour And how languid and sickly do Men become in a bad And this may well be for the Animal Spirits are of an Aereal Principle which appears from hence whilst they inhabit the Body thro' the intimate Union with the Air the Body is preserved sweet the Air continually flowing in adding new stores of Life and giving Motion as it were to the whole Machine But when the animal Spirit is departed then for want of that Communion the Body putrefies and stinks Hence Anaximenes makes Spirit and Air Synonyma's The Reason of bad Air is occasioned by the grossness of the Watery Humors or Sulphurous Vapors that annoy the Celestial Influences by adhesion to them When the Arsenical Vapors are multiplied it begets a Plague and it 's more or less mortal as they increase or decrease Dismal was the Place that Virgil speaks of Quam super haud ullae poterant impunè volantes Tendere iter pennis talis sese Halitus atris Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat Hnde locum Graii dixerunt nomine Avernum ' O'er which no Fowl can stretch her labouring wings ' Such are the Fumes arising from those Springs ' They mortal are and fill the Atmos-Hall ' Whence do the Greeks that Place Avernus call These Sulphurous Exhalations destroy Plants and Fruit as well as Animals Plants being blighted and Apples being spotted even with blue spots to the Core in the late Sickness-Year where the Plague raged The knowledge of which by the inspection of the Entrails of Animals may be had and foreseen and by removal prevented For when the impurity of the air cannot be discerned by the Sense of Smelling and when the Malignity makes no impression on the outward Skin at least in its first approaches yet the vital parts of Animals which hold the closest and most intimate Communion with the Air will presently discover if there be an Infection in it by the discolouring and putrefying the Parts for they are first tainted then the Blood thence the Sore Hence I conceive it was that Democritus when he was reproached for his Poverty told his Despisers That he could be rich when he pleased For by this Observation being a great Dissector of Bodies he foresaw a Dearth and therefore bought up all the Olives The Dearth happening the Price of Olives rose whereby he might have sold them to great advantage but the Seller repining at his Misfortune Democritus like himself return'd the Olives at the Price he bought them Democritus therefore commended the Wisdom of the Ancients for instituting an inspection into the Entrails of Sacrificed Beasts from the general Constitution and Colour whereof may be perceived Signs of Health or Pestilence and sometimes what Dearth or Plenty will follow Augury thus stinted by wise Observation and having regard to due Circumstances may be useful but the Practice of it amongst the Romans as in foretelling particular Events to Men and the like was justly enough derided by Cicero But all Arts have suffered by the additions of foolish Impostors whence the unwary reject the Truth for the sake of Error intermixt Hence Arts and Sciences have their Death as well as Birth Hence the Tinging of Glass is lost Yet I conceive that they who have Leisure and Knowledge in the Mineral Province may extract a Sulphur from Metals that will tinge and penetrate harder Bodies than that of Glass But to return to the Subject of Air whence I digressed The good Air and the Life and Spirit it brings proceeds from the sublimation of a light Water acuated with a volatil Nitre which being rarefi'd and impregnated with the Heavenly Influences conveys down Life new Recruits to the Spirits of Animals as well as to Plants and Minerals This if you can receive it is Homer's Juno whom Jupiter let down into the Air with a weight at her Feet her Hands being tied with a Gold Chain to Jupiter's Chair The Meaning whereof is this That the Spiritual Influences flowing from the Heavenly Bodies are too subtil for a Descent without a Body that the Air is the Body or Medium that conveys them down to the Earth And though these Forms flow thus
imaginary Seed whenever the Sun approaches with his enlivening Beams surely all these Seeds would quickly appear to sight what then should the Earth do for the next year's Vegetables The Propagation of them only by their letting fall a Seed and by that means another coming in its place is weak and frivolous for though this in many places often happens yet Experience shews us that tho' Weeds are grubb'd up before they run to seed yet the same or others soon grow up in their stead And whence should this happen Who are the Conservators of the seeds of Weeds and noxious Plants Noxious only because their use is not known What Enemy comes in the night and sows them And where are their Store-houses But may not the Birds in the Air let fall seed and so it may grow This Objection can admit no Resolution but this Take Earth defend it as you please so it has some access of Air and you will find an Herb of some sort or other arise It is therefore most evident that by the Heavenly Bodies or from them a germinating Virtue is emitted that this Virtue is universal conveyed by the Medium of Air filling all Places and producing divers Effects according to the plenty of Spirit and difference of Place That this Spirit on the dissolution of its Body is not annihilated but gets loose becomes active and vigorous and impregnates new Matter whose Nature is varied according to the diversity of Place as Water mixing with salt things becomes saline and with Acids sharp Now this to me is so far from being a wonder that I should admire if it were otherwise since Bodies that are but the Case of Spirits are not annihilated when their Spirits leave them but lose only their external Figure and Shape for if Bodies on their resolution were annihilated the World in time would be reduc'd to nothing For the World consisting of Parts and those Parts of Bodies as Bodies are annihilated so are the Parts and the Parts being daily substracted this Machine would fall to pieces or rather to nothing But as in Generation saith Epicurus there is no new substance made but pre-existent substances are made up into one which acquire new Qualities so in Corruption no substance absolutely ceaseth to be but is dissipated into more substances which remain after the destruction of the former So that though Bodies resolve into Dust yet this Dust remains still and being quickned by a Solar Heat shoots forth into some Plant and this Plant becoming Food to Man or Beast and Beast to Man is assimilated into the Nature of the Eater and becomes part of himself Hence Hermes and the rest of the Philosophers affirm that nothing properly dies but all things pass and are changed into something else So that if one would urge it he might prove this way a Transmigration of Bodies as well as Spirits since the Bodies of the Dead become Food to the Living after a little Circulation of Time passing through a few Mediums and that Food becomes part of him that eats it This the Egyptians hinted by the Hieroglyphick of a Snake painted in a circular form the Head swallowing up the Tail Of which Claudian Serpens Perpetuumque viret squamis caudamque reducto Ore vorat tacito relegens exordia lapsu ' Python his Scales renews and on the Ground ' With Tail in Mouth he lies in Circle round Thus Pythagoras might say he was Euphorbus who lived many years before him because of the Possibility both in respect to the Identity in some sort of his Body for we were once upon our Plates and his animation by the same sensitive Spirit being of a Temper and Disposition very like him Thus for similitude of Spirit John the Baptist is called Elias But now for Plato's Opinion and the rest of the Pythagoreans who held or rather seemed to hold That by indulging to Sense the Souls of Men pass'd first into Women then if they continued vicious into Brutes c. This Degeneracy if he had confin'd to the same Body would have had as much Reason and Truth of its side as the other hath of Prettiness and Fancy For Experience shews us that many Men by soft and tender Habits grow weak and effeminate and by degrees slide into an Indulgence of all Brutal Passions Now it is more than probable that there was no more intended by this sort of Expression than to shew Mankind to what a low Ebb Humane Nature might descend to what a Brutal Sordidness Man might sink that wallow'd in sensual Pleasures And what is the natural Consequence of this That Men therefore to avoid this Evil should adorn and cultivate their Minds with useful Knowledge and exert Life in Practical Vertues This was the Design both of Moral and Natural Philosophy and this AEsop who flourished about an hundred years before Plato inculcated by his ingenious Fables amongst which had this of Plato's been inserted the Moral had been obvious to every Understanding This is no new Interpretation for Timaeus long ago commended the Ionick Poet for making Men religious by ancient Fabulous Stories For said he as we cure Bodies with things unwholsome when the wholesome agree not with them so we restrain Souls with Fabulous Relations when they will not be led by the True Let them then continues he since there is a necessity for it talk of these strange Punishments as if Souls did transmigrate the Effeminate into the Bodies of Women given up to Ignominy of Murtherers into those of Beasts for Punishment of the Lascivious into the forms of Swine of the Light and Temerarious into Birds of the Slothful and Idle Unlearned and Ignorant into several kinds of Fishes Thus we see how Pythagoras has been miss-represented and what was made use of only as the last Remedy to restrain Men from Vice and was what we call Argumentum ad Hominem is now for want of Understanding in his Censurers return'd upon him with great Reproach But did not Pythagoras abstain from Flesh-Meat for fear of eating his Parents according to the gross Notion of Transmigration Most certainly not for Jamblicus in the Life of Pythagoras tells us That he being the Disciple of Thales one of the chief Things Thales advised him was to husband his Time well upon which account he abstained from Wine and Flesh only eating such things as were light of Digestion by which means he procured shortness of Sleep Wakefulness Purity of Mind and constant Health of Body But what if Transmigration may be made evident to Sense in Plants and Minerals That it may be in Plants every ordinary Chymist knows For by the extracting the Spirit or Soul of a Vegetable in the form of Oil and by the cohobation of it on the calcined Salt of a different Plant they will impregnate that Salt with a new Life and Spirit and give it new Virtue Smell and Taste Thus they draw forth a Spirit from one