Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	body_n	call_v	reason_n	4,039	5	4.9623	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35750	Six metaphysical meditations wherein it is proved that there is a God and that mans mind is really distinct from his body / written originally in Latin by Renatus Des-Cartes ; hereunto are added the objections made aganst these meditations by Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury with the authors answers ; all faithfully translated into English with a short account of Des-Cartes's life by William Molyneux.; Meditationes de prima philosophia. English	Descartes, René, 1596-1650.; Molyneux, William, 1656-1698.; Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679. Objections made against these meditations.	1680 (1680)	Wing D1136; ESTC R1345	67,590	180

't is easier proved to be then our body BY yesterdays Meditation I am cast into so great Doubts that I shall never forget them and yet I know not how to answer them but being plunged on a suddain into a deep ●ulf I am so amazed that I can neither touch the bottome nor swim at the top Nevertheless I will endeavour once more and try the way I set on yesterday by removing from me whatever is in the least doubtful as if I had certainly discover'd it to be altogether false and will proceed till I find out some certainty or if nothing else yet at least this certainty That there is nothing sure Archimedes required but a point which was firm and immoveable that he might move the whole Earth so in the present undertaking ●reat things may be expected if I can discover but the least thing that is true and indisputable Wherefore I suppose all things I see are false and believe that nothing of those things are really existent which my deceitful memory represents to me 't is evident I have no senses that a Body Figure Extension Motion Place c. are meer Fictions what thing therefore is there that is true perhaps only this 〈◊〉 there is nothing certain But how know I that there is nothing distinct Doubts and Soluti●ns from all these things which I have now reckon'd of which I have no reason to doubt Is there no God or whatever other name I may call him who has put these thoughts into me Yet why should I think this When I my self perhaps am the Author of them Upon which Account therefore must not I be something 't is but just now that I denied that I had any senses or any Body Hold a while Am I so tied to a Body and senses and I cannot exist without them But I have peswaded my self that there is nothing in the World no Heaven no Earth no Souls no Bodies and then why not that I my self am not Yet surely if I could perswade my self any thing I was But there is I know not what sort of Deceivour very powerful and very crafty who always strives to deceive Me without Doubt therefore I am if he can deceive me And let him Deceive me as much as he can yet he can never make me not to Be Whilst I think that I am Wherefore I may lay this down as a Principle that whenever this sentence I am I exist is spoken or thought of by Me 't is necessarily True But I do not yet fully understand who I am that now necessarily exist and I must hereafter take care least I foolishly mistake some other thing for my self and by that means be deceived in that thought which I defend as the most certain and evident of all Wherefore I will again Recollect what I believed my self to be heretofore before I had set upon these Meditations from which Notion I will withdraw whatever may be Disp●oved and the Foremention'd Reasons that in the End That only may Remain which is True and indisputable What therefore hav● I heretofore thought my self A Man But what is a man shall I answer a Rational Animal By no means because afterwards it may be asked what an Animal is and what Rational is And so from one question I may fall into greater Difficulties neither at present have I so much time as to spend it about such Niceties But I shall rather here Consider what heretofore represented it self to my thoughts freely and naturally whenever I set my self to understand What I my self was And the first thing I find Representing it self is that I have Face Hands Arms and this whole frame of parts which is seen in my Body and which I call my Body The next thing represented to me was that I was nourish'd could walk had senses and could Think which functions I attributed to my Soul Yet what this soul of mine was I did not fully conceive or else supposed it a small thing like wind or fire or aire infused through my stronger parts As to my Body truly I doubted not but that I rightly understood its Nature which if I should endeavour to describe as I conceive it I should thus Explain viz. By a Body I mean whatever is capable of Shape or can be contained in a place and so fill's a space that it excludes all other Bodys out of the same that which may be touch'd seen heard tasted or smelt and that which is capable of various Motions and Modifications not from it self but from any other thing moving it for I judged it against or rather above the nature of a Body to move it self or perceive or think But rather admired that I should find these Operations in certain Bodys But How now since I suppose a certain powerful and if it be lawful to call him so evil deluder Doubts and Solutions who useth all his endeavours to deceive me in all things can I affirme that I have any of those things which I have now said belong to the nature of a Body Hold Let me Consider Let me think Let me reflect I can find no Answer and I am weary with repeating the same things over-again in vain But Which of these Faculties did I attribute to my Soul my Nutritive or Motive faculty yet now seeing I have no Body these also are meer delusions Was it my sensitive faculty But this also cannot be perform'd without a Body and I have seem'd to perceive many things in my sleep of which I afterwards understood my self not to be sensible Was it my Cogitative Faculty Here I have discovered it 't is my Thought this alone cannot be separated from Me I am I exist t is true but for what time Am I Why I am as long as I think For it May be that When I cease from thinking I may cease from being Now I admit of nothing but what is necessarily ture In short therefore I am only a thinking thing that is to say * Places noted with their Asterisk are refer'd to in the following Objections a mind or a soul or understanding or Reason words which formerly I understood not I am a Real thing and Really Existent But what sort of thing I have just now said it A thinking thing But am I nothing besides I will consider I am not that structure of parts which is called a Mans Body neither am I any sort of thin Air insfused into those Parts nor a Wind nor Fire nor Vapour nor Breath nor whatever I my self can feign for all these things I have supposed not to Be. Yet my Position stands firm Neverthless I am something Yet perhaps it so falls out that these very things which I suppose not to exist because to me unknown are in reality nothing different from that very Self which I know I cannot tell I dispute it not now I can only give my opinion of those things whereof I have knowledge I am sure that I exist I

Man knowing that there must be some Cause of his Imaginations or Ideas as also an other cause before That and so onwards he is brought at last to an End or to a supposal of some Eternal Cause Which because it never began to Be cannot have any other Cause before it and thence he Concludes that 't is necessary that some Eternal Thing Exist and yet he has no Idea which He can call the Idea of this Eternal Thing but he names this Thing which he believes and acknowledges by the Name God But now Des-Cartes proceeds from this Position That we have an Idea of God in our Mind to prove this Theoreme That God that is an Almighty Wise Creatour of the World Exists whereas he ought to have explain'd this Idea of God better and he should have thence deduced not only his Existence but also the Creation of the World ANSWER Here the Philosopher will have the Word Idea be only Understood for the Images of Material Things represented in a Corporeal Phantasie by which Position he may Easily Prove that there can be no Proper Idea of an Angel or God whereas I declare every Where but especially in this Place that I take the Name Idea for whatever is immediately perceived by the Mind so that when I Will or Fear because at the same time I perceive that I Will or Fear this very Will or Fear are reckon'd by me among the number of Ideas And I have purposely made use of that Word because It was usual with the Antient Philosophers to signifie the Manner of Perceptions in the Divine Mind altho neither we nor they acknowledge a Phantasie in God and besides I had no fitter Word to express it by And I think I have sufficiently explain'd the Idea of God for those that will attend my meaning but I can never do it fully enough for those that will Understand my Words otherwise then I intend them Lastly what is here added concerning the Creation of the World is wholly beside the Question in hand OBJECT VI. * BVt 〈◊〉 ar● Other Thoughts That have Superadded Forms to them as when I Will when I Fear when I Affirm when I Deny I know I have alwayes whenever I think some certain thing as the Subject or Object of my Thought but in this last sort of Thoughts there is something More which I think upon then Barely the Likeness of the Thing and of these Thoughts some are called Wills and Affections and others of them Iudgeme●ts When any one Fears or Wills he has certainly the Image of the Thing Fear'd or Action Will'd but what more a Willing or Fearing Man has in his Thoughts is not explain'd and tho Fear be a Thought yet I see not how it can be any other then the Thought of the Thing Fear'd For what is the Fear of a Lion rushing on me but the Idea of a Lion Rushing on me a●d the Effect which that Idea produces in the Heart whereby the Man Fearing is excited to that Animal Motion which is called Flight but now this Motion of Flying is not Thought it remains therefore that in Fear there is no other Thought but that which consists in the likeness of the thing And the same may be said of Will Moreover Affirmation and Negation are not without a voice and words and hence 't is that Brutes can neither affirme or deny not so much as in their Thought and consequently neither can they judge But yet the same thought may be in a beast as in a Man for when we affirme that a Man runs we have not a thought different from what a Dog has when he sees his Master running Affirmation therefore or Negation superadds nothing to meer thoughts unless perhaps it adds this thought that the names of which an Affirmation consists are to the Person affirming the Names of the same thing and this is not to comprehend in the thought more then the likeness of the thing but it is only comprehending the same likeness twice ANSWER T is self evident That 't is one thing to see a Lion and at the same time to fear him and an other thing only to see him So t is one thing to see a Man Running and an other thing to Affirme within my self which may be done without a voice That I see him But in all this objection I find nothing that requires an Answer OBJECT VII * NOw it remains for me to examine how I have received this Idea of God for I have neither received it by means of my senses neither comes it to me without my forethought as the Ideas of sensible things use to do when those things work on the Organs of my sense or at least seem so to work Neither is this Idea framed by my self for I can neither add to nor detract from it Wherefore I have only to conclude that it is innate even as the Idea of me my self is Natural to my self If there be no Idea of God as it seems there is not and here 't is not proved that there is this whole discourse falls to the ground And as to the Idea of my self if I respect the Body it proceeds from Sight but if the Soul there is no Idea of a Soul but we collect by Ratiocination that there is some inward thing in a Mans Body that imparts to it Animal Motion by which it perceives and moves and this whatever it be without any Idea we call a Soul ANSWER If there be an Idea of God as 't is manifest that there is this whole Objection falls to the ground and then he subjoyns That we have no Idea of the Soul but collect it by Ratiocination 'T is the same as if he should say that there is no Image thereof represented in the Phantasie but yet that there is such a Thing as I call an Idea OBJECT VIII * AN other Idea of the Sun as taken from the Arguments of Astronomors that is consequentially collected by me from certain natural notions At the same time we can certainly have but one Idea of the Sun whether it belook'd at by our eyes or collected by Ratiocination to be much bigger than it seems for this last is not an Idea of the Sun but a proof by Arguments that the Idea of the Sun would be much larger if it were look'd at nigher But at different or several times the Ideas of the Sun may be diverse as if at one time we look at it with our bare eye at an other time through a Teloscope but Astronomical arguments do not make the Idea of the Sun greater or less but they rather tell us that the sensible Idea thereof is false ANSWER Here also as before what he says is not the Idea of the Sun and yet is described is that very thing which I call the Idea OBJECT IX * FOr without doubt those Ideas which Represent substances are something more or as I may say have more of objective Reality in them then those

Readers fo● the Consideration of Intellectual Thi●gs wherein they seem'd to me very necessa●y And partly that thereby I may shew how firm those Truths are which hereafter I lay down seeing they cannot be Weaken'd by these Metaphysical Doubts So that I never designed to gain any Honor by repeating them but I think I could no more omit them then a Writer in Physick can pass over the Description of a Disease Whose Cure he intends to Teach OBJECT II. Against the Second Meditation Of the Nature of Mans Mind I Am a Thinking Thing 'T is True for because I think or have a Phantasme whether I am awake or asleep it follows that I am Thinking for I Think and I am Thinking signifie the same Thing ●ecause I Think it follows That I am for whatever Thinks cannot be Nothing But when he Adds That is a Mind a Soul an Vnderstanding Reason I question his Argumentation for it does not seem a Right Consequence to say I am a Thinking Thing therefore I am a Thought neither I am an Vnderstanding Thing therefore I am the Vnderstanding For in the same manner I may Conclude I am a Walking Thing therefore I am the Walking it self Wherefore D. Cartes Concludes that an Vnderstanding Thing and Intellection which is the Act of an Understanding Thing are the same or at least that an Vnderstanding Thing and the Intellect which is the Power of an Understanding Thing are the same And yet all Philosophers dis●i●guish the subject from its Faculties and Acts that is from its Properties and Essence for the Thing it self is one thing and its Essence is an other It may be therefore that a Thinking Thing is the Subject of a Mind Reason or Vnderstanding and therefore it may be a Corporeal Thing the Contrary Whereof is here Assumed and not Proved and yet this Inference is the Foundation of that Conclusion which D. Cartes would Establish In the same Meditation * Places noted with this ●sterick are the Passages of the foregoing Meditations here Objected against I know that I am I ask What I am Whom I Thus know Certainly the Knowledge of Me precisely sotaken depends not on those Things of whose Existence I am yet Ignorant 'T is Certain the Knowledge of this Proposition I am depends on this I think as he hath rightly inform'd us but from wh●nce have we the knowledge of this Proposition I think certainly from hence only that we cannot conceive any Act without its subject as dancing without a Dancer knowledge without a Knower thought without a thinker And from hence it seems to follow that a thinking Thing is a Corporeal Thing for the Subjects of all Acts are understood only in a Corporeal way or after the manner of matter as he himself shews hereafter by the example of a peice of Wax which changing its colour consistence shape and other Acts is yet known to continue the same thing that is the same matter subject to so many changes But I cannot conclude from another thought that I now think for tho a Man may think that he hath thought which consists only in memory yet 't is altogether impossible for him to think that he now thinks or to know that he k●ows for the question may be put infinitely how do you know that you know that you know that you know c. Wherefore seeing the Knowledge of this Proposition I am depends on the knowledge of this I think and the knowledge of this is from hence only that we cannot separate thought from thinking matter it seems rather to follow that a thinking thing is material than that 't is immaterial ANSWER When I said That is a Mind a Soul an Vnderstanding Reason c. I did not mean by these names the Faculties only but the things indow'd with those Faculties and so 't is alwayes understood by the two first names mind and soul and v●ry often so understood by the two last Names understanding and Reason and this I have explain'd so often and in so many places of these Meditations that there is not the least occasion of questioning my meaning Neither is there any parity between Walking and Thought for walking is used only for the Act it self but thought is sometimes used for the Act sometimes for the Faculty and sometimes for the thing it self wherein the Faculty resides Neither do I say that the understanding thing and intellection are the same or that the understanding thing and the intellect are the same if the intellect be taken for the Faculty but only when 't is taken for the thing it self that understands Yet I willingly confess that I have as much as in me lay made use of abstracted words to signifie th●t thing or substance which I would have devested of all those things that belong not to it Whereas contrarily this Philosopher uses the most concrete Words to ●ignifie this thinking thing such as subject matter Body c. that he may not suffer it to be separated from Body Neither am I concern'd that His manner of joyning many things together may seem to some fitter for the discovery of Truth than mine wherein I separate as much as possibly each particular But let us omit words and speak of things It may be sayes he that a Thinking thing is a corporeal thing the contrary whereof is here assumed and not proved But herein he is mistaken for I never assumed the contrary neither have I used it as a Foundation for the rest of my Superstructure but left it wholly undetermin'd till the sixth Meditation and in that 't is proved Then he tells us rightly that we cannot conceive any Act without its subject as thought without a thinking thing for what thinks cannot be nothing but then he subjoyns without any Reason and against the usual manner of speaking and contrary to all Logick that hence i● seem to follow that a thinking thing is a corporeal Being Truly the subjects of all Acts are understood under the notion of substance or if you please under the notion of matter that is to say of metaphysical matter but not therefore under the notion of Bodies But Logicians and Commonly all Men are used to say that there are some Spiritual some Corporeal substances And by the Instance of Wax I only proved that Colour Consistence Shape c. appertain not to the Ratio For●alis of the Wax For in that Place I 〈◊〉 neither of the Ratio Formalis of the Mind neither of Body Neither is it pertinent to the business that the Philosopher asserts That one Thought cannot be the subject of an other thought for Who besides Himself ever Imagin'd This But that I may explain the matter in a few words 'T is certain that Tho●ght cannot be without a Thinking Thing neither any Act or any Accident without a substance wherein it resides But seeing that we know not a substance immediately by it self but by this alone that 't is the subject of several Acts it is