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
A92327	Reflections upon Monsieur Des Cartes's Discourse of a method for the well-guiding of reason, and discovery of truth in the sciences. Written by a private pen in French, and translated out of the original manuscript, by J.D.	Davies, John, 1625-1693.	1655 (1655)	Wing R720; Thomason E1491_3; ESTC R208515	34,351	109

for a first principle for the truth of it doth not proceed from its own nature or from the specifical difference of thinking but generally every action whatsoever presupposes the existence of the Agent He should therefore in my judgment have gone a little higher to the mother-truth as I may so call it and say that to act there is a necessity to be Just as when we would clear the pretension of any mans succession we ascend upwards and examine whence he derives his right Moreover the Reader may take notice that in laying down the proposition I think for a first principle he unawares founds his Philosophy upon the testimony of the Senses For notwithstanding that to judge of the truth or falshood of a Proposition it is necessary to understand well the terms whereof it consists yet I would withall gladly ask him what he means when he sayes I think and I am confident that he will not deny but that the first knowledge which he hath had of the difference between me and thee hath proceeded from the Sense Lastly this way of reasoning I think therefore I am cannot any way be acknowledg'd for a Demonstration because this Principle I think is not more clear and evident then the conclusion which he draws from it for as my existence hath preceded my thinking so the assurance which I have of my existence is upon the credit and testimony of my Senses and that without any assistance of my Reason and before I had made any reflection at all on my thoughts But the Author being in this manner assured of his existence he undertakes to shew wherein the nature and essence of man consists Seeing says he I can fain that I had no body at all and that there were no world and that there were no place wherein I was yet I cannot imagine I should be able to think unless I were And thence he would infer that his thinking was the only means wherehy he was assured of his being and from thence says he I learned that MY SELF that is to say my Soul whereby I am what I am was a substance whose essence consists only in thinking and which as concerning its being doth not depeud of any thing that is material Nay he advances yet farther where he affirms that the Soul is more easily known then the Body In this ratiocination methinks there are many things lie very open to censure First he seems to Platonise and to make the soul of a man to be the man without alledging any thing for the proof thereof If that be granted we cannot call a man a rational creature since the soul cannot be call'd a creature By the same reason we may not say that a man is mortal seeing the soul is immortal But though sometimes the soul of a man be called the man yet is it not properly spoken but Synechdochically which is a manner of speaking whereby we give the name of the whole to some part especially to the more principal part And it is in this sense that Aristotle in the 10 book of his Ethicks says that the understanding of a man {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is principally the man {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sayes he {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} And if the Scripture in one place sayes This day shalt thou be with me in paradice it sayes in another that God formed man of the dust of the earth and that he shall return into the earth For if in the former of these passages the denomination of man be given to the soul as the more noble part in the latter the name of man is attributed to the body though it be the more ignoble part And it is in this sense that we say that such a one is interr'd meaning that his body is so But this error were in some sort tolerable in some other person who should not make so severe a profession not to acknowledge any thing upon the account of any mans authority how great soever he may be as the Author pretends to doe though Plato had obtained that esteem and opinion of infallibility amongst the Ancients that Cicero blush'd not to say That he should not be asham'd to erre with Plato But this assertion methinks is more strange That the whole nature or essence of the Soul consists in thinking If the essence of the Soul consisted altogether in thinking it hath thence forward neither existence nor essence Moreover if thinking which is the action of the soul be not a thing different from its essence the soul must be thought to have attained the highest degree of simplicity which appertains not but to the highest intelligence and by consequence we may say that Anima est actus purus But granting that it were true that the whole essence of the soul consisted only in thinking yet we may say that the proof which the Author brings for it is weak and insufficient for from this principle That thinking is the only thing which assures us of the essence of the soul it does not follow that the whole essence of the soul is nothing else but thinking unless it must be also granted that I cannot assure my self of the existence of any thing but by that thing wherein consists its essence which is a proposition so remote from reason that I believe the Author will not presume to maintain it Moreover he lays down for a Principle a Proposition which I cannot by any means grant him which is that thinking is the only means whereby I can assure my self of the existence of my soul I would gladly know of him whether these reasonings I rejoice I love I hate I fear therefore I am be not as firm and immoveable as that of his I think therefore I am For when I rejoice or when I love I am assur'd that I think And these propositions for to rejoice I must needs be and to love I must needs be are as certain as this To think I must needs be The second part of his doctrine of the essence of the soul to wit that it depends not on the body nor on any other material thing is true but the reason whereby he pretends to prove it is not satisfactory For from that supposition that I can imagine that my soul is not clothed with any body there doth not follow any other thing but that it depends not of the body by any essential and absolutely necessary dependance For there is another kind of dependance between natural things which yet God by his omnipotence may dissolve such is the dependance of my life on the air which I breathe on the earth which bears me up as also of the other elements which concur to my composition Now that which hath puzzled the Philosophers in this business hath not been to know whether the soul of a man depends in such a manner on the body that it is altogether impossible that it can subsist without it but to

prove by demonstration clearly and evidently that it can naturally subsist and that in effect it doth subsist after its separation from the body And here it was that the Author should have shewn whether he knew any thing more then others who have entangled themselves in that question Nay further when I should have granted him that the essence of the soul were nothing but to think the controversie were not thereby decided because our thoughts ordinarily depend on the body in as much as we cannot think on any thing if the imagination which is fasten'd to the organ of the Body do not represent to the understanding the image of some material thing as we shall prove anon The last part of his discourse of the essence of the soul hath this assertion That the soul is more easily known and discovered then the body A Paradox which he offers not to prove by any reason at all If all what is above spoken were granted him yet could he not from thence draw this conclusion but the contrary rather that is that men have but a very confused knowledge of their bodies even before they have once considered whether they have any souls or no And as to the distinct and perfect knowledge of the soul I do not think the Author will presume to boast he hath attain'd it In the next place he makes it his task to find out and determine that which is requisite in a Proposition to make it true and infallible and gives us this rule That those things which we conceive the most clearly and most distinctly are all of them true The clear and distinct knowledge which we can have of a Proposition consists in two points The first is when we conceive clearly and distinctly the parts whereof it is composed The second when we clearly perceive their alliance and union or their antipathy and incompatibility If the Author speak of the former manner of conceiving I shall presume to declare his rule utterly false for we can as well and as clearly conceive the parts of a Proposition that is false as those of one that is true As for example I have a clear and distinct knowledge of the parts of this Proposition though it be a false Latus diameter Quadrati sunt commensurabilia But if his meaning be of the second manner of conceiving and knowing his rule signifies no more then this viz. That those Propositions which we conceive clearly and distinctly to be true are indeed and really true whereof never any man yet doubted But it were only to fight with shadows to bestow any further examination on this rule of the Authors since he himself confesses elswhere That there is great difficulty to discern certainly those Propositions which we conceivc most clearly and distinctly For every man that is fully convinced that such a proposition is true how false soever it may be will say that he conceives it clearly and distinctly in one of these two manners But the Author proceeds and entertains us with an essay of his Philosophy concerning the nature of God wherein I must ingenuously confess I have found no more satisfaction then in what he hath delivered of the nature of man And here he advances this Proposition making it his business to find out whence he had learned to think anything more perfect then himself and at last he evidently discovers that it must have proceeded from some nature that were effectually more perfect then his own whereof the Idea should be infus'd into him and in a word that that Nature can be no other then God because saith he that I could not entertain within my self the Idaea of a Being more perfect then my own and that that which is more perfect cannot proceed from that which is less perfect Now from hence in my opinion it should rather have been inferr'd that the contemplation of things which were less perfect then himself should have given him occasion to examine whether there were not some nature more perfect then his own For considering that the Plants are more perfect then inanimate creatures and among animals Dogs and Horses are more perfect then Shelfish and Men arrive to a higher degree of perfection then all the other creatures he might by the consideration of such a dependence have been induced to consider and examine whether there were not yet some other nature more perfect then this rational nature of ours And to bring him to this he needed but only have compared himself with the other creatures For I conceive my self to know some things and I doubt of many others nay there are an infinite number of things whereof I am utterly ignorant There are others in the world who know less then I do and there are those also who know much more but there is not any man who doubts not of somewhat Now this consideration I should think sufficient to excite any rational soul to examine whether there were not some intelligent nature altogether exempt from all error doubt and ignorance and that for to advance into such an examination there should be no need that God should infuse into me the Idaea of any thing more perfect then my self nor should I have wanted any more particular assistance of God in this no more then in any other ratiocination For as it is as natural to us to lift up our eyes to heaven to contemplate the sun and moon as to look down upon the earth in the same manner it is as natural for a man to endeavour to find out the most perfect nature in the universe as to entertain his mind with things below just as when we see a river it is as natural for us to seek out the source from whence it springs as the place where it disembogues it self But it being admitted that the Proposition were true yet is the proof of it weak and insufficient for though it be true that a thing which is more perfect cannot depend of a thing which is less perfect yet it is not equally true that the Idaea of a nature more perfect then mine may not depend on mine for the Idaea which I have of a thing which is more perfect then my self is not more perfect then I All the Idaea's whereof my mind is susceptible whencesoever they proceed are but accidents are representations and therefore cannot come into the ballance as to perfection with the rational soul which is a substance Moreover if to know God it be necessary that he must have infused into us some Idaea of his nature I demand whether he have bestowed that Idaea on all or only on some in partieular If he have bestow'd it equally on all how comes it to pass that so many have such extravagant thoughts of God and so disproportionable to his nature If this indulgence of heaven reaches but some in particular it makes nothing to the present purpose it being here a question of Philosophy and not of visions inspirations revelations or any