the Vindication of his Leviathan he saith That his Doctrine is that the Soul is not a separated Substance but that the Man at his Resurrection shall be revived And he answers that place Fear not them which kill the Body but cannot kill the Soul thus Man cannot kill a Soul for the Man killed shall revive again I think he might as well have said That Man cannot kill the Body for that shall be revived at the Resurrection But what is all this to you I hope nothing at all But it shews that those who have gone about to overthrow the Immortality of the Soul by Nature have not been thought to secure the great ends of Religion and Morality And although we think the separate State of the Soul after Death is sufficiently revealed in Scripture yet it creates a great difficulty in understanding it if the Soul be nothing but Life or a Material Substance which must be dissolved when Life is ended For if the Soul be a Material Substance it must be made up as others are of the Cohesion of solid and separate Parts how minute and invisible soever they be And what is it which should keep them together when Life is gone So that it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an Immaterial Substance and then we know the Solution of the Texture of Bodies cannot reach the Soul being of a different Nature And this is no more than what the wisest and most intelligent Philosophers have asserted merely from the consideration of the Nature and Properties of the Soul as you very well know and I need not for your sake run into such a Digression or as you call it step out of my way any farther then you give occasion for it in what follows For you tell me You have great Authorities to justifie your using a Spiritual Substance without excluding Materiality from it And for this you refer me to two great men indeed among the Romans Cicero and Virgil. I was surprized at what you say out of Cicero having been no stranger to his Writings about these matters and I have consulted the place you refer to where you say that he opposes Corpus to Ignis and Anima i. e. Breath and that the Foundation of his distinction of the Soul from the Body is because it is so subtle as to be out of Sight It is a very easie matter to multiply Citations out of Cicero where Spiritus and Anima are both taken for Breath but any one who will but read the very beginning of his Tusculan Questions may understand his meaning For in the Entrance of that Dispute he takes Animus for the Soul and neither Anima nor Spiritus and he tells us there were two opinions about it at Death Some held a Discessus Animi à Corpore a departure of the Soul from the Body others said that the Soul never departed but was extinguished with Life and the several opinions he sets down at large Ch. 9 10. and then Ch. 11. he summs up the different opinions and saith he If it be the Heart or Blood or Brain because it is a Body it will be extinguished with it If it be Anima the Vital Breath it will be dissipated if it be Fire it will be extinguished It is true he distinguishes here the Vital Breath from the Body and no one questions such a distinction of the Animal and Vital Spirits from the grosser parts of the Body but all this proceeds upon the Supposition of those who held nothing to survive after Death but then he goes on to those who held the Souls when they are gone out of their Bodies to go to Heaven as their proper Habitation And here he plainly supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body which it leaves Nam Corpus quidem saith he quasi vas est receptaculum Animi C. 22. and elsewhere he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul C. 30. and saith That every wise Man is glad to be dismissed out of the Bonds and Darkness of it and his business in the Body is secernere Animum à Corpore to draw off the Soul from the Body which the Philosophers called Commentatio mortis i. e. a Continual Exercise of Dying therefore saith he Disjungamus nos à Corporibus id est consuescamus mori Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a Modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Instead of it there are several things very remarkable in this very Book concerning the Immortality of Souls by Nature 1. He extremely despises those who made the Soul a mere Mode of Matter which was extinguished with Life and he saith they were Plebeii Philosophi Ch. 23. a mean sort of Philosophers and in another place minuti Philosophi De Senect c. 23. who held there was no Sense after Death But he represents Cato there as weary of the Noise and Filth of this World and longing to go to far better Company O praeclarum diem cum ad illud Divinum Animorum Concilium Coetumque proficiscar atque ex hâc turbâ colluvione discedam Did these men look on the Souls of Men as mere Modifications of Matter 2. He urges the general Consent of Nations for the Permanency of Souls after Death c. 16. and he affirms Nature it self de Immortalitate Animorum tacitè judicare c. 14. And I do not think the general Consent of Mankind in this Matter so uncertain or so slight an argument as some have made it even since the late Discoveries as I think it were no hard Matter to prove but I shall not here go out of my way to do it 3. The most ancient Philosophers of Greece held the same opinion as he shews from Pherecydes Pythagoras Socrates Plato c. c. 16 17 c. and they went upon far better Reasons than the other as he proves at large c. 21 22 23. 4. That the Bodies and Souls of Men have a different Frame and Original Our Bodies he saith c. 19. are made of Terrestrial Principles but the Souls he saith are of a divine Original and if we could give an account how they were made we should likewise how they were dissolved c. 14. as we may of the Parts and Contexture of Bodies but saith he Animorum nulla in terris origo inveniri potest nihil est enim in animis mixtum atque concretum aut quod ex terra natum atque fictum esse videatur c. 27. So that here he plainly makes a Difference between our Bodily Substance and that of our Souls which have no bodily Texture and Composition because there is no material Substance which can reach to the wonderfull Faculties and Operations of the Soul and therefore he concludes in these words Singularis est igitur quaedam natura atque vis
animi sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis What can express the Soul to be of a different Substance from the Body if these words do it not And presently adds That the Mind is of a divine and Spiritual Nature and above Material Composition as God himself is I hope this may give you satisfaction as to Cicero how far he was from making the Soul a Material Substance And the only place you produce out of him c. 22. proves nothing but that the Soul is Invisible as you may see by looking upon it again As to Virgil you quote that Expression Dum Spiritus hos regit artus where it is taken for the Vital Spirit which sense I know no body questions and so Tully expresses life quae Corpore Spiritu continetur and opposes it to a Life of Immortal Fame which he there speaks of Pro Marcello c. 9. but the only matter in debate is Whether they excluded any other Notion of Spirit which was not done as I have made it appear concerning Cicero and so I shall of Virgil too For soon after Aeneid 4.385 he hath these Words Et cum frigida mors Animae seduxerit Artus Omnibus Vmbra locis adero dabis improbe poenas Which shews that Virgil did believe the Soul to be more than a mere Vital Spirit and that it subsisted and acted in a separate State And it is observed by Servius that Virgil uses Spiritus Mens and Animus for the same In Aeneid 6.726 Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem And he proves that Virgil asserted the Immortality of Souls and answers the arguments against it and as far as he could understand he saith that our Bodies are from the Elements and our Souls from God and the Poets intention was Vt Animos immortales diceret So that neither Cicero nor Virgil do you any kindness in this matter being both Assertors of the Souls Immortality by Nature If these will not do you bring me to Scripture and say that Solomon himself speaks after the same manner about Man and Beast as the one dieth so dieth the other yea they have all one Spirit Eccles. 3.19 I will not dispute about the proper Sense of the Hebrew Word but I must about Solomon's Sense For although he makes Life and Death common to Man and Beast yet he saith v. 21. The Spirit of a Man goeth upward and the Spirit of a Beast goeth down to the Earth But you say If the Notion of a Spirit excludes Materiality then the Spirit of a Beast must be Immaterial as well as that of a Man I answer that although the bare Word doth not prove it yet the design of Solomon's Discourse doth and so the going upward of the Spirit of a Man must be understood in a very different Sense from the going downward of the Spirit of a Beast For he saith concerning Man That the Spirit shall return to God that gave it c. 12.7 To what purpose To be dissipated in the common Air or to be lost in the vast Confusion of Matter no but he concludes his Book thus v. 14. For God shall bring every Work into Iudgment with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evil If these be Solomon's Words as no doubt they were and he were a Man of Sense and laid his sayings together as no doubt he did these last Words must interpret the foregoing and his other sayings be made Consonant to this Yes you may say This relates to the general Iudgment and not to the Soul's Subsistence after Death But Solomon speaks of the Spirit of a Man going upward at Death and returning to God that gave it What Sense is there in this if it be a Material Substance which vanishes and is dissolved then And if the Soul be not of it self a free thinking Substance I do not see what Foundation there is in Nature for a Day of Judgment For where there is nothing but Matter there is no Freedom of acting where there is no Liberty there is no Choice where there is no Choice there is no room for Rewards and Punishments and consequently no Day of Iudgment But Solomon positively concludes there will be a Judgment to come as to good and evil Actions in another World and therefore he must be understood in those Expressions to mean a Free and Thinking and consequently an Immaterial Spirit in us But you urge farther That our Saviour himself opposes Spirit to Flesh and Bones Luk. 24.39 i. e. to such a gross Compages as could be seen and felt The question then was whether it were the real Body of Christ or only an Appearance of it and how could this be resolved better than our Saviour doth Handle me and see for a Spirit hath not Flesh and Bones as you see me have But he calls this a Spirit What follows Therefore a Spirit is only an Appearance I do not think that is your meaning And no body questions but the name of Spirits is sometimes given to Apparitions But this is far from our case which is whether that real Spiritual Substance we find in our selves be Material or not Doth a Spiritual Substance imply Matter in its Idea or not You cannot say it doth Then it may be Immaterial But how come we to know things but by their distinct Ideas Is the Idea of Matter and Spirit distinct or not If not to what purpose do we talk of Knowledge by Ideas when we cannot so much as know Body and Spirit from each other by them Is it then any Absurdity to call a Spiritual Substance Immaterial No you say You would not be thought to affirm that Spirit never does signifie a purely Immaterial Substance for in that Sense the Scripture attributes the Notion of Spirit to God and you have proved from your Principles that there is a Spiritual Immaterial Substance And this you think proves an Immaterial Substance in your way of Ideas But of that afterwards We are yet upon the proving an Immaterial Substance in our selves from the Ideas we have by Sensation and Reflection Now I say still this is impossible if the Spiritual Substance in us may be material And at last you grant That what I say is true that it cannot upon these Principles be demonstrated Then say I Your grounds of Certainty from Ideas are plainly given up But you say it may be proved probable to the highest Degree But that is not the point for it is not Probability but Certainty that we are promised in this way of Ideas and that the Foundation of our Knowledge and real Certainty lies in them and is it dwindled into a Probability at last The only reason I had to engage in this matter was a bold Assertion that the Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Certainty lies in perceiving the Agreement or
each other and saying that we have as clear a Notion of a Spirit as we have of a Body Against this I urged that if it be possible for Matter to think which you assert then from the Idea of Thinking we cannot prove the Certainty of a Spiritual Substance within us where it is plain that a Spiritual Substance is opposed to the Power of Matter It is not whether Matter so modified can think but whether Matter can think and let it be modified how it will Matter is Matter still But the Power of Thinking makes it a Spirit say you But doth it cease to be Matter or not If not then it is Matter still endued with a Power of Thinking and so our Idea can be no other than of a Material Thinking Substance But you say further That the Power of Thinking makes it a Spirit without considering what other Modifications it has whether it hath the Modification of Solidity or not That is Although it be really a Material Substance yet the Modification of Thinking makes it a Spiritual Substance for we are to go no farther than that Modification of Thinking and from thence we are to conclude it to be a Spiritual Substance But we are now enquiring not into the bare Modification of Thinking but whether from thence we can prove an Immaterial Substance within us or which is all one a Spiritual Substance as opposed to Corporeal which is your own Distinction And that I may not be thought to do you injury I shall produce your own Words By the simple Ideas we have taken from our own minds we are able to frame the complex Idea of a Spirit And thus by putting together the Ideas of Thinking Perceiving Liberty and Power of moving themselves we have as clear a Perception and Notion of Immaterial Substances as well as material So that here we have two things clear 1. That a Spirit and Immaterial Substance are the same 2. That from the Operations of our Minds we have a clear Idea of an Immaterial Substance within us Again you say That the primary Ideas we have of Body as contradistinguished to Spirit are the Cohesion of solid and consequently separable parts and a Power of communicating Motion by Impulse These you think are the Original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body Here Body is contradistinguished to Spirit and as it is so the Cohesion of solid and separable Parts is made one of the original Ideas proper and peculiar to Body as distinguished from a Spiritual Substance How then I pray can a Spiritual Substance consist of solid and separable Parts For whatever is solid you grant to be consequently separable This seems to me to confound the Ideas of Body and Spirit which you had taken so much care to distinguish and so must destroy all Certainty of a Spiritual Substance from your Ideas For although the bare simple Idea of Thinking may be said to be distinct from that of a solid Body yet it is impossible from that Idea so explained to prove a Spiritual Substance as distinct from Body Which was the thing I intended to prove But you go on to compare the Complex Idea of Spirit and Body in these Words Let us compare then our Complex Idea of Spirit without our Complex Idea of Body Our Idea of Bodâ— is an extended solid Substance capable of communicating Motion by Impulse and our Idea of our Souls is of a Substance that thinks and has a Power of exciting Motion in Body by Will and Thought These you think are our Complex Ideas of Soul and Body as contradistinguished Here you do not speak of the bare Ideas of Thinking and Solidity but of the different Substances and one is said to be a solid Substance and the other a Substance that thinks I shall add one passage more to the same purpose The Idea we have of Spirit compared with that we have of Body stands thus The Substance of Spirit is unknown to us and so is the Substance of Body equally unknown to us Here we have again the Substance of Spirit and the Substance of Body distinguished from each other and not the bare Modifications So that I need no body to answer you but your self But least such expressions should be thought a mere slip of the Pen you are pleased again to assert the Notion of an Immaterial knowing Substance to imply no more of a Contradiction than an extended divisible Body And yet after all this you confess That you have not proved an Immaterial Substance and that it cannot be proved upon your Principles What is the meaning of this I cannot think you intended to lessen the Authority of your Book in so considerable a part of it And I should much rather have thought the latter Passage a slip of your Pen but that in your Letter you go about to defend it Therefore I must attend your Motions in it You say That all the great ends of Religion and Morality are secured barely by the Immortality of the Soul without a necessary supposition that the Soul is Immaterial I am of opinion that the great ends of Religion and Morality are best secured by the Proofs of the Immortality of the Soul from its Nature and Properties and which I think prove it Immaterial I do not question whether God can give Immortality to a Material Substance but I say it takes off very much from the evidence of Immortality if it depend wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of For if the Soul be a material Substance it is really nothing but Life or Matter put into Motion with such Organs and Parts as are necessary to hold them together and when Death comes then this Material Substance so modified is lost God may by his Power grant a new Life but will any man say God can preserve the Life of a Man when he is dead This is a plain Absurdity and I think no such thing tends to preserve Religion or Morality Mr. Hobbes speaks very consonantly to his own Principles although not to those of Religion and Morality For he saith That the universe being the Aggregate of all Bodies there is no real part of it that is not also a Body And so he saith That Substance and Body signifie the same thing and therefore Substance Incorporeal are Words which destroy one another But what then is a Spirit That he saith in the proper signification of it in common Speech is either a subtle fluid invisible Body or a Ghost or other Idol or Phantasm of the Imagination But is there not an Immortal Soul in Man The Promise of Immortality saith he is made to the Man and not to the Soul and Immortal Life doth not begin in Man till the Resurrection From whence it is plain he look'd on the Soul as nothing but the Life and so he saith That Soul and Life in Scripture do usually signifie the same thing And in
To be moved only by Impulse from another Body and from the free Determination of our own Thoughts are two Ideas as disagreeing with each other as we can well imagine But if Matter may Think it may have Liberty too because you join these together but if it be uncapable of Liberty which goes along with Thinking how can you imagine it should be capable of Thinking I argue from your Notion of Personal Indentity which you place in self Consciousness For you tell us That a Person is a thinking intelligent Being that has Reason and Reflection and can consider it self as it self the same thinking thing in different times and places which it does only by that Consciousness which is inseparable from thinking and seems to you essential to it From whence it follows that if there can be no Self-consciousness in Matter then it cannot think because it wants that which you say is Essential to it It being impossible for any one to perceive but he must perceive that he doth perceive But what is there like Self-consciousness in Matter Or how is it possible to apprehend that meer Body should perceive that it doth perceive For Bodies you say operate only by Impulse and Motion i. e. one Body upon another But how can a Body operate upon it self without Motion Those you call the Secondary Qualities of Bodies are only you say the effect of the Powers in some Bodies upon others endued with Sense and Perception So that the effects of these Powers in Bodies or of the Primary Qualities of Bulk Site Figure Motion c. is not upon themselves but upon other Bodies either by changing those Primary Qualities in them by different Site Figure Motion c. or producing those Effects in us or which we call Sensible Qualities But either of these ways there is no possibility for Matter to operate upon it self in a way of Self-consciousness If then every intelligent thinking Being have this so inseparably belonging to it that you say It is impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving that he doth perceive and it be impossible from the Idea of Matter to make out that a meer Body can perceive that it doth perceive I think it is more than probable in the way of Ideas that Matter cannot think 5. I argue from the power of Abstracting which you make proper to a thinking Substance This is done say you by considering Ideas in the Mind as separate from the Circumstances of Time and Place And this power of abstracting you add puts a perfect distinction between Man and Brutes and is an Excellency which the Faculties of Brutes do by no means attain to You tell me That you did not say the chief Excellency of Mankind lies chiefly or any ways in this that Brutes cannot abstract for Brutes not being able to do any thing cannot be any Excellency of Mankind But I hope it is the Excellency of Mankind that they are able to do what the Brutes cannot And you say This puts a perfect distinction between Man and Brutes and I had thought in comparing Man and Brutes that which put a perfect Distinction was the chief Excellency with respect to them But let that be as it will the thing I insist upon is the power of Abstracting following that of Thinking so closely that you utterly deny it to Brutes but if it may be in the power of Matter to think how comes it to be so impossible for such Organized Bodies as the Brutes have to inlarge their Ideas by Abstraction Pomponatius thinks to avoid the Argument from Abstraction to prove the Souls Imateriality by saying That in the most abstract Speculation the Mind rests upon Particulars Vniversale in singulari speculatur But this doth not reach the force of the Argument which is not whether the Mind hath not an Eye to Particulars when it forms Universal Notions but whether the power of forming such Abstract Ideas from Particulars do not argue a Power which meer Matter can never attain to And all that Philosopher hath said doth not amount to the least Proof of it 6. Lastly I argue from the Reason you give why God must be an Immaterial Substance For these are the words in your Letter And the Idea of an Eternal actual knowing Being is perceived to have a Connection with the Idea of Immateriality by the Intervention of the Idea of Matter and of its actual Division Divisibility and Want of Perception c. Here the want of Perception is owned to be so essential to Matter that God is therefore concluded to be Immaterial and this is drawn from the Idea and Essential Properties of Matter and if it be so Essential to it that from thence you concluded God must be an Immaterial Substance I think the same Reason will hold as to any thinking Substance Because the Argument is not drawn from any thing peculiar to the Divine Perfections but from the general Idea of Matter But after all you tell me That God being Omnipotent may give to a System of very subtil matter Sense and Motion Your words before were a Power to perceive or think and about that all our debate runs and here again you say That the Power of Thinking joined to Matter makes it a Spiritual Substance But as to your Argument from God s Omnipotency I answer That this comes to the same Debate we had with the Papists about the Possibility of Transubstantiation For they never imagin'd that a Body could be present after the manner of a Spirit in an ordinary way but that by God's Omnipotent Power it might be made so but our Answer to them was That God doth not change the Essential Properties of things while the things themselves remain in their own Nature And that it was as repugnant for a Body to be after the manner of a Spirit as for a Body and Spirit to be the same The same we say in this Case We do not set bounds to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance but we say that while he continues the Essential Properties of Things it is as impossible for Matter to think as for a Body by Transubstantiation to be present after the manner of a Spirit and we are as certain of one as we are of the other These things I thought necessary on this occasion to be cleared because I look on a mistake herein to be of dangerous Consequence as to the great Ends of Religion and Morality which you think may be secured although the Soul be allowed to be a Material Substance but I am of a very different Opinion For if God doth not change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining then either it is impossible for a Material Substance to think or it must be asserted that a Power of thinking is within the Essential Properties of Matter and so thinking will be such a Mode of Matter as Spinoza hath made