that can be imagined in nature For we haue already shewed how a separated soule comprehendeth at once all place and all times so that her actiuity requireth no application to place or time but she is of her selfe mistresse of both comprehending all quantity whatsoeuer in an indiuisible apprehension and ranking all the partes of motion in their complete order and knowing at once what is to happen in euery one of them On the other side an incorporated soule by reason of her being confined to the vse of her senses can looke vpon but one single definite place or time at once and needeth a long chaine of many discourses to comprehend all the circumstances of any one action and yet after all how short she is of comprehending all So that comparing the one of these with the other it is euident that in respect of time and place and in respect of any one singular action the proportion of a separated soule to one in the body is as all time or all place in respect of any one piece or least parcell of them or as the entire absolute comprehender of all time and all place is to the discouerer of a small measure of them For whatsoeuer a soule willeth in that state she willeth it for the whole extent of her duration because she is then out of the state or capacity of changing and wisheth for whatsoeuer she wisheth as for her absolute good and therefore employeth the whole force of her iudgement vpon euery particular wish Likewise the eminency which a separated soule hath ouer place is also then entirely employed vpon euery particular wish of hers since in that state there is no variety of place left vnto her to wish for such good in one place and to refuse it in an other as whiles she is in the body happeneth to euery thing she desireth Wherefore whatsoeuer she then wisheth for she wisheth for it according to her comparison vnto place that is to say that as such a soule hath a power to worke at the same time in all place by the absolute comprehension which she hath of place in abstract so euery wish of that soule if it were concerning a thing to be made in place were able to make it in all places through the excessiue force and efficacy which she employeth vpon euery particular wish The third effect by which among bodies we gather the vigour and energy of the cause that produceth it to witt the doing of the like action in a lesser time and in a larger extent is but a combination of the two former and therefore it requireth no further particular insistance vpon it to shew that likewise in this the proportion of a separated to an incorporated soule must needes be the selfe same as in the others seeing that a separated soules actiuity is vpon all place in an indiuisible of time Therefore to shutt vp this point there remaineth only for vs to consider what addition may be made vnto the efficacity of a iudgement by the concurrence of other extrinsecall helpes We see that when an vnderstanding man will settle any iudgement or conclusion in his mind he weigheth throughly all that followeth out of such a iudgement and considereth likewise all the antecedents that lead him vnto it and if after due reflection and examination of whatsoeuer concerneth that conclusion which he is establishing in his mind he findeth nothing to crosse it but that euery particular and circumstance goeth smoothly along with it and strengtheneth it he is then satisfyed and quiett in his thoughts and yieldeth a full assent therevnto which assent is the stronger by how many the more concurrent testimonyes he hath for it And although he should haue a perfect demonstration or sight of the thing in it selfe yet euery one of the other extrinsecall proofes being as it were a new persuasion hath in it a further vigour to strengthen and content his mind in the forehad demonstration for if euery one of these be in it selfe sufficient to make the thing euident it can not happen that any one of them should hinder the others but contrariwise euery one of them must needes coucurre with all the rest to the effectuall quieting of his vnderstanding in its assent to that iudgement Now then according to this rate lett vs calculate if we can what concurrence of proofes and wittnesses a separated soule will haue to settle and strengthen her in euery one of her iudgemēts We know that all verities are chained and connected one to an other and that there is no true conclusion so farre remote from any other but may by more or lesse consequences and discourses be deduced euidently out of it it followeth then that in the abstracted soule where all such consequences are ready drawne and seene in themselues without extension of time or employing of paines to collect them euery particular verity beareth testimony to any other so that euery one of them is beleeued and worketh in the force and vertue of all Out of which it is manifest that euery iudgement in such a separated soule hath an infinite strength and efficacity ouer any made by an embodyed one To summe all vp in a few wordes we find three rootes of infinity in euery action of a separated soule in respect of one in the body first the freedome of her essence or substance in it selfe next that quality of hers by which she comprehendeth place and time that is all permanent and successiue quantity and lastly the concurrence of infinite knowledges to euery action of hers Hauing then this measure in our handes lett vs apply it to a well ordered and to a disordered soule passing out of this world lett vs consider the one of them sett vpon those goodes which she shall there haue present and shall fully enioy the other languishing after and pining away for those which are impossible for her euer to obtaine What ioy what content what exultation of mind in any liuing man can be conceiued so great as to be compared with the happinesse of one of these soules And what griefe what discontent what misery can be like the others These are the different effects which the diuers manners of liuing in this world do cause in soules after they are deliuered from their bodies out of which and out of the discourse that hath discouered these effects vnto vs we see a cleare resolution of that so maine and agitated question among the Philosophers why a rationall soule is imprisoned in a grosse body of flesh and bloud In truth the question is an illegitimate one as supposing a false ground for the soules being in the body is not an imprisonnement of a thing that was existent before the soule and body mett together but her being there is the naturall course of beginning that which can no other way come into the listes of nature for should a soule by the course of nature obtaine her first being without a body eyther
thinges pag. 359 § 7. Respect or relation hath not really any formall being but only in the apprehension of man ibid. § 8. That Existence or being is the proper affection of man and that mans soule is a comparing power pag. 360 § 9. A thing by coming into the vnderstanding of man looseth nothing of its owne peculiar nature ibid. § 10. A multitude of thinges may be vnited in mans vnderstanding without being mingled or confounded together pag. 361 § 11. Of abstracted and concrete termes pag. 362 § 12. Of vniuersal notions pag. 363 § 13. Of apprehending a multitude vnder one notion pag. 364 § 14. The power of the vnderstanding reacheth as farre as the extent of being pag. 365 CHAP. II. Of Thinking and Knowing pag. 365 § 1. How a iudgement is made by the vnderstanding ibid. § 2. That two or more apprehensions are identifyed in the soule by vniting them in the stocke of being pag. 366 § 3. How the notions of a substantiue and an adiectiue are vnited in the soule by the common stocke of being pag. 367 § 4. That a settled iudgement becometh a part of our soule pag. 368 § 5. How the soule commeth to deeme or settle a iudgement ibid. § 6. How opinion is begotten in the vnderstanding pag. 371 § 7. How faith is begotten in the vnderstanding pag. 372 § 8. Why truth is the perfection of a reasonable soule and why it is not found in simple apprehensions as well as in Enuntiations ibid. § 9. What is a solid iudgement and what a slight one pag. 373 § 10. What is an acute iudgement and what a dull one pag. 375 § 11. In what consisteth quicknesse and Clearenesse of iudgement and there oposite vices ibid. CHAP. III. Of Discoursing pag. 376 § 1. How discourse is made ibid. § 2. Of the figures and moodes of Syllogismes ibid. § 3. That the life of man as man doth consist in discourse and of the vast extent of it pag. 377 § 4. Of humane actions and of those that concerne ourselues pag. 379 § 5. Of humane actions as they concerne our neighbours pag. 380 § 6. Of Logike ibid. § 7. Of Grammar pag. 381 § 8. Of Rhetorike ibid. § 9. Of Poetry pag. 382 § 10. Of the Power of speaking ibid. § 11. Of arts that concerne dumbe and insensible creatures pag. 383 § 13. Of Arithmetike ibid. § 14. Of Prudence ibid. § 15. Obseruations vpon what hath beene said in this Chapter pag. 384 CHAP. IIII. How a man proceedeth to Action pag. 386 § 1. That humane actions proceed from two seuerall principles vnderstanding and sense ibid. § 2. How our generall and inbred maximes doe concurre to humane action pag. 387 § 3. That the rules and maximes of arts doe worke positiuely in vs though we thinke not of them pag. 388 § 4. How the vnderstanding doth cast about when it wanteth sufficient grounds for action pag. 389 § 5. How reason doth rule ouer sense and passion ibid. § 6. How we recall our thoughts from distractions pag 390 § 7. How reason is sometimes ouercome by sense and passion pag. 391 CHAP. V. Containing proofes out of our single apprehensions that our soule is incorporeall pag. 393 § 1. The connection of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent ibid. § 2. The existence of corporeall thinges in the soule by the power of apprehension doth proue her to be immateriall pag. 394 § 3. The notion of being which is innate in the soule doth proue the same ibid. § 4. The same is proued by the notion of respects pag. 396 § 5. That corporeall thinges are spiritualized in the vnderstanding by meanes of the soules working in and by respects ibid. § 6. That thâ— abstracting of notions from all particular and indiuiduall accidents doth proue the immaterialitie of the soule pag. 397 § 7. That the vniuersalitie of abstracted notions doth proue the same ibid. § 8. That collectiue apprehensions do proue the same pag. 398 § 9. The operations of the soule drawing allwayes from multitude to vnitie do proue the same 399 § 10. The difference betwixt the notion of a thing in our vnderstanding and the impression that correspondeth to the same thing in our fansie doth proue the same pag. 400 § 11. The apprehension of negations and priuations do proue the same 401 CHAP. VI. Containing proofes of our soules operations in knowing or deeming any thing that she is of a spirituall nature pag. 400 § 1. The manner of iudging or deeming by apprehending two thinges to be idenâ—ified doth proue the soule to be immateriall ibid. § 2. The same is proued by the manner of apprehending opposition in a negatiue iudgement pag. 403 § 3. That thinges in themselues opposite to one an other hauing no opposition in the soule doth prooue the same pag. 404 § 4. That the first truthes are identified to the soule pag. 405 § 5. That the soule hath an infinite capacitie and consequently is immateriall pag. 406 § 6. That the opposition of contradictory propositions in the Soule doth proue her immaterialitie ibid. § 7. How propositions of eternall truth do proue the immaterialitie of the soule pag. 407 CHAP. VII That our discoursing doth prooue our soule to be incorpore all pag. 408 § 1. That in discoursing the soule containeth more in it at the same time then is in the fantasie which prooueth her to be immateriall ibid. § 2. That the nature of discourse doth prooue the soule to be ordered to infinite knowledge and consequently to be immateriall pag. 409 § 3. That the most naturall obiects of the soule are immateriall and consequently the soule her selfe is such ibid. CHAP. VIII Containing proofes out of our manner of proceeding to action that our soule is incorporeall pag. 410 § 1. That the soules being a power to order thinges proueth her to be immateriall ibid. § 2. That the soules being able to mooue without being mooued doth prooue her to be immateriall pag. 411 § 3. That the soules proceeding to action with an vniuersality and indifferency doth prooue the same pag. 412 § 4. That the quiet proceeding of reason doth prooue the same pag. 414 § 5. A conclusion of what hath beene said hetherto in this second Treatise ibid. CHAP. IX That our soule is a Substance and Immortall pag. 415 § 1. That Mans Soule is a substance ibid. § 2. That man is compounded of some other substance besides his body ibid. § 3. That the soule doth subsist of it selfe independently of the body pag. 416 § 4. Two other arguments to prooue the same one positiue the other negatiue pag. 417 § 5. The same is prooued because the soule can not be obnoxious to the cause of mortality ibid. § 6. The same is prooued because the soule hath no contrary pag. 418 § 7. The same is prooued from the end for which the soule was created ibid. § 8. The same is prooued because she can mooue without being mooued pag. 420 § 9. The same is
what we command them and carrying vs whither we desire because the spirits which are sent into them from our braine are strong enough to raise and moue them as they are directed but if our sinewes be so steeped in some cold and watry humour that the spirits coming downe find not meanes to swell and harden them well we may wish and striue but all in vaine for we shall not be able to make them performe their due functions In like manner if reason do send her emissaries into the same arme or legge or other member and no other spirits do there striue against them then that limbe is moued and gouerned absolutely according to her directions but if at the same time a greater multitude of others do hinder Reasons seruants from coming thither or flocking into other sinewes do carry that limbe a contrary way in vaine doth Reason striue to moue them to her byas for those obeyng partes must obserue the rules which the violent conquerour prescribeth THE FIFT CHAPTER Containing proofes out of our single apprehensions that our soule is incorporeall AS in our first Treatise we dissected nature and shewed how out of the notion and first diuision of Quantity ariseth that vast multiplicity of thinges which filling this world falleth vnder the consideration of our senses so in the beginning of this second Treatise we haue searched into those operations of a man attributed to his soule by which he is conceiued to excell all other liuing creatures and there discouered that the admirable and vnlimited variety of workes which is seene in mens writinges and actions doth all flow from the source of single apprehensions and euen from one bare notion of Being which is the roote and principle from whence all others deriue their origine and into which all may be resolued workes proceeding from resolutions they from discourses these being composed to iudgements and iudgements of single apprehensions This part we must now reuiew and enquire what we can find in mans operation arguing the Quality of his Soule whether it be corporeall or no. For if these single apprehensions and the processes compounded of them may be performed by the ordering of rare and dense partes as the other workes of nature are then they will be corporeall and of the same kind with those which we opened in the first Treatise but if we shall proue that they can not possibly be deduced from multiplicity and order of Quantitatiue partes then we may confidently resolue ourselues that in the cause from which they flow is a nature wholy discrepant from that which resideth among bodies and among corporeall thinges This we shall here labour to do and to that end we will beginne our worke with reflecting vpon what we haue deliuered of a single apprehension in the first Chapter of this second Treatise whose nature we there first explicated common and thence proceeded to some particular apprehensions and lastly shewed the extent they comprehended These then must be the subiect of our present speculation As for their nature we may remember how we resolued three thinges first that by apprehension the very thing apprehended is by it selfe in our soule next that the notion of Being is the first of all notions and is resumed in all others and thirdly that what is added to the notion of Being is but respects to other thinges Now then lett vs consider what kind of engines they must be that may haue the power to make thinges themselues to be in our soule if they were to be there materially How shall the place or the time passed be remoued and be putt in an other place and in an other time How shall the quaÌ„tity of the heaueÌ„s of the whole world nay of biggenesse exceeding all that by millions of proportionall encreases be shutt vp in the litle circuite of mans braine And yet if we examine our selues strictly we shall find nothing wanting all is there How shall the same thing be corporeally in two nay in two thousand places at the same time And yet in so many is the sunne when two thousand men thinke of it at once We must then allow that thinges are there immaterially and consequently that what receiueth them is immateriall since euery thing is receiued according to the measure and nature of what receiueth it But I easily conceiue that the strangenesse and incredibility of our position may counterballance the force of it for who can persuade himselfe that the very thing he apprehendeth is in his minde I acknowledge that if its being there were to be vnderstood corporeally it were impossible but on the other side who shall consider that he knoweth the thing he â—ightly apprehendeth that it worketh in him and maketh him worke agreeable to its nature and that all the properties and singularities of it may be displayed by what is in him and are as it were vnfoulded in his mind he can neyther deny nor doubt but that it is there in an admirable and spirituall manner If you aske me how this cometh to passe And by what artifice bodies are thus spiritualized I coÌ„fesse I shall not be able to satisfy you but must answere that it is done I know not how by the power of the soule shew me a soule and I will tell you how it worketh but as we are sure there is a soule that is to say a Principle from wheÌ„ce these operatioÌ„s spring though we can not see it so we may and do certainely know that this mystery is as we say though because we vnderstand not the true and complete nature of a soule we can as litle expresse the manner how it is done by a soule Yet before we take our leaue of this matter of Apprehensions we will in due place endeauour to say something towardes the clearing of this obscure point Our second consideration vpon the nature of Apprehension was that our primary and maine notion is of Being This discouereth some litle glympse of the nature of the soule for it is manifest that she applyeth this notion as well to no partes as to partes which we proued in the first Treatise when we shewed that we haue a particular notion of substance distinct from the notion of Quantity for quantity and Partes being the same it followeth that if there be a notion supposed by quantity as in substance there is it must of necessity abstract from partes and consequently we may conclude that the notion of Being which is indifferently applyable eyther to quantity or to substance doth of its owne nature wholy abstract eyther from Partes or from no Partes I then inferre that since this notion of Being is the very first and virgin notion our soule is imbued with or is capable of and that it is the roote of all other notions and into which she resolueth euery other notion in such sort as when we haue sifted and searsed the essence of any notion whatsoeuer we can discouer nothing that is deeper
corporeall or bodily thing since of all bodily thinges the motions that are made by the sensible qualities arriue neerest to a spirituall nature It remayneth now that we should argue for the immateriality of the soule out of the extent of our apprehension which seemeth to be so excessiue as not to be comprehensible by the limitations of bodies and therefore can not belong vnto a body but because all that needeth to be said in this particular followeth plainely out of groundes already vrged and that this point containeth not any notable particularity deseruing mention here we will not enlarge ourselues any further vpon it but will passe on to the next line of operations proper vnto our mind Only we may not omitt taking notice of the expressions which our mind maketh of nothing or as Logitians terme it of Negations and Priuations which do argue an admirable power in the soule and of a quite different straine from all corporeall thinges and do euidently conuince the immateriality of it for it can not be doubted but that the soule knoweth what she meaneth when she discourseth of Nothing Now if all her knowledge were nothing else but corporeall phantasmes or pictures made by corporeall thinges how should she come to haue a notion of Nothing for since it is most cleare that something can not be like Nothing and that there can not be a participation of what is not how can we conceiue that there should be a similitude made of Nothing The way therefore that the soule taketh in this operation is that comparing two thinges together and finding that the one of them is not the other she reflecteth vpon her owne action and diuiding in it the thing said from the saying she taketh the thing said for a quality or property or predicate as Logitians call it of that thing which she denyeth to be the other thing and then she giueth it a positiue name after she hath first made a positiue notion vnto which the name may agree as for example when the soule considereth a man that hath not the power to see as soone as she hath to her selfe pronunced that he hath not such a power she taketh the not power to see for a quality of that man and then giueth the name of blindenesse to that not power of seeing which though of it selfe it be nothing yet by being that which satisfyeth her act wheÌ„ she sayeth that he hath not the power of seeing it seemeth to be ranked among those thinges vnto which names are due for it hath a notion and the hauing a notion is the clayme or merite or dignity in vertue whereof thinges are preferred to names Now then lett vs enquire how the power of rarity and density or the multiplication and order of partes can be raised and refined to the state of being like nothing or of being the similitude of a negation or what operation of rarity ad density can forge out this notion of blindenesse which we haue explicated and when we â—ind it is beyond their reach to compasse we must acknowledge that the soule is an other kind of engine then all those which are in the storehouse of bodies THE SIXT CHAPTER Containing proofes out of our soules operations in knowing or deeming any thing that she is of a spirituall nature OVr next consideration shall be to see what testimony our manner of Iudging doth yield vs of the nature of the soule concerning which three thinges offer themselues worthy the reflecting on which are our manner of thinking the opposition which frequently occurreth in our thoughts and the nature of truth and of falsehood As for the first we may remember how we haue shewed that all iudgement or deeming is but an apprehension of identification or something immediately following out of it and that a settled iudgement or assent of the mind is as it were a limbe or branch or graft in our soule so that we find that our perceiuing of identification between two thinges or our seeing that the one is the other is that by which our soule encreaseth Now because when two thinges are identifyed the one reacheth not further then the other it is cleare that this encrease of the soule is not made by partes which being added one to an other do cause it to be greater and therefore since this latter course is the only meanes of encrease in bodies and in quantity it is as cleare that the nature of the soule is quite different from the nature of all corporeall or Quantitatiue thinges Againe it is against the nature of identification to be of partes and therefore they who take quantity to be one thing and not many thinges tyed together do acknowledge that truly there are no partes in it and this is so rigorously true that although we speake of two thinges that in reality are identifyed one with an other yet if our wordes be such as imply that our vnderstanding considereth them as distinct partes and by abstraction giueth them the nature of partes then they are no longer identifyed but in good Logike we ought in this case to deny the one of the other As for example though the hand and the foote be the same thing as we haue declared in our first Treatise yet because in the name hand there is a secret exclusion of any thing that is not in the definition of a hand it followeth that in our speech we must say that a hand is not a foote Likewise though it be confessed that the thing which is rationality is also risibility neuerthelesse it is a solecisme in Logike to say that rationality is risibility because it is the nature of these abstracted names to confine their signifycations to one definition and the definitions of these two termes are diuers Out of this consideration it followeth clearely that seeing the nature of partes is contrary to the nature of identity and that the soule in her iudgements worketh alltogether by identity it is impossible that her operations should consist of partes or in any sort resemble any proceeding of Quantitatiue thinges The like will be conuinced out of the opposition we find in our thoughts In it we may consider two thinges first the generation of it next the incompossibility of opposites in the soule To beginne with the first we see that in our speaking opposition is produced by the addition of this word Not as when we say not a man not a penny not a word and therefore it followeth that in our soule there is a notion of it correspondent to the word that expresseth it Now seeing that a notion is a thing and that it is the likenesse of its obiect or rather the same with the obiect lett vs cast about how we should of partes and of Quantity make a nothing or an identification to not and when we find that it is ridiculous and absurd to go about it lett vs conclude that the manner of working which our soule vseth is farre
different from that which is vsed in bodies and among materiall thinges And if you obiect that not only a body but euen any other substance whatsoeuer suppose it as spirituall as you will can not be eyther like or identifyed to nothing and therefore this argument will as well proue that the soule is not a thing or substance as that it is not a body we answere that it is euident out of what we haue already said that the vnderstanding is not the obiects it vnderstandeth by way of similitude but by a higher meanes which we haue shewed to be by way of Respects Now then the respect which a thing hath to an other thing by not hauing such a respect vnto it as a third thing formerly considered hath therevnto may be expressed in way of Respects though it can not in way of similitude and so our vnderstanding is able to expresse what neyther our fansy nor any corporeall thing can arriue to the expression of as when first we find that one man hath a respect to the wall which we call the power of seeing it if afterwardes we find that an other man hath a respect vnto the wall of impotence that he can not see it this second respect the vnderstanding hath a power to expresse as well as the first as we haue touched aboue As for the opposition that occurreth in our thoughts we may consider it of two kindes the one is of the thinges or obiects that come into our thougths or into our soule and this is not properly an opposition in the soule for although the thinges be opposite by their owne nature in themselues yet they do not exercise their opposition in the soule nay though the oppositiō be euen in the soule it selfe if the soule with this oppositiō be considered as an obiect it maketh no opposition in the soule for so you may consider your soule learned and vnlearned ignorant and knowing good and bad and the like all which are oppositions in a soule supposed to be so qualifyed but are no oppositions in a soule that considereth them no more then fire and water heauy thinges and light white and blacke being and not being an affirmatiue proposition and its negatiue and the like all which are in themselues so contrary and opposite to one an other that they can not consist together in one subiect they haue an incompossibility among themselues wheresoeuer the one of them is by its very entrance it driueth out its opposite and yet in the soule they agree together without reluctance she knoweth and considereth and weigheth both sides of the scale at the same time and ballanceth them euenly one against an other for vnlesse both the opposites were in the same instant in the same comparing power that power could not by one act whose beginning implyeth its ending iudge the difference and opposition of them as when we say blacke is contrary to white or darkenesse is the want of light we pronounce one common not being of both extremes We may then boldely conclude that since no body whatsoeuer can entertaine at the same time and in the same place these quarrelling Antagonistes but that by their conflict they presently destroy one an other and peraduenture the body too into which they presse for entrance and the entire possession of which each of them striueth for those of them I meane that are proportioned to the reception of bodies and that the soule imbibeth them together without any difficulty or contrast and preserueth them allwayes frendes euen in the face of one an other and lodgeth them together in the same bed and that in a word these opposite thinges do enioy an admirable and vnknowne manner of Being in the soule and which hath no parallele nor argument in bodily thinges we may I say boldely conclude that the soule it selfe in which all these are is of a nature and hath a manner of Being altogether vnlike the nature of bodies and their manner of Being Out of this agreeing of all obiects in the soule and their hauing no opposition there euen whiles she knoweth the opposition that is betweene them in themselues there followeth an other consideration of no lesse importance which is that the amplitude of our soule in respect of knowledge is absolutely infinite that is to say she is capable of knowing at the same time obiects without end or measure For the explicating whereof we are to cōsider that the latter conclusions which the soule gaineth knowledge of do hang to the former by identificatiō or by the soules seeing that two notions are identifyed because they are identifyed to a third as is before expressed and the first principles which seeme to be immediately ioyned vnto the soule haue the identity of their termes plaine and euident euen in the very termes themselues Nay if we insist further we shall find that the first truthes must haue an identification to the very soule it selfe for it being euident that truth or falsehoode is not in the soule but so farre forth as she doth apply her selfe to the externall obiect or to the existence of thinges in themselues and that we find that the soules knowing with euidence that any thing is or hath being implyeth her knowing that her selfe is for she can not know that a thing seemeth so to her or maketh such an impression in her without knowing that her selfe is though peraduenture she may not know what her selfe is but taketh her selfe to be no other thing then the body of the man in which she is it is euident that the first truthes which enter into the soule to witt that this or that seemeth so or so vnto her and these truthes no sceptike euer doubted of are identifyed with the soule it selfe seeing that an obiects seeming to be such or such is nothing else but the soule so qualifyed And by this we find that the certainty of the first Principles as for example of this Proposition That the whole is bigger then the Part will depend in a particular soule of her certainty of her owne Being for although this proposition would haue a necessity in the very connexion of the termes notwithstanding there were not in nature any whole or Part yet this necessity would not be a necessity of Existence or of Being in the obiect but a necessity of connexion as it were of two partes of the soule and so if verity and falsity be not perfectly in the soule but in comparison to actuall existence the soule would not be perfectly true or to say more properly would not haue the perfection of truth in her by hauing or knowing this proposition vnlesse withall she were certaine that there were existēt an obiect of this Propositiō of which as we haue said she can not be certaine without being certaine of her owne Being so that in effect the identification of other thinges among themselues by which such thinges are knowne doth come at the last to be retriued in
is not assured of a conclusion but by her seeing the premisses if then the premisses be taken away the conclusion that resteth vpon them falleth to the ground but they are taken away if they be out of our mind therefore when our vnderstanding yieldeth its assent to a conclusion it must of necessity haue the premisses still in it But we must not rest here this consideration will carry vs on a wondrous deale further we know that who so goeth to frame a new demonstration in any subiect must be certaine he taketh nothing contrary to what he hath learned in many bookes likewise that who will make a latine verse or readeth a Poeme knoweth there is nothing in all that Poeme contrary to his Prosodia do we not then manifestly perceiue a certaine remainder of all these in his soule The like is in all artes in which he that goeth about any worke according to art sheweth he hath in his head all the rules of that art though he do not distinctly remember them or call them to mind whiles he worketh for if he haue them not how doth he worke by them Since then it is cleere that he thinketh not of them at that time it is as cleere that more is in his soule at one time then is in his fantasy or then can be there by materiall bodies which we haue shewed is the way whereby all thinges come into the fantasy although it be the nimblest and the subtilest Agent of all corporeall thinges whatsoeuer An other consideration whereby to euince the immateriality of the soule concerneth the proceeding of syllogismes by linkes fastened one to an other whence we may take notice that euery one of them is a steppe to an other and consequently it is manifest that according to the nature of the soule they must be all together in her since if any one were absent all the rest that followed and depended vpon that one would haue no grounding nor fixednesse in the soule Now if to this we adde that what is to be knowne is absolutely and liquidly infinite there can not be brought or expected a more pregnant and home wittenesse of our soules spirituality it following out of these groundes that the soule by its nature is not only capable of but is expressely ordered to an infinite knowledge of infinite obiects all together for these two finite and infiniâ—e science are so vastly different from one an other that if the same subiect be capable of both it must of necessity be ordered to infinite as to its chiefest act and end and thus out of capacity in this subiect its being ordered is well inferred though in other matters peraduenture the consequence may not be good And accordingly who looketh into Geometry Arithmetike Logike or euen nature it selfe will euidently see that the obiects of knowledge are euery way and in euery science multiplyable without end Neyther oughâ— this to be neglected that a great part of the soules obiects and indeed of those that are most naturall to her is aboue the capacity and out of the reach of materiall thinges All Metaphysikes abstract froÌ„ quantity the inuestigation of God of Angels of the soule it selfe eyther concludeth immateriality or at the least worketh about it What shall I say of Logicall notions of those which are called the second intentions about which there is so much businesse both in the schooles and in the world It is sufficient that we haue already expressed how all our notions are respectiue But in particular the motiues of humane actions are very abstracted considerations as for example hope of thinges to come memory of thinges passed vertue vice honour shame and the like To these lett vs adde that when we teach or explicate any thing to ignorant persons we must frame our owne apprehensions to their capacity and we must speake such thinges as they may comprehend which capacity or extent of comprehension we can not see not perceiue by any sense but we iudge it meerely by our Reason and by our vnderstanding Wherefore seeing that our operation is mainely and chiefely on and by such motiues as are not lyable to materiall principles and compositions it is euident that the springhead from whence such an operation floweth must also be immateriall and incorporeall I am not ignorant that this argument vseth to be answered by vrging that the soule likewise knoweth Deafenesse Dumbenesse Blindenesse and such other notions of Nothinges and yet is not from thence inferred to be nothing it conceiueth God and Eternity and yet it is neither from it selfe as God is nor eternall In like manner say they it may know incorporeall thinges and yet not be therefore it selfe incorporeall To this I reply first with wishing them not to mistake me but to giue my argument its full force and weight for there is a very great difference betweene the knowing of a thing in a strained toylesome and confuled manner and the hauing a thing for its ordinary matter and subiect of negotiation this argueth connaturality between the soule and what it is in such sort conuersant about but that doth not Now what is inferred out of whole sciences and artes concerneth a maine stocke of the soules businesse and not some extraordinary vertue or power she hath But to come vp close to the answere I say that if we being throughly acquainted with materiall thinges can find that it is not in the possibility of any such to be the likenesse of an immateriall thing and from thence do inferre that our soule for being fraught with immateriall notions is not materiall our conclusion is well collected and a very good one for the premisses out of which we do gather it are within our kenning and therefore if there were any defect in the consequence we should easily perceiue it Whence it appeareth clearely that there is no parity between the deduction of our conclusion and that other which the obiection vrgeth that our soule because it can know eternall thinges is also eternall for eternity is a thing beyond our compreheÌ„sion and therefore it ought not be expected at our handes that we should be able to giue an account where the bracke is And to say the truth if knowledge be taken properly we do not know eternity howeuer by supernaturall helpes we may come to know it but in that case the helpes are likely to be proportionable to the effect Neyther are negations properly knowne seeing there is nothing to be knowne of them And thus we see that these obiections do proceed from the aequivocation of the word knowledge sometimes vsed properly othertimes applyed abusiuely THE EIGHT CHAPTER Containing proofes out of our manner of proceeding to action that our soule is incorporeall I Doubt not but what we haue already said hath sufficiently conuinced our soules being immateriall vnto whomsoeuer is able to penetrate the force of the arguments we haue brought for proofe thereof and will take the paines to consider
them duely which must be done by serious and continued reflection and not by cursary reading or by interrupted attempts yet since we haue still a whole field of proofes vntouched and that in so important a matter no euidence can be too cleare nor any paines be accounted lost that may redouble the light although it shine already bright enough to discerne what we seeke we will make vp the concert of vnanimous testimonies to this already established truth by adding those arguments we shall collect out of the manner of our soules proceeding to action vnto the others we haue drawne from our obseruations vpon her apprehensions her iudgements and her discourses Looking then into this matter the first consideration we meete withall is that our vnderstanding is in his owne nature an orderer and that his proper worke is to ranke and putt thinges in order for if we reflect vpon the workes and artes of men as a good life a common-wealth an army a house a garden all artefactes what are thâ—y but compositions of well ordered partes And in euery kind we see that he is the Master and the Architect and is a accouÌ„ted the wisest and to haue the best vnderstanding who can best or most or further then his fellowes sett thinges in order If then to this we ioyne that quantity is a thing whose nature consisteth in a capacity of hauing partes and multitude and consequently is the subiect of ordering and ranking doth it not euidently follow that our soule compared to the whole masse of bodies and to the very nature of corporeity or quantity is as a proper agent to its proper matter to worke vpon Which if it be it must necessarily be of a nobler straine and of a different and higher nature then it and consequently can not be a body or be composed of Quantity for had matter in it selfe what it expecteth and requireth from the agent it would not neede the agents helpe but of it selfe it were fitt to be an Agent Wherefore if the nature of corporeity or of body in its full latitude be to be ordered it followeth that the thing whose nature is to be an orderer must as it is such be not a body but of a superiour nature and exceeding a Body which we expresse by calling it a spirituall thing Well then if the soule be an orderer two thinges belong necessarily vnto her the one is that she haue this order within her selfe the other is that she haue power to communicate it vnto such thinges as are to be ordered The first she hath by science of which enough already hath beene said towardes proouing our intent Next that her nature is communicatiue of this order is euident out of her action and manner of working But whether of her selfe she be thus communicatiue or be so by her coniunction to the body she informeth appeareth not from thence But where experieÌ„ce falleth short reason supplyeth and sheweth vs that of her owne nature she is communicatiue of order for seeing that her action is an ordering and that in this line there are but two sortes of thinges in the world namely such as do order and such as are to be ordered it is manifest that the action must by nature and in the vniuersall consideration of it beginne from the orderer in whom order hath its life and subsistence and not from that which is to receiue it then sithence ordering is motion it followeth euidently that the soule is a moouer and a beginner of motion But since we may conceiue two sortes of moouers the one when the agent is mooued to mooue the other when of it selfe it beginneth â—he motion without being mooued we are to enquire vnto which of these two the soule belongeth But to apprehend the question rightly we will illustrate it by an example lett vs suppose that some action is fitt to beginne at tenne of the clocke now we may imagine an agent to beginne this action in two different manners the one that the clocke striking tenne breedeth or stirreth somewhat in him from whence this action followeth the other manner is that the agent may of his owne nature haue such an actuall comprehension or decurrence of time within himselfe as that without receiuing any warning from abroad but as though he moued and ordered the clocke as well as his owne instruments he may of himselfe be fitt and ready iust at that houre to beginne that action not as if the clocke told him what houre it is but as if he by gouerning the clocke made that houre to be as well as he causeth the action to beginne at that houre In the first of these manners the agent is mooued to mooue but in the second he mooueth of himselfe without being mooued by any thing else And in this second way our soule of her owne nature communicateth her selfe to quantitatiue thinges and giueth them motion which followeth out of what we haue already prooued that a soule in her owne nature is the subiect of an infinite knowledge and therefore is capable of hauing such a generall comprehension as well of time and of the course of all other thinges as of the particular action he is to doe and consequently standeth not in neede of a Monitor without her to direct her when to beginne If then it be an impreuaricable law with all bodies that none whatsoeuer can mooue vnlesse it be mooued by an other it followeth that the soule which mooueth without being stirred or excitated by any thing else is of a higher race then they and consequently is immateriall and voyde of Quantity But lett me not be mistaken in what I come from saying as though my meaning were that the soule exerciseth this way of mouing her selfe and of ordering her actions whiles she is in the body for how can she seeing she is neuer endewed with complete knowledge requisite for any action neuer fully comprehending all the circumstances of it But what I intend is that the nature of the soule considered in it selfe is such as hath a capacity and may reach to this manner of working whence I inferre that she is not a body but a spirit without determining whether she worke thus in the body or out of it that enquiry belongeth not to this place it will follow by and by But for the present hauing considered vnto what kind of working the nature of the soule in abstract is capable of attaining we will conclude this Chapter with reflecting vpon those actions of hers which fall dayly vnder our remarke as being exercised in the body In all of them we may obserue that she proceedeth with a certaine vniuersality and indifferency beyond the practise of all other creatures whatsoeuer for example if a man be spoken to or asked of a hundred seuerall thinges that he neuer thought of before in all his life he will immediately shape pertinent replyes to all that is said and returne fitting answeres to euery question as Whither such
remaine with the Being it hath vnlesse it be forced out of it if then we shew that Mans soule hath not those groundes in her which maketh all thinges we see to be mortall we must be allowed to haue acquitted ourselues of the charge of prouing her Immortall For this end lett vs looke round about vs and enquire of all the thinges we meete with by what meanes they are changed and come to a periode and are no more The pure elements will tell you that they haue their change by rarefaction and condensation and no otherwise mixed bodies by alteration of their mixture small bodies by the actiuity of the Elements working vpon them and by the meanes of rarefaction and condensation entering into their very constitution and breeding an other temperament by seperation of some of their partes and in their steade mingling others Plantes and trees and other liuing creatures will tell you that their nourishment being insinuated through their whole bodies by subtile pores and blinde passages if they either be stopped by any accident or else be filled with bad nourishment the mixture of the whole faileth of it selfe and they come to dye Those thinges which are violently destroyed we see are made away for the most part by diuision so fire by diuision destroyeth all that cometh in its way so liuing creatures are destroyed by their parting of their bloud from their flesh or of one member from an other or by the euaporation or extinction of their naturall heate In fine we are sure that all thinges which within our knowledge loose the ir Being do so by reason of their Quantity which by diuision or by rarefaction and compression gaineth some new temperature that doth not consist with their former temper After these premisses I neede say no more the conclusion displayeth it selfe readily and plainely without any further trouble for if our labour hath beene hitherto to shew that our soule is indiuisible and that her operations are such as admitt not quantitatiue partes in her it is cleare that she can not be mortall by any of those wayes whereby we see thinges round about vs to perish The like argument we may frame out of locall motion for seeing that all the alteratiue actions we are acquainted withall be performed by locall motion as is deliuered both in grosse and by detaile in our first Treatise and that Aristotle and all vnderstanding Philosophers do agree there can be no locall motion in an indiuisible thing the reason whereof is euident to whomsoeuer reflecteth vpon the nature of Place and of locall motion it is manifest that there can be no motion to hurt the soule since she is concluded to be indiuisible The common argument likewise vsed in this matter amounteth to the same effect to witt that since thinges are destroyed only by their contraries that thing which hath no contrary is not subiect to destruction which Principle both Reason and experience do euery where confirme but a humane soule is not subiect to contrariety and therefore such â—n one can not be destroyed The truth of the assumption may be knowne two wayes first because all the contrarieties that are found within our cognisance do arise out of the primary opposition of Rarity and Density from which the soule being absolutely free she likewise is so from all that groweth out of that roote and secondly we may be sure that our soule can receiue no harme from contrariety since all contraries are so farre from hurting her as contrary wise the one helpeth her in the contemplation of the other and as for contradiction in thoughts which att different times our soule is capable of admitting experience teacheth vs that such thoughts do change in her without any preiudice to her substance they being accidents and hauing their contrariety only betwixt themselues within her but no opposition at all to her which only is the contrariety that may haue power to harme her and therefore whether soeuer of such contrary thoughts be in the soule pertaineth no more to her subsistence then it doth to the subsistence of a body whether it be here or there on the right hand or on the left And thus I conceiue my taske is performed and that I am discharged of my vndertaking to shew the soules Immortality which importeth no more then to shew that the causes of other thinges mortality do not reach her Yet being well persuaded that my reader will not be offended with the addition of any new light in this darke subiect I will striue to discouer if it be possible some positiue proofe or guesse out of the property and nature of the soule it selfe why she must remaine and â—nioy an other life after this To this end lett vs cast our eye backe vpon what hath beene already said concerning her nature We found that truth is the naturall perfection of Mans soule and that she can not be assured of truth naturally otherwise then by euidence and therefore it is manifest that euidence of truth is the full complete perfection at which the soule doth ayme We found also that the soule is capable of an absolute infinity of truth or euideÌ„ce To these two we will adde only one thing more which of it selfe is past question and therefore needeth no proofe and then we will deduce our conclusion and this is that in a man his soule is a farre nobler and perfecter part of him then his body and therefore by the rules of nature and of wisedome his body was made for his soule and not his soule finally for his body These groundes being thus layed lett vs examine whether our soule doth in this life arriue to the end she was ordained for or no and if she do not then it must follow of necessity that our body was made but for a passage by which our soule should be ferried ouer into that state where she is to attaine vnto that end for which her nature is framed and fitted the great skill and artifice of nature shewing and assuring vs that she neuer faileth of compassing her end euen in her meanest workes and therefore without doubt would not breake her course in her greatest whereof man is absolutely the head and chiefe among all those that we are acquainted with Now what the end is vnto which our soule doth ayme is euident since the perfection of euery thing is the end for which it is made the perfection then and end of the soule being euidence and she being capable of infinite euidence lett vs enquire whether in this life she may compasse it or no. To determine this question lett vs compare infinite euidence to that euidence which the greatest and most knowing man that euer liued hath acquired by the worke of nature alone or to that euidence which by aime we may imagine is possible euer to happen vnto any one man to arriue vnto and balancing them well together lett vs iudge whether all that any man can know
that in fine she will be happy or miserable according as she hath built vp her selfe by her spirituall iudgements and affections in this life If knowledge and intellectuall obiects be the goods she thirsteth after what can be happier then she when she possesseth the fullnesse of all that can be desired in that kind But if in this world a man settleth his hart coÌ„stantly vpon any transitoâ—y end as vpon wealth corporeall delights honour power and the like which are too short breathed attendants to follow him so long a iourney as into the next then all the poweâ— of his soule euen after she hath left her body will be still longing after that deare Idoll of her affections and for the want of it she will not value the great knowledge she shall then be imbued withall nor care for any other good she possesseth like a man who being sorrounded with a full sea and swolne tide of all specious obiects that may please and delight him hath by vnlucky chance suffered his violent affections and his impotent desires to be entangled in some meane loue that eyther neglecteth him or he is hindered from enioying and thereby that litle droppe of gall or rather that priuation of a meane contentment which truly in it selfe is nothing infecteth and poisoneth the whole draught of happynesse that but for this would swell him vp to the height of his wishes But no comparisons of sorrowes or anguishes in this life where our earthy dwelling doth so clogge and allay and dull the sense of our soule which only feeleth and relisheth eyther delight or woe can arriue to shadow out the misery of a separated soule so affected whose straines are so excessiuely vehement and whose nature is a pure actiuity and her selfe all sense all knowledge It is true I confesse that in a man such motions do in part proceed from passion and therefore I will allow that so much of them as haue their origine meerely and only fromthence shall dye with the body and shall not haue made any impression in the separated soule but besides the streame of passion we may in such motions obserue also the worke of reason for she both approueth and employeth her powers to compasse and gaine what the other presenteth and by legitimate discourse draweth consequences out of that principle or iudgement which maketh the byas it then leaneth vnto and these are vndenyable effects of a spirituall iudgement settled in the soule And therefore as farre as these motions proceed from spirituall iudgements so farre it is cleare they must remaine in the separated soule Peraduenture what I haue said may be lyable to a mistake as though I conceiued that these spirituall iudgements are made in the soule according to right reason and to legitimate discourse whereas I meane nothing lesse but esteeming an ouerstrong iudgement in the seperated soule to be proportionable vnto a passion in the body I conceite that as passion settleth reason on worke to find out meanes whereby she may arriue vnto her endes so in like manner may this iudgement sett reason on floate with those actes whiâ—h follow consequently vpon it though inconsequent to the whole body of reason because the disorder there is in the excesse of this iudgemeÌ„t ouer others whose force according to nature ought to be greater then it So that if we would frame a conception of a disordered soule when it is out of the body we may imagine it correspondent to a body whose one part were bigger then could stand in proportion with an other as if the hand to vse the example we brought before were greater then the arme could manage or the foote were larger and heauyer then the legge and thigh could wield vnto which adde that euery part were actiue and working of it selfe so as though it could not be gouerned yet would it continually haue its owne operation which would be contrary to the operation of the arme or of the legge and consequently it would euer be tending to incompossible operations and by that meanes both one member would alwayes disagree from the other and neyther of them attaine any effect at all not vnlike to the fansie of the Poets who fained a monster which they termed Scylla whose inferiour partes were a company of dogges euer snarling and quarrelling among themselues and yet were vnseuerable from one an other as being compartes of the same substance But to declare this important doctrine more dogmatically lett vs consider that of necessity a disordered soule hath these following iudgements settled in her Namely that she is not well that she can not be well without her desired good that it is impossible for her to compasse that good and lastly that this state she is in is by all meanes possible to be auoyded not by changing her iudgement for that is her selfe but by procuring the satisfaction she desireth and this with all the power and totall inclination of her actiuity and possibility This then being the temper of a disordered separated soule it is easy to conceiue what a sad condition such an one remaineth then in which is infinitely more then any affliction that can happen to a man in this world for since euen here all our ioyes and griefes do proceed from our soule we must needes allow that when she shall be free from the burthen of her body which doth exceedingly impeach and limitt her operations and actiuity all her actions will be then farre greater and more efficacious But because this point is of highest consequence we may not slightly passe it ouer but we will endeauour if we can to discouer the wonderfull efficacity and force of a separated soules operations that from thence we may the better collect how great her happenesse or misery will be in the next life Lett vs then consider how an act or iudgement of the soule may be more forcible eyther by it selfe or by the multiplication of such helpes as do concurre with it To beginne with considering the act in it selfe we know that the certainest way to measure the strength of it is to take a suruey of the force which sheweth it selfe in its effect for they being relatiues to one an other each of them discouereth the others nature Now this we will do after our ordinary manner by comparing the spirituall effects issuing from a iudgement in the soule to materiall effects proceeding from the operations and motions of bodies In these we may obserue three thinges by which we may estimate their efficaciousnesse some actions dure a longer time others take vp a greater place and others againe worke the like effect in a greater place and in a shorter time which last sort of all others do proceed from the most powerfull and most forcible agents If then in these considerations we compare a separated soule to a body what an infinity of strength and efficacity will the meanest of those pure substances haue beyond the most powerfull and actiue body
she would in the first instant of her being be perfect in knowledge or she would not if she were then would she be a perfect and complete immateriall substance not a soule whose nature is to be a compartner to the body and to acquire her perfection by the mediation and seruice of corporeall senses but if she were not perfect in science but were only a capacity therevnto and like vnto white paper in which nothing were yet wâ—â—tten then vnlesse she were putt in a body she could neuer arriue to know any thing because motion and alteration are effects peculiar to bodies therefore it must be agreed that she is naturally designed to be in a body but her being in a body is her being one thing with the body she is said to be in and so she is one part of a whole which from its weaker part is determined to be a body Againe seeing that the matter of any thing is to be prepared before the end is prepared for which that matter is to serue according to that Axiome Quod est primum in intentione est vltimum in executione we may not deny but that the body is in being some time before the soule or at the least that it existeth as soone as she doth and therefore it appeareth wholy vnreasonable to say that the soule was first made out of the body and was afterwardes thrust into it seeing that the body was prepared for the soule before or at the least as soone as she had any beginning and so we may conclude that of necessity the soule must be begunne layed hatched and perfected in the body And although it be true that such soules as are separated from their bodies in the first instant of their being there are notwithstanding imbued with the knowledge of all thinges yet is not their longer abode therein vaine not only because thereby the species is multiplyed for nature is not content with barely doing that without addition of some good to the soule it selfe but as well for the wonderfull and I may say infinite aduantage that may thereby accrew to the soule if she make right vse of it for as any act of the abstracted soule is infinite in comparison of the acts which men exercise in this life according to what we haue already shewed so by consequence must any encrease of it be likewise infinite and therefore we may conclude that a long life well spent is the greatest and most excellent guift which nature can bestow vpon a man The vnwary reader may perhapps haue difficulty at our often repeating of the infelicity of a miserable soule since we say that it proceedeth out of the iudgements she had formerly made in this life which without all doubt were false ones and neuerthelesse it is euident that no false iudgements can remaine in a soule after she is separated from her body as we haue aboue determined How then can a soules iudgements be the cause of her misery But the more heedefull reader will haue noted that the misery which we putt in a soule proceedeth out of the inequality not out of the falsity of her iudgements for if a man be inclined to a lesser good more then to a greater he will in action betake himselfe to the lesser good and desert the greater wherein neyther iudgemeÌ„t is false nor eyther inclination is naught meerely out of the improportion of the two inclinations or iudgements to their obiects for that a soule may be duely ordered and in a state of being well she must haue a lesser inclination to a lesse good and a greater inclination to a greater good and in pure spirits these inclinations are nothing else but the strength of their iudgements which iudgements in soules whiles they are in their bodies are made by the repetition of more acts from stronger causes or in more fauourable circumstances And so it appeareth how without any falsity in any iudgement a soule may become miserable by her conuersation in this world where all her inclinations generally are good vnlesse the disproportion of them do make them bad THE TWELFTH CHAPTER Of the perseuerance of a soule in the state she findeth her selfe in at her first separation from her body THus we haue brought mans soule out of the body she liued in here and by which she conuersed and had commerce with the other partes of this world and we haue assigned her her first array and stole with which she may be seene in the next world so that now there remaineth only for vs to consider what shall betide her afterwardes and whether any change may happen to her and be made in her after the first instant of her being a pure spiritt separated from all consortshippe with materiall substances To determine this point the more clearely lett vs call to minde an axiome that Aristotle giueth vs in his logike which teacheth vs That as it is true if the effect be there is a cause so likewise it is most true that if the cause be in act or causing the effect must also be Which Axiome may be vnderstood two wayes the one that if the cause hath its effect then the effect also is and this is no great mystery or for it are any thankes due to the teacher it being but a repetition and saying ouer againe of the same thing The other way is that if the cause be perfect in the nature of being a cause then the effect is which is as much as to say that if nothing be waÌ„ting to the cause abstracting precisely from the effect then neyther is the effect wanting And this is the meaning of Aristotles Axiome of the truth and euidence whereof in this sense if any man should make the least doubt it were easy to euince it as thus if nothing be wanting but the effect and yet the effect doth not immediately follow it must needes be that it can not follow at all for if it can and doth not then something more must be done to make it follow which is against the supposition that nothing was wanting but the effect for that which is to be done was wanting To say it will follow without any change is senselesse for if it follow without change it followeth out of this which is already putt but if it do follow out of this which is precisely putt then it followeth against the supposition which was that it did not follow although this were putt This then being euident lett vs apply it to our purpose and lett vs putt three or more thinges namely A. B. C. and D whereof none can worke otherwise then in an instant or indiuisibly and I say that whatsoeuer these foure thinges are able to do without respect to any other thing besides them is completely done in the first instant of their being putt and if they remayne for all eternity without communication or respect to any other thing there shall neuer be any innouation in any of them or
fountaine of blisse and cast my selfe headlong into that sea of felicity where I can neither apprehend shallow waters nor feare I shall be so litle immersed and drowned as to meete with any shelfe or dry ground to moderate and stinte my happinesse A selfe actiuity and vnbounded extent and essence free from time and place assure me sufficiently that I neede desire no more Which way soeuer I looke I loose my sight in seeing an infinity round about me Length without pointes Breadth without Lines Depth without any surface All content all pleasure all restlesse rest all an vnquietnesse and transport of delight all an extasy of fruition Happy forgetfulnesse how deepely am I obliged to thee for making roome for this soule rauishing contemplation by remouing this whiles all other images of things farre from me I would to God thou mightest endure whiles I endure that so I might be drowned in this present thought and neuer wake againe but into the enioying and accompletion of my present enflamed desires But alas that may not be The eternal light whom my soule and I haue chosen for Arbiter to determine vnto vs what is most expedient for vs will not permit it We must returne and that into feares and miseries For as a good life breedeth encrease of happinesse so doth an euell one heape vp Iliades of woe First my soule before I venture we should be certaine that thy parting from this life waft thee ouer to assured happinesse For thou well knowest that there are noxious actions which depraue and infect the soule whiles it is forging and moulding here it its body and tempering for its future being and if thou shouldest sally hence in such a peruerse disposition vnhappinesse would betyde thee insteed of thy presumed blisse I see some men so rauenous after those pleasures which cannot be enioyed out of the body that if those impotent desires accompany their soules into eternity I can not doubt of their enduring an eternity of misery I can not doubt of their being tormented with such a dire extremity of vnsatisfyable desire and violent greife as were able to teare all this world into pieces were it conuerted into one hart and to riue in sunder any thing lesse then the necessity of contradiction How high the blisse of a well gouerned soule is aboue all power of quantity so extreme must the rauenous inclemency and vulturelike cruelty be of such an vncompassable desire gnawing eternally vpon the soule for the same reason holdeth in both and which way soeuer the grauitation and desires of a separated soule do carry it it is hurried on with a like impetuosity and vnlimited actiuity Lett me then cast an heedfull and wary eye vpon the actions of the generality of mankind from whence I may guesse at the weale or woe of their future state and if I find that the greatest number weigheth downe in the scale of misery haue I not reason to feare least my lott should prooue among theirs For the greatest part sweepeth along with it euery particular that hath not some particular reason to exempt it from the generall law Insteede then of a few that wisely settle their hartes on legitimate desires what multitudes of wretched men do I see some hungry after flesh and bloud others gaping after the empty wind of honour and vanity others breathing nothing but ambitious thoughts others grasping all and groueling vpon heapes of melted earth So that they put me all in a horrour and make me feare least very few they be that are exempted from the dreadfull fate of this incomprehensible misery to which I see and grieue to see the whole face of mankind desperately turned May it not then be my sad chance to be one of their vnhappy number Be content then fond man to liue Liue yet till thou hast first secured the passage which thou art but once to venture on Be sure before thou throwest thy selfe into it to put thy soule into the scales ballance all thy thougths examine all thy inclinations put thy selfe to the reste try what drosse what pure gold is in thy selfe and what thou findest wanting be sure to supply before nature calleth thee to thy dreadfull account It is soone done if thou beest what thy nature dictateth thee to be Follow but euident reason and knowledge and thy wantes are supplyed thy accountes are made vp The same euershining truth which maketh thee see that two and two are foure will shew thee without any contradiction how all these base allurements are vaine and idle and that there is no comparison betweene the highest of them and the meanest of what thou mayest hope for hast thou but strength to settle thy hart by the steerage of this most euident science in this very moment thou mayst be secure But the hazard is great in missing to examine thy selfe truly and throughly And if thou miscarry there thou art lost for euer Apply therefore all thy care all thy industry to that Lett that be thy continuall study and thy perpetuall entertainement Thinke nothing else worth the knowing nothing else worth the doing but screwing vp thy soule vnto this hight but directing it by this leuell by this rule Then feare not nor admit the least doubt of thy being happy when thy time shall come and that time shall haue no more power ouer thee In the meane season spare no paines forbeare no diligence employ all exactnesse burne in summer freese in winter watch by night and labour by day ioyne monthes to monthes and entayle yeares vpon yeares Thinke nothing sufficient to preuent so maine a hazard and deeme nothing long or tedious in this life to purchace so happy an eternity The first discouerers of the Indies cast themselues among swarmes of maneaters they fought and strugled with vnknowne waues so horrid ones that oftentimes they perswaded themselues they climbed vp mountaines of waters and straight againe were precipitated headlong downe betweene the clouen sea vpon the foaming sand from whence they could not hope for a resource hunger was their foode snakes and serpents were their daynties sword and fire were their dayly exercise and all this only to be masters of a litle gold which after a short possession was to quitt them for euer Our searchers after the Northerne passage haue cutt their way through mountaines of yce more affrightfull and horrid then the Symplegades They haue imprisoned themselues in halfe yeare nights they haue chayned themselues in perpetuall stone cleauing coldes some haue beene found closely embracing one an other to conserue as long as they were able a litle fewell in their freesing harts at lenght petrifyed by the hardnesse of that vnmercifull winter others haue beene made the prey of vnhumane men more sauage then the wildest beasts others haue beene neuer found nor heard of so that surely they haue proued the foode of the vgly monsters of that vast ycy sea and these haue beene able and vnderstanding men What motiues what hopes had
these daring men What gaines could they promise themselues to counteruaile their desperate attempts They aymed not so much as at the purchase of any treasure for themselues but â—eerely to second the desires of those that sett them on worke or to fill the mouthes of others from whence some few crummes might fall to them What is required at thy hands my soule like this And yet the hazard thou art to auoyde and the wealth thou art to attaine vnto incomparably ouersetteth all that they could hope for Liue then and be glad of long and numerous yeares that like ripe fruite thou mayst droppe securely into that passage which duely entered into shall deliuer thee into an eternity of blisse and of vnperishable happinesse And yet my soule be thou not too soare agast with the apprehension of the dreadfull hazard thou art in Lett not a tormenting feare of the dangers that surround thee make thy whole life here bitter and vncomfortable to thee Lett the serious and due consideration of them arme thee with caution and with wisedome to preuent miscarriage by them But to looke vpon them with horrour and affrightednesse would freese thy spirits and benumme thy actions and peraduenture engulfe thee through pusillanimity in as great mischeifes as thou seekest to auoyde T is true the harme which would acrue from misgouerning thy passage out of this life is vnspeakable is vnimaginable But why shouldest thou take so deepe thought of the hazard thou runnest therein as though the difficulty of auoyding it were so extreme as might amounte to an impossibility I allow the thoughts that arme thee with wise caution to secure thy selfe cannot be too deepe nor too serious but when thou hast prouidently stored thy selfe with such call thy spirits manfully about thee and to incourage thee to fight confidently or rather to secure thee of victory so thou wilt not forsake thy selfe turne thine eyes round about thee and consider how wise nature that hath prescribed an end and periode vnto all her plantes hath furnished them all with due and orderly meanes to attaine thereunto and though particulars sometimes miscarry in their iourney since contingence is entayled to all created things yet in the generality and for the most part they all arriue vnto the scope she leuelleth them at Why then should we imagine that so iudicious and farre looking an Architect whom we see so accurate in his meaner workes should haue framed this Masterpiece of the world to perish by the way and neuer to attaine vnto that great end for which he made it euen after he is prepared and armed with all aduantagiouse circumstances agreeable to his nature That artificer we know deserueth the style of seely who frameth such tooles as fayle in there performance when they are applyed to the action for which they were intended We see all sortes of trees for the most part beare their fruite in the due season which is the end they are designed vnto and the last and highest emolument they are made to afford vs. Few beasts we see there are but contribute to our seruice what we looke for at their hands The swine affordeth good flesh the sheepe good wooll the cow good milke the sable warme and soft furre the oxe bendeth his sturdy necke to the yoke the spiritfull horse dutyfully beareth the soldier and the sinewy mule and stronger camel conuey weighty marchandise Why then shall euen the better sort of mankind the chiefe the toppe the head of all the workes of nature be apprehended to miscarry from his end in so vast a proportion as that it should be deemed in a manner impossible euen for those few for so they are in respect of the other numerous multitude of the worser sort to attaine vnto that felicity which is naturall vnto them Thou my soule art the forme and that supreme part of me which giueth being both to me and to my body who then can doubt but that all the rest of me is framed fitting and seruiceable for thee For what reason were there that thou shouldest be implanted in a soyle which can not beare thy fruite The forme of a hogge I see is engrafted in a body fitt and appropriated for a swines operations the forme of a horse of a lyon of a wolfe all of them haue their organes proportioned to the mastering piece within them their soule And is it credible that only man should haue his inferiour partes raised so highly in rebellion against his soule the greatest Mistresse beyond proportion among all formes as that it shall be impossible for her to suppresse their mutinies though she guide her selfe neuer so exactly by the prescripts of that rule which is borne with her Can it be suspected that his forme which is infinitely mounted aboue the power of matter should through the very necessity and principles of its owne nature be more lyable to contingency then those that are engulfed and drowned in it since we know that contingency defectibility and change are the lame children of grosse and misshapen matter Alas it is too true that nature is in vs vnhappily wrested from her originall and due course We find by sad experience that although her deprauation be not so totall as to blind entirely the eye of Reason she seeth by yet it is so great as to carry vehemently our affections quite crosse to what she proposeth vs as best Howsoeuer lett the incentiues of flesh and bloud be neuer so violent to tumble humane nature downe the hill yet if a contrary force more efficacious then they with all their turbulent and misty steames do impell it an otherway it must needes obey that stronger power Lett vs then examine whose motiues the soules or the senses in their owne nature worke most efficaciously in man We are sure that what pleasure he receiueth he receiueth by meanes of his soule euen all corporeall pleasure for be the working obiect neuer so agreeable and pleasing vnto him he reapeth thence small delight if in the meane time his soules attention be carried an other way from it Certainely then those thinges must affect the soule most powerfully which are connaturall vnto her and which she seiseth vpon and relisheth immediately rather then those impure ones which come sofisticated to her through the muddy channels of the senses And accordingly all experience teacheth vs that her pleasures when they are fully sauored are much stronger then the pleasures of our sense Obserue but the different comportements of an ambitious and of a sensuall man and you will euidently perceiue farre stronger motions and more vehement straines in the former who hath his desires bent to the satisfaction of his mind then in the other who aimeth but att the pleasures of his body Lett vs looke vpon the common face of mankind and we shall see the most illustrious and noble part taken with learning with power with honour and the other part which maketh sense their idole moueth in a lower and baser orbe
in discourse and of the vast extent of it Dialo de mundo 4 Of humane actions and of those that concerne ourselues 5 Of humane actions as they concerne our neighbours 6 Of Logike 7 Of Grammar 8 Of Rhetorike 9 Of Poetry 10 Of the Power of speaking 11 Of arts that concerne dumbe and insensible creatutes 12 Of Arithmetike 13 Of Prudence 14 Obseruations vpon what hath beene said in this Chapter 1 That humane actions proceed from two seuerall principles vnderstanding and sense 2 How our generall and inbred maximes doe concurre to humane actioÌ„ 3 That the rules and maximes of arts doe worke positiuely in vs though we thinke not of them 4 How the vndestaÌ„ding doth cast about when it wanteth sufficient grounds for action 5 How reason doth rule ouer sense and passion 6 How we recall our thoughts from distractions 7 How reason is sometimes ouercome by sense and passion 1 The coÌ„nection of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2 The inexisteÌ„ce of corporeall thinges in the soule by the power of apprehension doth proue her to be immateriall 3 The notion of being which is innate in the soule doth proue the same 4 The same is proued by the notion of respects 5 That corporeall thinges are spiritualized in the vnderstanding by meanes of the soules working in and by respects 6 That the abstracting of notions from all particular and indiuiduall accidents doth proue the immaterialitie of the soule 7 That the vniuersalitie of abstracted notions doth proue the same 8 That collectiue apprehensions do proue the same 9 The operations of the soule drawing allways from multitude to vnitie do proue the same 10 The difference betwixt the notion of a thing in our vnderstanding and the impression that correspondeth to the same thing in our fansie doth proue the same 11 The apprehensioÌ„ of negatioÌ„s and priuations do proue the same 1 The manner of iudging or deeming by apprehending two thinges to be identified doth proue the soule to be immateriall 2 The same is proued by the manner of apprehending opposition in a negatiue iudgement 3 That thinges in themselues opposite to one an other hauing no opposition in the soule doth proue the same 4 That the first truthes are identified to the soule 5 That the soule hath an infinite capacitie and consequently is immateriall 6 That the opposition of contradictory propositions in the Soule doth proue her immaterialitie 7 How propositions of eternall truth do proue the immaterialitie of the soule 1 That in discoursing the soule coÌ„taineth more in it at the same time then is in the fantasie which prooueth her to be immateriall 2 That the nature of discourse doth prooue the soule to be ordered to infinite knowledge and consequeÌ„tly to be immateriall 3 That the most naturall obiects of the soule are immateriall and consequently the soule her selfe in such 1 That the soules being a power to order thinges proueth her to be immateriall 2 That the soules being able to mooue without being mooued doth prooue her to be immateriall 3 That the soules proceeding to action with an vniuersality and indifferency doth prooue the same 4 That the quiet proceeding of reason doth prooue the same 5 A conclusion of what hath beene said hetherto in this second Treatise 1 That Mans Soule is a substance 2 That man is compounded of some other substance besides his body 3 That the soule doth subsist of it selfe independently of the body 4 Two other arguments to prooue the same one positiue the other negatiue 5 The same is prooued because the soule can not be obnoxious to the cause of mortality 6 The same is prooued because the soule hath no contrary 7 The same is prooued from the end for which the soule was created 8 The same is prooued because she can mooue without being mooued 9 The same is prooued from her manner of operation which is grounded in being 10 Lastly it is prooued from the science of Morality the principles whereof would be destroied if the soule were mortall 1 That the soule is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance 2 That a seperated soule is in no place and yet is not abseÌ„t from any place Boetius 3 That a seperated soule is not in time nor subiect to it 4 That the soule is an actiue substance and all in it is actiuitie 5 A description of the soule 6 That a seperated soule knoweth all that which she knew whilst she was in her bodie 7 That the least knowledge which the soule acquireth in her bodie of anie one thing doth cause in her when she is seperated from her bodie a compleat knowledge of all thingâ— whatsoeuer 8 An answere to the obiections of some Peripatetikes who maintaine the soule to perish with the body 9 The former Peripateâ—ickeâ— refuted out of Aristotle 10 The operations of a seperated soule compared to her operations in her bodie 11 That a separated soule is in a state of pure being and consequently immortall 1 That a soule in this life is subiect to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge 2 That the knowledges which a soâ—le getteth in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firme 3 That the soules of meÌ„ addicted to science whilst they liued here are more perfect in the next world then the soules of vnlearned men 4 That those soules which embrace vertue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which embrace vice most miserable 5 The state of a vicious soule in the next life 6 The fundamentall reason why as well happinesse as miserie is so excessiue in the next life 7 The reason why mans soule requireth to be in a body and to liue for some space of time ioyned with it 8 That the misery of the soule in the next world proceedeth out of inequality and not out of falsity of her iudgements 1 The explication and proofe of that maxime that if the cause be iâ— act the effect must also bâ— 2 The effects of all such ageÌ„ts as worke instantaneously arâ— complete in the first instant that the agents are putt 3 All pure spirits do worke instantaneously 4 That a soule separated from her body can not suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5 That temporall sinnes are iustly punished with eternall painâ—s
TWO TREATISES IN THE ONE OF WHICH THE NATVRE OF BODIES IN THE OTHER THE NATVRE OF MANS SOVLE IS LOOKED INTO IN WAY OF DISCOVERY OF THE IMMORTALITY OF REASONABLE SOVLES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Animae naturam absque totius natura Sufficienter cognosci posse existimas Plato in Phoedr AT PARIS Printed by GILLES BLAIZOT M. DC XLIIII WITH PRIVILEDGE TO MY SONNE KENELME DIGBY SONNE The calamity of this time being such as hath bereaft me of the ordinary meanes of expressing my affection to you I haue beene casting about to find some other way of doing that in such sort as you may receiue most profit by it Therein I soone pitched vpon this consideration That Parents owe vnto their children not onely materiall subsistence for their bodie but much more spirituall contributions to their better part their minde I am much bound to God that he hath endewed you with one very capable of the best instructions and withall I do therefore esteeme my selfe obliged to do my vtmost for moulding it to its most aduantage If my ayme therein do proue successefull you will with more ease digest those inconueniences and distresses which already you haue begun to be acquainted with and that threaten dayly worse vnto you For how can a man suffer his hart to be deiected att the priuation of any temporall blessinges whiles he considereth the inanity of them and that nothing is worthy his serious thought but what may accompany him to his eternall habitation What needeth he feare the desolations of warre and the worst that they can do against him who haue his estate in their power when he may be rich with a much nobler treasure that none but himselfe can robbe him of Without doubt he that shall seriously reflect vpon the excellency of his owne nature and vpon the admirable perfect and happy state he shall most certainely arriue vnto if he but weane himselfe from those worldly impediments that here clogge his soules flight can not choose but looke with a disdainefull eye vpon the glattering tryfles that weake spirits delight themselues withall If he deeme it not requisite as of old the famous wise man did to throw away those encumbrances to the end he may the more freely attend vnto diuine contemplations for worldly goods duely vsed may be very aduantagious both to ones selfe and to others yet at the least he will not repine att fortunes recalling of what she formerly had but lent him and but permitted him the vse of To the end then that you may be armed against the worst that may arriue vnto you in this vnhappy state of affaires in our distressed country I send you those considerations of the nature and Immortality of humane soules which of late haue beene my chiefe entertainement The progresse you haue already made in the study of Philosophy hath I am persuaded enabled you to benefitt your selfe with what I haue written vpon this subiect on the serious examining of which if you will employ but halfe the time that I haue done in spinning out my thoughts and weauing them into the piece you see I doubt not but you will thereby receiue so much contentement as well as profit that you will not repent you of your paines Besides that intellectuall entertainements are the purest and the noblest and the most proportionate to mans nature and proue the most delightfull to him when they are duely relished You will presently agree that the matter j handle is the most important and the most weighty within the whole extent of humane nature for a worthy and a gallant person to employ himselfe about The aduantage which man hath ouer vnreasonable creatures is that what he doth is by election and he is himselfe master of all his actions whereas they are impelled by outward causes vnto all they doe it is properly sayd of them that aguntur magis quam agunt He onely is free and in all varietyes of circumstances hath the power to choose one and to reiect an other Now to haue this election wisely made and becoming a man requireth that it be steered by knowledge To do any thing well a man must first know throughly all that concerneth the action he is about and chiefely the end of it And certainely of all his actions the gouernement of himselfe is the most important and neereliest concerning him The end of that gouernement and of all a mans aymes is by all men agreed to be Beatitude that is his being completely well and in a condition of enioying the most happinesse that his nature is capable of For arriuall whereunto it is impossible to pitch vpon the direct and sure meanes vnlesse it be first determined whether the Beatitude we speake of do belong to this life or be not to be attained till we come to the next or rather whether or no there be an other life besides this to be happy in For if there remaineth an eternity vnto vs after the short reuolution of time we so swiftly runne ouer here on earth it is cleare that all the happinesse which can be imagined in this fleeting state is not valuable in respect of the future nor any thing we do here is considerable otherwise then as it conduceth to the making our condition then better or worse Now the way to be sure of this is eyther infallible authority or euident science They that rely on the first depend of others and they onely who know are absolutely complete of themselues and haue within themselues the principles whereby to gouerne their actions in what is of highest consequence to them It is true euery body is not of a straine of witt and iudgement to be of this ranke and who are not must be contented to beleeue others and be satisfyed with what is taught them But he that will be of a superior orbe must make this his study This is the adequate entertainement of a worthy person To conceiue how high and excellent this science of gouerning a man in order to Beatitude in the next world is we may consider how among all arts that concerne this life the art of a statesman vnto whome belongeth to see a common wealthwell gouerned is by much the noblest All other arts are but ministeriall to him He maketh vse of the soldier of the lawyer of the orator of the antiquary of the physitian as best conduceth to the end he aymeth att of making the commonwealth he gouerneth happy and flourishing All other meaner trades serue him in a yet lower degree Yet after all he must take his measures from the Metaphysitian or Diuine For since the gouernement of a society of men aymeth att giuing them the best being they are capable of and since Mans well being here in this life is but instrumentally good as being the meanes for him to be well in the next life It is euident that the statesmans art is but instrumentall to that which sheweth
prooued from her manner of operation which is grounded in being ibid. § 10. Lastly it is prooued from the science of Morality the principles whereof would be destroied if the soule were mortall pag. 421 CHAP. X. Declaring what the soule of a man separated from his body is and of her knowledge and manner of working pag. 422 § 1. That the soule is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance ibid. § 2. That a separated soule is in no place and yet is not absent from any place pag. 424 § 3. That a separated soule is not in time nor subiect to it ibid. § 4. That the soule is an actiue substance and all in it is actiuitie pag. 425 § 5. A description of the soule pag. 426 § 6. That a separated soule knoweth all that which she knew whilst she wâ—s in her bodie ibid. § 7. That the least knowledge which the soule acquireth in her bodie of anie one thing doth cause in her when she is separated from her bodie a compleat knowledge of all thinges whatsoeuer pag. 427 § 8. An answere to the obiections of some Peripatetikes who maintaine the soule to perish with the body pag. 429 § 9 The former Peripatetikes refuted out of Aristotle pag. 431 § 10. The operations of a separated soule compared to her operations in her bodie ibid. § 11. That a separated soule is in a state of pure being and consequently immortall pag. 432 CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the diuers manners of liuing in this world do cause in a soule after she is separated from her body p. 433 § 1. That a soule in this life is subiect to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge ibid. § 2. That the knowledges which a soule getteth in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firme pag. 434 § 3. That the soules of men addicted to science whilst they liued here are more perfect in the next world then the soules of vnlearned men pag. 435 § 4. That those soules which embrace vertue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which embrace vice most miserable ibid. § 5. The state of a vitious soule in the next life pag. 437 § 6. The fundamentall reason why as well happinesse as misery is so excessiue in the next life pag. 439 § 7. The reason why mans soule requireth to be in a body and to liue for some space of time ioyned with it pag. 441 § 8. That the misery of the soule in the next world proceedeth out of inequality and not out of falsity of her iudgements pag. 442 CHAP. XII Of the perseuerance of a soule in the state she findeth herselfe in at her first separation from her body pag. 443 § 1. The explication and proofe of that maxime that if the cause be in act the effect must also be ibid. § 2. The effects of all such agents as worke instantaneously are complete in the first instant that the agents are putt ibid. § 3. All pure spirits do worke instantaneously pag. 444 § 4. That a soule separated from her body can not suffer any change after the first instant of her separation ibid. § 5. That temporall sinnes are iustly punished with eternall paines pag. 445 The Conclusion pag. 446 THE PREFACE THIS writing was designed to haue seene the light vnder the name of one treatise But after it was drawne in paper as I cast a view ouer it I found the prooemiall part which is that which treateth of Bodies so ample in respect of the other which was the end of it and for whose sake I meddled with it that I readily apprehended my reader would thinke I had gone much astray from my text when proposing to speake of the immortality of Mans Soule three parts of foure of the whole discourse should not so much as in one word mention that soule whose nature and proprieties I aymed at the discouery of To auoyde this incongruity occasioned mee to change the name and vnity of the worke and to make the suruay of bodies a body by it selfe though subordinate to the treatise of the soule Which notwithstanding it be lesse in bulke then the other yet I dare promise my Reader that if he bestow the paines requisite to perfect him selfe in it he will find as much time well spent in the due reading of it as in the reading of the former treatise though farre more large But I discerne an obiection obuious to be made or rather a question why I should spend so much time in the consideration of bodies whereas none that hath formerly written of this subiect hath in any measure done the like I might answere that they had vpon other occasions first written of the nature of bodies as I may instance in Aristotle and sundry others who either haue themselues professedly treated the science of bodies or haue supposed that part sufficiently performed by other pennes But truly I was by an vnauoydable necessity hereunto obliged which is a current of doctrine that at this day much raigneth in the Christian Schooles where bodies and their operations are explicated after the manner of spirituall thinges For wee hauing very slender knowledge of spirituall substances can reach no further into their nature then to know that they haue certaine powers or qualities but can seldome penetrate so deepe as to descend to the particulars of such Qualities or Powers Now our moderne Philosophers haue introduced such a course of learning into the schooles that vnto all questions concerning the proper natures of bodies and their operations it is held sufficient to answere they haue a quality or a power to doe such a thing And afterwards they dispute whether this Quality or Power be an Entity distinct from its subiect or no and how it is seperable or vnseperable from it and the like Conformable to this who will looke into the bookes which are in vogue in these schooles shall find such answers and such controuersies euery where and few others As of the sensible qualities aske what it is to be white or red what to be sweete or sower what to be odoriferous or stincking what to be cold or hott And you are presently paid with that it is a sensible quality which hath the power to make a wall white or red to make a meate agreeable or disagreeable to the tast to make a gratefull or vngratefull smell to the nose etc Likewise they make the same questions and resolutions of Grauity and Leuity as whether they be qualities that is entities distinct from their subiect and whether they be actiue or passiue which when they haue disputed slightly and in common with logicall arguments they rest there without any further searching into the physicall causes or effects of them The like you shall find of all strange effects of them The loadestone and Electricall bodies are produced for miraculous and not vnderstandable thinges and in which it must be
acknowledged that they worke by hidden qualities that mans witt cannot reach vnto And ascending to liuing bodies they giue it for a Maxime that life is the action of the same Entity vpon it selfe that sense is likewise a worke of an intrinsecall power in the part we call sense vpon it selfe Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Euen some Physitians that take vpon them to teach the curing of our bodies do often pay vs with such termes among them you haue long discourses of a retentiue of an expulsiue of a purging of a consolidating faculty and so of euery thing that eyther passeth in our body or is applied for remedy And the meaner sort of Physitians know no more but that such faculties are though indeed they that are truly Physitians know also in what they consist without which knowledge it is much to be feared Physitians will do more harme then good But to returne to our subiect this course of doctrine in the schooles hath forced me to a greate deale of paines in seeking to discouer the nature of all such actions or of the maine part of them as were famed for incomprehensible for what hope could I haue out of the actions of the soule to conuince the nature of it to be incorporeall if I could giue no other account of bodies operations then that they were performed by qualities occult specificall or incomprehensible Would not my aduersary presently answere that any operation out of which I should presse the soules being spirituall was performed by a corporeall occult quality and that as he must acknowledge it to be incomprehensible so must I likewise acknowledge other qualities of bodies to be as incomprehensible and therefore could not with reason presse him to shew how a body was able to doe such an operation as I should inferre must of necessity proceede from a spiritt since that neyther could I giue account how the loadestone drew iron or looked to the north how a stone and other heauy thinges were carried downewardes how sight or fantasie was made how digestion or purging were effected and many other such questions which are so slightly resolued in the schooles Besides this reason the very desire of knowledge in my selfe and a willingnesse to be auaylable vnto others att the least so farre as to sett them on seeking for it without hauing a preiudice of impossibity in attaining it was vnto me a sufficient motiue to enlarge my discourse to the bulke it is risen vnto For what a misery is it that the flower and best wittes of Christendome which flocke to the Vniuersities vnder pretence and vpon hope of gaining knowledge should be there deluded and after many yeares of toyle and expence be sent home againe with nothing acquired more then a faculty and readynesse to talke like parrats of many thinges but not to vnderstand so much as anyone and withall with a persuasion that in truth nothing can be knowne For setting knowledge aside what can it auayle a man to be able to talke of any thing What are those wranglinges where the discouery of truth is neyther sought nor hoped for but meerely vanity and ostentation Doth not all tend to make him seeme and appeare that which indeed he is not Nor lett any body take it ill at my handes that I speake thus of the moderne schooles for indeed it is rather themselues then I that say it Excepting Mathematikes lett all the other schooles pronounce their owne mindes and say ingenuously whether they themselues beleeue they haue so much as any one demonstration from the beginning to the ending of the whole course of their learning And if all or the most part will agree that any one position is demonstrated perfectly and as it ought to be and as thousands of conclusions are demonstrated in Mathematikes I am ready to vndergoe the blame of hauing calumniated them and will as readily make them amendes But if they neither will nor can then their owne verdict cleareth me and it is not so much I as they that make this profession of the shallownesse of their doctrine And to this purpose I haue often hard the lamentations of diuers as greate wittes as any that conuerse in the schooles complaining of this defect But in so greate an euidence of the effect proofes are superfluous Wherefore I will leaue this subiect to declare what I haue here designed and gone about towardes the remedy of this inconuenience Which is that whereas in the schooles there is a loose methode or rather none but that it is lawfull by the liberty of a commentator to handle any question in any place which is the cause of the slightnesse of their doctrine and can neuer be the way to any science or certitude I haue taken my beginninges from the commonest thinges that are in nature namely from the notions of Quantity and its first differences which are the most simple and radicall notions that are and in which all the rest are to be grounded From them I endeauour by immediate composition of them and deriuation from them to bring downe my discourse to the Elements which are the primary and most simple bodies in nature From these I proceed to compounded bodies first to those that are called mixed and then to liuing bodies declaring in common the proprieties and operations that belong vnto them And by occasion as I passe along I light here and there on those operations which seeme most admirable in nature to shew how they are performed or att the least how they may be performed that though I misse in particular of the industry of nature yet I may neuerthelesse hitt my intent which is to trace out a way how these and such like operations may be effected by an exact disposition and ordering though intricate of quantitatiue and corporeall partes and to shew that they oblige vs not to recurre vnto hidden and vnexplicable qualities And if I haue declared so many of these as may begett a probable persuasion in my reader that the rest which I haue not touched may likewise be displayed and shewed to spring out of the same groundes if curious and constant searchers into nature will make their taske to penetrate into them I haue therein obtained my desire and intent which is onely to shew from what principles all kindes of corporeall operations do proceed and what kind of operations all these must be which may issue out of these principles to the end that I may from thence make a steppe to raise my discourse to the contemplation of the soule and shew that her operations are such as cannot proceed from those principles which being adequate and common to all bodies we may rest assured that what cannot issue from them cannot haue a body for its source I will therefore end this preface with entreating my reader to consider that in a discourse proceeding in such order as I haue declared he must not expect to vnderstand
and be satisfied with what is said in any middle or later part vnlesse he first haue read and vnderstood what goeth before Wherefore if he cannot resolue with himselfe to take it along orderly as it lyeth from the beginning he shall do himselfe as well as me right not to meddle att all with this booke But if he will employ any time vpon it to receiue aduantage by it he must be content to take the paines to vnderstand throughly euery particular as it is sett downe And if his memory will not serue him to carry euery one along with him yet att the least lett him be sure to remember the place where it is handled and vpon occasion returne a looke backe vpon it when it may stand him in steede If he thinketh this diligence too burthensome lett him consider that the writing hereof hath cost the Author much more paines who as he will esteeme them exceedingly well employed if they may contribute ought to the content or aduantage of any free and ingenuous mind so if any others shall expresse a neglect of what he hath with so much labour hewed out of the hard rocke of nature or shall discourteously cauill att the notions he so freely imparteth vnto them all the ressentment he shall make thereof will be to desire the first to consider that their slight esteeme of his worke obligeth them to entertaine their thoughts with some more noble and more profittable subiect and better treated then this is and the later sort to iustifie their dislike of his doctrine by deliuering a fairer and more complete body of Philosophy of their owne Which if herevpon they do his being the occasion of the ones bettering themselues and of the others bettering the world will be the best successe he can wish his booke APPROBATIONES DOCTORVM EGo infra scriptus natione Anglus in sacra Theologiae Facultate Parisiensi Magister fidem facio me librum perlegisse Anglicano idiomate scriptum cui titulus Two treatises in the one of which the nature of bodies in the other the nature of mans soule is looked into in way of discouerie of the immortalitie of reasonable soules Authore nobilissimo vndequaque eruditissimo viro Kenelmo Digbaeo Anglo In quo nihil deprehendiaut fidei aut pietati Catholicae Romanae Ecclesiae dissonum vel indignum Quod etiam spondeo priusquam typis exoluetur candiâ—iori ac duplicato calculo testatum fore Intereà verò ne tantum sub modio lumen vel parumper delitescat hoc ipsum proprio firmaui chirographo Datum Parisiis Kalendis Martijab Incarnationis anno 1644. H. HOLDEN BY leaue order from our sacred Facultie wee vnder written Doctors of Deuinitie of the Vniuersitie of Paris haue read ouer this booke entitled Two treatises in the one of which the nature of bodies in the other the nature of mans soule is looked into in way of discouerie of the immortalitie of reasonable soules Written by Sir Kenelme Digby containing an hundred sixteene shites printed in folio by Gilles Blaizor 1644. Which as well for its chiefe subiects sake that neuer ought to be slightly handled as also for its new exotticke assertions in matters both of soule bodie wee haue the more diligently perused And whether it hath hitte or missed of the truth we must needs eesteme highly extolle the authours manly designe to ayme at euidence Especially in this schepticke age wherein so few professe or thinke it possible to know with certitude Yea wherein euen many of those who to the vulgar seeme Maisters of learning acknowledge all philosophies decisions only problematicall and thence labouring to make their voluminous relations of each others phansies opinious passe for science haue quite banished her their schooles But here we find a large lofty soule who not satisfyed with vnexamined words ambiguous termes longing to know dyues deepely into the bowells of all corporeall compounded things and then deuinely speculats the nature of immateriall subsistent formes Nor this by wrangling in aerie names with chimericall imaginations fained suppositions of vnknowne qualities but strongly stryuing to disclosehereall connaturall truth of each thing in it self and of one constant continued thridde weaues his whole worke into one webbe Where many of the most abstruse enigmaticke questions of natures secrets hitherto vnresolued for the most part weakely represented in empty language verball shadowes are made no lesse plaine euident in their inward beings effects then pleasant gratefull in their wellclothed outside expression In which though to the blind common crowde to whom all that 's vnusuall is a paradox there may perhapps appeare what they 'll dare call extrauagant and to the midlecyzed gymnastickes what they 'll conceiue ill grownded though ingenious quesses yet surely will the more solide reflections of all knowing men begette a liking of its acquaintance Howsoeuer this wee can do affirme testifye although the authour's prodigious parts publicke credit makes voide our approbation that nothing contained in either of those two treatises discussing only the ordinarie course of nature doth any way tende to the disaduantage of the faith or pietie of our Catholike Roman church whereof this Authour professeth him selfe a dutifull obedient child And therefore wee signe subscribe our names here vnto Paris this 10. of Nouember 1644. H. HOLDEN E. TYRREL IDEM LATINE VEniâ ac iussu Sacrae nostrae Facultatis Nos infrascripti S. Theologiae Doctores Academiae Parisiensis perlegimus librum hunc cui titulus Duo tractatus in quorum vno natura corporum altero natura humanae animae inspicitur ad inuestigandam animarum rationalium immortalitatem Authore Kenelmo Digbaeo Equite aurato centum sexdecim schedas continentem typis Aegidij Blaizot in folio excusum Anno 1644. Quem tùm ob eius praecipuum subiectum quod nunquam leuiter tractari conuenit tum maximè ob nouas quasdam inusitatas assertiones tam in animae quà m corporum materiâ tanto diligentiori studio peruoluimus In quo siue ipsas veritatis apices adeptus sit siue non audaces certè authoris animos in ipsam euidentiam attentando non possumus non magnoperè commendare in hoc sceptico praesertim aeuo in quo tam pauci profitentur aut possibile reputant fieri posse vt quidquam certò cognoscatur imo veròin quo plurimi eorum qui vulgi opinione scientiarum magistri habentur quotquot sunt philosophiae positiones non nisi totidem problemata agnoscunt quique proinde portentosis voluminibus sua aliorumque placita loco verae scientiae nobis obtrudere volentes eam prorsus scholis suis exterminarunt At hic generosiorem animum inuenimus qui nudis hisce ac inexplicatis voculis haud acquiescens sed veritatis ardore succensus eam altius in ipsis rerum corporearum visceribus perscrutatur ac tum demum immaterialium
practise of them as in like manner to vnderstand the other kind of plaine language we must obserue how the wordes that compose it are apprehended vsed and applyed by mankind in generall and not receiue into this examination the wrested or Metaphoricall senses of any learned men who seeke oftentimes beyond any ground in nature to frame a generall notion that may comprehend all the particular ones which in any sense proper or improper may arise out of the vse of one word And this is the cause of greate errors in discourse soe greate and important as I cannot too much inculcate the caution requisite to the auoyding of this rocke Which that it may be the better apprehended I will instance in one example of a most plaine and easie conception wherein all mankind naturally agreeth how the wresting it from its proper genuine and originall signification leadeth one into strange absurdities and yet they passe for subtile speculations The notion of being in a place is naturally the same in all men liuing aske any simple artisan Where such a man such a howse such a tree or such a thing is and he will answere you in the very same manner as the learnedest Philosopher would doe he will tell you the man you aske for is in such a church sitting in such a piew and in such a corner of it that the howse you enquire after is in such a streete and next to such two buildinges on each side of it that the tree you would find out is in such a forest vpon such a hill neere such a fountaine and by such a bush that the wine you would drinke of is in such a cellar in such a part of it and in such a caske In conclusion no man liuing that speaketh naturally and freely out of the notion hee findeth clearely in his vnderstanding will giue you other answere to the question of where a thing is then such a one as plainely expresseth his conceit of being in place to be no other then a bodies being enuironed and enclosed by some one or seuerall others that are immediate vnto it as the place of a liquor is the vessell that containeth it and the place of the vessell is such a part of the chamber or house that it resteth vpon together with the ambient ayre which hath a share in making vp the places of most thinges And this being the answere that euery man whatsoeuer will readily giue to this question and euery asker being fully satisfied with it we may safely conclude that all theire notions and conceptions of being in a place are the same and consequently that it is the naturall and true one But then some others considering that such conditions as these will not agree vnto other thinges which they likewise conceite to be in a place for they receiue it as an Axiome from theire sense that whatsoeuer is must be somewhere and whatsoeuer is no where is not att all they fall to casting about how they may frame some common notion to comprehend all the seuerall kindes of being in place which they imagine in the thinges they discourse of If there were nothing but bodies to be ranked by them in the Predicament of place then that description I haue already sett downe would be allowed by them as sufficient But since that spirits and spirituall thinges as Angels rationall soules verities sciencies arts and the like haue a being in nature and yet will not be comprised in such a kind of place as a body is contained in they racke theire thoughts to speculate out some common notion of being in place which may be common to these as well as to bodies like a common accident agreeing to diuerse subiects And so in the end they pitch vpon an Entity which they call an Vbi and they conceite the nature and formall reason of that to be the ranking of any thing in a place when that Entity is therevnto affixed And then they haue no further difficulty in settling an Angell or any pure spirit or immateriall essence in a place as properly and as completely as if it were a corporeall substance It is but assigning an Vbi to such a spirit and he is presently riueted to what place you please and by multiplying the Vbies any indiuiduall body vnto which they are assigned is at the same instant in as many distant places as they allott it different Vbies and if they assigne the same Vbi to seuerall bodies so many seuerall ones as they assigne it vnto will be in one and the same place and not onely many bodies in one place but euen a whole bodie in an indiuisible by a kind of Vbi that hath a power to resume all the extended partes and enclose them in a point of place All which prodigious conceits and impossibilities in nature doe spring out of theire mistake in framing Metaphysicall and abstracted conceptions insteed of contenting themselues with those plaine easy and primary notions which nature stampeth a like in all men of common sense and vnderstanding As who desireth to bee further instructed in this particular may perceiue if he take the paines to looke ouer what M. White hath discoursed of Place in the first of his Dialogues De Mundo Vnto which booke I shall from time to time according as I shall haue occasion referre my Reader in those subiects the Author taketh vppon him to prooue being confident that his Metaphysicall demonstrations there are as firme as any Mathematicall ones for Metaphysicall demonstrations haue in themselues as much firmenesse certainty and euidency as they and so will appeare as euident as they vnto whosoeuer shall vnderstand them throughly and shall frame right conceptions of them which how plaine soeuer they seeme to bee is not the worke of euery pretender to learning THE SECOND CHAPTER Of Quantity AMONG those primary affections which occurre in the perusall of a body Quantity as I haue obserued in the precedent chapter is one and in a manner the first and the roote of all the rest Therefore according to the caution we haue beene so prolixe in giuing because it is of so maine importance if we ayme at right vnderstanding the true nature of it we must examine what apprehension all kindes of people that is mankind in generall maketh of it By which proceeding we doe not make the ignorant multitude iudge of that learning which groweth out of the consideration of Quantity but onely of the naturall notion which serueth learned men for a basis and foundation to build scientificall super-structures vpon For although sciencies be the workes and structures of the vnderstanding gouerned and leuelled by the wary and strict rules of most ingenious artificers yet the ground vpon which they are raised are such plaine notions of thinges as naturally and without any art doe present themselues to euery mans apprehension without which for matter to worke vpon those artificiall reflections would leaue the vnderstanding as vnsatisfied as a cooke
strength and security of the fabrike no more I hope will the slight escapes which so difficult a taske as this is subiect vnto endamage or weaken the maine body of what I haue here deliuered I haue not yet seene any piece vpon this subiect made vp with this methode beginning from the simplest and plainest notions and composing them orderly till all the principall variety which their nature is capable of be gone through and therefore it can not be expected but that the first modell of this kind and moulded by one distracted with continuall thoughts of a much different straine and whose exercise as well as profession hath allowed him but litle commerce with bookes and study must needes be very rough hewed and require a great deale of polishing Which whosoeuer shall do and be as exact and orderly in treating of Phylosophy and Theology as Mathematicians are in deliuering their sciencies I do assure my selfe that Demonstrations might be made and would proceed in them as currently and the conclusions be as certaine and as full as in the Mathematikes themselues But that is not all these demonstrations would haue the oddes exceedingly of the other and be to vs inestimably more aduantagious for out of them do spiring much higher and nobler effects for mans vse and life then out of any Mathematicall ones especially when they extend themselues to the gouuernement of Man as he is Man which is an art as farre beyond all the rules of Physike or other gouuernement of our body or temporall goodes as the end is beyond the meanes we employ to gaine it for all the others do but serue instrumentally to this end That we may liue well whereas these do immediately teach it These are the fruites in generall that I hope may in some measure grow out of this discourse in the handes of equall and iuditious Readers but the particular ayme of it is to shew what actions can proeeed from a body and what can not In the conduct whereof one of our chiefe endeauours hath beene to shew that those actions which seeme to draw strongly into the order of bodies the vnknowne nature of certaine entities named Qualities eyther do or may proceed from the same causes which produce those knowne effects that all sides agree do not stand in neede of any such mysticall Philosophy And this being the maine hinge vpon which hangeth and moueth the full and cleare resoluing of our maine and great question Of the Immortality of the Soule I assure my selfe the paines I haue taken in this particular will not be deemed superfluous or tedious and withall I hope I haue employed them with so good successe as hence foreward we shall not be any more troubled with obiections drawne from their hidden and incomprehensible nature and that we stand vpon euen ground with those of the contrary opinion for since we haue shewed how all actions may be performed among bodies without hauing any recourse to such Entities and Qualities as they pretend and paint out to vs it is now their part if they will haue them admitted to proue that in nature there are such Hauing thâ—n brought the Philosophy of bodies vnto these termes that which remaineth for vs to performe is to shew thâ—t those actions of our soule for which we call her a spiritt are of such a nature as they can not be reduced into those principles by which all corporeall actions are effected For the proofe of our originall intent no more then this can be exacted at our handes so that if our positiue proofes shall carry vs yet beyond this it can not be denyed but that we giue ouermeasure and do illustrate with a greater light what is already sufficiently discerned In our proceeding we haue the precedency of nature for laying for our ground the naturall conceptions which mankind maketh of quantity we find that a body is a meere passiue thing consisting of diuers partes which by motion may be diuersly ordered and consequently that it is capable of no other change or operation then such as motion may produce by various ordering the diuers partes of it and then seeing that Rare and Dense is the primary and adequate diuision of Bodies it followeth euidently that what can not be effected by the various disposition of rare and dense partes can not proceed or be effected by a pure body and consequently it will be sufficient for vs to shew that the motions of our soules are such and they who will not agree to this conclusion must take vpon them to shew that our first premisse is defectiue by prouing that other vnknowne wayes are necessary for bodies to be wrought vpon or to worke by and that the motion and various ordering of rare and dense partes in them is not cause sufficient for the effects we see among them Which whosoeuer shall attempt to do must remember that he hath this disaduantage before he beginneth that whatsoeuer hath beene hitherto discouered in the science of bodies by the helpe eyther of Mathematikes or Physickes it hath all beene resolued and hath fallen into this way which we declare Here I should sett a periode to all further discourse concerning this first Treatise of bodies did I not apprehend that the preiudice of Aristotles authority may dispose many to a harsh conceite of the draught we haue made But if they knew how litle reason they haue to vrge that against vs they would not crye vs downe for contradicting that oracle of nature not only because he himselfe both by word and by example exhorteth vs when verity leadeth vs an other way to forsake the trackes which our forefathers haue beaten for vs so we do it with due respect and gratitude for the much they haue left vs nor yet because Christian Religion as it will not heare of any man purely a man free from sinne so it inclineth to persuade vs that no man can be exempt from errour and therefore it sauoureth not well to defend peremptorily any mans sayings especially if they be many as being vncontrollable how be it I intend not to preiudice any person that to defend a worthy authors honour shal endeauour to vindicate him from absurdities and grosse errors nor lastly because it hath euer beene the common practise of all graue Peripatetikes and Thomistes to leaue their Masters some in one article some in an other but indeede because the very truth is that the way we take is directly the same solide way which Aristotle walked in before vs and they who are scandalised at vs for leauing him are exceedingly mistaken in the matter and out of the sound of his wordes not rightly vnderstood do frame a wrong sense of the doctrine he hath left vs which generally we follow Lett any vnpartiall Aristotelian answere whether the conceptions we haue deliuered of QuaÌ„tity of Rarity and DeÌ„sity of the foure first Qualities of the combinations of the Elements of the repugnance of vacuities be not exactly and rigorously
other Entity whose nature is to be likenesse and it maketh one thing like an other The consideration of which doctrine maketh me remember a ridiculous tale of a trewant schooleboyes latine who vpon a time when he came home to see his frendes being asked by his father what was latine for bread answered breadibus and for beere beeribus and the like of all other thinges he asked him adding only a termination in Bus to the plaine English word of euery one of them which his father perceiuing and though ignorant of Latine yet presently apprehending that the mysteries his sonne had learned deserued not the expence of keeping him at schoole bad him immediately putt of his hosibus and shoosibus and fall to his old trade of treading Morteribus In like manner these great Clerkes do as readily find a pretty Quality or moode whereby to render the nature or causes of any effect in their easy Philosophy as this Boy did a Bus to stampe vpon any English word and coyne it into his mockelatine But to be serious as the weight of the matter requireth lett these so peremptory pretenders of Aristotle shew me but one text in him where he admitteth any middle distinction such as those moderne Philosophers do and must needes admitt who maintaine the qualities we haue reiected betwixt that which he calleth Numericall and that which he calleth of Reason or of Notion or of Definition the first of which we may terme to be of or in thinges the other to be in our heades or discourses or the one Naturall the other Logicall and I will yield that they haue reason and that I haue grossely mistaken what he hath written and that I do not reach the depth of his sense But this they will neuer be able to do Besides the whole scope of his doctrine and all his discourses and intentions are carryed throughout and are built vpon the same foundations that we haue layed for ours Which being so no body can quarrell with vs for Aristotles sake who as he was the greatest Logician and Metaphysitian and Vniuersall scholler peraduenture that euer liued and was so highly esteemed that the good turne which Sylla did the world in sauing his workes was thought to recompence his many outragious cruelties and tyranny so his name must neuer be mentioned among schollers but with reuerence for his vnparalleled worth and with gratitude for the large stocke of knowledge he hath enriched vs with Yet withall we are to consider that since his raigne was but at the beginning of sciences he could not chose but haue some defects and shortenesses among his many great and admirable perfections THE SECOND TREATISE DECLARING THE NATVRE AND OPERATIONS OF MANS SOVLE OVT OF WHICH THE IMMORTALITY OF REASONABLE SOVLES IS CONVINCED Pro captu Lectoris habent sua fata libelli THE PREFACE IT is now high time for vs to cast an eye vpon the other leafe of our accounts or peraduenture I may more properly say to fall to the perusall of our owne accountes for hitherto our time and paines haue beene taken vp in examining and casting the accountes of others to the end that from the foote and totall of them we may driue on our owne the more smoothly In ours then we shall meete with a new Capitall we shall discouer a new world of a quite different straine and nature from that which all this while we haue employed ourselues about We will enter into them with taking a suruay of the great Master of all that large family we haue so summarily viewed I meane of Man as he is Man that is not as he is subiect to those lawes whereby other bodies are gouerned for therein he hath no praeeminence to raise him out of their throng but as he exceedeth the rest of creatures which are subiect to his managing and as he ruleth ouer nature herselfe making her serue his designes and subiecting her noblest powers to his lawes and as he is distinguished from all other creatures whatsoeuer To the end we may discouer whether that principle in him from whence those actions do proceede which are properly his be but some refined composition of the same kind we haue already treated of or whether it deriueth its source and origine from some higher spring and stocke and be of a quite different nature Hauing then by our former Treatise mastered the oppositions which else would haue taken armes against vs when we should haue beene in the middest of our aedifice and hauing cleared the obiections which lay in our way from the peruerse Qualities of the soules neighbours the seuerall common wealthes of Bodies we must now beginne with Dauid to gather together our Materialls and to take a suruay of our owne prouisions that so we may proceed with Salomon to the sacred building of Gods temple But before we goe about it it will not be amisse that we shew the reason why we haue made our porch so great and haue added so long an entry that the house is not likely to haue therevnto a correspondent bulke and when the necessity of my doing so shall appeare I hope my paines will meete with a fauourable censure and receiue a faire admittance We proposed vnto our selues to shew that our soules are immortall wherevpon casting about to find the groundes of immortality and discerning it to be a negatiue we conceiued that we ought to beginne our search with enquiring What Mortality is and what be the causes of it Which when we should haue discouered and haue brought the soule to their teste if we found they trēched not vpon her nor any way concerned her condition we might safely conclude that of necessity she must be immortall Looking then into the causes of mortality we saw that all bodies round about vs were mortall whence perceiuing that mortality extended it selfe as farre as corporeity we found our selues obliged if we would free the soule from that law to shew that she is not corporeall This could not be done without enquiring what corporeity was Now it being a rule among Logitians that a definition can not be good vnlesse it comprehend and reach to euery particular of that which is defined we perceiued it impossible to know compleatly what a Body is without taking a generall view of all those thinges which we comprise vnder the name and meaning of Bodies This is the cause we spent so much time in the first Treatise and I hope to good purpose for there we found that the nature of a Body consisted in being made of partes that all the differencies of bodies are reduced to hauing more or lesse partes in comparison to their substance thus and thus ordered and lastly thall all their operations are nothing else but locall motion which followeth naturally out of hauing partes So as it appeareth euidently from hence that if any thing haue a being and yet haue no partes it is not a body but a substance of an other quality and condition
found two sortes of propositions which begett knowledge in vs. The one where the Identification of the extremes is of it selfe so manifest that when they are but explicated it needeth no further proofe The other where though in truth they be Identified yet the Identification appeareth not so cleare but that some discourse is required to satisfy the vnderstanding therein Of the first kind are such propositions as do make one of the extremes the definition of the other whereof it is affirmed as when we say a man is a reasonable creature which is so euident if we vnderstand what is meaned by a Man and what by a reasonable creature as it needeth no further proofe to make vs know it and knowledge is begotten in vs not only by a perfect Identification of the extremes but as well by an imperfect one as when what is said of an other is but part of its definition for example if one should say a man is a creature no body that knoweth him to be a rationall creature which is his complete definition could doubt of his being a creature because that the being a creature is partly identifyed to being a rationall creature In like manner this obuious euidence of Identification appeareth as well where a complete diuision of a thing is affirmed of the other extreme as where that affirmation is made by the totall or partiall definition of it as when we say number is euen or odde an enuntiation is true or false and the like where because what is said compriseth the differences of the thing whereof it is said it is plaine that one of them must needes be that whereof we speake Peraduenture some may expect that we should giue Identicall propositions among others for examples of this plaine euidence but because they bring no acquisition of new knowledge vnto the soule the doing of which and the reflecting vpon the manner is the scope of this Chapter I lett them passe without any further mention vpon this occasion hauing produced them once before only to shew by an vndenyable example what it is that maketh our soule consent vnto an enuntiation and how knowledge is begotten in her that we might afterwardes apply the force of it to other propositions Lett vs therefore proceed to the second sort of propositions which require some discourse to proue the Identification of their extremes Now the scope of such discourse is by comparing them vnto some other third thing to shew their Identification between themselues for it sheweth that each of them a part is identifyed with that new subiect it bringeth in and then our vnderstanding is satisfyed of ther identity and our soule is secure of that knowledge it thus acquireth as well as it is of that which resulteth out of those propositions which beare their euidence in their first aspect This negotiation of the vnderstanding to discouer the truth of propositions when it is somewhat hidden which we call discourse as it is one of the chiefest and noblest actions of the soule so doth it challenge a very heedefull inspection into it and therefore we will allow it a peculiar Chapter by it selfe to explicate the nature and particularities of it But this litle we now haue said concerning it is sufficient for this place where all we ayme at is to proue and I conceiue we haue done it very fully that when Identity betweene two or more thinges presenteth it selfe to our vnderstanding it maketh and forceth knowledge in our soule Whence it is manifest that the same power or soule which in a single apprehension is possessed with the Entity or Vnity of it is that very power or soule which applyed to an Enunciation knoweth or deemeth since knowing is nothing else but the apprehending of manifest Identity in the extremes of a proposition or an effect immediately consequent out of it in the soule that applyeth it selfe to apprehend that Identity Which apprehension is made eyther by the force of the extremes applyed immediately to one an other or else by the application of them to some other thing which peraduenture may require yet a further application vnto new apprehensions to make the Identity betweene the first extremes appeare euidently Now as when Identity truly appeareth it maketh euidence to our vnderstanding and begetteth assured knowledge in our soule so when there is only an apparent Identity but not a reall one it happeneth that the vnderstanding is quieted without euidence and our soule is fraught with a wrong or slight beliefe insteed of certaine knowledge as for example it is for the most part true that what wise men affirme is so as they say but because wise men are but men and consequently not infaillible it may happen that in some one thing the wisest men that are may misse though in most and generally speaking they hitt right Now if any body in a particular occasion should without examining the matter take this propositiō rigorously and peremptorily that what wise men affirme is true and should there vpon subsume with euidence that wise men say such a particular thing and should there vpon proceede to beleeue it in this case he may be deceiued because the first proposition is not verily but only seemingly euident And this is the manner how that kind of deeming which is eyther opposed or inferiour to knowledge is bred in vs to witt when eyther through temerity in such cases where we may and it is iust we should examine all particulars so carefully that no equiuocation or mistake in any part of them be admitted to passe vpon vs for a truth and yet we do not or else through the limitednesse and imperfection of our nature when the minutenesse and variety of petty circumstances in a businesse is such as we can nor enter into an exact examination of all that belongeth to that matter for if we should exactly discusse euery slight particular we should neuer gett through any thing of moment we settle our vnderstanding vpon groundes that are not sufficient to moue and determine it Now in some of these cases and particularly in the later it may happen that the vnderstanding it selfe is aware that it neyther hath discouered nor can discouer euidence enough to settle its assent with absolute assurance and then it iudgeth the beliefe it affordeth vnto such a proposition to be but probable and insteed of knowledge hath but opinion concerning it Which opinion appeareth to it more or lesse probable according as the motiues it relyeth on are stronger or weaker There remaineth yet an other kind of deeming for vs to speake of which though it euer faile of euidence yet sometimes it is better then opinion for sometimes it bringeth certitude with it This we call faith and it is bred in this sort when we meete with a man who knoweth something which we do not if withall we be persuaded that he doth not nor will not tell a lye we then beleeue what he saith of that
then this or precedent to it and that it agreeth so completely with our soule as she seemeth to be nothing else but a capacity fitted to Being it can not be denyed but that our soule must needes haue a very neere affinity and reseÌ„blance of nature with it but it is euident that Being hath not of it selfe any partes in it nor of it selfe is capable of diuision and therefore it is as euident that the soule which is framed as it were by that patterne and Idea and is fitted for Beinâ— as for its end must also of it selfe be voyde of partes and be in capable of diuisioÌ„ For how can partes be fitted to an indiuisible thing And how can two such different natures euer meete porportionably If it be obiected that the very notion of Being from whence we estimate the nature of the soule is accommodable to partes as for example we see that substance is endewed with quantity We answere that euen this doth corroborate our proofe for seing that the substances which our senses are acquainted withall haue partes and can not be without partes and yet neuerthelesse in our soule the notion of such substance is found without partes it is cleare that such substance hath this meerely from our soule and because it hath this indisibility from our soule it followeth that our soule hath a power and nature to bestow indiuisibility vpon what cometh into her And since it can not be denyed but that if any substance were once existent without partes it could neuer after haue partes it is euident that the nature of the soule is incapable of partes because it is existent without partes And that it is in such sort existent is cleare for this effect of the soules giuing indiuisibility vnto what she receiueth into her proceedeth from her as she is existent Now since this notion of Being is of all others the first and originall notion that is in the soule it must needes aboue all others sauour most of the proper and genuine nature of the soule in which and by which it is what it is and hath its indiuisibility If then it be pressed how can substance in reality or in thinges be accommodated vnto Quantity seing that of it selfe it is indiuisible We answere that such substance as is the subiect of Quantity and that hath Quantity is not indiuisible for such substance can not be subsistent without Quantity and when we frame a notion of it as being indiuisible it is an effect of the force of our soule that is able to draw a notion out of a thing that hath partes without drawing the notion of the partes which sheweth maâ—ifestly that in her there is a power aboue hauing of partes which being in her argueth her existence to be such Our last consideration vpon the nature of apprehension was how all that is added to the notion of Being is nothing else but respects of one thing to an other and how by these respects all the thinges of the world come to be in our soule The euideÌ„ce we may draw from hence of our soules immateriality will be not a whitt lesse then eyther of the two former for lett vs cast our lookes ouer all that cometh into our senses and see if from one end to an other we can meete with such a thing as we call a respect it hath neyther figure nor colour nor smell nor motion nor tast nor touch it hath no similitude to be drawne out of by meanes of our senses to be like to be halfe to be cause or effect what is it The thinges indeed that are so haue their resemblances and pictures but which way should a painter go about to draw a likenesse Or to paint a halfe or a cause or an effect If we haue any vnderstanding we can not choose but vnderstand that these notions are extremely different from whatsoeuer cometh in vnto vs by the mediation of our senses and then if we reflect how the whole negotiation of our vnderstanding is in and by respects must it not follow necessarily that our soule is of an extreme different nature from our senses and from our Imagination Nay if we looke well into this argument we shall see that whereas Aristotle pretendeth that Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu this Maxime is so farre from being true in rigour of the wordes that the quite contrary followeth vndenyably out of it to witt that Nihil est in intellectu quod fuit prius in sensu Which I do not say to contradict Aristotle for his wordes are true in the meaning he spoke them but to shew how thinges are so much changed by coming into the vnderstanding and into the soule that although on the one side they be the very same thinges yet on the other side there remaineth no likenesse at all between them in themselues as they are in the vnderstading which is a most euident proofe when the weight of it is duely considered that the nature of our soule is mainely different from the nature of all corporeall thinges that come into our sense By this which we now come from declaring the admiration how corporeall thinges can be in the soule and how they are spiritualized by their being so will in part be taken away for reflecting that all the notioÌ„s of the soule are nothing but the generall notion of a substance or of a thing ioyned with some particular respect â—f then we consider that the respects may be so ordered that one respect may be included in an other we shall see that there may be some one respect which may include all those respects that explicate the nature of some one thing and in this case the generall notion of a thing coupled with this respect will containe all whatsoeuer is in the thing as for example the notion of a knife that it is a thing to cutt withall includeth as we haue formerly declared all that belongeth vnto a knife And thus you see how that mysticall phrase of corporeall thinges being spiritualized in the soule signifyeth no more but that the similitudes which are of them in the soule are Respects Thus hauing collected out of the nature of Apprehension in common as much as we conceiue needefull in this place to proue our assertion our next worke must be to try if we can do the like by reflecting vpon particular apprehensions We considered them of two sortes calling one kind vniuersall ones and the other collectiue ones in the vniuersall ones we tooke notice of two conditions the abstraction and the vniuersality of them now truly if we had no other euidence but what will rise from the first of these that alone would conuince and carry the conclusion for though among corporeall thinges the same may be now in one place now in an other or sometimes haue one figure sometimes an other and still be the same thinges as for example waxe or water yet it is impossible
to imagine any bodily thing whatsoeuer to be at any time without all kind of figure or without any place at all or indifferent to this or to that and neuerthelesse all thinges whatsoeuer when they are vniuersally apprehended by the soule haue this condition in her by reason of their abstraction there which in themselues is impossible vnto them When we say water fire gold siluer bread c do we meane or expresse any determinate figure If we do none but that precise figure will serue or content vs but it is euident that of a hundred different ones any and euery one doth a like entirely satisfy vs when we call for money if we reflect vpon our fansy peraduenture we shall find there a purse of crownes neuerthelesse if our messenger bringes vs a purse of pistoles we shall not except against it as not being what we intended in our mind because it is not that which was painted in our fansie it is therefore euident that our meaning and our fansie were different for otherwise nothing would haue satisfyed vs but that which was in our fansy Likewise in the very word which is the picture of our notion we see an indifferency for no dictionary will tell vs that this word Money doth not signify as well pistoles as crownes and accordingly we see that if our meaning had beene precisely of crownes we should haue blamed ourselues for not hauing named crownes and not him that brought vs pistoles when we spoke to him by the name of money and therefore it is most cleare that our vnderstanding or meaning is not fixed or determined to any one particular but is equally indifferent to all and consequently that it can not be like any thing which entereth by the senses and therefore not corporeall The second coÌ„dition of Vniuersall Apprehensions is their vniuersality which addeth vnto their abstractioÌ„ one admirable particularity and it is that they abstract in such sort as to expresse at the same time euen the very thing they abstract from How is it possible that the same thing can be and not be in the same notion Yet lett a man consider what he meaneth when he saith Euery man hath two eyes and he shall see that he expresseth nothing whereby any one man is distinguished from an other and yet the force of this word Euery doth expresse that euery man is distinguished from an other so that in truth he expresseth particularity it selfe in common Now lett our smartest and ingeniousest aduersary shew or imagine if he can how this may be done in a picture or in a statue or in any resemblance of a body or bodily thing but if he can not lett him acknowledge an eminent and singular propriety in the soule that is able to do it Let vs reflect that particularity in a body is a collection of diuerse qualities and circumstances as that it is white of such a figure in such a place in such a time and an infinitude of such like conditions conglobated together then if our soule be a body the expression of the particularity of a body in the soule must be a participation in her of such a conglobation or of such thinges conglobated Now lett vs imagine if we can how such a participation should be in common and should abstract from all colour all place and all those thinges of which the conglobation consisteth and yet we see that in the soule this is done and he who saiâ—h Euery man doth not expresse any colour place or time and neuerthelesse he doth by saying so expresse that in euery man there is a conglobation of colour place and time for it could not be Euery one vnlesse there were such conglobations to make Euery one one and if any conglobation were expressed in this terme Euery one it would not be Euery one but only one alone Now if any coordination of partes can vnfould and lay open this riddle I will renounce all Philosophy and vnderstanding Collectiue apprehensions will afford vs no meaner testimony then the other two for the spirituality of our soule for although it may seeme vnto vs before we reflect throughly on the matter that we see or otherwise discerne by our sense the numbers of thinges as that the men in the next roome are three that the chaires there are tenne and the like of other thinges yet after due consideration we shall find that our eye or sense telleth vs but singly of each one that it is one and so runneth ouer euery one of them keeping them still each by themselues vnder their owne seuerall vnities but then the vnderstanding cometh and ioyneth vnder one notion what the sense kept a sunder in so many seuerall ones as there are thinges The notion of three or of teÌ„ne is not in the thinges but in our mind for why three rather then fiue or teÌ„ne rather then twelue if the matter of which we speake were not determined and such determination of the matter is an effect of the vnderstanding If I had spoken of thinges as I did of men or of chaires there had beene more then three or tenne it is then euident that what determined my speech made the number be three or tenne Againe we see that the notion of tenne is but one notion for as the name of tenne is but one signe so it argueth that there is but one notion by which it is the signe of tenne thinges Besides we see that Arithmetitians do find out the proprieties and particular nature of any determinate number and therefore we may conclude that euery number hath a definition and a peculiar nature of its owne as it is a number If then this definition or nature or notion of tenne be a corporeall one it is a corporeall similitude of the obiect But is it like to any one of the thinges or is it like to all the tenne If to any one then that one will be tenne if it be like to the whole made of tenne then that whole being but one tenne will be iust one and not tenne thinges Besides to be tenne doth expressely imply to be not one how then can that be a materiall thing which by being one representeth many Seeing that in materiall thinges one and many are opposite and exclude one an other from the same subiect And yet this notion could not represent many together but by being one Againe if it be a materiall notion or similitude it is eyther in an indiuisible of the braine or it is in a diuisible part of it I meane that the whole essence of the notion be in euery part neuer so litle of the braine or that one part of the essence be in one part of the braine and that an other part of the essence be in an other part of the braine If you say that the whole essence is in euery part of the braine though neuer so litle you make it impossible that it should be a body for you make it the
the existence of the soule it selfe and to be in the soule by the identification of those other thinges vnto her selfe Now then to proceed to the proofe of our proposed conclusion it is cleare that the adding of one thing to an other doth out of the force of this addition perfect the thing vnto which the addition is made if the aduenient thing be added in such way as the former is apt to receiue it but it is euident that the soule is made fitt by former propositions to be identifyed to later ones for we see that the former ones draw on and inferre the later ones and therefore it followeth that the more is added to the soule the greater is her aptitude to haue more or to be more encreased and consequently that the more is added vnto her the more may still be added and the more capable and more earnest she is to haue more Wherefore it can not be denyed but that since in the nature of the obiects there is no impediment to hinder their being together in the soule as we haue proued a litle aboue and that in her by receiuing new obiects into her there is a continuall encrease of capacity to receiue more she hath an amplitude to knowledge absolutely infinite in such a manner as we haue aboue expressed Now to apply to our purpose what we haue gathered by this discourse it is cleare that these two conditions of one thing not driuing out an other and of infinity of accessions do openly disclayme from quantity and from matter for we see that what hath Quantity or is a Body can not admitt a new thing into it vnlesse some other thing do first go out of it to make roome for the aduenient one and as for infinitude it breedeth a sea of contradictions if it be but thought of in Quantity and therefore we may conclude that the soule vnto whom these two conditions do belong is not quantitatiue or corporeall but immateriall and of a spirituall nature The second kind of opposition that occurreth in our thoughts or in our soule is of Contradictory Propositions it hath its origine in the opposition of Being to not Being and is when a thing is identifyed vnto the soule in such sort as we haue said that a Iudgement or Deeming maketh the obiect become as it were a limbe or part of the soule and because the conflict of two such propositions if they were together in the soule would make her be something contrary to the nature of Being if any thing can be contrary to Being which in the schooles they call ens non ens the impossibility of her admitting into her selfe two such propositions together doth testify her firme cleauing and her fixednesse to Being and so doth confirme and bring new euidence to that argument for the soules spirituality which in the first Chapter of this part we drew from the nature of Being As for truth and falsehood they spring from the same roote as the last as being qualities consequent to the opposition of affirmatiue and negatiue propositions whereof if the one be true the other must necessarily be false and therefore we neede not spend time in setting downe any particular considerations of these since what we haue said of the other is applyable vnto them but it is sufficient that we thus note them to giue the Reader occasion to reflect vpon them Among propositions there are some which Logitians do terme of Eternall truth and out of these there are ingenious men who imagine that the Immortality of the soule may be immediately deduced Herein they roue not quite from the marke though withall I must needes say they do not directly hitt it To vnderstand the vtmost that may be inferred out of such propositions we may note two conditions in them the first is that generally these propositions are vniuersall ones and thereby haue that force to conuince the spirituality of the soule which we haue explicated and shewed to belong vnto vniuersall termes the second is that in these propositions there is a necessity of connexion between their termes such an one or at the least very like therevnto as we explicated in those propositions which beare their euidence plaine in their very termes And out of this we may draw an other argument for the spirituality of the soule for we see that all corporeall agents and patients are defectible and contingent that is to say sometimes or if you will most times they attaine their effect but withall sometimes be it neuer so seldome they misse of it and accordingly it happeneth sometimes that our eyes our eares our touch and the rest of our senses are deceiued though for the most part they giue vs true informations of what they conuerse with but these propositions of eternall verity do neuer faile they haue in themselues an indefectibility insuperable and consequently they giue euidence that the soules nature is of a higher degree of constancy and certainty then what falleth within the compasse of bodies and is of a nobler and different straine from all corporeall thinges for this certainty is entayled vpon such propositions by the force of Being which is the proper obiect of the soule and they haue their Being as limbes and partes of the soule As for the terme of Eternall verity it is not to be taken positiuely as if these propositions or their obiects had any true eternity or perseuerance without beginning or ending but only negatiuely that is that there can be no time in which they are false and therefore we can not out of their hauing such a kind of Eternity belonging to them argue a capacity of infinite time or duration in our soule that comprehendeth them THE SEVENTH CHAPTER That our discoursing doth proue our soule to be incorporeall HAuing thus runne ouer those proofes for the immateriality of our soule which arise out of her manner of working when she iudgeth in the next place we are to enquire what others her manner of discoursing will afford vs. We are sure that since our discourse is composed of iudgements and of single apprehensions it can not choose but furnish vs with all those pregnant arguments that we drew from them But that will not serue our turne we looke after new euidence and we shall see it will giue it vs with full handes It consisteth in this that when we discourse we may easily perceiue there is more at one time in our minde then we can discouer to be in our fantasy for we find that in our fantasy as one proposition cometh an other is gone and although they that are gone seeme to be ready at a call yet they are not in presence as being thinges which consist in motion and that require place and therefore the one iustleth the other out of the place it possessed But if it fared in like manner in our inward soule we could neuer attaine vnto knowledge for it is manifest that our soule
a man goeth How long this staffe is What colour that mans clothes are of c to all which and to as many thinges more as you will so they be within the compasse of his knowledge he straight answereth differently and to the purpose Whence it is manifest that his answeres do not proceed vpon sett gimals or stringes whereof one being strucke it moueth the rest in a sett order which we haue shewed is the course in all actions done by beastes but out of a principle within him which of it selfe is indifferent to all thinges and therefore can readily apply it selfe to the answere according as by the question it is moued and the like may be obserued in his actions which he varyeth according to the occasions presented I remember how Sir Philip Sidney the Phoenix of the age he liued in and the glory of our nation and the patterne to posterity of a complete a gallant and a perfect gentleman aptly calleth our handes the instruments of instruments from Aristotle who termeth them Organa organorum or vniuersall instruments fittly moulded to be employed in any seruice whereas nature hath to all other creatures appropriated their instruments to determinate actions but to man she hath in these giuen such as might be applyed to any kind of worke whatsoeuer and accordingly we see that the same kind of bird still buildeth her neast and breedeth her young ones in the same way without any the least variance at all but men do build their houses as they please sometimes vpon hils sometimes in vales sometimes vnder the earth and sometimes vpon the toppes of trees and the manners of breeding or instructing their children are as diuers as the customes of nations and townes and in all other actions our Masters note it for a property peculiar to man that he vseth to arriue vnto the same end by diuers meanes as to transport ourselues to some place we would goe vnto eyther by water or by horse or by coach or by litter as we please whereas we see no such variety in like actions of other liuing creatures All which being so we may conclude that the soules proceeding eyther to answeres or to action argueth cleerely that she hath within her selfe such an indifferency as is ioyned with a meanes to determine this indifferency the contrary whereof we see in all corporeall engines for they haue euery steppe in the whole course of their wayes chalked out vnto them by their very framing as hath beene amply declared in the first Treatise and haue the determination of their worke from end to end sett downe and giuen them by their artificier and maker and therefore it is most euident that the soule can not be a thing composed or framed of materiall and quantitatiue partes seeing she hath not her wayes sett downe vnto her but frameth them of her selfe according to the accidents that occurre The same nature of the soule discouereth it selfe in the quiet proceeding of Reason when it worketh with greatest strength and vigour as well knowing that its efficaciousnesse consisteth not in the multitude of partes which Passion breedeth but in the well ordering of those it already hath vnder its command Whereas the strength of Quantity and the encrease of its strength consisteth in the multitude of its partes as will euidently appeare to whom shall consider this point deepely Thus we have in a summary manner gone through all the operations of those soule which in the beginning of this latter Treatise we heaped together as materials wherewith to rayse an immateriall and spirituall building Neyther I hope will our Reader be offended with vs for being more succinct and concise in all our discourse concerning our soule then where we deliuered the doctrine of Bodies for the difficultnesse of this subiect and the nicety required to the expressing our conceptions concerning it wherein as the Prouerbe is a haire is to be clouen would not allow vs that liberty of ranging about as when we treated of Bodies What occurreth among them may be illustrated by examples within their owne orbe and of their owne pitch but to desplay the operations of a soule we can find no instances that are able to reach them they would rather embroile and darken them for the exact propriety of wordes must be strictly and rigorously obserued in them and the Reader shall penetrate more into the nature and depth of them by serious meditation and reflection vpon the hintes we haue here giuen efficacious enough I hope to excite those thoughts he should haue for this purpose and to steere them the right way then by much and voluminous reading or by hearing long and polished discourses of this subiect For my part if what I haue here said should to any man appeare not sufficient to conuince that our soule is of a spirituall and farre different nature from all such thinges as in our first Treatise we haue discoursed vpō and taken for the heades and most generall kindes of Bodies vnto which all other particular ones and their motions may be reduced I shall become a suitor to him in entreating him to take this subiect into his handling where it beginneth to be vnwieldy for mine and to declare vnto vs vpon the principles we haue settled in the first Treatise and vpon considering the nature of a body which is the first of all our notions how these particulars we haue reflected vpon in mans actions can be drawne out of them for I can find no possible meanes to linke them together a vast and impenetrable Ocean lyeth betweene the discoueries we haue made on each side of its shores which forbiddeth all commerce between them at the least on the darke bodies side which hath not winges to soare into the region of Intellectuall light By those principles we haue traced out the course and progresse of all operations belonging to sense and how beastes do or may performe all their actions euen to their most refined and subtilest operations but beyond thē we haue not beene able to carry these groundes nor they vs. Lett him then take the paines to shew vs by what figures by what first qualities by what mixtion of rare and dense partes an vniuersall apprehension an euident iudgement a legitimate consequence is made and so of the like as of a mans determination of himselfe to answere pertinently any question of his choosing this way before that c. Which if he can doe as I am sure he can not I shall allow it to be reasō and not obstinacy that worketh in his mind and carryeth him against our doctrine but if he can not and that there is no apparence nor possibility as indeede there is not that these actions can be effected by the ordering of materiall partes and yet he will be still vnsatisfyed without being able to tell why for he will be vnwilling to acknowledge that these abstracted speculations do not sinke into him and that nothing can conuince him but
what his senses may be iudges of and that he may handle and turne on euery side like a bricke or a tile and will be still importune with cauillous scrupules and wilde doubts that in truth and at the bottome do signify nothing we will leaue him to meditate at his leisure vpon what we haue said whiles we proceed on to what followeth out of this great principle That our soule is incorporeall and spirituall THE NINTH CHAPTER That our soule is a Substance and Immortall HAuing concluded that our soule is immateriall and indiuisible to proceed one steppe further it can not be denyed but that it is eyther a substance or an accident if the later it must be of the nature of the substance whose accident it is for so we see all accidents are but in man when his soule is excluded there is no spirituall substance at all whereof we haue any notice and therefore if it be an accident it must be a corporeall accident or some accident of a body as some figure temperature harmony or the like and consequently it must be diuisible but this is contrary to what is proued in the former Chapters and therefore it can not be a corporeall accident Neyther can it be a spirituall accident for vnto what spirituall substance should it belong when as nothing in man can be suspected to be spirituall but it selfe Seeing then that it can be no accident a substance it must be and must haue its Existence or Being in it selfe Here we haue passed the Rubiton of experimentall knowledge we are now out of the boundes that experience hath any iurisdiction ouer and from henceforth we must in all our searches and conclusions rely only vpon the single euidence of Reason And euen this last conclusion we haue beene faine to deduce out of the force of abstracted reasoning vpon what we had gathered before not by immediate reflection vpon some action we obserue proceeding from a man yet withall nature flasheth out by a direct beame some litle glimmering of the verity of it to the eye of Reason that is within vs for as whē we see a clocke mooue or a mill or any thing that goeth by many wheeles if we marke that there are two contrary motions in two diuers partes of it we can not think that those contrary motions do belong to one and the same continued body but shall presently conclude that there must be in that engine two seuerall bodies compacted together so in man though his body be the first moouer that appeareth vnto vs yet seeing that in his actions some effects do shew themselues which it is impossible should proceed from a body it is euident that in him there is some other thing besides that one which we see and consequently we may conclude that he is composed of a body and of somewhat else that is not a body which somewhat else being the spring from whence those actions flow that are of a different straine from them that are deriued from the body must necessarily be a spirituall substance But whiles we are examining how farre our present considerations and short discourses may carry vs as it were experimentally to confirme this truth we must not omitt what Auicenna in his booke de Anima Almahad and Monsieur des Cartes in his Methode do presse vpon the same occasion Thus they say or to like purpose if I cast with my selfe who I am that walke or speake or think or order any thing my reason will answere me that although my legges or tōgue were gone and that I could no longer walke or speake yet were not I gone and I should know and see with my vnderstanding that I were still the very same thing the same Ego as before The same as of my tongue or legges would reason tell me of my eyes my eares my smelling tasting and feeling eyther all of them together or euery one of them single that were they all gone still should I remaine As when in a dreame where I vse none of all these I both am and know my selfe to be Reason will tell me also that although I were not nourished so I were not wasted which for the drift of the argument may be supposed yet still I should continue in Being Whence it would appeare that my hart liuer lnges kidneyes stomacke mouth and what other partes of me soeuer that serue for the nourishment of my body might be seuered from me and yet I remaine what I am Nay if all the beautifull and ayry fantasmes which fly about so nimbly in our braine be nothing else but signes vnto in our soule of what is without vs it is euident that though peraduenture she would not without their seruice exercise that which by errour we missename Thinking yet the very same soule and thinker might be without them all and consequently without braine also seeing that our braine is but the play-house and scene where all these faery maskes are acted so that in conclusion Reason assureth vs that when all body is abstracted in vs there still remaineth a substāce a thinker an Ego or I that in it selfe is no whitt diminished by being as I may say stripped out of the case it was enclosed in And now I hope the intelligēt Reader will conceiue I haue performed my promise and haue shewed the soule of man to be an Immortall substance for since it is a substance it hath a Being and since it is an immateriall substance it hath a Being of its owne force without needing a consort body to helpe it to sustaine its Existence for to be a substance is to be the subiect of Existence and consequently to be an immateriall substance is to be a subiect capable of Existence without the helpe of matter or of Quantity It can not therefore be required of me to vse any further industry to proue such a soule to be immortall but who will contradict her being so is obliged to shew that she is mortall for it followeth in reason that she will keepe her being vnlesse by some force she be bereaued of it it being a rule that whosoeuer putteth a thing to be is not bound for the continuation of that thinges being to proue that it is not changed but on the other side he that auerreth it is changed is bound to bring in his euidence of a sufficient cause to change it for to haue a thing remaine is natures owne dictamen and followeth out of the causes which gaue it being but to make an alteration supposeth a change in the causes and therefore the obligation of proofe lyeth on that side Neuerthelesse to giue satisfaction to those who are earnest to see euery article positiuely prooued we will make that part too our Prouince Lett vs then remember that Immortality signifyeth a negation or a not hauing of Mortality and that a positiue terme is required to expresse a change by since nature teacheth vs that whatsoeuer is will
here is not in respect of what a mans soule is capable of to be stiled as nothing and deserueth not the name of euidence nor to be accounted of that nature and if our sentence do conclude vpon this lett vs acknowledge that our soule arriueth not to her perfection nor enioyeth her end in this world and therefore must haue infaillibly an other habitation in the next world vnto which nature doth intend her Experience teacheth vs that we can not fully comprehend any one of natures workes and those Philosophers who in a disciplinable way search into nature and therefore are called Mathematicians after they haue written large volumes of some very slender subiect do euer find that hey haue left vntouched an endlesse abisse of knowledge for whomsoeuershall please to build vpon their foundations and that they can neuer arriue neere saying all that may be said of that subiect though they haue said neuer so much of it We may not then make difficulty to beleeue that the wisest and learnedest men in the world haue reason to professe with the father of Philosophers that indeede they know nothing And if so how farre are they from that happinesse and perfection which consisteth in knowing all thinges Of which full sea we neuerthelesse find euen in this low ebbe that our soule is a channell capable and is framed a fitt vessell and instrument to receiue it when the tide shall come in vpon it which we are sure it can not do vntill the bankes of our body which hinder it be broken downe This last consideration without doubt hath added no small corroboration to our former proofes which are so numerous and so cleare as peraduenture it may appeare superfluous to say any more to this point since one conuincing argument establisheth the verity of a conclusion as efficaciously as a hundred and therefore Mathematicians vse but one single proofe in all their propositions after which other supernumerary ones would be but tedious Neuerthelesse since all the seuerall wayes by which we may looke into the nature of our soule the importantest subiect we can busy our thoughts vpon can not faile of being pleasing and delightfull to vs we must not omitt to reflect a litle vpon that great property of our soule by which she is able to mooue and to worke without her selfe being mooued or touched Vnto which adding that all life consisteth in motion and that all motion of bodies cometh from some other thing without them we may euidently conclude that our soule who can mooue without receiuing her motioÌ„ from abread hath in her selfe a spring of life for the which she is not beholding as bodies are to some extrinsecall cause of a nature like vnto her but only to him who gaue her to Be what she is But if she haue such a spring of life within her it were vnreasonable to imagine that she dyed vpon the occasion of the death of an other thing that exerciseth no action of life but as it is caused by an other Neyther may we neglect that ordinary consideration which taketh notice that our soule maketh vse of propositions of eternall truth which we haue aboue produced among our proofes for her being of a spirituall nature and shall now employ it for the prouing her Immortall by considering that the notion of Being which settleth these propositions so as they feare no mutation or shaking by time is the very roote of the soule and that which giueth her her nature and which â—heweth it selfe in all her operations so that if from Being arriueth vnto these propositions to feare no time the like must of necessity betide also the substaÌ„ce of the soule And thus we see that her nature is out of the reach of time that she can comprehend time and sett it limits and that she can think of thinges beyond it and cast about for them All which are cleare testimonies that she is free and secure from the all deuouring and destroying tyranny of that Saturniall Conquerour of the whole world of matter and of Bodies whose seruant is death After all these proofes drawne from the nature of the soule it selfe euery one of them of force to conuince her immortality I must craue leaue to adde one consideration more though it seemeth to belong vnto an others haruest namely to the science of Morals and it is that the position of Mortality in the soule taketh away all morality and changeth men into beastes by taking away the ground of all difference in those thinges which are to gouerne our actions For supposing that the soule dyeth with the body and seeing that man hath a comprehension or notion of time without end it is euident that the spanne of this life must needes appeare contemptible vnto him that well considereth and weigheth it against the other infinite duration and by consequence all the goods and euils which are partes of this life must needes become as despicable and inconsiderable so that better or worse in this life hath not any appearance of difference betweene them at the least not enough to make him labour with paine to compasse the one and eschew the other and for that end to crosse his present inclination in any thing and engage himselfe in any the least difficult taske and so it would ensue that if to an vnderstanding man some course or action were proposed vnto him as better then that he were going about or for the instant had a mind vnto he would relish it as a great marchant or a Banquier would do who dealing for Millions one should presse him with earnestnesse to make him change his resolued course for the gaine of a farthing more this way then the other which being inconsiderable he would not trouble his head with it nor stoppe at what he was in hand with In like manner whosoeuer is persuaded that for an infinity of time he shall be nothing and without sense of all thinges he scorneth for this litle twinckling of his life to take any present paines to be in the next moment well or to auoyde being ill since in this case dying is a secure remedy to any present euill and he is as ready to dye now as a hundred yeares heÌ„ce nor can he estime the losse of a huÌ„dred yeares to be a matter of moment and therefore he will without any further guidance or discourse betake himselfe to do whatsoeuer his present inclination beareth him to with most facility vpoÌ„ this resolutioÌ„ that if any thing crosse him he will preseÌ„tly forgoe his life as a trifle not worth the keeping and thus neyther vertue nor honour nor more pleasure then what at the present tickleth him doth fall into his account which is the ouerthrow of the whole body of Morality that is of mans action and nature But all they who looke into sciences do crosse that for an erroneous and absurd position which taketh away the Principles of any science and consequently the position of the
soules Mortality is to be esteemed such There remaineth yet one consideration more and peraduenture more important then any we haue yet mentioned to conuince the soules immortality which is that spirituall thinges are in a state of Being But we shall not be able to declare this vntill we haue proceeded a litle further THE TENTH CHAPTER Declaring what the soule of a man seperated from his body is and of her knowledge and manner of working VNhappy man how long wilt thou be inquisitiue and curious to thine owne perill Hast thou not already payed too deare for thy knowing more then thy share Or hast thou not heard that who will prye into maiesty shall be oppressed by the glory of it Some are so curious shall I say or so ignorant as to demaund what a humane soule will be after she is deliuered from her body and vnlesse they may see a picture of her and haue whereby to fansie her they will not be persuaded but that all are dreames which our former discourses haue concluded as if he who findeth himselfe dazeled with looking vpon the sunne had reason to complaine of that glorious body and not of his owne weake eyes that can not entertaine so resplendent a light Wherefore to frame some conceit of a seperated soule I will endeauour for their satisfaction to say some what of her future state Lett vs then first consider what a Thought is I do not meane that corporeall spiritt which beateth at our common sense but that which is within in the inward soule whose nature we find by discourse and effects though we can not see it in it selfe To this purpose we may obserue that if we are to discourse or to do any thing we are guided the right way in that subiect we haue in hand by a multitude of particular thoughts which are all of them terminated in that discourse or action and consequently euery act of our mind is as it were an actuall rule or direction for some part of such discourse or action so that we may conceiue a complete thought compounded of many particular ones to be a thing that ordereth one entire discourse or action of our life A thought being thus described lett vs in the next place trye if we can make an apprehension what a science or an art is as what the science of Astronomy is or what the art of playing on the Organes is when the Astronomer thinketh not of the motions of the heauens nor the Organist of playing on his instrument which science and art do neuerthelesse euen then reside in the Astronomer and in the Organist and we find that these are but the resultes of many former complete thoughts as being those very thoughts in remainder whatsoeuer this may signify Lastly lett vs conceiue if we can a power or capacity to Being vnto which capacity if any Being be brought that it is vnseperably glewed and riueted vnto it by its very being a Being and if any two thinges be brought vnto it by the vertue of one Being common to both those thinges that both of them by this one being do become one betwixt themselues and with this capacity and that so there is no end or periode of this addition of thinges by the mediation of Being but that by linkes and ringes all the thinges that are in the world may hang together betwixt themselues and to this Power if all of them may be brought vnto it by the glew and vertue of being in such sort as we haue formerly declared passeth in the soule Now lett vs putt this together and make vp such a thing as groweth out of the capacity to Being thus actuated and cleauing to all thinges that any way haue being and we shall see that it becometh a whole entire world ordered and clinging together with as great strength and necessity as can proceede from the nature of Being and of contradiction and our reason will tell vs that such a thing if it be actiue can frame a world such an one as we liue in and are a small parcell of if it haue matter to worke vpon and can order whatsoeuer hath Being any way that it is capable of being ordered to do by it and to make of it whatsoeuer can be done by and made of such matter All these conceptions especially by the assistance of the last may serue a litle to shadow out a perfect soule which is a knowledge an art a rule a direction of all thinges and all this by being all thinges in a degree and straine proper and peculiar to it selfe and an vnperfect soule is a participation of this Idea that is a knâ—wledge a rule and a direction for as much as it is and as it attaineth vnto Now as in our thoughts it is the corporeall part only which maketh a noise and a shew outwardly but the spirituall thought is no otherwise perceiued then in its effect in ordering the bodily acts in like sort we must not conceiue this knowledge to be a motion but meerely to be a thing or Being out of which the ordering and mouing of other thinges doth flow it selfe remaining fixed and immoueable and because all that is ioyned vnto it is there riueted by Being or identification and that when one thing is an other the other is againe it it is impossible that one should exceed the other and be any thing that is not it and therefore in the soule there can be no partes no accidents no additions no appendances nothing that sticketh to it and is not it but whatsoeuer is in her is soule and the soule is all that which is within her so that all that is of her and all that belongeth vnto her is nothing but one pure simple substance peraduenture Mâ—taphysically or formally diuisible in such sort as we haue explicated in the first Treatise of the diuisibility betweene quantity and substance but not quantitatiuely as bodies are diuisible In fine substance it is and nothing but substance all that is in it being ioyned and imped into it by the very nature of Being which maketh substance This then is the substantiall conceite of a humane soule stripped of her body Now to conceiue what proprieties this substance is furnished with lett vs reflect vpon the notions we frame of thinges when we consider them in common as when we think of a man of bread of some particular vertue of a vice or of whatsoeuer else and lett vs note how in such our discourse determineth no place nor time nay if it should it would marre the discourse as Logitians shew when they teach vs that scientificall syllogismes can not be made without vniuersall propositions so that we see vnlesse these thinges be stripped from Place and Time they are not according to our meaning and yet neuerthelesse we giue them both the name and the nature of a Thing or of a substance or of a liuing Thing or of whatsoeuer else may by our manner of conceiuing or
endeauours be freed from the subiection of time and Place Thus then we plainely see that it is a very different thing to be and to be in a Place and therefore out of a Thinges being in no Place it can not be inferred That it is not or that it is no substance nor contrariwise out of its being can it be inferred that it is in a Place there is no man but of himselfe perceiueth the false consequence of this argument a thing is therefore it is hoat or it is cold and the reason is because hoat and cold are particular accidents of a body and therefore a body can be without eyther of them The like proportion is betweene Being in generall and Being a Body or Being in a Body for both these are particulars in respect of Being but to be in a Place is nothing else but to be in a circumstant Body and so what is not in a Body is not in a Place therefore as it were an absurd illation to say it is therefore it is in a Body no lesse is it to say it is therefore it is somewhere which is equiualent to in some Body and so a great Master Peraduenture one of the greatest and iudiciousest that euer haue beene telleth vs plainely that of it selfe it is euident to those who are truly learned that incorporeall substances are not in Place and Aristotle teacheth vs that the Vniuerse is not in Place But now to make vse of this discourse we must intimate what it is we leuell at in it we direct it to two endes first to lead on our thoughts and to helpe our apprehension in framing some conception of a spirituall substance without residence in Place and to preueÌ„t our fansies checking at such abstraction since we see that we vse it in our ordinary speech when we thinke not on it nor labour for it in all vniuersall and indefinite termes next to trace out an eminent propriety of a seperated soule namely that she is no where and yet vpon the matter that she is euery where that she is bound to no Place and yet remote from none that she is able to worke vpon all without shifting from one to an other or coming neere any and that she is free from all without remoouing or parting from any one A second propriety not much vnlike this first we shall discouer in a seperated soule if we compare her with time We haue heretofore explicated how Time is the motion of the heauens which giueth vs our motion which measureth all particular motions and which comprehendeth all bodies and maketh them awayte his leisure From the large empire of this proud commander a separated soule is free for although she do consist with time that is to say she is whiles time is yet is â—he not in time nor doth she in any of her actions expect time but she is able to frame time to spinne or weaue it out of her selfe and to master it All which will appeare manifestly if we consider what it is to be in time Aristotle sheweth vs that to be comprehended vnder time or to be in time is to be one of those mooueables whose being consisting in motion taketh vp but a part of Time and hath its termes before and behind in time and is measured by Time and must expect the flowing of Time both for Being and for Action Now all this manifestly belongeth vnto Bodies whose both action and being is subiect to a perpetuall locall motion and alteration and consequently a separated soule who is totally a Being and hath her whole operation all together as being nothing but her selfe when we speake of her perfectiue operation can not be said to be in time but is absolutely free from it though time do glide by her as it doth by other thinges and so all that she knoweth or can do she doeth and knoweth at once with one act of the vnderstanding or rather she is indeede and really all that and therefore she doth not require time to manage or order her thoughts nor do they succeed one an other by such vicissitudes as men are forced to thinke of thinges by because their fansie and the images in it which beate vpon the soule to makâ—â—er thinke whiles she is in the body are corporeall and therefore do require time to mooue in and to giue way to one and other but she thinketh of all the thinges in the world and of all that she can thinke of together and at once as hereafter we intend to shew A third propriety we may conceiue to be in a separated soule by apprehending her to be an Actiuity which that we may rightly vnderstand lett vs compare her in regard of working with a body reflecting then vpon the nature of bodies we shall find that not any of them will do the functions they are framed for vnlesse some other thing do stirre them vp and cause them so to do As for example a knife if it be thrust or pressed will cutt otherwise it will lye still and haue no effect and as it fareth with a knife so it doth in the same manner with those bodies which seeme most to mooue themselues as vpon a litle consideration will appeare plainely A beast seemeth to mooue it selfe but if we call to minde what we haue deliuered vpon this subiect in the first Treatise we shall find that whensoeuer he beginneth to mooue he eyther perceiueth something by his sense which causeth his motion or else he remembreth something that is in his braine which worketh the like effect Now if sense presenteth him an obiect that causeth his motion we see manifestly that it is an externall cause which maketh him mooue but if memory do it we shall find that stirred by some other part as by the stomacke or by the heart which is empty or heated or hath receiued some other impression from an other body so that sooner or later we shall discouer an outward moouer The like is in naturall motions as in heauy thinges their easy following if they be sucked an other way then downewardes testifyeth that their motion downewardes hath an extrinsecall motor as is before declared and not only in these but throughout in all other corporeall thinges So that in a word all bodies are of this nature that vnlesse some other thing presse them and alter them when they are quiett they remaine so and haue no actiuity otherwise then from an extrinsecall moouer but of the soule we haue declared the contrary and that by its nature motion may proceed from it without any mutation in it or without its receiuing any order direction or impulse from an extrinsecall cause So that now summing vp together all we haue said vpon this occasion we find a soule exempted from the body to be An indiuisible substance exempted from place and time yet present to both an actuall and present knowledge of all thinges that may be knowne and a skill or rule euen
by what it selfe is to all thinges whatsoeuer This she is if she be perfect but if she be imperfect then is she all this to the proportion of her groweth if so I may say and she is powerfull according to the measure of her knowledge and of her will So that in fine a seperated soule is of a nature to haue and to know and to gouerne all thinges I may reasonably suspect that my saying how imperfect soules are rules to the proportion of their groweth may hau◠occasioned great reflexion and may haue bredd some trouble in the curious and heedefull reader I confesse this expression was deliuered by me only to free my selfe for the present from the labour of shewing what knowledge euery seperated soule hath but vpon second thoughts I find that such sliding ouer this difficult point will not serue my turne nor saue me the paines of vntying this knott for vnlesse I explicate what I meane by that speech I shall leaue my Reader in great doubt and anxiety which to free him from I must wade a litle further in this question of the extent of a seperated soules knowledge into which I haue thus vpon the by engaged my selfe but lett him first be aduertised that I do not here meddle with what a seperated soule may know by reuelation or by supernaturall meanes but that I do only tracke out her naturall pathes and do guesse at what she is or knoweth by that light which her conuersation in her body affordeth vs. Our entrance into this matter must be to consider what mutation in respect of knowledge a soules first change out of her body maketh in her for it is not vnlikely but that nature may some way enlighten vs so farre as to lett vs vnderstand what must follow out of the negation of the bodies consorteshippe added vnto what we know of her and other workes in this world This then first occurreth that surely she can not choose but still know in that state all that she did know whiles she was in the body since we are certaine that the body hath no part in that which is true knowledge as is aboue declared when we shewed first that all true knowledge is respectiue secondly that the first impressions of the fansie do not reach to the interiour soule and lastly that she worketh by much more then what hath any actuall correspondence in the fansie and that all thinges are vnited to her by the force of Being from which last it followeth that all thinges she knoweth are her selfe and she is all that she knoweth wherefore if she keepeth her selfe and her owne Being she must needes keepe the knowledge of all that she knew in this world Next she must vndoubtedly know then somewhat more then she knew in the body for seeing that out of the thinges she already knoweth others will follow by the meere ordering and connexion of them and that the soules proper worke is to order thinges we can not doubt but that both the thinges she knoweth in this world must of necessity be ordered in her to the best aduantage and likewise that all that will be knowne which wanteth no other cause for the knowing of it but the ordering of these thinges for if the nature of a thing were order who can doubt but what were putt into that thing were putt into order Now that the nature of the soule is such we collect easily for seeing that all order proceedeth from her it must be acknowledged that order is first in her but what is in her is her nature her nature then is order and what is in her is ordered In saying of which I do not meane that there is such an order betweene the notions of a seperated soule as is betweene materiall thinges that are ordered by the soule whiles she is in the body for seeing that the soule is adaequate cause of such order that is to say a cause which can make any an such and the whole kind of it it followeth that such order is not in her for if it were she would be cause of her selfe or of her owne partes Order therefore in her must signify a thing more eminēt thē such inferiour order in which resideth the power of making that inferiour order and this is nothing else but the cōnexion of her notions by the necessity of Being which we haue oftē explicated And out of this eminēt or superiour kind of order our conclusion followeth no lesse then if the inferiour order which we see in our fansies whiles our soule is in our Body did reside in our interiour soule for it is the necessity of identification which doth the effect and maketh the soule know and the order of fantasmes is but a precedent condition in the bodily Agent that it may worke vpon the soule and if more fantasmes then one could be together this order would not be necessary Out of this a notable and a vast conclusion manifestly followeth to witt that if a soule can know any one thing more when she is out the body then what she did know whiles she was in the body without any manner of doubt she knoweth all that can be drawne and forced out of those knowledges which she had in her body How much this is and how farre it will reach I am affraide to speake only I entreate Mathematicians and such as are acquainted with the manner how sciences proceed to consider how some of their definitions are made to witt by composing together sundry knowne termes and giuing a new name to the compound that resulteth out of them wherefore cleare it is that out of fewer notions had at the first the soule can make many more and the more she hath or maketh the more she can multiply Againe the maximes which are necessary to be added vnto the definitions for gaining of knowledge we see are also compounded of ordinary and knowne termes so that a seperated soule can want neyther the Definitions nor the Maximes out of which the bookes of sciences are composed and therefore neyther can the sciences themselues be wanting vnto her Now if we consider that in the same fashion as demonstrations are made and knowledge is acquired in one science by the same meanes there is a transcendence from science to science and that there is a connexion among all the sciences which fall into the consideration of man and indeede among all at the least corporeall thinges for of spirituall thinges we can not so assuredly affirme it although their perfection may persuade vs that there is rather a greater connexion among them then among corporeall thinges it will follow that a soule which hath but any indifferent knowledge in this world shall be replenished with all knowledge in the next But how much is this indifferent knowledge that for this purpose is required in this world Vpon mature consideration of this point it is true I find it absolutely necessary that the soule must haue here
so much knowledge as to be able to determine that some one thing which hath connexion with all the rest is in such a time but then why out of this very conception she should not be able to clymbe vp by degrees to the knowledge of all other thinges whatsoeuer since there is a connexion betweene that and all the rest and no vntransible gappe or Chaos to seuer them I professe I do not see Which if it be so then the soule of an abortiue in his mothers wombe if he once arriue to haue sense and from it to receiue any impression in his soule may for ought I know or can suspect to the contrary be endewed in the next world with as much knowledge as the soule of the greatest Clerke that euer liued and if an abortiue do not arriue so farre as to the knowledge of some one thing I know no reason why we should belieue it arriued to the nature of man Whence it followeth that this amplitude of knowledge is common to all humane soules of what pitch soeuer they seeme to bee here when they are seperated from their bodies as also that if any errour haue crept into a mans iudgement during this life whether it be of some vniuersall conclusion or of some particular thing all such will be abolished then by the truth appearing on the opposite side sithence two contradictory iudgements can not possesse our soule together as euen in this world as well experience as reason teacheth vs. But vnawares I haue engulfed my selfe into a sea of contradiction from no meane aduersaries for Alexander Aphrodiseus Pomponatius and the learnedest of the Peripatetike schoole will all of them rise vp in maine opposition against this doctrine of mine shewing how in the body all our soules knowledge is made by the working of our fansie and that there is no act of our soule without speculation of fantasmes residing in our memory therefore seeing that when our body is gone all those litle bodies of fantasmes are gone with it what signe is there that any operation can remaine And hence they inferre that seeing euery substance hath its Being for its operations sake and by consequence were vaine and superfluous in the world if it could not enioy and exercise its operation there is no necessity or end why the soule of a man should suruiue his body and consequently there is no reason to imagine other then that it perisheth when the man dyeth This is the substance of their argument which indeede is nothing else but to guesse without ground or rather against all ground but howsoeuer this comfort I haue that I haue to do with Peripatetikes men that will heare and answere reason and to such I addresse my speech To ioyne issue then with them and to encounter them with their owne weapons lett vs call to minde what Aristotle holdeth light to be He saith that it is a suddaine and momentary emanation of what it is following the precedent motion of some body but without motion in it selfe As for example when the sunne cometh into our horizon saith he the illumination of the horizon is an effect in an instant following from the motion which the sunne had since his setting in the other hemisphere vntill he appeare there againe so that according to him the way of making this light is the sunnes locall motion but the effect of the being enlightened is a thing of a very different nature done without beginning and continuing vntill the sunne departe againe from our horizon And as he explicateth this action of illumination in the same manner doth he the actions of sense and of vnderstanding Vpon all which I vrge that no Peripatetike will deny me but that as in euery particular sensation or thinking there precedeth a corporeall motion out of which it ensueth so this generall motion which we call the life of Man precedeth that twinkle or moment in which she becometh an absolute spiritt or inhabitant of the next world Wherefore it can not be said that we introduce a doctrine aliene from the Peripatetike way of Philosophising if we putt a momentary effect of motion according to their phrase of speaking to follow out of the course of mans life since they putt diuers such effects to follow out of particular partes of it Now this momentary change or what they please to call it is that which maketh at one blow all this knowledge we speake of for if we remember that knowledge is not a doing or a motion but a Being as is agreed betweene the Peripatetikes and vs they can not for the continuing it require instruments and motors for they are necessary only for change not for Being Now all this mighty change which is made at the soules deliuery we conceiue followeth precisely out of the change of her Being for seeing it is supposed that her Being was before in a body but is now out of a body it must of necessity follow that all impediments which grew out of her being in a body must be taken away by her being freed from it Among which impediments one is that time is then required betwixt her knowledge of one thing and her knowledge of an other thing and so her capacity that of it selfe is infinite becometh confined to that small multitude of obiects which the diuision and straightnesse of time giueth way vnto Now that which length of time could in part worke in the body the same is entirely done in a moment by the changing of her manner of Being for by taking away the bondes by which she was enthralled in the body and was kept in to apprehend but according to the measure of the body and was constrained to be and to enioy her selfe as it were but at the bodies permission she is putt in free possession of her selfe and of all that is in her And this is nothing else but to haue that large knowledge we haue spoken of for her knowing all that is no other thing but her being her selfe perfectly Which will appeare euident if we consider that her nature is to be a Knower and that knowledge is nothing else but a Being of the obiect in the Knower for thence it followeth that to know all thinges is naught else then to be all thinges since then we concluded by our former discourse that all thinges were to be gathered out of any one it is cleare that to be perfectly her selfe and any one thing is in truth to know all thinges And thus we see that for the soules enioying all this knowledge when she is out of the body she needeth no obiects without her no phantasmes no instruments no helpes but that all that is requisite is cōtained absolutely in her being her selfe perfectly And so we retort our Aduersaries obiection on themselues by representing to them that since in their owne doctrine they require no body nor instruments for that precise action which they call vnderstanding it is without all ground for them
to require bodies and instruments in the next life that the soule may there be that which they acnowledge she is in her body without any such helpes And as for that axiome or experience that the soule doth not vnderstand vnlesse she speculate phantasmes as on the one side I yield to it and confesse the experience after the best and seriousest tryall I could make of it so on the other side when I examine the matter to the bottome I find that it cometh not home to our aduersaries intention For as when we looke vpon a thing we conceiue we worke vpon that thing whereas in truth we do but sett our selues in such a position that the thing seene may worke vpon vs in like manner our looking vpon the phantasmes in our braine is not our soules action vpon them but it is our letting them beate at our common sense that is our letting them worke vpon our soule The effect whereof is that eyther oursoule is bettered in her selfe as when we study and contemplate or else that she bettereth something without vs as when by this thinking we order any action But if they will haue this Axiome auayle them they should shew that the soule is not of her selfe a knowledge which if they be able to do euen then when to our thinking she seemeth not so much as to thinke we will yield they haue reason but that will be impossible to them to do for she is alwayes of her selfe a knowledge though in the body shâ—â—euâ—â— expresseth so much but when she is putt to it Or else they should shâ—w that this knowledge which the soule is of her selfe will not by changing the manner of her Existence become an actuall knowledge insteed of the habituall knowledge which now appeareth in her But as these Aristotelians embrace and sticke to one Axiome of their Patrone so they forgoe and preuaricate against an other for as it is Aristotles doctrine that a substance is for its operation and were in vaine and superfluous if it could not practise it so likewise is it his confessed doctrine that Matter is for its forme and not the forme for the 〈◊〉 And yet these men pretend that the soule serueth for nothing 〈…〉 gouerning of the body whereas contrawise both all 〈…〉 doctrine and common sense conuinceth that the body must 〈…〉 soule Which if it be nothing can be more consentaneous to 〈◊〉 then to conceiue that the durance which the soule hath in the 〈…〉 assigned her to worke and moulde in her the future state which 〈…〉 haue after this life and that no more operations are to be expected from her after this life but insteed of them a settled state of Being seeing that euen in this life according to Aristotles doctrine the proper operations of the soule are but certaine Beings so that we may conclude 〈◊〉 a soule were growne to the perfection which her nature is capable of the would be nothing else but a constant Being neuer changing from the happenesse of the best Being And although the texts of Aristotle which remaine vnto vs be vncertaine peraduenture not so much because they were originally such in themselues as through the mingling of some comments into the body of the text yet if we had his booke which he wrote of the soule vpon the death of his frend Eudemus it is very likely we should there see his euident assertion of her Immortality since it had beene very impertinent to take occasion vpon a frends death to write of the soule if he intended to conclude that of a dead man there were no soule Out of this discourse it appeareth how those actions which we exercise in this life are to be vnderstood when we heare them attributed to the next for to think that they are to be taken in their direct plaine meaning and in that way in which they are performed in this world were a great simplicity and were to imagine a likenesse betweene bodies and spirits We must therefore eleuate our mindes when we would penetrate into the true meaning of such expressions and consider how all the actions of our soule are eminently comprehended in the vniuersality of knowledge we haue already explicated And so the Apprehensions iudgements discourses reflections talkings together and all other such actions of ours when they are attributed to separated soules are but inadaequate names and representations of their instantaneall sight of all thinges for in that they can not choose but see others mindes which is that we call talking and likewise their owne which we call reflexion the rest are plaine partes and are plainely contained in knowledge discourse being but the falling into it iudgement the principles of it and single apprehensions the coÌ„ponents of iudgements then for such actions as are the beginning of operatioÌ„ there can be no doubt but that they are likewise to be found and are resumed in the same Vniuersality as loue of good consultation resolution prudentiall election and the first motion for who knoweth all thinges can not choose but know what is good and that good is to be prosecuted and who seeth completely all the meanes of effecting and attaining to his intended good hath already consulted and resolued of the best and who vnderstandeth perfectly the matter he is to worke vpon hath already made his prudentiall election so that there remaineth nothing more to be done but to giue the first impulse And thus you see that this vniuersality of knowledge in the soule comprehendeth all is all performeth all and no imaginable good or happinesse is out of her reach A noble creature and not to be cast away vpon such trash as most men employ their thoughts in Vpon whom it is now time to reflect and to consider what effects the diuers manners of liuing in this world do worke vpon her in the next if first we acquitt ourselues of a promise we made at the end of the last Chapter For it being now amply declared that the state of a soule exempted from her body is a state of pure being it followeth manifestly that there is neyther Action nor Passion in that state which being so it is beyond all opposition that the soule can not dye for it is euident that all corruption must come from the action of an other thing vpon that which is corrupted and therefore that thing must be capable of being made better and of being made worse Now then if a separated soule be in a finall state where she can neyther be bettered or worsened as she must be if she be such a thing as we haue declared it followeth that she can not possibly loose the Being which she hath and sithence her passage out of the body doth not change her nature but only her state it is cleare that she is of the same nature euen in the body though in this her durance she be subiect to be forged as it were by the hammers of corporeall obiects beating
vpon her yet so that of her selfe she still is what she is And therefore as soone as she is out of the passible oore in which she suffereth by reason of that oore she presently becometh impassible as being purely of her owne nature a fixed substance that is a pure Being Both which states of the soule may in some sort be aduÌ„brated by what we see passeth in the coppelling of a fixed mettall for as long as any lead or drosse or allay remaineth with it it continueth melted flowing and in motion vnder the muffle but as soone as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without any mixture and singly it selfe it contracteth it selfe to a narrower roome and at that very instant ceaseth from all motion groweth hard permanent resistent vnto all operations of fire and suffereth no change or diminution in its substance by any outward violence we can vse vnto it THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER Shewing what effects the diuers manners of liuing in this world do cause in a soule after she is separated from her body ONe thing may peraduenture seeme of hard digestion in our past discourse and it is that out of the groundes we haue layed it seemeth to follow that all soules will haue an equality since we haue concluded that the greatest shall see or know no more then the least and indeed there appeareth no cause why this great and noble creature should lye imprisoned in the obscure dungeon of noysome flesh if in the first instant in which it hath its first knowledge it hath then already gained all whatsoeuer it is capable of gaining in the whole progresse of a long life afterwardes Truly the Platonike Philosophers who are persuaded that a humane soule doth not profitt in this life nor that she acquired any knowledge here as being of her selfe completely perfect and that all our discourses are but her remembringes of what she had forgotten will find themselues ill bestedd to render a Philosophicall and sufficient cause of her being locked into a body for to putt forgettfulnesse in a pure spiritt so palpable an effect of corporeity and so great a corruption in respect of a creature whose nature is to know of it selfe is an vnsufferable errour Besides when they tell vs that she can not be changed because all change would preiudice the spirituall nature which they attribute to her but that well she may be warned and excitated by being in a body they meerely trifle for eyther there is some true mutation made in her by that which they call a warning or there is not if there be not how becometh it a warning to her Or what is it more to her then if a straw were wagged at the Antipodes But if there be some mutation be it neuer so litle made in her by a corporeall motion what should hinder why she may not by meanes of her body attaine vnto science she neuer had as well as by it receiue any the least intrinsecall mutation whatsoeuer For if once we admitt any mutability in her from any corporeall motion it is farre more conformable vnto reason to suppose it in regard of that which is her naturall perfection and of that which by her operations we see she hath immediately after such corporeall motions and whereof before them there appeared in her no markes at all then to suppose it in regard of a darke intimation of which we neyther know it is nor how it is performed Surely no Rationall Philosopher seeing a thing whose nature is to know haue a being whereas formerly it existed not and obseruing how that thing by little and little giueth signes of more and more knowledge can doubt but that as she could be changed from not being to being so may she likewise be changed from lesse knowing to more knowing This then being irrefragably settled that in the body she doth encrease in knowledge lett vs come to our difficulty and examine what this encrease in the body auaileth her seeing that as soone as she parteth from it she shall of her owne nature enioy and be replenished with the knowledge of all thinges why should she laboriously striue to anticipate the getting of a few droppes which but encrease her thirst and anxiety when hauing but a litle patience she shall at one full and euerlasting draught drinke vp the whole sea of it We know that the soule is a thing made proportionably to the making of its body seeing it is the bodies compartener and we haue concluded that whiles it is in the body it acquireth perfection in that way which the nature of it is capable of that is in knowledge as the body acquireth perfection its way which is in streÌ„gth and agility Now then lett vs coÌ„pare the proceedinges of the one with those of the other substance and peraduenture we may gaine some light to discerne what aduantage it may proue vnto a soule to remaine long in its body if it make right vse of its dwelling there Lett vs coÌ„sider the body of a man well and exactly shaped in all his members yet if he neuer vse care nor paines to exercise those well framed limbes of his he will want much of those corporeall perfections which others will haue who employ them sedulously Though his legges armes and handes be of an exact symmetry yet he will not be able to runne to wrestle or to throw a dart with those who labour to perfect themselues in such exercises though his fingers be neuer so neately moulded or composed to all aduantages of quicke and smart motion yet if he neuer learned and practised on the lute he will not be able with them to make any musike vpon that instrument euen after he seeth plainely and comprehendeth fully all that the cunningest Lutenist doth nether will he be able to playe as he doth with his fingers which of themselues are peraduenture lesse apt for those voluble motions then his are That which maketh a man dexterous in any of these artes or in any other operations proper to any of the partes or limbes of his body is the often repetitions of the same actes which do amend and perfect those limbes in their motions and which make them fitt and ready for the actions they are designed vnto In the same manner it fareth with the soule whoâ—e essence is that which she knoweth her seuerall knowledges may be compared to armes handes fingers legges thighes c in a body and all her knowledges taken together do compose as I may say and make her vp what she is Now those limbes of hers though they be when they are at the worst entire and well shaped in bulke to vse the comparison of bodies yt they are susceptible of further perfection as our corporeall limbes ae by often and orderly vsage of them When we iterate our acts of our vnderstanding any obiect the second act is of the same nature as she first the third as the second and so of
the rest euery one of which perfecteth the vnderstanding of that thing and of all that dependeth vpon the knowledge of it and maketh it become more vigorous and strong euen the often throwing of a boule at the same marke begetteth still more and more strength and iustnesse in the arme that deliuereth it for it can not be denyed but that the same cause which maketh any thing must of necessity perfect and strengthen it by repeating its force and stroakes We may then conclude that the knowledge of our soule which is indeed her selfe will be in the next life more perfect and strong or more slacke and weake according as in this life she hath often and vigorously or faintly and seldome busied her selfe about those thinges which begett such knowledge Now those thinges which men bestow their paines to know we see are of two kindes for some thirst after the knowledge of nature and of the variety of thinges which eyther their senses or their discourse tell them of but others looke no higher then to haue an insight into humane action or to gaine skill in some art whereby they may acquire meanes to liue These later curiosities are but of particulars that is of some one or few species or kindes whose common that comprehendeth them falleth within the reach of euery vulgar capacity and consequently the thinges which depend vpon them are low meane and contemptible whereas the beauty vastnesse and excellency of the others is so much beyond them as they can be brought into no proportion to one an other Now then if we consider what aduantage the one sort of these men will in the next world haue ouer the other we shall find that they who spend their life here in the study and contemplation of the first noble obiects will in the next haue their vniuersall knowledge that is their soule strong and perfect whiles the others that played away their thoughts and time vpon trifles and seldome raysed their mindes aboue the pitch of sense will be fainte through their former laizinesse like bodies benummed with the palsey and sickely through their ill dyett as when a well shaped virgin that hauing fed vpon trash insteed of nourishing meates languisheth vnder a wearisome burthen of the greene sickenesse To make this point yet more cleare we may consider how the thinges which we gaine knowledge of do affect vs vnder the title of good and conuenient in two seuerall manners The one is when the appearance of good in the abstracted nature of it and after examination of all circumstances carryeth our hart to the desire of the thing that appeareth so vnto vs the other is when the semblance of good to our owne particular persons without casting any further or questioning whether any other regard may not make it preiudiciall doth cause in vs a longing for the thing wherein such semblance shineth Now for the most part the knowledges which spring out of the later obiects are more cultiuated by vs then those which arise out of the other partly by reason of their frequēt occurring eyther through necessity or through iudgement and partly by the addition which passion giueth to the impressions they make vpon vs for passion multiplyeth the thoughts of such thinges more then of any others if reason do not crosse and suppresse her tumultuary motions which in most men she doth not The soules then of such persons as giuing way to their passion do in this life busie themselues about such thinges as appeare good to their owne persons and cast no further must needes decede from their bodies vnequally builded if that expression may be permitted me and will be like a lame vnwieldy body in which the principall limbes are not able to gouerne and moue the others because those principall ones are fainte through want of spirits and exercise and the others are ouergrowne with hidropicall and nociue humours The reason whereof is that in such soules their iudgements will be disproportioned to one an other one of them being vnduely stronger then the other What effect this worketh in regard of knowledge we haue already declared and no lesse will it haue in respect of action for suppose two iudgements to be vnequall and such as in the action one contradicteth the other for example lett one of my iudgements be that it is good for me to eate because I am hungry and lett the other be that it is good for me to study because I am shortly to giue an account of my selfe if the one iudgement be stronger then the other as if that of eating be stronger then that of studying it importeth not that there be more reason all circumstances considered for studying because reasons do moue to action according to the measure in which the resolution that is taken vpon them is strong or weake and therefore my action will follow the strongest iudgement and I shall leaue my booke to goe to my dinner Now to apply this to the state of a separated soule we are to remember how the spirituall iudgements which she collected in the body do remaine in her after she is diuested of it and likewise we are to consider how all her proceeding in that state is built not vpon passion or any bodily causes or dispositions but meerely vpon the quality and force of those spirituall iudgements and then it euidently followeth that if there were any such action in the next life the pure soule would apply it selfe therevnto according to the proportion of her iudgements and as they are graduated and qualifyed It is true there is no such action remaining in the next life yet neuerthelesse there remaineth in the soule a disposition and a promptitude to such action and if we will frame a right apprehension of a separated soule we must conceite her to be of such a nature for then all is nature with her as hereafter we shall discourse as if she were a thing made for action in that proportion and efficacity which the quartering of her by this variety of iudgements doth afford that is that she is so much the more fitt for one action then for an other were she to proceed to action as the iudgement of the goodnesse of one of these actions is stronger in her then the iudgement of the others goodnesse which is in effect by how much the one is more cultiuated then the other And out of this we may conclude that what motions do follow in a man out of discourse the like will in a separated soule follow out of her spirituall iudgements So that as he is ioyed if he do possesse his desired good and is discontented and displeased if he misse of it and seizeth greedily vpon it when it is present to him and then cleaueth fast vnto it and whiles he wanteth it no other good affecteth him but he is still longing after that Masterwish of his heart the like in euery regard but much more vehemently befalleth vnto a separated soule So
connexion of things is so linked together that proceeding from any one you reach the knowledge of many and from many you cannot faile of attaining vnto all so that a separated soule which doth but know herselfe can not choose but know her body too and from her body she cannot misse in proceeding from the causes of them both as farre as immediate causes do proceede from others ouer them and as litle can she be ignorant of all the effects of those causes she reacheth vnto And thus all that huge masse of knowledge and happinesse which we haue coÌ„sidered in our last reflexion amounteth to no more then the seeliest soule buried in warme blood can and will infallibly attaine vnto when its time cometh Wee may then assure our selues that iust nature hath prouided and designed a greater measure of such felicity for longer liuers and so much greater as may well be worth the paines and hazards of so miserable and tedious a passage as here my soule thou strugglest through For certainely if the dull percussion which by natures institution hammereth out a spirituall soule from grosse flesh and bloud can atcheiue so wondrous an effect by such blunt instruments as are vsed in the contriuing of a man how can it be imagined but that fifty or a hundred yeares beating vpon farre more subtile elements refined in so long a time as a child is becoming a man and arriuing to his perfect discourse must necessarily forge out in such a soule a strange and admirable excellency aboue the vnlicked forme of an abortiue embryon Surely those innumerable strokes euery one of which maketh a strong impression in the soule vpon whom they beate cannot choose but worke a mighty difference in the subiect that receiueth them changing it strangely from the condition it was in before they begunne to new mould it What if I should say the oddes betweene two such soules may peraduenture be not vnlike the difference betweene the wittes and iudgements of the subtilest Philosopher that euer was and of the dullest child or idiote liuing But this comparison falleth too short by farre euen so much that there is no resemblance or proportion betweene the thinges compared for as the excesse of great numbers ouer one an other drowneth the excesse of small ones and maketh it not considerable in respect of theirs although they should be in the same proportion so the aduantages of a soule forged to its highest perfection in a mans body by its long abode there and by its making right vse of that pretious time allowed it must needes in positiue valew though not in geometricall proportion infinitely exceed when it shall be deliuered out of prison the aduantages which the newly hatched soule of an abortiue infant shall acquire att the breaking of its chaines In this case I beleeue no man would be of Cesars mind when he wished to be rather the first man in a contemptible poore village he passed through among the desert mountains then the second man in Rome Lett vs suppose the wealth of the richest man in that barren habitation to be one hundred Crownes and that the next to him in substance had but halfe as much as he in like manner in that opulent citty the head of the world where millions were as familiar as pence in other places lett the excesse of the richest mans wealth be but as in the former double ouer his that cometh next vnto him and there you shall find that if the poorest of the two be worth fifty millions the other hath fifty millions more then he whereas the formers petty treasure exceedeth his neighbours but by fifty crownes What proportion is there in the common estimation of affaires betweene that triuiall summe and fifty millions Much lesse is there betweene the excellency of a separated soule first perfected in its body and an other that is sett loose into complete liberty before its body arriued in a naturall course to be deliuered into this world and by its eyes to enioy the light of it The change of euery soule att its separation from the body to a degree of perfectioÌ„ aboue what it enioyed in the body is in a manner infinite and by a like infinite proportion euery degree of perfection it had in the body is also then multiplyed what a vast product then of infinity must necessarily be raysed by this multiplying instaÌ„t of the soules attaining liberty in a well moulded soule infinitely beyond that perfection which the soule of an infant dying before it be borne arriueth vnto And yet we haue determined that to be a in manner infinite Here our skill of Arithmetike and proportions fayleth vs. Here wee find infinite excesse ouer what we also know to be infinite How this can be the feeble eyes of our limited vnderstanding are too dull to penetrate into but that it is so we are sure the rigour of discourse conuinceth and necessarily concludeth it That assureth vs that since euery impression vpon the soule whiles it is in its body maketh a change in it were there no others made but meerely the iterating of those actes which brought it from ignorance to knowledge that soule vpon which a hundred of those actes had wrought must haue a hundred degrees of aduantage ouer an other vpon which only one had beaten though by that one it had acquired perfect knowledge of that thing and then in the separation these hundred degrees being each of them infinitely multiplyed how infinitely must such a soule exceed in that particular though we know not how the knowledge of the other soule which though it be perfect in its kind yet had but one act to forge it out When wee arriue to vnderstand the difference of knowledge betweene the superiour and inferiour rankes of intelligences among whome the lowest knoweth as much as the highest and yet the knowledge of the highest is infinitely more perfect and admirable then the knowledge of his inferiours then and not before we shall throughly comprehend this mystery In the meane time it is enough for vs that we are sure that thus it faireth with soules and that by how much the excellency and perfection of an all knowing and all comprehending soule deliuered out of the body of a wretched embryon is aboue the vilenesse of that heauy lumpe of flesh it lately quitted in his mothers wombe euen by so mâ—â—h and according to the same proportion must the excellency of a complete soule completed in its body be in a pitch aboue the adorable maiesty wisedome and augustnesse of the greatest and most admired oracle in the world liuing embodyed in flesh and bloud Which as it is in a height and eminency ouer such an excellent and admirable man infinitely beyond the excesse of such a man ouer that seely lumpe of flesh which composeth the most contemptible idiote or embryon so likewise is the excesse of it ouer the soule of an abortiue embryon though by the separation growne neuer so knowing and
neuer so perfect infinitely greater then the dignity and wisedome of such a man is aboue the feeblenesse and misery of an new animated child Therefore haue patience my soule repine not at thy longer stay here in this vale of misery where thou art banished from those vnspeakable ioyes thou seest att hand before thee from which nothing but the fraile walles of rotten flesh seuereth thee Thou shalst haue an ouerflowing reward for thy enduring and patienting in this thy darkesome prison Depriue not thy selfe through mischieuous hast of the great hopes and admirable felicity that attend thee canst thou but with due temper stay for it Be content to lett thy stocke lye out awhile at interest thy profits will come in vast proportions and euery yeare euery day euery houre will pay thee interest vpon interest and the longer it runneth on the more it multiplyeth and in the account thou shalst find if thou proceedest as thou shouldest that one moment oftentimes bringeth in a greater encrease vnto thy stocke of treasure then the many yeares thou didst liue and trade before and the longer thou liuest the thicker will these moments arriue vnto thee In like manner as in Arithmetical numeration euery addition of the least figure multiplyeth the whole summe it findeth Here thou wilst proue how true that rich man sayed who of his gaines pronounced that he had gotten litle with great labour and great summes with litle so if thou bestowest well thy time thy latter summes will bring thee in huge accountes of gaine vpon small expence of paines or employments whereas thy first beginnings are toylesome and full of paine and bring in but slender profitt By this time my soule I am sure thou art satisfied that the excesse of knowledge and of pleasure which in the next life thou shalt enioy is vastly beyond any thou art capable of here But how may wee estimate the iust proportion they haue to one on other Or rather is not the pleasure of a separated soule so infinitely beyond all that can be relished by one embodied here in clay that there is no proportion betweene them At the least though wee are not able to measure the one lett vs do our best to ayme and guesse at the improportion betweene them and reioyce when wee find that it is beyond our reach to conceiue or imagine any thing nigh the truth and the huge excesse of thy good my soule ouer the most I am capable of in this world It is agreed that the vehemence and intensenesse of â—hy pleasure is proportionable to the actiuity power and energy of the subiect which is affected with such pleasure and to the grauitation bent and greatnesse that such a subiect hath to the obiect that delighteth it Now to roue at the force and actiuity wherewith a separated soule weigheth and striueth to ioyne it selfe to what its nature carrieth it vnto lett vs beginne with considering the proportions of celerity and forciblenesse wherewith heauy bodies moue downewards I see a pound weight in one scale of the ballance weigheth vp the other empty one with great celerity But if in to that you imagine a million of poundes to be put you may well conceiue that this great excesse would carry vp the single pound weight with so much violence and speede as would hardly afford your eye liberty to obserue the velocity of the motion Lett me multiply this million of poundes by the whole globe of the earth by the vast extent of the great orbe made by the sunnes or earthes motion about the center of the world by the incomprehensibility of that immense store-house of matter and of bodies which is designed in lumpe by the name of the Vniuerse of which we know no more but that it is beyond all hope of being knowne during this mortall life Thus when I haue heaped together a bulke of weight equall to this vnwieldy machine lett me multiply the strength of its velocity and pressure ouer the least atome imaginable in nature as farre beyond the limits of grauity as the ingenious skill wherewith Archimedes numbred the least graines of sand that would fill the world can carry it and when I haue thus wearied my selfe and exhausted the power of Arithmetike and of Algebra I find there is still a proportion betweene that atome and this vnutterable weight I see it is all quantitatiue it is all finite and all this excesse vannisheth to nothing and becommeth inuisible like twinkling starres at the rising of the much brighter sunne as soone as the lowest and the meanest substance shineth out of that orbe where they reside that scorne diuisibilility and are out of the reach of quantity and matter How vehement then must the actiuity and energy be wherewith so puissant a substance shooteth it selfe to its desired obiect and when it enioyeth it how violent must the extasy and transport be wherewith it is delighted How is it possible then for my narrow hart to frame an apprehension of the infinite excesse of thy pleasure my soule ouer all the pleasure this limited world can afford which is all measured by such petty proportions How should I stampe a figure of thy immense greatnesse into my materiall imagination Here I loose my power of speaking because I haue too much to speake of I must become silent and dumbe because all the words and language I can vse expresse not the thousandeth nor the millioneth part of what I euidently see to be treu All I can say is that whatsoeuer I thinke or imagine it is not that and that it is not like any of those things vnto some of which vnlesse it be like it is impossible for me to make any proportion or similitude vnto it What then shall I do but lay my selfe downe in mine owne shadow and there reioyce that thou art a light so great as I am not able to endure the dazeling splendour of thy rayes that thy pleasure is so excessiue as no part of it can enter into my circumscribed hart without dilating it so wide that it must breake in sunder and that thy happinesse is so infinite as the highest pitch I can hope for to glutt my selfe withall during this darke night of my tedious pilgrimage here on earth is to see euidently that it is impossible for me in this life to frame any scantling of it much lesse to know how great it is Shall I then once againe presume to breake out into impatience at my delay of so great blisse and crye out that I am content with the meanest share of this exuberant felicity I care not for the exaggerations which a longer life may heape vp vnto it I am sure here is sufficient to swell my hart beyond it selfe to satisfie my thirsty soule to dissolue and melt all my powers and to transforme me totally into a selfeblessed creature Away away all tedious hopes not only of this life but euen of all encrease in the next I will leape bouldly into that
they did when it was in an other position 6 The reason of the various colours in generall by pure light passing through a prisme 7 Vpon what side euery colour appeareth that is made by pure light passing through a prisme 1 The reason of each seuerall colour in particular caused by light passing through a prisme 2 A difficult probleme resolued touching the prisme 3 Of the rainebow and how by the colour of any body wee may know the compositioÌ„ of the body it selfe 4 That all the seÌ„sible qualities are reall bodies resulting out of seuerall mixtures of rarity and density 5 Why the senses are only fiue in number with a conclusion of all the former doctrine concerning them 1 Monsieur des Cartes his opinion touching sensation 2 The Authors opinion touching sensation 3 Reasons to persuade the authors opinioÌ„ 4 That vitall spiritts are the immediate instruments of sensation by conueying sensible qualities to the braine 5 How sound is conueyed to the braine by vitall spirits 6 How colours are conueyed to the braine by vitall spirits 7 ReasoÌ„s against Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 8 That the symptomes of the palsie do no way confiâ—me Monsieur des Cartes his opinion 9 That Monsieur des Cartes his opinioÌ„ can not giue a good account how thinges are coÌ„serued in the memory 1 How thinges are coÌ„serued in the memory 2 How thinges coÌ„serued in the memory are brought backe in to the fantasie 3 A ConfirmatioÌ„ of the former doctrine 4 How thinges renewed in the fantasie returne with the same circumstaÌ„ces that they had at first 5 How the memory of thinges past is lost or confounded and how it is repaired againe 1 Of what matter the braine is composed 2 What is voluntary motion 3 What those powers are which are called naturall faculties 4 How the attractiue and secretiue faculties worke 5 Concerning the concoctiâ—â— faculty 6 Concerning the retentiue and expulsiue faculties 7 Concerning expulsion made by Physicke 8 How the braine is moued to worke voluntary motion 9 Why pleasing obiects doe dilate the spirits and displeasing ones contract them 10 Concerning the fiue senses for what vse and end they are 1 That Septum Lucidum is the seat of the fansie 2 What causeth vs to remeÌ„ber not only the obiect it selfe but also that we haue thought of it before 3 How the motions of the fantasie are deriued to the hart 4 Of paine and pleasure 5 Of Passion 6 Of seuerall pulses caused by passions 7 Of seuerall other effects caused naturally in the body by passioÌ„s 8 Of the diaphragma 9 Concerning paine and pleasure caused by the memory of thinges past 10 How so small bodies as atomes are can cause so great motions in the hart 11 How the vital spirits sent froÌ„ the braine do runne to the intended part of the body without mistake 12 How men are blinded by Passion 1 The order and connexion of the subsequent Chapters 2 From whence proceedeth the doubting of beasts 3 Concerning the inuention of Foxes and other beasts 4 Of foxes that catch hennes by lying vnder their roost and by gazing vpon them 5 From whence proceedeth the foxes inuentioÌ„ to ridde himselfe of fleas 6 An explication of two other inuentions of foxes 7 Concerning Mountagues argument to prooue that dogges make syllogismes 8 A declaration how some tricks are performed by foxes which seeme to argue discourse 9 Of the Iaccatrays inuention in calling beasts to himselfe 10 Of the Iaccalls designe in seruing the lyon 11 Of seuerall inuentions of fisshes 12 A discouery of diuers thinges done by hares which seeme to argue discourse 13 Of a foxe reported to haue weighed a goose before he would venture with it ouer a riuer and of fabulous stories in common 14 Of the seuerall cryings and tones of beasts with a refutation of those authours who maintaine theÌ„ to haue compleat laÌ„guages 1 How hawkes and other creatures are taught to doe what they are browght vp to 2 Of the Baboone that played on a guitarre 3 Of the teaching of ElephaÌ„tes and other beasts to doe diuers tricks 4 Of the Orderly traine of actions performed by beasts in breeding their yong ones 1 why beasts are affraide of men 2 How some qualiâ—â—es caused at first by chance in beasts may passe by generation to the whole offspring 3 How the pareÌ„ts fantasie doth oftentimes worke strange effects in their issue 4 Of Antipaties 5 Oâ— Sympaties 6 That the Antipathy of beasts towards one an other may be taken away by assuefaction 7 Of longing markes seene in children 8 Why diuers men hate some certaine meates and particularly cheese 9 Concerning the prouidence of Aunts in laying vp in store for winter 10 Concerning the foreknowing of beasts Dialog 3o. Nodo 2 do 1 What is a right apprehension of a thing 2 The very thing it selfe is truly in his vnderstanding who rightly apprehendeth it 3 The Apprehension of things coÌ„ming vnto vs by our senses are resoluable into other more simple apprehensions 4 The apprehension of a Being is the most simple and Basis of all the rest 5 Thâ— apprehension of a thing is in next degree to that of Being and it is the Basis of all the subsequeÌ„t ones 6 The apprehension of things knowne to vs by our senses doth consist in certaine respects betwixt too things 7 Respect or relation hath not really any formall being but only in the apprehension of man 8 That Existence or being is the proper affectioÌ„ of man and that mans soule is a comparing power 9 A thing by coming into the vnderstanding of man looseth nothing of its owne peculiar nature 10 A multitude of things may be vnited in mans vnderstaÌ„ding without being mingled or comfounded together 11 Of abstracted and concrete termes 12 Of vniuersal notions 13 Of apprehending a multitude vnder oâ—e notion 14 The power of the vnderstanding reacheth as farre as the extent of being 1 How a iudgement is made by the vnderstanding 2 That two or more apprehensions are identifyed in the soule by vniting them in the stock of being 3 How the notioÌ„s of a substantiue and an adiectiue are vnited in the soule by the common stocke of being 4 That a settled iudgement becometh a part of our soule 5 How the Soule commeth to deeme or settle a iudgement 6 How opinion is begotten in the vnderstanding 7 How faith is begotten in the vnderstanding 8 Why truth is the perfection of a reasonable soule and why it is not found in simple apprehensions as well as in Enuntiations 9 What is a solid iudgement and what a slight one 10 What is an acute iudgement and what a dull one 11 In what consisteth quicknesse and Clearenesse of iudgement and there oposite vices 1 How discourse smade 2 Of the figures and moodes of Syllogismes 3 That the life of man as man doth consist
and consequently if we can find the soules Being to be without partes and that her operations are no locall translation we euidently conclude her to be an immateriall or spirituall substance Peraduenture it may be obiected that all this might haue beene done a much shorter way then we haue taken and that we needed not haue branched our discourse into so many particulars nor haue driuen them so home as we haue done but that we might haue taken our first rise from this ground which is as euident as light of Reason can make it that seeing we know biggenesse and a Body to be one and the same as well in the notion as in the thing it must of necessity follow that what hath not partes nor worketh nor is wrought vpon by diuision is not a body I confesse this obiection appeareth very reasonable and the consideration of it weighed so much with me as were all men of a free iudgement and not imbued with artificiall errours I would for its sake haue saued my selfe a great deale of paines but I find as in the former Treatise I haue frequently complained of that there is crept into the world a fansy so contrary to this pregnant truth and that it is so deepely settled in many mens minds and not of the meanest note as all we haue said is peraduenture too litle to roote it out If any that being satisfyed with the rationall maxime we euen now mentioned and therefore hath not deemed it needefull to employ his time in reading the former Treatise should wish to know how this is come to passe I shall here represent vnto him the summe of what I haue more at large scattered in seuerall places of the former Treatise and shall entreate him to consider how nature teacheth vs to call the proprieties of thinges whereby one is distinguished from an other the Qualities of those thinges and that according to the varieties of them they haue diuers names suted out to diuers of them some being called Habites others Powers and others by other names Now what Aristotle and the learned Grecians did meane by these thinges is cleere by the examples they giue of them they terme Beauty and Health Habites the dispositions of our bodies to our bodily motions Powers as strength which is the good temper of the sinewes a Power likewise Agility a Power so they vse the names of the concoctiue the nutritiue the retentiue the excretiue Power the health of the eyes the eares the nosethrills c they call the Powers of seeing of hearing of smelling c and the like of many others But later Philosophers being very disputatiue and desiring to seeme ignorant of nothing or rather to seeme to know more then any that are gone before them and to refine their conceptions haue taken the notions which by our first Masters were sett for common and confused explications of the natures to serue for conueniency and succinctenesse of discourse to be truly and really particular Entities or thinges of themselues and so haue filled their bookes and the schooles with vnexplicable opinions out of which no account of nature can be giuen and which is worse the way of searching on is barred to others and a mischieuous error is growne into mens beliefes that nothing can be knowne By this meanes they haue choaked the most plaine and euident definition of a body bringing so many instances against it that vnwary men are forced to desert and deny the very first notions of nature and reason for in truth they turne all bodies into spirits making for example heare or cold to be of it selfe indiuisible a thing by it selfe whose nature is not conceiuable not the disposition or proportion of the partes of that body which is said to be hoat or cold but a reall thing that hath a proper Being and nature peculiar to it selfe whereof they can render you no account and so may as well be against the notion of a body as not for if light the vertue of the loadestone the power of seing feeling c be thinges that worke without time iâ— an instant if they be not the dispositions of partes as partes whose nature is to be more or lesse to be next or farre off c how can it be truly said that the notion of a body is to be of partes For if this be a true definition of a body it followeth that all corporeall qualities and actions must likewise be some disposition and order of partes as partes and that what is not so is no body nor bodily quality or propriety This then was it that obliged me to go so farre about and to shew in common how all those effects which are so much admired in bodies are or may be made and continued by the sole order of quantitatiue partes and locall motion this hath forced vs to anatomise nature and to beginne our dissection with what first occurreth vnto our sense from a body In doing which out of the first and most simple notion of Biggenesse or Quantity we found out the prime diuision of Bodies into Rare and Dense then finding them to be the Qualities of diuiding and of being diuided that is of locall motion we gained knowledge of the common properties of Grauity and Leuity from the combination of these we retriued the foure first Qualities and by them the Elements When we had agreed how the Elements were made wee examined how their action and composition raiseth those second qualities which are seene in all mixt bodies and doe make their diuisions Thence proceeding into the operations of life we resolued they are composed and ordered meerely by the varieties of the former nay that sense and fantasy the highest thinges we can discerne out of man haue no other source but are subiect to the lawes of partes and of Rarity and Density so that in the end we became assured of this important Maxime That nothing whatsoeuer we know to be a Body can be exempted from the declared lawes and orderly motions of Bodies vnto which lett vs adde two other positions which fell also within our discouery the first that it is constantly found in nature that none of the bodies we know do moue themselues but their motion must be founded in some thing without them the second that no body moueth an other vnlesse it selfe be also moued and it will follow euidently out of them if they be of necessity and not preuaricable that some other Principle beyond bodies is required to be the roote and first ground of motion in them as Mr. White hath most acutely aud solidely demonstrated in that excellent worke I haue so often cited in my former Treatise But it is time we should fall to our intended discourse leauing this point settled by what we haue already said that if we shew our soule and her operations to be not composed of partes we also therein conclude that she is a spirituall substance and not a body Which is our designe and