him Intellectually though not actually Divisible That is the Intellect may conceive of God as partly in the Sun and partly on Earth c. or else you must ask pardon of your opposed Holenmerians as you name them and say as they that God is totus in toto totus in qualibet parte If in the 2d sense then you make the matter only to be Substance and God to be but the Form of that Substance or as some dreams a Quality And then I confess your Notions of Indiscerpible and Penetrable are very easily intelligible as agreeing to the meer Form Vitality Active-power Wisdom and Love But how either of these notions will stand either with Gods Existence ut spatium infinitum beyond all Matter which you sometime hint or the Infiniteness of Matter but with intermixt Vacuities which pag. 44. Metaph. you seem to suppose to be communi naturae voce confirmatum I know not For then the vacuum is Deus extra materiam and so all Spirit is not in matter I think that all matter and Spirit is in God and that he is much more than Anima Mundi omnium animarum Ad SECT IX § 1. TO your Indiscerpibility I further say I distinguish 1. Between Actual and Intellectual dividing 2. Between what God can do and what a Creature can do and 3. Between the Father of Spirits and created Spirits And so I say 1. That if you had spoken of the meer Virtus Vitalis of a Spirit I think it is a contradiction to say that it is Discerpible or impenetrable But seeing you ascribe Amplitude Quantity and Dimensions and Logical Materiality to the Substantiality of Spirits I see not but that you make them Intellectually divisible that is that one may think of one part as here and another there 2. And if so though man cannot separate or divide them if it be no contradiction God can Various Elements vary in divisibility Earth is most divisible Water more hardly the parts more inclining to the closest contact Air yet more hardly And if as you think the Substance of Fire be material no doubt the Discerpibility is yet harder And if God have made a Creture so strongly inclin'd to the Unity of all the parts that no other Creture can separate them but God only as if a Soul were such it 's plain that such a Being need not fear a Dissolution by separation of parts For it s own Nature hath no tendency to it but to the contrary and no fellow Creature hath power to do it and God will not do it God maketh all things apt for their use and useth things as he hath made them He made not Marble and Sand alike nor useth them alike And if he should make a Spirit e. g. an Anima hujus Vorticis Solis Stellae c. Such as he only can divide but hath no natural tendency to division but so much Indiscerpibility as no Creature can overcome this besides Scripture intimateth Gods purpose about it 3. But doubtless God and Creatures are both called Spirits equivocally or analogically and not univocally And it is the vilest Contradiction to say that God is capable of Division But whether it be so with created Spirits I know not They have passivity and God hath none It 's no great Wisdom to confess ones Ignorance But not to confess it is very great folly I am scarce of your mind that a man may be in the like puzzle in another World as he was in this if he methodize not his Thoughts aright But if it be so you are best think again § 2. For Penetrability you say that one Spirit may have a greater Amplitude than another and that the parts as I may so call them of the same Spirit may in the Contraction of it self penetrate one another so that there may be a Reduplication of Essence through the whole Spirit Ans You tempt me to doubt lest you talk so much against materiality of Spirits to hide the name of your own Opinion for that which others call materiality If Spirits have parts which may be extended and contracted you 'l hardly so easily prove as say that God cannot divide them And when in your Writings shall I find satisfaction into how much space one Spirit may be extended and into how little it may be contracted And whether the whole Spirit of the World may be contracted into a Nut-shell or a Box and the Spirit of a Flea may be extended to the Convexe of all the World Ad SECT X. § 1. I Said We grant that Spirits have a Quantitas discreta they are numerous individuate and Formae se multiplicant Generation is the work of Spirits and not of Bodies And how can I tell that that God that can make many out of one cannot make many into one and unite and divide them as well as Matter You say This passage is worth our attentive consideration And 1. You hence infer Amplitude and Dimension of Spirits Answ I meddle not for you nor against you What 's this to me § 2. You ask what are the Formae quae se multiplicant Ans Sensitive and Rational as well as Vegetative Spirits You say That must be Creation or Self-division Ans No it is but Generation And in Append. to the Reas of Christian Religion I have partly shewed that Generation is from God as the Prime Cause and yet the Parents Souls as a Second Cause so that somewhat of a sort of Creation and Traduction concur which having further opened in Method Theol. I here pretermit § 3. But to my Question Why God cannot make two of one or one of two you put me off with this lean Answer that we be not bound to puzzle our selves about it Ans I think that Answer might serve to much of your Philosophical Disputes But if you will puzzle us with a naked Assertion of Indiscerpibility we must ask your proof of it why God cannot divide and unite extended ample quantitative Spirits and if he can how you know that he doth not or that Indivisibility is the Form of a Spirit when as if Water be divided into drops every drop is Water still Ad SECT XI § 1. IN your further thoughts of this Sect. 11. you do first mis-suppose that my Question intimateth such a Divisibility of Souls as of terrene Bodies into Atoms or a contrary Union Terrene Atoms have the most imperfect Union All the Sands on the shoar are not only divisible but partly divided I cannot say that all the parts of the Air are so much less of the Fire There is a far closer Union of all the Substance of that Lucid Calefactive Element than of Earth Water or Air. § 2. And here I must insert that after long thoughts I doubt not but all things Created are truly one and truly many No one particle of the Universe is independent on the rest Parts they are as every part of a Clock or Watch Every Leaf and Grape and
OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS ESPECIALLY MANS SOUL In a placid Collation with the Learned Dr. Henry More In a Reply to his Answer to a private Letter Printed in his second Edition of Mr. Glanviles Sadduceismus Triumphatus By Richard Baxter LONDON Printed for B. Simmons at the Three Golden Cocks at the West End of St. Pauls 1682. A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Henry More at Christs-Colledge in Cambridge Reverend Sir I Had answered your desire sooner but having lent out the Sadduc Triumph I staid till now to have â—ad it returned being loth to buy another it costing me 6s But I was fain to get another at last and â—n the review I find that I have exâ—resly given you my thoughts already â—f your notion of a Spirit in my Methodus having noted it in your Book of Atheism and your Ench. Metaphys In short 1. I think you and I are agreed that we cannot conceive of a Spirit unico conceptu but must have two inadequate conceptions of it of which one is that which Dr. Glisson De Vita naturae calls conceptus fundamentalis and is that which we call Substantia for we can scarce think of a Virtus formalis which is not substantiae alicujus virtus but qua virtus simpliciter existeth of itself unless we must so think with some of God And though this maketh not an actual composition as Matter and Form in mixtis yet intellectually we must take it as a distinct inadequate conceptus The other inadequate conceptus iâ— Formal and I think you and I arâ— agreed that this is Virtus Una-trinaâ— as described by me viz. Virtus Vâ—â—talis vitaliter activa perceptivaâ— appetitiva as Dr. Glisson speaks of which I make three species aâ— described And I am my self faâ— better acquainted with the nature â— a Spirit by the essential Virtus formalis known to us by its acts for nothing doth that which it cannot do than from the notion of substantiality And yet I dare not say that a self-moving principle is proper to a Spirit Nor do I consent to Campanella de sensu rerum and Dr Glisson that would make all things alive by an essentiating form in the very Elements I distinguish Natures into Active and Passive and Passivity is a word that serveth me as well as materiality But whence the Descensus gravium is I despair of knowing and if it be of an innate principle I call it not therefore a Spirit because it is but passivorum motus aggregativus ad unionem in quiete when Spirits motion is vital and so essential to them that they tend not to union in quiescence but in everlasting activity quiescence in inactivity being as much against their nature as motion against a Stones So that I think we are agreed of the formal notice of a Spirit in general and of an intellective sensitive and vegetative in specie But truly I am at a loss about the conceptus fundamentalis wherein the true difference lieth between Substantia and Materia Do we by Substantia mean a conceptus realis or only Relative To say it doth substare accidentibus speaks but a Relation directly and leaves the question unanswered Quid est quod substat accidentibus To say it is not an Accident tells us not what it is but what it is not To say it doth subsist per se either saith no more than that it is Ens reale or else tells us not what it is that doth subsist Quoad notationem nominis distinct from use doth not materia and substantia signify the same fundamental conceptus And is not the form the notifying difference You difference Substance and Matter antecedently to the formal difference by Penetrability Impenetrability Indivisibility Divisibility But 1. I despair knowing in this life how far Spiritual Substances are penetrable and indivisible I grant you such an extension as shall free them from being nothing substantial and from being Infinite as God is 2. We grant Spirits a quantitas discreta they are numerous individuate and formae se multiplicant Generation is the work of Spirits and not of Bodies And how can I tell that God that can make many out of one cannot make many into one and unite and divide them as well as Matter But if he should that would be no destruction of their Species as the mixtorum dissolutio is but as every drop of divided Water is Water one Candle lighting many and many joyned in one are all the same fire so much more would it be with Spirits were they united or divided and their locality and penetrability are past our conceit 3. But were we sure of what we say therein these two Penetrability and Indivisibility speak but Accidents though proper and therefore are no satisfying notice of the notion of Substance Spiritual as distinct from Matter I am hitherto therefore constrained to contain many thoughts in the following compass 1. I know Spirits best by the Virtus vitalis formalis una trina 2. I hold that of Created Spirits substantia as notisying a Basis realis must be the Conceptus Fundamentalis 3. The word Immaterial signifying nothing but a negation and Materia being by many Antients used in the same sense as we do Substantia I usually lay by the words 4. I hold to the distinction of Natures or Substances Passive and Active 5. I distinguish Spiritual Substances as such by the Purity of the Substance besides the Formal Difference 6. Yet I doubt not but all Created Spirits are somewhat Passive quia influxum causae primae recipiunt And you grant them a Spissitude and Extension which signifie as much as many mean that call them Material But Custom having made Materia but specially Corpus to signifie onely such grosser Substance as the three Passive Elements have I yield so to say that Spirits are not Corporeal or Material 7. Though I run not into the excess of Ludov. Le Grand de Igne nor of Telesius or Patricius I would Ignis were better studied But this Room will not serve me to say what I think of it But in brief He that knoweth that Ignis is a Substance whose Form is the Potentia Activa movendi illuminandi calesaciendi these as received in a gross Passive Body being but their Accidents oft but the Igneous Substance in act operating on them and conceiveth of Spirits but as Ignis eminenter that is of a purer substance than Ignis is which we best conceive of next the Formal Virtue by its similitude I think knows as much as I can reach of the Substance of Created Spirits And the Greek Fathers that called Spirits Fire and distinguished Ignem per formas into Intellective Sensitive and Vegetative or Visible Fire as it is in Aere Ignito allowing an Incomprehensible â—urity of Substance in the higher above the lower as in Passives Air hath above Water c. I think did speak tolerably and as informingly as are the notions of Penetrability and
between the dispossession of the old and the possession of the new If any then the Soul is sometime without a body And how can you tell how long If not what body is it that you can imagine so ready to receive it without any interposition I have not been without temptations to over inquisitive thoughts about these matters And I never had so much ado to overcome any such temptation as that to the opinion of Averrhoes that as extinguished Candles go all into one illuminated air so separated Souls go all into one common Anima Mundi and lose their individuation and that Materia receptiva individuat And then indeed your notion would be probable for the Anima mundi mundum semper animat and so my separated Soul should be still imbodyed in the world and should have its part in the worlds animation But both Scripture and Apparitions assure us of the individuation of Spirits and separate Souls And I confess to you that I have oft told the Sadduces and Infidels that urge seeming impossibilities against the Resurrection and the activity of separate Souls for want of Organs that they are not sure that the Soul taketh not with it at its departure hence some seminal material Spirits ethereal and airy and so that this spirituous or igneous body which it carrieth hence is a semen to the body which it shall have at the Resurrection no man knoweth the contrary and no man knoweth that it is so The Soul is many months here in organizing its own body in generation and more in nourishing it to a useful state That particular organical bodies are made ready to receive them just at death is hard to be believed That the matter of the Vniverse is still ready is past doubt But how organized or how the Soul worketh without Organs we shall better know hereafter Your opinion much favoureth the Pythagoreans If the Soul be never out of a body is it not as like to come into one new forming in the womb as into we know not what or where § 5. I could wish you had printed my Letter wholly by it self before you had annexed your answer that the Reader might have understood it which I can hardly do my self as you have parcel'd it But we must not have what we would have from wiser men I take it for an odd method when I never asserted Spirits to be fire but denyed it first to be in your Epistle feigned to have said it and yet in the end of it for you to say that I mean not ordinary fire but that my meaning is more subtile and refined and never tell the Reader what it is before you dispute it and then through the whole answer to dispute on a wrong supposition and in the end of the Book to confess again that I say not that Spirits are fire or material § 6. Had I been to choose an edifying method we would first have stated our question and agreed on the meaning of our terms But I must follow your steps though I had rather have done otherwise Ad SECT I. § 1. THat my Notions are like those of Judge Hale is no wonder we were no strangers to each others thoughts about these matters and though he and you have had some peaceable Velitations I take it for no dishonour to be of his mind 1. De Nomine There is no such agreement among Philosophers of the name Matter as you suppose I refer you for brevity but to a very small Book of a very Learned Author advanced by the Preface of one eminent for subtilty the Metaphysicks of Dr. Rich. Crakenthorp who tells you at large that Matter is taken either properly as you and I do Substance and so Spirits are material or improperly and narrowly for that only which hath the three dimensions and so Spirits are not material It 's unprofitable to cite many more to to the same purpose And I suppose you know that not only Tertullian but many other of the Fathers many of whom you may find cited by Faustus Reg. whom Mammertus answereth so used both Matter and Corpus also § 2. The word Form is as ambiguous You and I are not the only persons that use it not in the same sense Matter in its first Conceptus called Primus hath no Form that is is conceived of abstracted from all Form Matter in its next Conceptus is conceived of as diversified by accidents as quantity figure c. And so the 3 passive Elements Earth Air Water are diversified by many accidents making up that Consistence which is called their several forms known only by sensse and capable of no perfect definition Many such passive Materials conjunct have their Relative Form which is that Contexture in which consisteth their aptitude for their use as a House a Ship a Gun a Watch. In Compositions where the Active natures are added and operate unitedly on the passive there the Active is the Form of the Compound quite in another sense than any of the former viz. as it is principium motus You and I are enquiring of the different Forms of Matter and Spirit You say that Impenetrability and Divisibility are the Form of Matter and the contrary of Spirit I say that 1. Substance as Substance and Matter taken for Substance which Dr. Crakenthorpe thinketh is the properest sense as such hath no Form that is in conceptu primo 2. That substance distinguished by subtilty crassitude visibility and invisibility quantity shape motion c. doth herein differ Modally And this Mode may well enough be called the Form before it have another Form And as the divers foresaid Elements thus differ so the substance of Spirits no doubt hath some Modal Excellency above all Bodies or Matter strictly or narrowly so called And if you will call this a Form I contend not about the word but it is but equivocally so called Spirits having another nobler sort of Form 3. Nothing hath two Forms univocally so called But Spirits have all that Virtus formalis which I oft described which is their very form There is no Spirit without it It 's not a Compounding part but the form of a simple substance Vital Virtue Vis Potentia activa signifieth not the same thing with Penetrability and Indiscerpibility Therefore both cannot be the Form univocally so called And how you could put both these your self into one definition as a kind of Compounded Form I wonder Yea your two words themselves signify not the same thing Penetrable and Indiscerpible are not words of one signification And surely you will grant that these two Penetrable and Indiscerpible can be no otherwise a Form to Spirits than Impenetrable and Discerpible are a Form to Matter And it 's apparent that the first is but a modal conceptus and the latter a relative notion of Matter and neither one nor both are contrary to Virtus Vitalis in a Spirit or Virtus activa Meer passive potentiality is rather the contrary difference
must needs know every Ingredient in his Physick and the Nature and Reason of it before he will take it when he should implicitly trust his Physician Man should have waited on God for all his Notices and sought to know no more than he revealed But a distrustful and a selfish knowledg and busy enquiring into unrevealed things is become our sin and misery § 36. You say Suppose all this answered what will it avail as to a life of Retribution if all return to one element and be there immerged as Brooks and Rivers in the Sea and we lose our individuation Ans I answer'd this in the Appendix to the Reas of the Christian Religion I add 1. Do you believe that each one hath now one individual Soul or not If not how can we lose that which we never had If we have but all one universal mover which moveth us as Engines as the Wind and Water move Mills how come some motions to be so swift as a Swallow and others so slow or none at all in as mobile a body Yea how cometh motion to be so much in our Power that we can sit still when we will and rise and go and run and speak when we will and cease or change it when we will A stone that falls or an arrow that is shot cannot do so Sure it is some inward formal Principle and not a material Mechanical mobility of the matter which can cause this difference Indeed if we have all but one Soul it 's easie to love our Neighbours as our selves because our Neighbours are our selves But it 's as easie to hate our selves as our Enemies and the good as the bad if all be one for forma dat nomen esse But it 's strange that either God or the Soul of the World shall hate it self and put it self to pain and fight against it self as in Wars c. But if you think still That there is nothing but God and dead matter actuated by him I would beg your Answer to these few Questions 1. Do you really believe that there is a God that is an eternal infinite self-being who hath all that power knowledg and goodness of will in transcendent Eminency which any Creature hath formally and is the efficient Governor of all else that is If not all the world condemneth you for it is not an uncaused Being and can have nothing but from its Cause who can give nothing greater than it self 2. Do you think this God can make a Creature that hath a subordinate Soul or Spirit to be the Principle of its own Vital Action Intellection and Volition or not Cannot God make a Spirit If not it is either because it is a Contradiction which none can pretend or because God is not Omnipotent that is is not God and so there is no God and so you deny what you granted But if God can make a Spirit 3. Why should you think he would not Some of your mind say That he doth all the good that he can or else he were not perfectly good Certainly his goodness is equal to his greatness and is commmunicative 4. Hath he not imprinted his Perfections in some measure in his Works Do they not shew his glory Judg of his Greatness by the Sun Stars and Heavens and of his Wisdom by the wonderful Order Contexture and Goverument of all things Even the Fabrick of a Fly or any Animal poseth us And do you think that his love and goodness hath no answerable effect 5. Do you think that passive matter doth as much manifest Gods Perfection and honour the Efficient as vital and Intellectual Spirits If it be a far nobler Work for God to make a free vital mental Spirit to act under him freely mentally and vitally than to make meer atomes why should you think that God will not do it 6. And do you not dishonour or blaspheme the prime Cause by such dishonouring of his Work as to say he never made any thing more noble than Atomes and Compositions of them 7. Is there not in the Creature a communicative disposition to cause their like Animals generate their like Fire kindleth fire Wise men would make others wise God is essential infinite Life Wisdom and Love and can he or would he make nothing liker to himself than dead Atomes Yea you feign him to make nothing but by Composition while you say That matter it self is eternal 8. But when the matter of Fact is evident and we see by the actions that there is a difference between things moved by God some having a created Life and mind and some none what needs then any further proof § 31. But if you hold That we have now distinct Spirits which are individual Substances why should you fear the loss of our individuation any more than our annihilation or specifick alteration If God made as many substantial individual Souls as men is there any thing in Nature or Scripture which thteatneth the loss of Individuation I have shewed you and shall further shew you enough against it § 32. You say page 7. Every thing returneth to its element and loseth its individuation Earth to Earth Water to the Sea the Spirit to God that gave it What happiness then can we hope for more than deliverance from the present calamity or what misery are we capable of more than is common to all Ans 1. Bodies lose but their Composition and Spiritual forms Do you think that any Atome loseth its individuation If it be still divisible in partes infinitas it is infinite And if every Atome be infinite it is as much or more than all the world and so is no part of the world and so there would be as many Worlds or Infinites as Atomes It is but an aggregative motion which you mention Birds of a Feather will flock together and yet are Individuals still Do you think any dust or drop any Atome of Earth or Water loseth any thing of it self by its union with the rest Is any Substance lost Is the simple Nature changed Is it not Earth and Water still Is not the Haecceity as they call it continued Doth not God know every dust and every drop from the rest Can he not separate them when he will And if Nature in all things tend to aggregation or union it is then the Perfection of every thing And why should we fear Perfection 2. But Earth and Water and Air are partible matter Earth is easily separable The parts of Water more hardly by the means of some terrene Separaror The parts of Air yet more hardly and the Sun-beams or substance of fire yet harder than that tho it's contraction and effects are very different And Spirits either yet harder or not at all Some make it essential to them to be indiscerptible and all must say That there is nothing in the Nature of them tending to division or separation And therefore tho God who can annihilate them can divide them into parts if it
Indivisibility though perhaps thâ—se also may be useful Sir I crave your pardon of these curt expressions of the thoughts which you desired concerning the description of a Spirit If God make us truly holy we shall quickly know more to our satisfaction I rest Nov. 17. 1681. Your obliged Servant Rich. Baxter You make a Spirit to be Ens ideoque Unum Verum and that True denotes the answerableness of the thing to its proper Idea and implies right matter and form duly conjoined Q. Do you not here make Spirits material But no doubt whether to be called Material or Substantial the form is not an Adjoyned thing but the form of a simple essence is but an inadequate conceptus making no composition OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS A Placid Collation with the Learned Dr Henry More upon his Answer to à private Letter published in the second Edition of Mr. Glanviles Sadduceismus Triumphatus Reverend Sir § 1. THat my hasty Letter should occasion you to benefit the World with more of your Information in so considerable a point as is the nature of a Spirit was more than I thought of or could hope for Had I imagined that you would have so far honoured it I should have so written it as might have drawn out more of your Instruction and made your Animadversions yet more edifying § 2. I desired you to have forborn the title of Psychopyrist for these Reasons 1. Because it tendeth plainly to misinform the Reader as if I held that Souls or Spirits are Fire whereas in my Books and Letters I still say otherwise And that they may be so called not formaliter or univoce but only eminenter and analogice And when a name on the Title page through the whole and a supposition in much of your arguing implyeth that I hold what I renounce it may wrong your Reader 's understanding though I am below the capacity of being wronged 2. And the fastning of Nick-names on one another in Controversies of Religion hath so much caused Schisms and other mischiefs that I confess I the less like it about Philosophy But I must submit § 3. My understanding is grown so suspicious of ambiguity in almost all words that I must confess that what you say also against those whom you call Holenmerians and Nullibists satisfieth me not unless many terms used in the controversies were farther explained than I find them here or in your Metaphysicks your Books against Judge Hale I have not seen But I may take it for granted that you know that they who use the saying of Tota in toto tota in qualibet parte ordinarily tell us 1. That they use the word Tota relatively and improperly seeing that which hath no parts is improperly called Tota 2. That they mean it but negatively viz. That the Soul is not in the parts of the body per partes part in one part and part in another but indivisibly And one would think this should suit with your own hypothesis And when I better know in what sense Locus is used I shall be fitter to enquire whether Spirits be in loco When some take it for a circumscribing body and some for a subjective body on which it operateth and some for a meer room possest in vacuo and some for God himself in whom are all things the name of a Nullibist is as ambiguous to me § 4. You tell your Reader that All created Spirits are Souls in all probability and actuate some Matter or other Sir Philosophers freedom is usually taken easilyer than Divines I will therefore presume that our mutual freedom shall not be in the least distastful to either of us And so I must tell you that I have long taken it for a matter of very great use to distinguish unknown things from known and to bridle my understanding from presuming to enquire into unrevealed things And I take that holdness of Philosophers to have had a great hand in corrupting Divinity Secret things are for God and things revealed for us and our Children saith Moses And when I presume most I do but most lose my self and misuse my understanding nothing is good for that which it was not made for Our understandings as our Eyes are made only for things revealed In many of your Books I take this to be an excess And I have oft wondred at your Friend and sometime mine Mr. Glanvile that after his Scepsis scientifica he could talk and write of doubtful things with that strange degree of confidence and censuring of Dissenters as he did I am accused of overdoing and curiosity my self But I endeavour to confine my enquiries to things revealed This premised I say undoubtedly it is utterly unrevealed either as to any certainty or probability that all Spirits are Souls and actuate Matter Alass how should we come to know it Neither Nature nor Scripture tells it us But 1. If this be so the difference between you and the Psychopyrists must be opened as it is much like that of Mammertus and Faustus whether the Soul or a Spirit have Matter by composition or simply uncompounded for a body you suppose it still to have Is it separable from a Body or not If it be why should you think that it is never separated If it can subsist without a Body who can say that it doth not If it cannot but be inseparable it is a strange composition that God cannot dissolve And if it perish upon the dissolution then it was but an Accident of the body and not a compounding Substance Dr. Glissons and Campanella's way is as probable as this And I marvel that when you have dealt with so many sorts of Dessenters you meddle not with so subtile a piece as that old Doctor 's de Vita Naturae I have talkt with divers high pretenders to Philosophy here of the new strain and askt them their judgment of Dr. Glissons Book and I found that none of them understood it but neglected it as too hard for them and yet contemned it He supposeth all Matter to be animated without composition the Matter and Form being but conceptus inadequati of an uncompounded being however that Matter as such be divisible into atomes every atome still being uncompounded living Matter You suppose all Spirit to be in Matter but by way of composition as distinct substances I go the middle way and suppose that substance simple is Active or Passive that the three Passive Elements Earth Water and Air are animated only by composition or operation of the active But that the active substances have no composition but intellectual but Substance and Form are conceptus ejusdem inadequati So that what Dr. Glisson saith of every clod and stone I say only of Spirits of fire I shall speak after 2. And do you think that the Soul carrieth a body out of the body inseparable with it or only that it receiveth a new body when it passeth out of the old If the latter is there any instant of time
to you as a Teacher But whereas you say that these make three no more than Animal Homo and Brutum or Cupiditas Desiderium and Fuga you silence me for it beseemeth me not to speak to you in a Teaching Language and there is no other to convince you And if all that I have said in Method Theol. will not do it I confess it will not easily be done Animal Homo and Brutum are three words containing only a Generical and specifick nature in two distinct species of Subjects If you think that in the Sun Virtus-motiva illuminativa calefactiva or in mans Soul a vegetative sensitive and Intellective power or in the latter mentally-active Intellective and Volitive Virtue are no other I will not persuade you to change your mind much less give you any Answer to your simile of cupiditas desiderium fuga save that you might almost as well have named any three Words § 3. But you say The Omission of Immaterial in your Conceptus formalis or which is all one of Penetrability and Indiscerpibility is not only a mistake but a mischief it implying that the Virtus Appetitiva perceptiva may be in a Substance though material which betrays much of the succours which Philosophy affords to Religion c. Ans Melancholy may cause fears by seeming Apparitions I hope no body will be damned for using or not using the Word Material or Immaterial It 's easie to use either to prevent such danger And I am not willing again to examine the sense of these words every time you use them You know I said not that Spirits are Material And you say they are Substances of Extension Amplitude Spissitude Locality and Subtilty as opposite to Crassitude And what if another think just so of them or not so grosly and yet call them Matter will the word undoe him But you say I omitt Immaterial Ans See my Append. to Reas of Christ Rel. whether I omit it But is a bare Negative Essential to a just definition here Why then not many Negatives more as invisible insensible c. To say that Air is not Water or Water is not Earth was never taken for defining nor any mischief to omit it But that the positive term Purissima doth not include Immaterial and is not as good you have not as yet proved Is Substantia purissima material Do not you by that intimation do more to assert the Materiality of Spirits than ever I did Have you read what I have answered to 20 Objections of the Somatists in the aforesaid Append. But you say It implyeth that Virtus perceptiva c. may be in a substance material Ans Negatur If I leave out 20 Negatives in my Definition it followeth not that the form may be with their positives But can you excuse your self from what you call a Mischief when you intimate that Substantia purissima may be material Because I only called it purissima you say I imply it may be material But I confess I am too dull to be sure that God cannot endue matter itself with the formal Virtue of Perception That you say the Cartesians hold the contrary and that your Writings prove it certifieth me not O the marvellous difference of mens Conceptions Such great Wits as Campanella Dr. Glisson c. were confident that no Matter in the world was without the una-trina Virtus viz. Perceptive Appetitive and Motive I agree not with them But you on the contrary say that Materia qualitercunque modificata is uncapable of Perception I doubt not materia qua materia or yet qua mere modificata hath no LIfe But that it is uncapable of it and that Almighty God cannot make perceptive living Matter and that by informing it without mixture I cannot prove nor I think you Where is the Contradiction that makes it impossible Nor do I believe that it giveth a man any more cause to doubt as you add of the Existence of God or the Immortality of the Soul than your Opinion that saith God cannot do this To pass by many other I will but recite the words of Micraelius Ethnophron li. 1. c. 13. p. 23 24. instancing in many that held the Soul to be Pure Matter Eam Sententiam inter veteres probavit apud Macrobium Heraclitus Physicus cui anima est Essentiae Stellaris scintilla Et Hipparchus apud Plinium cui est coeli pars Et Africanus apud Ciceronem qui detrahit animum ex illis sempiternis ignibus quae Sidera vocamus quaeque globosae rotundae divinis animatae mentibus circules suos orbesque conficiunt celeritate mirabili Et Seneca qui descendisse eam ex illo coelesti Spiritu ait Et Plato ipse qui alicubi animam vocat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 radians splendidum vehiculum Et Epictetus qui Astra vocat nobis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 amica cognata elementa Ipseque cum Peripateticis Aristoteles qui eam quinta essentia constare 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in animabus inesse dicit Inter nostrates quoque Scaliger vocat animam Naturam coelestem quintam essentiam alia quidem à quatuor Elementis naturâ praeditam sed non sine omni materia Eadem Opinio arridet Roherto de Fluctibus c. And what many Fathers say I have elsewhere shewed And yet on condition you will not make the name Substance to signifie no real Being but a meer Relation or Quality I think you and I shall scarce differ in sense § 4. But you magnifie our difference saying In this you and I fundamentally differ in that you omit but I include Penetrability and Indiscerpibility in the Conceptus formalis of a Spirit Ans I think you mean better than you speak and err not fundamentally 1. I do not think that your two hard words are fundamentals nor that one or both are Synonyma to Immaterial 2. I do not think but Purissima includeth all that is true in them and so leaveth them not out 3. I do not leave them out of the Dispositio vel modus Substantiae though I leave them out of the Conceptus formalis 4. Your self affirm the vital Virtue to be the Conceptus formalis And hath a Spirit more forms than one You know of no existent Spirit in the World that hath not its proper specifick form And if your two words had been a Generical Form that 's no form to the species but a Substantiae dispositio Doth he fundamentally err that saith Corpus humanum organicum is not forma hominis Or that the puritas vel subtilitas materiae is not forma â—gnis vel solis but only the materiae dispositio If our little self made words were so dangerous on either side I should fear more hurt by making the form of a Spirit 1. To be but the Consistence or mode of the Substance 2. And that to consist in divers accidents conjunct 3. And those uncertain in part or unintelligible 4. And Spirits
waies forenamed 1. Whether it be from a principle in the Matter as Dr. Glisson thought as a Conceptus inadaequatus of its Essence or at least an inseparable Quality or Accident 2. Or whether it be by an Essential Compounding Principle as Anima in homine 3. Or by an extrinsick Agent only Did you think that you had answered these You say which Principle to be the Mover of the Matter of the Vniverse I have over and over again demonstrated in Ench. Metaph. Ans I would have had it plainer but must take it as it is It seems then that you think that it is only the Anima Mundi without any subordinate moving Principle But you should have spoken out I will not wrong you so much as to suppose that you think any Indiscerpible Spirit proper to a Stone or a Fox or an Ass moveth all the World Therefore I must judge that to the Motion of all the Stones Clods c. in the world there is none but an Universal Mover I confess I think as Dr. Gilbert de Magn. and many others that the whole Tellus hath one Active Principle which I plainly think is Fire and if he call it Anima Telluris I leave him to his liberty But I think there are subordinate particular Moving Principles besides the Universal Do you think that only the Anima Mundi animateth all Animals I think you do not else all Apparitions should be but by one Soul Besides an Anima Vniversalis there must be a particular or singular Soul in every Man Beast Bird c. There must be more than the Universal Soul to make you write speak do better than others And if so how am I sure that nothing under the Universal Spirit moveth descendentia gravia In motu projectorum another instance of my Ignorance there is sure some causality in Anima singulari projicientis The Universal Cause is ever one but excludeth not subordinate Moving Causes My old Friend Mr. Sam. Got on Mosis Philos supposeth each Element to have its special Spirit I am not so well skilled in such things as to come to that certainty which others pretend to I think to an equal common Motion an Universal Cause may suffice but when Motions differ I know not the different Causes so well as some think they do How you answered Judge Hale of the Rundle in the Water I know not But you that think Fire in the Sun to be no Spirit but Matter I am confident will never make me believe that Fire and Sun are moved only by the Universal Mover without any motive principle in themselves Your Metaphys c. 13. I have perused and am past doubt of a Spiritual Moving Power But two things I see not proved 1. That there are not particular Moving Principles subordinate to the more Universal 2. That the God of Nature hath not put into the passive Elements a strong inclination of the parts to union with the whole and to aggregative Motion when forcibly separated which Inclination Dr. Glisson calleth their Essential Life but I think is somewhat that deserveth not that name I have not read your Vol. Philos nor Adnot am nor Answer to Judge Hale § 2. Sect. 6. You say This is to joyn the property of a Spirit to Matter Answ That 's it that I doubt of whether all Self-motion under the Universal Mover be proper to a Spirit or only Vital Self-motion § 3. Your Assurance of the Earth's Motion assureth not me I have seen a M. S. of your Antagonist's Judge Hale that inclineth me to deny it and nothing more than the Igneous nature of the Sun to which Motion is natural and the torpid nature of Earth God making every thing fit for its use But of this as my judgment is of little value so I profess Ignorance § 4. That there is Activity in fixed Thoughts I grant for Thinking is Acting But that there is as much Activity in the not-acting of a Rock e.g. I deny § 5. Again you are at the Mischief of Leaving out your Penetrability and Indiscerpibility and Immateriality to which I have oft answered And I now add you make it an absurdity to name that as a Form which is not proper to the thing But Immateriality Penetrability or Indiscerpibility in your own Judgment I think are none of them proper to Spirit For they are common to divers Accidents in your account viz. Light Heat Cold c. are all these Ad SECT VII VIII § 1. YOU come to the main thing which I importuned you to bless the world with your explication of viz. The true difference of Substance and Matter And you say It 's obvious to any observing Eye They differ as Genus and Species Ans I would I had an observing Eye If by Matter you mean sensible Matter such as Man can see feel or measure c. the difference indeed is obvious My doubt is here seeing you confess that substare accidentibus is but a relative notion and it 's commonly said that God hath no Accidents and yet is a Substance How true I say not and all your notice of it besides Negatives is that Substance is a Being subsisting by it self and call this a compleat Definition 1. How you can call that a compleat Definition of that which indeed is not definable for want of a Genus For you say Metaph. c. 2. that Ens quatenus Ens non posse esse objectum Metaphysicae cum tam generale sit ut Ordine Naturae Doctrinae res Physicas antecedat c. But this I stick not at Things not definable may be partly known But 2. whereas it 's granted by you that Substantia and Vita or Virtus Activa are two inadequate Conceptus of a Spirit do you hold that the Conceptus of Substantiality hath any more in it of Real Entity than the bare Conceptus of Virtus Activa or Vitalis alone Or whether the meaning be that as it is Res the Virtus Activa is its total Conceptus and Substantia is but added to signifie that Res illa quae dicitur Vita vel Virtus Vitalis subsistit per se non in alio id est non est Accidens If this be the meaning that the word Vis or Virtus speak all that is Res and Substance speak only its state as being no Accident but a Self-Being this is intelligible and it agreeth with some mens thoughts of God himself But this seemeth neither to be true at least of Creatures nor to be your sense Not true for a Created Virtus vel Vita quae non est alicujus Substantiae Virtus vel ut Forma vel ut Accidens seemeth above our reach to conceive Though I know many call God Purus Actus the Schools mostly agree that Substantia is not univocally spoken of God and us and deny it to be properly said of God and I can easily grant that God is utterly above all formal knowledge of ours yet that Created
sortioris You think I suppose that which you call the Spirit of the World or Nature bigger in amplitude than the Spirit of a Wren § 8. Ad Sect. 16. You that say Spirits have Extension and Spissitude say that spissitude signifieth more substance in less compass And these Phrases sound liker to Corporeity than any that I have used More substance and less substance spissitude by Contraction signifie much change and signifie that which the Intellect may distinguish into partes extra partes though undivided which would increase a mans doubt whether God be not able to make a bigger Spirit less and a less bigger and to separate the parts that are so distinguishable in amplitude and to make one into two or two into one § 9. Whether Aether or Fire be material methinks you should be as uncertain at least as I. For you say Light is but motus of somwhat exciting the Spirit of the World If it be the Spirit of the world that is the nearest cause of Illumination by way of Natural activity than that which you call the Spirit of the World I call Fire and so we differ but de nomine But I have oft profest my Ignorance whether Fire and the Vegetative Nature be all one which I encline to think or whether Fire be a middle active Nature between the Spiritual and the meer passive by which Spirits work on Bodies I think I shall quickly know all this better than you do Ad SECT XVII XVIII XIX § 1. OF your Doctrine of Atomes I spake before I have no mind to examine the weight of your Reasons publickly § 2. I thought you that so extol the Atomists Doctrine would have deigned to read at least some of the Leaders of the various Sects And my undervaluing them is no excuse to you for as you knew not my judgment so I suppose you do not much esteem it That which I blame them for is that Lud. le Grand over-magnifieth Fire Telesius and Campanella over-magnifie Heat Patricius over-magnifieth Light as Cartesius doth Motion But if the one Principle of Motion Light and Heat had been better handled as one as it is it had been sounder § 3. I need not your hydrostatical experiment of the rising Rundle to convince me of the Motion of the matter of the World by a spiritual power I doubt as little of Spirits as of Bodies But I understand not what greater wonder there is in the rising of your Rundle than in the rising of a piece of Timber from the bottom of the Sea or that the heaviest body should sink lowest if it have way Whether Water consist of oblong flexible Bodies I am not much regardful to know Each of those oblong ones are divisible into Atomes § 4. But as to what hence you infer of Fire I make no doubt but the Flames and the red hot Iron are compouud things and that the oily or sulphureous matter moved and heated is the Substance which we see But I believe not that bare motion as motion were it never so swift wo'd cause this But that these effects are caused in the capable matter by the special action of a permeant Substance in itself invisible as Substance whose form is the Active Virtue of moving illuminating and heating and so is sensible only in this triple Effect And if you call this a Spirit I leave you to your Liberty Ad SECT XX. XXI § 1. THE seven Propositions which you find in my words I own save that the fourth should be thus formed That the Substantiae dispositio in fire distinct from the form beareth some such Analogy to a Spirit if it be not one viz. Vegetative that may somewhat serve us to conceive of it thereby and they that from this Analogy call it Ignis non formaliter sed eminenter are excusable though it can be no strict proper name that cometh not a forma § 2. Ad sect 21. But you ask Whether by Active power I mean a power alwaies exerting itself into act so that this fire is alwaies moving enlightning and hot formaliter else why should it be called Ignis Ans Answer your self when you speak of a power of Sensation and Intellection and Volition in a Soul do you mean a power alwaies exerting itself into sensation Intellection and Volition else why is it called a Soul Ans 2. I mean a power which hath alwaies an inclination to Act hath its own secret immanent act alwaies acts ad extra when it hath fit recipient objects As to your oft mentioned Confutation of Judge Hale having not read it I am no Judge of your performance You Question what is this new igneous substance never heard of before while in all Ages it hath been so famous a controversy when not only the Stoicks but most old Philosophers gave to it so much more than meet when Lud. Le Grand would make us believe that it was almost the only God of all the Heathen World under various names and while so many new Sects have written so many volumes of it who would have believed that even Dr. Henry More had never heard of it before To your question Is it material or immaterial I still answer material is a word of larger or narrower sense ambiguous I know that it hath the aforesaid Actions And by them I know that it hath the Power so to act and by both I know it is a substance capable of such power Acts And I know that the substance is invisible in se but seen in its Effects And my brain is too dark to be confident of more Let him that knoweth more boast of it § 3. You say A material Fire distinct from the flame of a Candle or Fire-stick or red hot Iron there is no more ground for than material Water distinct from Wells Rivers Seas c. Ans Do you not take Cartesius materia subtilis if not globuli aetherei to be invisible not alwaies appearing in Candles or Fire-sticks If a Soul may be a sensitive and intellective Substance and yet not be alwaies feeling or understanding why may there not be Fire where it shineth not It seemeth you take not the illuminated Air to be Ignite because it is not a Candle or Fire-stick I doubt not but Fire is a Substance permeant and existent in all mixt Bodies on Earth in ipsa tellure in Minerals in your Blood it is the prime part of that called the Spirits which are nothing but the Igneous Principle in a pure aerial Vehicle and is the Organ of the Sensitive Faculties of the Soul And if the Soul carry away any Vehicle with it it 's like to be some of this I doubt you take the same thing to be the Spirit of the world while you seem to vilifie it § 4. It 's strange when I tell you that I conceive of a Spirit but as Ignis eminenter and not formaliter that you should still ask whether I take it not for
Ignis formaliter I have often said that I think Substances differ so gradually that the lower â—ath still some Analogy to the higher And I still say that Natura Mentalis sensitiva are not Ignis formaliter But whether the Natura Vegetativa be any other than ipse ignis I know not but think it is no other Do you that better know its consistence call it Spirit or not as you please Ad Sect. 22. 23 24 25 26 27. § 1. YOU puzzle me more and more Before you said Fire is nothing but motion of sulphureous particles and only in Candles Fire-sticks hot Irons c. And yet now The vehicles of Angels are Igneous or aethereal Is an Angel only in a Candle or hot Iron c. Is motion yea motion of sulphureous particles their vehicle If they are Animals and have bodies as you think they are such as deserve a nobler Character § 2. I tell you still the Greek Fathers I think as well as I call'd mental and sensitive Spirits Ignis but Analogically which you call Symbolically If that satisfy you what have you all this while disputed against And if Fire be the vehicle of Angels it is a substance And when you seâ— the Motion Light and feel the heat dâ— you think what ever is the Recipient moved Matter that the invisible Mover is not present and contiguous It is that immediate mover which I call Fire and am fully satisfied doth it not by Motion only but the exerting of its triple Virtue § 3. You confess Sect. 24. the common use of the name of Fire applied to Souls by the old Philosophers and still you say it was but Symbolically and did they find no Reason to make Fire a Symbol rather than Earth or Water When I still tell you that it is only analogically that Souls may be called Fire did you fairly to pretend the contrary § 4. Yea Sect. 25. You are at it again saying that I seem to conceive the Fathers to speak not symbolically but properly Ans where and when did I say any such thing will you tell the world that a Man holds that which he never said and hath oft written against and write a Book against him on such a supposition and at last have nothing to say but Putarem I use not the words Symbolical and Proper they are not precise enough for this subject I said more when I said that Souls and Angels are called fire only eminenter analogice but not formaliter and forma dat nomen But you are offended that I say those Greek Fathers spake tolerably and informingly and you say It was mischievously inducing men to believe the Soul mortal For Light may be blown out and hot Iron cooled Ans Alas What dry Philosophy is this of Fire Is any thing annihilated when the Candle goeth out Was there not an invisible active principle moving your supposed sulphureous particles which was as immediate an Agent as your Soul is of Sensation or Intellection which remaineth the same But indeed it is Air and not Sulphur which is the first and nearest Recipient of the illuminating Act and is Conjux Ignis I suppose you 'l say The Spirit of the World doth this Ans Call it by what name you will It is a pure active Substance whose form is the Virtus motiva illuminativa calefactiva I think the same which when it operateth on due seminal matter is Vegetative But the World hath Spiritual Natures more noble than this viz. sensitive and intellective § 5. Ad Sect. 26. You say against the Fathers When we enquire into the distinct Nature of things we must bid adieu to Metaphors Ans When I am ignorant of my own Ignorance I will hear you I am far from dreaming that I have one formal Conception of God but only Analogical Only that of Ens is disputed between the Thomists and Scotists whether it be Univocal de Deo Creaturis And here Analogical is but Metaphorical And yet it is not nothing to see as in a Glass enigmatically And when I can perceive that your two hard words do not only signifie more than negatively and modally or qualitatively but also give us an Idea of a Spirit which hath nothing Metaphorical but all formal I shall magnifie them more than I do § 6. You say we must search out the adequate defiâ—ition Ans That adequate is a word too big for me I dare say that you have not an adequate knowledg of any thing in the World not of one Fly or Flea or Pile of Grass And can you make adequate Definitions of Angels and all Spirits Even who before twice told us that we know not the intimate essence of things but the Attributes Indeed I perceive your Attributes are such as will not notifie Essences I ask my own experience whether Indiscerpible is a word that giveth any Idea of the Essence save negative that it cannot be torn into pieces and modal and I find no other that it maketh on my Mind The common note of Matter is that it hath partes extra partes and I think you thus make Spirits material You make them parts of the compound Animal and you deny them to be toti in toto and you give them locality amplitude quantity And if so though they be indiscerpible they have continued parts intelligible and that part of the Soul is not in one hand which is in the other and as partes Animalis they are actually separable from the matter The Spiritus Mundi you suppose to be a great continued amplitude or extended Substance And Atomes are in some Elements a closely continued Substance You seem to make all Substance to be Atomes spiritual atomes and material atomes And I am not sure that God cannot make material atomes so continued a matter as that no Creature can discerp them is it any contradiction and I doubt not but Souls and Angels are so indivisible as that their Nature tendeth to continued undivided Unity and no Creature can divide them But that God cannot do it I cannot say Even of the Souls Mortality not only Arnobius but many other Christian Writers maintain that it is mortal naturâ but immortal ex dono which is unfitly spoken but well meant that is God hath made their Natures such as have no tendency in themselves to a Dissolution or Destruction but not such as he cannot dissolve or destroy Yea I doubt not but without a continued Divine Sustentation all the World would in a moment be annihilated Preservation being a continued sort of Creation Your owning nothing in Fire but what 's visible I have spoke to Ad SECT XXVIII § 1. THat Spirits are each Ens unum per se so as to have no divided parts or such as tend to dissolution I doubt not that they are each one by the continued uniting Influx of that God who continueth their Being and so far per aliud is past doubt You here make Metaphysical Monades
And I have long thought that so much selfishness as is our sin or imperfection is a potent cause of making all men more regardful of Individuation and fearful of losing it by Union of Spirits than they ought and that holy Souls will be nearlier one with Christ and one another than we can here desire or conceive and yet Individuation secundum quid at least shall be continued But yet I say while there is numerus animarum and it is uncertain whether also each Orb hath not one and you plead for Amplitude and Minority Quantity and the Bodies animated may as vastly differ as a Flea or a Wren or a Pigmy and the Sun it is quite above my reach to know that a change of Individuals by making one many or many one is a contradiction and so impossible And as to Penetrability I repeat that seeing by Penetration I suppose you mean not piercing inter partes but possessing the same place with other things and contraction of itself into less amplitude as I know not how a thing that hath no parts and that extra partes can contract itself into less space which is to contract parts that are no parts so I cannot see but such Contraction and Colocality must needs be limited so as that all the World cannot be deserted and mortified by all Spirits Contraction to one narrow space nor yet that at once every Spirit is every where and when the Contraction and Colocality is come to the narrowest possible in that state Spirits must needs be further impenetrable that is no more can be in that space So that while I am past doubt that God hath made Spirits of no kind of parts but what do naturally abhor separation and so are inseparable unless God will separate them and so there is no fear of altering the Individuation much less the species of Souls I there stop and will put no more into my definitions of Souls or Spirits than I know at least as strongly probable much less by laying the formal Essence on a Composition of hard doubtful words tempt all to believe tkat the very Being of Spirits is as doubtful as those words are Ad SECT XXIII § 1. YOu said That a Spirit is Ens ideoque verum and that True implieth a right matter and form duly conjoined To which I said Do you not here make Spirits material You answered I do not make Spirits material in any sense derogatory to their Nature and Perfections Reply Nor do those that I excused so then after all these Sections you make Spirits consist of Matter and form in a sense agreeable to their nature and perfection And so de nomine you come nearer those that you accuse than I do § 2. But you say That Matter and Form I there speak of is a Matter and Form that belongs to Ens quatenus Ens in a most general notion prescinded from all kinds of Being whatever and therefore belongs to Beings Immaterial Ans If you may say Quidvis de quovis lay not too great stress on words Ens quatenus Ens hath no Form nor proper Matter Ens is that terminus incomplexus to whose Conception all other are resolved Therefore every other conception incomplex or complex must add somwhat to it It can be no Genu◠or Species If it have any kind of Matter and Form it is more than Ens quatenus Ens And sure that which is prescinded from all particular kinds of Being is prescinded from Material and Immaterial unless the word particular be a Cothurnus To say that Ens hath Matter and Form is to say more than Ens a most general notion as you call it But if Ens as the most general notion have Matter and Form then so hath Spirits and every subordinate for the general is in them all § 3. But you say It 's only materia forma logica To which I answered before That 's but to say It is notio secunda which if it be not fitted ad primam or ut signum ad rem significandam it is false And we suppose you to mean to speak truly and aptly If you should mean neither materia ex qua nor in qua but circa quam so Form may be Matter § 4. You say Nor is the Form adjoined in a Physical Sense to the Matter unless where the Form and Matter are Substances really distinct Ans 1. I believe not this to be true If it be then only Compounds have Form and Matter but I think Simples have Matter and Form that are not two Substances but one As I have oft said Dr. Glisson after others most subtilly laboureth to prove it of every simple Substance that its Matter and Form are not compounding parts but Conceptus inadaequati If the Intellect compound and divide its own Conceptions that maketh not a real Composition of two Substances in the objects but as the Scotists call it of two Formalities or Conceptus objectivi which if you will call a Logical Composition or Intellectual if you explain it the matter is small But besides that Earth Water and Air have their Matter and differencing Forms which are not two Substances so hath Fire in a more noble sense if it be material And by your Application of the word Physical you seem to extend it to Spirits And if so I am past doubt that the Substance and Form of Spirits are not two distinct conjoined Substances Too many Logicians have hitherto taken the Potentia naturalis or Faculties of the Soul to be accidents in the Predicament of Quality Let them call them Qualities if they please but the Scotists have fully prov'd them to be no Accidents but the formal Essence of the Soul and I have answered all Zabarell's Arguments ubi sup And this Virtus formalis vel facultas vel potentia activa is not a Substance joined to a Substance but the form of a simple Substance But I perceive by your next words that you approve all this and speak only of mental Composition as to Spirits And I say that the Mind should conceive and the Tongue speak of things as they are and not at once deny Materiality to Spirits and call them Logically material or at least bear with others that say but the same If Logical Matter speak not Substantiality at least it is delusive Your Interminata amplitudo sounds so like Infinita that I am not willing to say that no Spirit hath any Terminos Substantiae Ad SECT XXXIII XXXIV The Conclusion § 1. YOu say that I wrote not so curtly but that I have sufficiently conveyed my mind to you ans I would have done so had I dream'd of your Printing it But that I did not appeareth by your grand Mistake as if I 〈◊〉 asserted that materiality of Spirits which is proper to Bodies § 2. As in all our difference lieth in a much smaller matter than you thought so in your great design of convincing the blinded Sadduces of this Age and in
by a self-moving power also Else there were no living creature but bodies in themselves dead animated by God But it would be too tedious to say all against this that 's to be said § 20. When you tell us of One life in all differenc'd only by diversity of Organs you mean God or a common created Soul If God I tell you where I have confuted it It 's pity to torment or punish God in a murderer or call him wicked in a wicked man or that one man should be hang'd and another prais'd because the Engines of their bodies are diverse But the best Anatomists say That nothing is to be seen in the brain of other Animals why they might not be as rational as Men. And if it be an Animâ— creata communis that you mean either 〈◊〉 think it is a universal Soul to the universâ—â— world or only to this Earth or Vortex If to all the World you feign it to have 〈◊〉 Prerogative If to part of the world 〈◊〉 each Vortex Sun Star c. have a distâ—â—â— individuate superior Soul why not 〈◊〉 so inferiors And why may not millions of individual Spirits consist with more common or universal Spirits as well as the life 〈◊〉 Worms in your belly with yours That which hath no Soul or Spirit of its own 〈◊〉 not fit for such reception and communion with superior Spirits as that which hath Communion requireth some similitude We see God useth not all things alike because he makes them not like § 21. But if the difference between Beasts Trees Stones and Men be only the organical contexture of the body then 1. Either all these have but one Soul and 〈◊〉 are but one save corporeally 2. Or 〈◊〉 very Stone Tree and Beast hath an Intellectual Soul for it is evident that man hath by its Operations I. Had you made but Virtue and Vice to be only the effects of the bodies contexture sure you would only blame the maker â—f your body and not your self for any of your Crimes For yon did not make your own body if you were nothing Is the common light and sense of Nature no Evidence Doth not all the world difference Virtue and Vice moral good and evil Is it only the difference of an Instrument in Tune and out of Tune Either then all called sin is good or God or the universal Soul only is to be blamed Then to call you a Knave or a Lyar or Perjured c. is no more disgrace than to say that you are sick or blind Then all Laws are made only to bind God or the Amima mundi and all punishment is threatned to God or this common Soul And it is God or the common Soul only in a body which sorroweth feareth feeleth pain or pleasure II. And if you equal the Souls of Beasts Trees Stones and Men you must make them all to have an Intellectual Soul If man had not he could never understand And if they have so also frustra fit potentia quae nunquam producitur in actum It is certain that it is not the body Earth Air or Water that feeleth much less that understandeth or willeth If therefore all men have but one Soul why is it not you that are in pain or joy when any or all others are so Tour suffering and joys are as much theirs You hurt your self when you hurt a Malefactor Why are you not answerable for the Crimes of every Thief if all be one § 22. You vainly liken several Natures and Faculties to several pieces of Clock-work For Natures and Faculties are self-acting Principles under the prime Agent but a Clock is only passive moved by another Whether the motus gravitationis in the poise be by an intrinslck Principle or by another 〈◊〉 active Nature is all that 's controvertible there All that your similitude will infer is this That as the gravitation of one poise moves every wheel according to its receptive aptitude so God the universal Spirit moveth all that is moved according to their several aptitudes passives as passive actives as active vitals as self-movers intellectuals as intellectual-free-self-movers under him No Art can make a Clock feel see or understand But if the world have but one soul what mean you by its concentring in the Carcass Is the universal Soul there fallen asleep or imprisoned in a Grave or what is it § 23. Add page 5. You well say That Life is the cause of all motion Yea infinite Life Wisdom and Love is the cause of all but there be second Causes under it Plurima ex uno And it maketh things various which it moveth variously and maketh them vital sensitive or mental which he will move to vital sensitive and mental acts Operari sequitur esse § 24. You are apt to believe That those eminent Faculties wherewith men seem meer Sensitives are only the improvement of Speech and reiterated Acts till they become Habits Ans 1. I had a Parrot that spoke so very plainly that no Man could discern but he could have spoke as well as a Man if he had but had the Intellect of a Man and quickly would learn new words but shewed no understanding of them 2. Many men born deaf and dumb are of a strong understanding enquire of a Brother of Sir Richard Dyett's a Son of Mr. Peter Whalley of Northampton a Son in Law of the Lord Wharton's c. 3. The Faculty and the Habit are Two things The Faculty is the Essential form of the Substance The Habit or Act is but an Accident The Faculty is nothing but the active Power And the Power goeth before the Act. Doth acting without Power to act cause the Power What need you the Power if you can act without it And what 's a Contradiction if this be not to say I do that which I cannot do or I can do that which I have no power to do You are not a man without the Faculty but you are without the Act or else you are no man in your sleep The act then is but the Faculties act and Habits are nothing but the Faculties promptitude to act And this indeed is caused sometime by very strong acts and sometime and usually by frequent acts and sometime suddenly by a special Divine Operation No doubt but Oratory and all Arts and Sciences are caused by frequent acts and their Objects But those acts are caused by humane Faculties under God the first Cause You can never cause a Carcass or a Parrot or any Bruit to think of God and the glory to come nor to do any proper humane act Credible History assureth us That Devils or separate Souls have acted Carcasses and discoursed in them and seemed to commit Fornication in them and left them dead behind them and they were known to be the same that were lately executed or dead and were re-buried Here the dead Organ was capable when a Spirit did but use it You too much confound Intelléction and Ratiocination The prime acts of