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
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
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
existed be swallowed up of one where are the Rewards and Punishments of each individual And we have reason to judg it will be thus rather than otherwise because we see every thing tends to its own Centre the Water to the Sea and all that was of the Earth to the Earth from whence they were taken And Solomon saith The spirit returns to God that gave it Every thing then returning to its own Element Ioseth its Individuation For we see all bodies returning to the earth are no more individual bodies but earth Have we not reason then to judg the same of Spirits returning to their own Element And what happiness then can we hope for more than a deliverance from the present calamity or what misery are we eapable of more than what is common to all The same is more evident in the body with which we converse and are more sensibly acquainted with seems wholly uncapable of either c. For all bodies are material and matter it self is not capable of multiplication but of being changed Therefore Nature cannot multiply bodies but changeth them as some bodies arise others perish Natures expence in continual Productions being constantly supplied by the dissolution of other Compounds were it otherwise her Store-house would be exhausted for it s by continual Circulations Heaven and Earth is maintain'd and by her even Circular motion she keeps her self imployed on the same stock of matter and maintains every species There is no body the same to day it was yesterday matter being in a continual flux neither immediately on the dissolution of a Compound and Corruption of the body doth the earth thereof retain any specifick difference of that body it once was but is immediately bestowed by Nature and ordered to the new production of other things That part of matter therefore which constituteth a humane body in a short time is putrified and made earth which again produceth either other inferior Animals or Grass or Corn for the nourishment of Beasts and Fowl which again are the nourishment of men Thus circularly innumerable times round Nature continually impressing new forms of the same matter So that that matter that now constitutes my body it may be a thousand years ago was the matter of some other mans or it may be of divers mens then putrified which in this time hath suffered infinite changes as it may be sometime Grass or Corn or an Herb or Bird or Beast or divers of them or all and that divers times over before my body was framed who then can say why this matter so changeable should at last be restored my body rather than his whose formerly it was or the body of a Bird or other Animal For by the same Reasons that the body of man is proved to arise again may I think be proved the Restoration of all other bodies which is equally incredible to me if understood at one time For Natures stock of matter being all at first exhausted she could not employ her self in new Productions without destroying some of the old much less can she at once fabricate out of the same quantity of matter all the bodies that ever were are or shall be which yet notwithstanding could she they could not be said to be the same bodies because all bodies suffer such alteration daily that they cannot be said to be the same to day they were yesterday how then can they be capable of Reward or Punishment These are now my doubts but are they the fruits of Diligence and am I thus rewarded for not believing at a common rate A great deal cheaper could I have sate down and believed as the Church believes without a why or a wherefore have been ignorant of these Disputes and never have emerged my self in this gulf than thus by Reflection to create my own disturbance Had I been made a meer Animal I had had none of these Doubts nor Fears that thus torment my mind for doubting happy Bruits happy far more happy than my self With you is none of this with you only is serenity of mind and you only void of Anxieties you only enjoy what this world is able to accommodate with and it may be too have those Caresses we know not of while we your poor purveyors go drooping and disponding doubting fearing and caring about and our whole lives only a preying on one another and tormenting our selves You have the carnal content and satisfaction we nothing but the shell a vain glorious boast of our Lordship over you with which we seek to satisfie our selves as Prodigals with husks while the truth is we are afraid to confront our Vassals except we first by craft and treachery beguile them from whom likewise we flee if once enraged and what a poor comfort is this Is this a Priviledg to boast of Is this all Reason advanceth to only a Purveyor to Beasts and to make my life more miserable by how much more sensible of misery Well might Solomon prefer the dead before the living and those that had not been before both intimating thereby that being best least capable of misery that is of Trees of Herbs of Stones and all inanimates which wanting sense are insensible of misery Better any thing than man therefore since that every brute and inanimate stock or stone are more happy in that measure they are less capable of misery What the advantage then what the benefit that occurs to us from them or what preheminence have we above them seeing as dieth the one so dieth the other and that they have all one breath Pardon this Degression the real sense and apprehension I have of things extort it from me For I as Job cannot refrain my mouth but speak in the bitterness of my Spirit and complain in the anguish of my Soul Why died I not from the womb why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly Why did the knees prevent me or why the breasts that I should suck I had then been among Solomon 's happy ones I should now have lain still and been quiet I should have slept and been at rest whereas now I am weary of life For tho I speak my grief is not asswaged and tho I forbear I am not eased but now he hath made me weary and made desolate all my company he hath filled me with wrinkles which is a witness against me and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face God hath delivered me to the ungodly and turned me over into the hand of the wicked and my familiar friends have forgotten me I said I shall die in my nest and shall multiply my days as the sand when my root was spread out by the waters and the dew lay all night on my branch when my glory was fresh and my bow was renewed in my hand but I find while my flesh is upon me I shall have pain and while my soul is in me it shall mourn Have pity upon me O my friend
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
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