Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/196

154 10. And the strength of this our third and last Answer consists in this, that there are indeed several such operations apparently transcending the power of Matter, of which we will onely here briefly repeat the heads, having more fully discoursed of them in the foregoing Treatise.

And first, I instance in what is more general, and acknowledged by Des-Cartes himself, who yet has entituled the Laws of Matter to the highest Effects that ever any Man could rationally do: and 'tis this; That that Matter out of which all things are, is of it self uniform and of one kinde. From whence I infer, that of it self therefore it all either rests or moves, If all rest, there is something besides Matter that moves it, which necessarily is a Spirit: If it all move, there could not be possibly the coalition of any thing, but every imaginable particle would be actually loose from another. Wherefore there is required a Substance besides Matter that must binde what we finde fix'd and bound.

The second Instance is in that admirable Wisdom discoverable in all the works of Nature, which I have largely insisted on in my Second Book, which do manifestly evince that all things are contriv'd by a wise Principle: But who but a fool will say that the Matter is wise, and yet notwithstanding out of the putrefied parts even of the Earth it self, as also out of the drops of dew, rotten pieces of wood, and such like geer, the bodies of Animals do arise so artificially and exquisitely well framed, that the reason of Man cannot contemplate them but with the greatest pleasure and admiration?

Thirdly, those many and undeniable Stories of Apparitions do clearly evince, that an Understanding lodges in sundry Aiery bodies, when it is utterly impossible that Aire should be so arbitrariously changed into shapes, and yet held together as an actuated vehicle of life, if there were not something besides the Aire it self that did thus possess it and moderate it, and could dilate, contract, and guide it as it pleased; otherwise it would be no better figured nor more steddily kept together then the fume of Tobacco or the reek of Chimneys.

Fourthly and lastly, It is manifest that that which in us understands, remembers and perceives, is that which moves our bodies, and that those Cognoscitive Faculties can be no operation of the bare Matter. From whence it is evident that there is in our Bodies an Intellectual spirit that moves them as it pleases; as I have largely enough prov'd in the last Chapter of the First Book of my Antidote, and still yet further confirm when we come to the Objections made against it. Rh