Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/210

 Religious veneration, viz. The manifold ridiculous Religions in the world; from whence it is inferred that the Mind of man has no Innate principle of Religion at all in it, it being mouldable into any shape or form of Worship that it pleases the Supreme Power in every Countrey to propose; I answer to this,

First, That if every Religionist would look upon extraneous Religions with the same venerable candor and awfull sobriety that he does upon his own, he might rather finde them worthy to be pitied for their falseness then laughed at for their ridiculousness. But it no more follows that all Religions are false because so many are, then that no Philosophick opinions are true because so many are false.

But, secondly, The multitude of various and, if you will, fond Religions in the world, into which the Nations of the earth are mouldable, the more ridiculous, the never the worse for our purpose, who contend that Religion is a natural property of man. For the necessity of its adherence to our nature is more manifestly evidenced thereby, who can no more be without Religion then Matter can be without Figure, though few parts of it have the happiness to be framed into what is Regular or Ordinate, or to have any beauty or proportion in their shape, and yet break the Matter as you will, it will be in some shape or other.





1. That though the Common might be the Seat of Common Sense, yet it cannot be the Common Percipient; 2. As being incapable of Sensation, 3. Of Memory, 4.Of Imagination, 5. Of Reason, 6. And of Spontaneous Motion. 7. That these Arguments do not equally prove an Incorporeal Substance in Brutes; nor, if they did, were their Souls straightway immortal. 8. That we cannot admit Perception in Matter as well as Divisibility, upon pretence the one is no more perplex'd then the other; because both Sense and Reason averres the one, but no faculty gives witness to the other. 9. In what sense the Soul is both divisible and extended. 10. A Symbolical representation how she may receive multitudes of distinct figurations into one indivisible Principle of perception. 11. That the manifest incapacity in the Matter for the Functions of a Soul assures us of the Existence hereof, be we never so much puzzled in the speculation of her Essence.

E have in the last Chapter of our first Book largely and evidently enough demonstrated, That neither the Animal Spirits the nor Brain are the first Principle of Spontaneous motion in us; we touch'd also upon the Conarion: but because our Opposers will not be so slightly put off, we shall here more fully & particularly shew the impossibility of that part proving any such Principle of Motion, though I confess it bids very fair to be the Organical seat of Common sense, because it is so  Rh