Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/213

Rh Animal spirits being so very thin and fluid, and the Conarion so broad and blunt: For the one gives as to conceive, That the Spirits, especially being so faintly struck as they are likely to be by the Conarion, and certainly sometimes are, will gently wheel about all over the ventricles of the Brain, and be determinated to no key thereof that leads to the Muscle of this or that particular joynt of the body; and the other, That it this impulse of the Conarion will forcibly enough drive forward the Spirits in the ventricles of the Brain, that that wind will, fling open more doors then one, whenas yet we see we can with a very considerable force move a finger or a toe, the rest of our body remaining unmoved. We might adde also, That it is hard to conceive how this Pineal Glandula can move it self thus spontaneously without Muscles and Spirits, or some equivalent mechanical contrivance, and if it do, to what purpose is that great care in Nature of Muscles and Animal Spirits in the frame of Animals? if it do not, we shall further inquire concerning the Spring of Motion, and demand what moves the Animal Spirits that must be imagined to move the Conarion. For in Motion corporeal it is an acknowledged Maxime, Whatever is moved, is moved by another. So demonstrable is it every way that the first principle of our spontaneous motion is not nor can be seated in any part of our Body, but in a Substance really distinct from it, which men ordinarily call the Soul.

7. Nor does that at all invalid the force of our Demonstration which some alledge, that our Arguments are Sophistical, because they as certainly conclude that there is an Incorporeal substance in Beasts as they do that there is one in Men.

For I answer, first, That they conclude absolutely concerning Men, that there is an Incorporeal Soul in them, because we are certain there be in them such Operations that evidently argue such a nature; but we are not so certain of what is in Beasts: and very knowing men, but of a more mechanical Genius, have at least doubted whether Beasts have any Cogitation or no, though in the mean time they have professed themselves sure, that if they had, they could not but have also Immaterial Souls really distinct from their Bodies.

Secondly, Admit our Arguments proved that there were Souls in Brutes really distinct: from their Bodies, is it any thing more then what all Philosophers and School-men, that have held Substantial forms, have either expressely or implicitly acknowledged to be true? But if they be Incorporeal, say they, they will be also Immortal, which is ridiculous. If they mean by Immortal, unperishable, as Matter is, why should they not be so as well as Matter it self, this active substance of the Soul, though but of a Brute, being a more noble Essence, and partaking more of its Makers perfection, then the dull and dissipable Matter? But if they mean by Immortality, a capacity of eternal life and bliss after the dissolution of their Bodies, that's a ridiculous consequence of their own, which we give the Authors of free leave to laugh at; it concerns not us nor our present Argument. For we conceive that the Soul of a Brute may be of that nature as to be vitally affected only in a Terrestrial Body, and that out of it it may have neither sense nor perception of any thing; so as to it self it utterly perishes. Rh