Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/226

184 12. That if Spirits or Dæmons be nothing but mere compilements of Aiery or Fiery Atoms, every Devil is many Millions of Devils. 13. The preeminence of Arguments fetched from the History of Spirits'' above those from the Operations of the Soul in the Body. for the proving of a ''Substance Immaterial.

HE first Philosophical Objection is against the Transformation of an humane body into the shape suppose of a Wolf or any such like creature: For it is conceived that it cannot be done without a great deal of pain to the transformed, To which I answer, That though this Transformation be made in a very short time, yet it may be performed without any pain at all. For that part in the Head which is the seat of Common sense I conceive is very small (suppose it to be the Conarion, it is not very big:) wherefore the Devil getting into the Body of a man and possessing that part with the rest, can intercept or keep off all the transmissions of motion from other parts of the Body, that, let him doe what he will with them, the Party shall feel no pain at all; so that he may soften all the parts of the Body besides into what consistency he please, and work it into any form he can his own Vehicle of Aire, and the Party not be sensible thereof all the time. And there is the same reason of reducing the Body into its own shape again, which is as painless to the Party that suffers it. Nor is there any fear that the Body once loosned thus will ever after be in this loose melting condition; for it is acknowledged even by them that oppose Bodinus, whose cause I undertake, that a Spirit can as well stop and fix a Body as move it. Wherefore I say, when the Devil has fixed again the Body in its pristine shape, it will according to the undeniable laws of Nature remain in that state he left it, till something more powerful dissettle and change it: and every Body is overpowered at last, and we must all yield to death.

2. The second Objection is against our acknowledging an actual separation of Soul and Body without death, death being properly, as we define it, a disjunction of the Soul from the body by reason of the Bodies unfitness any longer to entertain the Soul, which may be caused by extremity of diseases, by outward violence or old age. Now, say they, What is violence, if this be not, for the Devil to take the Soul out of the Body? But the Answer is easie. That any separation by violence is not death, but such a violence in separation as makes the body unfit to entertain the Soul again; as it is in letting the bloud run out by wounding the body, and in hindring the course of the spirits by strangling it, or drowning it, or the like. For to revive such a Body as this would be a miracle indeed, in such cases as these, death having seised upon the Body in a true and proper sense; and then none but God himself can thus kill and make alive.

3. The third Objection is against the notable coldness of the bodies of Devils. For at the great trial of Witches at S. Edmonds-Bury Assises in August 1645. I heard some of them openly confess at the Bar, sayes the Objector, that when the Devil lay with them, he was warm. To which I might answer, if I had a mind rather to shuffle then precisely to satisfie Rh