Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/75

Rh spirits and the Body; 11. And therefore is a Substance Incorporeal. 12. The discovery of the Essence of the Soul, of what great usefulness for the easter conceiving the nature of God. 13. And how there may be an Eternal Mind that has both Understanding and power of Moving the Matter of the Universe.

E have done with all those more obvious Faculties in the Soul of Man that naturally tend to the discovery of the Existence of a God. Let us briefly, before we loose from our selves and lanch out into the vast Ocean of the Externall Phænomena of Nature, consider the Essence of the Soul her self, what it is, whether a mere Modification of the Body, or Substance distinct therefrom; and then whether Corporeal or Incorporeal. For upon the clearing of this point we may haply be convinced that there is a Spiritual Substance really distinct from the Matter; which who so does acknowledge, will be easilier induced to believe there is a God.

2. First therefore, if we say that the Soul is a mere Modification of the Body, the Soul then is but one universal Faculty of the Body, or a many Faculties put together, and those Operations which are usually attributed unto the Soul, must of necessity be attributed unto the Body. I demand therefore, to what in the Body will you attribute Spontaneous Motion? I understand thereby, A power in our selves of moving or holding still most of the parts of our Body, as our hand, suppose, or little finger. If you will say that it is nothing but the immission of the Spirits into such and such Muscles, I would gladly know what does immit these Spirits, and direct them so curiously. Is it themselves, or the Brain, or that particular piece of the Brain they call the Conarion or Pine-kernel? Whatever it be, that which does thus immit them and direct them must have Animadversion, and the same that has Animadversion has Memory also and Reason. Now I would know whether the Spirits themselves be capable of Animadversion, Memory and Reason; for it indeed seems altogether impossible. For these Animal Spirits are nothing else but matter very thin and liquid, whose nature consists in this, that all the particles of it be in Motion, and being loose from one another, fridge and play up and down according to the measure and manner of agitation in them.

3. I therefore now demand, which of the particles in these so many loosely moving one from another has Animadversion in it? If you say that they all put together have, I appeal to him that thus answers, how unlikely it is that that should have Animadversion that is so utterly uncapable of Memory, and consequently of Reason. For it is as impossible to conceive Memory competible to such a Subject, as it is how to write Characters in the water or in the wind.

4. If you say the Brain immits and directs these Spirits, how can that so freely and spontaneously move it self or another that has no Muscles? besides, Anatomists tell us, that though the Brain be the instrument of sense, yet it has no sense at all of it self; how then can that that has no sense direct thus spontaneously and arbitrariously the Animal Spirits into any part of the Body? an act that plainly requires determinate sense and Rh