Page:A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More.djvu/77

Rh pearing to us but one Animadversion, as but one site of things, it is a sufficient Argument that there but one; or if there be many, that they are not mutually communicated from the parts one to another, and that therefore there can be no such joynt endeavour toward one designe: whence it is manifest that the Brains cannot immit nor direct these Animal Spirits into what part of the Body they please.

7. Moreover, that the Brain has no Sense, and therefore cannot impress spontaneously any motion on the Animal Spirits, it is no slight Argument, in that some being dissected have been found without Brains; and Fontanus tells us of a Boy at Amsterdam that had nothing but limpid water in his head in stead of Brains; and the Brains generally are easily dissolvable into a watery consistence; which agrees with what I intimated before. Now I appeal to any free Judge, how likely these liquid particles are to approve themselves of that nature and power as to be able, by erecting and knitting themselves together for a moment of time, to bear themselves so as with one joynt contention of strength to cause an arbitrarious ablegation of the Spirits into this or that determinate part of the Body. But the absurdity of this I have sufficiently insinuated already.

Lastly, the Nerves, I mean the marrow of them, which is of the self-same substance with the Brain, have no Sense, as is demonstrable from a Catalepsis or Catochus, But I will not accumulate Arguments in a matter so palpable.

8. As for that little sprunt piece of the Brain which they call the Conarion, that this should be the very substance whose natural faculty it is to move it self, and by its motions and nods to determinate the course of the Spirits into this or that part of the Body, seems to me no less foolish and fabulous then the story of him that could change the wind as he pleased, by setting his cap on this or that side of his head.

If you heard but the magnificent stories that are told of this little lurking Mushrome, how it does not onely hear and see, but imagines, reasons, commands the whole fabrick of the body more dexterously then an Indian boy does an Elephant, what an acute Logician, subtle Geometrician, prudent Statesman, skilfull Physician, and profound Philosopher he is, and then afterward by dissection you discover this worker of Miracles to be nothing but a poor silly contemptible Knob or Protuberancy, consisting of a thin Membrane containing a little pulpous Matter, much of the same nature with the rest of the Brain; would you not sooner laugh at it then go about to confute it? And truly I may the better laugh at it now, having already confuted it in what I have afore argued concerning the rest of the Brain.

9. I shall therefore make bold to conclude, that the impress of Spontaneous Motion is neither from the Animal Spirits nor from the Brain, and therefore that those Operations that are usually attributed unto the Soul are really incompetible to any part of the Body, and therefore that the Soul is not a mere Modification of the Body, but a Substance distinct therefrom.

10. Now we are to enquire whether this Substance distinct from what Rh