Two treatises in the one of which the nature of bodies, in the other, the nature of mans soule is looked into in way of discovery of the immortality of reasonable soules.

THE PREFACE.

IT is now high time for vs to cast an eye vpon the other leafe of our accounts: or peraduenture I may more properly say, to fall to the perusall of our owne accountes: for hitherto, our time and paines haue beene taken vp, in examining and casting the accountes of others: to the end, that from the foote and totall of them, we may driue on our owne the more smoothly. In ours then, we shall meete with a new Capitall; we shall discouer a new world, of a quite different straine and nature from that which all this while we haue employed ourselues about. We will enter into them, with taking a suruay of the great Master of all that large family, we haue so summarily viewed: I meane of Man, as he is Man: that is, not as he is subiect to those lawes whereby other bodies are gouerned (for therein he hath no praeeminence, to raise him out of their throng:) but as he exceedeth the rest of creatures, which are subiect to his managing: and as he ruleth ouer nature herselfe, making her serue his designes; and subiecting her noblest powers, to his lawes, and as he is distinguished from all other creatures whatsoeuer. To the end we may discouer, whether that principle in him, from whence those actions do proceede which are properly his, be but some refined composition, of the same kind we haue already treated of: or whether it deriueth its source and origine, from some higher spring and stocke, and be of a quite different nature.

Hauing then by our former Treatise mastered the oppositions, which else would haue taken armes against vs, when we should haue beene in the middest of our aedifice; and hauing cleared the obiections which lay in our way, from the peruerse Qualities of the soules neighbours, the seuerall common wealthes of Bodies: we must now beginne with Dauid to gather together our Materialls; and to take a suruay of our owne prouisions: that so we may proceed with Salomon, to the sacred building of Gods

temple. But before we goe about it, it will not be amisse, that we shew the reason, why we haue made our porch so great, and haue added so long an entry, that the house is not likely to haue there∣vnto a correspondent bulke: and when the necessity of my doing so, shall appeare, I hope my paines will meete with a fauourable censure, and receiue a faire admittance.

We proposed vnto our selues to shew that our soules are immortall: wherevpon, casting about to find the groundes of immortality, and discerning it to be a negatiue, we conceiued that we ought to beginne our search, with enquiring What Morta∣lity is; and what be the causes of it. Which when we should haue discouered, and haue brought the soule to their teste, if we found they trēched not vpon her, nor any way concerned her condition, we might safely conclude, that of necessity she must be immortall. Looking then into the causes of mortality, we saw that all bodies round about vs were mortall: whence perceiuing that mortality extended it selfe as farre as corporeity, we found our selues obliged, if we would free the soule from that law, to shew that she is not corporeall. This could not be done without enquiring what corporeity was. Now it being a rule among Logitians, that a defi∣nition can not be good, vnlesse it comprehend and reach to euery particular of that which is defined; we perceiued it impossible to know compleatly, what a Body is, without taking a generall view of all those thinges, which we comprise vnder the name and meaning of Bodies. This is the cause, we spent so much time in the first Treatise: and I hope to good purpose; for there we found, that the nature of a Body, consisted in being made of partes: that all the differencies of bodies, are reduced to hauing more or lesse partes, in comparison to their substance, thus and thus ordered: and lastly, thall all their operations, are nothing else but locall motion, which followeth naturally out of hauing partes. So as it appeareth euidently from hence, that if any thing haue a being, and yet haue no partes; it is not a body, but a substance of an other quality and condition: and consequently, if we can find the soules Being to be without partes, and that her operations, are no locall translation▪ we euidently conclude her to be an immateriall or spirituall substance.

Peraduenture it may be obiected, that all this might haue beene done a much shorter way then we haue taken; and that we needed not haue branched our discourse, into so many particulars,

nor haue driuen them so home, as we haue done: but that we might haue taken our first rise from this ground, (which is as euident, as light of Reason can make it) that seeing we know biggenesse and a Body, to be one and the same, as well in the notion as in the thing; it must of necessity follow, that what hath not partes, nor worketh, nor is wrought vpon by diuision, is not a body. I confesse, this obiection appeareth very reasonable, and the consideration of it weighed so much with me, as, were all men of a free iudgement, and not imbued with artificiall errours, I would for its sake, haue saued my selfe a great deale of paines: but I find (as in the former Treatise I haue frequently complained of) that there is crept into the world a fansy so contrary to this pregnant truth, and that it is so deepely settled in many mens minds (and not of the meanest note,) as all we haue said, is peraduenture too litle to roote it out.

If any that being satisfyed with the rationall maxime we euen now mentioned, and therefore hath not deemed it needefull, to employ his time in reading the former Treatise, should wish to know how this is come to passe, I shall here represent vnto him, the summe of what I haue more at large scattered in seuerall places of the former Treatise; and shall entreate him to consider, how nature teacheth vs to call the proprieties of thinges whereby one is distinguished from an other, the Qualities of those thinges; and that according to the varieties of them, they haue diuers names suted out to diuers of them; some being called Habites, others Powers; and others by other names. Now what Aristotle, and the learned Grecians did meane by these thinges, is cleere by the examples they giue of them: they terme Beauty and Health, Habites: the dispositions of our bodies to our bodily motions, Powers; as strength (which is the good temper of the sinewes) a Power; likewise Agility, a Power; so they vse the names of the concoctiue, the nutritiue, the retentiue, the excretiue, Power; the health of the eyes, the eares, the nosethrills, &c: they call the Powers of seeing, of hearing, of smelling, &c: and the like of many others. But later Philosophers, being very disputatiue, and desiring to seeme ignorant of nothing (or rather, to seeme to know more then any that are gone before them and to refine their conceptions) haue taken the notions, which by our first Masters were sett for common and confused explications of the natures, (to serue

for conueniency and succinctenesse of discourse) to be truly and really particular Entities, or thinges of themselues: and so haue filled their bookes, and the schooles, with vnexplicable opinions, out of which no account of nature can be giuen: and which is worse, the way of searching on, is barred to others; and a mischieuous error is growne into mens beliefes, that nothing can be knowne. By this meanes they haue choaked the most plaine and euident defi∣nition of a body; bringing so many instances against it, that vnwary men are forced to desert and deny the very first notions of nature and reason: for in truth, they turne all bodies into spirits, making (for example) heare, or cold, to be of it selfe indiuisible, a thing by it selfe, whose nature is not conceiuable; not the disposition or proportion of the partes of that body which is said to be hoat or cold; but a reall thing, that hath a proper Being and nature peculiar to it selfe; whereof they can render you no account: and so, may as well be against the notion of a body as not: for if light, the vertue of the loadestone, the power of seing, feeling &c, be thinges that worke without time, i•• an instant; if they be not the dispositions of partes as partes, (whose nature is, to be more or lesse, to be next or farre off, &c:) how can it be truly said, that the notion of a body, is to be of partes? For if this be a true definition of a body, it followeth that all corporeall qualities and actions must likewise be some dis∣position and order of partes as partes: and that what is not so, is no body, nor bodily quality or propriety.

This then was it that obliged me to go so farre about, and to shew in common, how all those effects which are so much admired in bodies, are, or may be made and conti∣nued by the sole order of quantitatiue partes and locall motion: this hath forced vs to anatomise nature, and to beginne our dissection, with what first occurreth vnto our sense from a body. In doing which, out of the first and most simple notion of Biggenesse or Quantity, we found out the prime diuision of Bodies, into Rare and Dense: then finding them to be the Qualities of diuiding and of being diuided (that is, of locall motion) we gained knowledge of the common properties of Grauity and Leuity:

from the combination of these, we retriued the foure first Quali∣ties: and by them, the Elements. When we had agreed how the Elements were made, wee examined how their action and com∣position, raiseth those second qualities, which are seene in all mixt bodies, and doe make their diuisions. Thence, proceeding into the operations of life, we resolued, they are composed and ordered meerely by the varieties of the former: nay, that sense and fantasy (the highest thinges we can discerne out of man) haue no other source, but are subiect to the lawes of partes, and of Rarity and Density; so that in the end we became assured of this important Maxime: That nothing whatsoeuer we know to be a Body, can be exempted from the declared lawes, and orderly motions, of Bodies: vnto which, lett vs adde two other positions, which fell also within our discouery: the first that it is constantly found in nature, that none of the bodies we know, do moue themselues; but their motion must be founded in some thing without them: the second, that no body moueth an other, vnlesse it selfe be also moued: and it will follow euidently out of them, (if they be of necessity and not preuaricable) that some other Principle beyond bodies, is required to be the roote and first ground of motion in them: as Mr. White hath most acutely aud solidely demonstrated,* 1.1 in that excellent worke, I haue so often cited in my former Treatise.

But it is time we should fall to our intended discourse, leauing this point settled by what we haue already said, that if we shew our soule, and her operations, to be not composed of partes, we also therein conclude, that she is a spirituall substance, and not a body. Which is our designe and intention in this Treatise.

And for this intent, we must looke vpon those actions of man, which are peculiarly his: and vpon those thinges which result out of them, and are called, Opera or labores hominum; as houses, Townes, Tillage, Handicrafts, Armes, shippes, Commonwealthes, Armies, Bookes, and the like; in which great mens lifes and thoughts haue beeue spent. In all these we find one generall thridde, to runne quite through them; and that all of them are composed of the same stuffe, and are built vpon the same foundation: which is, a long chaine of discourses, whereof euery little part or linke is that which schollers do call a Syllogisme: and Syllogismes we know are framed of enuntiations; and they of single or

vncomposed apprehensions. All which are actions wrought by the vnderstanding of a man. But beyond these, we can not proceede to any further subdiuision of partes, and containe our selues within the orbe of humane Actions; for simple apprehen∣sions, can not be further resolued into other partes, beyond the degree of apprehensions, and yet still remaine actions peculiar to a man: so that we may be sure, we shall haue left nothing out of enquiry, concerning Mans actions as he is Man, if we beginne with anatomizing his first bare apprehensions; and so goe on by degrees, compounding them, till we come to faddome those great and admirable machines of bookes and workes, which he (as I may say) weaueth out of his owne bowels; and the like of which, is done by no other creature whatsoeuer, vpon the face of our contemptible Earth.

These then (which are all comprised vnder the names of Apprehensions, of Enuntiations or Iudgements, and of Discourses) shall be the subiect of this second Treatise: and in it, we will first consider these operations in themselues; which being done, we will endeauour to proue out of the nature and manner of performing them, that the soules vnto whom they belong, are Immateriall and Immortall.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Dialog: 3^o. Nodo 2^do.