The immortality of the soul, so farre forth as it is demonstrable from the knowledge of nature and the light of reason by Henry More ...

BOOK III. (Book 3)

CHAP. I.

1. Why the Authour treats of the state of the Soul after Death, and in what Method. 2. Arguments to prove that the Soule is ever united vitally with some Matter or other. 3. Further Reasons to evince the same. 4. That the Soule is capable of an aiery and aethereal Body, as well as a ter∣restrial. 5. That she ordinarily passes out of an earthly into an aereal Vehicle first. 6. That in her aiery Vehicle she is capable of Sense, Pleasure, and Pain. 7. That the main power of the Soule over her aereal Vehicle is the direction of Motion in the particles thereof. 8. That she may also adde or diminish Motion in her aethereal. 9. How the purity of the Vehicle confers to the quickness of Sense and Knowledge. 10. Of the Soules power of changing the temper of her aereal Vehicle; 11. As also the shape thereof. 12. The plainness of the last Axiome.

1. WE have, I hope, with undeniable evidence demonstrated the Immor∣tality of the Soule to such as neither by

their slowness of parts, nor any prejudice of Immor••ality, are made incompetent Judges of the truth of Demonstrations of this kind: so that I have already perfected my main Design. But my own curiosity, and the de∣sire of gratifying others who love to enter∣tain themselves with speculations of this nature, doe call me out something further; if the very Dignity of the present Matter I am upon doth not justly require me, as will be best seen after the finishing thereof: Which is concerning the State of the Soule after Death. Wherein though I may not haply be able to fix my foot so firmly as in the foregoing part of this Treatise, yet I will assert nothing but what shall be reaso∣nable, though not demonstrable, and far pre∣ponderating to whatever shall be alledged to the contrary, and in such clear order and Method, that if what I write be not worthy to convince, it shall not be able to deceive or entangle by perplexedness and obscurity; and therefore I shall offer to view at once the main Principles upon which I shall build the residue of my Discourse.

AXIOME XXVII.

The Soule separate from this Terrestrial Body is not released from all Vital Union with Matter.

2. THis is the general Opinion of the Pla∣tonists. Plotinus indeed dissents, espe∣cially concerning the most divine Souls, as if they at last were perfectly unbared of all Matter, and had no union with any thing but God himself: which I look upon as a fancy proceeding from the same inequality of temper, that made him surmise that the most degenerate Soules did at last sleep in the bodies of Trees, and grew up meerly into Plantal life. Such fictions as these of fancyfull men have much depraved the an∣cient Cabbala and sacred Doctrine which the Platonists themselves doe profess to be 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a holy Tradition received from the mouth of God or Angels. But however Plotinus himself does not deny but till the Soule arrive to such an exceeding height of purification, that she acts in either an aiery or celestial Body. But that she is never released so perfectly from all Matter, how pure soever and tenuious, her condi∣tion of operating here in this life is a greater

presumption then can be fetcht from any thing else, that she ever is. For we finde plainly that her most subtil and most in∣tellectual operations depend upon the fitness of temper in the Spirits; and that it is the fineness and purity of them that invites her and enables her to love and look after di∣vine and intellectual Objects: Which kind of Motions if she could exert immediately by her own proper power and essence, what should hinder her but that, having a will, she should bring it to effect, which yet we finde she cannot if the Spirits be indisposed. Nor can the Soule well be hindred by the undue temper of the Spirits in these Acts, if they be of that nature that they belong to the bare essence of the Soule quite praescinded from all Union with Matter. For then as to these Acts it is all one where the Soule is, that is, in what Matter she is (and she must be in some, because the Universe is every where thick-set with Matter) whether she be raised into the purest regions of the Aire, or plunged down into the foulest Recepta∣cles of Earth or Water; for her intellectual actings would be alike in both. What then is there imaginable in the Body that can hin∣der her in these Operations? Wherefore it is plain that the nature of the Soule is such, as that she cannot act but in dependence

on Matter, and that her Operations are some way or other alwaies modified there∣by. And therefore if the Soule act at all after death, (which we have demonstrated she does) it is evident that she is not released from all vitall union with all kind of Matter whatsoever: Which is not onely the Opi∣nion of the Platonists, but of Aristotle also, as may be easily gathered out of what we have above cited out of him, Lib. 2. Cap. 14.

3. Besides, it seems a very wilde leap in nature, that the Soul of Man, from being so deeply and muddily immersed into Mat∣ter, as to keep company with Beasts, by vitall union with gross flesh and bones, should so on a suddain be changed, that she should not adhere to any Matter whatso∣ever, but ascend into an 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 competible haply to none but God himself; unless there be such Creatures as the Platonists call 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or pure Intellects. This must seem to any indifferent man very harsh and incongruous, especially if we consider what noble Beings there are on this side the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that all the Philosophers that ever treated of them acknowledge to be vitally united with either aerial or aethereal Vehicles. For of this condition are all the Genii or Angels. It is sufficient therefore that the Soule never

exceed the immateriality of those orders of Beings; the lower sort whereof that they are vitally united to Vehicles of Aire, their ignorance in Nature seems manifestly to bewray. For it had been an easy thing, and more for their credit, to have informed their followers better in the Mysteries of Nature; but that themselves were ignorant of these things, which they could not but know, if they were not thus bound to their aiery bodies. For then they were not enga∣ged to move with the whole course of the Aire, but keeping themselves steddy, as being disunited from all Matter, they might in a moment have perceived both the diur∣nal and annual motion of the Earth, and so have saved the Credit of their followers, by communicating this Theory to them; the want of the knowledge whereof spoiles their repute with them that understand the Sy∣steme of the world better then them∣selves, for all they boast of their Philoso∣phy, so as if it were the Dictate of the high∣est Angels.

AXIOME XXVIII.

There is a Triple Vitall Congruity in the Soule, namely AEthereall, AEriall, and Terrestriall.

4. THat this is the common Opinion of the Platonists, I have above intimated. That this Opinion is also true in it self, ap∣pears from the foregoing Axiome. Of the Terrestrial Congruity there can be no doubt; and as little can there be but that at least one of the other two is to be granted, else the Soule would be released from all vital union with Matter after Death. Where∣fore she has a vital aptitude at least to unite with Aire: But Aire is a common Recep∣tacle of bad and good Spirits (as the Earth is of all sorts of men and beasts) nay indeed rather of those that are in some sort or other bad, then of good, as it is upon Earth. But the Soule of Man is capable of very high refinements, even to a condition purely An∣gelicall. Whence Reason will judge it fit, and all Antiquity has voted it, That the Souls of men arrived to such a due pitch of purification must at last obtain celestial Ve∣hicles.

AXIOME XXIX.

According to the usual custome of Nature, the Soul awakes orderly into these Vital Con∣gruities, not passing from one Extreme to another without any stay in the middle.

5. THis Truth, besides that at first sight it cannot but seem very reasonable, according to that known Aphorism, Natura non facit saltum; so if it be further exami∣ned, the solidity thereof will more fully ap∣pear. For considering how small degrees of purification the Souls of almost all men get in this life, even theirs who pass vul∣garly for honest and good men, it will plain∣ly follow that very few arrive to their AE∣thereal Vehicle immediately upon quitting their Terrestrial Body; that being a privi∣ledge that has appertained to none but very Noble and Heroical Spirits indeed, of which History records but very few. But that there may be degrees of purity and excel∣lency in the AErial Bodies, is a thing that is not to be denied, so that a just Nemesis will finde out every one after death.

AXIOME XXX.

The Soul in her AErial Vehicle is capable of Sense properly so called, and consequently of Pleasure and Pain.

6. THIS plainly appears from the 27. and 28. Axiomes. For there is a ne∣cessity of the resulting of Sense from Vital Union of the Soul with any Body whatso∣ever: and we may remember that the im∣mediate instrument of Sense, even in this earthly Body, are the Spirits: so that there can be no doubt of this Truth. And Plea∣sure and Pain being the proper modificati∣ons of Sense, and there being no Body but what is passible, it is evident that these Vehicles of Air are subject to Pain as well as Pleasure, in this Region where ill things are to be met with as well as good.

AXIOME XXXI.

The Soul can neither impart to nor take away from the Matter of her Vehicle of Air any considerable degree of Motion, but yet can direct the particles moved which way she pleases by the Imperium of her Will.

7. THE reasonableness of this Axiome may be evinced, partly out of the for∣mer;

for considering the brushiness and angulosity of the parts of the Air, a more then ordinary Motion or compressive Rest may very well prove painful to the Soul, and dis-harmonious to her touch; and partly from what we may observe in our own Spirits in this Body, which we can one∣ly direct, not give Motion to, nor diminish their Motion by our Imagination or Will, (for no man can imagine himself into Heat or Cold, the sure consequences of extraor∣dinary Motion and Rest, by willing his Spi∣rits to move faster or slower; but he may direct them into the Organs of spontaneous Motion, and so by moving the grosser parts of the Body, by this direction he may spend them, and heat these parts in the expence of them; and this is all we can doe) and partly from that Divine Providence that made all things, and measures out the Pow∣ers and Faculties of his Creatures accor∣ding to his own Wisdome and Counsel, and therefore has bound that state of the Soul to straighter conditions, that is competible to the bad as well as to the good.

AXIOME XXXII.

Though the Soul can neither confer nor take away any considerable degree of Motion from the Matter of her Aiery Vehicle, yet no∣thing hinders but that she may doe both in her AEthereal.

8. THE reason hereof is, because the par∣ticles of her AEthereal Vehicle consist partly of smooth sphaericall Figures, and partly of tenuious Matter, so exceeding li∣quid that it will without any violence com∣ply to any thing: whenas the Aire, as may be observed in Winde-Guns, has parts so stubborn and so stiff, that after they have been compressed to such a certain degree that the barrel of the Piece grows hot again, they have not lost their shapes nor virtue; but like a spring of Steel, liberty being gi∣ven, they return to their natural posture with that violence, that they discharge a Bullet with equal force that Gun-powder does. Besides that the Goodness of that Deity on whom all Beings depend, may be justly thought to have priviledged the AEthereal Congruity of Life (which awakes onely in perfectly-obedient Souls, such as may be trusted as throughly faithful to his Empire)

with a larger power then the other, there being no incompetibleness in the Subject. For it is as easy a thing to conceive that God may endow a Soul with a power of moving or resting Matter, as of determi∣ning the motions thereof.

AXIOME XXXIII.

The purer the Vehicle is, the more quick and perfect are the Perceptive Faculties of the Soul.

9. THE truth of this we may in a man∣ner experience in this life, where we finde that the quickness of Hearing, Seeing, Tasting, Smelling, the nimbleness of Remi∣niscency, Reason, and all other Perceptive Faculties, are advanced or abated by the clearness, or foulness and dulness of the Spi∣rits of our Body; and that Oblivion and Sot∣tishness arise from their thickness and ear∣thiness, or waterishness, or whatsoever other gross consistency of them: which distem∣per removed, and the Body being repleni∣shed with good Spirits in sufficient plenty and purity, the Minde recovers her activity again, remembers what she had forgot, and understands what she was before uncapable

of, sees and hears at a greater distance; and so of the rest.

AXIOME XXXIV.

The Soul has a marvellous power of not onely changing the temper of her Aiery Vehicle, but also of the external shape thereof.

10. THE truth of the first part of this Axiome appears from daily expe∣rience; for we may frequently observe how strangely the Passions of the Mind will work upon our Spirits in this state, how Wrath, and Grief, and Envy will alter the Body, to say nothing of other Affections. And as∣suredly the finer the Body is, the more mu∣table it is upon this account: so that the Passions of the Minde must needs have a very great influence upon the Souls AEreal Vehicle; which though they cannot change into any thing but Air, yet they may change this Air into qualifications as vastly diffe∣rent as Vertue is from Vice, Sickness from Health, Pain from Pleasure, Light from Darkness, and the stink of a Gaol from the Aromatick odours of a flourishing Paradise.

11. The truth of the latter part is de∣monstrable from the latter part of the 31. Axiome. For supposing a power in the

Soul of directing the motions of the par∣ticles of her fluid Vehicle, it must needs fol∣low that she will also have a power of sha∣ping it in some measure according to her own Will and Fancy. To which you may adde, as no contemptible pledge of this Truth, what is done in that kinde by our Will and Fancy in this life: as, onely be∣cause I will and fancy the moving of my Mouth, Foot, or Fingers, I can move them, provided I have but Spirits to direct into this motion; and the whole Vehicle of the Soul is in a manner nothing else but Spirits. The Signatures also of the Foetus in the Womb by the Desire and Imagination of the Mother, is very serviceable for the evin∣cing of this Truth: but I shall speak of it more fully in its place.

AXIOME XXXV.

It is rational to think, that as some Faculties are laid asleep in Death or after Death, so others may awake that are more sutable for that state.

12. THE truth of this Axiome appears from hence, That our Souls come not by chance, but are made by an All-wise God, who foreseeing all their states, has

fitted the Excitation or Consopition of Pow∣ers and Faculties, sutably to the present condition they are to be in.

AXIOME XXXVI.

Whether the Vital Congruity of the Soul ex∣pire, as whose period being quite unwound, or that of the Matter be defaced by any es∣sential Dis-harmony, Vital Union immedi∣ately ceases.

13. THis last Axiome is plain enough of it self at first sight, and the use∣fulness thereof may be glanced at in his due place.

These are the main Truths I shall recurre to, or at least suppose, in my following Dis∣quisitions: others will be more seasonably delivered in the continuation of our Dis∣course.

CHAP. II.

1. Of the Dimensions of the Soul considered barely in her self. 2. Of the Figure of the Souls Dimensions. 3. Of the Hete∣rogeneity of her Essence. 4. That there is an Heterogeneity in her Plastick part

distinct from the Perceptive. 5. Of the acting of this Plastick part in her framing of the Vehicle. 6. The excellency of Des-Cartes his Philosophy. 7. That the Ve∣hicles of Ghosts have as much of solid corporeal Substance in them as the Bodies of Men. 8. The folly of the contrary O∣pinion evinced. 9. The advantage of the Soul, for matter of Body, in the other state, above this.

1. THat we may now have a more clear and determinate apprehension of the nature and condition of the Soul out of the Body, let us first consider her a while, what she is in her own Essence, with∣out any reference to any Body at all, and we shall finde her a Substance extended and in∣discerpible, as may be easily gathered out of what we have written, Lib. 1. Cap. 3, 5, 8. as also Lib. 2. Cap. 1, 2. And it is a season∣able contemplation here (where we consider the Soul as having left this Terrestrial Bo∣dy) that she hath as ample, if not more ample, Dimensions of her own, then are vi∣sible in the Body she has left. Which I think worth taking notice of, that it may stop the mouths of them that, not without reason, laugh at those unconceivable and ridiculous fancies of the Schools; that first rashly take

a way all Extension from Spirits, whether Soules or Augels, and then dispute how many of them booted and spur'd may dance on a needles point at once. Fooleries much derogatory to the Truth, and that pinch our perception into such an intolerable streightness and evanidness, that we cannot imagine any thing of our own Being; and if we doe, are prone to fall into despair, or contempt of our selves, by fancying our selves such unconsiderable Motes of the Sun.

2. But as it is very manifest that the Soule has Dimensions, and yet not infinite, and therefore that she is necessarily bounded in some Figure or other; so it is very un∣certain whether there be any peculiar Fi∣gure naturall to her, answerable to animal shape, or whether she be of her self of either a Round or Oval figure, but does change her shape according as occasion requires. It is not material to define any thing in this Question more then thus, That when the Soule acts in Terrestrial Matter, her Plastick part is determined to the Organization of the Body into humane forme; and in the AEreal or AEthereal, that she is neither more nor less determined to any shape then the Genii or Angels, and that if their Vehicles are more naturally guided into one shape

then another, that hers is in the same condition; so that in her visible Vehicle she will bear the ordinary form of An∣gels, such a countenance, and so cloathed, as they.

3. That which is more material, I think is more easy to be defined, and that is, whe∣ther the Soule be one Homogeneal Substance, or whether it be in some manner Heteroge∣neal. That the latter is in some measure true, is manifest from what we have written Lib. 2. Cap. 11. viz. That the Perceptive faculty reaches not throughout the whole Soule, but is confined to a certain part, which we called the Centre or Eye of the Soule, as also her Perceptive part; but all the rest Plastick. But here arises a further Scruple, whether there be not an Hetero∣geneity in the very Plastick part also of the Soule. The Aristotelians seem to be con∣fident there is not, and doe affirm that if there were an Eye in the Toe, the Toe would see as well as the Head. Of which I very much doubt: For hence it would fol∣low that some Creatures would have a glimmering of Light all over, they being in a manner all over transparent; and some thin and clear Complexions might haply have the perception of Light betwixt the lower parts of their Fingers, which are in

some good measure pellucid; and there∣fore Life and Spirits being continued from thence to the Conarion, as they are, or to the fourth Ventricle of the Brain, it would follow that the Soule would have a per∣ception of some glimmerings of Light from thence, which were to see there as well as to feel.

4. Wherefore it seems more rationall to admit an Heterogeneity in the Plastick part of the Soule also, and to acknowledge that every removall from the Seat of Common Sense, that is to say, every Circle that sur∣rounds the Centre of the Soule, has not the same bounds of power, neither for num∣ber nor extent. But that as concerning the former, there is a gradual falling off from the first excellency, which is the Perceptive part of the Soule; the closest Circle to which is that part of the Plastick that is able to convey Objects of Sight as well as of Touch and Hearing, and what other Senses else there may be in the Soule. The next Circle is Hearing without Seeing, though not without Touch: for Touch spreads through all, but in its exteriour region, which is ex∣cessively the greatest, it transmits the cir∣cumstantiated Perceptions of no Objects but those that are Tactile; but to others it is onely as a dead Medium, as the Circle

of Hearing is but as a dead Medium to the Objects of Sight. So that if we would please our Imagination with Ficinus, in fan∣cying the Soule as a Star, we shall doe it more perfectly, if we look upon her in her Circles, as having an Halo about her: For the Soule to our Reason is no more ho∣mogeneal, then that Spectacle is to our Sight.

5. But if we look upon the Soule as ever propending to some personall shape, the di∣rection of the Plastick rayes must then tend to a kind of Organization, so far as is con∣ducent to the state the Soule is in, whether in an Aiery or AEthereal Vehicle. For that the Plastick power omits or changes as she is drawn forth by the nature of the Matter she acts upon, is discoverable in her Orga∣nization of our Bodies here. For in all like∣lihood the Soule in her self is as much of one sex as another; which makes her some∣times signe the Matter with both, but that very seldome: and therefore it is manifest that she omits one part of her Plastick power, and makes use of the other, in almost all efformations of the Foetus. Whence it is easy to conclude, that supposing her Plastick power naturally work the AEthereal or AEreal Vehicle into any animal shape, it may put forth onely such stroaks of the efformative

vertue as are convenient and becoming the Angelical Nature. But according to this Hypothesis haply all Objects of Sense will not arrive to the Centre of the Soule from every part of the Horizon; no not though this Organization were not naturall but meerly arbitrarious. But be the Soule con∣ceived either bound up thus into animal forme, or spread loose into any careless round shape, according as her rayes shall di∣splay themselves in her Vehicle of Aire or AEther, yet the seat of sight will be duely restrained, which is a consideration of no contemptible consequence.

6. This in generall may suffice concern∣ing the very Nature of the Soule it self, her Extension and Heterogeneity. I shall onely adde to this one Observable concerning her Aiery and AEthereal Vehicle, and then I shall descend to more particular disquisitions. Rash fancies and false deductions from mis∣understood Experiments have made some very confident that there is a Vacuum in Nature, and that every Body by how much more light it is, so much less substance it has in it self. A thing very fond and irra∣tional, at the first sight, to such as are but in∣differently well versed in the incomparable Philosophy of Renatus Des-Cartes, whose dexterous wit and through insight into the

nature and lawes of Matter, has so perfected the reasons of those Phaenomena, that De∣mooritus, Epicurus, Lucretius and others have puzzled themselves about, that there seems nothing now wanting as concerning that way of Philosophizing, but patience and an unprejudiced judgment to peruse what he has writ.

7. According therefore to his Philoso∣phy and the Truth, there is ever as much Matter or Body in one consistency as ano∣ther; as for example, there is as much Matter in a Cup of Aire as in the same Cup filled with Water, and as much in this Cup of Water as if it were filled with Lead or Quicksilver. Which I take notice of here, that I may free the imagination of men from that ordinary and idiotick misapprehension which they entertain of Spirits that appear, as if they were as evanid and devoid of Sub∣stance as the very shadowes of our Bodies cast against a Wall, or our Images reflected from a River or Looking-glass: and there∣fore from this errour have given them names accordingly, calling the Ghosts of men that present themselves to them, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and Umbrae, Images and Shades. The which, the more visible they are, they think them the more substantial; fancying that the Aire is so condensed, that there is not onely more

of it, but also that simply there is more Mat∣ter or Substance, when it appears thus visi∣ble, then there was in the same space before. And therefore they must needs conceit that Death reduces us to a pittifull thin pittance of Being, that our Substance is in a manner lost, and nothing but a tenuious reek re∣mains, no more in proportion to us, then what a sweating horse leaves behind him as he gallops by in a frosty morning. Which certainly must be a very lamentable consi∣deration to such as love this thick and plump Body they beare about with them, and are pleased to consider how many pounds they outweighed their Neighbour the last time they were put in the ballance together.

8. But if a kinde of dubious Transparen∣cy will demonstrate the deficiency of Corpo∣real Substance, a Pillar of Crystal will have less thereof then one of Tobacco-smoak; which though it may be so doubtful and evanid an Object to the Eye, if we try it by the Hand, it will prove exceeding so∣lid: as also these Ghosts that are said to ap∣pear in this manner have proved to them that have touched them, or have been tou∣ched by them. For it is a thing ridiculous and unworthy of a Philosopher, to judge the measure of corporeal Matter by what it

seems to our sight; for so Air would be no∣thing at all: or what it is to our handing or weighing of it; for so indeed a Cup of Quick-silver would seem to have infinitely more Matter in it then one fill'd with Air onely, and a vessel of Water less when it is plung'd under the water in the River, then when it is carried in the Air. But we are to remember, that let Matter be of what consi∣stency it will, as thin and pure as the flame of a candle, there is not less of corporeal Substance therein then there is in the same dimensions of Silver, Lead, or Gold.

9. So that we need not bemoan the shri∣vell'd condition of the deceased, as if they were stript almost of all Substance corpo∣real, and were too thinly clad to enjoy themselves as to any Object of Sense. For they have no less Body then we our selves have, onely this Body is far more active then ours, being more spiritualized, that is to say, having greater degrees of Motion communicated unto it; which the whole Matter of the world receives from some spiritual Being or other, and therefore in this regard may be said the more to symbo∣lize with that immaterial Being, the more Motion is communicated to it: As it does also in that which is the effect of Motion, to wit the tenuity and subtilty of its particles,

whereby it is enabled to imitate, in some sort, the proper priviledge of Spirits that pass through all Bodies whatsoever. And these Vehicles of the Soul, by reason of the tenuity of their parts, may well pass through such Matter as seems to us impervious, though it be not really so to them. For Matter reduced to such fluid subtilty of par∣ticles as are invisible, may well have en∣trance through Pores unperceptible. Whence it is manifest that the Soul, speak∣ing in a natural sense, loseth nothing by Death, but is a very considerable gainer thereby. For she does not onely possess as much Body as before, with as full and solid dimensions, but has that accession cast in, of having this Body more invigorated with Life and Motion then it was formerly. Which consideration I could not but take notice of, that I might thereby expunge that false conceit that adheres to most mens fan∣cies, of that evanid and starved condition of the other state.

CHAP. III.

1. That the natural abode of the Soul after death is the Air. 2. That she cannot quit the AErial Regions till the AEthereal Con∣gruity

of life be awakened in her. 3. That all Souls are not in the same Region of the Aire. 4. Cardans conceit of placing all Daemons in the upper Region. 5. The use of this conceit for the shewing the rea∣son of their seldome appearing. 6. That this Phaenomenon is salved by a more ra∣tional Hypothesis. 7. A further confuta∣tion of Cardans Opinion. 8. More tending to the same scope. 9. The Original of Cardans errour concerning the remote ope∣rations of Daemons. 10. An Objection how Daemons and Souls separate can be in this lower Region, where Winds and Tem∣pests are so frequent. 11. A preparation to an Answer from the consideration of the nature of the Winds. 12. Particular An∣swers to the Objection. 13. A further An∣swer from the nature of the Statick Fa∣culty of the Soul. 14. Another from the suddain power of actuating her Vehicle. 15. What incommodations she suffers from haile, rain, &c.

1. THose more particular Enquiries we intend to fall upon, may be reduced to these few Heads: viz. The place of the Souls abode, Her employment, and Her moral condition after Death. That the place of Her abode is the Aire, is the constant opinion of

the ancient Philosophers and natural The∣ologers, who doe unanimously make that Element the Receptacle of Souls departed: which therefore they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, because men deceased are in a state of invisibility, as the place they are confined to is an Element utterly invisible of its own nature, and is accloy'd also with caliginous mists, and enveloped by vicissitudes with the dark shadow of the Earth. The truth of this opinion of theirs is plainly demon∣strable from the 29. and 31. Axiomes. For Nature making no enormous jumps, it must needs follow, that separate Souls must take their first station in the Aire, because that Vital Congruity that fits an AErial Vehicle does of order awaken immediately upon the quitting of the Earthly Body.

2. Wherefore the Soul being thus vi∣tally united with a Body or Vehicle of Aire, it is impossible that she should drive out of those Regions: because her motions are onely according to the capacity of her Ve∣hicle, she being not able to alter the consi∣stency thereof into any more subtile or pu∣rer temper then the Aire will admit of, keeping still its own Species. Onely she may conspissate the Aire by directing the mo∣tion thereof towards her, and so squeezing out a considerable part of the first and se∣cond

Element may retain more Aire then ordinary: But she cannot command the Air from her so entirely, as to actuate these two Elements alone, or any considerable part of them, because the AEthereal Congruity of life is as yet wholy asleep; nor is it in the power of the Soul to awake it as she plea∣ses: and therefore it would be Pain and Death to her to attempt the removal of the aerial Matter quite from her. Besides that it would require such a force as would im∣ply a contribution of motion to it, as well as direction of it, to make it able to bear against other parts of the Aire that love not to be streightned nor crouded: which though it may haply be done in some measure, yet that she may by this force of direction re∣cover a whole Vehicle of AEther, seems ex∣cessively improbable, as is plain from the 31. Axiome.

3. Wherefore it is necessary that the Soul departed this life should be somewhere in the Aire, though it be not at all necessary that they should inhabit all of them the same Region thereof. For as some Souls are more purified then others when they leave the Body, so a more pure degree of Vital Congruity will awake in them: whence by that Divine Nemesis that runs through all things, they will be naturally conveyed

to such places, and be associated to such company as is most congruous to their Na∣ture; and will be as distinctly sorted by that eternal Justice that God has so deeply ingrafted in the very essential contexture of the Universe, as humane Laws dispose of per∣sons with us, sending some to Prisons, some to Pest-houses, and others to the Prytaneum.

4. It will therefore, in all likelihood, fall to some of their shares to be fatally fette∣red to this lower Region of the Aire, as I doubt not but many other Spirits are; though Cardan much pleases himself with a peculiar conceit of his own, as if the supreme Region of the Aire was the onely habita∣tion of all Daemons or Spirits whatever, and that their descent to us is as rare as the di∣ving of Men into the bottome of the Sea, and almost as difficult, this thick Aire we breathe in being in a manner as unsutable to their tenuious consistencies as the Water is to us; in which we are fain to hold out breath, and consequently to make a very short stay in that Element. Besides that he fancies the passage of the Middle Region tedious to them, by reason of its Coldness; which therefore he saith is as it were a fence betwixt us and them, as the Sea is betwixt the Fishes and us; whom though we exceed much in Wit and Industry, and have a great

desire to catch them and kill them, yet we get very few into our hands in comparison of those that scape us: And so these Dae∣mos, though they bear us no good will, by bodily conflict they can hurt none of us (as being so difficult a thing to come at us) and very few of us by their Art and Industry. For this fancyfull Philosopher will have them onely attempt us as we do the Fishes, by Baits, and Nets, and Eel-spears, or such like Engines which we cast into the bottom of the Water: So these aerial Genii, keep∣ing their station above in the third Region of the Aire (as we doe on the bank of the River, or in a Boat on the Sea, when we fish) by sending down Dreams and Apparitions, may entangle some men so, that by affright∣ments and disturbances of minde at last, though at this distance, they may work their ruine and destruction.

5. This Hypothesis, I suppose, he has framed to give an account why the appea∣ring of the Genii is so seldome, and why so little hurt is done by them as there is. For an Answer would be ready, that this lower A••••e is no Element for them to abide in: and that it is as foolishly argued by those that say there are no Spirits, because they are so seldome seen, as if the Fishes, upon a concession of Speech and Reason to their

mute Tribe, should generally conclude, that there are no such Creatures as Men or Hor∣ses, because it happens so very seldome that they can see them; and should contemn and laugh ac those Fishes that, having had the hap to meet with them, should say they have seen such Creatures, as if they were fana∣tick and lunatick, and not well in their wits, or else too much in them, and that they con∣trived such fictions for some political design.

6. Which Parable may hold good, though not upon the same grounds, onely by sub∣stituting difference of condition for distance of place; and the similitude will prove as sound as before. For, for a Spirit to con∣densate his Vehicle to almost a Terrestrial grossness and Visibility, is as rare and un∣couth as for Terrestrial animals to dive to the bottom of the Sea, and its likely every jot as difficult: and so the reason as obvious why so few are seen, & the confident denial of their existence as rash and foolish, by then that have not seen them themselves. For it is as if the Fishes should contest amongst themselves about the existence of Men, and their diving into the Water, and whether there were any places haunted in the Sea; as those would be the most famous where they fish for Pearls, or that cause the most frequent Shipwracks, or are most pleasant

to swim in. And some notable occasion, mischance, or weighty design, such as oc∣curre more rarely, must be reasonably con∣ceived the onely invitements to the Genii to expose themselves to our view.

7. That there is so little hurt done by them, need not be resolved into the distance of their habitation, but into the Law of the Universe, whose force penetrates through all orders of Beings. Besides, it is too trivial and idiotick a conceit, & far below the pitch of a Philosopher, to think that all AErial Spirits are Haters of Mankinde, so as to take delight meerly in destroying them. For Men do not hate Fishes because they live in another Element different from theirs, but catch them meerly in love to them∣selves, for gain and food; which the aiery Genii cannot aim at in destroying of us. But to doe Mischef meerly for Mischiefs sake, is so excessive an Enormity, that some doubt whether it be competible to any In∣tellectual Being. And therefore Cardan ought to have proved that first: as also, if there be any so extremely degenerate, that there be many of them, or rather so many that they cannot be awed by the number of those that are less depraved. For we may observe that men amongst our selves that are suffici∣ently wicked, yet they abhor very much from

those things that are grossly & causlesly de∣structive to either Man or Beast; & themselves would help to destroy, punish, or at least hinder the attempters of such wild & exor∣bitant outrages that have no pretence of Reason, but are a meer exercise of Cruelty and Vexation to other Creatures. He also ought to have demonstrated, that all Man∣kind are not the Peculium of some Spirits or other, and that there are not invisible Governours of Nations, Cities, Families, and sometime of particular Men; and that at least a Political Goodness, such as serves for the safety of Persons and what belongs to them, is not exceedingly more prevalent even in these Kingdomes of the Aire, then gross Injustice. For all this may be on this side of the Divine Life: so that there is no feare of making these aerial Inhabitants over-perfect by this Supposition. In a word, he should have proved that Political Order, in the full exercise thereof, did not reach from Heaven to Earth, and pierce into the Subterraneous Regions also, if there be any Intellectual Creatures there. For this will suffice to give a reason that so little hurt is done, though all places be full of AErial Spirits.

8. Adde unto all this, that though they may not be permitted to doe any gross evill

themselves, and to kill men at pleasure with∣out their consents, yet they may abet them in such wayes, or invite them to such courses, as will prove destructive to them: but, it may be, with no greater plot then we have when we set Doggs together by the eares, fight Cocks, bait Beares and Bulls, run Horses, and the like; where often, by our occasion, as being excited and animated by us, they pursue their own inclinations, to the loss of their lives. But though we doe not care to kill a Dog or a Cock in this way; yet there is none so barbarous as to knock these Creatures on the head meerly because they will doe so. So these worser kind of Genii, according as their tempers are, may haply follow some men prone to such or such vices, in which they may drive them in way of contest, or to please their own fancies, to the utmost they can doe in it; and, taking their parts, sport themselves in making one man overcome another in duelling, in drinking, in craft and undermining, in wenching, in getting riches, in clambering to honours; and so of the rest. Where it may be their pastime to try the Victory of that Person they have taken to; and if he perish by the hurry of their temptations and animations, it is a thing they intended no more, it may be,

then he that sets his Cock into the pit de∣sires his neck should be broke: but if it happen so, the sorrow is much alike in both cases. And therefore these Spirits may doe mischief enough in the world, in abet∣ting men that act it, though haply they neither take pleasure in doing of it upon any other termes, nor if they did, are able to doe it, there being so many watchfull eyes over them. For these AErial Legions are as capable of Political Honesty, and may as deeply resent it, as the Nations of the Earth doe, and it may be more deeply.

9. But if these Creatures were removed so far off as Cardan would have them, I doe not see how they could have any commu∣nion at all with us, to doe us either good or hurt. For that they are able to send Ap∣paritions or Dreames at this distance, is it self but a Dream, occasioned from that first errour in the Aristotelian Philosophy, that makes God and the Intelligences act from the heavenly sphears, and so to produce all these effects of Nature below; such as can never be done but by a present Numen and Spirit of Life that pervades all things.

10. This conceit therefore of his shall be no hindrance to our concluding, That this lower Region of the Aire is also replenisht with Daemons. Which if it be, it is not un∣likely

but that the impurer Souls wander there also; though I have taken all this pains to bring still greater trouble upon my self. For it is obvious to object that which Lucretius has started of old, that this Region being so obnoxious to Windes and tempests, the Souls will not be able to keep their Vehicles of Aire about them, but that they will be blown in pieces by the roughness of these storms. But we may be easily delivered of this solicitude, if we consider the nature of the Windes, the nature of these Vehicles, & the Statick power of the Soule. For to say theywil make as good shift as the Genii here, is not fully satisfactory, because a man would also willingly understand how the Genii themselves are not liable to this inconveni∣ence. My Answer therefore shall reach both.

11. That Windes are nothing else but Watery particles at their greatest agitation, Cartesius has very handsomely demonstra∣ted in his Meteors: Which particles doe not so much drive the Aire before them, as pass through it, as a flight of arrowes and showers of haile or rain. One part of the Aire therefore is not driven from another; but it is as if one should conceive so many little pieces of haire twirling on their mid∣dle point as at quarter-staffe, and so passing through the Aire; which motion would pass

free, without carrying the Aire along with it. This therefore being the nature of Winde, the Aire is not torn apieces there∣by, though we finde the impetus of it move∣ing against us, because it cannot penetrate our Bodies with that facility that it does the Aire.

12. But the Vehicles of the Genii and Souls deceased are much-what of the very nature of the Aire; whence it is plainly im∣possible that the Winde should have any other force on them, then what it has on the rest of that Element; and therefore the least thing imaginable will hold all the parts together. Which is true also if the Winde did carry along the Aire with it: for then the Vehicles of the Genii would move along with the stream, suffering little or no vio∣lence at all, unless they would force them∣selves against it. Which they are not neces∣sitated to doe, as indeed not so much as to come into it, or not at least to continue in it, but may take shelter, as other living Creatures doe, in houses, behind walls, in woods, dales, caverns, rocks and other ob∣vious places; and that maturely enough, the change of Aire and prognostick of storms being more perceptible to them then to any terrestrial animal.

13. And yet they need not be so cauti∣ous

to keep out of danger, they having a power to grapple with the greatest of it, which is their Statick faculty; which arises from the power of directing the motion of the particles of their Vehicle. For they having this power of directing the motion of these particles which way they please, by Axiome 31. it necessarily followes, that they can determinate their course inwards, or toward the Centre; by which direction they will be all kept close together, firm and tight: which ability I call the Statick power of the Soule. Which if it can direct the whole agitation of the particles of the Vehicle, as well those of the first and second Element as those of the Aire, and that part∣ly towards the Centre, and partly in a coun∣tertendency against the storme, this force and firmness will be far above the stron∣gest windes that she can possibly meet with.

14. Wherefore the Soules Vehicle is in no danger from the boisterousness of the Winds, and if it were, yet there is no fear of cessation of Life. For as the Wind blowes off one part of Aire, it brings on another which may be immediately actuated by the presence of the Soule; though there be no need to take refuge in so large an Hypothe∣sis. And it is more probable that she is more

peculiarly united to one part of the Aire then another, and that she dismisses her Ve∣hicle but by degrees, as our Spirits leasurely pass away by insensible Perspiration.

15. We see how little the Souls Vehicle can be incommodated by storms of Winde. And yet Rain, Haile, Snow and Thunder will incommodate her still less. For they pass as they doe through other parts of the Aire, which close again immediately, and leave neither wound nor scarre behinde them. Wherefore all these Meteors in their Mediocrity may be a pleasure to her and refreshment; and in their excess no long pain, nor in their highest rage any destruction of life at all. From whence we may safely con∣clude, that not onely the Upper Region, but this Lower also, may be inhabited both by the deceased Souls of Men and by Daemons.

CHAP. IV.

1. That the Soule once having quitted this earthly Body becomes a Daemon. 2. Of the Externall Senses of the Soule sepa∣rate, their number and limits in the Ve∣hicle. 3. Of Sight in a Vehicle organi∣zed and unorganized. 4. How Daemons

and separate Souls hear and see at a vast Distance: and whence it is that though they may so easily hear or see us, we may nei∣ther see nor hear them. 5. That they have Hearing as well as Sight. 6. Of the Touch, Smell, Tast, and Nourishment of Daemons. 7. The external employment that the Genii and Souls deceased may have out of the Body. 8. That the actions of Separate Souls, in reference to us, are most∣what conformable to their life here on Earth. 9. What their entertainments are in refe∣rence to themselves. 10. The distinction of orders of Daemons from the places they most frequent.

1. THE next thing we are to enquire into is the Employment of the Soul after Death; how she can entertain her self, and pass away the time, and that either in Solitude, in Company, or as she is a Political member of some Kingdome or Empire. Con∣cerning all which in the general we may conclude, that it is with her as with the rest of the AErial Genii, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, for the Soul having once put off this terrestrial Body becomes a Ge∣nius her self; as Maximus Tyrius, Xenocra∣tes, Philo and others expresly affirm. But we shall consider these things more parti∣cularly.

2. As for those employments wherewith she may entertain her self in solitude, they are either Objects of the External Senses, or of the Inward Minde. Concerning the for∣mer whereof it is more easie to move Que∣stions then satisfy them; as Whether she have the same number of Senses she had in this life. That she is endued with Hearing, Sight and Touch, I think there can be no scruple, because these will fall to her share necessarily, whether her Vehicle be organi∣zed or not; and that of Seeing and Touch is the most uncontrovertible of all. For the sense of visible Objects being discovered to us by transmission of Motion through those Spherical particles that are continued along from the Object through the Aire to our very Organ of Sight (which sees meerly by reason of these particles vitally united with the Soul) the same particles pervading all the Souls Vehicle, it is impossible but that she should see. But the Question is, whe∣ther she sees in every part thereof. To which I must answer, No: partly from what I have already declared concerning the He∣terogeneity of her Plastick part; and partly from a gross inconvenience that would fol∣low this Supposition. For if we should grant that the Soul saw in every part of her Ve∣hicle, every Object that is near would not

onely seem double, but centuple, or mille∣cuple; which would be a very ugly enormity and defacement of Sight. Wherefore we have, with very good reason, restrained the Visive faculty of the Soul in this state of Se∣paration, as well as it was in the Terrestrial Body.

3. But this hinders nothing but that the Soul, when she lies in one Homogeneal orb of Aire, devoid of organization, may see round about her, behinde, before, above, beneath, and every way. But if she organize her Ve∣hicle, Sight may haply be restrain'd, as in us who cannot see behinde us. Which Consi∣deration we toucht upon before.

4. It is plain therefore that these AErial Spirits, though we cannot see them, cannot miss of seeing us; and that, it may be, from a mighty distance, if they can transform their Vehicle, or the Organ of Sight, into some such advantageous Figure as is wrought in Dioptrick Glasses. Which power will infinitely exceed the contracting and dilating of the pupil of our Eye, which yet is a weaker and more defectuous at∣tempt towards so high a Priviledge as we speak of: which notwithstanding may seem very possible in Spirits from 31. and 34. Axiomes. The same also may be said of their Hearing. For the same principle may

enable them to shape themselves Organs for the receiving of Sounds, of greater art and excellency then the most accurate Acoustick we read of, or can excogitate. Wherefore it is a very childish mistake to think, that be∣cause we neither see the shape nor hear the discourse of Spirits, that they neither hear nor see us. For soft Bodies are impressible by hard ones, but not on the contrary; as melted Wax will receive the Signature of the Seal, but the Seal is not at all impressed upon by the Wax. And so a solid Body will stop the course of the Aire, but the Aire will not stop the course of a solid Body; and every inconsiderable terrestrial consi∣stency will reflect Light, but Light scarce moves any terrestrial Body out of its place, but is rebounded back by it. That therefore that is most tenuious and thin, is most pas∣sive, and therefore if it be once the Vehicle of Sense, is most sensible. Whence it will follow, that the reflexion of Light from Ob∣jects being able to move our Organs, that are not so fine, they will more necessarily move those of the Genii, and at a greater distance. But their Bodies being of diaphanous Aire, it is impossible for us to see them, unless they will give themselves the trouble of re∣ducing them to a more terrestrial consistency, whereby they may reflect light. Nor can

we easily hear their ordinary speech, partly because a very gentle motion of the Aire will act upon their Vehicles, and partly be∣cause they may haply use the finer and purer part of that Element in this exercise, which is not so fit to move our Sense. And there∣fore unless they will be heard datâ operâ, naturally that impress of the Aire in their usual discourse can never strike our Organ.

5. And that we may not seem to say all this for nought; that they will have Hea∣ring as well as Seeing, appears from what I have intimated above, that this Faculty is ranged near the Common Sensorium in the Vehicle, as well as that of Sight, and there∣fore the Vehicle being all Aire, such percus∣sions of it as cause the sense of Sound in us will necessarily doe the like in them; but more accurately, haply, if they organize their Vehicle for the purpose, which will answer to the arrection of the Ears of Ani∣mals, for the better taking in the Sound.

6. That they have the sense of Touch is inevitably true, else how could they feel re∣sistance, which is necessary in the bearing of one Body against another, because they are impenetrable? And to speak freely my mind, it will be a very hard thing to disprove that they have not something analogical to Smell and Tast, which are very near a-kin

to Touch properly so called. For Fumes and Odours passing so easily through the Aire, will very naturally insinuate into their Ve∣hicles also: which Fumes, if they be grosser and humectant, may raise that diversifica∣tion of Touch which we Mortals call Ta∣sting; if more subtile and dry, that which we call Smelling. Which if we should ad∣mit, we are within modest bounds as yet in comparison of others; as Cardan, who af∣firms downright that the AErial Genii are nourished, and that some of them get into the Bodies of Animals to batten themselves there in their Blood and Spirits. Which is also averred by Marcus the Mesopotamian Eremite in Psellus, who tells us that the purer sort of the Genii are nourished by drawing in the Aire, as our Spirits are in the Nerves and Arteries; and that other Genii, of a courser kinde, suck in moisture, not with the Mouth as we doe, but as a Sponge does water. And Moses AEgyptius writes concerning the Zabii, that they eat of the blood of their Sacrifice, because they thought it was the food of the Daemons they worshipped, and that by eating thereof they were in a better capacity to communicate with them. Which things if they could be believed, that would be no such hard Probleme concerning the Familiars of Wit∣ches,

why they suck them. But such curi∣osities, being not much to our purpose, I willingly omit.

7. The conclusion of what has been said is this, That it is certain that the Genii, and consequently the Souls of men departed, who ipso facto are of the same rank with them, have the sense of Seeing, Hearing, and Touching, and not improbably of Smel∣ling and Tasting. Which Faculties being granted, they need not be much at a loss how to spend their time, though it were but upon external Objects; all the furniture of Heaven and Earth being fairly exposed to their view. They see the same Sun and Moon that we doe, behold the persons and converse of all men, and, if no special Law inhibit them, may pass from Town to Town, and from City to City, as Hesiod also intimates,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

There is nothing that we enjoy but they may have their fees out of it; fair Fields, large and invious Woods, pleasant Gardens, high and healthful Mountains, where the purest gusts of Aire are to be met with, Crystal Rivers, mossy Springs, solemnity of Entertainments, Theatrick Pomps and Shews, publick and private Discourses, the

exercises of Religion, whether in Temples, Families, or hidden Cells. They may be also (and haply not uninteressed) Spectators of the glorious and mischievous hazards of War, whether Sea-fights or Land-fights; besides those soft and silent, though some∣times no less dangerous, Combats in the Camps of Cupid; and a thousand more par∣ticularities that it would be too long to reckon up, where they haply are not men Spectators but Abettors, as Plutarch writes: Like old men that are past Wrestling, Pitch∣ing the Barre, or playing at Cudgels them∣selves, yet will assist and abet the young men of the Parish at those Exercises. So the Souls of men departed, though they have put off with the Body the capacity of the or∣dinary functions of humane Life, yet they may assist and abet them, as pursuing some design in them; and that either for evil or good, according as they were affected them∣selves when they were in the Body.

8. In brief, whatever is the custome and desire of the Soul in this life, that sticks and adheres to her in that which is to come; and she will be sure, so farre as she is capable, either to act it, or to be at least a Spectator and Abettor of such kinde of actions.

—Quae gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadē sequitur tellure repostos.

Which rightly understood is no poetical fiction, but a professed Truth in Plato's Phi∣losophy. And Maximus Tyrius speaks ex∣presly even of the better sort of Soules, who having left the Body, and so becoming 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, i. e. being made ipso facto Genii in stead of men, that, beside the peculiar happiness they reap thereby to themselves, they are appointed by God, and have a mission from him, to be Overseers of humane affairs: but that every Genius does not perform every office, but as their naturall Inclinations and Customes were in this life, they exercise the like in some manner in the other. And therefore he will have AEsculapius to practise Physick still, and Hercules to exercise his strength, Amphilochus to prophesy, Castor and Pollux to navigate, Minos to hear causes, and Achilles to war. Which opinion is as likely to hold true in Bad Souls as in Good; and then it will follow, that the Souls of the wicked make it their business to assist and abet the exercise of such Vices as them∣selves were most addicted to in this life, and

to animate and tempt men to them. From whence it would follow, that they being thus by their separate state Daemons, as has been said already, if they be also tempters to evil, they will very little differ from meer Devils.

9. But besides this employment in refe∣rence to us, they may entertain themselves with Intellectuall Contemplations, whether Naturall, Mathematical, or Metaphysical. For assuredly Knowledge is not so easy and cheap in this state of Separation, but that they may advance and improve themselves by exercise and Meditations. And they being in a capacity to forget by reason of desue∣tude, it will be a new pleasure to them to recall to minde their almost obliterate spe∣culations. And for those that take more pleasure in outward Sense then in the ope∣rations of their Understanding; there being so much change in Nature, and so various qualifications of the Aire and these inferiour Elements, which must needs act upon their aerial Bodies to more or less gratification or dislike, this also will excuse them from being idle, and put them upon quest after such refreshments and delights as Nature will afford the multifarious presages and de∣sires of their flitting Vehicles.

10. Not but that they keep constant to

some generall inclination, which has divi∣ded these aerial wanderers into so many Orders or Tribes; the ancient Philosophers and Poets (which are Philosophers of the antientest standing of all) having assigned places proper to each Order: the Sea, Ri∣vers and Springs to one, Mountains and Groves to others, and so of the rest. Whence they imposed also those names of the Nereides, Naiades, Oreades, Dryades, and the like: to which you may adde the Dii Tutelares of Cities and Countries, and those that love the warmth of Families and homely converse of Men, such as they styled Lares familiares. All which, and hun∣dreds more, which there is no need to recite, though they be engaged ever in one natural propension, yet there being so great variety of occasions to gratify it more or less, their thoughts may be imployed in purchasing and improving those delights that are most agreeable to their own nature. Which par∣ticularities to run over would be as infinite as useless. These short intimations are suffi∣cient to make us understand that the Genii and separate Souls need want no Employment, no not in Solitude: for such must their stay also amongst us be esteemed, when they doe not sensibly and personally converse with us.

CHAP. V.

1. That the Separate Soule spends not all her time in Solitude. 2. That her converse with us seems more intelligible then that with the Genii. 3. How the Genii may be vi∣sible one to another, though they be to us invisible. 4. Of their approaches, and of the limits of their swiftness of motion: 5. And how they far exceed us in celerity. 6. Of the figure or shape of their Vehicles, and of their privacy, when they would be invisible. 7. That they cannot well con∣verse in a meer simple Orbicular forme. 8. That they converse in humane shape, at least the better sort of them. 9. Whether the shape they be in proceed meerly from the Imperium of their Will and Fancy, or is regulated by a natural Character of the Plastick part of the Soule. 10. That the personal shape of a Soule or Genius is partly from the Will, and partly from the Plastick power. 11. That considering how the Soul organizes the Foetus in the Womb, and moves our limbs at pleasure; it were a wonder if Spirits should not have such command over their Vehicles as is believed. 12. A further Argument from an excessive vertue some have given to Imagination.

1. BUT the separate state of the Soule does not condemn her to this Solitude, but being admitted into the order of the Genii, she is possessed of their Priviledges, which is to converse personally with this AErial people, and also upon occasion with the Inhabitants of the Earth; though the latter with far more difficulty.

2. As for her converse with the AErial Genii and other Souls separate, it must be in all reason concluded to be exceeding much more frequent then that with men, and yet this latter is in some sort more in∣telligible; because it is certain she can see us, light being reflected from our opake Bodies unto her Sense, and by conspissating her Vehicle she may make her self visible to us. But the Vehicles of the Genii and of Souls being in their natural consistence purely AErial, and Air being a transparent Body, it will transmit the light wholly; and so no reflexion being made from these aiery Bodies, they can have no perception of one anothers presence, and therefore no society nor communion one with another.

3. This seems a shrewd Difficulty at the first view. But it is easily taken off, if we consider that Aire will admit of many de∣grees of Rarefaction and Condensation, and

yet still appear unto us alike invisible, as one may observe in the Weather-glass. But it were more proper to propose in this case the experiment of the Wind-gun, wherein the Aire is compressed to a great number of de∣grees of condensatiō beyond its natural state; within the compass of many whereof there is no doubt, if not in the utmost, that the Aire does remaine invisible to us. But there is no scruple to be made but that in the progress of these degrees of Condensation the Aire, if it were in a Glass-barrel, might become vi∣sible to the Genii, by reason of the tender∣ness and delicacy of their Senses, before it would be so to us. Whence it followes, that the Vehicles of the Genii may have a consistency different from the Aire, and perceptible to them, that is to say, to one anothers sight, though it be as unpercep∣tible to us as the rest of the Aire is. As, it may be, a man that has but bad eyes would not be able to distinguish Ice immersed in the Water from the Water it self by his Sight, though he might by his Touch. Or if their Vehicles could be supposed purer and finer then the rest of the Aire, their pre∣sence might be perceptible by that means too. For this vaporous Aire having with∣out question a confused reflection of light in it, every way in some proportion like that

in a Mist, or when the Sun shines waterishly and prognosticks rain; these repercussions of light being far more sensible to the Genii then to us, the lessening of them would be more sensible, and therefore the diminution of reflection from their Vehicles would be sufficient to discover their presence one to another: and for the illustrating of this Hy∣pothesis, the experiment of the Weather-glass is more proper. But the other suppo∣sition I look upon as the more likely to be true; and that as the aquatil Animals that live in the Sea have a consistency grosser then the Element they move in, so it is with these that live in the Aire, though there be nothing near so great a difference here as in that other Element.

4. It is plain therefore, that the Persons of the Genii and separate Souls are visible one to another. But yet not at any distance, and therefore there is necessity of approach∣ing to one another for mutual converse: which enforces us to say something of their Local Motion. Which is neither by Fins nor Wings, as in Fishes or Birds, who are fain to sustain themselves by these instruments from sinking to the bottome of either Element: but it is meerly by the di∣rection of the agitation of the particles of their Vehicle toward the place they aime

at; and in such a swiftness or leasureliness as best pleases themselves, and is competi∣ble to their natures. For they can goe no swifter then the whole summe of agitation of the particles of their Vehicle will carry so much Matter, nor indeed so swift; for it implies that their Vehicles would be tur∣ned into an absolutely hard Body, such as Brass or Iron, or whatever we find harder; so that necessarily they would fall down to the Earth as dead as a Stone. Those there∣fore are but phantastick conceits that give such agility to Spirits, as if they could be here and there and every where at once, skip from one Pole of the World to another, & be on the Earth again in a moment: when∣as in truth they can pass with no greater swiftness then the direction of such a part of the agitation of the particles of their Ve∣hicles will permit, as may be spared from what is employed in keeping them within a tolerable compass of a due aerial flui∣dity.

5. And this alone will suffice to make them exceed us in activity and swiftness by many degrees. For their whole Vehicle is haply at least as thin and moveable as our animal Spirits, which are very few in com∣parison of this luggage of an earthly Body that they are to drive along with them. But

the spiritual Bodies of the Genii have no∣thing to drive along with them but them∣selves; and therefore are more free and light, compared to us, then a mettl'd Steed that has cast his Rider, compared with a Pack-horse loaden with a sack of Salt.

6. The next, thing to be considered, tou∣ching the mutual conversation of these ae∣rial Genii, is the shape they appear in one to another, of what Figure it is, and whether the Figure be Natural, or Arbitrarious, or Mixt. For that they must appear in some Figure or other is plain, in that their Vehi∣cles are not of an infinite extension. It is the more general Opinion, that there is no particular Figure that belongs unto them naturally, unless it be that which of all Fi∣gures is most simple, and most easy to con∣form to, even by external helps, which is the equal compression of the Aire on every side of the Vehicle, by which means drops of Dew and Rain and pellets of Hail come so ordinarily into that shape. Which also will more handsomely accord with the nature of the Soul, supposing she consist of Central and Radial essence, as I have above descri∣bed, and the Common Sensorium be placed in the midst. In this Figure may the Soul reside in the Aire, and haply melt her self, I mean her Vehicle, into near so equal a li∣quidity

with that part of that Element ad∣jacent to her, that it may be in some mea∣sure like our retiring into secrecy from the sight of men, when we desire to be private by our selves.

7. But she may, if she will, and likely with farre more ease, change this consisten∣cy of her AErial Body into such a degree of thickness, that there may be a dubious dis∣covery of her, as in the glimpse of a Fish un∣der the water, and may still make her self more visible to her fellow-Genii, though keeping yet this simple Orbicular form. But what converse there can be betwixt two such heaps of living Aire, I know not. They may indeed communicate their affections one to another in such a way as is discove∣red in the Eye, wherein the motions of the Spirits doe plainly indicate the Passions of the Minde: so that it may seem possible, in this simple Figure, to make known their joy or grief, peaceableness or wrath, love or dislike, by the modification of the mo∣tion of the Spirits of their Vehicle. But how there can well be entertained any Intelle∣ctual or Rational Conference, without any further organization of their Aiery Bodies, I profess my self at a loss to understand.

8. Wherefore the Genii and separate Souls, whatever their shape be in private,

appear in a more operose and articulate form when they are to converse with one another. For they can change their Figure in a man∣ner as they please, by Axiome 34. Which power, I conceive, will be made use of not onely for service, but ornament and pulcri∣tude. And the most unexceptionable Beau∣ty, questionless, is that of Man in the best patterns (chuse what Sex you will) and far above the rest of Creatures; which is not our judgement onely, but His that made us. For certainly he would give to the Principal of terrestrial Animals the noblest form and shape; which though it be much obscured by our unfortunate Fall, yet questionless the defacement is not so great, but that we may have a near guess what it has been hereto∣fore. It is most rational therefore to con∣clude, that the AErial Genii converse with one another in Humane shape, at least the bet∣ter sort of them.

9. But the difficulty now is, whether that Humane shape that the Soul transforms her Vehicle into, be simply the effect of the Imperium of her Will over the Matter she actuates, or that her Will may be in some measure limited or circumscribed in its ef∣fect by a concomitant exertion of the Pla∣stick power; so that what proceeds from the Will may be onely more general, that

is, That the Souls Will may onely com∣mand the Vehicle into an Animal form; but that it is the form or shape of a Man, may arise in a more natural way from the concomitant exertion of the Plastick ver∣tue. I say, in a more easy and natural way: For vehemency of desire to alter the Figure into another representation may make the appearance resemble some other creature: But no forced thing can last long. The more easy and natural shape therefore that, at least, the better Genii appear in, is Humane: which if it be granted, it may be as likely that such a determinate Humane shape may be more easy and natural then another, and that the Soul, when she wills to appear in personal Figure, will transform her Vehicle into one constant likeness, unless she dis∣guise her self on set purpose. That is, the Plastick power of every Soul, whether of Men, or of the other Genii, does naturally display it self into a different modification of the Humane shape, which is the proper Signature of every particular or individual person: which though it may be a little changed in Generation by vertue of the Ima∣gination of the Parents, or quality of their seed, yet the Soul set free from that Body she got here, may exquisitely recover her ancient form again.

10. Not that the Plastick virtue, awake∣ned by the Imperium of her Will, shall re∣newall the lineaments it did in this Earthly Body (for abundance of them are useless and to no purpose, which therefore, Providence so ordaining, will be silent in this aiery figu∣ration, and onely such operate as are fit for this separate state; and such are those as are requisite to perfect the visible feature of a Person, giving him all parts of either orna∣ment or use for the pleasure of rational con∣verse;) nor that this Efformative power does determine the whole appearance alone (for these aerial Spirits appear variously clad, some like beautiful Virgins, others like va∣liant Warriours with their Helmets and Plumes of feathers, as Philostratus would make us believe Achilles did to Apollonius:) But there is a mixt action and effect, resul∣ting partly from the freeness of the Will and Imagination, and partly from the natu∣ral propension of the Plastick virtue, to cast the Vehicle into such a personal shape.

11. Which Prerogative of the Soul, in having this power thus to shape her Vehicle at will, though it may seem very strange, be∣cause we doe not see it done before our eyes, nor often think of such things; yet it is not much more wonderful then that she orga∣nizes the Foetus in the womb, or that we

can move the parts of our Body meerly by our Will and Imagination. And that the aerial Spirits can doe these things, that they can thus shape their Vehicles, and transform themselves into several Appearances, I need bring no new instances thereof. Those Nar∣rations I have recited in my Third Book against Atheism doe sufficiently evince this Truth. And verily, considering the great power acknowledged in Imagination by all Philosophers, nothing would seem more strange, then that these Aiery Spirits should not have this command over their own Vehicles, to transform them as they please.

12. For there are some, and they of no small note, that attribute so wonderful ef∣fects to that Faculty armed with confidence and belief (to which Passion Fear may in some manner be referred, as being a strong belief of an imminent evil, and that it will surely take effect, as also vehement Desire, as being accompanied with no small mea∣sure of perswasion that we may obtain the thing desired, else Desire would not be so very active) I say, they attribute so wonder∣ful force to Imagination, that they affirm that it will not onely alter a mans own Bo∣dy, but act upon anothers, and that at a di∣stance; that it will inflict diseases on the

sound, and heal the sick; that it will cause Hail, Snows and Winds; that it will strike down an Horse or Camel, and cast their Ri∣ders into a ditch; that it will doe all the feats of Witchcraft, even to the making of Ghosts and Spirits appear, by transforming the adjacent Aire into the shape of a person that cannot onely be felt and seen, but heard to discourse, and that not onely by them whose Imagination created this aiery Spe∣ctrum, but by other by-standers, whose Fancy contributed nothing to its existence. To such an extent as this have Avicenna, Algazel, Paracelsus, Pomponatius, Vaninus and others, exalted the power of humane Imagination: which if it were true, this transfiguration of the Vehicles of the sepa∣rate Souls and Genii were but a trifle in comparison thereof.

CHAP. VI.

1. More credible Instances of the effects of Imagination. 2. A special and peculiar Instance in Signatures of the Foetus. 3. That what Fienus grants, who has so cautiously bounded the power of Fancy, is sufficient for the present purpose. 4. Ex∣amples approved of by Fienus. 5. Cer∣tain

Examples rejected by him, and yet ap∣proved of by Fernelius and Sennertus. 6. Three notorious Stories of the power of the Mothers Imagination on the Foetus, out of Helmont. 7. A conjectural inference from those Stories, what influence the Spi∣rit of Nature has in all Plastick operati∣ons. 8. A further confirmation of the Conjecture from Signatures on the Foetus. 9. An application thereof to the transfigu∣ration of the Vehicles of Daemons.

1. BUT I shall contain my belief within more moderate bounds, that which the most sober Authors assent to being suf∣ficient for our turn; and that is the power of Imagination on our own Bodies, or what is comprehended within our own, viz. the Foetus in the Womb of the Mother. For that Imagination will bring real and sensible effects to pass is plain, in that some have raised diseases in their own Bodies by too strongly imagining of them; by fancying bitter or soure things, have brought those real sapours into their mouths; at the re∣membring of some filthy Object, have faln a vomiting; at the imagining of a Potion, have faln▪ a purging; and many such things of the like nature. Amongst which, that of prefixing to ones self what time in the mor∣ning

we will wake, is no less admirable then my. Which alterations upon the Spirits for the production of such qualities, is every jot as hard as the ranging them into new figures or postures. But the hardest of all is, to make them so determinately active, as to change the shape of the Body, by send∣ing out knobs like horns, as it hapned to Cyppus, of which Agrippa speaks in his Occult. Philosoph. Which I should not have repeated here, had I not been credibly in∣formed of a later example of the like effect of Imagination, though upon more fancyful grounds. That feare has killed some, and turned others gray, is to be referred to Ima∣gination also: the latter of which examples is a signe that the Plastick power of the Soule has some influence also upon the very haires: which will make it less marvellous that the Souls Vehicle may be turned into the live effigies of a Man, not a haire, that is necessary to the perfecting of his repre∣sentation, being excluded, free Imagination succeeding or assisting the Plastick power in the other state.

2. But of all Examples, those of the Sig∣natures of the Foetus by the Imagination of the Mother come the nearest to our pur∣pose. For we may easily conceive, that as the Plastick power in the Foetus is directed

or seduced by the force of the Mothers Fan∣cy; so the Efformative virtue in Souls se∣parate and the Genii may be governed and directed or perverted by the force of their Imagination. And so much the more sure∣ly by how much the union is more betwixt the Imagination of the Soule and her own Plastick faculty, then betwixt her and the Plastick power of another Soule; and the capacity of being changed, greater in the yielding aerial Vehicle, then in the grosser rudiments of the Foetus in the Womb.

3. And yet the effects of the force of the Mothers Imagination in the signing of the Foetus is very wonderful, and almost beyond belief, to those that have not examined these things. But the more learned sort both of Physitians and Philosophers are agreed on the truth thereof, as Empedocles, Aristotle, Pliny, Hippocrates, Galen, and all the modern Physitians, being born down into assent by daily experience. For these Signatures of less extravagance and enor∣mity are frequent enough, as the similitude of Cherries, Mulberries, the colour of Cla∣ret-wine spilt on the woman with child, with many such like instances. And if we stand but to what Fienus has defined in this matter, who has, I think, behaved himself as cautiously and modestly as may be, there

will be enough granted to assure us of what we aime at. For he does acknowledge that the Imagination of the Mother may change the figure of the Foetus so as to make it beare a resemblance, though not absolutely perfect, of an Ape, Pig, or Dog, or any such like Animal. The like he affirms of colours, haires, and excrescencies of several sorts: that it may produce also what is very like or analogous to horns and hoofs, and that it may encrease the bigness and number of the parts of the Body.

4. And though he does reject several of the examples he has produced out of Au∣thors, yet those which he admits for true are Indications plain enough, what we may expect in the Vehicle of a departed Soule or Daemon. As that of the Hairy girle out of Marcus Damascenus; that other out of Guilielmus Paradinus, of a Child whose skin and nails resembled those of a Bear; and a third out of Balduinus Ronsaeus, of one born with many excrescencies coloured and figured like those in a Turky-cock; and a fourth out of Pareus, of one who was born with an head like a Frog; as lastly that out of Avicenna, of chickens with hawks heads. All which deviations of the Plastick power hapned from the force of Imagination in the Females, either in the time of Concep∣tion,

or gestation of their young.

5. But he scruples of giving assent to others, which yet are assented to by very learned writers. As that of Black-moores being born of white Parents, and white Children of black, by the exposal of pictures representing an AEthiopian or European: which those two excellent Physitians, Fer∣nelius and Sennertus, both agree to. He re∣jects also that out of Cornelius Gemma, of a Child that was born with his Forehead wounded and running with blood, from the husbands threatning his wife, when she was big, with a drawn sword which he directed towards her Forehead. Which will not seem so incredible, if we consider what Sen∣nertus records of his own knowledg, viz. That a Woman with child seeing a Butcher divide a Swines head with his Cleaver, brought forth her Child with its face cloven in the upper jaw, the palate, and upper lip to the very nose.

6. But the most notorious instances of this sort are those of Helmont De injectis materialibus. The one of a Taylors wife at Mechlin, who standing at her doore, and seeing a souldiers hand cut off in a quarrel, presently fell into labour, being struck with horrour at the spectacle, and brought forth a child with one hand, the other arm bleed∣ing

without one, of which wound the in∣fant died by the great expense of blood. Another woman, the wife of one Marcus De Vogeler Merchant of Antwerp, in the year 1602. seeing a souldier begging who had lost his right arme in Ostend-siege, which he shewed to the people still bloody, fell presently into labour, and brought forth a Daughter with one arme struck off, no∣thing left but a bloody stump to employ the Chirurgions skill: this woman married af∣terwards to one Hoochcamer Merchant of Amsterdam, and was yet alive in the year 1638. as Helmont writes. He adds a third example, of another Merchants wife which he knew, who hearing that on a morning there were thirteen men to be beheaded (this hapned at Antwerp in Duke D' Alva his time) she had the curiosity to see the execution. She getting therefore a place in the Chamber of a certain widow-woman, a friend of hers that dwelt in the market-place, beheld this Tragick spectacle; upon which she suddainly fell into labour, and brought forth a perfectly-formed infant, onely the head was wanting, but the neck bloody as their bodies she beheld that had their heads cut off. And that which does still advance the wonder is, that the hand, arme, and head of these infants, were none of them

to be found. From whence Van-Helmont would infer a penetration of corporeal di∣mensions; but how groundlessly I will not dispute here.

7. If these Stories he recites be true, as I must confess I doe not well know how to deny them, he reporting them with so ho∣nest and credible circumstances; they are notable examples of the power of Imagina∣tion, and such as doe not onely win belief to themselves, but also to others that Fie∣nus would reject, not of this nature onely we are upon, of wounding the body of the Infant, but also of more exorbitant con∣formation of parts, of which we shall bring an instance or two anon. In the mean time, while I more carefully contemplate this strange virtue and power of the Soule of the Mother, in which there is no such mea∣sure of purification or exaltedness, that it should be able to act such miracles, as I may call them, rather then natural effects; I cannot but be more then usually inclinable to think that the Plastick faculty of the Soule of the Infant, or whatever accessions there may be from the Imagination of the Mother, is not the adaequate cause of the formation of the Foetus: a thing which Plo∣tinus somewhere intimates by the by, as I have already noted, viz. That the Soule of

the World, or the Spirit of Nature, assists in this performance. Which if it be true, we have discovered a Cause proportionable to so prodigious an Effect. For we may easily conceive that the deeply-impassionated fan∣cy of the Mother snatches away the Spirit of Nature into consent: which Spirit may rationally be acknowledged to have a hand in the efformation of all vital Beings in the World, and haply be the onely Agent in forming of all manner of Plants. In which kinde whether she exert her power in any other Elements then Earth and Water, I will conclude no further, then that there may be a possibility thereof in the cal∣mer Regions of Aire and AEther. To the right understanding of which conjecture, some light will offer it self from what we have said concerning the Visibility and Consistency of the aerial Daemons in their occursions one with another.

8. But this is not the onely Argument that would move one to think that this Spirit of Nature intermeddles with the Ef∣formation of the Foetus. For those Signa∣tures that are derived on the Infant from the Mothers fancy in the act of Conception, cannot well be understood without this Hy∣pothesis. For what can be the Subject of that Signature? Not the Plastick part of

the Soul of the Mother; for that it is not the Mothers Soul that efforms the Embryo, as Sennertus ingeniously conjectures from the manner of the efformation of Birds, which is in their Egges, distinct from the Hen, and they may as well be hatched with∣out any Hen at all, a thing ordinarily pra∣ctised in AEgypt; nor the Body of the Em∣bryo, for it has yet no Body; nor its Soul, for the Soul, if we believe Aristotle, is not yet present there. But the Spirit of Nature is present every where, which snatcht into consent by the force of the Imagination of the Mother, retains the Note, and will be sure to seal it on the Body of the Infant. For what rude inchoations the Soul of the World has begun in the Matter of the Foe∣tus, this Signature is comprehended in the whole design, and after compleated by the presence and operation of the particular Soul of the Infant, which cooperates con∣formably to the pattern of the Soul of the World, and insists in her footsteps; who having once begun any hint to an entire de∣sign, she is alike able to pursue it in any place, she being every where like or rather the same to her self. For as our Soul be∣ing one, yet, upon the various temper of the Spirits, exerts her self into various imagi∣nations and conceptions; so the Soul of

the World, being the same perfectly every where, is engaged to exert her efformative power every where alike, where the Matter is exactly the same. Whence it had been no wonder, if those Chickens above-menti∣oned with Hawks heads had been hatched an hundred miles distant from the Hen, whose Imagination was disturbed in the act of Conception: because the Soul of the World had begun a rude draught, which it self would as necessarily pursue every where, as a Geometrician certainly knows how to draw a Circle that will fit three Points given.

9. This Opinion therefore of Plotinus is neither irrational nor unintelligible, That the Soul of the World interposes and insinuates into all generations of things, while the Matter is fluid and yielding. Which would induce a man to believe, that she may not stand idle in the transfiguration of the Ve∣hicles of the Daemons, but assist their fancies and desires, and so help to cloath them and attire them according to their own plea∣sures: or it may be sometimes against their wills, as the unwieldiness of the Mothers Fancy forces upon her a Monstrous birth.

CHAP. VII.

1. Three notable Examples of Signatures, rejected by Fienus: 2. And yet so farre allowed for possible, as will fit our design. 3. That Helmonts Cherry and Licetus his Crab-fish are shrewd arguments that the Soul of the World has to do with all Effor∣mations of both Animals and Plants. 4. An Example of a most exact and lively Signature out of Kircher: 5. With his judgement thereupon. 6. Another Ex∣ample out of him of a Child with gray hairs. 7. An application of what has been said hitherto, concerning the Signatures of the Foetus, to the transfiguration of the aiery Vehicles of separate Souls and Dae∣mons. 8. Of their personal transforma∣tion visible to us.

1. THose other Examples of the Signa∣tion of the Foetus from the Mothers Fancy, which Fienus rejecteth, the one of them is out of Wierus, of a man that threat∣ned his wife when she was bigge with child, saying, she bore the Devil in her womb, and that he would kill him: whereupon, not long after, she brought forth a Child well shaped from the middle downwards, but

upwards spotted with black and red spots, with eyes in its forehead, a mouth like a Satyre, ears like a Dog, and bended horns on its head like a Goat. The other out of Ludovicus Vives, of one who returning home in the disguise of a Devil, whose part he had acted on the Stage, and having to doe with his wife in that habit, saying he would beget a Devil on her, impregnated her with a Monster of a shape plainly diabo∣lical. The third and most remarkable is out of Peramatus, of a Monster born at S. Lau∣rence in the West-Indies, in the year 1573▪ the narration whereof was brought to the Duke of Medina Sidonia from very faithful hands. How there was a Child born there at that time, that besides the horrible deformity of its mouth, ears and nose, had two horns on the head, like those of young Goats, long hair on the body, a fleshy girdle about his middle, double, from whence hung a peece of flesh like a purse, and a bell of flesh in his left hand, like those the Indians use when they dance, white boots of flesh on his legges, doubled down: In brief, the whole shape was horrid and diabolical, and conceived to proceed from some fright the Mother had taken from the antick dances of the Indians, amongst whom the Devil him∣self does not fail to appear sometimes.

2. These Narrations Fienus rejecteth, not as false, but as not being done by any natural power, or if they be, that the de∣scriptions are something more lively then the truth. But in the mean time he does freely admit, that by the meer power of Imagination there might be such excrescen∣cies as might represent those things that are there mentioned; though those diabo∣lical shapes could not have true horns, hoofs, tail, or any other part, specifically distinct from the nature of Man. But so farre as he acknowledges is enough for our turn.

3. But Fortunius Licetus is more liberal in his grants, allowing not onely that the Births of women may be very exqulsitely distorted in some of their parts into the likeness of those of Brutes, but that Chi∣maerical imaginations in Dreams may also effect it, as well as Fancies or external Ob∣jects when they are awake. Of the latter sort whereof he produces an Example that will more then match our purpose, of a Si∣cilian matron, who by chance beholding a Crab in a Fishermans hand new caught, and of a more then ordinary largeness, when she was brought to bed, brought forth a Crab (as well as a Child) perfectly like those that are ordinarily caught in the Sea. This was

told him by a person of credit, who both knew the Woman, and saw the Crab she brought forth. Helmonts Cherry he so of∣ten mentions, and how it was green, pale, yellow, and red, at the times of year other Cherries are, is something of this nature; that is to say, comes near to the perfect spe∣cies of a Cherry, as this did of a Crab, the plantal life of a Cherry being in some mea∣sure in the one, as the life of an Animal was perfectly in the other. Which confirms what we said before, that strength of our Desire and Imagination may snatch into consent the Spirit of Nature, and make it act: which once having begun, leaves not off, if Mat∣ter will but serve for to work upon; and being the same in all places, acts the same upon the same Matter, in the same circum∣stances. For the Root and Soul of every Vegetable is the Spirit of Nature; in vir∣tue whereof this Cherry flourisht and ripe∣ned, according to the seasons of the Coun∣try where the party was that bore that live Signature. These two instances are very shrewd arguments that the Soul of the World has to doe with all Efformations of either Plants or Animals. For neither the Childs Soul nor the Mothers, in any likelihood, could frame that Crab, though the Mother might, by that strange power of Desire and

Imagination, excite the Spirit of the World that attempts upon any Matter that is fit∣ted for generation, some way or other, to make something of it; and being determi∣ned by the fancy of the Woman, might sign the humid materials in her Womb with the image of her Minde.

4. Wherefore if Fienus had considered from what potent causes Signatures may arise, he would not have been so scrupulous in believing that degree of exactness that some of them are reported to have: or if he had had the good hap to have met with so notable an example thereof, as Kircher professes himself to have met with. For he tells a story of a man that came to him for this very cause, to have his opinion what a certain strange Signature, which he had on his Arm from his birth, might portend; concerning which he had consulted both Astrologers and Cabbalists, who had promi∣sed great preferments, the one imputing it to the Influence of the Stars, the other to the favour of the sealing Order of Angels. But Kircher would not spend his judgement upon a meer verbal description thereof; though he had plainly enough told him, it was the Pope sitting on his Throne, with a Dragon under his feet, and an Angel putting a Crown on his head. Wherefore the man

desirous to hear a further confirmation of these hopes (he had conceived from the fa∣vourable conjectures of others) by the suffrage of so learned a man, was willing in private to put off his doublet, and shew his Arm to Kircher: who having viewed it with all possible care, does profess that the Sig∣nature was so perfect, that it seemed rather the work of Art then of exorbitating Na∣ture; & yet by certain observations he made, that he was well assured it was the work of Nature, and not of Art, though it was an artificial piece that Nature imitated, viz. the picture of Pope Gregory the thirteenth, who is sometimes drawn according as this Signature did lively represent, namely on a Throne, with a Dragon under his feet, lea∣ning with one hand on his Seat, and bearing the other in that posture in which they give the Benediction, and an Angel remo∣ving a Curtain, and reaching a Crown to∣wards his head.

5. Kircher therefore leaving the super∣stitions and fooleries of the spurious Cabba∣lists and Astrologers, told him the truth, though nothing so pleasant as their lies and flatteries, viz. That this Signature was not impressed by any either influence of the Stars, or Seals of Angels, but that it was the effect of the Imagination of his Mother

that bore him, who in some more then or∣dinary fit of affection towards this Pope, whose picture she beheld in some Chappel or other place of her devotion, and having some occasion to touch her Arm, printed that image on the Arm of her Child, as it ordinarily happens in such cases. Which doubtless was the true solution of the my∣stery.

6. The same Author writes, how he was invited by a friend to contemplate another strange miracle (as he thought that did in∣vite him to behold it) that he might spend his judgement upon it. Which was nothing else but an exposed Infant of some fourteen days old, that was gray-hair'd, both head and eye-brows. Which his friend, an Apo∣thecary, look't upon as a grand Prodigy, till he was informed of the cause thereof. That the Mother that brought it forth, being married to an old man whose head was all white, the fear of being surprized in the act of Adultery by her snowy-headed hus∣band, made her imprint that colour on the Child she bore. Which Story I could not omit to recite, it witnessing to what an ex∣act curiosity the power of Fancy will work, for the fashioning and modifying the Matter, not missing so much as the very colours of the hair, as I have al∣ready

noted something to that purpose.

7. To conclude therefore at length, and leave this luxuriant Theme. Whether it be the Power of Imagination carrying cap∣tive the Spirit of Nature into consent, or the Soule of the Infant, or both; it is evident that the effects are notable, and sometimes very accurately answering the Idea of the Impregnate, derived upon the moist and ductil matter in the Womb: Which yet, not being any thing so yielding as the soft aire, nor the Soule of the Mother so much one with that of the Infant as the separate Soule is one with it self, nor so pe∣culiarly united to the Body of the Infant as the Soule separate with her own Vehicle, nor having any nearer or more mysterious commerce with the Spirit of Nature, then she has when her Plastick part, by the Im∣perium of her Will and Imagination, is to organize her Vehicle into a certain shape and form, which is a kind of a momentaneous birth of the distinct Personality, of either a Soule separate, or any other Daemon; it fol∣lowes, that we may be very secure, that there is such a power in the Genii and Se∣parate Souls, that they can with ease and accuracy transfigure themselves into shapes and forms agreeable to their own temper and nature.

8. All which I have meant hitherto in reference to their visible congresses one with another. But they are sometimes vi∣sible to us also, under some Animal shape, which questionless is much more difficult to them then that other Visibility is. But this is also possible, though more unusual by far, as being more unnatural. For it is possible by Art to compress Aire so, as to reduce it to visible opacity, and has been done by some, and particularly by a friend of Des-Cartes, whom he mentions in his Letters as having made this Experiment; the Aire getting this opacity by squeezing the Globuli out of it. Which though the separate Souls and Spirits may doe by that directive faculty, Axiome 31. yet surely it would be very painful. For the first Ele∣ment lying bare, if the Aire be not drawn exceeding close, it will cause an ungratefull heat; and if it be, as unnatural a cold; and so small a moment will make the first Ele∣ment too much or too little, that it may, haply, be very hard, at least for these infe∣riour Spirits, to keep steddily in a due mean. And therefore, when they appear, it is not unlikely but that they soak their Vehicles in some vaporous or glutinous moisture or other, that they may become visible to us at a more easy rate.

CHAP. VIII.

1. That the Better sort of Genii converse in Humane shape, the Baser sometimes in Be∣stial. 2. How they are disposed to turn themselves into several Bestial forms. 3. Of Psellus his 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, or Igneous splendours of Daemons, how they are made. 4. That the external beauty of the Genii is according to the degree of the inward ver∣tue of their minds. 5. That their aerial forme need not be purely transparent, but more finely opake, and coloured. 6. That there is a distinction of Masculine and Fe∣minine beauty in their personal figurations.

1. AFter this Digression, of shewing the facility of the figuring of the Vehicles of the Genii into personal shape, I shall re∣turn again where we left; which was con∣cerning the Society of these Genii and Souls separate, and under what shape they converse one with another; which I have already de∣fined to be Humane, especially in the better sort of Spirits. And as for the worst kind, I should think that they are likewise for the most part in Humane form, though disgui∣sed with ugly circumstances; but that they figure themselves also in Bestial appearan∣ces;

it being so easy for them to transform their Vehicle into what shape they please, and to imitate the figures as dexterously as some men will the voices of brute beasts, whom we may hear sing like a Cuckow, crow like a Cock, bellow like a Cow and Calfe, bark like a Dog, grunt and squeak like a Pig, and indeed imitate the cry of almost any Bird or Beast whatsoever. And as easy a matter is it for these lower Genii to resemble the shapes of all these Creatures, in which they also appear visibly oftentimes to them that entertain them, and sometimes to them that would willingly shun them.

2. Nor is it improbable, but the va∣riety of their impurities may dispose them to turn themselves into one brutish shape rather then another; as envying, or admiring, or in some sort approving and liking the condition and properties of such and such Beasts: as Theocritus merrily sets out the Ve∣nereousness of the Goatheard he describes,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,

As if he envied the happiness of the he-Goats, and wisht himself in their stead, in their acts of carnal Copulation. So accor∣ding to the several bestial properties that symbolize with uncleanness and vitiousness

of the tempers of these Daemons, they may have a propension to imitate their shape rather then others, and appear ugly, accor∣ding to the manner and measure of their internal turpitudes.

3. As it is likely also that those 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, those Igneous Splen∣dours Psellus makes mention of, (as the end and scope of the nefarious ceremonies those wicked wretches, he describes, often used) were coloured according to the more or less feculency of the Vehicle of the Daemon that did appear in this manner, viz. in no per∣sonal shape, but by exhibiting a light to the eyes of his abominable Spectatours and Adorers: which, I suppose, he stirred up within the limits of his own Vehicle; the power of his Will and Imagination, by Axiome 31, commanding the grosser par∣ticles of the Aire and terrestrial vapours, together with the Globuli, to give back every way, from one point to a certain com∣pass, not great, and therefore the more easy to be done. Whence the first Element lyes bare in some considerable measure, whose activity cannot but lick into it some particles of the Vehicle that borders next thereto, and thereby exhibit, not a pure star-like light (which would be, if the first Element thus unbared, and in the midst of

pure aire, were it self unmixt with other Matter) but the feculency of those parts that it abrades and converts into fewel, and the foulness of the ambient Vehicle through which it shines, makes it look red and fiery like the Horizontal Sun seen through a thick throng of vapours. Which fiery splendour may either onely slide down a∣mongst them, and so pass by with the Mo∣tion of the Daemons Vehicle, which Psellus seems mainly to aime at; or else it may make some stay and discourse with them it approaches, according as I have heard some Narrations. The reason of which lucid ap∣pearances being so intelligible out of the Principles of Cartesius his Philosophy, we need not conceit that they are nothing but the prestigious delusions of Fancy, and no real Objects, as Psellus would have them; it being no more uncompetible to a Daemon to raise such a light in his Vehicle, and a purer then I have described, then to a wicked man to light a candle at a tinderbox.

4. But what we have said concerning the purity and impurity of this light, remindes me of what is of more sutable consequence to discourse of here, which is the Splendour and Beauty of personal shape in the better sort of the Genii. Which assuredly is great∣er or lesser, according to the degrees of

Vertue and moral Affections in them. For even in this Body, that is not so yielding to the powers of the Mind, a man may observe, that according as persons are better or worse inclined, the aire of their visage will alter much, and that vicious courses, defacing the inward pulcritude of the Soul, doe even change the outward countenance to an abhorred hue. Which must there∣fore necessarily take place, in a far greater measure, in the other state; where our out∣ward form is wholy framed from the inward Imperium of our Minde: which by how much more pure it self is, it will exhibit the more irreprehensible pulcritude in the outward feature and fashion of the Body, both for proportion of parts, the spirit and aire of the Countenance, and the ornament of cloaths and attirings: there being an in∣dissoluble connexion in the Soule of the Sense of these three things together, Vertue, Love, and Beauty; of all which she her self is the first Root, and especially in the separate state, even of outward Beauty it self: whence the converse of the most vertuous there must needs afford the highest pleasure and satisfaction; not onely in point of rational communication, but in reference to external and personal complacency also. For if Ver∣tue and Vice can be ever seen with outward

eyes, it must be in these aerial Vehicles, which yield so to the Will and Idea of good and pure affections, that the Soule in a manner becomes perfectly transparent through them, discovering her lovely beauty in all the efflorescencies thereof, to the ineffable enravishment of the beholder.

5. Not that I mean, that there is any necessity that their Vehicle should be as a Statue of fluid Crystal; but that those impresses of beauty and ornament will be so faithfully and lively represented, accor∣ding to the dictates of her inward Sense and Imagination, that if we could see the Soule her self, we could know no more by her then she thus exhibits to our eye: which personal figuration in the extimate parts thereof, that represent the Body, Face and Vestments, may be attempered to so fine an opacity, that it may reflect the light in more perfect colours then it is from any earthly body, and yet the whole Vehicle be so devoid of weight, as it will necessarily keep its station in the Aire. Which we can∣not wonder at, while we consider the hang∣ing of the Clouds there, less aerial by far then this consistency we speak of: to say nothing of aerial Apparitions as high as the clouds, and in the same colours and fi∣gures as are seen here below, and yet no

reflexions of terrestrial Objects, as I have proved in my Third Book against Atheism.

6. The exact Beauty of the personal shapes and becoming habits of these aiery Beings, the briefest and safest account there∣of that Philosophy can give, is to referre to the description of such things in Poets: and then, when we have perused what the height and elegancy of their fancy has penn'd down. to write under it, An obscure Subindication of the transcendent pulcritude of the AErial Ge∣nii, whether Nymphs or Heroes. For though there be neither Lust, nor difference of Sex amongst them (whence the kindest commo∣tions of minde will never be any thing else but an exercise of Intellectual love, whose Object is Vertue and Beauty;) yet it is not improbable but that there are some gene∣ral strictures of discrimination of this Beauty into Masculine and Feminine: partly be∣cause the temper of their Vehicles may en∣cline to this kinde of pulcritude rather then that; and partly because several of these aerial Spirits have sustained the difference of Sex in this life, some of them here ha∣ving been Males, others Females: and there∣fore their History being to be continued from their departure hence, they ought to retain some character, especially so general a one, of what they were here. And it is

very harsh to conceit that AEneas should meet with Dido in the other World in any other form then that of a Woman: whence a necessity of some slighter distinction of habits, and manner of wearing their hair, will follow. Which dress, as that of the Mascu∣line mode, is easily fitted to them by the power of their Will and Imagination: as appears from that Story out of Peramatus, of the Indian Monster that was born with fleshy boots, girdle, purse, and other things that are no parts of a man, but his cloathing or utensils; and this meerly by the Fancy of his Mother, disturb'd and frighted, either in sleep or awake, with some such ugly ap∣pearance as that Monster resembled.

CHAP. IX.

1. A general account of the mutual entertains of the Genii in the other World. 2. Of their Philosophical and Political Conferen∣ces. 3. Of their Religious Exercises. 4. Of the innocent Pastimes and Recreati∣ons of the better sort of them. 5. A confir∣mation thereof from the Conventicles of Witches. 6. Whether the purer Daemons have their times of repast or no. 7. Whence the bad Genii have their food. 8. Of

the food and feastings of the better sort of Genii.

1. WE have now accurately enough defined in what form or garb the aerial Genii converse with one another. It remains we consider how they mutually en∣tertain one another in passing away the time. Which is obvious enough to conceive, to those that are not led aside into that blind Labyrinth which the generality of men are kept in, of suspecting that no representation of the state of these Beings is true, that is not so confounded and unintelligible that a man cannot think it sense, unless he wink with the inward eyes of his Minde, and command si∣lence to all his Rational Faculties. But if he will but bethink himself, that the immedi∣ate instrument of the Soul in this life is the Spirits, which are very congenerous to the body of Angels; and that all our passions and conceptions are either suggested from them, or imprest upon them; he cannot much doubt but that all his Faculties of Reason, Imagination and Affection, for the general, will be in him in the other state as they were here in this: namely, that he will be capable of Love, of Joy, of Grief, of Anger; that he will be able to imagine, to discourse, to remember, and the rest of

such operations as were not proper to the Fabrick of this earthly Body, which is the Officine of Death and Generation.

2. Hence it will follow, that the Souls of men deceaed, and the rest of the aerial Daemons, may administer much content to one another in mutual Conferences concer∣ning the nature of things, whether Moral, Natural, or Metaphysical. For to think that the quitting the earthly Body entitles us to an Omnisciency, is a Fable never enough to be laught at. And Socrates, somewhere in Plato, presages, that he shall continue his old Trade when he comes into the other World; convincing and confounding the idle and vain-glorious Sophists whereever he went. And by the same reason Platonists, Aristo∣telians, Stoicks, Epicureans, and whatever other sects and humors are on the Earth, may in likelihood be met with there, so far as that estate will permit; though they can∣not doubt of all things we doubt of here. For these aerial Spirits know that them∣selves are, and that the Souls of men subsist and act after death, unless such as are too deeply tinctured with Avenroism. But they may doubt whether they will hold out for ever, or whether they will perish at the con∣flagration of the World, as the Stoicks would have them. It may be also a great

controversie amongst them, whether Pytha∣goras's or Ptolemies Hypothesis be true con∣cerning the Motion of the Earth; and whe∣ther the Stars be so bigge as some define them. For these lower Daemons have no bet∣ter means then we to assure themselves of the truth or falshood of these Opinions. Besides the discourse of News, of the affairs as well of the Earth as Aire. For the aerial Inhabitants cannot be less active then the terrestrial, nor less busie, either in the per∣formance of some solemn exercises, or in carrying on designs party against party; and that either more Private or more Publick; the events of which will fill the aerial Regi∣ons with a quick spreading fame of their Actions. To say nothing of prudential con∣jectures concerning future successes afore∣hand, and innumerable other entertains of Conference, which would be too long to reckon up, but bear a very near analogy to such as men pass away their time in here.

3. But of all Pleasures, there are none that are comparable to those that proceed from their joynt exercise of Religion and Devotion. For their Bodies surpassing ours so much in tenuity and purity, they must needs be a fitter soil for the Divinest thoughts to spring up in, and the most de∣licate and most enravishing affections to∣wards

their Maker. Which being height∣ned by sacred Hymns and Songs, sung with voices perfectly imitating the sweet passio∣nate relishes of the sense of their devout minds, must even melt their Souls into Di∣vine Love, and make them swim with joy in God. But these kinds of exercises being so highly rapturous and ecstatical, transpor∣ting them beyond the ordinary limits of their Nature, cannot in Reason be thought to be exceeding frequent; but as a solemn Repast, after which they shall enjoy them∣selves better for a good space of time after.

4. Wherefore there be other entertain∣ments, which though they be of an inferiour nature to these, yet they farre exceed the greatest pleasure and contentments of this present state. For the Animal life being as essential to the Soul as union with a Body, which she is never free from; it will follow that there be some fitting gratifications of it in the other World. And none greater can be imagined then Sociableness and Per∣sonal complacency, not onely in rational dis∣courses, which is so agreeable to the Philo∣sophical Ingeny, but innocent Pastimes, in which the Musical and Amorous propension may be also recreated. For these three dis∣positions are the flowr of all the rest, as Plo∣tinus

has somewhere noted: And his rece∣ption into the other World is set out by Apollo's Oracle, from some such like circum∣stances as these.

—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

Of the meaning of which Verses that the Reader may not quite be deprived, I shall render their sense in this careless paraphrase:

Now the blest meetings thou arriv'st unto Of th'airy Genii, where soft winds do blow, Where Friendship, Love, & gentle sweet Desire Fill their thrice-welcom guests with joys entire, Ever supply'd from that immortal spring Whose streams pure Nectar from great Jove doe bring: Whence kind converse and amorous eloquence Warm their chast minds into the highest sense Of Heav'nly Love, whose myst'ries they declare Midst the fresh breathings of the peaceful Aire.

And he holds on, naming the happy com∣pany the Soul of Plotinus was to associate with, viz. Pythagoras, Plato, and the purer

Spirits of the Golden Age, and all such as made up the Chorus of immortal Love and Friendship. These sing, and play, and dance together, reaping the lawful pleasures of the very Animal life, in a far higher degree then we are capable of in this World. For every thing here does as it were tast of the cask, and has some coursness and foulness with it. The sweet motions of the Spirits in the passion of Love can very hardly be com∣manded off from too near bordering upon the shameful sense of Lust; the Fabrick of the terrestrial Body almost necessitating them to that deviation. The tenderer Ear cannot but feel the rude thumpings of the wood, and gratings of the rosin, the hoars∣ness, or some harshness and untunableness or other, in the best consorts of Musical Instru∣ments and Voices. The judicious Eye can∣not but espy some considerable defect in ei∣ther the proportion, colour, or the aire of the face, in the most fam'd and most admi∣red beauties of either Sex: to say nothing of the inconcinnity of their deportment and habits. But in that other state, where the Fancy consults with that first Exemplar of Beauty, Intellectual Love and Vertue, and the Body is wholly obedient to the imagination of the Minde, and will to every Punctilio yield to the impresses of that inward pat∣tern;

nothing there can be found amiss, every touch and stroak of motion and Beau∣ty being conveyed from so judicious a power through so delicate and depurate a Medium. Wherefore they cannot but enravish one anothers Souls, while they are mutual Spe∣ctators of the perfect pulcritude of one ano∣thers persons, and comely carriage, of their graceful dancing, their melodious singing and playing, with accents so sweet and soft, as if we should imagine the Aire here of it self to compose Lessons, and send forth Mu∣sical sounds without the help of any terre∣strial Instrument. These, and such like Pa∣stimes as these, are part of the happiness of the best sort of the aerial Genii.

5. Which the more certain knowledge of what is done amongst the inferiour Dae∣mons will further assure us of. For it is very probable that their Conventicles, into which Witches and Wizzards are admitted, are but a depraved adumbration of the friendly meetings of the superiour Genii. And what Musick, Dancing and Feasting there is in these, the free confession of those Wretches, or fortuitous detection of others, has made manifest to the World, viz. How Humane and Angelical Beauty is transformed there into Bestial Deformity, the chief in the com∣pany ordinarily appearing in the Figures of

Satyres, Apes, Goats, or such like ugly Ani∣mals; how the comely deportments of Body, into ridiculous gesticulations, per∣verse postures and antick dances; and how innocuous love and pure friendship dege∣nerates into the most brutish lust and abo∣minable obscenity that can be imagined: of which I will adde nothing more, having spoke enough of this matter in the Appen∣dix to my Antidote Chap. 12.

6. What is most material for the present, is to consider, whether as the Musick and Dancing of these lower and more deeply-lapsed Daemons, are a distorted imitation of what the higher and more pure Daemons doe in their Regions; so their Feasting may not be a perverted resemblance of the others Banquetings also: that is to say, it is worth our enquiring into, whether they doe not eat and drink as well as these. For the rich amongst us must have their repast as well as the poor, and Princes feed as well as Priso∣ners, though there be a great difference in their diet. And I must confess, there is no small difficulty in both, whence the good or bad Genii may have their food; though it be easy enough to conceive that they may feed and refresh their Vehicles. For suppo∣sing they doe vitally actuate some particular portion of the Aire that they drive along

with them, which is of a certain extent, it is most natural to conceive, that partly by local motion, and partly by the activity of their thoughts, they set some particles of their Vehicles into a more then usual agita∣tion, which being thus moved, scatter and perspire; and that so the Vehicle lessens in some measure, and therefore admits of a recruite: which must be either by formal repast, or by drawing in the crude Aire one∣ly, which haply may be enough; but it be∣ing so like it self alwaies, the pleasure will be more flat. Wherefore it is not improba∣ble but that both may have their times of Refection, for pleasure at least, if not neces∣sity; which will be the greater advantage for the Good, and the more exquisite misery for the Bad, they being punishable in this regard also.

7. But, as I said, the greatest difficulty is to give a rationall account whence the bad Genii have their food, in their execrable feasts, so formally made up into dishes. That the materials of it is a vaporous aire, ap∣pears as well from the faintness and empti∣ness of them that have been entertained at those feasts, as from their forbidding the use of Salt at them, it having a virtue of dissolving of all aqueous substances, as well as hindering their congelation. But how the

Aire is moulded up into that form and con∣sistency, it is very hard to conceive: whether it be done by the meer power of Imagina∣tion upon their own Vehicles, first dabled in some humidities that are the fittest for their design, which they change into these forms of Viands, and then withdraw, when they have given them such a figure, colour, and consistency, with some small touch of such a sapour or tincture: or whether it be the priviledge of these AErial Creatures, by a sharp Desire and keen Imaginati∣on, to pierce the Spirit of Nature, so as to awaken her activity, and engage her to the compleating in a moment, as it were, the full design of their own wishes, but in such matter as the Element they are in is capable of, which is this crude and va∣porous Aire; whence their food must be very dilute and flashie, and rather a moc∣kery then any solid satisfaction and pleasure.

8. But those Superiour Daemons, which inhabit that part of the Aire that no storm nor tempest can reach, need be put to no such shifts, though they may be as able in them as the other. For in the tranquillity of those upper Regions, that Promus-Condus of the Universe, the Spirit of Nature, may silently send forth whole Gardens and Orchards of most delectable fruits and flowers, of an

aequilibrious ponderosity to the parts of the Aire they grow in, to whose shape and co∣lours the transparency of these Plants may adde a particular lustre, as we see it is in pre∣cious Stones. And the Chymists are never quiet till the heat of their fancy have calci∣ned and vitrified the Earth into a crystal-line pellucidity, conceiting that it will be then a very fine thing indeed, and all that then growes out of it: which desirable Spectacle they may haply enjoy in a more perfect manner, whenever they are ad∣mitted into those higher Regions of the Aire. For the very Soile then under them shall be transparent, in which they may trace the very Roots of the Trees of this Superi∣our Paradise with their eyes, and if it may not offend them, see this opake Earth through it, bounding their sight with such a white splendour as is discovered in the full Moon, with that difference of bright∣ness that will arise from the distinction of Land and Water; and if they will recreate their palats, may tast of such Fruits, as whose natural juice will vie with their no∣blest Extractions and Quintessences. For such certainly will they there find the blood of the Grape, the rubie-coloured Cherries, and Nectarines. And if for the compleating of the pleasantness of these habitations, that

they may look less like a silent and dead soli∣tude, they meet with Birds & Beasts of curi∣ous shapes and colours, the single accents of whose voices are very grateful to the ear, and the varying of their notes perfect mu∣sical harmony; they would doe very kindly to bring us word back of the certainty of these things, and make this more then a Philosophical Conjecture. But that there may be Food and Feasting in those higher aerial Regions, is less doubted by the Platonists; which makes Maximus Tyrius call the Soul, when she has left the Body, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and the above-cited Oracle of Apollo de∣scribes the felicity of that Chorus of im∣mortal Lovers he mentions there, from feasting together with the blessed Genii,

—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

So that the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Po∣ets may not be a meer fable. For the Spi∣rit of Nature, which is the immediate in∣strument of God, may enrich the fruits of these AErial Paradises with such liquors, as being received into the bodies of these purer Daemons, and diffusing it self through their Vehicles, may cause such grateful motions analogical to our tast, and excite such a more then ordinary quickness in their mindes,

and benign cheerfulness, that it may far transcend the most delicate Refection that the greatest Epicures could ever invent up∣on Earth; and that without all satiety and burdensomeness, it filling them with no∣thing but Divine Love, Joy, and Devotion.

CHAP. X.

1. How hard it is to define any thing concer∣ning the AErial or AEthereal Elysiums. 2. That there is Political order and Lawes amongst these aiery Daemons. 3. That this Chain of Government reaches down from the highest AEthereal Powers through the AE∣rial to the very Inhabitants of the Earth. 4. The great security we live in thereby. 5. How easily detectible and punishable wicked Spirits are by those of their own Tribe. 6. Other reasons of the security we find our selves in from the gross infestati∣ons of evil Spirits. 7. What kind of punish∣ments the AErial Officers inflict upon their Malefactours.

1. I Might enlarge my self much on this Subject, by representing the many Concamerations of the AErial and AEthereal

Elysiums, depainting them out in all the va∣riety of their Ornaments: but there is no prudence of being lavish of ones pen in a matter so lubricous and Conjectural. Of the bare existence whereof we have no other ground, then that otherwise the greatest part of the Universe by infinite measure, and the most noble, would lye as it were uncultivate, like a desart of Sand, wherein a man can spie neither Plant nor living Creature. Which though it may seem as strange, as if Nature should have restrained all the Varieties she would put forth to one contemptible Mole-hil, and have made all the rest of the Earth one Homogeneal surface of dry clay or stone, on which not one sprig of Grass, much less any Flower or Tree, should grow, nor Bird nor Beast be found once to set their foot thereon: yet the Spirits of us Mortals being too pusillani∣mous to be able to grapple with such vast Objects, we must resolve to rest either igno∣rant, or sceptical, in this matter.

2. And therefore let us consider what will more easily fall under our comprehen∣sion, and that is the Polity of the aiery Dae∣mons. Concerning which, that in general there is such a thing among them, is the most assuredly true in it self, and of the most use to us to be perswaded of. To know

their particular orders and customes is a more needless Curiosity. But that they doe lye under the restraint of Government, is not onely the opinion of the Pythagoreans (who have even to the nicity of Grammatical Cri∣ticisme assigned distinct names to the Law that belongs to these Three distinct ranks of Beings, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, calling the Law that belongs to the first 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the second 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and the third 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉) but it is also the easy and obvious suggesti∣on of ordinary Reason, that it must needs be so, and especially amongst the AErial Ge∣nii in these lower Regions, they being a mixt rabble of good and bad, wise and foo∣lish, in such a sense as we may say the Inha∣bitants of the Earth are so, and therefore they must naturally fall under a Govern∣ment, and submit to Lawes, as well & for the same reasons as Men doe. For otherwise they cannot tolerably subsist, nor enjoy what rights may some way or other apper∣tain to them. For the Souls of men de∣ceased and the Daemons, being endued with corporeal Sense, by Axiome 30. and there∣fore capable of Pleasure and Pain, and con∣sequently of both Injury and Punishment, it is manifest, that having the use of Reason, they cannot fail to mould themselves into some Political form or other; and so to be

divided into Nations and Provinces, and to have their Officers of State, from the King on his Throne to the very lowest and most abhorred Executioners of Justice.

3. Which invisible Government is not circumscribed within the compass of the aiery Regions, but takes hold also on the Inhabitants of the Earth, as the Govern∣ment of Men does on several sorts of brute Beasts, and the AEthereal Powers also have a Right and Exercise of Rule over the AE∣rial. Whence nothing can be committed in the World against the more indispensable Laws thereof, but a most severe and inevi∣table punishment will follow: every Na∣tion, City, Family and Person, being in some manner the Peculium, and therefore in the tutelage, of some invisible Power or other, as I have above intimated.

4. And such Transgressions as are against those Laws without whose observance the Creation could not subsist, we may be assu∣red are punished with Torture intolerable, and infinitely above any Pleasure imagi∣nable the evil Genii can take in doing of those of their own Order, or us Mortals, any mischief. Whence it is manifest that we are as secure from their gross outrages (such as the firing of our houses, the stealing away our jewels, or more necessary Utensils, mur∣dering

our selves or children, destroying our cattel, corn, and other things of the like sort,) as if they were not in rerum natura. Unless they have some special permission to act, or we our selves enable them by our rash and indiscreet tampering with them, or suf∣fer from the malice of some person that is in league with them. For their greatest li∣berty of doing mischief is upon that ac∣count; which yet is very much limited, in that all these Actions must pass the consent of a visible person, not hard to be discove∣red in these unlawful practices, and easy to be punished by the Law of Men.

5. And the AErial Genii can with as much ease inflict punishment on one another, as we Mortals can apprehend, imprison, and pu∣nish such as transgress against our Laws. For though these Daemons be invisible to us, yet they are not so to their own Tribe: nor can the activity and subtilty of the Bad over-master the Good Commonwealths∣men there, that uphold the Laws better then they are amongst us. Nor may the various Transfiguration of their shapes conceal their persons, no more then the disguises that are used by fraudulent men. For they are as able to discern what is fictitious from what is true and natural amongst themselves, as we are amongst our selves. And every AE∣rial

Spirit being part of some Political sub∣division, upon any outrage committed, it will be an easy matter to hunt out the Ma∣lefactor. No Daemon being able so to trans∣figure himself, but upon command he will be forced to appear in his natural and usual form, not daring to deny upon examination to what particular Subdivision he belongs. Whence the easy discovery of their miscar∣riages, and certainty of insupportable tor∣ment, will secure the World from all the disorder that some scrupulous wits suspect would arise from this kinde of Creatures, if they were in Being.

6. To which we may adde also, That what we have, is useless to them, and that it is very hard to conceive that there are many Rational Beings so degenerate as to take pleasure in ill, when it is no good to themselves. That Socrates his Aphorism, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, may be in no small measure true in the other World, as well as in this. That all that these evil Spirits de∣sire, may be onely our lapse into as great a degree of Apostasy from God as them∣selves, and to be full partakers with them of their false Liberty; as debauched persons in this life love to make Proselytes, and to have respect from their Nurslings in wick∣edness. And several other Considerations

there are that serve for the taking away this Panick fear of the incursations and mole∣stations of these aerial Inhabitants, and might further silence the suspicious Atheist; which I willingly omit, having said more then enough of this Subject already. See Cap. 3. Sect. 7, 8.

7. If any be so curious, as to demand what kinde of Punishment this People of the Aire inflict upon their Malefactors, I had rather referre them to the Fancies of Corne∣lius Agrippa, De Occult. Philosoph. Lib. 3. Cap. 41. then be laught at my self for ven∣turing to descend to such particularities. Amongst other things he names their In∣carceration, or confinement to most vile and squalid Habitations. His own words are very significant: Accedunt etiam vilissimo∣rum ac teterrimorum locorum habitacula, ubi AEtnaei ignes, aquarum ingluvies, fulgurum & tonitruorum concussus, terrarum voragines, ubi Regio lucis inops, nec radiorum Solis ca∣pax, ignaráque splendoris syderum, perpetuis tenebris & noctis specie caligat. Whence he would make us believe, that the subterra∣neous caverns of the Earth are made use of for Dungeons for the wicked Daemons to be punished in: as if the several Volcano's, such as AEtna, Vesuvius, Hecla, and many others, especially in America, were so many Prisons

or houses of Correction for the unruly Ge∣nii. That there is a tedious restraint upon them upon villanies committed, and that in∣tolerable, is without all question; they be∣ing endued with corporeal Sense, and that more quick and passive then ours, and there∣fore more subject to the highest degrees of torment. So that not onely by incarce∣rating them, & keeping them in by a watch, in the caverns of burning Mountains, where the heat of those infernal Chambers and the steam of Brimstone cannot but excru∣ciate them exceedingly, but also by com∣manding them into sundry other Hollows of the ground, noysome by several fumes and vapours, they may torture them in se∣veral fashions and degrees, fully proporti∣onable to the greatest crime that is in their power to commit, and farre above what the cruellest Tyranny has inflicted here, either upon the guilty or innocent. But how these Confinements and Torments are inflicted on them, and by what Degrees and Relaxati∣ons, is a thing neither easy to determine, nor needful to understand. Wherefore we will surcease from pursuing any further so unprofitable a Subject, and come to the Third general Head we mentioned, which is, What the Moral condition of the Soul is when she has left this Body.

CHAP. XI.

1. Three things to be considered before we come to the moral condition of the Soul af∣ter death: namely, her Memory of transacti∣ons in this life. 2. The peculiar feature and individual Character of her AErial Vehicle. 3. The Retainment of the same Name. 4. How her ill deportment here lays the train of her Misery hereafter. 5. The unspeakable torments of Conscience worse then Death, and not to be avoided by dying. 6. Of the hideous tortures of exter∣nal sense on them, whose searedness of Con∣science may seem to make them uncapable of her Lashes. 7. Of the state of the Souls of the more innocent and conscientious Pa∣gans. 8. Of the natural accruments of After-happiness to the morally good in this life. 9. How the Soul enjoys her actings or sufferings in this Life for an in∣dispensable Cause, when she has passed to the other. 10. That the reason is pro∣portionably the same in things of less con∣sequence. 11. What mischief men may create to themselves in the other world by their Zealous mistakes in this. 12. That though there were no Memory after Death, yet the manner of our Life here may sow

the seeds of the Souls future happiness or misery.

1. FOR the better solution of this Que∣stion, there is another first in nature to be decided; namely, Whether the Soul re∣members any thing of this Life after Death. For Aristotle and Cardan seem to deny it; but I doe not remember any reasons in ei∣ther that will make good their Opinion. But that the contrary is true, appears from what we have already proved Lib. 2. Cap. 11. viz. That the immediate seat of Memory is the Soul her self, and that all Representations with their circumstances are reserved in her, not in the Spirits (a thing which Vaninus himself cannot deny) nor in any part of the Body. And that the Spirits are onely a necessary Instrument whereby the Soul works; which while they are too cool and gross and wate∣rish, Oblivion creeps upon her, in that mea∣sure that the Spirits are thus distempered; but the disease being chased away, and the temper of the Spirits rectified, the Soul forthwith recovers the memory of what things she could not well command before, as being now in a better state of Activity. Whence, by the 33. Axiome, it will fol∣low, that her Memory will be rather more perfect after Death, and Conscience more

nimble to excuse or accuse her according to her Deeds here.

2. It is not altogether beside the purpose to take notice also, That the natural and usual Figure of the Souls AErial Vehicle bears a resemblance with the feature of the party in this life; it being most obvious for the Plastick part (at the command of the Will to put forth into personal shape) to fall as near to that in this life as the new state will permit. With which act the Spi∣rit of Nature haply does concurre, as in the figuration of the Foetus; but with such li∣mits as becomes the AErial Congruity of life, of which we have spoke already: as also how the proper Idea or Figure of every Soul (though it may deflect something by the power of the Parents Imagination in the act of Conception, or Gestation, yet) may return more near to its peculiar semblance afterwards, and so be an unconcealable Note of Individuality.

3. We will adde to all this, the Retain∣ment of the same Name which the deceased had here, unless there be some special reason to change it: so that their persons will be as punctually distinguisht and circumscri∣bed as any of ours in this life. All which things, as they are most probable in them∣selves, that they will thus naturally fall out,

so they are very convenient for administra∣tion of Justice, and keeping of Order in the other State.

4. These things therefore premised, it will not be hard to conceive how the con∣dition of the Soul after this life depends on her Moral deportment here. For Memory cea∣sing not, Conscience may very likely awake more furiously then ever; the Mind be∣coming a more clear Judge of evil Actions past, then she could be in the Flesh, being now stript of all those circumstances and concurrences of things that kept her off from the opportunity of calling her self to account, or of perceiving the ugliness of her own ways. Besides, there being that com∣munication betwixt the Earth and the Aire, that at least the fame of things will arrive to their cognoscence that have left this life; the after ill success of their wicked enter∣prises and unreasonable transactions may arm their tormenting Conscience with new whips and stings, when they shall either hear, or see with their eyes, what they have unjustly built up, to run with shame to ruine, and behold all their designs come to nought, and their fame blasted upon Earth.

5. This is the state of such Souls as are capable of a sense of dislike of their past∣actions:

and a man would think they need no other punishment then this, if he consi∣der the mighty power of the Minde over her own Vehicle, and how vulnerable it is from her self. These Passions therefore of the Soule that follow an ill Conscience, must needs bring her aiery body into intolerable distempers, worse then Death it self. Nor yet can she die if she would, neither by fire, nor sword, nor any means imaginable; no not if she should fling her self into the flames of smoaking AEtna. For suppose she could keep her self so long there, as to indure that hideous pain of destroying the vital Congruity of her Vehicle by that sulphure∣ous fire; she would be no sooner released, but she would catch life again in the Aire, and all the former troubles and vexations would return, besides the overplus of these pangs of Death. For Memory would return, and an ill Conscience would return, and all those busie Furies, those disordered Pas∣sions which follow it. And thus it would be, though the Soule should kill her self a thousand and a thousand times; she could but pain and punish her self, not destroy her self.

6. But if we could suppose some mens Consciences seared in the next state as well as this, (for certainly there are that make

it their business to obliterate all sense of difference of Good and Evil out of their minds; & hold it to be an high strain of wit (though it be nothing else but a piece of bestial stupidity) to think there is no such thing as Vice and Vertue, and that it is a principall part of perfection, to be so dege∣nerate as to act according to this Principle without any remorse at all;) these men may seem to have an excellent priviledge in the other world, they being thus armour-proof against all the fiery darts of that domestick Devil: As if the greatest security in the other life were, to have been compleatly wicked in this. But it is not out of the reach of meer Reason and Philosophy to dis∣cover, that such bold and impudent wretches as have lost all inward sense of Good and Evil, may there against their wills feel a lash in the outward. For the divine Nemesis is excluded out of no part of the Universe; and Goodness and Justice, which they con∣temn here, will be acquainted with them in that other state, whether they will or no▪ I speak of such course Spirits that can swal∣low down Murder, Perjury, Extortion, Adultery, Buggery, and the like gross crimes, without the least disgust, and think they have a right to satisfy their own Lust, though it be by never so great injury against

their Neighbour. If these men should carry it with impunity, there were really no Pro∣vidence, and themselves were the truest Prophets and faithfullest Instructers of man∣kind, divulging the choicest Arcanum they have to impart to them, namely That there is no God. But the case stands quite otherwise. For whether it be by the importunity of them they injure in this life, who may meet with them afterward, as Cardan by way of objection suggests in his Treatise of this Subject; or whether by a general deser∣tion by all of the other world that are able to protect, (such Monsters as I describe be∣ing haply far less in proportion to the num∣ber of the other state, then these here are to this;) they will be necessarily exposed to those grim and remorsless Officers of Justice, who are as devoid of all sense of what is good as those that they shall punish. So that their penalty shall be inflicted from such as are of the same principles with themselves, who watch for such booties as these, and when they can catch them, dress them and adorn them according to the multifarious petulancy of their own unaccountable hu∣mours; and taking a speciall pride and plea∣sure in the making and seeing Creatures miserable, fall upon their prey with all eager∣ness and alacrity, as the hungry Lions on a

condemned malefactour, but with more fe∣rocity and insultation by far. For having more wit, and, if it be possible, less good∣ness then the Soule they thus assault, they satiate their lascivient cruelty with all man∣ner of abuses and torments they can imagine, giving her onely so much respite as will serve to receive their new inventions with a fresher smart and more distinct pain. Nei∣ther can any Reason or Rhetorick prevail with them, no Expostulation, Petition or Submission. For to what purpose can it be, to expostulate about injury and violence with them whose deepest reach of wit is to understand this one main Principle, That every ones Lust, when he can act with impu∣nity, is the most sacred and soveraign Law? Or what can either Petitions or Submissi∣ons doe with those who hold it the most contemptible piece of fondness and filliness that is, to be intreated to recede from their own Interest? And they acknowledging no such thing as Vertue and Vice, make it their onely interest to please themselves in what is agreeable to their own desires: and their main pleasure is, to excruciate and torture, in the most exquisite wayes they can, as many as Opportunity delivers up to their power. And thus we see how, in the other life, the proud conceited Atheist may at last feel the

sad inconvenience of his own Practises and Principles. For even those that pleased themselves in helping him forward, while he was in this life, to that high pitch of wickedness, may haply take as much plea∣sure to see him punisht by those grim Exe∣cutioners, in the other. Like that sportful cruelty (which some would appropriate to Nero's person) of causing the Vestal virgins to be ravisht, and then putting them to death for being so.

7. But this Subject would be too tedious and too Tragical to insist on any longer. Let us cast our eyes therefore upon a more tolera∣ble Object; and that is The state of the Soul that has, according to the best opportunity she had of knowledge, liv'd vertuously and conscientiously, in what part or Age of the world soever. For though this Moral Inno∣cency amongst the Pagans will not amount to what our Religion calls Salvation; yet it cannot but be advantageous to them in the other state, according to the several degrees thereof; they being more or less Happy or Miserable, as they have been more or less Vertuous in this life. For we cannot ima∣gine why God shoud be more harsh to them in the other world then in this, nothing having happened to them to alienate his af∣fection but Death; which was not in their

power to avoid, and looks more like a pu∣nishment then a fault: though it be neither to those that are well-meaning and con∣sciencious, and not professed contemners of the wholsome suggestions of the light of Nature, but are lovers of Humanity and Vertue. For to these it is onely an entrance into another life,

—Ad amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedes{que} beatas,

Which Truth I could not conceal, it being a great prejudice to Divine Providence to think otherwise. For to those that are free, her wayes will seem as unintelligible in overloading the simple with punishment, as in not rewarding the more perfectly righteous and illuminate. For from a fault in either they will be tempted to a misbe∣lief of the whole, and hold no Providence at all.

8. Let there therefore be peculiar privi∣ledges of Morality, every where, to those that pass into the other State. For unless God make a stop on purpose, it will natu∣rally follow, that Memory after Death suggesting nothing but what the Conscience allows of, much Tranquillity of minde must result from thence, and a certain health and beauty of the AErial Vehicle; also better

Company and Converse, and more pleasant Tracts and Regions to inhabit. For what Plotinus speaks of the extreme degrees, En∣nead. 4. Lib. 4. Cap. 45. is also true of the in∣termediate, else Divine Justice would be very maime. For a man, saith he, having once appropriated to himself a pravity of temper, and united with it, is known well what he is; and according to his nature is thrust forward to what he propends to, both here, and departed hence, and so shall be pulled by the drawings of Nature into a sutable place. But the Good man his Receptions and Communications shall be of another sort, by the drawing as it were of certain hidden strings transposed and pulled by Natures own fingers. So admirable is the power and order of the Universe, all things being carried on in a silent way of Justice, which none can avoid, and which the wicked man has no perception nor understanding of, but is drawn, knowing nothing whither in the Universe he ought to be carried. But the good man both knows and goes whither he ought, and discerns before he departs hence where he must inhabit, and is full of hopes that it shall be with the Gods. This large Paragraph of Plotinus is not without some small Truth in it, if rightly limited and understood; but seems not to reach at all the Circumstances and accruments of happiness to the Soul in

the other State, which will naturally follow her from her transactions in this life.

9. For certainly, according to the seve∣ral degrees of Benignity of Spirit, and the desire of doing good to mankinde in this life, and the more ample opportunities of doing it, the felicity of the other World is redoubled upon them; there being so cer∣tain communication and entercourse betwixt both. And therefore they that act or suffer deeply in such Causes as God will maintain in the World, and are just and holy at the bottome, (and there are some Principles that are indispensably such, which Provi∣dence has countenanced both by Miracles, the suffrages of the Wisest men in all Ages, and the common voice of Nature) those that have been the most Heroical Abetters and Promoters of these things in this life, will naturally receive the greater content∣ment of Minde after it, being conscious to themselves how seriously they have assisted what God will never desert, and that Truth is mighty, and must at last prevail; which they are better assured of out of the Body, then when they were in it.

10. Nor is this kinde of access of Hap∣piness to be confined onely to our furthe∣rance of what is of the highest and most in∣dispensable consideration here, but in pro∣portion

touches all transactions that pro∣ceed from a vertuous and good principle, whereof there are several degrees: amongst which those may not be esteemed the mea∣nest that refer to a National good. And therefore those that, out of a natural gene∣rosity of Spirit and successful fortitude in Warre, have delivered their Country from bondage, or have been so wise and under∣standing in Politicks, as to have contrived wholsome Laws for the greater happiness and comfort of the People, while such a Nation prospers and is in being, it cannot but be an accrument of happiness to these so considerable Benefactors, unless we should imagine them less generous and good in the other World, where they have the advan∣tage of being Better. And what I have said in this more notable instance, is in a degree true in things of smaller concernment, which would be infinite to rehearse. But whole Nations, with their Laws and Orders of Men, and Families may fail, and therefore these accessions be cut off; but he that laies out his pains in this life, for the carrying on such designs as will take place so long as the World endures, and must have a compleat Triumph at last, such a one laies a train for an everlasting advantage in the other World, which, in despite of all the tum∣blings

and turnings of unsetled fortune, will be sure to take effect.

11. But this matter requires Judgement as well as Heat and Forwardness. For prag∣matical Ignorance, though accompanied with some measure of Sincerity and well∣meaning, may set a-foot such things in the World, or set upon record such either false, or impertinent and unseasonable, Principles, as being made ill use of, may very much prejudice the Cause one desires to promote; which will be a sad spectacle for them in the other State. For though their simplicity may be pardonable, yet they will not fail to finde the ill effect of their mistake upon themselves. As he that kills a friend in stead of an enemy, though he may satisfy his Con∣science that rightly pleads his innocency, yet he cannot avoid the sense of shame and sorrow that naturally follows so mischie∣vous an error.

12. Such accruencies as these there may be to our enjoyments in the other World, from the durable traces of our transactions in this, if we have any Memory of things after Death, as I have already demonstrated that we have. But if we had not, but Ari∣stotles and Cardan's Opinion were true, yet Vertue and Piety will not prove onely useful for this present state. Because according to

our living here, we shall hereafter, by a hid∣den concatenation of Causes, be drawn to a condition answerable to the purity or impu∣rity of our Souls in this life: that silent Nemesis that passes through the whole con∣texture of the Universe, ever fatally con∣triving us into such a state as we our selves have fitted our selves for by our accusto∣mary actions. Of so great consequence is it, while we have opportunity, to aspire to the best things.

CHAP. XII.

1. What the Spirit of Nature is. 2. Expe∣riments that argue its real Existence; such as that of two strings tuned Unisons. 3. Sympathetick Cures and Tortures. 4. The Sympathy betwixt the Earthly and Astral Body. 5. Monstrous Births. 6. The Attraction of the Loadstone and Roundness of the Sun and Stars.

1. WE had now quite finished our Dis∣course, did I not think it conve∣nient to answer a double expectation of the Reader. The one is touching the Spirit of Nature, the other the producing of Obje∣ctions that may be made against our con∣cluded

Assention of the Souls Immortality. For as for the former, I can easily imagine he may well desire a more punctual account of that Principle I have had so often re∣course to, then I have hitherto given, and will think it fit that I should somewhere more fully explain what I mean by the terms, and shew him my strongest grounds why I conceive there is any such Being in the World. To hold him therefore no lon∣ger in suspence, I shall doe both in this place. The Spirit of Nature therefore, accor∣ding to that notion I have of it, is, A sub∣stance incorporeal, but without Sense and A∣nimadversion, pervading the whole Matter of the Universe, and exercising a plastical power therein according to the sundry predispositions and occasions in the parts it works upon, rai∣sing such Phaenomena in the World, by dire∣cting the parts of the Matter and their Mo∣tion, as cannot be resolved into meer Mecha∣nical powers. This rude Description may serve to convey to any one a conception determinate enough of the nature of the thing. And that it is not a meer Notion, but a real Being, besides what I have occasi∣onally hinted already (and shall here again confirm by new instances) there are several other considerations may perswade us.

2. The first whereof shall be concerning

those experiments of Sympathetick Pains, Asswagements and Cures, of which there are many Examples, approved by the most scrupulous Pretenders to sobriety and judg∣ment, and of all which I cannot forbear to pronounce, that I suspect them to come to pass by some such power as makes strings that be tuned Unisons (though on several Instruments) the one being touched, the other to tremble and move very sensibly, and to cast off a straw or pin or any such small thing laid upon it. Which cannot be resolved into any Mechanical Principle, though some have ingeniously gone about it. For before they attempted to shew the reason, why that string that is not Unison to that which is struck should not leap and move, as it doth that is, they should have demonstrated, that by the meer Vibration of the Aire that which is Unison can be so moved; for if it could, these Vibrations would not fail to move other Bodies more movable by farre then the string it self that is thus moved. As for example, if one hung loose near the string that is struck a small thred of silk or an hair with some light thing at the end of it, they must needs re∣ceive those reciprocal Vibrations that are communicated to the Unison string at a far greater distance, if the meer motion of the

material Aire caused the subsultation of the string tuned Unison. Which yet is contrary to experience. Besides that, if it were the meer Vibration of the Aire that caused this tremor in the Unison string, the effect would not be considerable, unless both the strings lay well-nigh in the same Plane, and that the Vibration of the string that is struck be made in that Plane they both lie in. But let the string be struck so as to cut the Plane perpendicularly by its tremulous excursions, or let both the strings be in two several Planes at a good distance above one another, the event is much-what the same, though the Aire cannot rationally be con∣ceived to vibrate backwards and forwards, but well-nigh in the very Planes wherein the strings are moved. All which things do clearly shew, that pure corporeal causes can∣not produce this effect: and that therefore we must suppose, that both the strings are united with some one incorporeal Being, which has a different Unity and Activity from Matter, but yet a Sympathy therewith; which affecting this immaterial Being, makes it affect the Matter in the same manner in another place, where it does symbolize with that other in some predisposition or qua∣lification, as these two strings doe in being tuned Unisons to one another: and this, with∣out

sending any particles to the Matter it does thus act upon; as my thought of mo∣ving of my Toe being represented within my Brain, by the power of my Soul I can, without sending Spirits into my Toe, but onely by making use of them that are there, move my Toe as I please, by reason of that Unity and Activity that is peculiar to my Soul as a spiritual substance that pervades my whole Body. Whence I would con∣clude also, that there is some such Principle as we call the Spirit of Nature, or the In∣feriour Soul of the World, into which such Phaenomena as these are to be resolved.

3. And I account Sympathetick Cures, Pains and Asswagements to be such. As for example, when in the use of those Magnetick Remedies, as some call them, they can make the wound dolorously hot or chill at a great distance, or can put it into perfect case, this is not by any agency of emissary Atoms. For these hot Atoms would cool sufficiently in their progress to the party through the frigid aire; and the cold Atoms, if they could be so active as to dispatch so far, would be warm enough by their journey in the Summer Sun. The inflammations also of the Cowes Udder by the boyling over of the milk into the fire, the scalding of mens entrails at a distance by the burning of their

excrements, with other pranks of the like nature, these cannot be rationally resolved into the recourse of the Spirits of Men or Kine mingled with fiery Atoms, and so re-en∣tring the parts thus affected, because the minuteness of those toms argues the sud∣dainness of their extinction, as the smallest wires made red hot soonest cool. To all which you may adde that notable example of the Wines working when the Vines are in the flower, and that this sympathetick effect must be from the Vines of that coun∣try from which they came: whence these exhalations of the Vineyards must spread as far as from Spain and the Canaries to Eng∣land, and by the same reason must reach round about every way as far from the Ca∣naries, besides their journey upwards into the Aire. So that there will be an Hemi∣sphere of vineall Atoms of an incredible ex∣tent, unless they part themselves into trains, and march onely to those places whither their Wines are carried. But what corpo∣real cause can guide them thither? Which question may be made of other Phaenomena of the like nature. Whence again it will be necessary to establish the Principle I drive at, though the effects were caused by the transmission of Atoms.

4. The notablest examples of this Mun∣dane

Sympathy are in histories more uncer∣tain and obscure, and such as, though I have been very credibly informed yet, as I have already declared my self, I dare onely avouch as possible, viz. the Souls of men leaving their Bodies, and appearing in shapes suppose of Cats, Pigeons, Wezels, and some∣times of Men, and that whatever hurt be∣falls them in these Astral bodies, as the Para∣celsians love to call them, the same is in∣flicted upon their Terrestrial lying in the mean time in their beds or on the ground. As if their Astral bodies be scalded, woun∣ded, have the back broke, the same certainly happens to their Earthly bodies. Which things if they be true, in all likelihood they are to be resolved into this Principle we speak of, and that the Spirit of Nature is snatcht into consent with the imagination of the Soules in these Astral bodies or aiery Vehicles. Which act of imagining must needs be strong in them, it being so set on and assisted by a quick and sharp pain and fright in these scaldings, woundings, and stroaks on the back; some such thing happening here as in women with child, whose Fan∣cies made keen by a suddain fear, have de∣prived their children of their arms, yea and of their heads too, as also appears by two remarkable stories Sr. Kenelme Digby re∣lates

in his witty and eloquent Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by the powder of Sym∣pathy, besides what we have already recited out of Helmont. See Lib. 2. Cap. 15. Sect. 8, 9, 10.

5. Which effects I suppose to be beyond the power of any humane Fancy unassisted by some more forceable Agent; as also that prodigious birth he mentions of a woman of Carcassona, who by her overmuch sport∣ing and pleasing her self with an Ape while she was with Child, brought forth a Mon∣ster exactly of that shape. And if we should conclude with that learned Writer, that it was a real Ape, it is no more wonderfull, nor so much, as that birth of a Crabfish or Lobster we have above mentioned out of Fortunius Licetus; as we might also other more usual, though no less monstrous births for the wombs of women to bear. Of which the Soul of the Mother cannot be suspected to be the cause, she not so much as being the efformer of her own Foetus, as that judi∣cious Naturalist Dr. Harvey has determi∣ned. And if the Mothers Soule could be the efformer of the Foetus, in all reason her Plastick power would be ever particular and specifick as the Soul it self is particular. What remains therefore but the universal Soule of the World or Spirit of Nature that

can doe these feats? who, Vertumnus like, is ready to change his own Activity and the yielding matter into any mode and shape indifferently as occasion engages him, and so to prepare an edifice, at least the more rude stroaks and delineaments thereof, for any specifick Soule whatsoever, and in any place where the Matter will yield to his ope∣rations. But the time of the arrival thither of the particular guest it is intended for, though we cannot say how soon it is, yet we may be sure it is not later then a clear discovery of Sensation as well as Vegetation and organization in the Matter.

6. The Attraction of the Load-stone seems to have some affinity with these in∣stances of Sympathy. This mystery Des-Car∣tes has explained with admirable artifice as to the immediate corporeal causes thereof, to wit, those wreathed particles which he makes to pass certain screw-pores in the Load-stone and Iron. But how the effor∣mation of these particles is above the reach of the meer mechanical powers in Matter, as also the exquisite direction of their mo∣tion, whereby they make their peculiar Vor∣tex he describes about the Earth from Pole to Pole, and thread an incrustated Star, pas∣sing in a right line in so long a journey as the Diameter thereof without being swung

to the sides; how these things, I say, are beyond the powers of Matter, I have fully enough declared & proved in a large Letter of mine to V. C. and therefore that I may not actum agere, shall forbear speaking any farther thereof in this place. To which you may adde, that meer corporeal motion in Matter, without any other guide, would ne∣ver so much as produce a round Sun or Star, of which figure notwithstanding Des-Cartes acknowledges them to be. But my reasons why it cannot be effected by the simple Me∣chanical powers of Matter, I have particu∣larly set down in my Letters to that excel∣lent Philosopher.

CHAP. XIII.

1. That the Descent of heavy Bodies argues the existence of the Spirit of Nature, because else they would either hang in the Aire as they are placed, 2. Or would be diverted from a perpendicular as they fall near a Plate of Metall set stooping. 3. That the endeavour of the AEther or Aire from the Centre to the Circumference is not the cause of Gravity, against Mr. Hobbs. 4. A full confutation of Mr. Hobbs his Opinion.

5. An ocular Demonstration of the absurd consequence thereof. 6. An absolute De∣monstration that Gravity cannot be the ef∣fect of meer Mechanical powers. 7. The Latitude of the operations of the Spirit of Nature, how large and where bounded. 8. The reason of its name. 9. Its grand office of transmitting Souls into rightly-prepared Matter.

1. AND a farther confirmation that I am not mistaken therein, is what we daily here experience upon Earth, which is the descending of heavy Bodies, as we call them. Concerning the motion whereof I agree with Des-Cartes in the as∣signation of the immediate corporeal cause, to wit, the AEtherial matter, which is so plentifully in the Air over it is in grosser Bodies; but withall doe vehemently sur∣mise, that there must be some immaterial cause, such as we call the Spirit of Nature or Inferiour Soule of the World, that must direct the motions of the AEtherial particles to act upon these grosser Bodies to drive them towards the Earth. For that surplu∣sage of Agitation of the globular particles of the AEther above what they spend in tur∣ning the Earth about, is carried every way indifferently, according to his own conces∣sion;

by which motion the drops of liquors are formed into round figures, as he ingeni∣ously concludes. From whence it is appa∣rent, that a bullet of iron, silver or gold placed in the aire is equally assalted on all sides by the occursion of these aethereal par∣ticles, and therefore will be moved no more downwards then upwards, but hang in aequilibrio, as a piece of Cork rests on the water, where there is neither winde nor stream, but is equally plaied against by the particles of water on all sides.

2. Nor is it imaginable how the occur∣sions of this aethereal Element here against the surface of the Earth, being it is so fluid a Body, should make it endeavour to lift it self from the Earth at so great a distance as the middle Region of the Aire and further. Besides, that this is not the cause of the de∣scent of heavy Bodies is manifest, because then a broad Plate of the most solid Metal and most perfectly polisht, such as is able to reflect the aethereal particles most effica∣ciously, being placed slooping would change the course of the descent of things, and make them fall perpendicularly to it, and not to the Plane of the Horizon; as for example, not from A to B, but from A to C: which is against experience. For the heavy Body will always fall down from

A to B, though

[illustration]

the recession of the aethereal Mat∣ter must needs be from C to A ac∣cording to this Hypothesis.

3. Nor can the endeavour of the celestial Matter from the centre to the circumference take place here. For besides that Des-Cartes, the profoundest Master of Mecha∣nicks, has declin'd that way himself (though Mr. Hobbs has taken it up,) it would follow, that near the Poles of the Earth there would be no descent of heavy Bodies at all, and in the very Clime we live in none per∣pendicular. To say nothing how this way will not salve the union of that great Water that adheres to the body of the Moon.

4. But to make good what I said, by un∣deniable proof that heavy Bodies in the very Clime where we live will not descend perpendicularly to the Earth, if Mr. Hobbs his solution of the Phaenomenon of Gra∣vity be true; we shall evidently demonstrate both to the Eye and to Reason the propor∣tion of their declination from a perpendicu∣lar in any Elevation of the Pole. In the

[illustration]

Circle therefore A B D, let the AEquator be B D, and from the point C draw a line to E, parallel to B D: which line C E will cut the circle in F 60. degrees, suppose, from B. Imagine now a heavy Body at E; according to Mr. Hobbs his solution of the Probleme of Gravity, it must fall towards the Earth in a line parallel to the AEquator, viz. in the line E F; which, say I, declines from the line H F drawn perpendicular to the Horizon L K two third parts of a right angle, that is to say, 60. degrees. For the E F H is equal to G F R, which again is equal to the alternate angle B G F, which is two third parts of a right angle ex thesi. Whence it is plain that E F declines from a perpendicular no less then 60. degrees. By the same reason, if we had drawn the Scheme for the elevation of 50. which is

more Southern then our Clime, we might demonstrate that the descent of heavy Bo∣dies declines from a perpendicular to the Horizon 50 degrees, or 5/9 of a right angle, and so of the rest. From whence it will fol∣low, that men cannot walk upright, but de∣clining, in the elevation suppose of 60. de∣grees, as near to the ground as E F is to F L, and much nearer in the more remote parts of the North, as in Norway, Russia, Frisland, Island, Scricfinnia, Greenland and others; and there is proportionably the same reason in other Climes less Northern. So that Mr. Hobbs need not send us so farre off as to the Poles to make the experiment.

5. For if for example we drew a Scheme for the Parallel under which we live, suppose about 52. degrees of Elevation, we might represent truly to the eye in what posture men would walk at London or Cambridge, according to Mr. Hobbs his determination of the causes of Gravity. For it is plain

[illustration]

from what has been above demonstrated, that the natural posture of their Bodies upon the Horizon L K would be in the line E F, out of which if they did force themselves towards the perpendicular H F, it would be much pain to them, neither could they place themselves in the line H F, without being born headlong to the ground, and laid flat upon the Horizon F K; the force of the Aire or whatever more subtile Ele∣ments therein pressing in lines parallel to E F, and therefore necessarily bearing down whatever is placed loose in the line H F, as is plain to any one at first sight. But we finding no such thing in experience, it is evident that Mr. Hobbs his solution is salse; nay I may say that he has not rendred so much as a possible cause of this so ordinary a Phaenomenon. A thing truly much to be lamented in one who, upon pretence that all the Appearances in the Universe may be re∣solved into meer Corporeal causes, has with unparallell'd confidence, and not without some wit, derided and exploded all immate∣rial Substance out of the World; whenas in the mean time he does not produce so much as possible Corporeal causes of the most ordinary effects in Nature. But to leave Mr. Hobbs to his own ways, and to return to Des-Cartes.

6. Adde unto all this, that if the motion of gross Bodies were according to meer Mechanical laws, a Bullet, suppose of Lead or Gold, cast up into the aire, would never descend again, but would persist in a recti∣linear motion. For it being farre more solid then so much Aire & AEther put together as would fill its place, and being moved with no less swiftness then that wherewith the Earth is carried about in twenty four hours, it must needs break out in a straight line through the thin aire, and never return again to the Earth, but get away as a Comet does out of a Vortex. And that de facto a Ca∣non Bullet has been shot so high that it ne∣ver fell back again upon the ground, Des-Cartes does admit of as a true experiment. Of which, for my own part, I can imagine no other unexceptionable reason, but that at a certain distance the Spirit of Nature in some regards leaves the motion of Matter to the pure laws of Mechanicks, but with∣in other bounds checks it, whence it is that the Water does not swill out of the Moon.

7. Now if the pure Mechanick powers in Matter and Corporeal motion will not amount to so simple a Phaenomenon as the falling of a stone to the Earth, how shall we hope they will be the adaequate cause of

sundry sorts of Plants and other things, that have farre more artifice and curiosity then the direct descent of a stone to the ground. Nor are we beaten back again by this disco∣very into that dotage of the confounded Schools, who have indued almost every dif∣ferent Object of our Senses with a distinct Substantial form, and then puzzle them∣selves with endless scrupulosities about the generation, corruption, and mixtion of them. For I affirm with Des-Cartes, that nothing affects our Senses, but such variations of Matter as are made by difference of Motion, Figure, Situation of parts, &c. but I dissent from him in this, in that I hold it is not meer and pure mechanical motion that cau∣ses all these sensible Modifications in Matter, but that many times the immediate Di∣rector thereof is this Spirit of Nature (I speak of) one and the same every where, and acting alwaies alike upon like occasions, as a clear-minded man and of a solid judg∣ment gives alwaies the same verdict in the same circumstances. For this Spirit of Na∣ture intermedling with the efformation of the Foetus of Animals (as I have already shewn more then once) where notwithstand∣ing there seems not so much need, there being in them a more particular Agent for that purpose; 'tis exceeding rational that

all Plants and Flowers of all sorts (in which we have no argument to prove there is any particular Souls) should be the effects of this Universal Soule of the World. Which Hypothesis, besides that it is most reasona∣ble in it self, according to that ordinary Axiome, Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora, is also very serviceable for the preventing many hard Problems about the Divisibility of the Soules of Plants, their Transmutations into other Species, the grow∣ing of Slips, and the like. For there is one Soule ready every where to pursue the ad∣vantages of prepared Matter. Which is the common and onely 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of all Plantal appearances, or of whatever other Phaenomena there be, greater or smaller, that exceed the pure Mechanical powers of Matter. We except onely Men and Beasts, who having all of them the capacity of some sort of enjoyments or other, it was fit they should have particular Souls for the multi∣plying of the sense of those enjoyments which the transcendent Wisdome of the Creatour has contrived.

8. I have now plainly enough set down what I mean by the Spirit of Nature, and suf∣ficiently proved its Existence. Out of what has been said may be easily conceived why I give it this name, it being a Principle that

is of so great influence and activity in the Nascency as I may so call it, & Coalescency of things: And this not onely in the production of Plants, with all other Concretions of an inferiour nature, and yet above the meer Mechanical lawes of Matter; but also in re∣spect of the birth of Animals, whereunto it is preparatory and assistent. I know not whether I may entitle it also to the guidance of Animals in the chiefest of those actions which we usually impute to natural Instinct. Amongst which none so famous as the Birds making their Nests, and particularly the ar∣tificial structure of the Martins nests under the arches of Church-windowes. In which there being so notable a design unknown to themselves, and so small a pleasure to present Sense, it looks as if they were actu∣ated by another, inspired and carried away in a natural rapture by this Spirit of Nature to doe they know not what, though it be really a necessary provision and accommo∣dation for laying their Eggs, and hatching their young, in the efformation whereof this Inferiour Soule of the World is so ratio∣nally conceived to assist and intermeddle: and therefore may the better be supposed to over-power the Fancy, and make use of the members of the Birds to build these conve∣nient Receptacles, as certain shops to lay up

the Matter whereon she intends to work, namely the Eggs of these Birds whom she thus guides in making of their nests.

9. But this argument being too lubricous, I will not much insist upon it. The most notable of those offices that can be assigned to the Spirit of Nature, and that sutably to his name, is the Translocation of the Souls of Beasts into such Matter as is most fitting for them, he being the common Pro∣xenet or Contractor of all natural Matches and Marriages betwixt forms and matter, if we may also speak Metaphors as well as Ari∣stotle, whose Aphorisme it is, that Materia appetit formam ut foemina virum. This Spi∣rit therefore may have not onely the power of directing the motion of Matter at hand, but also of transporting of particular Souls and Spirits in their state of Silence and In∣activity to such Matter as they are in a fit∣ness to catch life in again. Which Trans∣portation or Transmission may very well be at immense distances, the effect of this Sym∣pathy and Coactivity being so great in the working of Wines, as has been above no∣ted, though a thing of less concernment. Whence, to conclude, we may look upon this Spirit of Nature as the great Quarter∣master-General of divine Providence, but able alone, without any under-Officers, to

lodge every Soule according to her rank and merit whenever she leaves the Body: And would prove a very serviceable Hypo∣thesis for those that fancy the praeexistence of humane Souls; to declare how they may be conveighed into Bodies here, be they at what distance they will before; and how Matter haply may be so fitted, that the best of them may be fetcht from the purest aethe∣real Regions into an humane Body, without serving any long Apprentiship in the inter∣mediate Aire: as also how the Souls of Brutes, though the Earth were made per∣fectly inept for the life of any Animal, need not lye for ever useless in the Universe. But such speculations as these are of so vast a comprehension and impenetrable obscu∣rity, that I cannot have the confidence to dwell any longer thereon; especially they not touching so essentially our present de∣signe, and being more fit to fill a volume themseves, then to be comprised within the narrow limits of my now almost-finish'd Discourse.

CHAP. XIV.

1. Objections against the Souls Immortality from her condition in Infancy, Old age, Sleep and Sicknesses. 2. Other Objections taken from Experiments that seem to prove her Discerpibility. 3. As also from the seldome appearing of the Souls of the de∣ceased; 4. And from our natural fear of Death. 5. A Subterfuge of the adverso par∣ty, in supposing but one Soule common to all Creatures. 6. An Answer concerning the Littleness of the Soule in Infancy: 7. As also concerning the weakness of her Intel∣lectuals then, and in Old age. 8. That Sleep does not at all argue the Souls Mor∣tality, but rather illustrate her Immorta∣lity. 9. An Answer to the Objection from Apoplexies and Catalepsies: 10. As also to that from Madness. 11. That the vari∣ous depravations of her Intellectual Facul∣ties doe no more argue her Mortality, then the worser Modifications of Matter its na∣tural Annihilability. And why God crea∣ted Souls sympathizing with Matter.

1. AS for the Objections that are usually made against the Immortality of the Soule; to propound them all, were both

tedious and useless, there being scarce above one in twenty that can appear of any mo∣ment to but an indifferent Wit and Judg∣ment. But the greatest difficulties that can be urged I shall bring into play, that the Truth we doe maintain may be the more fully cleared, and the more firmly believed. The most material Objections that I know against the Souls Immortality, are these five. The First is from the consideration of the condition of the Soule in Infancy, and Old age, as also in Madness, Sleep, and Apo∣plexies. For if we doe but observe the great difference of our Intellectual operations in Infancy and Dotage from what they are when we are in the prime of our years, and how that our Wit grows up by degrees, flourishes for a time, and at last decayes, keeping the same pace with the changes that Age and Years bring into our Body, which observes the same lawes that Flowers and Plants; what can we suspect, but that the Soule of Man, which is so magnificent∣ly spoken of amongst the learned, is nothing else but a Temperature of Body, and that it growes and spreads with it, both in bigness and virtues, and withers and dies as the Body does, or at least that it does wholly depend on the Body in its Operations, and therefore that there is no sense nor percep∣tion

of any thing after death? And when the Soule has the best advantage of years, she is not then exempted from those Eclipses of the powers of the Minde that proceed from Sleep, Madness, Apoplexies, and other Diseases of that nature. All which shew her condition, whatever more exalted Wits surmise of her, that she is but a poor mortal and corporeal thing.

2. The Second Objection is taken from such Experiments as are thought to prove the Soule divisible in the grossest sense, that is to say, discerpible into pieces. And it seems a clear case in those more contemp∣tible Animals which are called Insects, espe∣cially the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as Ari∣stotle describes them, and doth acknowledge that being cut into pieces, each segment will have its motion and sense apart to it self. The most notable Instance of this kind is in the Scolopendra, whose parts Aristotle (Histor. Animal. Lib. 4. Cap. 7.) affirmes to live a long time divided, and to run backwards and forwards; and therefore he will have it to look like many living Crea∣tures growing together, rather then one single one, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. De Juvent. & Senect. Cap. 2. But yet he will not afford them the priviledge of Plants, whose Slips

will live and grow, being set in the Earth. But the instances that belong to this Objecti∣on ascend higher, for they pretend that the parts of perfect Animals will also live asun∣der. There are two main instances thereof. The one, that of the Eagle Fromondus men∣tions, whose head being chopt off by an angry Clown, for quarrelling with his dog, the Body flew over the barn near the place of this rude execution. This was done at Fromondus his fathers house: nor is the story improbable, if we consider what or∣dinarily happens in Pigeons and Ducks, when their heads are cut off. The other instance is, of a Malefactour beheaded at Antwerp, whose head when it had given some few jumps into the crowd, and a Dog fell a licking the blood, caught the Dogs eare in its teeth, and held it so fast, that he being frighted ran away with the mans head hanging at his eare, to the great astonish∣ment and confusion of the people. This was told Fromondus by an eye-witness of the fact. From which two examples they think may be safely inferred, that the Souls of Men, as well as of the more perfect kinde of Brutes, are also discerpible. That example in the same Authour out of Josephus Acosta, if true, yet is finally to this purpose. For the speaking of the sacrificed Captive, when

his Heart was cut out, may be a further con∣firmation indeed that the Brain is the Seat of the Common Sense, but no argument of the Divisibility of the Soule, she remaining at that time entire in the Body, after the cut∣ting out of the Heart, whose office it is to afford Spirits, which were not so far yet dissipated, but that they sufficed for that suddain operation of life.

3. The Third Objection is from the sel∣dome appearāce of the Souls of the deceased. For if they can at all appear, why do they not oftner? if they never appear, it is a strong suspicion that they are not at all in Being.

4. The Fourth is from the Fear of Death, and an inward down-bearing sense in us at some times, that we are utterly mortal, and that there is nothing to be expected after this life.

5. The Fifth and last is rather a Subter∣fuge then an Objection, That there is but One Common Soul in all Men and Beasts, that operates according to the variety of Ani∣mals and Persons it does actuate and vivi∣ficate, bearing a seeming particularity ac∣cording to the particular pieces of Matter it enforms, but is one in all; and that this particularity of Body being lost, this parti∣cular Man or Beast is lost, and so every li∣ving creature is properly and intirely mortal.

These are the reallest and most pertinent Objections I could ever meet withall, or can excogitate, concerning the Souls Im∣mortality: to which I shall answer in order.

6. And to the First, which seems to be the shrewdest, I say, that neither the Con∣tractedness of the Soule in Infancy, nor the Weakness of her Intellectual Operations either then or in extream Old age, are sufficient proofs of her Corporeity or Mortality. For what wonder is it that the Soule, faln into this low and fatal condition, where she must submit to the course of Nature, and the lawes of other Animals that are generated here on Earth, should display her self by degrees, from smaller dimensions to the or∣dinary size of men; whenas this faculty of contracting and dilating of themselves is in the very essence and notion of all Spirits? as I have noted already Lib. 1. Cap. 5. So she does but that leisurely and naturally now, being subjected to the lawes of this terre∣strial Fate, which she does, exempt from this condition, suddainly and freely: not grow∣ing by Juxta-position of parts, or Intromission of Matter, but inlarging of her self with the Body meerly by the dilatation of her own Substance, which is one and the same al∣waies.

7. As for the Debility of her Intellectuals

in Infancy and Old age, this consideration has less force to evince her a meer corpo∣real essence then the former, and touches not our Principles at all, who have provi∣ded for the very worst surmise concerning the operations of the Minde, in acknow∣ledging them, of my own accord, to depend very intimately on the temper and tenour of the Souls immediate instrument, the Spi∣rits; which being more torpid and watry in Children and Old men, must needs hinder her in such operations as require another constitution of Spirits then is usually in Age and Childhood: though I will not profess my self absolutely confident, that the Soule cannot act without all dependence on Matter. But if it does not, which is most probable, it must needs follow, that its Operations will keep the lawes of the Body it is united with. Whence it is demonstrable how ne∣cessary Purity and Temperance is to preserve and advance a mans Parts.

8. As for Sleep, which the dying Philoso∣pher called the Brother of Death, I doe not see how it argues the Souls Mortality, more then a mans inability to wake again: but rather helps us to conceive, how that though the stounds and agonies of Death seem utterly to take away all the hopes of the Souls living after them; yet upon a

recovery of a quicker Vehicle of Aire, she may suddainly awake into fuller and fresher participation of life then before. But I may answer also, that Sleep being onely the liga∣tion of the outward Senses, and the inter∣ception of motion from the external world, argues no more any radical defect of Life and Immortality in the Soul, then the ha∣ving a mans Sight bounded within the walls of his chamber by Shuts, does argue any blindness in the immured party: who haply is busy reading by candle-light, and that with ease, so small a print as would trouble an ordinary Sight to read it by day. And that the Soule is not perpetually employed in sleep, is very hard for any to demon∣strate; we so often remembring our dreams meerly by occasions, which if they had not occurred, we had never suspected we had dreamed that night.

9. Which Answer, as also the former, is applicable to Apoplexies, Catalepsies, and whatever other Diseases partake of their nature, and witness how nimble the Soule is to act upon the suppeditation of due Mat∣ter, and how Life and Sense and Memo∣ry and Reason, and all return, upon re∣turn of the fitting temper of the Spirits, suitable to that vital Congruity that then is predominant in the Soule.

10. And as for Madness, there are no Apprehensions so frantick but are argu∣ments of the Souls Immortality, not as they are frantick, but as Apprehensions. For Matter cannot apprehend any thing, either wildly or soberly, as I have already suffici∣ently demonstrated. And it is as irrational for a man to conclude, that the depraved Operations of the Soule argue her Morta∣lity, as that the worser tempers, or figures, or whatever more contemptible modifica∣tions there are of Matter, should argue its annihilation by the meer power of Nature; which no man that understands himself will ever admit. The Soule indeed is indued with several Faculties, and some of them very fatally passive, such as those are that have the nearest commerce with Matter, and are not so absolutely in her own power, but that her levity and mindlesness of the divine light may bring her into subjection to them; as all are, in too sad a sort, that are incarcerate in this terrestrial Body, but some have better luck then other some in this wild and audacious ramble from a more secure state. Of which Apostasy if there be some that are made more tragick examples then others of their stragling from their soveraign Happiness, it is but a merciful admonition of the danger we all have in∣curr'd,

by being where we are; and very few so wel escaped, but that if they could examine their Desires, Designs, and Transactions here, by that Truth they were once masters of, they would very freely confess, that the mistakes and errours of their life are not in∣feriour to, but of worse consequence then, those of natural Fools and Mad-men, whom all either hoot at for their folly, or else la∣ment their misery. And questionless the Souls of Men, if they were once reduced to that sobriety they are capable of, would be as much ashamed of such Desires and No∣tions they are now wholly engaged in, as any mad-man, reduced to his right Senses, is of those freaks he played when he was out of his wits.

11. But the variety of degrees, or kindes of depravation in the Intellective faculties of the Soule, her Substance being indiscer∣pible, cannot at all argue her Mortality, no more then the different modifications of Matter the Annihilability thereof, as I have already intimated. Nor need a man trouble himself how there should be such a Sympa∣thy betwixt Body and Soule, when it is so demonstrable that there is. For it is suffici∣ent to consider, that it is their immediate nature so to be by the will and ordinance of Him that has made all things. And that if

Matter has no Sense nor Cogitation it self, as we have demonstrated it has not, it had been in vain, if God had not put forth into Being that Order of immaterial Creatures which we call Souls, vitally unitable with the Matter: Which therefore, according to the several modifications thereof, will ne∣cessarily have a different effect upon the Soule, the Soule abiding still as unperisha∣ble as the Matter that is more mutable then she. For the Matter is dissipable, but she utterly indiscerpible.

CHAP. XV.

1. An Answer to the experiment of the Sco∣lopendra cut into pieces. 2. And to the flying of an headless Eagle over a barn, as also to that of the Malefactours head bite∣ing a Dog by the eare. 3. A superaddi∣tion of a difficulty concerning Monsters born with two or more Heads and but one Body and Heart. 4. A solution of the difficulty. 5. An answer touching the seldome appear∣ing of the Souls of the deceased: 6. As also concerning the fear of Death; 7. And a down-bearing sense that sometimes so for∣cibly obtrudes upon us the belief of the

Souls Mortality. 8. Of the Tragical Pompe and dreadful Praeludes of Death, with some corroborative Considerations against such sad spectacles. 9. That there is nothing really sad and miserable in the Universe, unless to the wicked and impious.

1. NOR doe those Instances in the second Objection prove any thing to the con∣trary, as if the Soule it self were really di∣visible. The most forcible Example is that of the Scolopendra, the motion of the divi∣ded parts being so quick and nimble, and so lasting. But it is easy to conceive, that the activity of the Spirits in the Mechanical conformation of the pieces of that Insect, till motion has dissipated them, will as ne∣cessarily make them run up and down, as Gunpowder in a squib will cause its motion. And therefore the Soule of the Scolopendra will be but in one of those Segments, and uncertain in which, but likely according as the Segments be made. For cut a Wasps head off from the Body, the Soule retires out of the head into the Body; but cut her in the wast, leaving the upper part of the Body to the head, the Soule then retires into that forepart of the Wasp. And there∣fore it is no wonder that the head being cut off, the Body of the Wasp will fly and

flutter so long, the Soule being still in it, and haply conferring to the direction of the Spirits for motion, not out of Sense, but from custome or nature: as we walk not thinking of it, or play of the Lute though our minde be running on something else, as I have noted before. But when the wast is left to the head, it is less wonder, for then the Animal may not be destitute of sense and fancy, to conveigh the Spirits to move the wings.

2. The former case will fit that of the headless Eagle that flew over the Barn. But the mans head that catcht the Dog by the ear would have more difficulty in it (it not seeming so perfectly referrible to the latter case of the Wasp) did not we consider how hard the teeth will set in a swoon. As this Head therefore was gasping while the Dog was licking the blood thereof, his ear chanced to dangle into the mouth of it, which closing together as the ear hung into it, pinched it so fast that it could not fall off. Besides it is not altogether improbable, especially considering that some men die upwards, and some downwards, that the Soul may, as it happens, sometimes retire into the Head, and sometimes into the Body, in these decollations, according as they are more or less replenisht with Spirits, and by

the lusty jumping of this Head, it should seem it was very full of them. Many such things as these also may happen by the acti∣vity of the Spirit of Nature, who, its like, may be as busy in the ruines of Animals, while the Spirits last, as it is in the fluid rudiments of them when they are genera∣ted. But the former answers being suffi∣cient, it is needless to enlarge our selves up∣on this new Theme.

3. To this second Objection might have been added such monstrous births, as seem to imply the Perceptive part of the Soul divided actually into two or more parts. For Ari∣stotle seems expresly to affirm, De Generat. Animal. Lib. 4. Cap. 4. that that monstrous birth that has two hearts is two Animals, but that which has but one heart is but one. From whence it will follow that there is but one Soul also in that one-hearted Monster, though it have two or more heads; whence it is also evident, that the Perceptive part of that one Soule must be actually divided into two or more. This opinion of Aristotle Sen∣nertus subscribes to, and therefore conceives that that monstrous child that was borne at Emmaus, in Theodosius his time, with two heads and two hearts, was two persons; but that other borne Anno 1531. with two heads & but one heart, who lived till he was

a man, was but one person. Which he con∣ceives appears the plainer, in that both the heads professed their agreement perpetually to the same actions, in that they had the same appetite, the same hunger and thirst, spoke alike, had the same desire to lye with their wife, and of all other acts of exonerating nature. But for that other that had two hearts, and was divided to the Navel, there was not this identity of affection and desire, but sometimes one would have a mind to a thing, and sometimes another, sometimes they would play with one another, and some∣times fight. See Sennert. Epitom. Scient. Natural. Lib. 6. Cap. 1.

4. But I answer, and first to Aristotles au∣thority, that he does not so confidently as∣sert, that every Monster that has but one heart is but one Animal. For his words run thus; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Where he onely speaks hy∣pothetically, not peremptorily, that the Heart is that part where the first Principle of life is, and from which the rest of life in Soul or Body is to be derived. For indeed he makes it elswhere the seat of Common Sense, but that it is a mistake we have al∣ready demonstrated, and himself seems not

confident of his own Opinion; and therefore we may with the less offence decline it, and affirm (and that without all hesitancy) that a Monster is either one or more Animals according to the number of the heads of it, and that there are as many distinct Souls as there are heads in a monstrous Birth. But from the heads downwards the Body being but one, and the heart but one, that there must needs be a wonderful exact con∣cord in the sense of affections in these heads, they having their Blood and Spirits from one fountain, and one common seat of their passions and desires. But questionless when∣ever one head winked, he could not then see by the eyes of the other; or if one had pricked one of these heads, the other would not have felt it: though whatever was in∣flicted below, it is likely they both felt alike, both the Souls equally acting the Bo∣dy of this Monster, but the heads being actuated by them onely in several. Which is a sufficient answer to Sennertus.

5. The weakness of the third Objection is manifest, in that it takes away the Exi∣stence of all Spirits, as well as the Souls of the deceased. Of whose Being notwithstand∣ing none can doubt that are not dotingly incredulous. We say therefore that the Souls of men, being in the same condition

that other Spirits are, appear sometimes, though but seldome. The cause in both be∣ing, partly the difficulty of bringing their Vehicles to an unnatural consistency, and partly they having no occasion so to doe, and lastly it being not permitted to them to doe as they please, or to be where they have a minde to be.

6. As for the Fear of Death, and that down-bearing sense that sometimes so un∣controulably suggests to us that we are wholly mortal: To the first I answer, that it is a necessary result of our union with the Body, and if we should admit it one of the imperfections or infirmities we contract by being in this state, it were a solid Answer. And therefore this fear and presage of ill in Death is no argument that there is any ill in it, nor any more to be heeded then the predictions of any fanatical fellow that will pretend to prophecie. But besides this, it is fitting that there should be in us this fear and abhorrency, to make us keep this sta∣tion Providence has plac't us in; otherwise every little pet would invite us to pack our selves out of this World, and try our for∣tunes in the other, and so leave the Earth to be inhabited onely by Beasts, whenas it is to be ordered and cultivated by Men.

7. To the second I answer, that such

peremptory conclusions are nothing but the impostures of Melancholy, or some other dull and fulsome distempers of blood that corrupt the Imagination; but that Fancy proves nothing, by Axiome 4. And that though the Soul enthroned in her AEthereal Vehicle be a very magnificent thing, full of Divine Love, Majesty and Tranquillity; yet in this present state she is inclogg'd and accloy'd with the foulness and darkness of this Terrestrial Body, she is subject to many fears and jealousies, and other disturbing passions, whose Objects though but a mockery, yet are a real disquiet to her minde in this her Captivity and Imprison∣ment. Which condition of hers is lively set out by that incomparable Poet and Pla∣tonist, AEneid. 6. where, comparing that more free and pure state of our Souls in their ce∣lestial or fiery Vehicles with their restraint in this earthly Dungeon, he makes this short and true description of the whole matter.

Igneus est ollis, vigor, & coelestis origo Seminibus; quantū non noxia corpora tardant, Terreni{que} hebetant artus, moribundá{que} membra: Hinc metuunt, cupiúntque, dolent, gaudéntque, nec auras Respiciunt, claust tenebris & carcere caeco.

To this sense,

A fiery vigour from an heavenly source Is in these seeds, so far as the dull force Of noxious Bodies does not them retard, In heavy earth and dying limbs imbar'd. Hence, fool'd with fears, foul lusts, sharp grief, vain joy, In this dark Gaol they low and groveling lie, Nor with one glance of their oblivious minde Look back to that free Aire they left behinde.

This is the sad estate of the more deeply∣lapsed Souls upon Earth; who are so wholly mastered by the motions of the Bo∣dy, that they are carried headlong into an assent to all the suggestions and imagina∣tions that it so confidently obtrudes upon them; of which that of our mortality is not the weakest. But such melancholy fancies, that would beare us down so peremptorily that we are utterly extinct in death, are no more argument thereof, then those of them that have been perswaded they were dead already, while they were alive; and there∣fore would not eat, because they thought the dead never take any repast, till they were cheated into an appetite, by seeing some of their friends disguised in winding-sheets feed heartily at the table, whose example then they thought fit to follow, and so were kept alive.

8. I cannot but confess that the Tragick pomp and preparation to dying, that layes wast the operations of the minde, putting her into fits of dotage or fury, making the very visage look ghastly and distracted, and at the best sadly pale and consumed, as if Life and Soule were even almost quite ex∣tinct, cannot but imprint strange impres∣sions even upon the stoutest minde, and raise suspicions that all is lost in so great a change. But the Knowing and Benign Spirit though he may flow in tears at so dismal a Spectacle, yet it does not at all suppress his hope and confidence of the Souls safe pas∣sage into the other world; and is no other∣wise moved then the more passionate Spe∣ctatours of some cunningly-contrived Tra∣gedy, where persons whose either Vertue, or misfortunes, or both, have wonne the af∣fection of the beholders, are at last seen wallowing in their blood, and after some horrid groans and gasps, lye stretcht stark dead upon the stage: but being once drawn off, find themselves well and alive, and are ready to tast a cup of wine with their friends in the attiring room, to solace themselves really, after their fictitious pangs of death, and leave the easy-natur'd multitude to in∣dulge to their soft passions for an evil that never befell them.

9. The fear and abhorrency therefore we have of Death, and the sorrow that accom∣panies it, is no argument but that we may live after it, and are but due affections for those that are to be spectatours of the great Tragick-Comedy of the World; the whole plot whereof being contrived by infinite Wisdome and Goodness, we cannot but sur∣mise that the most sad representations are but a shew, but the delight real to such as are not wicked and impious; and that what the ignorant call Evil in this Universe is but as the shadowy stroaks in a fair picture, or the mournful notes in Musick, by which the beauty of the one is more lively and express, and the melody of the other more pleasing and melting.

CHAP. XVI.

1. That that which we properly are is both Sensitive and Intellectual. 2. What is the true notion of a Soul being One. 3. That if there be but One Soule in the world, it is both Rational and Sensitive. 4. The most favourable representation of their Opinion that hold but One. 5. A confutation of the foregoing representation. 6. A Reply to the

confutation. 7. An answer to the Reply. 8. That the Soule of Man is not properly any Ray either of God or the Soule of the World. 9. And yet if she were so, it would be no prejudice to her Immortality: whence the folly of Pomponatius is noted. 10. A further animadversion upon Pomponatius his folly, in admitting a certain number of remote Intelligencies, and denying Par∣ticular Immaterial Substances in Men and Brutes.

1. AS for the last Objection, or rather Sub∣terfuge, of such as have no minde to finde their Souls immortal, pretending in∣deed they have none distinct from that one Universal Soule of the World, whereby notwithstanding they acknowledge that the operations we are conscious to our selves of, of Reason and other Faculties, cannot be without one; we shall easily discover either the falsness or unserviceableness of this conceit for their design, who would so fain slink out of Being, after the mad freaks they have played in this Life. For it is ma∣nifestly true, that a man is most properly that, whatever it is, that animadverts in him; for that is such an operation that no Be∣ing but himself can doe it for him. And that which animadverts in us does not onely

perceive and take notice of its Intellectual and Rational operations, but of all Sensations whatsoever that we are conscious of, whe∣ther they terminate in our Body or on some outward Object. From whence it is plain, that That which we are is both Sensitive and Intellectual.

2. Now if we rightly consider what is comprehended in the true and usual notion of the Unity of a Soule, it is very mani∣fest that the Animadversive thereof is but one, and that there is no Sensation nor Per∣ception of any kinde in the Soule, but what is communicated to and perceived by the whole Animadversive.

3. Which things being premised, it ne∣cessarily follows, that if there be but one Soule in the World, that Soule is both Ra∣tional and Sensitive, and that there cannot be any Pain, Pleasure or Speculation, in one mans Soule, but the same would be in all, nay that a man cannot lash a Dog, or spur a Horse, but himself would feel the smart of it: which is flatly against all experience, and therefore palpably false. Of this wilde Supposition I have spoken so fully in my Poems, that I need adde nothing here in this place, having sufficiently confuted it there.

4. But not to cut them so very short, let

us imagine the most favourable contrivance of their opinion we can, and conceit that though this Soule of the World be of it self every where alike, and that the Animad∣versive faculty is in it all in like vigour; yet it being engaged in severally-tempered Bodies, Animadversion is confin'd to that part of Matter onely which it actuates, and is stupid and unsensible of all other opera∣tions, whether Sensitive or Intellectual, that are transacted by her without, in other per∣sons: a thing very hard to conceive, and quite repugnant to the Idea of the Unity of a Soule, not to be conscious to her self of her own perceptions. But let it pass for a possibility, and let us suppose that one part of the Soule of the World informs one man, and another another, or at least some vital Ray there, yet notwithstanding, this opi∣nion will be incumbred with very harsh dif∣ficulties. For if several parts of the Soul of the World inform several parts of the Mat∣ter, when a man changes his place, he ei∣ther tears one part of the Soul of the World from another, or else changes Souls every step; and therefore it is a wonder that he changes not his Wits too, and loses his Me∣mory. Unless they will say that every part of the Soul of the World, upon the applica∣tion of a new Body, acts just so in it as that

part acted which it left, if there be no change or alteration thereof: whence every part of the Soul of the World will have the self-same Thoughts, Errours, Truths, Re∣membrances, Pains, Pleasures, that the part had the Body newly left. So that a man shall always fancy it is himself, whereever he goes, though this self be nothing but the Soul of the World acting in such a particu∣lar Body, and retaining and renewing to her self the Memory of all Accidents, Impressi∣ons, Motions and Cogitations, she had the perception of in this particular piece of or∣ganized Matter. This is the most advanta∣geous representation of this Opinion that can possibly be excogitated. But I leave it to those that love to amuse themselves in such mysteries, to try if they can make any good sense of it.

5. And he that can fancy it as a thing possible, I would demand of him, upon this supposition, who himself is; and he cannot deny but that he is a Being Perceptive and Animadversive, which the Body is not, and therefore that himself is not the Body; wherefore he is that in him which is pro∣perly called Soul: But not its Operations, for the former reason; because they perceive nothing, but the Soul perceives them in ex∣erting them: nor the Faculties, for they

perceive not one anothers Operations; but that which is a mans Self perceives them all: Wherefore he must say he is the Soul; and there being but one Soul in the World, he must be forc'd to vaunt himself to be the Soul of the World. But this boasting must suddainly fall again, if he but consider that the Soul of the World will be every mans personal Ipseity as well as his; whence every one man will be all men, and all men but one Individual man: which is a perfect contra∣diction to all the Laws of Metaphysicks and Logick.

6. But reminded of these inconveniences, he will pronounce more cautiously, and af∣firm that he is not the Soul of the World at large, but onely so far forth as she expe∣dites or exerts her self into the Sense and Remembrance of all those Notions or Im∣presses that happen to her, whereever she is joyned with his Body; but that so soon as this Body of his is dissipated and dissol∣ved, that she will no longer raise any such determinate Thoughts or Senses that re∣ferre to that Union, and that so the Memo∣ry of such Actions, Notions and Impressi∣ons, that were held together in relation to a particular Body, being lost and laid aside upon the failing of the Body to which they did referre, this Ipseity or Personality which

consisted mainly in this, does necessarily perish in death. This certainly is that (if they know their own meaning) which many Libertines would have, who are afraid to meet themselves in the other World, for fear they should quarrel with themselves there for their transactions in this. And it is the handsomest Hypothesis that they can frame in favour of themselves, and farre be∣yond that dull conceit, That there is nothing but meer Matter in the World; which is infi∣nitely more lyable to confutation.

7. And yet this is too scant a covering to shelter them and secure them from the sad after-claps they may justly suspect in the other life. For first, it is necessary for them to confess that they have in this life as par∣ticular and proper sense of Torment, of Pleasure, of Peace, and Pangs of Consci∣ence, and of other impressions, as if they had an individual Soul of their own distinct from that of the World, and from every ones else; and that if there be any Daemons or Genii, as certainly there are, that it is so with them too. We have also demonstra∣ted, that all Sense and Perception is imme∣diately excited in the Soul by the Spirits; wherefore with what confidence can they promise themselves that the death of this earthly Body will quite obliterate all the

tracts of their Being here on earth? when∣as the subtiler ruines thereof, in all likeli∣hood, may determine the Thoughts of the Soul of the World to the same tenour as be∣fore, and draw from her the memory of all the Transactions of this life, and make her exercise her judgement upon them, and cause her to contrive the most vital exhala∣tions of the terrestrial Body into an aerial Vehicle, of like nature with the ferment of these material rudiments of life, saved out of the ruines of death. For any slight touch is enough to engage her to perfect the whole Scene, and so a man shall be represented to himself and others in the other state, whe∣ther he will or no; and have as distinct a per∣sonal Ipseity there as he had in this life. Whence it is plain, that this false Hypothesis, That we are nothing but the Soul of the World acting in our Bodies, will not serve their turns at all that would have it so; nor se∣cure them from future danger, though it were admitted to be true. But I have de∣monstrated it false already, from the notion of the Unity of a Soul. Of the truth of which Demonstration we shall be the better assu∣red, if we consider that the subtile Elements, which are the immediate conveyers of Per∣ceptions in our Souls, are continued throughout in the Soul of the World, and in∣sinuate

into all living Creatures. So that the Soul of the World will be necessarily informed in every one, what she thinks or feels every where, if she be the onely Soul that actuates every Animal upon Earth.

8. That other conceit, of our Souls being a Vital Ray of the Soul of the World, may gain much countenance by expressions in ancient Authors that seem to favour the Opinion: as that of Epictetus, who saith that the Souls of men are 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. And Philo calls the Minde of Man, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and Trismegist, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. All which expressions make the Soul of man a Ray or Beam of the Soul of the World or of God. But we are to take notice that they are but Metaphorical phrases, and that what is understood thereby, is, that there is an emanation of a secondary substance from the several parts of the Soul of the World, resembling the Rayes of the Sun. Which way of conception, though it be more easy then the other, yet it has diffi∣culties enough. For this Vital Ray must have some head from whence it is stretched, and so the Body would be like a Bird in a string, which would be drawn to a great

length when one takes long voyages, sup∣pose to the East or West Indies. Or if you will not have it a linear Ray, but an Orb of particular life; every such particular Orb must be hugely vast, that the Body may not travel out of the reach of the Soul. Besides, this Orb will strike through other Bodies as well as its own, and its own be in several parts of it; which are such incongruities and inconcinnities as are very harsh and un∣pleasing to our Rational faculties. Where∣fore that notion is infinitely more neat and safe, that proportions the Soul to the dimensions of the Body, and makes her in∣dependent on any thing but the Will of her Creator; in which respect of dependence she may be said to be a Ray of him, as the rest of the Creation also; but in no other sense that I know of, unless of likeness and similitude, she being the Image of God, as the Rays of Light are of the Sun.

9. But let every particular Soul be so many Rayes of the Soul of the World, what gain they by this, whenas these Rayes may be as capable of all the several congruities of life, as the Soul is in that sense we have described? and therefore Personality, Me∣mory and Conscience will as surely return or continue in the other state, according to this Hypothesis, as the other more usual

one. Which also discovers the great folly of Pomponatius (and of as many as are of the same leven with him) who indeed is so modest and judicious as not to deny Appa∣ritions, but attributes all to the influence of the Stars, or rather the Intelligencies of the Celestial Orbs. For they giving life and ani∣mation to brute Animals, why may they not also, upon occasion, animate and actuate the Aire into shape and form, even to the ma∣king of them speak and discourse one shape with another? For so Pomponatius argues in his Book of the Immortality of the Soul, from Aquinas his concession, that Angels and Souls separate may figure the Aire into shape, and speak through it; Quare igitur Intelligentiae moventes corpora coelestia haec facere non possunt cum suis instrumentis quae tot ac tanta possunt quae faciunt Psittacos, Picos, Corvos & Merulas, loqui? And a little after, he plainly reasons from the power the Intelligencies have of generating Animals, that it is not at all strange that they should raise such kinde of Apparitions as are recor∣ded in History. But if these Celestial Intel∣ligencies be confined to their own Orbs, so as that no secondary Essence reach these in∣feriour Regions, it is impossible to conceive how they can actuate the Matter here below. But if there be any such essential emanations

from them, whereby they actuate the Mat∣ter into these living Species we see in the World, of Men and Brutes; nothing hin∣ders but the same emanations remaining, may actuate the Aire when this earthly fa∣brick fails, and retain the memory of things transacted in this life, and that still our Per∣sonality will be conserved as perfect and di∣stinct as it was here.

10. But this conceit of Pomponatius is farre more foolish then theirs that make onely one Anima Mundi that passes through all the Matter of the World, and is present in every place, to doe all feats that there are to be done. But to acknowledge so many several Intellectual Beings as there be fancied Celestial Orbs, and to scruple, or ra∣ther to seem confident, that there are not so many particular Souls as there be Men here on Earth, is nothing but Humour and Madness. For it is as rational to acknow∣ledge eight hundred thousand Myriads of Intellectual and Immaterial Beings, really distinct from one another, as eight; and an infinite number, as but one, that could not create the Matter of the World. For then two Substances, wholly independent on one another, would be granted, as also the Infinite parts of Matter that have no dependence one on the other. Why may

not there be therefore infinite numbers of Spirits or Souls that have as little depen∣dence one on another, as well as there should be eight Intelligencies? whenas the motions and operations of every Animal are a more certain argument of an Immate∣rial Being residing there, then the motions of the Heavens of any distinct Intelligencies in their Orbs, if they could be granted to have any: And it is no stranger a thing to conceive an Infinite multitude of Immate∣rial, as well as Material, Essences, indepen∣dent on one another, then but two, namely the Matter and the Soule of the World. But if there be so excellent a principle ex∣istent as can create Beings, as certainly there is; we are still the more assured that there are such multitudes of spiritual Essences, surviving all the chances of this present life, as the most sober and knowing men in all Ages have professed there are.

CHAP. XVII.

1. That the Authour having safely conducted the Soule into her AErial condition through the dangers of Death, might well be excu∣sed from attending her any further. 2. What reasons urge him to consider what fates may

befall her afterwards. 3. Three hazzards the Soule runs after this life, whereby she may again become obnoxious to death, ac∣cording to the opinion of some. 4. That the aerial Genii are mortal, confirmed by three testimonies. 5. The one from the Vision of Facius Cardanus, in which the Spirits that appeared to him profest themselves mortal. 6. The time they stayed with him, and the matters they disputed of. 7. What credit Hi∣eronymus Cardanus gives to his Fathers Vision. 8. The other testimony out of Plu∣tarch, concerning the Death of the great God Pan. 9. The third and last of Hesiod, whose opinion Plutarch has polisht and re∣fined. 10. An Enumeration of the several Paradoxes contained in Facius Cardanus his Vision. 11. What must be the sense of the third Paradox, if those AErial Specu∣latours spake as they thought. 12. Another Hypothesis to the same purpose. 13. The craft of these Daemons, in shuffling in poysonous errour amongst solid Truths. 14. What makes the story of the death of Pan less to the present matter, with an ad∣dition of Demetrius his observations touch∣ing the Sacred Islands neare Britain. 15. That Hesiod his opinion is the most unexceptionable, and that the harshness therein is but seeming, not real. 16. That

the AEthereal Vehicle instates the Soule in a condition of perfect Immortality. 17. That there is no internal impediment to those that are Heroically good, but that they may attain an everlasting happiness after Death.

1. WE have now, maugre all the op∣positions and Objections made to the contrary, safely conducted the Soule into the other state, and installed her into the same condition with the AErial Genii. I might be very well excused, if I took leave of her here, and committed her to that fortune that attends those of the Invisible World: it being more seasonable for them that are there, to meditate and prefigure in their mindes all futurities belonging to them, then for us that are on this side the passage. It is enough that I have demonstrated, that neither the Essence nor Operations of the Soule are extinct by Death; but that they either not intermit, or suddainly revive upon the recovery of her aiery Body.

2. But seeing that those that take any pleasure at all in thinking of these things, can seldome command the ranging of their thoughts within what compass they please, and that it is obvious for them to doubt whether the Soule can be secure of her per∣manency

in life in the other world, (it im∣plying no contradiction, That her Vital Congruity, appropriate to this or that Ele∣ment, may either of it self expire, or that she may by some carelesness debilitate one Congruity, and awaken another, in some measure, and so make her self obnoxious to Fate;) we cannot but think it in a manner necessary to extricate such difficulties as these, that we may not seem in this after∣game to loose all we won in the former; and make men suspect that the Soule is not at all immortal, if her Immortality will not secure her against all future fates.

3. To which she seems liable upon three accounts. The one we have named already, and respects an intrinsecal Principle, the Periodical terms of her Vital Congruity, or else the Levity and Miscarriage of her own Will. Which obnoxiousness of hers is still more fully argued from what is affirmed of the AErial Genii (whose companion and fellow-Citizen she is) whom sundry Philo∣sophers assert to be Mortal. The other two hazards she runs are from without, to wit, the Conflagration of the World, and the Ex∣tinction of the Sun.

4. That the AErial Genii are mortal, three main Testimonies are alledged for it. The Vision of Facius Cardanus, the Death of

the great God Pan, in Plutarch, and the Opinion of Hesiod. I will set them all down fully, as I finde them, and then answer to them. The Vision of Facius Cardanus is punctually recited by his son Hieronymus in his De Subtilitate Lib. 19. in this manner.

5. That his Father Facius Cardanus, who confessed that he had the society of a familiar Spirit for about thirty years toge∣ther, told him this following Story often when he was alive, and after his death he found the exact relation of it committed to writing, which was this. The 13. day of August 1491. after I had done my holy things, at the 20. houre of the day, there appeared to me, after their usual manner, seven men cloathed in silk garments, with cloaks after the Greek mode, with purple stockins and crimson Cassocks, red and shining on their breasts; nor were they all thus clad, but onely two of them who were the chief. On the ruddier and taller of these two other two waited, but the less and paler had three attendants; so that they made up seven in all. They were about fourty years of age, but lookt as if they had not reacht thirty. When they were asked who they were, they answered that they were Ho∣mines aerii, AErial Men, who are born and die as we; but that their life is much longer then ours, as reaching to 300. years. Being

asked concerning the Immortality of our Souls, they answered, Nihil quod cuique proprium esset superesse, That they were of a nearer affinity with the Divi then we; but yet in∣finitely different from them: and that their happiness or misery as much transcended ours, as ours does the brute Beasts. That they knew all things that are hid, whether Monies or Books. And that the lowest sort of them were the Genii of the best and noblest men, as the basest men are the trainers up of the best sort of Dogs. That the tenuity of their Bodies was such, that they can doe us neither good nor hurt, saving in what they may be able to doe by Spectres and Terrours, and impartment of Knowledge. That they were both publick Pro∣fessors in an Academy, and that he of the lesser stature had 300. disciples, the other 200. Cardan's Father further asking them why they would not reveal such treasures as they knew unto men; they answered, that there was a spe∣cial law against it, upon a very grievous pe∣nalty.

6. These aerial Inhabitants stai'd at least three hours with Facius Cardanus, disputing and arguing of sundry things, amongst which one was the Original of the World. The taller denied that God made the world ab aeterno: the lesser affirmed that he so created it every moment, that if he should desist but one

moment, it would perish. Whereupon the othèr cited some things out of the Disputations of Avenroes, which Book was not yet extant, and named several other Treatises, part whereof are known, part not, which were all of Avenroes his writing, and withall did openly profess himself to be an Avenroist.

7. The record of this Apparition Cardan found amongst his Fathers Papers, but seems unwilling to determine whether it be a true history or a Fable, but disputes a∣gainst it in such a shuffling manner, as if he was perswaded it were true, and had a mind that others should think it so. I am sure he most-what steers his course in his Metaphy∣sical adventures according to this Cynosura, which is no obscure indication of his assent and belief.

8. That of the Death of the great God Pan, you may read in Plutarch in his De de∣fectu Oraculorum; where Philippus, for the proof of the Mortality of Daemons, recites a Story which he heard from one AEmilianus a Roman, & one that was remov'd far enough from all either stupidity or vanity: How his Father Epitherses being shipt for Italy, in the evening, near the Echinades, the winde failed them; and their Ship being carried by an uncertain course upon the Island Paxae, that most of the Passengers being waken, many

of them drinking merrily after Supper, there was a voice suddainly heard from the Island, which called to Thamus by name, who was an AEgyptian by birth, and the Pilot of the Ship: which the Passengers much wondred at, few of them having taken notice of the Pilots name before. He was twice called to before he gave any sign that he attended to the voice, but after giving express attention, a clear and distinct voice was heard from the Island, ut∣tering these words, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. The company was much astonisht at the hearing of the voice: and after much debate amongst themselves, Thamus resolved that, if the wind blew fair, he would sail by and say nothing; but if they were becalmed there, he would doe his Message: and therefore they being be∣calmed when they came to Palodes, neither winde nor tide carrying them on, Thamus loo∣king out of the poop of the Ship toward the shore, delivered his Message, telling them that the great Pan was dead. Upon which was sud∣dainly heard as it were a joynt groaning of a multitude together, mingled with a murmu∣rous admiration.

9. The opinion of Hesiod also is, that the Genii or Daemons within a certain period of years doe die; but he attributes a conside∣rable Longaevity to them, to wit of nine

thousand seven hundred and twenty years, which is the utmost that any allow them, most men less. Plutarch, under the person of others, has polisht this Opinion into a more curious and distinct dress: for out of the mortality of the Daemons, and the seve∣ral ranks which Hesiod mentions of Rational Beings, viz. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, he has affixed a certain manner and law of their passing out of one state into another, making them to change their Ele∣ments as well as Dignities; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, saith he, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. But other, he saith, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, not having sufficient command of themselves, are again wrought down into humane Bodies, to live there an evanid and obscure life, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as he phrases it.

10. These are the most notable Testimo∣nies for the Mortality of Daemons that I have met withall, and therefore the more worth our reviewing. That Vision of Facius Cardanus, if it be not a Fable, contains many Paradoxes.

As first, That these AErial Genii are born at set times as well as we. Not that any she-Daemons are brought to bed of them, but that they seem to have a beginning of their Existence, from which they may be recko∣ned to have continued, some more years and some less. A thing unconceivable, un∣less we should imagine that there is still a lapse or descent of Souls out of the higher Regions of the Aire into these lower, or that these that leave these earthly Bodies pass into the number of the aiery Daemons. As neither their death can so well be un∣derstood, unless we should fancy that their Souls pass into more pure Vehicles, or else descend into Terrestrial Bodies. For Car∣dan himself acknowledges they perish not; which also is agreeable with his Opinion of the Praeexistence of our Souls.

Secondly, That these AErial Genii live but about 300. years, which is against He siod and the greatest number of the Platonists, unless they should speak of that particular Order themselves were of; for it is likely there may be as much difference in their ages, as there is in the ages of several kinds of Birds and Beasts.

Thirdly, That our Souls are so farre mor∣tal, as that there is nothing proper to us remai∣ning after death.

Fourthly, That they were nearer allied to the Gods then we by farre, and that there was as much difference betwixt them and us, as there is betwixt us and Beasts. Which they must understand then concerning the ex∣cellency of their Vehicles, and the natural activity of them, not the preeminency of their Intellectual Faculties. Or if they doe, they must be understood of the better sort of those AErial Spirits. Or if they mean it of all their Orders, it may be a mistake out of pride: as those that are rich and pow∣erful as well as speculative amongst us, take it for granted that they are more judicious and discerning then the poor and despicable, let them be never so wise.

Fifthly, That they know all secret things, whether hidden Books or Monies: which men might doe too, if they could stand by con∣cealedly from them that hide them.

Sixthly, That the lowest sort of them were the Genii of the Noblest men, as the baser sort of Men are the Keepers and Educators of the better kinde of Dogs and Horses. This clause of the Vision also is inveloped with obscu∣rity, they having not defined whether this meanness of condition of the Tutelar Genii be to be understood in a Political or Physical sense; whether the meanness of rank and power, or of natural wit and sagacity; in

which many times the Groom exceeds the young Gallant who assigns him to keep his Dogs and Horses.

Seventhly, That such is the thinness and lightness of their Bodies, that they can doe nei∣ther good nor hurt thereby, though they may send strange Sights and Terrors, and commu∣nicate Knowledge; which then must be chiefly of such things as belong to their ae∣rial Region. For concerning matters in the Sea, the Fishes, if they could speak, might inform men better then they. And for their corporeal debility, it is uncertain whether they may not pretend it, to animate their Confabulators to a more secure converse, or whether the thing be really true in some kindes of them. For that it is not in all, may be evinced by that Narration that Car∣dan a little after recites out of Erasmus, of the Devil that carried a Witch into the Aire, and set her on the top of a Chimney, giving her a Pot, and bidding her turn the mouth downwards, which done the whole Town was fired, and burnt down within the space of an hour. This hapned April the 10. Anno 1533. The Towns name was Schil∣tach, eight German miles distant from Fri∣burg. The Story is so well attested, and guarded with such unexceptionable circum∣stances, that though Cardan love to shew

his wit in cavilling at most he recites, yet he finds nothing at all to quarrel at in his.

Eighthly, That there are Students and Pro∣fessors of Philosophy in the AErial World, and are divided into Sects and Opinions there, as well as we are here. Which cannot possibly be true, unless they set some value upon knowledge, and are at an eager loss how to finde it, and are fain to hew out their way by arguing and reasoning as we doe.

Ninthly and lastly, That they are reduced under a Political Government, and are afraid of the infliction of punishment.

11. These are the main matters compre∣hended in Facius his Vision, which how true they all are, would be too much trouble to determine. But one clause, which is the third, I cannot let pass, it so nearly concer∣ning the present Subject, and seeming to intercept all hopes of the Souls Immorta∣lity. To speak therefore to the summe of the whole business; we must either con∣ceive these aerial Philosophers to instruct Facius Cardanus as well as they could, they being guilty of nothing but a forward pride, to offer themselves as dictating O∣racles to that doubtful Exorcist (for his son Cardan acknowledges that his Father had a form of Conjuration that a Spaniard

gave him at his death;) or else we must suppose them to take the liberty of equivo∣cating, if not of downright lying. Now if they had a minde to inform Facius Cardanus of these things directly as they themselves thought of them, it being altogether un∣likely but that there appeared to them, in their aerial Regions, such sights as repre∣sented the persons of men here deceased, it is impossible that they should think other∣wise then as we have described their Opi∣nion in the fore-going Chapter, that hold there is but one Soul in the World, by which all living Creatures are actuated. Which, though but a meer possibility, if so much, yet some or other of these aerial Speculators may as well hold to it as some doe amongst us. For Pomponatius and others of the Avenroists are as ridiculously pertinacious as they. And therefore these Avenroistical Daemons answered punctually according to the Conclusions of their own School, Nihil proprium cuiquam superesse post mortem. For the Minde or Soul being a Substance common to all, and now dis∣united from those Terrestrial Bodies which it actuated in Plato, suppose, or Socrates, and these Bodies dead and dissipated, and onely the common Soul of the World sur∣viving, there being nothing but this Soul

and these Bodies to make up Socrates and Plato; they conclude it is a plain case, that nothing that is proper survives after death. And therefore, though they see the repre∣sentation of Socrates and Plato in the other World, owning also their own personali∣ties, with all the actions they did, and acci∣dents that befell them in this life; yet ac∣cording to the sullen subtilties and curiosi∣ties of their School, they may think and profess, that to speak accurately and Phi∣losophically it is none of them, there be∣ing no Substance proper to them remaining after death, but onely the Soul of the World, renewing the thoughts to her self of what appertained to those parties in this life.

12. This is one Hypothesis consistent enough with the veracity of these Daemons; but there is also another, not at all impos∣sible, viz. That the Vehicles of the Souls of men departed are as invisible to this Or∣der of the Genii that confabulated with Fa∣cius Cardanus as that Order is to us: and that therefore, though there be the appea∣rances of the Ghosts of Men deceased to them as well as to us; yet it being but for a time, it moves them no more then our confirmed Epicureans in this world are moved thereby: especially it being prone

for them to think that they are nothing but some ludicrous spectacles that the universal Soule of the World represents to her self and other Spectatours, when, and how long a time she pleases, and the vaporous reliques of the dead body administer occa∣sion. Now that the Vehicles of the Souls of men departed this life, after they are come to a setled condition, may be farre thinner and more invisible then those of the fore-named Daemons, without committing any inconcinnity in Nature, may appear from hence: For the excellency of the in∣ward Spirit is not alwaies according to the consistency of the Element with which it does incorporate; otherwise those Fishes that are of humane shape, and are at set times taken in the Indian Sea, should have an•• higher degree of Reason and Religion then we that live upon Earth, and have bodies made of that Element. Whence nothing hinders but that the Spirit of Man may be more noble then the Spirit of some of the aerial Daemons. And Nature not al∣waies running in Arithmetical, but also it Geometrical Progression, one Remove it one may reach far above what is before it for the present in the other degrees of Pro∣gression. As a creeping worm is above a cad-worm, and any four-footed beasts above

the birds, till they can use their leggs as well as they; but they are no sooner even with them, but they are straight far above them, and cannot onely goe, but fly. As a Peasant is above an imprison'd Prince, and has more command; but this Prince can be no sooner set free and become even with the Peasant in his liberty, but he is infi∣nitely above him. And so it may be natu∣rally with the Souls of men when they are freed from this prison of the Body, their steps being made in Geometrical Progres∣sion, as soon as they seem equal to that Or∣der of Daemons we speak of, they may mount far above them in tenuity and subtilty of Body, and so become invisible to them; and therefore leave them in a capacity of falsly surmising that they are not at all, be∣cause they cannot see them.

13. But if they thought that there is either some particular Ray of the Soule of the World, that belongs peculiarly suppose to Socrates or Plato, or that they had proper Souls really distinct, then it is evident that they did either equivocate or lye. Which their pride and scorn of mankinde (they looking upon us but as Beasts in comparison of themselves) might easily permit; they making no more conscience to deceive us, then we doe to put a dodge upon a dog, to

make our selves merry. But if they had a design to winde us into some dangerous errour, it is very likely that they would shuffle it in amongst many Truths, that those Truths being examined, and found solid at the bottome, we might not suspect any one of their dictates to be false. Wherefore this Vision being ill meant, the poison intended was, that of the Souls Mortality; the dan∣gerous falseness of which opinion was to be covered by the mixture of others that are true.

14. As for that Relation of AEmilianus, which he heard from his Father Epitherses, it would come still more home to the pur∣pose, if the conclusion of the Philologers at Rome, after Thamus had been sent for, and averred the truth thereof to Tiberius Caesar, could be thought authentick, namely, that this Pan, the news of whose death Thamus told to the Daemons at Palodes, was the Son of Mercury and Penelope; for then 'tis plain that Pan was an humane Soule, and therefore concerns the present question more nearly. But this Narration being ap∣plicable to a more sacred and venerable Sub∣ject, it looses so much of its force and fitness for the present use. That which Demetrius adds, concerning certain Holy Islands neare Britain, had been more fit in this regard.

Whither when Demetrius came, suddainly upon his arrival there happened a great com∣motion of the air, mighty tempests & prodi∣gious whirlwinds. After the ceasing where∣of, the Inhabitants pronounced, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, That some of a na∣ture more then humane was dead. Upon which Plutarch, according to his usual Rhe∣torick, descants after this manner, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, i. e. As the lightning of a lamp brings no grievance with it, but the extin∣ction of it is offensive to many; sogreat Souls, while they remain kindled into life, shine forth harmlesly and benignly, but their extincti∣on or corruption often stirs up windes and tempests, as in this present example, and often infects the aire with pestilential annoi∣ances.

15. But the last Testimony is the most unexceptionable, though the least preten∣ding to be infallible, and seems to strike dead both waies. For whether the Souls of men that goe out of these earthly bodies be vertuous or vitious, they must die to their

AErial Vehicles. Which seems a sad story at first sight, and as if Righteousness could not deliver from Death. But if it be more carefully perused, the terrour will be found onely to concern the Wicked. For the pro∣foundest pitch of Death is the Descent into this Terrestrial Body, in which, besides that we necessarily forget whatever is past, we doe for the present lead 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, a dark and obscure life, as Plutarch speaks, dragging this weight of Earth along with us, as Prisoners and Malefactours doe their heavy shackles in their sordid and se∣cluse confinements. But in our return back from this state, Life is naturally more large to them that are prepared to make good use of that advantage they have of their Aiery Vehicle. But if they be not masters of them∣selves in that state, they will be fatally re∣manded back to their former Prison in process of time; which is the most gross Death imaginable. But for the Good and vertuous Souls, that after many Ages change their AErial Vehicle for an AEthereal one, that is no Death to them, but an higher ascent into life. And a man may as well say of an Infant, that has left the dark Wombe of his Mother, that this change of his is Death, as that a Genius dies by leaving the gross Aire, and emerging into that Vehicle

of Light, which they ordinarily call AEthereal or Coelestial.

16. There may be therefore, by Axiome 36. a dangerous relapse out of the AErial Vehicle into the Terrestrial, which is pro∣perly the Death of the Soule that is thus retrograde. But for those that ever reach the AEthereal state, the periods of life there are infinite; & though they may have their Perige's as well as Apoge's, yet these Circuits being of so vast a compass, and their Perige's so rare and short, and their return as certain to their former Apsis, as that of the Coelestial Bodies, and their athereal sense never lea∣ving them in their lowest touches towards the Earth; it is manifest that they have arri∣ved to that life that is justly styled Eternal.

17. Whence it is plain, that perseverance in Vertue, if no external Fate hinder, will carry Man to an Immortal life. But whe∣ther those that be thus Heroically good, be so by discipline and endeavour, or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, by a special favour and irresistible design of God, is not to be disputed in this place; though it be at large discussed some∣where in the Dialogues of Plato. But in the mean time we will not doubt to con∣clude, that there is no Internal impediment to those that are highly and Heroically ver∣tuous, but that, in process of time, they

may arrive to an everlasting security of Life and Happiness, after they have left this earthly Body.

CHAP. XVIII.

1. The Conflagration of the World an Opini∣on of the Stoicks. 2. Two ways of de∣stroying the World the Ancients have taken notice of, & especially that by Fire. 3. That the Conflagration of the World, so far as it respects us, is to be understood onely of the burning of the Earth. 4. That the ends of the Stoicks Conflagration is competible onely to the Earths burning. 5. An ac∣knowledgement that the Earth may be burnt, though the proof thereof be imperti∣nent to this place. 6. That the Confla∣gration thereof will prove very fatal to the Souls of Wicked men and Daemons. 7. Five several Opinions concerning their state after the Conflagration; whereof the first is, That they are quite destroy'd by Fire. 8. The second, That they are an∣nihilated by a special act of Omnipoten∣cy. 9. The third, That they lye sensless in an eternal Death. 10. The fourth, That they are in a perpetual furious and

painful Dream. 11. The fifth and last, That they will revive again, and that the Earth and Aire will be inhabited by them. 12. That this last seems to be fram'd from the fictitious 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the Stoicks, who were very sorry Metaphysicians, and as ill Naturallists. 13. An Animadver∣sion upon a self-contradicting sentence of Seneca. 14. The unintelligibleness of the state of the Souls of the Wicked after the Conflagration. 15. That the AEthereal Inhabitants will be safe. And what will then become of Good men and Daemons on the Earth and in the Aire. And how they cannot be delivered but by a superna∣tural power.

1. AS for the External impediments, we shall now examine them, and see of what force they will be, and whether they be at all. The former of which is the Con∣flagration of the World. Which is an anci∣ent Opinion, believed and entertain'd, not onely by Religious, but by Philosophers also, the Stoicks especially, who affirm that the Souls of Men doe subsist indeed af∣ter Death, but cannot continue any longer in being then to the Conflagration of the World. But it is not so much material what they thought, as to consider what is

the condition indeed of the Souls of Men and Daemons after that sad Fate.

2. Those that will not have the World eternal have found out two ways to destroy it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, by Water or by Fire. Which, they say, does as naturally happen in a vast Period of Time, which they call Annus magnus, as Winter and Summer doe in our ordinary year. Inundatio non se∣cus quam Hyems, quam AEstas lege Mundi venit. But for this 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, it not being so famous, nor so frequently spoken of, nor so destructive, nor so likely to end the World as the other way, nor belonging so properly to our enquiry, we shall let it pass. The general Prognostick is concerning Fire now, not onely of the Stoicks, as Zeno, Cle∣anthes, Chrysippus, Seneca; but of several also of different Sects, as Heraclitus, Epicu∣rus, Cicero, Pliny, Aristocles, Numenius, and sundry others.

3. But though there be so great and una∣nimous consent that the World shall be burnt, yet they doe not express themselves all alike in the business. Seneca's vote is the most madly explicite of any, making the very Stars run and dash one against another, and so set all on fire. But Posidonius and Panaetius had more wit, who did not hold that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 which the other

Stoicks did. For the destroying of the AE∣thereal Regions by Fire is as foolish a fan∣cy as the sentencing of the Eele to be drown'd, because the matter of the AEther is too fine and subtile for Fire to rage in, it being indeed nothing but a pure. light or fire it self. And yet this AEthereal Matter is infinitely the greatest portion of the World. Wherefore the World cannot be said properly to be lyable to the destruction of Fire from any natural causes, as the Sto∣icks would have it. Which is demonstra∣tively true upon Des-Cartes his Principles, who makes Fire nothing but the motion of certain little particles of Matter, and holds that there is no more motion at one time in the World then at another; be∣cause one part of the Matter cannot impress any agitation upon another, but it must lose so much it self. This hideous noise there∣fore of the Conflagration of the World must be restrain'd to the firing of the Earth onely, so farre as it concerns us. For there is nothing else combustible in the Universe but the Earth, and other Planets, and what Vapours and Exhalations arise from them.

4. This Conflagration therefore that Philosophers, Poets, Sibyls, and all have fill'd the World with the fame of, is nothing but

the burning of the Earth. And the ends the Stoicks pretend of their 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, may be competible to it, but not to the burning of the Heavens or AEther at all; as any but meanly skilled in Philosophy cannot but acknowledge. For their nature is so simple that they cannot corrupt, and therefore want no renovation, as the Earth does. Nor do the Inhabitants of those heavenly Regions defile themselves with any vice; or if they doe, they sink from their material station as well as moral, and fall towards these ter∣restrial dreggs. And therefore that part of the happy 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Seneca speaks of, Omne animal ex integro generabitur, dabi∣túrque terris homo inscius scelerum, & meli∣oribus auspiciis natus, will take no place with those AEthereal Creatures.

5. We are willing then to be born down, by this common and loud cry of Fire that must burn the World, into an acknowledge∣ment that the Earth may within a certain Period of time be burnt, with all those things that are upon it or near it. But what concurse of natural causes may contribute to this dismal spectacle, is not proper for me to dispute, especially in this place. I shall onely take a view of what sad effects this Conflagration may have upon the Souls of Daemons and Men. For that those those that

have recovered their AEthereal Vehicles are exempt from this fate, is evident, the remoteness of their habitation securing them from both the rage and noisomness of these sulphureous flames.

6. The most certain and most destra∣ctive execution that this Fire will doe, must be upon the unrecovered Souls of Wicked Men and Daemons; those that are so deeply sunk and drown'd 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that the very consistency of their Vehicles does imprison them within the confines of this thick ca∣liginous aire. These Souls or Spirits there∣fore that have so inextricably entangled themselves in the Fate of this lower World, giving up all their Senses to the momentany pleasures of the moist luxurious Principle, which is the very seat of Death, these, in the mystical Philosophy of the Ancients, are the Nymphs, to whom though they allot a long Series of years, yet they doe not exempt them from mortality and fate. And Demetrius in Plutarch pronounces expresly out of Hesiod, that their life will be termi∣nated with the Conflagration of the World, from what the Poet intimates AEnigmati∣cally, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,

—〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

7. But to leave these Poetical Riddles, and take a more serious and distinct view of the condition of the Soul after the Con∣flagration of the Earth; we shall finde five several sorts of Opinions concerning it. The first hold, That this unmerciful heat and fire will at last destroy and consume the Soul as well as the Body. But this seems to me im∣possible, that any created Substance should utterly destroy another Substance, so as to reduce it to nothing. For no part of Mat∣ter, acting the most furiously upon another part thereof, does effect that. It can onely attenuate, dissipate and disperse the parts, and make them invisible. But the Substance of the Soul is indissipable and indiscerpible, and therefore remains entire, whatever be∣comes of the Body or Vehicle.

8. The second Opinion is, That after long and tedious torture in these flames, the Soul by a special act of Omnipotency is annihi∣lated. But, me thinks, this is to put Provi∣dence too much to her shifts, as if God were so brought to a plunge in his creating a Creature of it self immortal, that he must be fain to uncreate it again, that is to say to annihilate it. Besides that that divine Neme∣sis

that lies within the compass of Philoso∣phy, never supposes any such forcible eru∣ptions of the Deity into extraordinary ef∣fects, but that all things are brought about by a wise and infallible or inevitable train of secondary Causes, whether natural or free Agents.

9. The third therefor •••• to avoid these absurdities, denies both absumption by Fire and annihilation; but conceives, That tedi∣ousness and extremity of pain makes the Soul at last, of her self, shrink from all commerce with Matter; the immediate Principle of U∣nion, which we call Vital Congruity, consi∣sting of a certain modification of the Body or Vehicle as well as of the Soul, which being spoiled and lost, and the Soul thereby quite loosned from all sympathy with Bo∣dy or Matter, she becomes perfectly dead, and sensless to all things, by Axiome 36. and, as they say, will so remain for ever. But this seems not so rational; for, as Aristotle some∣where has it, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Wherefore so many entire imma∣terial Substances would be continued in be∣ing to all Eternity to no end nor purpose, notwithstanding they may be made use of, and actuate Matter again as well as ever.

10. A fourth sort therefore of Specula∣tors there is, who conceive that after this

solution of the Souls or Spirits of Wicked Men and Daemons from their Vehicles, That their pain is continued to them even in that separate state, they falling into an unquiet sleep, full of furious tormenting Dreams, that act as fiercely upon their Spirits, as the ex∣ternal Fire did upon their Bodies. But others except against this Opinion as a very uncer∣tain Conjecture, it supposing that which to them seems not so sound, viz. That the Soul can act when it has lost all vital Union with the Matter; which seems repugnant with that so intimate and essential aptitude it has to be united therewith. And the Dreams of the Soul in the Body are not transacted without the help of the Animal Spirits in the Brain, they usually symboli∣zing with their temper. Whence they con∣clude, that there is no certain ground to establish this Opinion upon.

11. The last therefore, to make all sure, that there may be no inconvenience in ad∣mitting that the Souls or Spirits as well of evil Daemons as wicked Men, disjoyned from their Vehicles by the force of that fatal Conflagration, may subsist, have excogitated an odde and unexpected Hypothesis, That when this firing of the World has done due execution upon that unfortunate Crue, and te∣dious and direful torture has we aried their af∣ficted

Ghosts into an utter recess from all Matter, and thereby into a profound sleep or death; that after a long Series of years, when not onely the fury of the Fire is utterly slaked, but that vast Atmosphere of smoak and vapours, which was sent up during the time of the Earths Conflagration, has returned back in copious showres of rain (which will again make Seas and Rivers, will binde and consolidate the ground, and, falling exceed∣ing plentifully all over, make the soil plea∣sant and fruitful, and the Aire cool and wholsome) that Nature recovering thus to her advantage, and becoming youthful again, and full of genital salt and moisture, the Souls of all living Creatures belonging to these lower Regions of the Earth and Aire will awaken orderly in their proper places. The Seas and Rivers will be again repleni∣shed with Fish; the Earth will send forth all manner of Fowls, four-footed Beasts, and creeping things; and the Souls of Men also shall then catch life from the more pure and balsamick parts of the Earth, and be clothed again in terrestrial Bodies; and lastly, the AErial Genii, that Element be∣coming again wholsome and vital, shall, in due order and time, awaken and revive in the cool rorid Aire. Which Expergera∣ction into life is accompanied, say they, with

propensions answerable to those resolutions they made with themselves in those fiery torments, and with which they fell into their long sleep.

12. But the whole Hypothesis seems to be framed out of that dream of the Stoicks, concerning the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 of the World after the 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 thereof. As if that of Seneca belon∣ged to this case, Epist. 36. Mors, quam per∣timescimus ac recusamus, intermittit vitam, non eripit. Veniet iterum qui nos in lucem reponet dies, quem multi recusarent, nisi obli∣tos reduceret. But how coursly the Stoicks Philosophize when they are once turned out of their rode-way of moral Sentences, any one but moderately skilled in Nature and Metaphysicks may easily discern. For what Errors can be more gross then those that they entertain of God, of the Soul, and of the Stars, they making the two former Corporeal Substances, and feeding the latter with the Vapours of the Earth, affirming that the Sun sups up the water of the great Ocean to quench his thirst, but that the Moon drinks off the lesser Rivers and Brooks; which is as true as that the Ass drunk up the Moon. Such conceits are more fit for Anacreon in a drunken fit to stumble upon, who to invite his Com∣panions

to tipple, composed that Catch,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,

then for to be either found out or owned by a serious and sober Philosopher. And yet Seneca mightily triumphs in this notion of foddering the Stars with the thick foggs of the Earth, and declares his opinion with no mean strains of eloquence: but I loving solid sense better then fine words, shall not take the pains to recite them.

13. At what a pitch his understanding was set, may be easily discerned by my last quotation, wherein there seems a palpable contradiction. Veniet iterum qui nos in lu∣cem reponet dies, quem multi recusarent, nisi oblitos reduceret. If nos, how oblitos? If ob∣litos, how nos? For we are not we, unless we remember that we are so. And if mad∣men may be said, and that truly, to be be∣sides themselves, or not to be themselves, because they have lost their wits; certainly they will be far from being themselves that have quite lost the Memory of them∣selves, but must be as if they had never been before. As Lucretius has excellently well declared himself, De rerum naturâ Lib. 3.

Nee, si materiam nostram conlegerit aetas Post obitū, rursum{que} redegerit ut sita nunc est, Atque iterum nobis fuerint data lumina vitae, Pertineat quicquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum, Interrupta semel cum sit retinentia nostri.

Where the Poet seems industriously to ex∣plode all the hopes of any benefit of this Stoical 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and to profess that he is as if he had never been, that cannot remember he has ever been before. From whence it would follow, that though the Souls of men should revive after the Con∣flagration of the World, yet they have not escaped a perpetual and permanent death.

14. We see therefore how desperately undemonstrable the condition of the Soule is after the Conflagration of the Earth, all these five Opinions being accompanied with so much lubricity and uncertainty. And therefore they are to be looked upon rather as some Night-landskap to feed our amused Melancholy, then a clear and distinct draught of comprehensible Truth to inform our Judgment.

15. All that we can be assured of is, that those Souls that have obtained their aethereal Vehicles are out of the reach of that sad fate that followes this Conflagration; and that

the wicked Souls of Men and Daemons will be involved in it. But there are a middle sort betwixt these, concerning whom not onely curiosity but good will would make a man sollicitous. For it is possible, that the Con∣flagration of the World may surprise many thousands of Souls, that neither the course of Time, nor Nature, nor any higher Prin∣ciple has wrought up into an AEthereal Con∣gruity of life, but yet may be very holy, innocent and vertuous. Which we may easily believe, if we consider that these very Earthly Bodies are not so great impedi∣ments to the goodness and sincerity of the Minde, but that many, even in this life, have given great examples thereof. Nor can that AErial state be less capable of, nor wel be without, the good Genii, no more then the Earth without good men, who are the most immediate Ministers of the Goodness and Justice of God. But exemption from cer∣tain fates in the world is not alwaies entailed upon Innocency, but most ordinarily upon natural power. And therefore there may be numbers of the good Genii, and of very holy and innocuous Spirits of men departed, the consistency of whose Vehicles may be such, that they can no more quit these aerial Regions, then we can fly into them, that have heavy bodies, without wings. To say

nothing of those vertuous and pious men that may haply be then found alive, and so be liable to be overtaken by this storm of fire. Undoubtedly, unless there appear, be∣fore the approach of this fate, some visible 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or Jupiter Sospitator, as the heathens would call him, they must neces∣sarily be involved in the ruine of the wicked. Which would be a great eye-sore in that exact and irreprehensible frame of Provi∣dence, that all men promise to themselves who acknowledge that there is a God. Wherefore according to the light of Reason, there must be some supernatural means to rescue those innocuous and benign Spirits out of this common calamity. But to de∣scribe the manner of it here how it must be done, would be to entitle natural Light and Philosophy to greater abilities then they are guilty of; and therefore that Subject must be reserved for its proper place.

CHAP. XIX.

1. That the Extinction of the Sun is no Pa∣nick feare, but may be rationally suspected from the Records of History and grounds of Natural Philosophy. 2. The sad Influence

of this Extinction upon Man and Beast, and all the aerial Daemons imprison'd with∣in their several Atmospheres in our Vor∣tex. 3. That it will doe little or no damage to the AEthereal Inhabitants in reference to heat or warmth. 4. Nor will they find much want of his light. 5. And if they did, they may pass out of one Vortex into another, by the Priviledge of their AEthe∣real Vehicles; 6. And that without any labour or toile, and as maturely as they please. 7. The vast incomprehensibleness of the tracts and compasses of the waies of Providence. 8. A short Recapitulation of the whole Discourse. 9. An Explication of the Persians two Principles of Light and Darkness, which they called 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 and 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and when and where the Principle of Light gets the full victory. 10. That Philosophy, or something more sacred then Philosophy, is the onely Guide to a true 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

1. THE last danger that threatens the separate Soule is the Extinction of the Sun; which though it may seem a meer Panick fear at first sight, yet if the matter be examined, there will appear no con∣temptible reasons that may induce men to suspect that it may at last fall out, there

been, at certain times, such near offers in Nature towards this sad accident already. Pliny, though he instances but in one exam∣ple, yet speaks of it as a thing that several times comes to pass. Fiunt, saith he, prodi∣giosi & longiores solis defectus, qualis occiso Dictatore Caesare, & Antoniano bello, totius anni pallore continuo. The like happened in Justinians time, as Cedrenus writes; when, for a whole year together, the Sun was of a very dim and duskish hue, as if he had been in a perpetuall Eclipse. And in the time of Irene the Empress it was so dark for seventeen dayes together, that the ships lost their way on the sea, and were ready to run against one another, as Theophanes re∣lates. But the late accurate discovery of the spots of the Sun by Shiner, and the appear∣ing and disappearing of fixt Stars, and the excursions of Comets into the remoter parts of our Vortex, as also the very intrin∣secal contexture of that admirable Philoso∣phy of Des-Cartes, doe argue it more then possible that, after some vast periods of time, the Sun may be so inextricably inve∣loped by the Maculae that he is never free from, that he may quite loose his light.

2. The Preambles of which Extinction will be very hideous, and intolerable to all the Inhabitants of the Planets in our Vortex, if

the Planets have then any Inhabitants at all. For this defect of light and heat coming on by degrees, must needs weary out poor mor∣tals with heavy languishments, both for want of the comfort of the usual warmth of the Sun, whereby the Bodies of men are re∣created, and also by reason of his inability to ripen the fruits of the Soile; whence necessarily must follow Famine, Plagues, Sicknesses, and at length an utter devasta∣tion and destruction of both Man and Beasts. Nor can the AErial Daemons scape free, but that the vital tye to their Vehicles ne∣cessarily confining them to their several Atmospheres, they will be inevitably impri∣soned in more then Cimmerian darkness. For the Extinction of the Sun will put out the light of all their Moons, and nothing but Ice, and Frost, and flakes of Snow, and thick mists, as palpable as that of AEgypt, will possess the Regions of their habitation. Of which sad spectacle though those twink∣ling eyes of heaven, the Stars, might be compassionate spectatours; yet they cannot send out one ray of light to succour or visit them, their tender and remote beams not being able to pierce, much less to dissipate, the clammy and stiff consistency of that long and fatal Night.

3. Wherefore calling our mind off from

so dismal a sight, let us place it upon a more hopeful Object; and consider the condition of those Souls that have arrived to their AEthereal Vehicle, and see how far this fate can take hold of them. And it is plain at first sight, that they are out of the reach of this misty dungeon, as being already mount∣ed into the secure mansions of the purer AEther. The worst that can be imagined of them is, that they may finde themselves in a condition something like that of ours when we walk out in a clear, starlight, frosty night, which to them that are sound is ra∣ther a pleasure then offence. And if we can beare it with some delight in these Earthly Bodies, whose parts will grow hard and stiff for want of due heat, it can prove no∣thing else but a new modification of tactual pleasure to those AEthereal Inhabitants, whose bodies are not constipated as ours, but are themselves a kinde of agile light and fire. All that can be conceived is, that the spherical particles of their Vehicles may stand a little more closely and firmly to∣gether then usual, whence the triangular in∣tervals being more straight, the subtilest ele∣ment will move something more quick in them, which will raise a sense of greater vigour and alacrity then usual. So little formidable is this fate to them in this regard.

4. But their light, you'l say, will be ob∣scured, the Sun being put out, whose shi∣ning seems to concern the Gods as well as Men, as Homer would intimate,

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

But I answer, that that of Homer is chiefly to be understood of the AErial Daemons, not the AEthereal Deities, who can turn them∣selves into a pure actual Light when they please. So that there is no fear but that their personal converse will be as chearful and distinct as before, white letters being as legible upon black paper as black upon white. But this is to suppose them in the dark, which they are not, but in a more soft and mild light, which is but a change of pleasure, as it is to see the Moon shine fair into a roome after the putting out of the Candle. And certainly the contribution of the light of the Stars is more to their quick and tender Senses, then the clearest Moon∣shine night is to ours; though we should suppose them no nearer any Star then we are. But such great changes as these may have their conveniences for such as Provi∣dence will favour, as well as their inconve∣niences. And the Extinction of our Sun may be the Augmentation of Light in some Star of a neighbouring Vortex. Which

though it may not be able to pierce those Cimmerian Prisons I spake of before, yet it may give sufficient light to these Spirits that are free. Besides that the Discerption and spoil of our Vortex, that will then hap∣pen, will necessarily bring us very much nea∣rer the Centre of some other, whose Star will administer sufficient light to the AEthe∣real Genii, though it be too weak to relieve the AErial. And that so remote a distance from these central Luminaries of the Vorti∣ces is consistent with the perfectest happi∣ness, we may discern partly, in that the Coe∣lestial Matter above Saturn, till the very marge of the Vortex, is more strongly agi∣tated then that betwixt him and the Sun, and therefore has less need of the Suns beams to conserve its agility and liquidity; and partly, in that those huge vast Regions of Aither would be lost, and in vain in a manner, if they were not frequented by AE∣thereal Inhabitants, which in all reason and likelihood are of the noblest kinde, accor∣ding to the nature of their Element. And therefore all the AEthereal People may re∣tire thither upon such an exigency as this, and there rest secure in joy and happiness, in these true Intermundia Deorum which Epicurus dream'd of.

5. Which we may easily admit, if we con∣sider

the grand Priviledges of the AEthereal Vehicle, wherein so great a power of the Soul is awakened, that she can moderate the motion of the particles thereof as she plea∣ses, by adding or diminishing the degrees of agitation, Axiome 32. whereby she is also able to temper the solidity thereof, and, ac∣cording to this contemperation of her Ve∣hicle, to ascend or descend in the Vortex as she lists her self, and that with a great variety of swiftness, according to her own pleasure. By the improvement of which Priviledge she may also, if she please, pass from one Vortex into another, and receive the warmth of a new Vesta, so that no fate imaginable shall be ever able to lay hold upon her.

6. Nor will this be any more labour to her, then sailing down the stream. For she, having once fitted the agitation and solidity of her Vehicle for her celestial voiage, will be as naturally carried whither she is bound, as a stone goes downward, or the fire upward. So that there is no fear of any lassitude, no more then by being rowed in a Boat, or carried in a Sedan. For the celestial Matter that environs her Vehicle, works her upward or downward, toward the Cen∣tre or from the Centre of a Vortex, at its own proper pains and charges. Lastly, such is the tenuity and subtilty of the Senses of

the AEthereal Inhabitants, that their pre∣vision and sagacity must be, beyond all con∣ceit, above that of ours, besides that there will be warnings and premonitions of this future disaster, both many, and those very visible and continued, before the Sun shall fail so far, as that they shall at all be con∣cerned in his decay; so that the least blast of misfortune shall never be able to blow upon them, nor the least evil imaginable overtake them.

7. This is a small glance at the Myste∣ries of Providence, whose fetches are so large, and Circuits so immense, that they may very well seem utterly incomprehen∣sible to the Incredulous and Idiots, who are exceeding prone to think that all things will ever be as they are, and desire they should be so: though it be as rude and ir∣rational, as if one that comes into a Bad, and is taken much with the first Dance he sees, would have none danced but that, or have them move no further one from ano∣ther then they did when he first came into the room; whenas they are to trace nearer one another, or further off, according to the measures of the Musick, and the law of the Dance they are in. And the whole Matter of the Universe, and all the parts thereof, are ever upon Motion, and in such a Dance,

as whose traces backwards and forwards take a vast compass; and what seems to have made the longest stand, must again move, according to the modulations and ac∣cents of that Musick, that is indeed out of the hearing of the acutest ears, but yet per∣ceptible by the purest Minds and the shar∣pest Wits. The truth whereof none would dare to oppose, if the breath of the gain∣sayer could but tell its own story, and declare through how many Stars and Vortices it has been strained, before the particles thereof met, to be abused to the framing of so rash a contradiction.

8. We have now finisht our whole Dis∣course, the summary result whereof is this; That there is an incorporeal Substance, and that in Man, which we call his Soul. That this Soul of his subsists and acts after the death of his Body, and that usually first in an AErial Vehicle, as other Daemons doe; wherein she is not quite exempt from fate, but is then perfect and secure, when she has obtain'd her AEthereal one, she being then out of the reach of that evil Principle, whose dominion is commensurable with misery and death. Which power the Persian Magi termed Arimanius, and resembled him to Darkness, as the other good Principle, which they called Oromazes, to Light, styling one

by the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the other by the name of 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

9. Of which there can be no other mea∣ning that will prove allowable, but an adum∣bration of those two grand parts of Provi∣dence, the one working in the Demoniacal, the other in the Divine Orders. Betwixt which natures there is perpetually more or less strife and contest, both inwardly and outwardly. But if Theopompus his prophecy be true in Plutarch, who was initiated into these Arcana, the power of the Benign Prin∣ciple will get the upper hand at last, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c. At length Hades or Arimanius will be left in the lurch, who so strongly holds us captive, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, and men shall then be per∣fectly happy, needing no food, nor casting any shadow. For what shadow can that Body cast that is a pure and transparent light, such as the AEthereal Vehicle is? And therefore that Oracle is then fulfilled, when the Soul has ascended into that condition we have al∣ready described, in which alone it is out of the reach of Fate and Mortality.

10. This is the true 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, to speak according to the Persian Language, with whose empty title Emperours and great Po∣tentates of the Earth have been ambitious

to adorn their memory after death; but is so high a Priviledge of the Soul of Man, that meer Political vertues, as Plotinus calls them, can never advance her to that pitch of Happiness. Either Philosophy, or some∣thing more sacred then Philosophy, must be her Guide to so transcendent a condition. And not being curious to dispute, whether the Pythagoreans ever arrived to it by living according to the precepts of their Master, I shall notwithstanding with confidence averre, that what they aimed at, is the sub∣limest felicity our nature is capable of; and being the utmost Discovery this Treatise could pretend to, I shall conclude all with a Distich of theirs (which I have elswhere ta∣ken notice of upon like occasion) it com∣prehending the furthest scope, not onely of their Philosophy, but of this present Dis∣course.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.

To this sense,

Who after death once reach th'aethereal Plain Are straight made Gods, and never die again.