Scepsis scientifica, or, Confest ignorance, the way to science in an essay of The vanity of dogmatizing, and confident opinion : with a reply to the exceptions of the learned Thomas Albius / by Joseph Glanvill ...

Verùm Author casum proprium Homini constituere vi∣detur, [A.] ostentans voluntatem & fortassis—pag. 63.

TO prove that the Will is not alwayes moved by some [G.] precedent passion, and consequently that the Soul is the immediate principle of some of our actions, I make this double offer:

(1.) 'Tis clear from experience, that, though many of our volitions are motions from the Passion, yet some of our Determinations are from the Understanding and immaterial Faculties. And sometimes we set our Wills to determine in things that are purely indifferent, to make tryal of our Liberty; when we find not the least provocation or incite∣ment to the action from any emotion of the body. And indeed to suppose every action of the Will to depend upon a pre∣vious Appetite or Passion, is to destroy our Liberty, and to inferr a Stoical Fatality with all the dangerous consequences of that Doctrine▪

(2.) Our Author's proof that there is no dispassionate volition, is an insinuation, that there is no Knowledge without an impulse from the Phantasms; a Conclusion which may be easily disproved, by those highly abstract Specula∣tions which the mind of Man sometimes entertains it self with, when it puts off all the cloathing of the Imagination, and raiseth it self to a temper for those noble enquiries a∣bout God and Immaterials: And if there be no Intellect 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as Aristotle speaks, for ought I know, we lose one of our chiefest Arguments for our Immortality: Besides which, I suppose our learned Author will not think it for his credit, to be told, that he is in the very rode of the Hobbian Hypothesis; which will clearly enough appear,

if we consider these his Assertions; [That the Soul is no distinct substance from the Body, that it contributes nothing towards its motion; that our Wills are moved by prece∣dent or present Passion, which doubtless is excited by some∣thing that is not in our power; that all our Intellections are from Phantasms, and consequently, nothing else but ele∣vated sense, and that all both natural and free actions are performed by motions deriv'd from the heart] I say, who ever considers, how these symbolize, yea, and are one with the main Principles of that irreligious Philosophy, must with∣out an excess of Charity, suppose our Philosopher to have shaken hands with the Leviathan.

Briefly then, 'tis confest, that the Mechanical way of con∣veyance and direction of the Spirits in Animal performances is yet undiscover'd, and that the channels and particular pas∣sages of Mechanical motions (which all ours are supposed to be) is yet occult and manifest. And though this Gen∣tleman affirms, the Heart to be the Fountain of animate Operations, yet 'tis but an unapproved presumption; and the greatest Master of Mechanicks that ever was, the Il∣lustrious Des-Cartes has deriv'd all these motions from the brain, in which he's follow'd by the greatest part of profoundest Speculators; so that it seems we are not certain of the first spring of the motions we enquire of; much less can we certainly determin the minutes and particula∣rities of direction: and if any of our actions are deriv'd from our Souls, which our Author seems unwilling to hear of, though I think I have made it sufficiently evident, the difficulties I urg'd upon that supposal have not had the least offer towards solution.