Medicina magnetica: or, The rare and wonderful art of curing by sympathy: laid open in aphorismes; proved in conclusions; and digested into an easy method drawn from both: wherein the connexion of the causes and effects of these strange operations, are more fully dicovered than heretofore. All cleared and confirmed, by pithy reasons, true experiments, and pleasant relations. / Preserved and published, as a master-piece in this skill. By C. de Iryngio, chirurgo-medcine [sic] in the Army.

CONCLUSION II. The Soul worketh without, or beyond its proper body, com∣monly so called.

The Proof and Explanation of this.

THis Second Conclusion hath nothing which is not ma∣nifest in the former, and of it self is clear, and confes∣sed by all men. For, if the soul be without the body, it can and shall without doubt work there: for, the soul in its essence includes Act, being (as one saith, and very well) an Essentiall Act proceeding temporally: It works there∣fore according to the Organs informed, or, according to the manner of information, seeing it communicates a form to the subject; for, peradventure it were more agreeable to simple and pure truth, to call the soul, not the form, but rather, the giver of the form: yet, so giving forms, that both in their beings and operations they shal de∣pend upon it, and whatsoever is, is dispensed and given by it. Plato seems to have placed in men a three-fold di∣stinct form, yet depending on the common soul. It is true, that to these Inferiour forms, the name of form is some∣times given; but how truly and properly, let them look to it, that accustomed to speculations, have learned to separate Vitall Actions from the soul, which proceed onely from it. But we, omitting all these difficulties,

will be content to use the common means, which will also peradventure serve our turns.

Some men will say, If the soul be and work without the body, or besides it, by informing the naturall heat that proceedeth without it, and is inherent in his beams, they must needs be men, consisting of a soul and of a body. When I first began this Work, I had thought to have passed over such Objections as ridiculous; but this being one, that may seem of some moment to them that are lesse perspicacious, I am content to answer; And first I say, it is as absurd, for ought I said, to call the beams, men, as it is to call the feet and hands, men. Se∣condly, Every bare information doth not make man, for it is required, that a reasonable soul do inform an organical body; and thus; by means of the form, be made fit for or∣ganical operations; but, if the soul inform any Compound onely vegetably, or some inferior way unknown to us, it cannot be forthwith called, a Man: for, the soul informs according to the merit of the matter, say the Platonists, or more clearly, it informs according to the Portion of the vitall spirit that is present: for, every proportion of this, is not fit for every operation. Hence it appears, that though the soul do for sometime inform a Corps with a certain form: for, we see in dead Carcases, the vegetative faculty doth for a time exercise its power, which cannot be done without the soul, yet it cannot be called, a Man; for, being deprived of sense and reason, it falls from that dignity; But it is most certain, that the soul being there present, onely according to the vegetable power, may work elsewhere: for, when it was tyed to the body, ac∣cording to all the wayes of vitality, it did form many other operations; why then when it is altogether free from those bonds, or else tyed with them, it should not work things proper to it self, there can no reason be gi∣ven; nor can any man in judgment understand. It may then, according to the will of God, either injoy pleasure, or suffer pain, although it be tyed to the dead Corps in that manner, seeing that in the vegetative faculty it shall

suffer nothing, till it be again re-united to an organical body. But in what things, and how the soul doth suffer, when it is loosed from the bonds of the body, we leave to Divines, as too far from our purpose.