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CHAP. XLIIII. A Treatise of the Soul: (Book 44)

1. The Treatise of the Soul is Commended. 2. What hath diverted Schollers from this Meditation. 3. The knowledge of the Soul is not to be delivered for a Conclusion. 4. The suppositionary difficulties of the Schools. 5. Why the knowledge of things is to be put after. 6. By an example fetched from Water. 7. The actions of the mind in the Body. 8. What hath deceived Predecessours. 9. The Author hath desisted from his enterprize. 10. Con∣siderable things concerning the mind.

SEeing therefore, the entire command of the Duumvirate doth flourish or bear sway from the vital Soul; truly the three aforesaid positions may be abundantly pro∣ved by the fourth: for if so be it may appear, that the very Seat of the Soul is in the Duumvirate; The principality also of this over the other Members, and stations of the Bowels, will come to hand: wherefore I will ••ere by the way, treat of the Soul, although by other writers before me, the Treatise of the Soul hath been banished out of natural Phylosophy, especially in order to the knowledge of the Theory or specula∣tive part of healing. And although so many sharp discourses of madnesses, do on e∣very side molest us; Yet verily, seeing I have perceived no aid from Predecessours, but labour and grief have pierced my most inward parts, before that I could lay aside those things which I had drawn from Heathenisme; Therefore I have altogether judged my self not to be tyed up unto their Method, in whose possession I have not yet found any thing which may or ought to be snatched into the Beginnings and properties of na∣ture.

By looking therefore into my own Liberty, I considered, that among knowable [unspec 1] things, nothing is alike noble, as is the knowing of the Soul it self; from which, as all other knowledge doth obtain its brightness; So also all terms their own distinct bound: for whosoever he be that is un-apt at the beginning, to comprehend themo∣tions, exercises, effects, and thingliness or essence of the immortal mind, shall al∣so be unfit to understand the secrets of nature, which are more remote from the mind than it self is from it self, and therefore he shall scarce be able to proceed unto those things which he shall behold to be the more fit for him. But he that shall first draw forth the essayes of the Soul, and afterwards drink down the juyces of nature, in his return he shall be of a larger capacity than he was in his former rea∣ding by the way or besides the purpose. Yet lest I may seem like a lawless Body, to have wrested my pen into the mind, before the explaining of Diseases, I will de∣clare what things have moved me hereunto. For first of all (even for the conside∣ration of nature) I meditated that the mind is the top of humane nature, and the perfection of constituted humanity, and that therefore it was more meet for him to know his Soul, that is, his own self by his Soul, than to enquire by a harmony of cor∣poreal properties, and from a notion of these, to be willing to know the mind it self: for truly, it hath seemed to me, that the Soul being once, even but slenderly known, other inferiour things, and those that are placed under our feet, may be added unto us: And that they may be comprehended as it were by no trouble, at leastwise, by a sober labour, which before, at every step, did stir up suspitions, or moove despair concerning that which was true, lawful, like, just, proportioned, the Agent, suf∣fering, priority, that which is appropriated, change, or interchangeable course, or which at length did through too much consent, lead their own followers, their eyes being shut, into fallacy or deceit: whence they were affrighted from the labour of di∣ligent searching, not so much through sluggishness, as through fear of a suspended or [unspec 2] stopped progress, and therefore they locked up the bar of the Gate of knowledge as to further things: for it is a clear and undoubted thing, that man cannot know himself, unless he shall first exhaust the knowledge of his Soul. Therefore also the very know∣ing of the Soul it self; as it Seals the fear of God in the Soul; So also it brings the be∣ginning of Wisdom. If therefore the beginning of Wisdom be awakened by the knowing of the Soul, there is not any kind of Doctrine of the Soul to be delivered for [unspec 3] a conclusion of natural Phylosophy, according to the custom observed in times past: For it is false, that the knowing of frail things doth make the understanding of our mind easie unto us: But rather, those that are experienced, do know, that the know∣ledge of the mind, although it shall far depart from a conceiving of sublunary Bodies, yet that it extolleth or lifts up it self, as oft as it shall apply it self unto any humane Sciences or Arts: for he which but once, and by the way only, hath had experience of a turning inward, or Extasie of his Soul, hath known afterwards, unto what things he shall apply his Soul with desire; not on the contrary: Because, although any one hath obtained a knowledge of many things, yet he shall not therefore be fit for the in∣troversions or turnings in of his mind. Therefore by the leave of all before me, I say, and do meditate, that it is plainly necessary, that a Man do first know himself, and af∣terwards learn the fear of the Lord, which will raise him up unto the true Wisdom, whereunto the knowledge of mortal or frail things, and the defects of these, shall be added as a consequent to the premises, or as an adjacent unto the principal thing. Our predecessours, after the essences of things, have then chiefly looked back unto [unspec 4] the Soul after a rash manner, and that for two reasons especially.

The first whereof is, because the knowing of the Soul hath seemed unto them far more difficult than that of any other things whatsoever.

The second is, because the knowledge of the mind, might be hoped for, and had, from a diligent search of external things, and an examining of corporeal properties. But although the first of these is true, yet the second can in no wise be so, for if the knowledge of the mind be of an abstracted and spiritual Being, it likewise cannot be derived on us by any speculation of corporeal things.

Because God alone is the immediate workman, and prince of the mind, and the ve∣ry life of life. Therefore the knowing of our selves cannot be hoped for from any o∣ther thing than from its Fountain and Governour: For truly the knowing of abstra∣cted Spirits, differs in the whole Heaven, from the speculation of frail things, seeing

they do not partake in any common co-resemblance of Principles, or properties. There∣fore the thingliness or essence of Bodies containeth not a whit of Knowledge or Light, that the Soul may know or acknowledge, or behold it self, but only by a renouncing, which is a certain despairing and banishment of knowledge, whence also it gets no light unto it self from that which is above, or from that which is contrary to it self, nor also doth it strike a light of understanding for it self, as it were out of a Steel and Flint: Because the manner of knowing the Soul is to be begged from the Father of Lights, and not from else-where: Because it was the good pleasure of the Divine will, that Man should not fetch the knowledge of himself from any other thing, than from the Beginning and Fountain, himself, who is the Beginning Mean, End, Scope, and highest vertical point of all Phylosophy, unto which all knowledge is to be as an addition. But further, the essential knowledges (and those from a former thing or cause) of Sublunary things, are quite as darksome, covered, and difficult, as is the very conceiving of the immortal mind, if the essences of things from a former thing, & their causes, be known only to God. Therefore it is simply false, that the knowing of the mind is more difficult, than the naked knowing of things, or therefore to be put after them: Because all things are alike unknown to us, because the essence of all Be∣ings whatsoever, is their precise Truth, shut up to us-ward, and laying open unto that which is infinite. Therefore the knowledge of things is to be measured at the bal∣lance; all corporeal things are primarily strangers, and forreigners to our mind, and [unspec 5] therefore more remote from the mind, than the mind from it self.

And moreover, other things, are not to be known but by the mind, and first in the mind: for therefore the knowledge of any things whatsoever, is only a certain observation, from whence we frame discourses according to every ones capacity. Wherefore also, every such observation, and discourse fetched from hence, how po∣lished soever, is only from a latter thing or the effect, & far less illustrated than is the ob∣servation which is had from the mind. For who ever of mortals, knew what the water [unspec 6] may be? The which notwithstanding, is the most obvious, manifest, visible, and transparent of created things: for a Country-man, or Idiot, knows as much of it as a Phylosopher: For they do equally conceive of it by the observation of the senses, that it is a Body, weighty, liquid, moist, giving place to ones finger, fluid, and re∣closing it self upon the removing of the finger, a receiver of Heat, and extenuable in∣to a vapour; yet none hath known the internal thingliness of the Water, or why it is [unspec 7] liquid or moist: even as indeed, we know the circumstances both vital and intelle∣ctual: of the mind, and what things do dispose this its own prison unto various altera∣tions, and which do oft-times produce something seminally, out of its concrete or composed Body: So as when the appetite of a Woman with Child doth produce a Cherry on her young, which flourisheth every Year. Also in that we do moreover, know more of the Soul than of the Water, it is that which is known by the Revelation of Faith:

To wit, That the mind is a Spiritual substance, also subsisting by it self without a Bo∣dy, Immortal, Living, made after the Image or likeness of God, immediately by God himself, giving Sense, as also motion to the Organs, and the which being sepe∣rated from the Body, doth perceive without Organs at its beck or pleasure, being a∣ble also to move out of it self, and the Body being bridled or restrained, is able to produce a Being out of it self (as hath been already shewn concerning a Woman with Child) it understanding, also willing, and remembring, &c.

The Observations of which Properties and Functions, are far more strong than is the knowledge of the Water: otherwise, all things and every of things, by an in∣trinsecal understanding, are equally unknown and unpassable to us.

But that which hath Seduced Predecessours, by thinking that the knowing of the Water was easier than that of the mind, hath proceeded from an Opinion, That a visible thing is of necessity more known than an invisible thing: But they have not [unspec 8] distinguished the Knowledge of Observation, from the Internal Knowledge of essence or thingliness, according to which, all things are equally unknown unto us.

They have not known I say, that the knowledge of Observation, doth not intro∣duce an understanding into the essential thingliness of a thing, but erecteth only a thinkative knowledge: For otherwise, the understanding should perceive causes that are before in essence. Then also they have been deceived by the simplicity of the Water, which simpleness they have confounded with the unity of knowledge to us

unknown. In the mean time seeing the observations of the mind are many, and the more plentiful, the property of every one whereof, denyeth a knowing from a former thing: therefore they have thought that they did undergo more impossibilities in the knowing of the mind, than in that of a simple Body: And so as well the num∣ber only in the mind, as a visual frequency of Bodies hath brought forth in them that difficulty: when as notwithstanding, after another manner, in the Beingness of a Being that which is visible is as well unknown intellectually, as that which is invisible. For [unspec 6] I intended to deliver an intellective Doctrine of the mind, that man might origi∣nally, as much as he can, know or acknowledge his own self, and that afterwards he might learn, from the Image of the Divinity, to contemplate of things more in∣feriour than himself.

But when I endeavoured to explain that by the mental acts of Prayer, I had not free∣dom in that thing: because they were judged to exceed the Square of my own con∣tempt or meanness, I willingly omitted that Treatise.

Let it therefore be sufficient for me, to have plainly demonstrated to others more a∣bounding then my self, that the Christian Phylosophy of nature, doth not admit of nor will, mortal, strange, far remote things, and the causes whereof are hidden from a for∣mer cause, and not to know in the mean time, who I the contemplater may be, what the understanding may be, how an intellectual act may be formed, and subsist.

Especially, because any thing is not conceived, as it is in it self, but a••ter the manner of the receiver; that is, of the conceiver. Therefore before all, the receiving under∣standing, [unspec 10] which affecteth the understanding of things, who, or what, and after what manner it is disposed in the act of comprehension, seemed to me to be weighed. Next, what the sheath of the understanding may be, and the capacity, vigour, and manner thereof. After what manner, in the next place, a power, indeed undistinct from it self, may be drawn, and descend into the Functions and Organs tied and Subjected unto it.

Lastly, before I can know whether a thing it self understood, be true & good, or whe∣ther in me, or for me, it is not to be changed in its Beingness by conceiving, or alienated from its own essence, from whence the Truth of Entity or beingness it self had assumed a strange mask. I altogether judged, that those things ought to be cleered up by in∣tellectuall acts, tho which I determined could not be more readily, or successfully begged by any other thing, than by practise, that is, from the mental Prayer of Silence. But that thing others shall discern or judge of and weigh more justly or equally, than I: And therefore I would not willingly descend into this labarinth.