The truth of Christian religion in six books / written in Latine by Hugo Grotius ; and now translated into English, with the addition of a seventh book, by Symon Patrick ...

SECT. XXII. Against which no contrary reason can be brought.

NEITHER can there any reason in na∣ture be given to disprove so ancient

and common received tradition. For every thing that in this World comes to an end, perishes either through the opposition of some more forcible contrary agent, as coldness in a∣ny subject, by reason of the more prevalent power and intension of heat; or through the substraction of that subject, whereupon it de∣pends, as the quantity of the glass, when the glass is broken; or through the defect and want of the efficient cause, as light by the Sun∣setting. Now none of all these can be said to happen unto the soul of Man: Not the first, because there is nothing that is contrary to the Soul; nay, it self is of such a peculiar nature, that it is apt to receive such things as are con∣trary between themselves, at the same time together, after its own, that is, after a Spi∣ritual and Intellectual manner. Not the se∣cond, for there is not any subject whereon the nature of the Soul hath any dependence: if there were, in all probability it should be the humane body: but that this cannot be, it is ma∣nifest, because when the powers and abilities of the Bodies are tired in their operations; the mind alone doth not by motion contract any weariness. Likewise the powers of the Body are impaired and weakned by the redun∣dancy or excess of the object, as the sense of seeing by the full splendor and bright face of the Sun: but the more excellent objects that the Soul is conversant about, as about univer∣sals

and figures abstracted from sensible mat∣ter, it receives thereby the more perfection. Again, the powers that depend upon the Body are only busied about such things as are limit∣ed to particular time and place, according to the nature and property of the Body it self: but the mind hath a more noble object, and as∣cends to the contemplation of that which is infinite and eternal. Wherefore then seeing that the Soul depends not upon the Body in its operation, neither doth it in its essence: for we cannot discern the nature of invisible things otherwise than by their operations. Neither is the third way of corruption inci∣dent to the Soul, there being no efficient cause from which the Soul proceeds by a continual emanation. For we cannot say our Parents are such a cause; since, when they are dead, their Children are wont to live. But if we will needs make some cause, from which the Soul proceeds, then we can imagine no other, save the first and universal cause of all things, which as in respect of its power, is never deficient, so in respect of its will to be de∣fective, that is, for the Almighty to will the extinction and destruction of the Soul, no Man can ever be able to prove.