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TEll me I pray thee, doest thou thinke our minde is a harmonie? or a number moving it selfe? or a composition of the same and divers? or of an essence divi∣sible
and indivisible? or an entelechia? for such manner of speaking the Plato∣nists and Peripateticks use?
I doe believe that all they which have spoken of the minde, might use these or the like speeches, moved by those things which they did experimentally finde in the power of the minde; for they found the judgement of all harmo∣nie to bee in the minde; and that the minde out of it selfe fashioneth notions, and that it so moves it selfe, as a living discretive number would of it selfe pro∣ceed to make discretions. And againe they found that it proceeds in any par∣ticular, collectively, or distributively, ei∣ther according to the manner of simpli∣city, and absolute necessity, or of abso∣lute possibility, or necessity of complexi∣on, or determinately, or of a possibility determinate, or because of the aptitude of a perpetuall motion. Because of these and the like experiments, it is probably to be beleeved, they said those or the like things of the minde or soul. For to say that the minde is of the same and divers, is to say it is of unity, and alterity; after the same manner that a number is com∣pounded
of the same, in regard of the common or universall of that which is divers, in regard of singulars, or parti∣culars; which both are waies of the minds understanding.
Go on, I pray thee, to declare how the minde may be said to be a num∣ber moving it selfe.
I thinke no man can deny, but that the minde is a certaine divine living number, excellently proportioned to the resplendence of manifesting, and shewing of the divine harmony, and com∣plicating every sensible, rational, and intellectual harmony; and whatsoever can be better expressed about this matter. Insomuch that every number proportion, and harmony which proceeds from our minde, doth as little reach or come near our minde, as our minde doth to the in∣finite minde. For the minde, though it be a divine number, yet it is so a number, that it is a simple unity, by its own pow∣er putting forth its number. So that look what proportion there is between God and his workes; the same there is be∣tween the workes of the minde, and the minde it selfe.
There are very many that would have our minde to be of the divine na∣ture, and most meerly conjoyned to the divine minde.
I doe not think they meant any o∣therwise then as I have laid, although they had another manner of speaking. For between the divine minde and ours, there is the same difference, that there is between doing and seeing; for the di∣vine minde by conceiving creates, but ours by conceiving assimilates, in ma∣king notions or intellectual visions. The divine minde is a power, making things to be; but ours an assimilative power.
I see that the Philosopher hath not time enough to satisfie himselfe, and therefore I have kept silence a long time; I have heard many, and very pleasing things; yet would I faine heare further, how the minde of it selfe, puts forth the formes of things by way of assi∣mulation?
The minde is so assimilative, that in the sight it makes it selfe like vi∣sible things; and in the hearing to au∣dible things; in the taste, to things tast∣able; in the smell, to things odorable;
in the touch, to things tangible; in the sense, to things sensible; in the ima∣gination, to things imaginable; and in the reason, to reasonable things. For the image in the absence of sensible things, is as some sense without the dis∣cretion of sensible things; for it con∣formes it selfe to sensible things absent, but confusedly, and without discerning of state from state. But in reason it con∣formes it selfe to things with discerning of state from state. In all those places our minde, is carried in the spirit of the Arteries; vvhich being stir'd up by mee∣ting vvith species multipli'd from the objects to the spirits, assimilates it selfe by the things to the species; that by as∣similation it may give judgement of the objects: Whereupon that subtile spirit of the Arteries, which is enlivened by the minde, is so by the minde conform'd un∣to the similitude of the species, which was objected to the motion of the spirit; As soft wax is by a man, having the use and art of the minde, configured unto the thing then presently presented to the work-man: for all configurations whe∣ther in the art of carving, painting, or
hammering, cannot be done without the mind, for it is the mind which terminates all things. Therefore if we could imagine a piece of wax inform'd by the minde; then the minde being within it, would configure it, or make it like to every figure presented unto it; as now the minde of the Artificer, being applied from without labours to doe. So likewise of clay, and every flexible or fashionable thing. So in our body, the minde according to the various flexiblenesse of the spirits of the Arteries in the Organs, makes divers configurations, subtile and grosse; and one spirit is not configurable to that, to which another is; because the spirit in the optick nerve, cannot be met withall, and incountred by the species of sounds, but onely by the species of colours; & there∣fore is configurable to the species of co∣lours, and not of sounds, and so of the rest.
There is likewise another spirit which is configurable to all sensible species, which is in the Organ of the imagina∣tive power, but after a grosse and indis∣creet, or undistinguished manner. And there is another in the Organ of the ra∣tiocinative,
or discursive power, which is configurable to al sensible things, discret∣ly and clearly. And all these configura∣tions are assimilations to sensible things, when thy are done by the meanes of cor∣porall spirits, though never so subtile; wherefore, when the minde makes these assimilations, that it may have the mo∣tions of sensible things, and so is drown∣ned in the corporall spirit, then it act∣eth as the soul animating a body, by which animation the power of a living wight is constituted.
And hereupon the soul of brute beasts makes the like assimilation after its man∣ner, (though more confused) that it may after its manner attaine to notions.
But our power of the minde, from such notions as these so elicited & drawn out by assimilation, makes Mechanick arts physicall and logicall conjectures, and reacheth things in the manner, whereby they are conceived in the possibility of be∣ing, or matter, and in the manner, where∣by the possibility of being, or matter is determined by the forme. Wherefore, see∣ing that by these assimilations it reach∣eth none but the notions of sensible
things, where the formes of things are not true, but shadowed with the variable∣nesse of matter: therefore all such no∣tions, are rather conjectures then truth; for this cause I say that the notions which are reached by rationall assimila∣tions, are uncertain, because they are ra∣ther according to the images of formes, then the truths. Afterwards our minde, not as drowned in the body which it ani∣mates, but as it is the minde of it selfe; yet in possibility of being united to the body, while it lookes unto its immuta∣bility, makes assimilation of formes, not as they are drowned in the matter, but as they are in and of themselves, and conceives the immutable quiddities of things, using it selfe for an instrument, without any organicall spirit. As whilst it conceives that a circle is a figure, from whose center all the lines drawne to the circumference are equall: after which manner of being, a circle without the minde, cannot be in matter; for it is impossible there should be given in matter two equall lines; and it is lesse possible, that such a circle should be figured; and therefore a circle in the
mind, is the Samplar and measure of the truth of a circle in the pavement. So wee say that the truth of things in the minde, is in the necessity of complexion; to wit, after the manner that the truth of a thing requireth, as we have said of the circle. And because the minde, as in it selfe, and abstracted from matter, makes these assimilations, therefore it as∣similateth it selfe to abstracted formes. And according to this power it shewes or puts forth certain mathematicall sci∣ences, and finds its power to bee that it can assimilate it selfe to things, as they are in the necessity of complexion, and make notions; and it is stirred up to these abstractive assimilations, by the Phantasmes or images of formes, which it layes hold on by the assimilations made in the Organs. As by the beauty of an image, one is moved to enquire the beauty of the Samplar; and in this assi∣milation the minde is, as if absolute pli∣ablenesse, abstracted from Wax, Clay, Mettals, and all other flexible things, were living by a mentall life, that it could of it selfe assimilate it selfe to all figures, as they subsist in themselves, and
not in the matter; for such flexibility, in the power of its living flexibility, that is in it selfe, would behold that the noti∣ons of all things are, in as much as it could conforme it selfe to all things. And because the minde is not yet satisfied with this, because it sees not the precise truth of all things, but in a certain ne∣cessity determined to every thing, as one thing is so, and another thing so, and every thing compounded of its parts: and it sees that this manner of being is not the truth it selfe, but the participa∣tion of truth, that one is truly so, and another thing truly otherwise, which al∣terity cannot agree to the truth in it self, in its selfe, considered in its owne abso∣lute and infinite precision: whereupon the minde looking to its simplicity, to wit, as it is not onely abstracted from matter, but incommunicable to matter, or after the manner of a forme not uni∣ble, useth this simplicity as an instru∣ment, that it may assimilate it selfe to all things, not onely abstractedly, but also in its simplicity incommunicable to mat∣ter. And after this manner it behold∣eth all things in its simplicity; as if it
should see all greatnesse in a point, and a circle in the center: and there it sees without all composition of parts, and not as this is one thing, and that a∣nother, but as all things are one, and one all things. And this is the beholding of absolute truth, as if one could, after the last-before-spoken manner, behold how entity it selfe, is in all beings variously participated. And if after this he could in the manner (of which we now speak) above participation, and all truth, sim∣ply behold absolute entity it selfe; such a one might truly, above the determinate necessity of complexion; now see all things which earst hee saw in varietie, without it, in absolute necessity, most simply without number, greatnesse, and any alterity. And in this high∣est manner, the minde uses it selfe, as it is the image of God, and as God; which is all things, shineth in it, namely, when, as the living image of God, it doth with all its power, turne it selfe to its Sam∣plar. And in this manner, it sees all things one thing, and it selfe the assimi∣lation of that one thing, by which it frames notions of the one, that it is all
things, and so makes Theologicall specu∣lations: where, as in the end of all no∣tions, it sweetly resteth, as in the most delectable truth of its life; of which manner, there can never be enough said; but these things which I have thus spo∣ken without curiosity, and after a plain manner, thou maist by thy elegant stile make more polite, and wel-come to the reader.
I had no desire, but to beare what I have heard, which thou hast plainly declared; and that will be to them that seek the truth, elegance enough.
I pray thee, declare further, how the mind reacheth indeterminate possibi∣lity, which we call matter?
By a certain counterfeit way, and a contrary manner, whereby it passeth from a necessity of complection, to an absolute necessity; for seeing how all bodies have to be formed by corporiety, taking that away it seeth all it law be∣fore it as a certaine indeterminate pos∣sibility. And those things which before it saw in corporiety distinct and determinate, as being in act, now it seeth confused and indeterminate, in∣possibility.
And this is the manner of u∣niversality, by which all things are seen in possibility; yet it is not the manner of being, because it is not power-being or posse esse.