Chapter III (3)

Division of the Doctrine of the Human Soul into that of the Inspired Essence and the Knowledge of the Sensible or Produced Soul. Second Division of the same philosophy into the Doctrine of the Substance and the Faculties of the Soul. The Use and Objects of the latter. Two Appendices to the Doctrine of the Faculties of the Soul: viz., Natural Divination and Fascination (Mesmerism). The Faculties of the Sensible Soul divided into those of Motion and Sense

WE NOW come to the doctrine of the human soul, from whose treasures all other doctrines are derived. It has two parts—the one treating of the rational soul, which is divine, the other of the irrational soul, which we have in common with brutes. Two different emanations of souls are manifest in the first creation, the one proceeding from the breath of God, the other from the elements. As to the primitive emanation of the rational soul, the Scripture says, God formed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; but the generation of the irrational and brutal soul was in these words—Let the water bring forth; let the earth bring forth. And this irrational soul in man is only an instrument to the rational one, and has the same origin in us as in brutes, viz., the dust of the earth; for it is not said, God formed the body of man of the dust of the earth, but God formed man, that is, the whole man, the breath of life excepted, of the dust of the earth. We will, therefore, style the first part of the general doctrine of the human soul the doctrine of the inspired substance, and the other part the doctrine of the sensitive or produced soul. But as we are here treating wholly of philosophy, we would not have borrowed this division from divinity, had it not also agreed with the principles of philosophy. For there are many excellences of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophize only according to sense. And wherever so many and such great excellences are found, a specific difference should always be made. We do not, therefore, approve that confused and promiscuous manner of the philosophers in treating the functions of the soul, as if the soul of man differed in degree rather than species from the soul of brutes, as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from other metals.

There may also be another division of the general doctrine of the human soul into the doctrine of the substance and faculties of the soul, and that of the use and objects of the faculties. And these two divisions being premised, we come to particulars.

The doctrine of the inspired substance, as also of the substance of the rational soul, comprehends several inquiries with relation to its nature, as whether the soul be native or adventitious, separable or inseparable, mortal or immortal; how far it is subject to the laws of matter, how far not, and the like. But the points of this kind, though they might be more thoroughly sifted in philosophy than hitherto they have been, yet in the end they must be turned over to religion, for determination and decision; otherwise they will lie exposed to various errors and illusions of sense. For as the substance of the soul was not, in its creation, extracted or deduced from the mass of heaven and earth, but immediately inspired by God; and as the laws of heaven and earth are the proper subjects of philosophy, no knowledge of the substance of the rational soul can be had from philosophy, but must be derived from the same Divine inspiration, whence the substance thereof originally proceeded.

But in the doctrine of the sensitive or produced soul, even its substance may be justly inquired into, though this inquiry seems hitherto wanting. For of what significance are the terms of actus ultimus and forma corporis, and such logical trifles, to the knowledge of the soul’s substance? The sensitive soul must be allowed a corporeal substance, attenuated by heat and rendered invisible, as a subtile breath or aura, of a flamy and airy nature, having the softness of air in receiving impressions, and the activity of fire in exerting its action, nourished partly by an oily and partly by a watery substance, and diffused through the whole body; but in perfect creatures, residing chiefly in the head, and thence running through the nerves, being fed and recruited by the spirituous blood of the arteries, as Telesius and his follower Donius in some measure have usefully shown. Therefore let this doctrine be more diligently inquired into, because the ignorance of it has produced superstitious and very corrupt opinions, that greatly lessen the dignity of the human soul—such as the transmigration and lustration of souls through certain periods of years, and the too near relation in all respects of the human soul to the soul of brutes. For this soul in brutes is a principal soul, whereof their body is the organ; but in man it is itself an organ of the rational soul, and may rather be called by the name spirit than soul.

The faculties of the soul are well known; viz., the understanding, reason, imagination, memory, appetite, will, and all those wherewith logic and ethics are concerned. In the doctrine of the soul the origin of these faculties must be physically treated, as they may be innate and adhering to the soul, but their uses and objects are referred to other arts; and in this part nothing extraordinary has hitherto appeared, though we do not indeed report it as wanting. This part of the faculties of the soul has also two appendages, which as they have yet been handled, rather present us with smoke than any clear flame of truth—one being the doctrine of natural divination, the other of fascination.

Divination has been anciently and properly divided into artificial and natural. The artificial draws its predictions by reasoning from the indication of signs; but the natural predicts from the internal foresight of the mind, without the assistance of signs. Artificial divination is of two kinds—one arguing from causes, the other only from experiments conducted by blind authority. The latter is generally superstitious. Such were the heathen doctrines about the inspection of entrails, the flight of birds, etc.; and the formal astrology of the Chaldeans was little better. Both kinds of artificial divination spread themselves into various sciences. The astrologer has his predictions from the aspect of the stars; the physician, too, has his, as to death, recovery, and the subsequent symptoms of diseases, from the urine, pulse, aspect of the patient, etc.; the politician also is not without his predictions—“O urbem venalem, et cito perituram si emptorem invenerit!”—the event of which prophecy happened soon after, and was first accomplished in Sylla and again in Cæsar. But the predictions of this kind being not to our present purpose, we refer them to their proper arts, and shall here only treat of natural divination, proceeding from the internal power of the soul.

This also is of two kinds—the one native, the other by influx. The native rests upon this supposition, that the mind abstracted or collected in itself, and not diffused in the organs of the body, has from the natural power of its own essence some foreknowledge of future things; and this appears chiefly in sleep, ecstasies, and the near approach of death; but more rarely in waking, or when the body is in health and strength. And this state of the mind is commonly procured or promoted by abstinence, and principally such things as withdraw the mind from exercising the functions of the body, that it may thus enjoy its own nature without any external interruption. But divination by influx is grounded upon another supposition, viz., that the mind, as a mirror, may receive a secondary illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits, whereto likewise the above-mentioned state and regimen of the body are conducive. For the same abstraction of the mind causes it more powerfully to use its own nature, and renders it more susceptive of divine influxes, only in divinations by influx the soul is seized with a kind of rapture, and as it were impatience of the Deity’s presence, which the ancients called by the name of sacred fury, whereas in native divination the soul is rather at its ease and free.

Fascination is the power and intense act of the imagination upon the body of another. And here the school of Paracelsus, and the pretenders to natural magic, abusively so called, have almost made the force and apprehension of the imagination equal to the power of faith, and capable of working miracles; others keeping nearer to truth, and attentively considering the secret energies and impressions of things, the irradiations of the senses, the transmissions of thought from one to another, and the conveyances of magnetic virtues, are of opinion that impressions, conveyances, and communications, might be made from spirit to spirit, because spirit is of all things the most powerful in operation and easiest to work on; whence many opinions have spread abroad of master spirits, of men ominous and unlucky, of the strokes of love, envy, and the like. And this is attended with the inquiry, how the imagination may be heightened and fortified; for if a strong imagination has such power, it is worth knowing by what means to exalt and raise it.

But here a palliative or defence of a great part of ceremonial magic would slily and indirectly insinuate itself, under a specious pretence that ceremonies, characters, charms, gesticulations, amulets, and the like, have not their power from any tacit or binding contract with evil spirits, but that these serve only to strengthen and raise the imagination of such as use them, in the same manner as images have prevailed in religion for fixing men’s minds in the contemplation of things and raising the devotion in prayer. But allowing the force of imagination to be great, and that ceremonies do raise and strengthen it; allowing also, that ceremonies may be sincerely used to that end, as a physical remedy, without the least design of thereby procuring the assistance of spirits; yet ought they still to be held unlawful, because they oppose and contradict that Divine sentence passed upon man for sin: “In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.” For this kind of magic offers those excellent fruits which God had ordained should be procured by labor at the price of a few easy and slight observances.

There are two other doctrines which principally regard the faculties of the inferior or sensitive soul, as chiefly communicating with the organs of the body—the one is of voluntary motion, the other of sense and sensibility. The former has been but superficially inquired into, and one entire part of it is almost wholly neglected. The office and proper structure of the nerves, muscles, etc., requisite to muscular motion, what parts of the body rest while others move, and how the imagination acts as director of this motion, so far than when it drops the image whereto the motion tended, the motion itself presently ceases—as in walking, if another serious thought come across our mind, we presently stand still; with many other such subtilties—have long ago been observed and scrutinized. But how the compressions, dilatations, and agitations of the spirit, which, doubtless, is the spring of motion, should guide and rule the corporeal and gross mass of the parts, has not yet been diligently searched into and treated. And no wonder, since the sensitive soul itself has been hitherto taken for a principle of motion and a function, rather than a substance. But as it is now known to be material, it becomes necessary to inquire by what efforts so subtile and minute a breath can put such gross and solid bodies in motion. Therefore, as this part is deficient, let due inquiry be made concerning it.

Sense and sensibility have been much more fully and diligently inquired into, as well in general treatises upon the subject as in particular arts; viz., perspective, music, etc.; but how justly, is not to the present intention. And, therefore, we cannot note them as deficient; yet there are two excellent parts wanting in this doctrine: one upon the difference of perception and sense, and the other upon the form of light. In treating of sense and sensibility, philosophers should have premised the difference between perception and sense, as the foundation of the whole: for we find there is a manifest power of perception in most natural bodies, and a kind of appetite to choose what is agreeable, and to avoid what is disagreeable to them. Nor is this meant of the more subtile perceptions only; as when the loadstone attracts iron, or flame flies to petrol, or one drop of water runs into another; or when the rays of light are reflected from a white object, or when animal bodies assimilate what is proper for them, and reject what is hurtful; or when a sponge attracts water, and expels air, etc.; for in all cases, no one body placed near to another can change that other, or be changed by it, unless a reciprocal perception precede the operation. A body always perceives the passages by which it insinuates; feels the impulse of another body, where it yields thereto; perceives the removal of any body that withheld it, and thereupon recovers itself; perceives the separation of its continuity, and for a time resists it; in fine, perception is diffused through all nature. But air has such an acute perception of heat and cold, as far exceeds the human touch, which yet passes for the measure of heat and cold. This doctrine, therefore, has two defects: one, in that men have generally passed it over untouched, though a noble subject; the other, that they who did attend to it have gone too far, attributed sense to all bodies, and made it almost a sin to pluck a twig from a tree, lest the tree should groan, like Polydorus in Virgil. But they ought carefully to have searched after the difference between perception and sense; not only in comparing sensible with insensible things, in the entire bodies thereof, as those of plants and animals, but also to have observed in the sensible body itself, what should be the cause that so many actions are performed without any sense at all. Why the aliments are digested and discharged, the humors and juices carried up and down in the body; why the heart and pulse beat; why the viscera act as so many workshops, and each performs its respective office; yet all this, and much more, be done without sense. But men have not yet sufficiently found of what nature the action of sense is, and what kind of body, what continuance, what repetitions of the impression are required to cause pain or pleasure. Lastly, they seem totally ignorant of the difference between simple perception and sense, and how far perception may be caused without sense. Nor is this a controversy about words, but a matter of great importance. Wherefore let this doctrine be better examined, as a thing of capital, and very extensive use: for the ignorance of some ancient philosophers in this point, so far obscured the light of reason, that they thought there was a soul indifferently infused into all bodies; nor did they conceive how motion of election could be caused without sense, or sense exist without a soul.

That the form of light should not have been duly inquired into, appears a strange oversight, especially as men have bestowed so much pains upon perspective: for neither has this art, nor others afforded any valuable discovery in the subject of light. Its radiations, indeed, are treated, but not its origin; and the ranking of perspective with mathematics has produced this defect, with others of the like nature, because philosophy is thus deserted too soon. Again, the doctrine of light, and the causes thereof, have been almost superstitiously treated in physics, as a subject of a middle nature, between natural and divine; whence certain Platonists would have light prior to matter itself: for they vainly imagined that space was first filled with light, and afterward with body; but the Scriptures plainly say, that the mass of heaven and earth was dark before the creation of light. And as for what is physically delivered upon this subject, and according to sense, it presently descends to radiations, so that very little philosophical inquiry is extant about it. And men ought here to lower their contemplations a little, and inquire into the properties common to all lucid bodies, as this relates to the form of light; how immensely soever the bodies concerned may differ in dignity, as the sun does from rotten wood, or putrefied fish. We should likewise inquire the cause why some things take fire, and when heated throw out light, and others not. Iron, metal, stones, glass, wood, oil, tallow, by fire yield either a flame, or grow red-hot. But water and air, exposed to the most intense heat they are capable of, afford no light, nor so much as shine. That it is not the property of fire alone to give light; and that water and air are not utter enemies thereto, appear from the dashing of salt water in a dark night, and a hot season, when the small drops of the water, struck off by the motion of the oars in rowing, seem sparkling and luminous. We have the same appearance in the agitated froth of the sea, called sea-lungs. And, indeed, it should be inquired what affinity flame and ignited bodies have with glow-worms, the Luciola, the Indian fly, which casts a light over a whole room; the eyes of certain creatures in the dark; loaf-sugar in scraping or breaking; the sweat of a horse hard ridden, etc. Men have understood so little of this matter, that most imagine the sparks, struck between a flint and steel, to be air in attrition. But since the air ignites not with heat, yet apparently conceives light, whence owls, cats, and many other creatures see in the night (for there is no vision without light), there must be a native light in air; which, though weak and feeble, is proportioned to the visual organs of such creatures, so as to suffice them for sight. The error, as in most other cases, lies here, that men have not deduced the common forms of things from particular instances, which is what we make the proper business of metaphysics. Therefore let inquiry be made into the form and origins of light; and, in the meantime, we set it down as deficient. And so much for the doctrine of the substance of the soul, both rational and sensitive, with its faculties, and the appendages of this doctrine.