But truly I am at a loss about the conceptus fundamentalis, wherein the true difference lieth between Substantia and Materia. Do we by—Substantia mean a conceptus realis, or only Relative. To say it doth substare accidentibus, speaks but a Relation directly, and leaves the question unanswered, Quid est quod substat accidentibus. To say it is not an Accident, tells us not what it is, but what it is not. To say it doth subsist per se, either saith no more than that it is Ens real, or else tells us not what it is that doth subsist. Quoad notationem nominis distinct from use▪ doth not materia and substantia signify the same fundamental conceptus? And is not the form the notifying difference? You difference Substance and Matter antecedently to the formal difference by Penetrability ⟨image 4⟩& Impenetrability, Indivisibility & Divisibility. But 1. I despair knowing in this life, how far Spiritual Substances are penetrable and indivisible. I grant you such an extension as shall free them from being nothing substantial, and from being Infinite as God is. 2. We grant Spirits a quantitas discreta; they are numerous, individuate; and formae see multiplicant. Generation is the work of Spirits, and not of Bodies. And how can I tell that God that can make many out of one, cannot make many into one, and unite and divide them as well as Matter? But if he should, that would be no destruction of their Species, as the mixtorum dissolutio is; but as every drop of divided Water is Water, & one Candle lighting many, and many joined in one, are all the same fire; so much more would it be with Spirits, were they united or divided; and their locality ⟨image 5⟩and penetrability are past our conceit. 3. But were we sure of what we say therein; these two (Penetrability and Indivisibility) speak but Accidents, though proper; and therefore are no satisfying notice of the notion of Substance Spiritual as distinct from Matter. I am hitherto therefore constrained to contain many thoughts in the following compass.
But truly I am at a loss about the conceptus fundamentalis, wherein the true difference lieth between Substantia and Materia. Do we by—Substantia mean a conceptus realis, or only Relative. To say it doth substare accidentibus, speaks but a Relation directly, and leaves the question unanswered, Quid est quod substat accidentibus. To say it is not an Accident, tells us not what it is, but what it is not. To say it doth subsist per se, either saith no more than that it is Ens reale, or else tells us not what it is that doth subsist. Quoad notationem nominis distinct from use▪ doth not materia and substantia signify the same fundamental conceptus? And is not the form the notifying difference? You difference Substance and Matter antecedently to the formal difference by Penetrability ⟨image 4⟩& Impenetrability, Indivisibility & Divisibility. But 1. I despair knowing in this life, how far Spiritual Substances are penetrable and indivisible. I grant you such an extension as shall free them from being nothing substantial, and from being Infinite as God is. 2. We grant Spirits a quantitas discreta; they are numerous, individuate; and formae se multiplicant. Generation is the work of Spirits, and not of Bodies. And how can I tell that God that can make many out of one, cannot make many into one, and unite and divide them as well as Matter? But if he should, that would be no destruction of their Species, as the mixtorum dissolutio is; but as every drop of divided Water is Water, & one Candle lighting many, and many joyned in one, are all the same fire; so much more would it be with Spirits, were they united or divided; and their locality ⟨image 5⟩and penetrability are past our conceit. 3. But were we sure of what we say therein; these two (Penetrability and Indivisibility) speak but Accidents, though proper; and therefore are no satisfying notice of the notion of Substance Spiritual as distinct from Matter. I am hitherto therefore constrained to contain many thoughts in the following compass.
