A26976:227
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits.…
Of the immortality of mans soul, and the nature of it and other spirits. Two discourses, one in a letter to an unknown doubter, the other in a reply to Dr. Henry Moore's Animadversions on a private letter to him, which he published in his second edition of Mr. Joseph Glanvil's Sadducismus triumphatus, or, History of apparitions by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for B. Simons, 1682
OF THE NATURE OF SPIRITS: › Section 33-34: Ad SECT. XXXIII, XXXIV.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Antid. Li. 1. p. 17. [The parts of a Spirit can be no more separated though they be dilated, than you can cut off the Rays of the Sun by a pair of Scissors made of pellucid Chrystal.]
Antid. Li. 1. p. 17. [The parts of a Spirit can be no more separated though they be dilated, than you can cut off the Rays of the Sun by a pair of Scissars made of pellucide Chrystal.]
Appen. p. 304. [Suppose a point of Light, from which rays out a luminous Orb according to the known Principles of Optics: This Orb of Light doth very much resemble the Nature of a Spirit, which is diffused and extended, and yet indivisible: For we'll suppose in this Spirit the Centre of Life to be indivisible, and yet to diffuse itself by a kind of circumscribed Omnipotency, as the point of Light is discernible in every point of the luminous Sphere. And yet supposing that central lucid point indivisible, there is nothing divisible in all that Sphere of Light. For it is ridiculous to think of any Engine or Art whatsoever to separate the luminous Rays from the shining Centre, and keep them apart by themselves, as any man will acknowledge that does but consider the thing we speak of. Now there is no difficulty to imagine such an Orb as this, as Substance as well as a Quality. And indeed this Sphere of Light itself, it not inhering in any Subject in the place it occupieth, looks far more like a Substance than any Accident. And what we fancy unadvisedly to befall Light and Colours, that any point of them will thus ray orbicularly, is more rationally to be admitted in spiritual Substances, whose central Essence spreads out into a secondary Substance, as the ⟨p. 96⟩luminous Rays are conceived to shoot out from a lucid point. From whence we are enabled to return an Answer to the greatest difficulty in the foregoing Objection, viz. That the conceived parts in a Spirit have an inseparable dependence on the central Essence, from which they flow, and in which they are radically contained; and therefore though there be an extension of this whole substantial power, yet one part is not separable or discerpible from another, but the entire Substance, as well secondary as primary, or central, is indivisible. But let us again cast our Eyes on this lucid point and radiant Orb we have made use of: It is manifest that those Rays that are hindered from shooting out so far as they would, need not lose their Virtue or Being, but only be reflected back toward their shining Centre; and the Obstacle being removed they may shoot out to their full length again: so that there is no Generation of a new Ray.—