A26976:291
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
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.
§. 3. But you would know a Definition of the Soul. But do you know nothing but by Definitions? Are all men that cannot define, therefore void of all knowledge? You know not at all what seeing is, or what light is, or what feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing is, what sound or odour is, what sweet or bitter, nor what thinking, or knowing, or willing, or loving is, if you know it not before defining tell you, and better than bare defining can ever tell you. Every vital faculty ⟨p. 27⟩hath a self-perception in its acting; which is an eminent sense: Intuition also of outward sensible Objects, or immediate perception of them, as sensata & imaginata, is before all Argument and Definition, or reasoning action. By seeing, we perceive that we see; and by understanding, we perceive that we understand. I dare say, That you know the Acts of your own Soul by acting, tho when you come to reasoning or defining, you say you know not what they are. You can give no definition what substance is, or Ens at least, much less what God is. And yet what is more certain than that there is Substance, Entity, and God?
§. 3. But you would know a Definition of the Soul. But do you know nothing but by Definitions? Are all men that cannot define, therefore void of all knowledg? You know not at all what seeing is, or what light is, or what feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing is, what sound or odor is, what sweet or bitter, nor what thinking, or knowing, or willing, or loving is, if you know it not before defining tell you, and better than bare defining can ever tell you. Every vital faculty ⟨p. 27⟩hath a self-perception in its acting; which is an eminent sense: Intuition also of outward sensible Objects, or immediate perception of them, as sensata & imaginata, is before all Argument and Definition, or reasoning action. By seeing, we perceive that we see; and by understanding, we perceive that we understand. I dare say, That you know the Acts of your own Soul by acting, tho when you come to reasoning or defining, you say you know not what they are. You can give no definition what substance is, or Ens at least, much less what God is. And yet what is more certain than that there is Substance, Entity, and God?