A26976:337
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.
II. And if you equal the Souls of Beasts, Trees, Stones and Men, you must make them all to have an Intellectual Soul. If man had not, he could never understand. And if they have so also, frustra fit potentia quae nunquam producitur in actum. It is certain that it is not the body (Earth, Air or Water) that feeleth, much less that understandeth or willeth. If therefore all men have but one Soul, why is it not you that are in pain or joy, when any, or all others are so? Tour suffering and joys are as much theirs. You ⟨p. 43⟩hurt your self when you hurt a Malefactor. Why are you not answerable for the Crimes of every Thief, if all be one?
§. 22. You vainly liken several Natures and Faculties to several pieces of Clock-work, For Natures and Faculties are self-acting Principles under the prime Agent: but a Clock is only passive, moved by another: Whether the motus gravitationis in the poise, be by an intrinsic Principle, or by another […] active Nature, is all that's controvertible there. All that your similitude will infer, is this, That as the gravitation of one poise, moves every wheel according to its receptive aptitude; so God, the universal Spirit, moveth all that is moved, according to their several aptitudes, passives as passive, actives as active, vitals as self-movers, intellectuals as intellectual-free-self-movers under him. No Art can make a Clock feel, see or understand.
§. 22. You vainly liken several Natures and Faculties to several pieces of Clock-work, For Natures and Faculties are self-acting Principles under the prime Agent: but a Clock is only passive, moved by another: Whether the motus gravitationis in the poise, be by an intrinslck Principle, or by another 〈…〉 active Nature, is all that's controvertible there. All that your similitude will infer, is this, That as the gravitation of one poise, moves every wheel according to its receptive aptitude; so God, the universal Spirit, moveth all that is moved, according to their several aptitudes, passives as passive, actives as active, vitals as self-movers, intellectuals as intellectual-free-self-movers under him. No Art can make a Clock feel, see or understand.