A26976:59
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.
§ 4. And here I must note, that § 18. p. 127. where you purposely define a Spirit, you agree with me: Your definition is [A Spirit is an Immaterial Substance intrinsically endued with Life, and the Faculty of Motion.] Forgive me for thinking that you are not strict enough in your terms for a definition; but plainly you seem to mean the same as I do. You should, I think, have mentioned a Spirit as a simple Substance differing from a mixed; and have said, not only [intrinsically] endued, for so is every Animal who is Body as well as Spirit, but also endued with it as its simple Formal Essence: And whether all Faculty of Motion (e. g. Gravitation) be Life, I am in doubt. But here ⟨p. 22⟩1. You agree with me in the first Conceptus [Substance;] And 2. As to that mode of Substance which I call the Dispositio Substantiae ad Formam, you call it but [Immaterial] which is a negative, and speaketh nothing positively; which is such an honest Confession as we poor Ignorants apertly make, that what the excellent Purity or modal Consistence of Spiritual Substance is as compared to Material (or Corporeal) because we never saw or felt it as we do Corporeal; we do not formally know, and therefore only tell men de genere, that it is most pure and excellent; but in special, that we have no true Idea of it, and therefore only tell men what it is not [not material] and not what it is. 3. But you name no Formal Difference but Life: When you add [the Faculty of Motion] it is a defective Explication of the Virtus Vitalis, which is ever Unica-triplex, viz. Activa-Pe•ceptiva-Appetitiva, when it operateth to generation or augmentation. And do you think that Life and Immateriality are Synonyma's? Or that Life and Penetrable and Indiscerptible, are Synonyma's? Or that the Form of a Spirit is a Compound of such and so many Heterogeneals? Had you held to this definition, I think you had done best.
§ 4. And here I must note, that § 18. p. 127. where you purposely define a Spirit, you agree with me: Your definition is [A Spirit is an Immaterial Substance intrinsecally endued with Life, and the Faculty of Motion.] Forgive me for thinking that you are not strict enough in your terms for a definition; but plainly you seem to mean the same as I do. You should, I think, have mentioned a Spirit as a simple Substance differing from a mixt; and have said, not only [intrinsecally] endued, for so is every Animal who is Body as well as Spirit, but also endued with it as its simple Formal Essence: And whether all Faculty of Motion (e. g. Gravitation) be Life, I am in doubt. But here