What did no Man ever pretend that these three distinct Natures, the vegetative, sensitive, intellective, were, in Man, three ⟨p. 29⟩distinct Substances, or Souls, concurring by a certain subordination in him? What necessity was there, that to heighten his Triumph, in the Opinion of his credulous Followers, he should, with so glorious a Confidence, put on the vain and false show of having all the World on his side; and herein either dissemble his Knowledge, or grossly bewray his Ignorance in the mere History of Philosophy. And most imprudently suppose all his Readers as ignorant, as he would seem! What, did he never hear of an Averroist in the World? Doth he not know that Physician and Philosopher, and his Followers, earnestly contended for what he says no Man ever pretended to? Or that divers other Commentators upon Aristotle, have some abetted, others as vehemently opposed them in it? Not to insist also that some thought the Intellectus Agens, and Patiens to be distinct Substances, belonging to the Nature of Man, as others had also other Conceits about the former? And if he look some hundreds of ⟨p. 30⟩Years back, as far as the time, and extant Work of Nemesius, Bishop and Philosopher (as he writes himself) of the Nature of Man, (who lived in the Time of Gregory Nazianzen, as appears by an Epistle of his writ to him, and prefixed to that little Book of his) he will find that Author takes notice there were divers that took Man to consist of Mind, Soul, and Body, and that some did doubt whether the Mind super vening to the Soul, 1as one to the other, did not make the latter intelligent. And in several other parts of that Work (easy, if it were necessary to be recited) he speaks it as the Judgment of some, That the unreasonable Nature in Man did exist by it self, 2as being of it self an unreasonable Soul, not a part of the reasonable, accounting it one of the greatest Absurdities, 3that the unreasonable Soul should be a part of that which is reasonable.
What did no Man ever pretend that these three distinct Natures, the vegetative, sensitive, intellective, were, in Man, three ⟨p. 29⟩distinct Substances, or Souls, concurring by a certain subordination in him? What necessity was there, that to heighten his Triumph, in the Opinion of his credulous Followers, he should, with so glorious a Confidence, put on the vain and false shew of having all the World on his side; and herein either dissemble his Knowledge, or grosly bewray his Ignorance in the meer History of Philosophy. And most imprudently suppose all his Readers as ignorant, as he would seem! What, did he never hear of an Averroist in the World? Doth he not know that Physician and Philosopher, and his Followers, earnestly contended for what he says no Man ever pretended to? Or that divers other Commentators upon Aristotle, have some abetted, others as vehemently oppos'd them in it? Not to insist also that some thought the Intellectus Agens, and Patiens to be distinct Substances, belonging to the Nature of Man, as others had also other Conceits about the former? And if he look some hundreds of ⟨p. 30⟩Years back, as far as the time, and extant Work of Nemesius, Bishop and Philosopher (as he writes himself) of the Nature of Man, (who liv'd in the Time of Gregory Nazianzen, as appears by an Epistle of his writ to him, and prefixt to that little Book of his) he will find that Author takes notice there were divers that took Man to consist of Mind, Soul, and Body, and that some did doubt whether the Mind super vening to the Soul, 1as one to the other, did not make the latter intelligent. And in several other parts of that Work (easy, if it were necessary to be recited) he speaks it as the Judgment of some, That the unreasonable Nature in Man did exist by it self, 2as being of it self an unreasonable Soul, not a part of the reasonable, accounting it one of the greatest Absurdities, 3that the unreasonable Soul should be a part of that which is reasonable.
- 1[Greek or Hebrew], &c. cap. 1.〈non-Latin alphabet〉, &c. cap. 1.
- 2[Greek or Hebrew].〈non-Latin alphabet〉.
- 3[Greek or Hebrew], cap. 16.〈non-Latin alphabet〉, cap. 16.
