entire man, excepting only the breath of life. Wherefore the first part of the general doctrine concerning the human soul I will term the doctrine concerning the Breath of Life; the other the doctrine concerning the Sensible or Produced Soul. But yet, as hitherto I handle philosophy only (for I have placed sacred divinity at the end of the work), I would not borrow this division from theology, if it were not consonant with the principles of philosophy also. For there are many and great excellencies of the human soul above the souls of brutes, manifest even to those who philosophise according to the sense. Now wherever the mark of so many and great excellencies is found, there also a specific difference ought to be constituted; and therefore I do not much like the confused and promiscuous manner in which philosophers have handled the functions of the soul; as if the human soul differed from the spirit of brutes in degree rather than in kind; as the sun differs from the stars, or gold from metals.

I must subjoin likewise another division of the general doctrine concerning the human soul before I speak more fully of the species. For that which I shall hereafter say of the species will concern both divisions alike; as well that which I have just set down, as that which I am now about to propose. Let this second division therefore be into the doctrine concerning the Substance and Faculties of the soul, and the doctrine concerning the Use and Objects of the Faculties.

Having therefore laid down these two divisions, let us now proceed to the species. The doctrine concerning the breath of life, as well as the doctrine concerning the substance of the rational soul, includes those inquiries touching its nature, whether it be native or

VOL. IX.

adventive, separable or inseparable, mortal or immortal, how far it is tied to the laws of matter, how far exempted from them; and the like. Which questions though even in philosophy they admit of an inquiry both more diligent and more profound than they have hitherto received, yet I hold that in the end all such must be handed over to religion to be determined and defined. Otherwise they will be subject to many errors and illusions of the sense. For since the substance of the soul in its creation was not extracted or produced out of the mass of heaven and earth, but was immediately inspired from God; and since the laws of heaven and earth are the proper subjects of philosophy; how can we expect to obtain from philosophy the knowledge of the substance of the rational soul? It must be drawn from the same divine inspiration, from which that substance first proceeded.

The doctrine concerning the sensible or produced. soul, however, is a fit subject of inquiry even as regards its substance; but such inquiry appears to me to be deficient. For of what service are such terms as ultimate act, form of the body, and such toys of logic, to the doctrine concerning the substance of the soul? For the sensible soul- the soul of brutes must clearly be regarded as a corporeal substance, attenuated and made invisible by heat; a breath (I say) compounded of the natures of flame and air, having the softness of air to receive impressions, and the vigour of fire to propagate its action; nourished partly by oily and partly by watery substances; clothed with the body, and in perfect animals residing chiefly in the head, running along the nerves, and refreshed and repaired by the spirituous blood of the arteries; as Ber

nardinus Telesius and his pupil Augustinus Donius have in part not altogether unprofitably maintained. Let there be therefore a more diligent inquiry concerning this doctrine; the rather because the imperfect understanding of this has bred opinions superstitious and corrupt and most injurious to the dignity of the human mind, touching metempsychosis, and the purifications of souls in periods of years, and indeed too near an affinity in all things between the human soul and the souls of brutes. For this soul is in brutes the principal soul, the body of the brute being its instrument; whereas in man it is itself only the instrument of the rational soul, and may be more fitly termed not soul, but spirit. And so much for the substance of the soul.

The faculties of the soul are well known; understanding, reason, imagination, memory, appetite, will; in short all with which the logical and ethical sciences deal. But in the doctrine concerning the soul the origins of these faculties ought to be handled, and that physically, as they are innate and inherent in the soul l; the uses only and objects of them being deputed to those other arts. In which part nothing of much value (in my opinion) has as yet been discovered; though I cannot indeed report it as deficient. This part touching the faculties of the mind has likewise two appendices, which themselves also, as they are handled, have rather produced smoke than any clear flame of truth. One of these is the doctrine of Natural Divination, the other of Fascination.

Divination has been anciently and not unfitly divided into two parts; Artificial and Natural. Artificial makes prediction by argument, concluding upon

signs and tokens; Natural forms a presage from an inward presentiment of the mind, without the help of signs. Artificial is of two sorts; one argues from causes; the other only from experiments, by a kind of blind authority. Which latter is for the most part superstitious; such as were the heathen observations upon the inspection of entrails, the flights of birds, and the like. And the more solemn astrology of the Chaldeans was little better. But artificial divination of both kinds is dispersed among different knowledges. The astrologer has his predictions, from the position of the stars. The physician likewise has his predictions of approaching death, of recovery, of coming symptoms of diseases, from the urine, the pulse, the look of the patient, and the like. The politician also has his; "O venal city, that will quickly perish, if it finds a purchaser : "1 which prediction was not long in being verified; being fulfilled in Sylla first, and afterwards in Cæsar. Predictions of this kind therefore are not to our present purpose, but are to be referred to their own arts. But Natural Divination, which springs from the inward power of the mind, is that which I now speak of. This is of two sorts; the one Primitive, the other by Influxion. Primitive is grounded upon the supposition that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself, and not diffused into the organs of the body, has of its own essential power some preno tion of things to come. Now this appears most in sleep, in extasies, and near death; and more rarely in waking apprehensions, or when the body is healthy and strong. But this state of mind is commonly induced or furthered by those abstinences and observances

1 Sallust, in Bell. Jugurth. 38.

which most withdraw the mind from exercising the duties of the body, so that it may enjoy its own nature, free from external restraints. Divination by influxion is grounded upon this other conceit; that the mind, as a mirror or glass, receives a kind of secondary illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits; and this also is furthered by the same state and regimen of the body as the other. For the retiring of the mind within itself gives it the fuller benefit of its own nature, and makes it the more susceptible of divine influxions; save that in divinations by influxion the mind is seized with a kind of fervency and impatience as it were of the present Deity (a state which the ancients noted by the name of divine fury); while in primitive divination it is more in a state of quiet and

repose.

Fascination is the power and act of imagination intensive upon the body of another (for of the power of imagination upon the body of the imaginant I have spoken above); wherein the school of Paracelsus and the disciples of pretended natural magic have been so intemperate, that they have exalted the power and apprehension of the imagination to be much one with the power of miracle-working faith. Others, that draw nearer to probability, looking with a clearer eye at the secret workings and impressions of things, the irradiations of the senses, the passage of contagion from body to body, the conveyance of magnetic virtues, have concluded that it is much more probable there should be impressions, conveyances, and communications from spirit to spirit (seeing that the spirit is above all other things both strenuous to act and soft and tender to be acted on); whence have arisen those conceits (now