heavy-spirited Christians that find so little divine life and activity in their own souls, as to imagine them to fall into such a dead sleep as soon as they leave this earthly tabernacle, that they cannot be awakened again, till that last trumpet, and the voice of an archangel, shall rouse them up. Our author's discourse is this. Having first premised this principle-that every divine thing is immortal; 'Let us now consider a soul (saith he), not such a one as is immersed into the body having contracted unreasonable concupiscence and anger (according to which they were wont to distinguish between the irascible and concupiscible faculty) and other passions; but such a one as hath cast away these, and, as little as may be, communicates with the body: such a one as this will sufficiently manifest that all vice is unnatural to the soul, and something acquired only from abroad; and that the best wisdom and all other virtues lodge in a purged soul, as being allied to it. If, therefore, such a soul shall reflect upon itself, how shall it not appear to itself to be of such a kind of nature as divine and eternal essences are? for wisdom and true virtue, being divine effluxes, can never enter into any unhallowed and mortal thing: it must therefore needs be divine, seeing it is filled with a divine nature by its kindred and consanguinity therewith. Whoever, therefore, amongst us is such a one, differs but little in his soul from angelical essences; and that little is the present inhabitation in the body, in which he is inferior to them. And if every man were of this exalted temper, or any considerable number had but such holy souls, there would be no such infidels as would, in any sort, disbelieve the soul's immortality. But now the vulgar sort of men, beholding the souls of the generality so mutilated and deformed with vice and wickedness, cannot think of the soul as of any divine and immortal being; though, indeed, they ought to judge of things as they are in their own naked

essences, and not with respect to that which extra-essentially adheres to them; which is the great prejudice of knowledge. Contemplate, therefore, the soul of man, denuding it of all that which itself is not, or let him that does this, view his own soul; then he will believe it to be immortal, when he shall behold it fixed in an intelligible and pure nature; he shall then behold his own intellect contemplating, not any sensible thing, but eternal things, with that which is eternal, that is, with itself, looking into the intellectual world, being itself made all lucid, intellectual, and shining with the sunbeams of eternal truth, borrowed from the first good, which perpetually rayeth forth his truth upon all intellectual beings. One thus qualified may seem, without arrogance, to take up that saying of Empedocles, "Farewell, all earthly allies! I am henceforth no mortal being, but an immortal angel, ascending up into divinity, and reflecting upon that likeness of it which I find in myself." When true sanctity and purity shall ground him in the knowledge of divine things, then shall the inward sciences, that arise from the bottom of his own soul, display themselves; which indeed are the only true sciences: for the soul runs not out of itself to behold temperance and justice abroad, but its own light sees them in the contemplation of its own being, and that divine essence which was before enshrined within itself'.'

1 Λάβωμεν δὲ ψυχὴν, μὴ τὴν ἐν σώ ματι, ἐπιθυμίας ἀλόγους καὶ θυμοὺς προσλαβοῦσαν, καὶ πάθη ἄλλα ἀναδεξαμένην, ἀλλὰ τὴν ταῦτα ἀποτριψαμένην, καὶ καθ' ὅσον οἷόν τε μὴ κοψωνοῦσαν τῷ σώματι, ἥτις καὶ δῆλον ποιεῖ ὡς προσθῆκαι τὰ κακὰ τῇ ψυχῇ, καὶ ἄλλοθεν, καθηραμένῃ δὲ αὐτῇ ἐνυπάρχει τὰ ἄριστα, φρόνησις, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη ἀρετὴ, οἰκεῖα ὄντα. Εἰ οὖν τοιοῦτον ἡ ψυχὴ ὅταν ἐφ' ἑαυτὴν ἀνέλθῃ, πῶς οὐ τῆς φύσεως ἐκείνης, οἵαν φαμὲν τὴν τοῦ θείου καὶ ἀϊδίου παντὸς εἶναι; φρόνησις γὰρ καὶ ἀρετὴ ἀλη θὴς θεῖα ὄντα οὐκ ἂν ἐγγένοιτο φαύλῳ τινὶ

καὶ θνητῷ πράγματι, ἀλλ' ἀνάγκη θεῖον τὸ τοιοῦτον εἶναι, ἅτε θείων μετὸν αὐτῷ διὰ συγγένειαν, καὶ τὸ ὁμοούσιον. Διὸ καὶ ὅστις τοιοῦτος ἡμῶν, ὀλίγον ἂν παραλλάττῃ τῶν ἄνω τῇ ψυχῇ αὐτῇ, μόνον τοῦτο, ὅσον ἐστὶν ἐν σώματι, ἐλαττούμενος. Διὸ καὶ, εἰ πᾶς ἄνθρωπος τοιοῦτος ἦν, ἢ πλῆθός τι τοιαύ ταις ψυχαῖς κεχρημένον, οὐδεὶς οὕτως ἦν ἄπιστος, ὡς μὴ πιστεύειν τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτ τοῖς πάντη ἀθάνατον εἶναι. Νῦν δὲ πολύ λαχοῦ λελωβημένην τὴν ἐν τοῖς πλείστοις ψυχὴν ὁρῶντες, οὔτε ὡς περὶ θείου, οὔτε ὡς περὶ ἀθανάτου χρήματος διανοοῦνται. Δεί

I might, after all this, add many more reasons for a further confirmation of this present thesis, which are as numerous as the soul's relations and productions themselves are; but to every one who is willing to do justice to his own soul, this evidence we have already brought in is more than sufficient.

CHAPTER VIII.

An appendix, containing an inquiry into the sense and opinion of Aristotle concerning the immortality of the soul. That, according to him, the rational soul is separable from the body, and immortal. The true meaning of his intellectus agens and patiens.

H

AVING done with the several proofs of the soul's immortality, that great principle of natural theology, which if it be not entertained as a communis notitia, (as I doubt not but that it is by the vulgar sort of men,) or as an axiom, or, if you will, a theorem of free and impartial reason, all endeavours in religion will be very cool and languid—it may not be amiss to inquire a little concerning his opinion, whom so many take for the great intelligencer of nature, and omniscient oracle of truth; though it be too manifest that he hath so defaced the

δὲ τὴν φύσιν ἑκάστου σκοπεῖσθαι, εἰς τὸ καθαρὸν αὐτοῦ ἀφορῶντα, ἐπείπερ τὸ προστεθὲν ἐμπόδιον ἀεὶ πρὸς γνῶσιν τοῦ ᾧ προσετέθη γίγνεται. Σκόπει δὴ ἀφελών, μᾶλλον δὲ ὁ ἀφελὼν ἑαυτὸν ἰδέτω, καὶ πιστεύσει ἀθάνατος εἶναι, ὅταν ἑαυτὸν θεάσηται ἐν τῷ νοητῷ, καὶ ἐν τῷ καθαρῷ γεγενημένον. Ὄψεται γὰρ νοῦν ὁρῶντα οὐκ αἰσθητόν τι, οὐδὲ τῶν θνητῶν τούτων, ἀλλ ̓ ἀϊδίῳ τὸ ἀtδιον κατανοοῦντα, πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ νοητῷ κόσμῳ, καὶ αὑτὸν νοητὸν καὶ φωτεινὸν γεγενημένον, ἀληθείᾳ καταλαμπόμενον, τῇ παρὰ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ὅ πᾶσιν ἐπιλάμπει τοῖς νοητοῖς ἀλήθειαν· ὡς πολλάκις αὐτῷ δόξαι

τοῦτο δὴ καλῶς εἰρῆσθαι· χαίρετ', ἐγὼ δ ̓ ὑμῖν θεὸς ἄμβροτος, πρὸς τὸ θεῖον ἀναβὰς, καὶ τὴν πρὸς αὐτὸ ὁμοιότητα ἀτενίσας. El δ ̓ ἡ κάθαρσις ποιεῖ ἐν γνώσει τῶν ἀρίστων εἶναι, καὶ αἱ ἐπιστῆμαι ἔνδον οὖσαι ἀναφαίνονται, αἳ δὴ καὶ ὄντως ἐπιστῆμαί εἰσιν. Οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἔξω που δραμοῦσα ἡ ψυχὴ σωφροσύ νην καθορᾷ καὶ δικαιοσύνην, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὴ παρ' αὐτῇ ἐν τῇ κατανοήσει ἑαυτῆς, καὶ τοῦ ὁ πρότερον ἦν, ὥσπερ ἀγάλματα ἐν αὐτῇ ἱδρυμένα ὁρῶσα, οἷα ὑπὸ χρόνου τοῦ πεπληρωμένα, καθαρὰ ποιησαμένη. — Plot. Enn. IV. 7. 10. Cf. Emped. Fragm. v. 355 (Stein).

sacred monuments of the ancient metaphysical theology by his profane hands, that it is hard to see that lovely face of truth which was once engraven upon them, (as some of his own interpreters have long ago observed); and so blurred those fair copies of divine learning which he received from his predecessors, that his late interpreters, who make him their all, are sometimes as little acquainted with his meaning and design, as they are with that elder philosophy which he so corrupts; which, indeed, is the true reason why they are so ambiguous in determining his opinion of the soul's immortality, though he often asserts and demonstrates it in his three books De Anima. We shall not here traverse this notion through them all, but only briefly take notice of that which hath made his expositors stumble so much in this point; the main whereof is that definition which he gives of the soul, wherein he seems to make it nothing else for the genus of it, but an entelechia or informative thing, which spends all its virtue upon that matter which it informs, and cannot act any other way than merely by information; being indeed nothing else but some material eidos, like an impression in wax which cannot subsist without it, or else the result of it: whence it is that he calls only either material forms, or the functions and operations of those forms, by this name. But, indeed, he intended not this for a general definition of the soul of man, and therefore, after he had laid down this particular definition of the soul, he tells us expressly, that that which we call the rational soul is separable from the body, because it is not the entelech of any body'.'

1 Ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ψυχὴ χωριστὴ τοῦ σώματος, ἢ μέρη τινὰ αὐτῆς, εἰ μεριστὴ πέφυκεν, οὐκ ἄδηλον· ἐνίων γὰρ ἡ ἐντελέχεια τῶν μερῶν ἐστὶν αὐτῶν. Οὐ μὴν ἀλλ ̓ ἔνιά γε οὐθὲν κωλύει, διὰ τὸ μηθενὸς εἶναι σώματος ἐντελεχείας. Ἔτι δὲ ἄδηλον εἰ οὔτως ἐντελέχεια τοῦ σώματος ἡ ψυχὴ ὥσπερ πλωτὴρ πλοίου.—De An. II. c. I.

"The rational soul has two states or conditions: one so far as it abides in itself, the other as it proceeds into body: and, considered, indeed, as abiding in itself, it is a form separated from body, always intelligent and blessed: but, considered as proceeding into body, it is said to be the soul of man, and is not always

The demonstration of this he lays down in several places of all those three books, by inquiring 'whether the soul hath any proper function or operation of its own',' or whether all be compounded, and result from the soul and body together: and, in this inquiry, finding that all sensations and passions arise as well from the body as from the soul, and spring out of the conjunction of both of them, (which he therefore calls érvλo λóryo, as being begotten by the soul upon the body) he concludes that all this savours of nothing else but a material nature, inseparable from the body. But then, finding acts of mind and understanding, which cannot be propagated from matter, or causally depend upon the body, he resolves the principles from whence they flow to be immortal; which he thus sets down: 'Now as for the mind and theoretical power, it appears not,' viz. that they belong to that soul which in the former chapter was defined by évreλéxeia, but it seems to be another kind of soul, and that only is separable from the body, as that which is eternal and immortal from that which is corruptible3.' But the other powers or

intelligent, but energises intellectually with study and labour, and is the form of man. Hence, Aristotle, in this treatise, does not consider nor define the rational soul, unless so far as it is conjoined to the body, to which it imparts existence. It has, therefore, two relations to the body: one, so far as it is its form and first energy: the other, so far as it uses the body, now informed by it, and governs it in the same manner as the pilot governs the ship.'-Taylor.

1 Εἰ μὲν οὖν ἐστί τι τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς ἔργων ἢ παθημάτων ἴδιον, ἐνδέχοιτ' ἂν αὐτὴν χωρίζεσθαι. — De An. I. c. I.

Ibid. sub fin.

3 Περὶ δὲ τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῆς θεωρητικής δυνάμεως, οὐδέν πω φανερὸν, ἀλλ ̓ ἔοικε ψυχῆς γένος ἕτερον εἶναι, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἐνδέχεται χωρίζεσθαι, καθάπερ τὸ ἀΐδιον τοῦ φθαρTOU.-De An. II. c. 2.

In conjunction with the views of Aristotle respecting the soul, as separable, or inseparable, from the body, we may consider the opinion of a deep-thinking philosopher among the Jews. Maimonides, in like manner, looks upon the vegetative and sensitive part of the soul as inseparable from the body, and therefore perishing together with it. The rational part, on the contrary, he considers as separable from the body, and so existing after its destruction. Further, the difference between the two writers is what we might expect. The Greek philosopher believed in the eternal destruction of the body, and therefore with him the rational soul, though immortal, was to pass its future existence altogether apart from the body. With the Jew, the resurrection of the body was an article of faith, and therefore the rational soul was to be reunited