Chapter 34: Of the Soul's Immortality and the Proofs Thereof
And from this simplicity follows by a necessary and unavoidable consequence, the third property spoken of, immortality, it being absolutely impossible (as Tully excellently observes, and it is the argument of Jul. Scaliger on this very occasion) for any simple and uncompounded nature to be subject to death and corruption; For (says Tully) Interitus est discessus & secretio ac direptus earum partium quae conjunctione [reconstructed: aliqua] tenebantur. It is a separation (and as it were) a divulsion of parts, before united each to other, so that where there is no union, there can be no separation, and by consequence no death nor mortality.
Another reason may be the same which was alleged for the spirituality of the soul, namely independence in operation, and therefore consequently in being upon the body. And that independence is manifest, first, because the acts of the soul are elicited immediately in itself, without the intercedence of any organ whereby sensitive faculties work. Secondly, because the soul can perceive and have the knowledge of truth of universals, of itself, of Angels, of God, can assent, discourse, abstract, censure, invent, contrive, and the like; none of which actions could anyway be produced by the intrinsic concurrence of any material faculty. Thirdly, because in raptures and ecstasies, the soul is (as it were) drawn up above and from the body, though not from informing it, yet certainly from borrowing from it any assistance to the producing of its operation. All which prove, that the soul is separable from the body in its nature, and therefore that it is not corrupt and mortal as the body.
Another reason may be taken from the universal agreement of all nations in the earth in religion and the worship of some deity, which cannot but be raised out of a hope and secret resolution that that God whom they worshipped, would reward their piety, if not here, yet in another life. Nulla gens adeo extra leges est [reconstructed: projecta] ut non aliquos deos credat, says Seneca; from where those fictions of the poets touching Elysium and fields of happiness for men of honest and well ordered lives; and places of torment for those that do any way neglect the bonds of their religion.
Ergo exercentur poenis, veterumque malorum Supplicia expendunt.
Therefore they exercised are with pain, and punishments of former crimes sustain.
For in this life it is many times in all places seen, that those which have given themselves most liberty in contempt of God's laws, and have suffered themselves to be carried by the swing of their own rebellious passions, to all injurious, ambitious, unruly practices, have commonly raised themselves and their fortunes more than others, who out of tenderness and fear have followed no courses but those which are allowed them. And yet these men who suffer so many indignities out of regard to religion, do still observe their duties, and in the midst of all contempt and reproach, fly into the bosom of their God: And as Lucretius himself that arch-atheist confesses of them:
—Multò in rebus acerbis [reconstructed: Acrius] advertunt animos ad religionem.
Their hearts in greatest bitterness of mind, to religion are the more inclined.
Their very terrors and troubles make them more zealous in acknowledging some deity and in the worship of it. Hic Pietatis [reconstructed: honor]? Would not this easily have melted their religion into nothing, and quite diverted their minds from so fruitless a severity, had they not had a strong and indelible persuasion fastened in their souls, that a state would come, wherein both their patience should be rewarded, and the insolence of their adversaries repaid with the just vengeance they had deserved?
As for that atheistic conceit, that religion is only grounded on policy, and maintained by princes for the better tranquility and settledness of their states, making it to be only Imperiorum Vinculum, a bond of government, that the commonwealth might not suffer from the fury of minds secure from all religion, it is a fancy no less absurd, than it is impious. For that which has not only been observed and honored by those who have scarce had any form of a civil regiment among them, but even generally assented to by the opinions and practice of the whole world, is not a law of policy and civil institution, but an inborn and secret law of nature dictated by the consciences of men, and assented to, without and above any human imposition. Nor else is it possible for legal institutions, and the closest and most intricate conveyances of human policy so much to entangle the hearts of men (of themselves inclinable to liberty) nor to fetter their consciences, as thereby only to bring them to a regular conformity to all government for fear of such a God, to whose infiniteness, power and majesty they assent by none but a civil tradition. It must be a visible character of a deity acknowledged in the soul, an irresistible principle in nature, and the secret witness of the heart of man, that must constrain it to those sundry religious ceremonies (observed among all nations) wherein even in places of idolatry, were some so irksome and repugnant to nature, and others so void of reason, as that nothing but a firm and deep assurance of a divine judgment, and of their own immortality, could ever have imposed them upon their consciences. And besides this consent of men to religion in general, we find it also to this one part thereof touching the soul's immortality. All the wisest and best reputed philosophers for learning and steadiness of life, and, besides them, even barbarians, infidels, and savage people have discerned it. Adeo nescio quo [reconstructed: modo] inhaeret in menibus quasi seculorum quoddam augurium futurorum, says Tully. The soul has a kind of presage of a future world; and therefore he says, that it is in man's body a tenant, tanquam in [reconstructed: domo aliena], as in another's house: and is only in Heaven as a lord tanquam in domo suâ, as in its own.
Though in the former of these, the ignorance of the resurrection made him err touching the future condition of the body, wherein indeed consists a main dignity of man above other creatures. And this opinion it is which he says was the ground of all that care men had for posterity, to sow and plant commonwealths, to ordain laws, to establish forms of government, to erect foundations and societies, to hazard their blood for the good of their country; all which could not have been done with such freedom of spirit, and prodigality of life, unless there were withal a conceit that the good thereof would some way or other redound to the contentment of the authors themselves after this life: for it was a speech savoring of infinite atheism.
[illegible]
When I am dead, and in mine [reconstructed: Urn]; what care I though the world burns?
Now although against this present reason drawn from the consent of men (which yet heathens themselves have used) it may be alleged that there has been a consent likewise of some, that the soul is nothing else but the Eucrasia or good temperature of the body, and that it is therefore subject to those maladies, distempers, age, sickness, and at last death, which the body is; as among the rest Lucretius takes much pains to prove: yet the truth is, that is Votum magis quàm Iudicium, never any firm opinion grounded on judgment and reason, but rather a desire of the heart, and a persuasion of the will enticing the understanding so to determine. For the conscience of lewd Epicures and sensual minds, being sometimes frightened with the flashes and apprehensions of immortality, which often times pursues them, and obtrudes itself upon them against their wills, shining like lightning through the chinks and crevices (as I may so speak) of their souls, which are of set purpose closed against all such light, sets the reason on work to invent arguments for the contrary side, that [reconstructed: so] their staggering and fearful impiety may [reconstructed: be] something emboldened, and the eye of their conscience blinded, and the mouth muzzled from breathing forth those secret clamors and shrieks of fear. The denial then of the immortality of the soul is rather a wish than an opinion, a corruption of the heart and will, than any natural assertion of the understanding, which cannot but out of the footsteps and relics of those first sacred impressions, acknowledge a spiritual resemblance in the soul of man to some supreme deity, whom the conscience in all its enormities does displease: and therefore it is observed that the mind of an atheist is continually wavering and unsatisfied, never able so to smother the inbred consciousness of its immortality, as not to have continual suggestions of fear and scruple. Wherever there is an impious heart, there is always a shivering judgment.
Another reason of the soul's immortality may be drawn from the dignity and preeminence of man above other creatures: for he is made lord over them, and they were ordained to be serviceable to him, and ministers for his contentments: which dignity cannot possibly stand with the mortality of the soul. For should not many other creatures far exceed man in the duration of their being? And even in their time of living together, how subject to weaknesses, sickness, languishing, cares, fear, jealousies, discontents, and all other miseries of mind and body, is the whole nature of man, of all which, other creatures feel the least disturbance? Are not men here, beyond the rest, the very proper subjects and receptacles of misery? Is not our heart made the natural center of fears and sorrows? And our minds, as it were, hives to entertain numberless swarms of stinging and thorny cares? Are we not vassals and slaves to many distempered passions? Have not our very contents their terror, and our peace disturbance? Are not all our comforts, with which we strive to glut and stuff ourselves here, the glorious vanities, and golden delusions and cozenages of the world? And how miserable must their miseries be, whose very happiness is unhappy? And for reason, what comfort could we find in it, when it would always be presenting to us the consideration of an eternal loss of all our contentments, and still affright us with the dark and hideous conceit of annihilation? Mortality and corruption makes unreasonableness a privilege; and in this case the beasts would be so much the more happy than man, by how much the less they know their own wretchedness. An atheist would be in this life far happier than he is, if he could bring himself to have as little reason as he has religion.
Another reason may be taken from the nature of man's reasonable faculties. To every power in man, as God has assigned a peculiar operation, so likewise has he given it objects of equal extent thereto, which are therefore able to accomplish its natural desires, whereby it fastens on them. And for this cause from the nature of the objects, we easily rise to know the nature both of the faculties and essence; for from the essence flows naturally the faculty, from the faculty is naturally educed the operation, which requires naturally objects proportional, convenient, satisfactory, and of equal extent. Where therefore no mortal object bears full convenience, nor is able to satiate and quiet the faculty, there it and the essence, from which it flows, are both immortal. Now we see sensitive powers find in this life full satisfaction, as the sight from all the variety of colors, the ear of sounds, and the like: only the reasonable parts, the understanding, and the will can never be replenished in this estate of mortality. Have they as great and wide contentments, as the whole frame of nature can here afford them; still their pursuits are restless, still they find an absence and want of something, which they cannot find. Orbis Alexandro angustus; in this case every man is like Alexander. This world wherein we now converse, is too strait and empty to fill the vastness, and limit the desires of the soul of man. Only the sight and possession of God, the most infinite good, can satisfy our understandings and our wills. For both these faculties (as all others in suo [reconstructed: genere]) aim at summum. The understanding is carried ad summam Causam to the first of truths; the will ad summum Bonum to the last of ends; and therefore he only which is the first and the last, can satisfy these two searching and unquiet faculties. [reconstructed: Hi motus Animorum atque haec certamina].
These are the motions, this the strife of souls, aspiring to life.
All the knowledge we heap up here, serves only as a mirror wherein to view our ignorance, and we have only light enough to discover that we are in the dark. And indeed, were there no estate wherein knowledge should receive a perfection, and be thoroughly proportioned to the heart of man, the labor of getting the knowledge we have, and the vexation for the want of what we have not, and the grief of parting so soon with it, would render the vexation of it far greater than the content.
Hoc est quòd palles? cur quis non prandeat hoc est?
Is this the fruit, for which we fast? And by pale studies sooner waste?
Do we toil and sweat, and even melt ourselves away for that which we sooner forsake than find? Do we deny ourselves the contentments and satisfactions most agreeable to our corporeal condition, being without hope of accomplishing our wishes in another estate? It is natural for gaining of knowledge to hasten to that whereby we lose both it and ourselves? And to labor for such a purchase, which like lightning is at once begun and ended, indeed sooner lost than gotten? Certainly were man not conscious of his own immortality, there could be no stronger inducement to sottishness, luxury, riot, sensuality, and all other unbridled practices. It is registered for the impiety of atheists: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.
Another reason may be framed after the same manner, as was that to prove the spirituality of the soul from the manner of its operation. And it is grounded on those two ordinary axioms in philosophy, that every thing is received according to the quality of the receiver, and that every thing has the same manner of [reconstructed: essence], as it has of operation. Now the soul of man can easily receive impressions and conceits of immortality, and discourse thereupon: therefore also it is in its own essence and nature immortal. We see even between things merely corporeal, as the object and the sensitive organ, how small a disproportion works incapacity. Much more must it be found in so great a difference as would be between immortality of objects and corruption of the soul that works on them. We cannot picture an angel or spirit, nor make any [reconstructed: immaterial] stamp in a piece of wax, since a corporeal substance is capable of none but corporeal impressions. And therefore we see that even among bodies, the more pure and subtle they are, the more are they exempted from the perception of the quickest and most spiritual sense, the sight. Now the mind of man in understanding, is but as wax to the seal, or as a table and picture to an object which it represents: which is the ground of that paradox in Aristotle, that in understanding the soul is (as it were) made the object that is understood. Because, as the wax, after it is stamped, is in some sort the very seal itself that stamped it, namely representative, by way of image and resemblance; so the soul, in receiving the species of any object, is made the picture and image of the thing itself. Now the understanding, being able to apprehend immortality (indeed apprehending every corporeal substance, as if it were immortal, I mean by purging it from all gross material and corruptible qualities) must therefore needs of itself be of an immortal nature. And from the latter of those two principles, which I spoke of, namely, that the quality of the being may be gathered from the nature of the operation, Aristotle infers the separability and independence of the understanding on the body, in the third de Animâ afore-named: for the soul being able to work without the concurrence of any bodily organ to the very act itself (as was before showed) must needs also be able to subsist by its own nature, without the concurrence of any matter to sustain it. And therefore he says in the same place, that the understanding is separable, uncompounded, impassible; all arguments of immortality. Other reasons are produced for the proof hereof, taken from the causes of corruption, which is brought about either by contraries working and eating out nature; or by defect of the preserving cause, as light is decayed by absence of the sun; or thirdly by corruption of the subject whereon it depends. None of these can be verified in the soul. For first, how can anything be contrary to the soul, which receives perfection from all things? For Intellectus omnia intelligit, says Aristotle, indeed wherein all contraries are reconciled and put off their opposition? For (as a great man excellently speaks) those things, which destroy one another in the world, maintain and perfect one another in the mind; one being a means for the clearer apprehension of the other. Secondly, God, who is the only efficient of the soul (being else in itself simple and indivisible, and therefore not capable of death, but only of annihilation) does never fail, and has himself promised never to bring it to nothing. And lastly, the soul depends not, as do other forms, either in operation or being, on the body, being not only Actus informans, but subsistens too, by its own absolute virtue.
