Madam,
Your Faithful Friend
and Servant.
[1] Philos. part. 2. a. 6, 7.
[XXXV.]
MADAM,
That the Mind, according to your Authors opinion, is a substance really distinct from the body, and may be actually separated from it and subsist without it: If he mean the natural mind and soul of Man, not the supernatural or divine, I am far from his opinion; for though the mind moveth onely in its own parts, and not upon, or with the parts of inanimate matter, yet it cannot be separated from these parts of matter, and subsist by its self as being a part of one and the same matter the inanimate is of, (for there is but one onely matter, and one kind of matter, although of several degrees,) onely it is the self-moving part; but yet this cannot impower it, to quit the same natural body, whose part it is. Neither can I apprehend, that the Mind's or Soul's seat should be in the Glandula or kernel of the Brain, and there sit like a Spider in a Cobweb, to whom the least motion of the Cobweb gives intelligence of a Flye, which he is ready to assault, and that the Brain should get intelligence by the animal spirits as his servants, which run to and fro like Ants to inform it; or that the Mind should, according to others opinions, be a light, and imbroidered all with Ideas, like a Heraulds Coat; and that the sensitive organs should have no knowledg in themselves, but serve onely like peeping-holes for the mind, or barn-dores to receive bundles of pressures, like sheaves of Corn; For there being a thorow mixture of animate, rational and sensitive, and inanimate matter, we cannot assign a certain seat or place to the rational, another to the sensitive, and another to the inanimate, but they are diffused and intermixt throughout all the body; And this is the reason, that sense and knowledg cannot be bound onely to the head or brain; But although they are mixt together, nevertheless they do not lose their interior nature, by this mixture, nor their purity and subtilty, nor their proper motions or actions, but each moves according to its nature and substance, without confusion; The actions of the rational part in Man, which is the Mind or Soul, are called Thoughts, or thoughtful perceptions, which are numerous, and so are the sensitive perceptions; for though Man, or any other animal hath but five exterior sensitive organs, yet there be numerous perceptions made in these sensitive organs, and in all the body; nay, every several Pore of the flesh is a sensitive organ, as well as the Eye, or the Ear. But both sorts, as well the rational as the sensitive, are different from each other, although both do resemble another, as being both parts of animate matter, as I have mentioned before: Wherefore I'le add no more, onely let you know, that I constantly remain,
Madam,
Your faithful Friend,