and Servant.
[XXV.]
MADAM,
If according to your Authors opinion,[1] In every particular world, such as Man is especially, his own Soul (which is a Spirit) be the peculiar and most perfective architect of the Fabrick of his Body, as the Soul of the world is of it: Then I cannot conceive in my reason, how the separation is made in death; for I see, that all animals, and so man-kind, have a natural desire to live, and that life and soul are unwilling to part; And if the power lies in the Soul, why doth she not continue with the Body, and animate, move and actuate it, as she did before, or order the matter so, as not to dissolve? But if the dissolution lies in the body, then the body has self-motion: Yet it is most probable, if the soul be the architect of the body, it must also be the dissolver of it; and if there come not another soul into the parts of matter, the body must either be annihilated, or lie immoved as long as the world lasts, which is improbable; for surely all the bodies of men, or other animals, are imployed by Nature to some use or other: However, it is requisite, that the soul must stay so long in the body, until it be turned into dust and ashes; otherwise, the body having no self-motion, would remain as it was when the soul left it, that is, entire and undissolved: As for example; when a man dies, if there be no motion in his body, and the soul, which was the mover, be gone, it cannot possibly corrupt; for certainly, that we call corruption, is made by motion, and the body requires as much motion to be dissolved or divided, as it doth to be framed or composed; Wherefore a dead body would remain in the same state continually, it had no self-motion in it: And if another soul should enter into the body, and work it to another figure, then certainly there must be many more souls then bodies, because bodies are subject to change into several forms; but if the animal spirits, which are left in the body after the soul is gone, are able to dissolve it without the help of the soul, then it is probable they could have fram'd it without the help of the soul; and so they being material, it must be granted, that matter is self-moving: But if corporeal matter have corporeal self-motion, a self-moving Immaterial Spirit, by reason of their different natures, would make great obstruction, and so a general confusion; for the corporeal and incorporeal motions would hinder and oppose each other, their natures being quite different; and though they might subsist together without disturbance of each other, yet it is not probable they should act together, and that in such a conjunction, as if they were one united body; for it is, in my opinion, more probable, that one material should act upon another material, or one immaterial upon another immaterial, then that an immaterial should act upon a material or corporeal. Thus the consideration or contemplation of immaterial natural Spirits puts me always into doubts, and raises so many contradictions in my sense and reason, as I know not, nor am not able to reconcile them: However, though I am doubtful of them, yet I can assure your self that I continue,
Madam,
Your Faithful Friend
and Servant.
[1] Of the Immortality of the Soul, l. 2. c. 10.