but such an account of other countries of the east as he has given us of this kingdom, which he was an envoy to, we should be much better acquainted than we are with the manners, notions, and religions of that part of the world inhabited by civilized nations, who want neither good sense nor acuteness of reason, though not cast into the mould of the logic and philosophy of our schools.

But to return to Cicero: it is plain, that in his inquiries about the soul, his thoughts went not at all beyond matter. This the expressions that drop from him in several places of this book evidently show. For example, that the souls of excellent men and women ascended into heaven; of others, that they remained here on earth, c. 12. That the soul is hot, and warms the body: that, at its leaving the body, it penetrates, and divides, and breaks through our thick, cloudy, moist air: that it stops in the region of fire, and ascends no farther; the equality of warmth and weight making that its proper place, where it is nourished and sustained, with the same things wherewith the stars are nourished and sustained, and that by the convenience of its neighbourhood, it shall there have a clearer view and fuller knowledge of the heavenly bodies, c. 19. That the soul also from this height shall have a pleasant and fairer prospect of the globe of the earth, the disposition of whose parts will then lie before it in one view, c. 20. That it is hard to determine what conformation, size, and place, the soul has in the body: that it is too subtile to be seen: that it is in the human body as in a house, or a vessel, or a receptacle, c. 22. All which are expressions that sufficiently evidence, that he who used them had not in his mind separated materiality from the idea of the soul.

It may perhaps be replied, that a great part of this which we find in chap. 19 is said upon the principles of those who would have the soul to be anima inflammata, inflamed air. I grant it. But it is also to be observed, that in this 19th, and the two following chapters, he does not only not deny, but even admits, that so material a thing as inflamed air may think.

The truth of the case in short is this: Cicero was willing to believe the soul immortal; but, when he sought in the nature of the soul itself something to establish this, his belief into a certainty of it, he found himself at a loss. He confessed he knew not what the soul was; but the not knowing what it was, he argues, c. 22, was no reason to conclude it was not. And thereupon he proceeds to the repetition of what he had said in his 6th book, De Repub. concerning the soul. The argument, which, borrowed from Plato, he there makes use of, if it have any force in it, not only proves the soul to be immortal, but more than, I think, your lordship will allow to be true; for it proves it to be eternal, and without beginning, as well as without end: Neque nata certe est, et æterna est, says he.

Indeed, from the faculties of the soul he concludes right, that it is of divine original: but as to the substance of the soul, he at the end of this discourse concerning its faculties, c. 25, as well as at

this beginning of it, c. 22, is not ashamed to own his ignorance of what it is; Anima sit animus, ignisve, nescio; nec me pudet, ut istos, fateri nescire quod nesciam. Illud si ulla alia de re obscura affirmare possem, sive anima, sive ignis sit animus, eum jurarem esse divinum, c. 25. So that all the certainty he could attain to about the soul was, that he was confident there was something divine in it, i. e. there were faculties in the soul that could not result from the nature of matter, but must have their original from a divine power; but yet those qualities, as divine as they were, he acknowledged might be placed in breath or fire, which, I think, your lordship will not deny to be material substances. So that all those divine qualities, which he so much and so justly extols in the soul, led him not, as appears, so much as to any the least thought of immateriality. This is demonstration, that he built them not upon an exclusion of materiality out of the soul; for he avowedly professes he does not know but breath or fire might be this thinking thing in us: and in all his considerations about the substance of the soul itself, he struck in air, or fire, or Aristotle's quinta essentia; for beyond those it is evident he went not.

But with all his proofs out of Plato, to whose authority he defers so much, with all the arguments his vast reading and great parts could furnish him with for the immortality of the soul, he was so little satisfied, so far from being certain, so far from any thought that he had, or could prove it, that he over and over again professes his ignorance and doubt of it. In the beginning he enumerates the several opinions of the philosophers, which he had well studied, about it: and then, full of uncertainty, says, Harum sententiarum quæ vera sit, Deus aliquis viderit; quæ verisimillima, magna quæstio, c. 11. And towards the latter end, having gone them all over again, and one after another examined them, he professes himself still at a loss, not knowing on which to pitch, nor what to determine. Mentis acies, says he, seipsam intuens, nonnunquam hebescit, ob eamque causam contemplandi diligentiam amittimus. Itaque dubitans, circumspectans, hæsitans, multa adversa revertens, tanquam in rate in mari immenso, nostra vehitur oratio, c. 30. And to conclude this argument, when the person he introduces as discoursing with him tells him he is resolved to keep firm to the belief of immortality; Tully answers, c. 32, Laudo id quidem, etsi nihil animis oportet confidere: movemur enim sæpe aliquo acute concluso; labamus, mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in rebus; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas.

So unmoveable is that truth delivered by the spirit of truth, that though the light of nature gave some obscure glimmering, some uncertain hopes of a future state; yet human reason could attain to no clearness, no certainty about it, but that it was JESUS CHRIST alone who had brought life and immortality to light through the gospel *. Though we are now told, that to own the inability of natural reason to bring immortality to light, or, which

* 2 Tim. i. 10

passes for the same, to own principles upon which the immateriality of the soul (and, as it is urged, consequently its immortality) cannot be demonstratively proved, does lessen the belief of this article of revelation, which JESUS CHRIST alone has brought to light, and which consequently the scripture assures us is established and made certain only by revelation. This would not perhaps have seemed strange, from those who are justly complained of for slighting the revelation of the gospel, and therefore would not be much regarded, if they should contradict so plain a text of scripture, in favour of their all-sufficient reason: but what use the promoters of scepticism and infidelity, in an age so much suspected by your lordship, may make of what comes from one of your great authority and learning, may deserve your consideration.

And thus, my lord, I hope, I have satisfied you concerning Cicero's opinion about the soul, in his first book of Tusculan Questions; which, though I easily believe, as your lordship says, you are no stranger to, yet I humbly conceive you have not shown (and, upon a careful perusal of that treatise again, I think I may boldly say you cannot show) one word in it, that expresses any thing like a notion in Tully of the soul's immateriality, or its being an immaterial substance.

From what you bring out of Virgil, your lordship concludes, That he, no more than Cicero, does me any kindness in this matter, being both assertors of the soul's immortality. My lord, were not the question of the soul's immateriality, according to custom, changed here into that of its immortality, which I am no less an assertor of than either of them, Cicero and Virgil do me all the kindness I desired of them in this matter; and that was to show, that they attributed the word spiritus to the soul of man, without any thought of its immateriality; and this the verses you yourself bring out of Virgilt,

Et cum frigida mors animâ seduxerit artus,

Omnibus umbra locis adero; dabis, inprobe, pœnas;

confirm, as well as those I quoted out of his 6th book; and for this Monsieur de la Loubere shall by my witness in the words above set down out of him; where he shows, that there be those amongst the heathens of our days, as well as Virgil and others amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans, who thought the souls or ghosts of men departed did not die with the body, without thinking them to be perfectly immaterial; the latter being much more incompre-. hensible to them than the former. And what Virgil's notion of the soul is, and that corpus, when put in contradistinction to the soul, signifies nothing but the gross tenement of flesh and bones, is evident from this verse of his Eneid vi. where he calls the souls which yet were visible,

Your lordship's

* 1st Answer.

-Tenues sine corpore vitas.

answer concerning what is said Eccles. xii.

†Æneid. iv. 385. 1st Answer.

turns wholly upon Solomon's taking the soul to be immortal, which was not what I questioned: all that I quoted that place for, was to show, that spirit in English might properly be applied to the soul, without any notion of its immateriality, as n was by Solomon, which, whether he thought the souls of men to be immaterial, does little appear in that passage, where he speaks of the souls of men and beasts together, as he does. But farther, what I contended for is evident from that place, in that the word spirit is there applied by our translators to the souls of beasts, which your lordship, I think, does not rank amongst the immaterial, and consequently immortal spirits, though they have sense and spontaneous motion. But you say, *If the soul be not of itself a free thinking substance, you do not see what foundation there is in nature for a day of judgment. Ans. Though the heathen world did not of old, nor do to this day, see a foundation in nature for a day of judgment; yet in revelation, if that will satisfy your lordship, every one may see a foundation for a day of judgment, because God has positively declared it; though God has not by that revelation taught us what the substance of the soul is; nor has any where said, that the soul of itself is a free agent. Whatsoever any created substance is, it is not of itself, but is by the good pleasure of its Creator: whatever degrees of perfection it has, it has from the bountiful hand of its Maker. For it is true in a natural, as well as a spiritual sense, what St. Paul says, † Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.

But your lordship, as I guess by your following words, would argue, that a material substance cannot be a free agent; whereby I suppose you only mean, that you cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should begin, stop, or change its own motion. Το which give me leave to answer, that when you can make it conceivable, how any created, finite, dependent substance can move itself, or alter or stop its own motion, which it must to be a free agent; I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance. Tully in the place above quoted, could not conceive this power to be in any thing but what was from eternity; Cum pateat igitur æternum id esse quod seipsum moveat, quis est qui hanc naturam animis esse tributam neget? But though you cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can be a free agent, (pardon me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to explain it of either, and show the manner how either of them can, of itself, move itself or any thing else) yet I do not think you will so far deny men to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see how they are free agents, as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for a day of judgment.

It is not for me to judge how far your lordship's speculations

* 1st Answer. † 2 Cor. iii. 5. ‡ Tusculair Quæst. L. 1. c. 23.

*

impossible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that

Omni

reach but finding in myself nothing to be truer than what the wise Solomon tells me, *As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child; even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things; I gratefully receive and rejoice in the light of revelation, which sets me at rest in many things, the manner whereof my poor reason can by no means make out to me. potency, I know, can do any thing that contains in it no contradiction; so that I readily believe whatever God has declared, though my reason find difficulties in it, which it cannot master. As in the present case, God having revealed that there shall be a day of judgment, I think that foundation enough to conclude men are free enough to be made answerable for their actions, and to receive according to what they have done: though how man is a free agent surpass my explication or comprehension.

In answer to the place I brought out of St. Luke †, your lordship asks, Whether from these words of our Saviour it follows, that a spirit is only an appearance? I answer No; nor do I know who drew such an inference from them: but it follows, that in apparitions there is something that appears, and that which appears is not wholly immaterial; and yet this was properly called TVEUμα, and was often looked upon, by those who called it veμa in Greek, and now call it spirit in English, to be the ghost or soul of one departed; which I humbly conceive justifies my use of the word spirit, for a thinking voluntary agent, whether material or immaterial.

Your lordship says, § That I grant, that it cannot upon these principles be demonstrated, that the spiritual substance in us is immaterial; from whence you conclude, That then my grounds of certainty from ideas are plainly given up. This being a way of arguing that you often make use of, I have often had occasion to consider it, and cannot after all see the force of this argument. I acknowledge that this or that proposition cannot upon my principles be demonstrated; ergo, I grant this proposition to be false, that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. For that is my ground of certainty, and till that be given up, my grounds of certainty are not given up.

* Eccl. xi. 5.

Chap. xxiv. v. 39. 1st Answer.. § Ibid.