As great a Paradox as this may at first blush appear, yet it will need little more to make it out than the application of some things already delivered on occasion of the two foregoing Advices, of which this is indeed little more than a Corollary. For it being evident, that as a great part of the Dictates of Reason are Negative, so Negative Propositions do usually spring from the repugnancy we judge that some things have to some positive Dictate of Reason; if those positive Dictates contain but gradual and limited Truths (to borrow Sophronius his Terms;) and come to be unduly extended to privileg’d Subjectss it may very possibly happen, that a thing may be really true, that yet must appear false, if it be judg’d of by its congruity to one of those limited, and but respective Dictates of Reason. ‘Tis also clear, that not only in Philosophy, but natural (as well as reveal’d) Theology the usual ground on which we reject many things is, that we judge them unintelligible. And I censure not the practice in general, but I think it may easily mislead us, when it is extended to things that we may discern to transcend our Reason, as for ought yet appears, some of the Modus’s even of things Corporeal are found to do. And we think we have made complete Enumerations of the several ways of inexistence of an Attribute in a Subject, or of the operation of one thing upon another, when indeed we have overlook’d one or other, and perhaps that which we have thus pretermitted may be the true one; tho it may be also that no attention and diligence of ours could in some Cases have served our turn, the Modus inquired after being not conceivable to us, tho it may be too a higher than a human Intellect.
Pyrocles.
The School-Philosophers for many Ages in the Catalogues they made of the ways of a Bodies working upon another at a distance; did not think of the true ways by which Odors and Sounds are communicated to us, and therefore had recourse to certain unintelligible things, which they were pleas’d to call Species Intentionales. Whereas those modern Naturalists that philosophize freely, acknowledge, that Odors are communicated by Effl[…]viums, exhaling from the odorous Body, and fitted to affect our Nostrils, and Sounds are transmitted to the Ear by the undulating motion which the Air is put into by the impulse of the vibrating, or otherwise agitated parts of the sonorous Body.
Timoth.
Methinks we need not go out of our selves to find Instances of both the parts of what Arnobius was last saying, if we admit, as I question not but we rationally may, this Tenet of the generality of Philosophers, both ancient and modern, That the Reasonable Soul is an immaterial Substance: For then; whereas men think they have sufficiently enumerated the ways of determining the motion of a Body, by saying, that the determination must be made either in the Line wherein the Impellent that put it into motion made it move, or in the Line wherein it was determined to move by the situation of the resisting Body that it met with in its way; the motions of the animal Spirits, if not also some other internal parts of the Body, may, the Body being duly disposed, be determined by the human Will; which is a way quite differing from the other. And how this Attribute, I mean the power of determining the motion of a Body, without any power to impart motion to that Body, should belong to an immaterial Creature, which has no Corporeal Parts to resist the free passage of a Body, and thereby change the Line of its Motion, is not yet, nor perhaps ever will be in this life, clearly conceived by us men, tho there is no doubt, but that he, who indowed the Soul with this Attribute or Power, perfectly understands, both how it exists in the Soul, and how the Soul by exerting it, operates on the Body.
Pyrocles.
But can any thing seem more unreasonable than to embrace opinions that contradict the Rules of Reason; which practice, if it be once allowed, why should we trouble our selves to investigate what is congruous or incongruous to Reason, since the making a discovery, that an opinion is repugnant to it, will not assure us of that opinions being false.
Arnob.
A person less knowing and equitable than Pyrocles would have spared this double Objection, if he had remembred, what hath been formerly said, applicable to our present purpose, and what kind of things they are that we are discoursing of: But to remind him a little of them, I shall desire him to consider with me, that I no way disallow the rejecting of Opinions that are found contrary to those Rules of Reason, at the framing of which the things opin’d about were duly taken into consideration: But in Cases not thought on when such Rules were devised, we are not always bound to submit to be judged by them; and to maintain an opinion unconformable to such a Rule, may be not to oppose a genuine and absolute dictate of Reason, but to rectifie one that is erroneously thought so, by shewing, that the Rule is expressed in more Catholick and Indefinite Terms than it ought to have been. And of two opinions you will not deny that that is the most rational that is most agreeable to those Rules of Reason, that are framed upon the fullest Information.
Eugen.
‘Tis not difficult to gather from what you have said, Arnobius, that in the Rule you proposed to us; very few of the Cases that occur in ordinary discourse, or even in that of Philosophers, will be at all concern’d. And in these few Cases wherein you intend the Rule should take place, you are careful to obviate inconveniences by a double caution. The first that you suppose, that the opinion that claims an exemption from the common Rules, is not an arbitrary or precarious Tenet, but sufficisufficiently made out by proper Arguments. And the second, by declaring, that ‘tis not to contradict right Reason, but bad Reasoners to give limitation to Rules that have been too hastily fram’d and conceiv’d in too general Terms, by men, who either were not competently inform’d of the variety of Particulars, when they took upon them to make Analyses and Enumerations; or else presum’d to infer, that a thing was not, because they did not understand the Modus of its existence or operation.
Arnobius.
You take my sense right, Eugenius, and I have often thought, that the causes of the great clamor that is made against some men for not obsequiously submitting to, what some others call the Rules of Reason, are, that men do not sufficiently understand the nature of things and themselves, but entertain too narrow conceptions of the former, and too high an opinion of the later.
Pyrocles.
The Dictates of Reason being the surest, if not the only safe Rules, that Nature has given us to frame our Discourses and Ratiocinations by; I confess I am, tho not fully resolv’d, yet very unwilling, to allow any Conclusion that is not conformable to them: or to admit that any thing should be so highly privileg’d, as to be exempted from the Jurisdiction of Reason, whose genuine Declarations they are.
Eugenius.
This Objection, Pyrocles, seems to me to be grounded rather upon an ambiguity of Terms, than the true nature of Things. For Reason is oftentimes taken for a Set of Notions and Propositions employ’d and acquiesc’d in by this or that sort of Reasoners, that are wont to have names given them from this or that particular Discipline, as Astronomy, Chymistry, Opticks, &c. of whose receiv’d Doctrines they are supposed to be entirely maintainers. But it is also with at least as much propriety, used to signifie the rational faculty it self; furnished with the light that accompanies it when it is rightly disposed and informed. In the first of these two Senses it seems but reasonable to allow, that some things ought to have the privilege to be exempted from being judg’d by some of the same Rules that are employ’d to judge of other things by; for some of these Rules were fram’d upon a slight consideration of common and familiar things, either by the vulgar, or by men that for want of skill or application of mind did not critically consider the distinct natures of things, and yet presum’d to settle Rules that other mens inadvertence or laziness has made them receive for certain Dictates of Reason: whereas other natures should have been then considered as well as those: and by reason of their not having been so, the Rules I speak of are not always proper and safe, when they are applyed to these over-looked natures. Thus Successive Beings, as Time and Local Motion, do in some Cases require to be estimated by other measures than Substances, whether material, or incorporeal· And so also the more nice Metaphysicians, especially among the Moderns, have thought themselves obliged to discourse of Moduses, Relations, Privations, Extrinsecal Denominations, &c. in a very differing way from that which belongs to Bodies and Spirits; tho the unskilful (even among otherwise learned men) have been wont, and still are apt, to confound all these Subjects; by applying to them indiscriminately the same Rules, or, as they think them, Dictates of Reason.
But besides what may be said of these long unregarded or undistinguished natures, there are other entities that are more generally and familiarly taken notice of, wherein I may think one may find instances more applyable to my present purpose. For I observe, that tho all other actual Beings are compounded (to speak in the language of the Schools) of Essence and Existence; yet according to the notion of Metaphysicians as well as Divines, it must be acknowledg’d, that the simplicity of the Divine Nature is such as to exclude from God even this kind of composition. And indeed the notion we have of a Being infinitely perfect, imports, that, tho in no other Being, yet in this, those two are inseparable; for actual existence being a perfection, must needs belong to the Nature of a Being infinitely perfect. The generality of Philosophers, after Aristotle, conceive Place to be the immoveable and immediately contiguous concave Surface of the ambient Body, so that ‘tis a kind of Vessel that every way contains the Body lodg’d in it; but with this difference that a Vessel is a kind of moveable place, as when a Bottle of Wine is carried from the Cellar to the Table; but place is an immoveable Vessel, or a Vessel considered as immoveable: now supposing with: Aristotle, and the generality of Philosophers, the plenitude of the world, it may be truly said, that all Plants, Animals, Minerals, Stars and other Bodies are each of them in such an Aristotelian place as has been describ’d; whence it has been usually said by Philosophers, that what is in no place (I hope they meant it only of Bodies) is not at all; yet it appears not how the outermost Heaven, whether that be the Firmament, or no, I need not here inquire, can be properly said to be in a place, since these Philosophers asserting the World to be finite, must grant there is no ambient body without it to contain it. And I shall add on this occasion, that if the outermost Heaven should be impell’d by the irresistible power of God in a straight line this way, or that way, there should ensue a motion without change of place, for the outermost Heaven was in none before, and does not by its progression come to be contain’d by a new ambient Body. And in this case even according to those modern Favourers of Aristotle that approve Des’ Cartes his definition of local motion (which indeed is far more intelligible than Aristotle’s) the world may be said to move without changing of place; for it does not pass from the Neighbourhood of some Bodies to that of others; since comprising all Bodies, and yet being bounded, there is no body for it to leave behind, nor any beyond it for it to approach to; and tho the Cartesians in their Hypothesis of the indefinitess of the World do partly avoid the force of what I have been saying; yet besides what may be rationally urg’d to shew, that if the world be not more than indefinite, it must be really finite; I consider that the Cartesians, tho upon grounds of their own, must allow what I was observing, namely, that tho every particular body in the Universe is naturally capable of Local Motion. Yet the Universe it self is not; and tho every particular body in the world have some determinate Figure; yet the world it self, being indefinite, has not so.
Whereas Aristotle and the Philosophers that have lived since his time, have generally admitted the division establish’d by him, of all Entities, into Substance, and Accident, and accommodated their Rules to one of them, or both: The Learned Gassendus and his Followers, have introduc’d a third sort of things, as not being either Substances, or Accidents: and these if you will admit, you will I presume, admit too, that they may be privileg’d from their Rules calculated for other Natures. Of this kind of things, the Gassendists make Place or Space to be. For they will not allow it to be a Substance, because it is neither body, nor spirit, but only somewhat that has a capacity to receive or contain bodies, and would subsist, tho God should annihilate all the Substances he has created. And for the same reason it is not to be called an Accident, since that necessarily requires a Substance to reside in (according to that received Axiom) Accidentis esse, est inesse, whereas in case of the annihilation of the world it self, and consequently all Substances that compose it, their place or space would still remain, and be capable of admitting a new world of the same extent, if God should be pleased to create it; whence Gassendus wittily infers, that Bodies are rather accidental in respect of place, than space in respect of Bodies. But without staying to examine this Paradox, I shall venture to say in general, that he who shall with an heedful, and unprejudiced eye, survey the several Hypotheses, or Systems, maintain’d by the differing Sects of Philosophers, may find, that tho the Instances will not be all of them the same; yet there is none of these Systems in which one may not observe some thing or other, to which every one of the Rules that reach to the other Snbjects treated of in that Philosophy, cannot safely be apply’d. And indeed the mind of man being naturally far more desirous to know much, than to take the pains requisite to examine, whether he does so or not, is very prone to think that any small number of things that it has not distinctly considered, must be of the same nature and condition with the rest that he judges to be of the same kind. For by thus attaining to the knowledge of things, by way of Inference, the mind gratifies at once both its vanity, and its laziness; looking upon these Conclusions, as marks of the excellency of its rational faculty, whilst they rather proceed from a want of the due exercise of it.
Pyrocles.
But if the receiv’d Dictates of Reason be not always safe grounds to proceed upon in our Discourse, I would gladly know by what Rules we shall judge of those Rules, and discover them to be erroneous, in case they be so, and by what measures we shall estimate truth and falsehood, in those things wherein the use of those Rules must be laid aside.
Arnobius.
Your double objection, Pyrocles, I confess to be weighty enough to deserve a considerate answer, and to give you the sum of mine in few words, I shall tell you, that in my opinion, since there is no progress in infinitum in the Criteria of truth, and that our faculties are the best instruments that God has given us to discover, and to examine it by, I think a clear light or evidence of perception shining in the understanding, affords us the greatest assurance we can have, (I mean in a natural way) of the truth of the judgments we pass upon things, whether they be other things, or the vulgar rules of reasoning, or subjects that claim a privilege from those rules.
And here give me leave to consider, that it is not by induction, but by evidence, that we know, that ex vero nil nisi verum sequitur. By which it appears, that the innate light of the rational faculty is more primary, than the very Rules of Reasoning, since by that light we judge even of the lately mention’d Axiom which is it self the grand principle of Ratiocinations made by Inference.
Eugenius.
This matter may be perchance somewhat illustrated by observing that, as the understanding is wont to be look’d upon as the eye of the mind; so there is this Analogy between them, that there are some things that the eye may discern (and does judge of) organically, if I may so speak, that is, by the help of instruments: as when it judges of a Line to be streight by the applicasion of a Ruler to it, or to be perpendicular by the help of a Plumb-line, or a Circle to be perfect by the help of a pair of Compasses: But there are other things which the eye does perceive (and judge of) immediately and by intuition, and without the help of Organs or Instruments; as when by the bare evidence of the perception it knows that this colour is red, and that other blue, and that Snow is white, not black, and a Char-coal black, not white; and such a Picture is very like, or another unlike to the face it was drawn to represent. For thus there are some things that the Intellect usually judges of in a kind of Organical way, that is, by the help of certain Rules, or Hypotheses, such as are a great part of the Theorems and Conclusions in Philosophy and Divinity. But there are others which it knows without the help of these Rules more immediately, and as it were intuitively by evidence or perception; by which way we know many prime notions and Effata, or Axioms Metaphysical, &c. as that Contradictory Propositions cannot both be true; that from truth nothing but truth can legitimately be deduc’d; that two things that are each of them equal to a third thing, are equal to one another; that a whole number is either even or odd. And ‘tis also upon this evidence of perception; that we receive with an undoubted assent many primitive Ideas and notions, such as those of extended Substance or Body, Divisibility, or Local Motion, a streight Line, a Circle, a right Angle, and many other things that it would be here superfluous to mention.
Arnobius.
I think the internal Light that the Author of Nature has set up in mans Intellect qualifies him, if he makes a right use of it, not only to apply the Instruments of Knowledge, but also to frame, and to examine them. For by the help of this Light, the Understanding is enabled to look about, and both to consider apart, and compare together, the natures of all kinds of things; without being necessitated to employ in its Speculations, the Rules or Dictates of any particular Science or Discipline; being sufficiently assisted by its own Light, and those general Axioms and Notions that are of a Catholick Nature, and perpetual truth; and so of a higher order, than the Dictates, or Rules of any particular or subordinate Science or Art. And by these means the Understanding may perceive the imperfection and falsity of such Rules or Theorems, as those men that look no higher, nor no further than their own particular Science or Art, embrace for certain and unquestionable. Thus when Philosophers observ’d that they could frame a clear notion of a thing without considering whether it were actually in being or not; or even when they suppose that ‘tis not actually in being; as we can frame a clear conception of a Rose in Winter, when there are none to be found growing; and have a clear notion of a Myriagon, tho ‘tis very like there is no such Figure really existent in the world. They have generally concluded, that the essence of things is differing and separable from their existence. And yet when we consider that God is a Being infinitely perfect, and that actual existence being a perfection, must belong to Him; we may by the same light of Reason that dictated Essence & Existence to be two separable things in all other Beings, discern that they must be inseparable in God; and consequently that the forementioned Rule, tho more general than almost any other, is not absolutely universal: but must be limited by the light of Reason. And thus also Philosophers, considering that not only all sorts of Bodies, but the immaterial Souls of Men, (and Angels themselves, supposing such Beings) are all endowed with Qualities which are Accidents, have included it in the very notion of a substance, to be the subject of Accidents, or as the Schoolmen speak, substare Accidentibus; and accordingly substantia is wont to be derived à substando: But the infranchised Intellect, finding in it self a notion of an absolutely perfect, and therefore existent Being; and considering that to be the subject of Accidents, is not a thing agreeable to the highest perfection possible; it concludes, that in God there are no Accidents. And this Conclusion has been embraced as a part, not only of Christian, but of Natural Theology; and maintain’d by divers Philosophers themselves, upon Metaphysical and other meerly rational grounds. In short, the native light of the mind may enable a man, that will make a free and industrious use of it, both to pass a right judgment of the extent of those very Dictates that are commonly taken for Rules of Reason, and to frame others on purpose for priviledg’d things, so far forth as they are so. But I fear, Gentlemen, the fourth Advice I have ventured to offer you, has by its tediousness, made you justly impatient of being detain’d by it so long: and therefore I shall advanced to the Fifth; which imports,
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