impious men for ever punished in hell. It is recorded of this same Socrates, that he has been often known to think for four-and-twenty hours together, fixed in the same posture, and wrapped up in meditation. Lys. Our modern free-thinkers are a more lively sort of men. Those old philosophers were most of them whimsical. They had, in my judgment, a dry, narrow, timorous way of thinking, which by no means came up to the frank humour of our times. Cri. But I appeal to your own judgment, if a man who knows not the nature of the soul can be assured, by the light of reason, whether it is mortal or immortal? An simul intereat nobiscum morte perempta, What Lys. But what if I know the nature of the soul? if I have been taught that whole secret by a modern freethinker? a man of science who discovered it not by a tiresome introversion of his faculties, not by amusing himself in a labyrinth of notions, or stupidly thinking for whole days and nights together, but by looking into things, and observing the analogy of nature. 14. This great man is a philosopher by fire, who has made many processes upon vegetables. It is his opinion that men and vegetables are really of the same species; that animals are moving vegetables, and vegetables fixed animals ; that the mouths of the one and the roots of the other serve to the same use, differing only in position; that blossoms and flowers answer to the most indecent and concealed parts of the human body; that vegetable and animal bodies are both alike organised, and that in both there is life, or a certain motion and circulation of juices through proper tubes or vessels. I shall never forget this able man's unfolding the nature of the soul in the following manner:-The soul, said he, is that specific form or principle from whence proceed the distinct qualities or properties of things. Now, as vegetables are a more simple and less perfect compound, and consequently more easily analysed than animals, we will begin with the 1 [Vide Platon. in Gorgia.]— AUTHOR. See Socrates at the end of the Gorgias. Cf. Guardian, No. 27, where Socrates is quoted. contemplation of the souls of vegetables. Know then that the soul of any plant, rosemary for instance, is neither more nor less than its essential oil'. Upon this depends its peculiar fragrance, taste, and medicinal virtues, or in other words its life and operations. Separate or extract this essential oil by chemic art, and you get the soul of the plant; what remains being a dead carcass, without any one property or virtue of the plant, which is preserved entire in the oil, a drachm whereof goes further than several pounds of the plant. Now this same essential oil is itself a composition of sulphur and salt, or of a gross unctuous substance, and a fine subtle principle or volatile salt imprisoned therein'. The volatile salt is properly the essence of the soul of the plant, containing all its virtue ; and the oil is the vehicle of this most subtle part of the soul, or that which fixes and individuates it. And as, upon separation of this oil from the plant, the plant dies, so a second death, or death of the soul, ensues upon the resolution of this essential oil into its principles; as appears by leaving it exposed for some time to the open air, so that the volatile salt or spirit may fly off; after which the oil remains dead and insipid, but without any sensible diminution of its weight, by the loss of that volatile essence of the soul, that ethereal aura, that spark of entity, which returns and mixes with the solar light, the universal soul of the world, and only source of life, whether vegetable, animal, or intellectual; which differ only according to the grossness or fineness of the vehicles, and the different textures of the natural alembics, or, in other words, the organised bodies where the above-mentioned volatile essence inhabits and is elaborated, where it acts and is acted upon. This chemical system lets you at once into the nature of the soul, and accounts for all its phenomena. In that compound which is called man, the soul or essential oil is what commonly goes by the name of animal spirit : for, you must know it is a point agreed by chemists, that So afterwards in Siris, especially sect. 8, 38, 42, 44-47, 59-61. 2 Cf. Siris, e. g. sect. 43, 152, 162, 193, 194; also First Letter to T- P— on the Virtues of TarWater, sect. 16, 17. He there unfolds and adopts the ancient doc trine, that solar-fire, or light, may be regarded as the animal spirit of this visible world,' diffused through the universe, and the divine instrumental cause of all changes in external nature. spirits are nothing but the more subtle oils. Now, in proportion as the essential oil of man is more subtle than that of other creatures, the volatile salt that impregnates it is more at liberty to act; which accounts for those specific properties and actions of human-kind, which distinguish them above other creatures. Hence you may learn why, among the wise ancients', salt was another name for wit, and in our times a dull man is said to be insipid or insulse. Aromatic oils, maturated by great length of time, turn to salts this shews why human-kind grow wiser by age. And what I have said of the twofold death or dissolution, first of the compound, by separating the soul from the organical body, and secondly of the soul itself, by dividing the volatile salt from the oil, illustrates and explains that notion of certain ancient philosophers-that, as the man was a compound of soul and body, so the soul was compounded of the mind or intellect, and its æthereal vehicle; and that the separation of soul and body, or death of the man, is, after a long tract of time, succeeded by a second death of the soul itself, to wit, the separation or deliverance of the intellect from its vehicle, and reunion with the sun 2. Euph. O Lysicles! your ingenious friend has opened a new scene, and explained the most obscure and difficult points in the clearest and easiest manner. Lys. I must own this account of things struck my fancy. I am no great lover of creeds or systems; but when a notion is reasonable and grounded on experience I know how to value it. Cri. In good earnest, Lysicles, do you believe this account to be true? Lys. Why then in good earnest I do not know whether I do or no. But I can assure you the ingenious artist himself has not the least doubt about it. And to believe an artist in his art is a just maxim and a short way to science. Cri. But what relation hath the soul of man to chemic art? The same reason that bids me trust a skilful artist in his art inclines me to suspect him out of his art. 1 Berkeley's reverence for ancient learning grew as his life advanced. It appears more in Siris. 2 Siris passim, with its doctrine of an elementary fire medium, or BERKELEY: FRASER. II. Men animal spirit of the universe, which instrumentally connects all things, may be compared with this curious forecast of the same in Aliphron. T are too apt to reduce unknown things to the standard of what they know, and bring a prejudice or tincture from things they have been conversant in, to judge thereby of things in which they have not been conversant. I have known a fiddler gravely teach that the soul was harmony; a geometrician very positive that the soul must be extended; and a physician, who, having pickled half a dozen embryos, and dissected as many rats and frogs, grew conceited, and affirmed there was no soul at all, and that it was a vulgar error. Lys. My notions sit easy. I shall not engage in pedantic disputes about them. They who do not like them may leave them. Euph. This, I suppose, is said much like a gentleman. 15. But pray, Lysicles, tell me whether the clergy come within that general rule of yours, that an artist may be trusted in his art? Lys. By no means. Lys. Because I take myself to know as much of those matters as they do. Euph. But you allow that, in any other profession, one who had spent much time and pains may attain more knowledge than a man of equal or better parts who never made it his particular business. Lys. I do. Euph. And nevertheless in things religious and Divine you think all men equally knowing. Lys. I do not say all men. sense competent judges. But I think all men of Euph. What are the Divine attributes and dispensa. tions to mankind, the true end and happiness of rational creatures, with the means of improving and perfecting their beings, more easy and obvious points than those which make the subject of every common profession? Lys. Perhaps not: but one thing I know, some things are so manifestly absurd that no authority shall make me give into them. For instance, if all mankind should pretend to persuade me that the Son of God was born upon earth in a poor family, was spit upon, buffeted, and crucified, lived like a beggar, and died like a thief, I should never believe one syllable of it. Common sense shews every one what figure it would be decent for an earthly prince or ambassador to make; and the Son of God, upon an embassy from heaven, must needs have made an appearance beyond all others of great eclat, and in all respects the very reverse of that which Jesus Christ is reported to have made, even by his own historians. Euph. O Lysicles! though I had ever so much mind to approve and applaud your ingenious reasoning, yet I dare not assent to this, for fear of Crito. Lys. Why so? Euph. Because he observed just now, that men judge of things they do not know, by prejudices from things they do know. And I fear he would object that you, who have been conversant in the grand monde, having your head filled with a notion of attendants and equipage and liveries, the familiar badges of human grandeur, are less able to judge of that which is truly Divine; and that one who had seen less, and thought more, would be apt to imagine a pompous parade of worldly greatness not the most becoming the author of a spiritual religion, that was designed to wean men from the world, and raise them above it. Cri. Do you think, Lysicles, if a man should make his entrance into London in a rich suit of clothes, with a hundred gilt coaches, and a thousand laced footmen; that this would be a more Divine appearance, and have more of true grandeur in it, than if he had power with a word to heal all manner of diseases, to raise the dead to life, and still the raging of the winds and the sea? Lys. Without all doubt it must be very agreeable to common sense to suppose, that he could restore others to life who could not save his own. You tell us, indeed, that he rose again from the dead: but what occasion was there for him to die, the just for the unjust, the Son of God for wicked men? And why in that individual place? Why at that very time above all others? Why did he not make his appearance earlier, and preach in all parts of the world, that the benefit might have been more extensive ['and equal]? Account for all these points, and reconcile 1 Added in the second edition. |