The Soul of Man, Part 8 · Doctrine · Proposition 5
PROP. V. The Soul is not so maimed and prejudiced by its separation from the Body, but that it both can and doth live, and act without it: and performs the acts of Cogitation and Volition, without the aid and ministry of the Body.
I Know it is objected by them that assert the Souls sleeping till the Resurrection, that though its essence be not destroy'd by death, yet its Operations are obstructed by the want and absence of the Body, its Tool and Instrument, and thus they form their Objection.
All that the Soul understands, Object.it understands by Species, that is, the Images of things which are first formed in the Phantasie: Conditiones Intellectus sunt tres: (1) Objectum, ens verum & intelligibile. (2) Phantasma, vel species sensil… in Ph…ntasia latens. (3) Species intelligibilis quae est accidens spirituale, repraesenta…s idealiter intellectui rem materialem existentem extra intellectum.As when we would conceive the nature of an House, a Ship, a Man or a Beast; we first form the Image or Species thereof in our fancy, and then exercise our thoughts about it: But this depending upon bodily Organs and Instruments, the separated Soul can form no such Images. It hath no such innate Species of its own, but comes into the World an abrasa tabula, white paper; and being deprived by separation of the help of Senses and Phantasms, it consequently understands nothing.
Thus the Soul in its state of Separation is represented to us as wounded in its Powers and Operations, to that degree, which seems to extinguish the very nature of it. But
Sol.1. We deny that the Soul knows nothing now, but by Phantasms and Images.Intellectus incorporea & immaterialia contemplatur, ut Deum & intelligentias, sed haec nullo modo in phantasiam cadunt, cum sunt extra limites corporeatum viriam Conimb. de Anima, lib. 3. cap. 8. Q. 8. For it knows it self, its own nature and powers, of which it cannot possibly feign or form any image or representation. What form, shape, or figure, can the fancy of a man cast his own Soul into to help him to understand its nature?
And what shall we say of its understanding during an ecstasie or Rapture? Doth the Soul know nothing at such a time? Doth a dull Torpor seize and benumb its intellectual powers? No, no; the Understanding is never more bright, clear, apprehensive, and perfect, than when the Body in an Ecstasie is laid aside as to any use or assistance of the mind. The Soul for that space uses not the Bodies assistance, as the very words Ecstasie, and Rapture, convince us.
Si autem hoc non est ex natura animae, sed per accidens hoc convenit ei, ex to quod corpori alligatur, sicut Platonics posu…runt, de facili quaestio solvi possit. Nam remoto impedimento corporis, rediret anima ad suam naturam. Aquin. p. 1. Q. 8. Art. 1.2. To understand by Species doth not agree to the Soul naturally, and necessarily, but by accident, as it is now in Union with the Body: Were it but once loosed from the Body, it would understand better without them than ever it did in the Body by them. A Man that is on Horse-back, must move, according to the motion of the Horse he rides; but if he were on Foot, he then uses his own proper motion, as he pleaseth. So here. But though we grant the Soul doth in many cases now make use of Phantasms, and that the agitation of the Spirits, which are in the Brain and Heart, are conjunct with its acts of Cogitation, and Intellection: Yet as a searching Scholar well observes, The Spirits are rather Subjects, than Instruments of those actions: And the whole essence of those acts is antecedent to the motion of the Spirits: As when we use a Pen in writing, or a Knife in cutting;How's Blessedness, pag. 174, 175. there is an operation of the Soul upon them, before there can be any operation by them. They act as they are first acted, and so do these bodily Spirits. So that to speak properly, the Body is bettered by the use the Soul makes of it in these its noble actions, but the Soul is not advantaged by being tied to such a Body. It can do its own work without it, its operations follow its essence, not the Body, to which it is for a time united.
In summ, 'Tis much more absonous, and difficult to conceive a stupefied, benumbed, and unactive Soul, whose very nature is to be active, lively, and always in motion; than it is to conceive a Soul freed from the shackles, and clogs of the Body, acting freely according to its own nature, I wish the favourers of this Opinion may take heed, lest it carry them farther than they intend, even to a denial of its Existence and Immortality, and turn them into down-right S…matists or Atheists.