More, Henry (1614-1687)

The Immortality of the Soul, so Farre Forth as it is Demonstrable from the Knowledge of Nature and the Light of Reason

London

Printed by J. Flesher, for William Morden

1659

"But no man can when he pleases pass out of his Body thus, by the Imperium of his Will, no more then he can walk in his Sleep: For this capacity is pressed down more deep into the lower life of the Soul, whither neither the Liberty of Will, nor free Imagination can reach."

10. But all the difficulty is to understand how the Soul may be loosned from the Body, while the Body is in a fit condition to retain her. That is a very great Difficulty indeed, and in a manner impossible for any power but what is supernatural. But it is not hard to conceive that this vital fitness in the Body may be changed, either by way of natural Disease, or by Art. For why may not some certain Fermentation in the Body so alter the Blood and Spirits, that the powers of the Plastick part of the Soul may cease to operate, as well as sometimes the Perceptive faculties doe, as in Catalepsies, Apoplexies, and the like? Wherefore this passing of the Soul out of the Body in Sleep, or Ecstasie, may be sometime a certain Disease, as well as that of the [GREEK], those that walk in their sleep. Now if it should happen that some such distemper should arise in the Body, as would very much change the Vital Congruity thereof for a time, and in this Paroxysm that other Disease of the Noctambuli should surprise the party; his Imagination driving him to walk to this or that place, his Soul may very easily be conceived in this loosned condition it lies in, to be able to leave the Body, and pass in the Aire, as other Inhabitants of that Element doe, and act the part of separate Spirits, and exercise such Functions of the perceptive faculty, as they do that are quite released from Terrestrial Matter. Onely here is the difference, That that damp in the Body that loosned the Union of the Soul being spent; the Soul, by that natural Magick I have more then once intimated, will certainly return to the Body, and unite with it again as firm as ever. But no man can when he pleases pass out of his Body thus, by the Imperium of his Will, no more then he can walk in his Sleep: For this capacity is pressed down more deep into the lower life of the Soul, whither neither the Liberty of Will, nor free Imagination can reach.
(II.xv.10, pp. 280-2)

Government::Empire::Imperium

Searching "imperium" in EEBO

Henry More, The Immortality of the Soul, so Farre Forth as it is Demonstrable from the Knowledge of Nature and the Light of Reason (London: Printed by J. Flesher, for William Morden, 1659). <Link to EEBO>

03/29/2012