Charleton, Walter (1620-1707)

Natural History of the Passions

London ["in the Savoy"]

Printed by T.N. for James Magnes

1674

"In Man indeed, it seems not difficult to conceive, that the Rational Soul, as president of all th'inferiour faculties, and constantly speculating the impressions, or images represented to her by the Sensitive, as by a mirrour; doth first form to herself conceptions and notions correspondent to their nature, and then proceed to acts of reason, judgement and will."

For, supposing all we have hitherto been discoursing of the Origin, Substance, Subsistence, Parts, Faculties, Inclinations, Passions and Alterations of a Corporeal Soul, to be true and evident (which is more than I dare assume) yet doth it not from thence appear, what such a Soul can by her own proper virtue do more than a Machine artificialy fram'd and put into motion. To speak more plainly; tho it be granted; that first th' impression made by an external object upon the instrument of sense, doth by impelling the Animal Spirits inwards, and by disposing them into a certain peculiar figure, or mode (as the Cartesians speak) cause the act of Sensation, or simple Perception; and that then the same spirits rebounding, as it were by a reflex undulation, outward from the brain into the nerves and muscles, produce local motions: granting this, I say, yet still we are to seek, How this Soul, or any one part of it, comes to be conscious of Sensation, or how it can, by a reflex act (as the Schools phrase it) perceive that it doth perceive, and according to that perception, is impell'd to diverse acts, directed to an appetite of this, or that good, and somtimes in prosecution of the good desired, to perform actions that seem to be the results of counsel and deliberation, such as are daily observed to be done by several sorts of Beasts, as well wild as domestic. In Man indeed, it seems not difficult to conceive, that the Rational Soul, as president of all th'inferiour faculties, and constantly speculating the impressions, or images represented to her by the Sensitive, as by a mirrour; doth first form to herself conceptions and notions correspondent to their nature, and then proceed to acts of reason, judgement and will. But as for Brutes that are irrational; in what manner the perception, distinction, appetite, memory of objects, and other acts resulting from an inferior kind of reason, are in them performd: this, I confess, is more than I can yet understand. Some there are, I know, who rather then acknowledge their insufficiency to solve this Problem; have attributed to Brutes also Souls immaterial, and subsistent after separation from their bodies. But these considered not, that the Soul of a Brute, however docil and apprehensive, and using organs in their structure very little (if at all) different from those in the head of Man, can yet have no capacity of Arts and Sciences, nor raise it self up to any objects, or acts, but what are Material: and that by consequence, the same is different from, and inferiour to the Rational Soul of Man, and material. So that instead of solving the Doubt, by teaching us, how from a certain Modification of subtil matter, there may result such Power, which residing in the brain of a Brute, may there receive without confusion all impressions or images brought in by the Senses, distinctly speculate, judge and know them, and then raise appetites, and imploy the other faculties in acts respective to that knowledge, and to those appetites: instead of this, I say, they have entangled themselves in an absurd Error, ascribing to a thing meerly material, a capacity of knowing objects immaterial, and performing actions proper only to immaterial Beings.
(II.16, pp. 31-3)

Government::President Optics::Mirror

Reading Jonathan Lamb's "Sympathy with Animals and Salvation of the Soul," The Eighteenth Century 52:1 (Spring 2011): 69-85, 75.

Walter Charleton, Natural History of the Passions (In the Savoy: Printed by T.N. for James Magnes, 1674). <Link to EEBO><Link to EEBO-TCP>

07/24/2012