An
Antidote
against
Atheism:
or,
An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Mind of Man, Whether there be not a God.
By Henry More, D.D.
The third Edition corrected and enlarged:
with
an Appendix
thereunto annexed.
Ἡ μεγάλη νόσος τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ ἀθεότης.
Οἱ ἄνθρωποι πρὸς τὸ ἀληθὲς πεφύκασιν ἱκανῶς, καὶ τὰ πλείω τυγχάνουσι τῆς ἀληθείας.
London,
Printed by James Flesher, for William Morden Book-seller in Cambridge,
MDCLXII.
Madam,
The high opinion or rather certain knowledge, I have of your singular Wit and Vertues, has emboldened, or, to speak more properly, commanded me to make choice of none other then your self for a Patroness of this present Treatise. For besides that I doe your Ladiship that Right, as also this present Age and succeeding Posterity, as to be a witness to the World of such eminent Accomplishments and transcendent Worth; so I do not a little please my self, while I finde myself assured in my own conceit, that Cebes his mysterious and judicious Piece of Morality hung up in the Temple of Saturn, (which was done in way of Divine Honour to the Wisdome of the Deity) was not more safely and suteably placed, then this carefull Draught of Naturall Theology or Metaphysicks, which I have dedicated to so Noble, so Wise and so Pious a Personage. And for my own part, it seems to me as reall a point of Religious Worship to honour the Vertuous, as to relieve the Necessitous, which Christianity terms no lesse then a Sacrifice. Nor is there any thing here of Hyperbolism or high-flown Language; it being agreed upon by all sides, by Prophets, Apostles, and ancient Philosophers, that holy and good Men are the Temples of the Living God. And verily the Residence of Divinity is so conspicious in that Heroicall Pulchritude of your noble Person, that Plato, if he were alive again, might finde his timorous Supposition brought into absolute Act, and to the enravishment of his amazed Soul might behold Vertue become visible to his outward sight. And truly, Madame, I must confesse that so Divine a Constitution as this wants no Preservative, being both devoid and uncapable of Infection; and that if the rest of the World had attain’d but to the least Degree of this sound Complexion and generous frame of Minde, nay if they were but brought to an æquilibrious Indifferency, and, as they say, stood but Neutrals, that is, If as many as are supposed to have no love of God, nor any knowledge or experience of the Divine Life, did not out of a base ignorant fear irreconcilably hate him; assuredly this Antidote of mine would either prove needless and superfluous, or, if Occasion ever called for it, a most certain Cure. For this Truth of the Existence of God being as clearly demonstrable as any Theorem in Mathematicks, it would not fail of winning as firm and as universall Assent, did not the fear of a sad Afterclap pervert mens Understandings, and Prejudice and Interest pretend uncertainty and obscurity in so plain a matter, But considering the state of things as they are, I cannot but pronounce, that there is more necessity of this my Antidote then I could with there were. But if there were less or none at all, yet the pleasure that may be reaped in perusal of this Treatise (even by such as by an holy Faith and divine Sense are ever held fast in a full assent to the Conclusion I drive at) will sufficiently compensate the pains in the penning thereof. For as the best Eyes, and most able to behold the pure Light, do not unwillingly turn their backs of the Sun, to view his refracted Beauty in the delightful colours of the Rainbow; so the perfectest Mindes and the most lively possest of the Divine Image, cannot but take contentment and pleasure in observing the glorious Wisdom and Goodness of God, so fairly drawn out and skilfully variegated in the sundry Objects of externall Nature. Which delight though it redound to all, yet not so much to any as to those that are of a more Philosophicall and Contemplative Consitution; and therefore, Madam, most of all to Yourself, whose Genius I know to be so speculative, and Wit so penetrant, that in the knowledge of things as well Natural as Divine you have not onely out-gone all of your own Sex, but even of that other also, whose ages have not given them over-much the start of you. And assuredly your Ladiships Wisdome and Judgment can never be highly enough commended, that makes the best use that may be of those ample Fortunes that Divine Providence has bestow'd upon you. For the best result of Riches, I mean in reference to our selves, is, that finding our selves already well provided for, we may be fully Masters of our own time: and the best improvement of this time is the Contemplation of God and Nature; wherein if these present Labours of mine may prove so grateful unto you and serviceable as I have been bold to presage, next to the winning of Souls from Atheism, it is the sweetest fruit they can ever yield to
- Your Ladiships humbly-devoted
- Servant,
- Henry More.
The
Contents
of
An Antidote Against Atheism
1. The Authour’s Apologie for writing this Treatise, there being so many already on the same Subject.
2. That what he has wrote are the proper Emanations of his own Mind, and may have their peculiar serviceableness for men of the like Genius.
3. That he affects not Rhetorick, nor Philologie, nor the pompous numerosity of more popular Arguments, but solid and unresistible Reason in a perspicuous Method.
4. That he has undeniably demonstrated the Existence of God, this one Postulate being but admitted, That our Faculties are true.
5. His peculiar Management of the first Argument of Des-Cartes:
6. And the Reasons of his Rejection of the rest.
7. His caution and choiceness in the managing such Arguments as are fetch’d from the more general Phænomena of Nature:
8. As also in those from Animals.
9. His carefull choice in such Histories as tend to the proving of Spirits.
10. His assuredness of that kinde of Argument.
11. The reason of his declining the recital of the miraculous Stories of Holy Writ.
12. His studied Condescension and compliance with the Atheist to win him from his Atheism.
Book I.
Chap. I. 1. That the Proneness of these Ages of the World to winde themselves from under the awe of Superstition makes the attempt seasonable of endeavouring to steer them off from Atheism. 2. That they that adhere to Religion in a mere superstitious and accustomary way, if that tye once fail, easily turn Atheists. 3. The usefulness of this present Treatise even to them that are seriously Religious.
Chap. II. 1. That there is nothing so demonstrable, that the Mind of man can rationally conclude that it is impossible to be otherwise. 2. That the Soul of man may give full Assent to that which notwithstanding may possibly be otherwise, made good by several Examples. 3. A like Example of Dissent. 4. The reasons why he has so sedulously made good this point. 5. That the Atheist has no advantage from the Authour’s free confession, that his Arguments are not so convictive but that they leave a possibility of the thing being otherwise.
Chap. III. 1. That we are first to have a settled notion What God is, before we goe about to demonstrate That he is. 2.The Definition of God. 3. That there is an Idea of a Being absolutely perfect in our Mind, whether the Atheist will allow it to be the Idea of God or not. 4. That it is no prejudice to the Naturality of this Idea, that it may be framed from some occasions from without.
Chap. IV. 1. What Notions are more particularly comprised in the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect. 2. That the difficulty of framing the conception of a thing ought to be no Argument against the Existence thereof; the nature of corporeall Matter being so perplex'd and intricate, which yet all men acknowledge to exist. 3. That the Idea of a Spirit is as easy a Notion as of any other Substance whatsoever. What powers and properties are contained in the Notion of a Spirit. 4. That Eternity and Infinity, if God were not, would be cast upon something else; so that Atheism cannot free the Mind from such Intricacies. 5. Goodness, Knowledge and Power, Notions of highest Perfection, and therefore necessarily included in the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect. 6. As also Necessity, it sounding greater Perfection then Contingency.
Chap. V. 1. What has occasioned sundry men to conceit that the Soul is Abrasa Tabula. 2. That the Mind of Man is not Abrasa Tabula, but has actual Knowledge of her own, and in what sense she has so. 3. A farther illustration of the truth thereof.
Chap. VI. 1. Sundry Instances arguing actuall Knowledge in the Soul: as that she has a more accurate Idea of a Circle and Triangle then Matter can exhibite to her: 2. And that upon one single consideration she assures her self of the Universal Affection of a Triangle. 3. The same argued from the nature of Mathematical and Logical Notions, which come not in by the Senses, as being no Physical affections of the Matter; 4. Because they are produced without any Physical motion upon the Matter; 5. And that contrary kindes may be intirely in one and the same part of Matter at once. 6. That there are certain sure Complex Notions of the Mind for which she was not beholden to Sense.
Chap. VII. 1. The Mind of Man being not unfurnish'd of Innate Truth, that we are with confidence to attend to her naturall and unprejudic'd Dictates and Suggestions. 2. That some Notions and Truths are at least naturally and unavoidably assented unto by the Soul, whether she have of herself Actual Knowledge in her or not. 3. And that the Definition of a Being absolutely Perfect is such. 4. And that this absolutely Perfect Being is God, the Creator and Contriver of all things. 5. The certainty and settledness of this Idea.
Chap. VIII. 1. That the very Idea of God implies his necessary Existence. 2. That his Existence is not hypothetically necessary, but absolutely, with the occasion noted of that slippery Evasion. 3. That to acknowledge God a Being necessarily Existent according to the true Notion of him, and yet to say he may not Exist, is a plain contradiction. 4. That Necessity is a Logical term, and implies an indissoluble connexion betwixt Subject and Prædicate, whence again this Axiome is necessarily and eternally true, God doth exist. 5. A further Demonstration of his Existence from the incompetibility of Contingency or Impossibility to his Nature or Idea. 6. That necessary Self-existence belongs either to God, or to Matter, or to both. 7. The great Incongruities that follow the admission of the Self-existency of Matter. 8. An Answer to an Evasion. 9. That a number of Self-essentiated Deities plainly takes away the Being of the true God. 10. The onely undeniable Demonstration of the Unity of the Godhead. 11. The absurdness in admitting actual Self-existence in the Matter, and denying it in God. 12. That this absurdity cannot be excused from the sensibleness of Matter, sith the Atheist himself is forced to admit such things as fall not under Sense. 13. That it is as foolish a thing to reject the Being of God because he does not immediately fall under the Senses, as it were to reject the Being of Matter because it is so incomprehensible to the Phansy. 14. The factious Humour someness of the Atheist in siding with some Faculties of the Soul, and rejecting the rest though equally competent judges.
Chap. IX. 1. The Existence of God argued from the Finall cause of the implantation of the Idea of God in the Soul. 2. An Evasion of the Argument, by supposing all things to be such as they are, by Chance. 3. That the Evasion is either impossible, or but barely possible, and therefore of no weight. 4. That we are not to attend to what is simply possible, but to what our Natural Faculties determine. 5. He urges therefore again the Final cause of the indeleble Idea or Image of God in the Soul, illustrating the force thereof from a Similitude. 6. That supposing God did Exist, he would have dealt no otherwise with us for the making himself known unto us then we are de facto dealt with; which therefore again argues that He doth Exist.
Chap. X. 1. Several other Affections or Properties in the Soul of Man that argue the Being of God. 2. As Natural Conscience. 3. A pious Hope or Confidence of success in affairs upon dealing righteously with the World. 4. An Answer to an Objection, That some men are quite devoid of these Divine senses. 5. That the Universality of Religious Worship argues the Knowledge of the Existence of God to be from the Light of Nature. 6. An Answer to an Objection, viz. That this general acknowledgment of a God amongst the Nations may be but an Universal Tradition. 7. Another objection answered, viz. That what is universally received by all Nations may notwithstanding be false. 8. An Objection taken from the general falsness and perversness of the Religions of the Nations. The first Answer thereto by way of Apologie. 9. The second Answer, supposing the Religions of the Nations as depraved as you please. 10. A further Objection from the long continuance of those false Religions, and the hopelesness of ever getting out of them, with a brief Answer thereto.
Chap. XI. 1. A concerning Enquiry touching the Essence of the Soul of Man. 2. That the Soul is not a mere Modification of the Body, the Body being uncapable of such Operations as are usually attributed to the Soul, as Spontaneous Motion, Animadversion, Memory, Reason. 3. That the Spirits are uncapable of Memory, and consequently of Reason, Animadversion, and of Moving of the Body. 4. That the Brain cannot be the Principle of spontaneous Motion, having neither Muscles nor Sense. 5. That Phansy, Reason and Animadversion is seated neither in any Pore, nor any particular part of the Brain, nor is all the Brain figured into this or that Conception, nor every Particle thereof. 6. That the Figuration of one part of the Brain is not reflected to the rest, demonstrated from the Site of things. 7. That the Brain has no Sense, further demonstrated from Anatomical Experiments. 8. How ridiculously the Operations of the Soul are attributed to the Conarion. 9. The Conclusion, That the Impetus of spontaneous Motion is neither from the Animal spirits nor the Brain. 10. That the Soul is not any Corporeal substance distinct from the Animal Spirits and the Body; 11. And therefore is a Substance Incorporeal. 12. The discovery of the Essence of the Soul, of what great usefulness for the easier conceiving the nature of God. 13. And how there may be an Eternal Mind that has both Understanding and power of Moving the Matter of the Universe.
Book II.
Chap. I. That the more general Phænomena of External Nature argue the Being of a God. 2. That if Matter be self-moved, it cannot work it self into these Phænomena. 3. Much less if it rest of it self. 4. That though it were partly self-moving, partly self-resting, yet it could not produce either Sun or Stars of that figure they are. 5. That the Laws of the Motion of the Earth are not casual or fortuitous. 6. That there is a Divine Providence that does at least approve, if not direct, all the Motions of the Matter; with a Reason why she permits the Effects of the mere Mechanical motion of the Matter to goe as far as they can.
Chap. II. 1. The perpetual Parallelism of the Axis of the Earth a manifest argument of Divine Providence. 2. The great Inconveniences, if the posture of this parallel Axis were Perpendicular to the Plane of the Ecliptick: 3. Or Co-incident with the said Plane. 4. The excellent advantages of that Inclining posture it hath, and what a manifest Demonstration it is of Providence. 5. The same Argument urged from the Ptolemaical Hypothesis. 6. A further consideration of the Axis of the Earth, and of the Moon’s crossing the Æquinoctial Line. 7. A Demonstration from the Phænomenon of Gravity, that there is a Principle distinct from Matter. 8. That neither the Aire, nor any more subtile Matter in the Aire, have any Knowledge or free Agency in them. 9. A notable Demonstration from the Sucker of the Aire-Pump’s drawing up so great a weight, that there is a Substance distinct from Matter in the World. 10. That this Phænomenon cannot be salv’d by the Elastick power of the Aire, demonstrated from the Phænomenon it self. 11. An Evasion produced and answered. 12. Another Evasion anticipated. 13. That this peremptory force of Nature against the first Lawes of Mechanical motion and against that of Gravity, is a palpable pledge, that where things fall out fitly, there is the same Immaterial Guide, though there be not the same sensibility of force on the Matter. 14. The ridiculous Sophistry of the Atheist, arguing from same petty effects of the mere Motion of Matter that there is no higher Principle, plainly discovered and justly derided. 15. Providence concluded from the Laws of Day and Night, Winter and Summer, &c.
Chap. III. 1. That there is nothing in Nature but what passes the approbation of a Knowing Principle. 2. The great Usefulness of Hills and Mountains. 3. The Condition of Man in order and respect to the rest of the Creation. 4. The designed Usefulness of Quarries of Stone, Timber-Wood, Metalls and Mineralls. 5. How upon these depend the glory and magnificence both of Peace and Warre: 6. As also the defence of Men against Beasts.
Chap. IV. 1. Distinction of Land and Sea not without a Providence. 2. As also the Consistence of the Sea-Water that it can bear Ships. 3. The great convenience and pleasure of Navigation. 4. The admirable train of fit Provisions in Nature for the gratifying the Wit of man in so concerning a Curiosity.
Chap. V. 1. That the Form and Beauty, Seed and Signature of Plants are Arguments of a Providence. 2. That though the mere motion of the Matter might produce certain Meteors, as Haile, Snow, Ice, &c. yet it will not follow that the same is the adequate cause of Animals and Plants. 3. That it were no great botch nor gap in Nature, if some more rude Phænomena were acknowledged the Results of the mere Mechanical Motion of Matter. 4. That the Forme and Beauty of Flowers and Plants are from an higher Principle. 5. That there is such a thing as Beauty, and that it is the Object of our Intellectual Faculties. 6. From whence it follows, that the beautiful Forms and Figures of Plants and Animals are from an Intellectual Principle.
Chap. VI. 1. Providence argued from the Seeds of Plants. 2. An Objection answered concerning stinking Weeds and poisonous Plants. 3. The Signature of Plants an argument of Providence. 4. Certain Instances of Signatures. 5. An Answer to an Objection concerning such Signatures in Plants as cannot referre to Medicine.
Chap. VII. 1. That the Usefulness of Plants argues a Providence, particularly those that afford Timber. 2. As also such Herbs and Plants as serve for Physick for Men and Beasts. 3. Of Plants fit for Food. 4. Of the Colour of Grass and Herbs, and of the Fruits of Trees. 5. The notable provisions in Nature for Husbandry and Tillage, with the universal Usefulness of Hemp and Flaxe. 6. The marvellous Usefulness of the Indian Nut-Tree.
Chap. VIII. 1. The designed Usefulness of Animals for Man, as in particular of the Dog and the Sheep. 2. As also of the Oxe and other Animals. 3. Of Mans subduing the Creatures to himself. 4. Of those that are as yet untamed. 5. The excellent Usefulness of the Horse. 6. The Usefulness of some Animals that are Enemies to such Animals as are hatefull or noisome to Man.
Chap. IX. 1. The Beauty of several brute Animals. 2. The goodly Stateliness of the Horse. 3. That the Beauty of Animals argues their Creation from an Intellectual Principle. 4. The difference of Sexes a Demonstration of Providence. 5. That this difference is not by Chance. 6. An Objection answered concerning the Eele. 7. Another answered, taken from the consideration of the same careful provision of difference of Sexes in viler Animals. 8. Of Fishes and Birds being Oviparous. 9. Of Birds building their Nests and hatching their Eggs. 10. An Objection answered concerning the Ostrich. 11. That the Homogeneity of that Crystalline liquor which is the immediate Matter of the generation of Animals implies a Substance Immaterial or Incorporeal in Animals thus generated. 12. An Answer to an Elusion of the foregoing Argument.
Chap. X. 1. That the Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals argues a Deity: as namely the number and situation of their Eyes and Ears; 2. As also of their Legs. 3. The Armature of Beasts, and their Use thereof. 4. Of the general structure of Birds and Fishes. 5. The admirable Fabrick of the Mole. 6. Cardan’s rapture upon the consideration thereof. 7. Of the Hare and Grey-hound. 8. Of the structure of the body of the Camel.
Chap. XI. 1. Some general Observables concerning Birds. 2. Of the Cock. 3. Of the Turkey-Cock. 4. Of the Swan, Hern, and other Water-foul. 5. Of the γαμψώνυχα and πληκτροφόρα, and of the peculiarity of Sight in Birds of prey. 6. The Description of the Bird of Paradise according to Cardan. 7. The suffrages of Scaliger, Hernandes and Nierembergius. 8. Aldrovandus his Objections against her feeding on the dew onely, with what they might probably answer thereto. 9. His Objections against her manner of Incubiture, with the like Answer. 10. What Properties they are all five agreed on. 11. In what Pighafetta and Clusius dissent from them all, with the Author’s conditional inclination to their judgment. 12. The main Remarkables in the story of the Bird of Paradise. 13. A supply from ordinary & known Examples as convictive or more convictive of a discerning Providence.
Chap. XII. 1. That there is not an ampler Testimony of Providence then the structure of mans Body. 2. The safeness of the fabrick of the Eyes. 3. Their exquisite fittedness to their use. 4. The superadded advantage of Muscles to the Eye. 5. The admirable contrivance of Muscles in the whole Body. 6. The fabrick of the Heart and of the Veins. 7. Of the Teeth and of the Joynts, of the Arms and Legs. 8. Of the hinder parts of the Body, and Head, Vertebræ, Nails, Bones, &c. 9. That there is proportionably the same evidence of Providence in the Anatomie of all Bodies as in that of Man. 10. The sottishness of them that are not convinced from these Considerations. 11. Of the Passions in Man, and particularly that of Devotion. 12. Of the Passions of Animals, and their Usefulness to themselves; 13. As also to Man. The ridiculous Antipathie of the Ape to the Snail. 14. How inept and frustraneous a Passion Religion would be in Man, if there were neither God nor Spirit in the World. 15. The outrageous Mistake of Nature in implanting this Property of Religion in Man, if there be no God. 16. The necessary cause of Disorder in Man’s nature. 17. The exquisite fitness that there should be such a Creature as Man upon Earth. 18. That the whole Creation and the several parts thereof are an undeniable Demonstration that there is a God.
Book III.
Chap. I. 1. That, good men not always faring best in this world, the great examples of Divine Vengeance upon wicked and blasphemous Persons are not so convincing to the obstinate Atheist. 2. The irreligious Jeers and Sacrileges of Dionysius of Syracuse. 3. The occasion of the Atheists incredulity in things supernatural or miraculous. 4. That there have been true Miracles in the world as well as false. 5. And what are the best and safest ways to distinguish them, that we may not be impos’d upon by History.
Chap. II. 1. The Moving of a Sieve by a Charm. Coskinomancy. 2. A Magical Cure of an Horse. 3. The Charming of Serpents. 4. A strange Example of one Death-strucken as he walked the Streets. 5. A Story of a sudden Wind that had like to have thrown down the Gallows at the hanging of two Witches.
Chap. III. 1. That Winds and Tempests are raised upon mere Ceremonies or forms of words. 2. The unreasonableness of Wierus his doubting of the Devils power over the Meteors of the Aire. 3. Examples of that power in Rain and Thunder. 4. Margaret Warine discharged upon an Oake at a Thunder-Clap. 5. Amantius and Rotarius cast headlong out of a cloud upon an house-top. 6. The Witch of Constance seen by the Shepherds to ride through the Aire. 7. That he might adde several other Instances from Eyewitnesses, of the strange Effects of invisible Dæmons. 8. His compendious Rehersal of the most remarkable exploits of the Devil of Mascon in lieu thereof. 9. The Reasons of giving himself the trouble of this Rehersal.
Chap. IV. 1. The Supernatural Effects observed in the bewitched Children of Mr Throgmorton and Mris Muschamp. 2. The general Remarkables in them both. 3 The possession of the Religious Virgins of Werts, Hessimont, &c. 4. The story of that famous Abbatess Magdalena Crucia, her useless and ludicrous Miracles. 5. That she was a Sorceress, and was thirty years married to the Devil. 6. That her story is neither any Figment of Priests, nor delusion of Melancholy.
Chap. V. 1. Knives, Wood, Pieces of Iron, Balls of Haire in the body of Ulricus Neusesser. 2. The vomiting of Cloth stuck with Pins, Nails and Needles, as also Glass, Iron and Haire, by Wierus his Patients, and by a friend of Cardan’s. 3. Wierus his Story of the thirty possessed Children of Amsterdam. 4. The Convictiveness of these Narrations. 5. Objections against their Convictiveness answered. 6. Of a Maid Dæmoniack speaking Greek; and of the miraculous binding of anothers hands by an invisible power.
Chap. VI. 1. The Apparition Eckerken. 2. The Story of the pyed Piper. 3. A Triton or Sea-God seen on the banks of Rubicon. 4. Of the Imps of Witches, and whether those old women be guilty of so much dotage as the Atheist fancies them. 5. That such things pass betwixt them and their Imps as are impossible to be imputed to Melancholy. 6. The examination of John Winnick of Molesworth. 7. The reason of Sealing Covenants with the Devil.
Chap. VII. 1. The Story of Anne Bodenham, a Witch who suffered at Salisbury, Anno 1653. The Author’s punctual Information concerning her. 2. The manner and circumstances of her first Conjuring up the Devil. 3. An Objection answered concerning the truth thereof. 4. The Objection more fully answered by a second Conjuration. 5. An Objection answer’d concerning this second Conjuration, and still further cleared by the circumstances of a third. 6. The Witches fourth and last Conjuration, at which Anne Styles made a Contract with the Devil. 7. That these transactions could be no Dreams nor Fancies of Anne Styles, nor she knowingly forsworn in her avouching them upon Oath. 8. Which is further proved by the impartialness of her Confession. 9, 10. By her Contract with the Devil, evidenced from the real effects thereof. 11. And by her behaviour at the Assizes when she gave evidence. 12. An answer to certain Objections. 13. Sundry Indications that Anne Bodenham was a Witch. 14. The Summary Conclusion, That the above-related Conjurations are no Fictions of Anne Styles, but real Transactions by Anne Bodenham.
Chap. VIII. 1. Two memorable Stories, with the credibility of them. 2. The first of a Shoemaker of Breslaw, who cut his own throat. 3. His appearing after death in his usual habit, and his vexatious haunting the whole Town. 4. That he being dug up after he had been eight moneths buried, his body was found intire and fresh, and his joynts limber and flexible. 5. That upon the burning thereof the Apparition ceased. 6. Which also hapned in a Maid of his, when she had vext and disturbed people for a whole moneth together. 7. That the Relator of the Story lived in the Town at what time these things fell out.
Chap. IX. 1. The second Story of one Cuntius, whose first Pen-man not onely dwelt in the Town, but was a sad sufferer in the Tragedie. 2. The quality of Cuntius, his fatal blow by his Horse, and his desperate affliction of Mind. 3. Prodigies attending his death. 4. A Spiritus Incubus in the shape of him, with other disorders. 5. More hideous disorders, as also his appearing to a Gossip of his in behalf of his Child. 6. Several sad effects of his appearing upon several persons. 7. His miserable usage of the Parson of the Parish and his Family, who is the Pen-man of the Story. 8. A brief Rehearsal of many other mad Pranks of this Spectre. 9. A remarkable passage touching his Gravestone. 10. The florid plight of Cuntius after he had been buried near half a year, his grasping of a Staff, and the motion of his Eyes and of his Blood. 11. The prodigious Weight of his body. 12. As also the Incombustibleness thereof. 13. How hard set the Atheist will be for a subterfuge against this Story.
Chap. X. 1. The Nocturnal Conventicles of Witches; two examples thereof out of Paulus Grillandus. 2. Of the Witch of Lochiæ, with a reflexion on the unexceptionableness of these Instances for the proof of Spirits. 3. The piping of John of Hembach to a Conventicle of Witches. 4. The dancing of Men, Women and cloven-footed Satyrs at Mid-day. 5. John Michael’s dumb Musick on his crocked staff from the bough of an Oak at that Antick dancing. 6. The Impresse of a Circle with cloven feet in it on the Ground where they danced.
Chap. XI. 1. Of Fairy-Circles. 2. Questions propounded concerning Witches leaving their bodies, as also concerning their Transformation into bestial shapes. 3. That the Reasons of Wierus and Remigius against reall Transformation are but weak. 4. The Probabilities for, and the Manner of, reall Transformation. 5. An argumentation for their being out of their bodies in their Ecstasies. 6. That the Soul’s leaving the Body thus is not Death, nor her return any proper Miracle. 7. That it is in some cases most easie and natural to acknowledge they do leave their bodies, with an instance out of Wierus that suits to that purpose. 8. The Author's Scepticism in the point, with a favourable interpretation of the proper extravagances of Temper in Bodinus and Des-Cartes.
Chap. XII. l. The Coldness of those Bodies that Spirits appear in, witnessed by the experience of Cardan and Bourgotus. 2. The natural reason of this Coldness. 3 . That the Devil does really lie with Witches. 4. That the very Substance of Spirits is not Fire. 5. The Spectre at Ephesus. 6. Spirits skirmishing on the ground. 7, 8. Field-fights and Sea-fights seen in the Aire.
Chap. XIII. l. The main reason why good Spirits so seldome consociate with men. 2. What manner of Magick Bodinus his friend used to procure the more sensible assistance of a good Genius. 3. The manner of this Genius his sensible Converse. 4. The Religiousness of the Party, and the Character of his Temper. 5. His escapes from danger by advertisements of the good Genius. 6. The Genius his averseness from Vocall conversation with him. 7. His usefull Assistance by other Signs. 8. The manner of his appearing to him awake, and once in a Slumber.
Chap. XIV. 1. Certain Enquiries upon the preceding Narration; as, what these Guardian Genii may be. 2. Whether one or more of them be allotted to every man, or to some none. 3. What may be the reason of Spirits so seldome appearing; 4. And whether they have any settled shape or no. 5. What their manner is of assisting men in either Devotion or Prophecy. 6. Whether every mans complexion is capable of the Society of a good Genius. 7. And lastly, whether it be lawful to pray to God to send such a Genius or Angel to one, or no. 8. What the most effectual and divinest Magick
Chap. XV. 1. The Structure of Mans body, and Apparitions, the most convictive Arguments against the Atheist. 2. His first Evasion of the former of them, pretending it never was but there were men and women and other Species in the World. 3. The Author's answer to this pretension. First, That every man was mortall, and therefore was either created or rose out of the Earth. 4. Secondly, That even in infinite succession there is something First ordine Naturæ, and that these First were either created or rose out of th Earth. 5. Thirdly, That if there were alwaies men in the World, and every man born of a woman, some was both Father and Son, Man and Babe at once. 6. That it is contrary to the Laws of mere blind Matter, that man in his adult perfections should exist therefrom at once. 7. The Atheist's second Evasion, That the Species of things arose from the multifarious attempts of the motion of the Matter; With a threefold Answer thereto. 8. An Evasion of the last Answer, touching the perpetual exactness in the fabrick of all living Species with a threefold Answer also to that Evasion. 9. The further serviceableness of this Answer for the quite taking away the first Evasion of the Atheist.
Chap. XVI. 1. The Atheists Evasions against Apparitions; as first, That they are mere Imaginations. 2. Then, That though they be Realities without yet they are caused by the force of Imagination; with the confutation of these Conceits. 5. Their fond conceit, That the Skirmishings in the Aire are from the exuvious Effluxes of things; with a confutation thereof. 4. A copious confutation of their last subterfuge, (viz. That those Fightings are the Reflexions of Battels on the Earth) from the distance, and debility of Reflexion; 5. From the rude Politure of the Clouds; 6. From their inability of reflecting so much as the image of the starrs, which yet were a thing far easier; First, by reason of the undiminishableness of their magnitude. 7. Then from the purity of their light. 8. Thirdly, from the posture of our Eye in the shade of the Earth. 9. Lastly, from their dispersedness, ready from every part to be reflected if the Clouds had any such Reflexivity in them. 10. That if they have any such Reflexivity at to represent battels so exceeding distant, it is by some supernatural Artifice. 11. That this Artifice has its limited laws. 12. Whence at least some of these Aereal battels cannot be Reflexions from the Earth. 13. Machiavel's opinion concerning these Fightings in the Aire. 14. Nothing so demonstrable in Philosophy as the being of a God. 15. That Pedantick affectation of Atheisme whence it probably arose. 16. The true causes of being really prone to Atheisme. 17. That men ought not to oppose their mere complexional humours against the Principles of Reason, and Testimonies of Nature and History His Apology for being so copious in the reciting of Stories of Spirits.
The Contents of the Appendix to
The Antidote against Atheism
Chap. I. 1. The Author's reason of adding this Appendix to his Antidote. 2. An Enumeration of the chief Objections made against the First Book, thereof.
Chap. II. 1. That the force of his Argument for the Existence of God from his Idea, does not lye in this, that there are Innate Ideas in the Mind of man. 2. That the force of arguing from the Idea of a thing, be it innate or not intiate, is the same, proved by several instances. 3. The reason why he contends for Innate Ideas. 4. The seeming accuracy of a Triangle to outward sense no disproof but that the exact Idea thereof is from the Soul her self. 5. That it doth not follow that, if there be Innate Ideas, a Blind man may discourse of Colours. 6. That Brutes have not the Knowledge of any Logical or Mathematical Notions. 7. Why Zeno’s Asse goes in a right line to the bottle of Hay. 8. That those actions and motions in things that are according to Reason and Mathematicks, do not prove any Logical or Mathematical Notions in the things thus acting or moving.
Chap. III. 1. That considering the lapse of Mans Soul into Matter, it is no wonder she is so much puzzled in speculating things Immaterial. 2. That all Extension does not imply Physical Divisibility or Separability of Parts. 3. That the Emanation of the Secondary substance from the Centrall in a Spirit is not properly Creation. 4. How it comes to pass that the Soul cannot Withdraw her self from pain by her Self-contracting faculty. 5. That the Soul's extension dues not imply as many Wills and Understandings as imaginable Parts, by reason of the special Unity and Indivisibility of her substance. 6. Several Instances of the puzzledness of Phansy in the firm conclusions of Sense, and of Reafon. 7. The unconceivableness of the manner of that strong union some parts of the Matter have one with another. 8. What is meant by Hylopathy, and how a Spirit though not impenetrable, may be the Impellent of Matter. 9. That the unexplicableness of a Spirit's moving Matter is no greater argument against the truth thereof, then the inconceivableness of that line that is produced by the Motion of a Globe on a Plane is an argument against the Mobility thereof. 10. That the strength of this last Answer consists in the Assurance that there are such Phænomena in the world as utterly exceed the Powers of mere Matter; of which several Examples are hinted out of the foregoing Treatise.
Chap. IV. 1. That Existence is a Perfection, verified from vulgar Instances. 2. Further proved from Metaphysical Principles. 3. An Appeall to ordinary Reason. 4. That at least Necessary Existence is a Perfection, if bare Existence he not. 5. An Illustration of that last Conclusion.
Chap. V. 1. That there is a vast difference betwixt arguing from forced Figments or fancies, and from the natural Ideas of our own Minds. 2. That the Idea of a Being absolutely Evil does not imply necessary Existence, whether it signifie a Being absolutely Imperfect, 3. Or absolutely Wicked, 4. Or absolutely Miserable, 5. Or absolutely Mischievous. 6. That if by a Being absolutely Mischievous were meant onely the Infinite power of doing hurt, this is God, whose absolute Goodness prevents the execution thereof. 7. That the right Method of using our Reason is to proceed from what is plain and unsuspected to what is more obscure and suspicable. 8. That according to this Method, being assured first of the Existence of a Being absolutely Perfect from his Idea, we are therewithall inabled to return answer, that Impossibility of Existence belongs to a Being either absolutely Miserable or absolutely Mischievous. 9. That the Phænomena of the World further prove the impossibility of the Existence of a Being absolutely Mischievous. 10. And that the Counsels and Works of God are not to be measured by the vain Opinions of Men.
Chap. VI. 1. That the sense of his Argument from the idea of God in the first posture, is not simply That the Idea is true, and if God were, his Existence were necessary; but, That this Idea being true does exhibite to our Minde an absolute necessary Existence as belonging to Him. 2. That the Idea of the God of the Manichees does not include in it necessary existence. 3 . That to say that necessary Existence included in the Idea of a Being absolutely perfect is but conditional, is a Contradiction. 4. The second posture of his Argument made good, and that by virtue of the form thereof the Existence of the Manichean God is not concludible. 5. The invincible Evidence of the third posture of his Argument in the judgement of his Antagonist himself 6. That the force of his Argument in the fourth and last posture is not That we conceive the Idea of Matter without necessary Existence; but that, look as near as we can, we finde no necessary exiftence included therein, as we do in the idea of God. 7. That the Faculties of our Minde, to which he perpetually appeals are to be supposed, not proved to be true.
Chap. VII. 1. That that necessity of Existence that seems to be included in the Idea of Space is but the same that offers it self to our Mind in that more full and perfect Idea of God. 2. That there is the same reason of Eternal Duration, whose immediate subject is God, not Matter. 3 . That Space is but the possibility of Matter, measurable onely as so many several possible Species of things are numerable. 4. That Distance is no Physical affection of any thing, but onely Notional. 5. That Distance of Bodies is but privation of tactual union, measurable by parts, as other Privations of qualities by degrees. 6. That if distant Space after the removal of Matter be any real thing, it is that necessary Being represented by the Idea of God. 7. That Self-Existence and Contingency are terms inconsistent with one another.
Chap. VIII. 1. That the idea of God is a natural and indeleble Notion in the Soul of Man. 2. That if there were some small obscurity in the Notion, it hinders not but that it may be natural. 3. That the Politician's abuse of the notion of God and Religion argues them no more to be his Contrivance, then natural Affection, love of Honour and Liberty are; which he in like manner abuses. 4. A twofold Answer to an Objection touching God's implanting his Idea in us upon counsel or design.
Chap. IX. 1. That the natural frame of Conscience is such, that it suggests such Fears and Hopes that imply that there is a God. 2. That the ridiculousness off sundry Religions is not any proof that to be affected with Religion is no Innate faculty of the Soul of man.
Chap. X. 1. That though the Common might be the Seat of Common Sense, yet it cannot be the Common Percipient; 2. As being incapable of Sensation, 3. Of Memory, 4.Of Imagination, 5. Of Reason, 6. And of Spontaneous Motion. 7. That these Arguments do not equally prove an Incorporeal Substance in Brutes; nor, if they did, were their Souls straightway immortal. 8. That we cannot admit Perception in Matter as well as Divisibility, upon pretence the one is no more perplex'd then the other; because both Sense and Reason averres the one, but no faculty gives witness to the other. 9. In what sense the Soul is both divisible and extended. 10. A Symbolical representation how she may receive multitudes of distinct figurations into one indivisible Principle of perception. 11. That the manifest incapacity in the Matter for the Functions of a Soul assures us of the Existence hereof, be we never so much puzzled in the speculation of her Essence.
Chap. XI. 1. That Subtilty is not inconsistent with the strongest Truth. 2. That the subordinate serviceableness of things in the world is in the things themselves, not merely in our Phansy. 3. That the difficulty of obtaining such serviceable commodities is rather an Argument for Providence then against it. 4. That Beauty is no necessary Result from the mere Motion of the Matter. 5. That it is an intellectual Object, not taken notice of by Brutes. 6. That the preying of Animals one upon another is very well confident with the Goodness of the First Cause. 7. As also the Creation of offensive Animals, there being curbs & correctives to their increase. 8. That the immediate Matter of the Fœtus is homogental. 9. That the notion of the Archei or Seminal forms is no such intricate Speculation.
Chap. XII. 1. Objections against the Story of the Charmer of Saltzburg, 2. And of the betwitched Children at Amsterdam, with same others of that kinde; 3. As also against that of John of Hembach and John Michael Pipers to the Antick dancings of Devils. 4. Also against the disappearing of the Conventicle of Witches at the naming of God; 5. And against a certain passage of that Story of the Guardian Genius which Bodinus relates.
Chap. XIII. 1. That the Transformation of an humane body into another shape may be done without pain. 2. That there may be an actual separation of Soul and Body without Death properly so called. 3. That the Bodies of Spirits may be hot, or cold, or warm, and the manner how they become so. 4. In what sense we may acknowledge a First in an Infinite succession of generations. 5. That the story of Tree-Geese in Gerard is certainly true. 6. That God must be a Spirit properly so called. 7. That Spirits ordinarily so called are not Fire nor Aire, but Essences properly Spiritual, demonstrated from the solute Arenosity (as I may so speak) of Aire and Fire. 8. That this soluteness makes those Aereal Compages incapable of Personality, spontaneous Motion, and Sensation: 9. As also of transfiguring their vehicle into those complete shapes of Animals they appear in; 10. And of holding it together in winds and storms; 11. And lastly, of transporting Men and Cattel in the Aire. 12. That if Spirits or Dæmons be nothing but mere compilements of Aiery or Fiery Atoms, every Devil is many Millions of Devils. 13. The preeminence of Arguments fetched from the History of Spirits above those from the Operations of the Soul in the Body. for the proving of a Substance Immaterial.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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