Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.8

402 OF TnE PLACE AND MOTION OF SPIRITS. tion of their natural and unlimited reciprocal agencies and iifluences. SECT. II. Of Spirits being in a Place, and removing thence. LET is now proceed to the- general head, viz. the 'mobility of spirits. As this author Mr. Locke has described mo- tivity to spirits or a power to move body, so he has ascribed mo- bility to them also, or a power to move themselves from place to place. Now if mobility be ascribed to spirits, or a power to change their place, then it necesssarily follows that they are in a place, and llave a proper relation to place. And if we will seek after and follow clear and distinct ideas, this localitywill be much the same as bodies have'; for Mr. Lockehimself justly ridicules the distinction between locus or place, as applied to bodies, and ubiety or whereness, which is ascribed to spirits, as it is explained by some philosophers. It is evident that if souls have an ubi, as it is called, or a place in which they areAso as to be included within it, or to have a real and proper situation or residence in it, they are certainly circumscribed in that ubi, and are limited to a certain quantity of space, and must have certain measurable distances from the bodies round about ; and this I think is proper existence in a place: So that place or locality and whereness or ubiety, as thus explained, are really the same things, if we strictly consider the ideas of them : And though I shall endeavour to give another sort of notion of the ubiety of spirit in this essay, yet in this notion of it, it is the same with place. Now if souls or spirits are properly in a place, I will prove first that they must be extended, they must be long, broad and deep ; and then they must be of some shape or figure, or be liable to ail the inconvenience to which dimension and shape ex- pose them. First, If a spirit is in a place (suppose a parlour) it has a measurable distance from the north wall and from the south ; if these two distances added together make not up the whole length of the parlour, then the soul is plainly extended, and its extent is equal to that defect or difference of measure. But if those two added distances do make up the whole length, then the soul is excluded, and it is not in a place : Quod erat demon- strandum. Secondly, If the north and south walls of this parlour by some mighty force be moved uniformly towards one another, they will at last meet and be contiguous or touch each other, or else the soul will hinder their touching; if it does hinder their touch, then it is solid as well as extended, and you make a body of it ; if it Both not binder their touching, then it must he unsolid extension, and must penetrate the two contiguous

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=