ESSAY V4. 409 SECT. IV. Other O?jections answered against the Locality if Spirits. ARE not spirits in some place? Do they not fill up some space ? Must they not have some relation of situation to bodies, as being near or distant ? It will be exceeding strange to say, My spirit is not properly or locally-in my body; surely you will tell me, it most exist some where or no where; if it exist some where, it most either fill all space, and exist every where, or it must fill a part of space, and that is still some where ; it must either becircumscribed in some part of my body, or be diffused through the whole of it; for if it exist no where, it has no existence. Let us consider this argument in its several parts. First, it is granted, that spirits do not exist or reside every where, they are not infinite ; and 1 will grant also, that they do not properly exist or resideanywhere, for they exist without any other relation to place, than what arises from their powers or operations on matter ; they have no such relation to place as bodies have, and therefore it may be philosophically said, they exist or reside no where ; that is, though God has given human spirits commission to act immediately on their own particular bodies, and on no other, yet they have no measurable relation to place, they have no proper nearness or distances to or from those bodies, although they act upon them by divineappointment, and receive influences from them ; but properly they belong to another rank of natures, another world of beings, which require only activity and consci- ousness, and do notrequire any proper situation to be given them any space to possess, or place to exist or reside in, though the objects on which they act, or of which they are conscious; have .proper situation or place. And if there beany sort of separate spirits which have no vehicles (as they are called) and which are not united to matter, or which have no commission from God to act upon any ma- terial being, or to be conscious of it, they are most properly no where, in strict philosophy; that is, they seem to stand more free from all locality or relation to place, since their powers and operations having no material objects, give them no pretences to situation or residence in or near any body whatsoever; and as there is no part of matter which they are related to by mutual action or passion, so neither by juxta position or contact. But you will say, if my soul be separated from my body at London, it may know after itsseparation that it is somewhere near London, that it is not in China, that it is not in the moon, not in Jupiter, or one of his satellites; it must be conscious of its be- ing and thinking in some place of this universe rather than in another. I answer, Perhaps not ; for when once the laws of union ii
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