A key to physic, and the occult sciences / [E. Sibly].

  • Ebenezer Sibly
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A key to physic, and the occult sciences / [E. Sibly]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/548 page 12
    Now I am clearly of opinion, that, notwithftanding thefe great authors have fo obftinatelv contended for the definition of the word, and for the principles and conftru6tion of Nature, yet they all in reality meant one and the fame thing, only giving different explanations of the fame ideas; and if their arguments are clofely purfued, and compared with each other, they will all tendtoiliow, that thq anima mundi, or foul of the univerfe, was what they meant by Nature. This anima mundi, as we have before feen, is a medium inverting the whole inte- rior heavens, and confifts of a pure ethereal fubftance, or fpirit; which, as it more immediately refides in the celeftial regions, is the fecond 01 next caule, under God, that moves and governs the heavens, and heavenly bodies, ftais, and planets; which bodies, having received their firft exiftence from the fecundity of the fame fpirit in the ad of creation, are by an influx of fympathetic rays, and by light, heat, gravity, and motion, nourifhed and iuflained, upheld and continued, in the regular courfe, and in the beautiful ordei we lee them, fiom the celeftial regions, the fame influx of pure ethereal fpirit defeends into every part of the im- meafurable fpace, and is diffufed through the mafsof this world, informing, aauat- ing, and uniting the different parts thereof into various fubftances ; and being the primary fource of life, every-where breathing a fpirit like itlelf, it pervades all elementary bodies, and, intimately mixing with all the minute atoms theieof, con- ftitutes the power or inftrument we call Nature, forming, faffiioning, and propaga- ting, all things, conformably to the ideas or will of the Divine Mind in the firft a6t of creation. And fo the poet: Spiritus intus alit, totofquc infufa per artus Mens a git at moltm, et magnoje corpore mifeet. The only thing that has been objected to the notion of an anima mundi, is, that it minMes the Deity too much with his creatures; confounds, in fome rneafure, the workman with his work, making this, as it were, a part of that, and the feveral portions of the univerfe fo many parts of the Godhead.—Yet is the fame principle afferted by Seneca, Epift. 92. Totum hoc quo continemur, et unum eft, et Deus. Et focii ejus fumus, et membra. M. du Hamel thinks, that thofe who deny it, objea without a reafon; of which every one will be fenfible, who reads the defeription above given, fince it in no refpea confounds our comprehenfion of an infinitely-wife and Supreme Being with that of the anima mundi; but, on the contrary, proves it to be as diftina from the Deity as are the angels and fpirits in heaven. And we may further obferve, from what is above premifed, that thofe who deny the anima mundi on one hand generally admit it on the other. Thus the Peripatetics have
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