CHAP. III.] VOLUNTARY MOTION AND SENSIBILITY. 177 



because they oppose and contradict that Divine sentence 

 passed upon man for sin : &quot; In the sweat of thy brow thou 

 ehalt eat thy bread.&quot; For this kind of magic offers those ex 

 cellent fruits which God had ordained should be procured by 

 labour at the price of a few easy and slight observances. 



There are two other doctrines which principally regard 

 the faculties of the inferior or sensitive soul, as chiefly com 

 municating with the organs of the body, the one is of 

 voluntary motion, the other of sense and sensibility. The 

 former has been but superficially inquired into, and one 

 entire part of it is almost wholly neglected. The office and 

 proper structure of the nerves, muscles, &c., requisite to 

 muscular motion, what parts of the body rest while others 

 move, and how the imagination acts as director of this 

 motion, so far that when it drops the image whereto the 

 motion tended, the motion itself presently ceases, as in 

 walking, if another serious thought come across our mind, 

 we presently stand still; with many other such subtilties, 

 have long ago been observed and scrutinized. But how the 

 compressions, dilatations, and agitations of the spirit, which, 

 doubtless, is the spring of motion, should guide and rule the 

 corporeal and gross mass of the parts, has not yet been dili 

 gently searched into and treated. And no wonder, since the 

 sensitive soul itself has been hitherto taken for a principle 

 of motion and a function, rather than a substance.^ But as 



* The original is, pro entclcchia et functione quadam, alluding: to the 

 technical term entelechy, which Aristotle introduced into his Physics 

 (iii. 1) to denote the act through which any substance exercises its 

 power. The rational soul was never taken in the sense of a simple act, 

 or entelechy, as Bacon would insinuate, but was affirmed even by Aris 

 totle, who introduced the phrase, to be a certain power apart and dis 

 tinguished from the rest of the human system, as the eternal is distin 

 guishable from the incorruptible. His words are : iripl Ct TOV vov Kai 

 T&amp;gt;IQ OfdiprjTiKi ig Cvva}ii(t) ovckiriii Qavtpov. AX\ toiice &quot;^VX^IQ ytvof 

 trtpov elvai, mil TOIJTO fiovov ivtit\trai xwpiZtaQai KaQcnrtp dictov TOO 

 &amp;lt;f&amp;gt;9apTov (Arist. De An. ii. 2) ; and as this power is not a simple act, but 

 the effect of a vital substance, possessing the principle ot activity vir 

 tually in itsell, he implies its capability to communicate motion to sur 

 rounding bodies even in a state of immobility ; itrwf ydo ov povov 

 \i/t 0o tan TO Tr)v ovviav avr//f roi avTi)v tivai olai&amp;gt; tyaniv ot \iyovnc 



tli dl Tl}v tyv\flV TO KIVOUV UVTO ff CVVCl^itVOV KlVllv d\\ (V Tl TtoV 



acvva.Ta)v TO vTrapxfiv aury KIVTJVIV. (Arist. ibid. iii. 1.) With regard 

 to the precise meaning ot the word entelechy there have been many 

 Disputes among the learned. The origin of the term ought to be allowed 



