Preparation for the Instructions of the Second and Third Main Levels

§. 39.

Any action that can have neither the ground of its origin nor the unlimited variety in its progress in materia stricte sic dicta matter strictly so-called, is called a spiritual action.

§. 40.

Before we go further here, we must also distinguish the difference between a spiritual action and an action of the spirit, so that these are not substituted for one another in the concept hereafter.

§. 41.

The action of the spirit is only a species, but the spiritual action is a genus under which various species can be understood, among which, furthermore, the action of the soul as well as the spirit can be included.

§. 42.

The ground of the properties that we perceive in matter does not lie in the essence of matter, but outside of it, because matter qua as matter, in and of itself, can have no acting property at all outside of its existence, but only a passive one.

§. 43.

If we take one main property that we perceive in matter—let it be, for example, motion—then experience teaches us sufficiently that this property is neither free nor arbitrary, but restricted and involuntary.

§. 44.

Matter is therefore a perfectly passive being, because it is visible, tangible, and therefore also divisible.

§. 45.

Everything divisible is a compositum compound, and that which is opposite to it, which can neither be visible nor have parts, is a simplex simple/simple substance.

§. 46.

However, since every compositum consists of two or more particles, and since it is evident that we find no two material particles in nature that are

perfectly equal to each other, it follows by itself that the particles of every compositum must be unequal either in regard to their figure and the efficacy associated with it, or also heterogeneous in regard to their inner essence.

§. 47.

Since now the simplicia simple substances, as we have accurately [established], are the opposite of the compositum and therefore true unities, it is understood by itself that the simplex must also be homogeneous in itself.

§. 48.

Every impression that feeling and sensation take in must necessarily be concord harmonious/in agreement; that is, [it] must be taken up by every particle in harmony and at the same time; otherwise, naturally, the feeling and sensation of one particle must cancel out that of the other, and nothing will be able to make an impression upon their inequality or their heterogeneity.

§. 49.

But if the impression is to be concord, then the particles that receive it must also be homogeneous.

Since this is impossible in a compositum, it follows from this that a compositum can neither feel nor sense.

§. 50.

But since feeling and sensing are the foundation for thinking, it follows no less that a compositum that is incapable of feeling or sensing certainly cannot think either.

§. 51.

Various dazzling arguments drawn from an immature experience can be opposed to this result, some of the most prominent of which we must allege here and refute before we go further. And indeed

§. 52.

1mo Firstly, those who simply grant the quality of feeling, sensing, and thinking to matter confess that the compositum—the matter in and of itself or insofar as its various heterogeneous particles do not stand in any harmony