13. Conjecture about the corporeal organs of some spirits.
And here give me leave to propose an extravagant
conjecture of mine, viz., That since we have some reason (if there be any credit to be given to the report of things
that our philosophy cannot account for) to imagine, that Spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk,
figure, and conformation of parts--whether one great advantage some of them have over us may not lie in this,
that they can so frame and shape to themselves organs of sensation or perception, as to suit them to their present
design, and the circumstances of the object they would consider. For how much would that man exceed all others
in knowledge, who had but the faculty so to alter the structure of his eyes, that one sense, as to make it capable of
all the several degrees of vision which the assistance of glasses (casually at first lighted on) has taught us to
conceive? What wonders would he discover, who could so fit his eyes to all sorts of objects, as to see when he
pleased the figure and motion of the minute particles in the blood, and other juices of animals, as distinctly as he
does, at other times, the shape and motion of the animals themselves? But to us, in our present state, unalterable
organs, so contrived as to discover the figure and motion of the minute parts of bodies, whereon depend those
sensible qualities we now observe in them, would perhaps be of no advantage. God has no doubt made them so as
is best for us in our present condition. He hath fitted us for the neighbourhood of the bodies that surround us, and
we have to do with; and though we cannot, by the faculties we have, attain to a perfect knowledge of things, yet
they will serve us well enough for those ends above-mentioned, which are our great concernment. I beg my
reader's pardon for laying before him so wild a fancy concerning the ways of perception of beings above us; but
how extravagant soever it be, I doubt whether we can imagine anything about the knowledge of angels but after
this manner, some way or other in proportion to what we find and observe in ourselves. And though we cannot but
allow that the infinite power and wisdom of God may frame creatures with a thousand other faculties and ways of
perceiving things without them than what we have, yet our thoughts can go no further than our own: so impossible
it is for us to enlarge our very guesses beyond the ideas received from our own sensation and reflection. The
supposition, at least, that angels do sometimes assume bodies, needs not startle us; since some of the most ancient
and most learned Fathers of the church seemed to believe that they had bodies: and this is certain, that their state
and way of existence is unknown to us.
