hinder our discernment of the full nature of the human soul and scarce bright enough clearly to demonstrate the immortality of that noble Essence so as to leave no room for diffidence or contradiction I hope it can be no Heresie in any man because no disparagement to either his Faith or Reason You have Sir I presume attentively perused that so worthily commended discourse of Plato touching the immortality of mans soul and acquainted your selfe moreover with all those mighty Arguments alledged by Saint Thomas Pomponatius who will hardly be out-done in subtlety touching the same Theam by any that comes after him and yet he was forc'd to conclude himselfe a Sceptick and leave the Question to the decision of some other bolder Pen Des Cartes our noble friend Sir Kenelme Digby and divers other great Clerks to prove the Soul of Man to be a substance distinct from and independent upon that of the body and to have eternall existence à parte post and yet if I were not assured that your perswasion of its immortality is founded upon a much more firm basis then that of the most seemingly apodicticall of all their Reasons I might well doubt of the impregnability thereof And this I may say somewhat the more freely and boldly both because I my selfe having with all possible attention and equity of minde examined the validity of most of those Arguments for the immortality of mens souls which their Authors have presented as perfect Demonstrations thereof cannot finde any of them to make good that glorious Title or satisfie expectation to the full and because I have observed many learned men Divines and others who have long laboured their thoughts in the same Disquisition to concurre with me in opinion That to believe the soul of Man to be immortall upon Principles supernaturall is much more easie then to demonstrate the same by Reasons purely Naturall Now if for the most sublime witts even of our times wherein the Metaphysicks have doubtlesse received a very great encrease of clearnesse and mens speculations seem to be highly refined in regard of sundry lively and fruitfull hints that are inspersed upon the leaves of sacred writt concerning as well the Originall and Nature of the Soul as the state of it after death it be so hard a task to erect a firme perswasion of the immortality of the human soul upon a foundation of Naturall Reason alone I appeal to every imprejudicate man with what justice our EPICVRVS is so highly condemned for being ignorant of that unattainable Truth when he could steer the course of his judgment and beliefe by no other Starre but that remote and pale one of the Light of Nature that bright North-Starre of Holy Scripture appearing not at all to the Horizon of Greece till many Ages after his death Again EPICVRVS is not the only man amongst the Antients that is to be accused for entertaining and divulging erroneous conceptions of the nature and condition of the reasonable soul after death it being well known that most of the Grecian Philosophers did indubitate the incorruptibility thereof either implicitely and upon consequence or immediately and in direct terms This perhaps may seem a Parodox to you and therefore I ask leave to make it good The Grecian Scholiarchs may all be divided into two Classes in reference to this subject the first consisting of those who asserted the other of such as expresly denied the Immortality of Man's Soule the former containing the greater the latter the lesser number And among all those that are on the affirmative part you shall not finde one that is not more or lesse tainted with that so common Errour of the Refusion of all mens souls after death into the Anima Mundi or generall Soul of the Universe which is upon consequence That they cease to exist per se or to be what they were before so soon as they are separated from the body For your further satisfaction of this unfrequent Truth be pleased to observe that as they generally conceived the soul of every individuall man to be a certain particle of the Mundan or universall soul immitted into the body at its conception and therein contained during life as a drop of water is contained in a glasse Phiall so did they also conceive that the same soul upon the breaking of the glasse or dissolution of the body doth flow forth and again return and unite it selfe to the universall soul front whence it was at first desumed Thus Plutarch 4 Placit 9. expresly tells us that Pythagoras and Plato maintained that Mans soul having taken its farewell of the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in congeniam sibi animam Mundi concedere doth return to the soul of the world which is of the same substance and nature with it Now by this common soul of the world it is manifest that they sometimes meant God in respect they acknowledged him to be the supream Intelligence or Minde which disposeth and ordereth all parts of the body and sometimes the Heavens because as Heaven is the most pure and noble part of the Vniverse so is the soul the most pure and noble part of Man This considered you have here an opportunity at least if a short and pertinent digression may be opportune of taking notice in what sence we are to understand some remarkable passages in their writings touching the buman soul which are often mentioned but seldome rightly interpreted First we may hence collect what their true meaning was when they said Animam esse divinae aurae Particulam that the Soul is a particle of Divine breath or as Cicero speaks in Cato Major Ex Divina mente universa delibutos animos habemus We have our soules derived from the universall divine minde And again when they affirmed that our Soules were taken from Heaven and to return thither again after their emancipation from the body All which the Prince of Poets elegantly insinuateth in these Verses Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque tractusque maris coelumque profundum Heinc homines armenta viros genus omne ferarum Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas Scilicer huc reddi deinde ae resoluta referri Omnia nec morti esse locum sed viva evolare Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere coelo Secondly we may hence learn the sence of Empedocles as well in that saying quoted by Plutarch de exilio Praesentem vitam esse exilium è quo tandem animus sit in pristinam sedem demigraturus That this present liâ—e is a banishment of the soul from which it is at length to be recall'd to its primitive place as in that mentioned by Clem. Alexandrinus Lib. 4. Stromat 2. hypotypos 24. Animos sapientum Deos fieri That the soules of Wise-men become Gods Thirdly we may hence know how to understand the true sence of Plato's opinion that all learning is only Reminiscence For supposing the Soul of the Vniverse to be omniscient and each
particle thereof to be of the same nature and faculties with the whole he thereupon inferrs that the soul of each man being a particle of that universall and omniscient soul must be likewise omniscient though in the moment when it is immers'd into the body it becomes dim and beclouded so that as if it had been made drunk with Lethe or the Waters of Oblivion it forgets all its Originall knowledge and must recollect and call to minde the notions of particular things by the help and mediation of the senses Lastly why Pythagoras and Plato to this opinion of the soules Remigration to the Vniversall Soul connected that their other so famous one of the Transmigration of soules from body to body successively For having imbibed this latter errour of the souls transmigration in their conversation with some Egyptian Priests as Stobaeus informs us in Eccl. Physic. they strived to accomodate the same to their own former opinion of the souls being a particle of the Anima mundi insomuch as it might thence follow that the soul being exhal'd from its first body and wandring up and down in quest of its fountain the universall soul might probably enough light upon some other body then in the act of Conception and being united thereunto animate it or being by inspiration attracted into some living creature unite it selfe to the soul praeexistent therein and so become one with it especially if the body it meet with be of the same or like conditions and affections with the former which it hath so lately forsaken True it is neverthelesse that they delivered this Doctriue of the Transmigration of soules very obscurely and wrapt up in Fables and Allegories but their design herein was to make men more mansuete and milde in their dispositions by bringing them to put a greater value upon the lives of Animals for according to this Doctrine who would kill a Beast when for ought he knew his Fathers Soul might animate that Beast and a greater degree of horrour against shedding of Blood that so having devested them of all savagenesse and cruelty they might have a greater detestation against Homicide and preserving the peace and safety of Societies Nor can the Stoicks be exempted from the same Errour of the Refusion of all soules into the universall one insomuch as it was their constant tenent that the world was animated by a certain fire which they call'd Jupiter that mens soules were particles derived from that fire and should again be reunited thereunto some sooner others latter but all in that generall Conflagration of the Vniverse when all things shall be as they dreamt sublimed into Jove again Now if we look narrowly into the businesse we shall discover even Aristotle himselfe to be in some measure guilty of the very same delusion as well in respect of his Animall Heat which discoursing of the Generation of Animals Lib. 2 Cap. 3. he affirms to be respondent in some proportion to the Element of Celestiall bodies and wherewith all things in the world are impraegnated as of his Intellectus Agens which he teacheth to be diffused through the whole world after the same manner as the light of the Sun is diffus'd through the Aire and so apply'd and conjoyned to the Intellectus Patiens or proper soule of every man as the externall light is applyed and conjoyned to the eye and as the eye by the conjunction of externall light comes to see visible objects so doth the proper passive Intellect of every man by the illustration of the generall active Intellect come to understand intelligible Objects Adding thereunto that the Intellect passive is separable corruptible and capable of utter dissolution but the Active inseparable incorruptible immortall For thus much may be collected from severall places of his Books de Anima and thus are those places explained by the best of his Greek interpreters Alexander and the best of the Arabians Averrhoes whose opinion of the Unity of the Intellect in all the world is sufficiently known And thus much of the Philosophers of the former Classis who though they seem to affirm do yet in reality upon naturall consequence deny the Immortality of the Humane Soul in that they all concur in that contradictory Errour of the Refusion thereof into the Anima mundi For the proper Notion of Immortality is the eternall existence of a thing in the selfe same nature and perse and therefore if a thing be devested of its own proper nature so as to become invested with that of another and to have no existence or subsistence but what is dependent upon its union with that other to which it is assimilated and indentified for my part truly I cannot understand how it can be said to be immortall without manifest contradiction And whether it be not as grosse an absurdity to say that the soul of a man shall be for ever the same i. e. the soul of a man and yet that it shall be identified or made the same with the soul of the world as to say that such a thing shall before ever the same and not the same is no hard matter to determine As for those of the latter who in down right termes denyed the Immortality of the soul they subdivide themselves into two different Sects some having contended for the totall destruction or absolute Annihilation and others for only the exsolution and dispersion of it into the matter or principles of which it was composed To the former of these Sects we may justly annumerate all such who conceived the soule of man to be only a certain harmony not of Musicall sounds but a contemperation of parts humours and qualities and consequently that as of Musicall Harmony nothing can remain after the sounds are vanished so of the soul nothing can remain after death hath once destroyed that harmonious Contemperation of parts hunours and qualities from whence it did result And this purely was the opinion of not only those antienter Greeks Dicaearchus Aristoxenus Andraeas and Asclepiades all which are thereof strongly accused by Plato in Phaed and Aristotle Lib. 1. de Anima Cap. 5. but also our Master Galen who was positive and plain in his definition of the soul to be a certain Temperament of Elementary Qualities In the same list may we also inscribe the names of all those who imagining the soul to be nothing else but a certain Act or Form or Quality inseparable i. e. a certain speciall Modification of Matter have accordingly concluded that as the Figure or speciall Mode of a thing must inevitably vanish immediately upon the immutation or change of the thing figurate so must the soul being only a speciall Mode of the Matter necessarily vanish immediately upon the immutation of that Mode by death Which Origen Iustine Theodoret and some other Fathers understanding to have been the Tenent of Aristotle have written sharp invectives against him as an assertor of the soules mortality and this so justly that if his Zealous Disciple
and remission or Flouds and Ebbs of pleasure and Subalterne or Graduall viz. such as is subject to Addition and Detraction or Encrease and Decrease of pleasures IV. The Former we conceive to be a certain State than which none can be thought more sweet more desireable more perfect wherein there is no Evil to be feared no Good which is not fully enjoyed wherein is nothing to which the Will can have an inclination and may not possess it finally which is more Constant than ever to be lost V. The Later we understand to be a certain state in which a man may be as Happy as the Frailty of his Nature will permit or such wherein he may enjoy very much of necessary Goods and suffer very little of Evils and consequently wherein He may spend his daies pleasantly calmly and permanently so far forth as the Condition of his Country Society Course of life Constitution Age and other Circumstances shall give leave VI. Nor is it without good reason that we thus Distinguish and define Felicity Because though it be manifest that the Former or Supream Felicity is competent only to the Divine Nature yet there have bin some who thinking overhighly of themselves and speaking magnificently of their own Wisdom have so far dared to promise and arrogate to themselves this perfect Felicity as to affirm themselves to be in that respect equall to God and account the expression modest when they said they were inferior onely to Iupiter himself VII These truly may be judged to have been forgetfull both of the Mortality and Imbecility of their Nature when all that are conscious or mindfull of either must soon acknowledge that Men are capable onely of the Latter or imperfect Felicity and that Wisdom doth perform a very high work upon a man if while most others remain surrounded with diverse Miseries it advance him to such a condition as renders him the least miserable of all men or if among those various Degrees of miseries to which his Birth hath made him obnoxious it place him in such a state wherein hee may have the least share of those miseries For to be happy in this life it is sufficient to be exempted from those miseries by which one might have been afflicted and in the mean time to enjoy such Goods as that the condition of our Nature is not capable of greater VIII And this seriously is the Reason why we conceive that a Wise man though he be deprived of the two best of his Sences his Sight and Hearing may yet partake of a happy life forasmuch as he may neverthelesse continue in the fruition of such and so many Goods as his maimed nature is capable of and want those Evills if not of his Body yet at least of his mind which might otherwise have vexed him IX Nay upon the same ground we further profess that a Wise man may be Tormented most cruelly and yet continue the possession of his Happiness For still he may enjoy not that Divine but this Human Felicity since in a Wiseman it is alwaies as Great as the Condition of the present time wil permit him to make it X. We confess that in the midst of his torments he cannot but be sensible of pains and may somtimes by the violence of them be forced to groan and roar out but in the mean while because calmly submitting to the necessity of his suffering them he doth not exasperate or encrease his pains either by his Impatience or Desperation but rather mitigates and lessens them by as great Constancy of mind as his generous resolutions can fortifie him withall in that respect doubtless he must be much more happy than if he had with pusillanimity fear reluctancy and despair entertained them or than another man who being under the same torments doth not endure them with equall courage and constancy as not having the like encouragements and supplies from Wisdom which adfers at least Innocence of life and security of Conscience by which those torments might be lightned XI Wherefore there is no reason neither why any man should by way of Cavill object unto us that according to this Assertion Phalaris Bul and a bed of Roses must be all one to us and consequently that a Wise man ought while he is in the flames of that Brazen Engine of torture to smile and cry out O how pleasant this is O how much am I above these torments how little do I fear or care for them Forasmuch as we do not gainsay but there are some things which a wise man had rather should happen to him as the health of his Body exemption from all incommodity and freedom of his Mind that so he might solace himself in the contemplation of his Goods and other things which though he would not they should befall him yet when they do befall him he doth not only constantly and bravely endure but also welcoms and commends them insomuch as they give him an opportunity to experiment and gratulate his Virtue and with internall alacrity to exclame I am burned but not overcome why should it not be more desirable not to have the fire overcome my Constancy than not to have it consume my Body And this we say in regard it is not to be expected but that a Wise man may also be obnoxious as to the pains of Diseases so also to the tortures of Tyrants though he neither incurre those nor provoke these willingly so far forth as he can with safety of his Virtues avoid it CHAP. III. That pleasure without which there is no Notion of Felicity is a Good of its own Nature FOrasmuch as it 's sweet or pleasant for a man to live without pain and sweet or pleasant likewise to enjoy Good things and be recreated by them it is an evident truth that without both these sweetnesses or Pleasures or one of them at least Felicity cannot be understood for we accept Pleasure Suavity Jucundity and other Terms of the like importance for one and the same thing though there have not wanted some who with great pomp and ostentation have so discoursed of Pleasure as if it were a certain Evill in its own nature and upon consequence concluded it to be not onely inconsistent with but wholly Alien from wisdom and Happiness And therefore before we come to enquire whether Felicity doth consist in Pleasure or not requisite it is that we remonstrate that Pleasure is a reall good in it self and that its Contrary Pain is a reall Evill in it self II. Since that is Good which helpeth which pleaseth which is amiable and inviting to the Appetite and on the contrary that is Evill which harmeth which displeaseth which is ungratefull and so inciteth the Appetite to an odium and aversion certainly there is nothing which doth more please more delight is more amiable more desiderable than Pleasure and on the contrary nothing that doth more incommode more offend is more to be abhorred and avoided than pain Wherefore Pleasure seems
with inconsideration and intemperance propose to themselves as the summary of their desires and accomplishment of all their Hopes that meaner Pleasure which depends upon Motion but Wisdom being called to our assistance doth soon reduceall Pleasures to order and Decorum and teacheth us that we are not to look upon any pleasure as the perfection and End of our lives but what Nature her self hath ordained for that End and which can be no other but what we have declared For while Nature is our guide whatever we do must conduce only to this that we may not be pained in body nor perturbed in mind and when we have once attained to that state all the Tempests of our mind cease and all our Hopes and Desires are lost in Fruition and there can be nothing beyond it to which to aspire in order to the Complement of our Happinesse For we then want Pleasure when the absence of it doth produce pain in us but when wee are not pained then doe we want no pleasure VII Hence comes it that the Sum or Height of all Pleasures doth consist only in the Amotion of all pains or in that state which followes upon that Amotion for wherever Pleasure is there can be nothing of pain of Anxiety And hereupon it follows also that the highest Pleasure terminated in the privation of pain may indeed be varied and distinguished but can never be Augmented or Amplified for Nature so long as she hath taken away all pain doth encrease pleasure but all pain being removed she suffers not pleasure to be encreased in Magnitude but only admits some certain Varieties thereof that are not then at all necessary as being such that are not comparated to this that we may not be pained VIII Moreover from hence it appears that those men insult without cause who accuse us not to account this To want all Pain to be somthing consisting in the middle betwixt pain and pleasure but so to confound it with the other member of the Division as to make it not only a Pleasure but even the Highest of all Pleasures For because when we are Exempted from pain we join in that very Exemption and Vacuity from all molestation and every thing wherein we joy is a pleasure as every thing wherewith we are offended is a pain therefore is the privation of all pain by us rightly named a Pleasure For as when Hunger and Thirst are expelled with meat and drink that very Expulsion of the trouble of them doth adferr the Consequution of a pleasure so in every thing else the very Amotion of pain causeth the succession of pleasure IX Hence also may we desume a convincing reply to those who urge against us that there is no Reason why this Middle state of Indolency should be esteemed rather a pleasure than a pain For upon the detraction of pleasure discontent doth not presently ensue unlesse perhaps some pain immediately succeed into the room of that former pleasure but on the contrary we alwaies conceive a joy upon the losse of any pain though none of those pleasures succeed which consist in the delightfull affection of the Sense By which we may clearly understand how great a pleasure it is Not to be in Pain whereof if any man doubt let him ask of those who are infested with those sharp pains of the Gout Toothach or any other Acute disease X. There are also who deride this our opinion Objecting that this pleasure of Indolency is like the condition of a sleeping man and fit only for Slothfull and Unactive spirits But these consider not that this Indolent constitution is so far from being a meer Torpor or sluggishness as that it is the only state wherein we can perform all the actions of life vigorously and cheerfully And as we would not have the life of a wise man to be like a Torrent or rapid River so would we not have it to be like a standing and dead Pool but rather as a cleare stream sliding on in a constant silence and gentlenesse Wherefore we contend that a Wise mans pleasure is not that which is Dul Heavy and Unactive but that which Reason makes Constant Firm and Sprightfull unto him XI But to leave these our Opponents and return to our Theme there are two good things of which our Highest Good or chiefest Felicity doth consist viz. To have the Mind free from pertubation and the Body free from pain and so that these goods be ful and above the capacity of Encrease For how can that which is full be encreased If the Body be immune from all pain what addition can be made to that Indolency If the Mind be constantly serene and Impertubed what Addition can be made to that Tranquillity Nor do those Externall Blandishments of the Sense in any measure augment but only serve to condite and sweeten this state of Highest Felicity for that Consummate Good of Human Nature is contented with only the peace of mind and quiet of body CHAP. VI. Of the means to procure this Felicity NOw seeing that this Tranquillity of mind and Indolency of Body do constitute the chief Felicity of man nothing can more concern us than to consider those things which conduce to the attainment and conservation thereof insomuch as while we have that we have all things and while we want it all we do is to attain it though for the Causes aforesaid we seldom do attain it II. In the first place therefore we are to reason of Felicity no otherwise than of Health it being manifest that that state in which the mind is free from perturrbation and the body from pain is nothing else but the perfect Health of the whole man and naturally consequent thereupon that as in the body so also in the mind those things which produce and conserve Health are the very same with those which either prevent the Generation of Diseases or cure and expell them when they are generated III. As for the Diseases of the Body since the excellent Art of Medicine is ordained as well for the prevention as Cure of them leaving the praescription of both praeservative and Curative remedies to the learned professors of that Art we shall sufficiently discharge our present duty if we admonish you of only two things The one is that we alwaies observe Temperance and live soberly and Continently to the end that we may avert all diseases or at least make them more gentle and more easily curable since for the most part the Harvest of Diseases doth arise from the seeds of Intemperance and Incontinence The other that when we are invaded with Diseases we instantly have recourse to Fortitude that so we may both endure them with Constancy of Mind and not exasperate them by impatience and comfort our selves with this that if our pain be great it must be short if long light IV. And as for the Diseases of the Mind against them Philosophy is provided of Remedies being in that respect justly accounted
Will free from that Sempiternall Motion imagined by the Fatist and so not permit Pravity or Wickedness to escape inculpable X. But what we here say of Fortune doth not in the least import that we ought to ascribe any Divinity thereunto not only as the Vulgar but those Philosophers also who accounting Fortune as some instable Cause though they do not conceive that she doth distribute to men any thing of Good or Evill that may conduce to an happy life do yet think that she doth give occasions of very considerable Goods and Evils All that our words of Fortune imply is only this that as many things are effected by Necessity and Counsell so also by Fortune and therefore that it is the Duty of a Wise man to arm and provide himself against Fortune XI Now seeing that whatever of Goodnesse or Malice there is in Human actions hath dependence upon no other foundation but only this that a man doth those Actions Knowingly and Willingly or Freely therefore is the Mind to be accustomed to this that it may know truly i. e. use Right Reason and Will truly i. e. that the Will be bent to that which is truly Good and averted from what is truly Evill Forasmuch as this Assuefaction doth beget that Disposition in the mind which we have defined Virtue to be as the Assuefaction of it to the Contrary doth beget that disposion which we may justly define Vice to be XII We insist not upon this that that is truly Good which produceth Pleasure as sincere so also without any pain trouble or repentance attending and ensuing thereupon and that truly Evill which produceth pain as sincere so also without any Pleasure or Allubescence to succeed upon it Only we touch upon both that we may discriminate either from what is onely Apparent and Dissembled such as that Good which creating present Pleasure introduceth future pain and trouble and that Evill which procuring pain or trouble in the present drawes on pleasure and content in the future CHAP. VIII Of the Virtues Generally FOrasmuch as Virtue is either Prudence it self or the very Dictamen of Right Reason as we accustom our minds to the constant exercise thereof or is at least regulated by and dependent upon Prudence or the Dictamen of Right Reason from thence it is manifest that to this Latter Kind belongs both that Virtue whereby a man stands affected toward himself and that whereby he is affected toward others since Prudence is that whereby a man is comparated and enabled to Govern not only himself but others also II. That Virtue which relates to Others is commonly called by the name Iustice and that which concerns only a mans-self is vulgarly Distinguished into two branches viz. Temperance and Fortitude But we use to comprehend both under the simple terme of Honesty as when we say that to do an act out of Virtue is no more nor lesse than to do Prudently Honestly Justly and this because they who live soberly and Continently are said to live honestly according to Decorum or as becomes them as they who behave themselves Magnanimously or Bravely are reputed to behave themselves honestly or Becomingly III. Hereupon we as others make Virtue Fourfold viz. Prudence Temperance Fortitude and Iustice. But so as that we oppose not Prudence so much to any affection as to Incogitancy Ignorance Foolishnesse unlesse it be by accident only as any perturbation doth eclipse Reason and make a man do imprudently nor Iustice so much to any Affection as to Malice whereby a man is inclined to Frauds unlesse by accident only in as much as Anger Hate Avarice or some other passion may cause a man to do unjustly aud Temperance we oppose to Cupidity and Fortitude to Fear IV. It appears from hence that what we formerly said viz. that it is sober and well ordered Reason which procures a pleasant or happy life aimed at this that Right Reason doth produce a pleasant or happy life by the means of those Vertues which it ingenerateth and maintaineth Likewise that what we subjoyned as the Reason thereof viz. that Reason doth investigate the true Causes why things are to be elected or Rejected or chaseth away such opinions as might occasion very great Perturbations of mind was intended only to teach that Right Reason is the very same with more Generall Prudence the Principle upon which we ground all our Elections and Avoydances and so a very great Good because the Virtues arising from that Reason or Prudence are able to appease and prevent all Perturbations and this by convincing that no man can live pleasantly or happily but he that lives Prudently Honestly Justly as è converso that to live Prudently Honestly Justly is to live pleasantly or happily V. By this you may perceive the Ground of our Assertion That Happiness and Virtue are Convertible or that the Virtues are Congenite and Essentiall to a happy life so as it is impossible to separate these from that For all other things as being caduce and mortall may be abstracted from germane and constant pleasure but Virtue alone being a perpetuall and immortall Good can never be separated from it VI. From these things we may further understand that all the Virtues are connected together and that by a twofold relation the First because all the other Virtues are conjoyned to and dependent upon their Princess Prudence as the members of the body are conjoyned to the Head or as the streams are conjoyned to the Fountain from which they flow the other because as well Prudence as all the others concurr and unite in the point of a happy life being that a happy life cannot consist without the Virtues nor the Virtues without a happy life VII However though the Virtues be all Connected thus together yet are not they therefore all Equall as some have conceived who contend that all Vices and Faults or Crimes are also Equall For a man may be comparated more to Justice than to Temperance and Temperance may be more perfect in one man than in another as may be exemplified in My self without envy be it spoken who have attained to so high a degree of sobriety that I make a sufficient meal usually for lesse then an half-penny and Metrodorus my Friend and Companion who cannot satisfie himself with altogether so course and spare a diet Besides experience assures that one man is Wiser than another and all that walk in the waies of Virtue have not the like Rewards alottetd to them nor all Delinquents the like Punishments Lastly we appeal to Common sense whether or no they are in the right who make all Virtues and all Vices Equall that he offends as highly who beats his servant without Cause as he who beats his Father that it is all one for to eate a Bean or ones Fathers Head VIII Others there are who condemn and bitterly inveigh against us for affirming that the End of all the Virtues is Pleasure as if we meant that kind
erect our determinations Since otherwise all things will be full of indiscreet temerity and confusion and late Repentance will attend upon all his undertakings III. Moreover in case you doe not direct every one of your Actions upon what occasion soever as to this grand scope so also to that very end of Nature which you proposed to your self in the designment of it but turn aside to any other sinister purpose either in the prosecution or avoidance of any Object whatsoeever then certainly shall not the Actions of your life be consentaneous to your discourses but extolling Tranquillity for instance in your words you shall betray your self to be really addicted to multiplicity of business and obnoxious to very much trouble IV. Now that man doth clearly understand the Ends prescribed by Nature in the course of life to be instituted and undertaken who well knows how easily that is procurable which is necessary to life or what is sufficient to the detraction of all that can by indigence cause pain in the Body For from thence he so well knows how to order the whole series of his life as alwaies to be above the want of such things as are full of businesse and Contention and consequently of Chance and Danger V. Hereupon a Wise man hath no reason to be much afraid of Poverty because it is very rare to find a man so poor as to be in want of those things which are necessary to life But in case our Wise man should be reduced to such a low ebb of Fortune as to want things necessary to the sustenance of his life yet will he not with the Cynicks betake himself to the shamefull refuge of Begging but rather undertake the Erudition of some others in Wisdom that so he may both take a course beseeming the dignity of his Prudence and at the same time deservedly accommodate himself with necessaries from those who have abundance VI. And while he is constrained to take this or some other honest and beseeming course that by an acquired confidence of mind he may generously receive those things which happen to him for the instant day he is to have recourse to the Oracle of his own Wisdom and call Philosophy to his relief for we then resign the arbitration of those things that so neerly concern us to an Evill Councellour when we measure and provide against indigence by any other proportion but the simple necessities of Nature and the rules of Philosophy VII Wherefore it behoves a Philosopher to provide for such competent means as may supply his necessities and so long to apply himself to that provision as till his diligent care hath furnished him but so long as any part of them may be spared and his confidence yet remain perfect he is in no case to addict himself to the getting of riches and storing up of provisions VIII In the provision of these things therefore our care is to be proportioned by Philosophy and so in a short time we shall come to know what a Virtue and how great a Good it is to require only what is simple light and very small because what is most sweet and free from trouble in all a mans life depends wholly upon this to be contented with the least i. e. onely so much as sufficeth nature And as for those impediments which the sollicitous hunting after more doth draw upon us when they once discover themselves as soon they must either by the great labour of the body or the difficulty in the very procuring-them or the abduction of the mind from more worthy and advantageous speculations which we ought evermore highly to esteem or the insatisfaction resulting from the fruition of them certainly we shall clearly perceive the same to be altogether fruitless and insufficient to compensate the consequent perturbations IX And whereas we praemonished that every man should before he determines upon what course of life to put himself strictly examine his own Genius and advise with himself concerning the inclination thereof that so he may at length happily devote himself to that which he finds most agreeable to the Destination of it our purpose therein was to intimate that nothing can be more miserable and more inconsistent with tranquillity than for a man to be engaged in that course of life to which Nature made him unfit X. It follows from hence that an Active life is not fit for a slothfull and heavy person nor a slothfull lazy kind of life fit for an active for as idlenesse is quiet and action labour to the one so to the other idlenesse is a labour and action quiet Thus a Souldiers life is unfit for a Timorous and softly man and an umbratile life odious to an impatient and bold man for one cannot endure the heat of War nor the other the cool shadow of peace So that nothing can be more safe or hopefull than for a man to devote himself to that to which he finds no adversnesse or repugnancy in his nature XI Whereunto you may please to add this one rule that every man to the end the state of life which he chooseth may be the more secure and tranquill ought to choose a mean state or such as is neither very eminent nor very abject at least if it be in his own power Because it behoves him to live in a Civill society neither as a Lyon nor as a Gnat lest he be exterminated as the one or ensnared and crushed as the other CHAP. XI Of Prudence Domestick THis sort of Prudence divides it self into Two branches the First concerns a man in the capacity of a Husband and a Father the other as he is a Master of Servants and Possessor of House Goods Lands c. II. Concerning the Former viz. Conjugall and Paternall Prudence let us observe onely what may be inferred from the Praemises touching the Directions of a man in the Election of his course of life Thus if you find your Constitution to be such as that you cannot without the ardors of the flesh live single that you can with patience endure a morose and unquiet Wife and untoward and undutifull Children that you shall not be subject and apt to vex repine and grieve when you shall hear your Children crying and bawling see them groning on the bed of sicknesse or snatcht away by death before you and that you shall not be perplexed and distracted with those Cares and sollicitudes that accompany the provision of all things necessary to a Conjugall state why then indeed it may be convenient for you to take a Wife and beget Children for which you may provide by a Conjugall and Paternall Prudence III. You may presume indeed that your Wife will be sweet and Complacent that your Children will be of ingenious and tractable dispositions that your cares for them will not be great nor many that you have so laid your designs as that you cannot expect any thing but prosperity and good successe and yet you can but presume
into grievous diseases into losses into disgrace and many times into the penalties decreed by the Laws IV. But they who would so enjoy pleasures as that no pains shall ensue thereupon and constantly retain their judgement not to be overcome by Pleasure to the doing of what they know ought not to be done these men acquire the greatest Pleasure by pretermitting Pleasure and frequently suffer some pain to prevent their falling into greater V. And hence is it understood that Temperance is to be desired not because it avoids some Pleasures but because by restraining a man from them it declines Troubles which being avoided he afterwards obtains Greater Pleasures And this in the mean time it so doth as that the action becomes Honest and Decent and we may clearly understand that the same men are Lovers as of Pleasure so also of Decorum yea and that such who esteem and pursue all Virtues do for the most part perform those actions and attain to those Ends as that by them it is made manifest how odious to all men Cruely is and how amiable Goodnesse and Clemency and that those very Pleasures which Evill men most eagerly desire and hunt after do fall into the lapps of onely good men VI. Moreover for as much as among Cupidities about the restraint and Moderation of which Temperance is imployed some are Naturall others vain or meerly opinionative and of the Naturall ones some are Necessary other Not-necessary we omit that of the Necessary ones some pertain simply to Life such is the appetite of meat and drink together with the Pleasure which consists only in Motion and others absolutely to Felicity it self such as that of Indolency and Tranquillity or the stable Pleasure manifest it is that not without good cause we have in our Physiology made Three kinds of Cupidities viz. 1. some that are both Naturall and Necessary 2. others that are Naturall but Not-necessary and 3. others that are neither Naturall nor Necessary but meerly Vain or arising from vain Opinion VII And because we said that those are Naturall and Necessary which cause damage and pain in the body if they be not satisfied it is evident that such Cupidities which inferr no damage nor pain if not satisfied and yet are joyned with earnest and vehement instigations do become such not by any Necessity but by Opinion and though they have their seeds from Nature yet when they run up to Excesse their growth is caused only by the evill but powerfull influence of Opinion which makes men far worse then Beasts since they are not obnoxious to any such diffusion or Excesse and again that such Cupidities may be proved to be not only Not-necessary but also Not-naturall only by this that they import an appetence in Excesse and very hardly or never to be satisfied and are for the most part worthily accounted the Causes of some Harm or other even to Nature VIII Now that we may discourse of the chief sorts of Temperance respectively to the Chief sorts of Cupidities we are to pitch upon 1. Sobriety which stands opposed to Gluttony or the excessive desire of meat and drink 2. Continence which confronts Lust or the unbridled desire of Venus 3. Lenity the adversary to Anger or the desire of Revenge 4. Modesty the contrary to Ambition or the affectation of Honour 5. Moderation the antagonist to Avarice or the Cupidity of Riches and 6. in respect of the affinity betwixt Desire and Hope Mediocrity the mean betwixt Hope and Desperation of the Future CHAP. XIV Of Sobriety opposed to Gluttony IT can hardly be expressed how great Good redounds from Sobriety which reducing a man to a thin simple and spare Diet by happy experience teacheth how little that is which Nature requires and that her Necessities may be abundantly satisfied with slender and easily-provided Aliment such as decocted Barly Fruits Herbs and Fountain-Water II. For these things sufficiently remove the trouble of the body arising from want of sustenance are every where to be had in good plenty and contain the Faculties of dry and moist Aliments Whatever is more than this amounts to Luxury and concerns only the satisfaction of a Cupidity which is neither Necessary nor occasioned by any thing whose defect doth necessarily inferr any the least offence or detriment to Nature but ariseth partly from hence that the want of somwhat after which the exorbitant appetite longeth is imagined reall and born with impatience partly from hence that an absolute Delight or such as is entire and neither accompanied with nor attended on by any trouble is presumed from the satisfaction thereof III. And forasmuch as such things as are commonly provided to our hands abundantly suffice to supply all Natures wants and these Aliments are such as partly for their simplicity partly for their Exiguity are easily providible hence it follows that he who feeds upon flesh hath need of other things to eat with it when he who is satisfied only with Inanimates hath need of but half so much as the other and sustains himself with what is easie in the provision and of small cost and pains in the preparation IV. Now as for the Commodities which redound from Sobriety they are principally Four The First is that it brings and conserves Health by accustoming the body to simple course and spare Diet. For sumptuous Feasts and full meals and various dishes are they which generate exasperate and prolong Crudities Head-aches Rheumes Gouts Fevers and other Diseases not that plain and simple fare which Nature affordeth both as Necessary and wholsom and this not only to other Animals but also to man who yet depraves them by his exorbitancy and corrupts them by such Delilicates as which while he affects he affects only his own Destruction V. Who so is Wise therefore let him alwaies beware of that Dish which his irregular Appetite earnestly covets and pursues and upon which he cannot feed without being afterward convinced that it was gratefull to him only to his own harm Of this sort are all costly fat and luscious meats and therefore the use of Flesh must be rather Hurtfull than Beneficiall to Health of which this may be a very good Argument that since Health is preserved by the same means which restore it when lost and abstinence from flesh is generally prescribed by learned Physicians in most diseases especially acute ones certainly the best way of conserving health must be a spare diet and no Flesh. VI. It is no wonder that the People commonly cry up the use of Flesh as an Aliment highly conducing to Health for they magnifie all things that please the Gust and think that the direct way to Health lies in the wallowing in Pleasures nay even of Venereall pleasures whereof notwithstanding there is none which is beneficiall to any man and that constitution is very rare to which it is not hurtfull at all time VII The Second is this that it makes men ready vivacious and quick in the doing of all
by the weight of Earth and passengers CHAP. XVIII Of Moderation opposed to Avarice NOw comes Moderation or that Disposition of the Mind which makes a man contented with a little and than which he can hardly possesse a greater Good For to be content with little is the highest preferment the greatest wealth in the world as on the other side great riches without moderation are but great poverty Thus to have wherewithall to prevent Hunger Thirst and Cold is a Felicity not much inferior to that of Divintiy and who so possesses so much and desires no more however the world may account him poor he really is the Richest man alive II. And how honest a thing is this Poverty when it is Cheerfull serene and Contented with only what is sufficient i. e. with those riches of Nature which suffice to preserve from Hunger from Thirst from Cold Truly seeing that these riches of Nature are Terminated and easily acquirable but those that are coveted out of vain opinions are difficult in the acquisition and have no measure no end we ought to be highly thankfull to the Wisdom and Bounty of Nature which made those things easily procurable that are Necessary and those Unnecessary that are hard to come by III. Again since it behoves a Wise man to be alwaies Confident that in the whole course of his life he shall never want Necessaries doth not the very easie parability of such few small cheap and common things as are Necessary abundantly cherish that Confidence in him when on the other side the Difficulty of acquiring those many great sumptuous and rare things that belong to superfluity and magnificence cannot but very much stagger and weaken it And this clearly is the Reason why the vulgar though they have great possessions do yet uncessantly toyl and afflict themselves in the acquisition of more as if they feared to outlive their riches and come to want what if they used with Moderation they could never live to spend IV. This considered let us endeavour to Content our selves with what is most simple and most easily procurable remembring that not all the wealth of the world congested into one heap can avail in the least measure to cure the least disease or perturbation of the Mind whereas mean Riches such as Nature offers to us and are most usefull to remove thar indigence which is incommodious to the Body as they are the occasion of no Care or other passion during life so will it not be grievous to us to part with them when we think of Death V. Miserable truly are the Minds of men and their Hearts surrounded with blindness in that they will not see that Nature doth dictate nothing more to them than this that they should supply the wants of the Body and for the rest enjoy a wel pleased mind without care without Fear not that they should spend their daies in scraping together more than Nature knows how to make use of and that with greedinesse as if they meant to outlive Death to prevent want in their graves or never bethought themselves of the uncertainty of life and how deadly a Potion we all drink at our very entrance into the World VI. What though those things which are purely Necessary and in respect whereunto no man can be poor do not afford those Delights which Vulgar minds so much love and court yet Nature doth not want them nor doth she in the mean time cease to afford reall and sincere Pleasures in the fruition of meer Necessaries as we abundantly declared Hereupon the Wise man stands not only so indifferently affected toward those things in relation whereunto money is desired such are Love Ambitition Luxury c. all which require expences to maintain them but so far above them as that he hath no reason either to desire or care for money VII Now as for what we said of the Immensity of such Riches as are coveted upon the suggestion of vain Opinions the Reason of it is this that when Nature is satisfied with Little vain Opinion ushering in Desire alwaies engageth the mind to think of somthing which it doth not possesse and as if it were really needfull converts and fixeth the Desire wholly and entirely upon it Whence it comes that to him who is not satisfied with a little nothing can ever be enough but still the more wealth he possesseth the more he conceives himself to want VIII Wherefore seeing there can never be want of a Little the Wise man doubtlesse while he possesseth that little ought to account it very great Riches because therein is no want whereas other riches though great in esteem are really very small because they want multiplication to infinity Whence it follows that he who thinks not his own Estate how small soever sufficiently ample though he should become Lord of the whole World will ever be miserable For Misery is the companion of Want and the same vain opinion which first perswaded him that his own Estate was not sufficient will continue to perswade him that one World is not sufficient but that he wants more and more to infinity IX Have you then a design to make any one Rich indeed Know that the way is not by adding to his Riches but by Detracting from his desires For when having cut off all vain and superfluous desires from his breast he shall so compose himself to the praescripts of Nature as to covet no more than she needs and requires then at length shall he find himself to be a Rich man in reality because he shall then find that Nothing is wanting to him Hereupon may you also inculcate this maxim to him If you live according to Nature you shall never be poor but if according to Opinion you shall nover be rich Nature desires little Opinion infinite X. Truly this Disposition or if you please Faculty of the mind whereby a man moderating himself cuts off the desire of whatsoever is not Necessary to Nature and contents himself with provisions the most simple and most easily procurable this Disposition we say is that which begets that Security that is perceived in a pleasant Retirement and Avoidance of the Multitude forasmuch as by the benefit thereof when a man converseth with crouds of people he shall want no more than when he lives sequestred XI Finally when a man wants this Faculty of Detracting or Abdicating from his Desires whatever is not purely Necessary how great is the Misery to which he is continually subject his mind being like a vessell full of holes alwaies in filling but never full And certainly that we may not insist upon this that most who have heaped up vast masses of Wealth have therein found only a Change not an End of their misery either because they loaded themselves with new Cares to which they were not subject before or because they gave them occasion to fall into new Vices from the snares whereof they had formerly escaped this alone is a very high misery
for a man to have his Appetite Encreased by the satisfaction of it i. e. the more plentifully he feeds the more to be tormented with hunger CHAP. XIX Of Mediocrity betwixt Hope and Despair of the Future FInally since all Cupldity or Desire whatever is carried to that which is not possessed but proposed as possible to be attained and accompanied with some Hope of obtaining it and that Hope as it were nursing and cherishing that Desire is accompanied with a certain pleasure as the opposite to Hope Desperation creating and fomenting Fear that what is desired may not be obtained is accompanied with a certain Trouble upon these considerations it seems necessary for us to bring up the rear of this File of Virtues with the discourse of Mediocrity which is of very great use as well in respect of objects in the Generall either hoped for or despaired of in the Future as in particular of the Duration or rather perpetuity of life whereof as there is a Desire kindled in the breasts of most men so doth the Despair of it torment them II. In the first place therefore we are to adhaere to this as a Generall Rule that what is to come if it be in the number of simple Contingents is neither absolutely ours nor absolutely Not ours More plainly we are neither so to hope for a thing that is Contingent as if it were certainly to come because it may be prevented or diverted by some crosse accident intervenient Nor so to despair of it as if it were certainly not to come because it may fall out that no Accident may intervene to prevent or divert it For by the observation of this maxime we shall reap the benefit of Moderation so as not being destitute of all Hope we shall not be without some Pleasure and being altogether frustrated of our hopes we shall be affected with no trouble III. For herein consists the Difference betwixt the Wise man and the Fool that the Wise doth indeed expect things Future but not depend upon them and in the mean time enjoyes the Goods that are present by considering how great and pleasant they are and gratefully remembers what are past but the fool fixing all his thoughts and dependance upon the Future makes as we said in the beginning his whole life unpleasant and full of fears IV. And how many may we dayly see who neither remember goods past nor enjoy present They are wholly taken up with Expectation of Future things and those being uncertain they are perpetually afflicted with anguish of mind with fear and at length become most grievously perplexed when they too late perceive that they have in vain addicted themselves to the getting of Riches or Honours or Power or Glory in respect they fail of obtaining those Pleasures with the hopes whereof being enflamed they had undergone many and great Difficulties and Labours That we may not say any thing of that other sort of fools who being abject and narrow-hearted despair of all things and are for the most part Malevolent Envious Morose Shunners of the light Evill-speakers Monsters V. Now the Reason why we say that the wise man doth gratefully remember Goods Past is because we are generally too ungrateful toward the time Praeterite and do not call to mind nor account among Pleasures the Good things we have formerly received forasmuch as no Pleasure is more certain than what cannot now be taken from us For present Goods are not yet Consummate and wholly solid some chance or other may intervene and cut them off in half Future things hang upon the pin of uncertainty what is already Past is only safe and inamissible VI. And among Past Goods we account not only such as we have enjoyed but also our Avoidance of all those Evills that might have fallen upon us and our Liberation or Deliverance from such other Evills as did fall upon us and might have lasted much longer as also the Recordation Reputation Gratulation that we sustained them Constantly and Bravely VII As for the Desire of Prolonging life to Eternity the speciall Evill to be prevented by Mediocrity we have already hinted that a Wise man is to entertain no such desire because thereupon instantly succeeds Desperation wich is alwaies accompanied with Trouble and Anguish And this Cogitation imports thus much that the greater Pleasure cannot be received from an Age of infinite Duration than may be received from this which we know to be finite provided a man measure the Ends of it by Right Reason VIII For seeing that to measure the Ends of Pleasure by right reason is only to conceive that the Supreme pleasure is no other but an Exemption from Pain and Perturbation it is a manifest Consequence that the Supreme Pleasure of man cannot be encreased by the Length nor Diminished by the shortnesse of Time IX The Hopes of a more prolonged Pleasure or of a longer Age we confesse may seem to render the present Pleasure more Intense but it can seem so only to such who measure the Ends of Pleasure not by right Reason but by vain opinion and the Consequent thereof Desire and who look upon themselves so as if when they shall cease to be they should be sensible of some trouble from the privation of Pleasure as they might in case they should survive And hence it comes that perfectly to understand that Death doth nothing concern us makes us fully to enjoy this Mortall Life not by adding thereunto any thing of uncertain Time but by Cutting off all Desires of Immortality X. Wherefore since Nature hath prescribed certain bounds or Ends to the Pleasures of the Body and the Desire of Eternall Duration takes them wholly away necessary it is that the mind or Reason supervene so as by ratiocinating upon those ends and expunging all desires of Sempiternity to make life in all points perfect and consummate and us so fully content therewith as not to want any longer Duration XI And this Reasoning moreover causeth that we shall not be frustrated of Pleasure even then when Death shall take us by the hand and shew us the period of all these mortall things insomuch as we shal therby attain to the perfect and so delectable End of a very Good Life rising from the table of the World as Guests well satisfied with the Good Entertainments of life and having duly performed all those Duties which to perform we received life CHAP. XX. Of Fortitude in Generall HItherto of Temperance and the Chief sorts of it respective to the Chief Objects of our Cupidities We are now come to a new Lesson FORTITUDE which we called the other part of Honesty in respect that the use of it is against Fear and all its Causes and that those who behave themselves in any Difficulty or Dangerous Enterprise as especially in War from which the Vulgar seem to have transferred the word to all Generous actions not timidly and unmanly but Couragiously and valiantly are generally said to behave themselves Honestly