him to the bottom going into him with Candles searching and ransacking every Hole and Corner every Maze and Labyrinth every Closet and false Floor and all the subtil Windings of his Hypocrisie And all this Niceness little enough God knows for he is the cunningest and most dissembling the closest and most disguised Creature alive and indeed almost incapable of being perfectly known Upon this account we will attempt the Consideration of him under the Five Heads represented by the Table here annexed which sets before you at one general View the Substance and the Method of this First Book Five Considerations of Man and the Condition of Human Nature taken as follows I. Natural consisting of the Parts whereof he is compounded with their several Appurtenances II. Natural and Moral by stating the Comparison between Him and Brutes III. By giving a Summary Account of his Life IV. A Moral Description of his Qualities and Defects under Five Heads 1. Vanity 2. Weakness 3. Inconstancy 4. Misery 5. Presumption V. Mixt of Natural and Moral resulting from the Differences between some Men and others in 1. Their Temper 2. Their Minds and Accomplishments 3. Their Stations and Degrees of Quality 4. Their Professions and Circumstances 5. Their advantages and disadvantages and these again either Natural Acquired or Accidental THE First Consideration Which is purely Natural consisting of the several Parts whereof Man is compounded CHAP. I. Of the Formation of Man THIS is twofold and therefore capable of a double Consideration For the First and Original Formation was the immediate Work of God's own Hand and this was Supernatural and Miraculous The Second is the Work of ordinary Generation and lineal Descent according to the common and established Course of Nature According to that Image given us by Moses of the Creation of the World which for the Nine first Chapters of Genesis wherein we have an account of the first and second Birth of the Universe is without dispute the boldest noblest and most satisfactory System that ever was publish'd we may observe several Preferences and Privileges peculiar to Man For he was made by God not only after all other living Creatures as the most exquisite and compleat the Master and Superintendent over the rest so runs his Original Commission Gen. 1. Let him have dominion over the Fishes of the Sea and over the Fowls of the Air and over the Beasts of the Field made the same Day with Land-Animals and Four-footed Beasts which bear the nearest resemblance to him of any other Animals But made after all the rest was ended as the last and finishing Stroke the Seal with which it pleas'd Almighty God to close up the whole Creation And accordingly he hath given him such a Bearing and Impress as plainly speak how nobly he is descended * Signatum est in nos lumen vultûs tui The Brightness of the Divinity strongly reflected upon him †Exemplumque Dei quisque est in Imagine parva So that each Man is a sort of God in Miniature expresly said to be formed in His own Image and after His Likeness Man is likewise not only the Creator but the whole Creation in Little the Universe in one small Volume Whence it is that Man is sometimes styled a Little World and by the same reason the World might be called a Great Man He is as it were the Mediator of the different parts of Nature that Link of this long Chain by which Angels and Brutes Heaven and Earth the Spiritual and Corporeal Creation are ty'd together and that void Space supply'd which wou'd make a wide and most unseemly Gap in the Universe if not fill'd up and the Series thus continu'd by a Creature partaking of both Extremes In a word This was the last Touch the Master-piece the Honour and Ornament nay the Prodigy and miraculous Production of Nature Hence it is that God is represented to us as entring into Consultation and making this Noble Creature with Deliberation and Thought God said let us make Man Gen. 2 And when he had formed Man he is said to have ended all his Work and to have rested Nay even that Rest it self and the perpetual Commemoration of it was for His Sake and Bensit The Sabbath was made for Man Mark 2. and not Man for the Sabbath says Truth it self After this there was no New thing form'd till that most stupendous Miracle of Mercy when God made himself Man And this too as we most truly confess in one of our Creeds was for Us Men and for Our Salvation From whence it is most evident that God in all his Actions and Dispensations hath a constant and more particular regard to Mankind that They have a Concern in the greatest Works of Providence and that almost all God's Doings and Administrations are begun and ended with great Respect to Man's Advantage and so as that the promoting of this shall be the best and most effectual means of accommodating and reducing all things at last to himself and Our Happiness be made the proper Instrument of His Glory Man was created Naked as being more beautiful than all the rest The Smoothness and Delicacy of his Skin the nice tempering of his Humours and Complexion making a very advantagious Distinction in this respect above any other Creature whatsoever The Body of Man is erect and touches the Ground with but a very little part of it but is set streight upright toward Heaven where he may contemplate his Great Original view and take Knowledge of his own Perfections as in a Glass fitted for that purpose The Plants are just the very Reverse of all this Their Head and Root is buried in the Ground and there they spread and thence they get Improvement Brutes are in a Position between these Two But some of them approach nearer to the One and some nearer to the Other of those Extremes As to the true Cause of this upright Figure it is plain the Rational Soul cannot be It For the Crooked the Lame the Deformed are so many living Instances and undeniable Proofs to the Contrary Nor can it be the Back-Bone form'd in a direct Line for Serpents have the same Nor is it surely the Excess of Natural and Vital Heat above other Creatures for many other Animals equal and some excell us in this Respect tho' I will not deny but each of these may contribute somewhat toward it And that of the Serpent is the less Objection against the Form of the Back-Bone because the Crawling of that Creature upon his Belly is expresly declar'd to be a Punishment and lasting Reproach for the Tempter's having assum'd this Form in working the Seducement and Ruin of our first Parents But the very Truth is Our great and mighty Maker and Master thought this the most convenient Posture and such as best agreed with the Dignity and Preeminence of Humane Nature particularly upon two Accounts Partly as a Mark of Distinction due to the Excellencies of
reducing himself to that Innocence Simplicity Liberty Meekness and Gentleness of Temper which Nature had originally implante both in Us and Them And which in Brutes is still very conspicuous but in Us is decay'd chang'd and utterly corrupted by our Industrious Wickedness and Artisicial Depravations thus debauching and abusing the particular Prerogative we pretend to and rendring our selves more vile than the Beasts by means of that very Understanding and Judgment which sets us so far above them Hence sure it is that God intending to shame us into Vertue sends us to School in Scripture and bids us grow wiser by the Example of these Creatures The Crane the Stork and the Swallow the Serpent Jer. viii 7. Mat. x. 16. Prov vi 6. Isa i. 3. and the Dove the Ant and the Ox and the Ass and sundry others are recommended as Teachers to us And after all To take down our Vanity upon this Occasion we ought to remember that there is some sort of Correspondence some mutual Relations and Duties arising from thence if upon no other account yet by reason of their being made by the same Hand belonging to the same Master and making a part of the same Family with our selves And this single Reflection ought to prevail with us to use our Advantages over them modestly tenderly and conscientiously and not to treat them with Cruelty and Contempt For as Justice is a Debt from us to all Men so Kindness and Beneficence and Mercy must needs be due to all Creatures whatsoever that are in any Condition of receiving benefit by us ADVERTISEMENT OUR Author in the midst of his great Care to slate this Comparison so as might be most mortifying to the Vanity of Mankind hath yet found himself oblig'd to acknowledge that the Reason of Men is so much brighteâ— and more noble in its Operations and Effects than any thing discoverable in the Brute part of the Creation that I might have let this Chapter pass without any Censure had it not been for two or three Sentences which seem obnoxious to very ill Construction Such as a sort of Men are in Our Age but too fond of embracing who at the same time that they are vain enough to imagine that neither the Nature nor the Revelations of God himself can have any thing in them above their Reason are yet so sordid and degenerate as to be content that Beasts should be thought endu'd with the same Souls and to be mov'd with the same Principles of Reason with themselves An Opinion which is the rather entertain'd for the sake of a certain Consequence that recommends it with regard to a Future State for it seems they can be satisfy'd with the Portion of Brutes now provided they may but partake in it hereafter And what Favour this Notion might find from these Passages That Brutes and Men both have the same Reason tho' not in the same Degree and that some Men excel others much more than some Men again excel Beasts I was doubtful and therefore look'd upon my self concerned in pursuance of my Proposals at the Beginning of this Book to offer these following Considerations to my Reader First That in the Operations of the Reasonable Soul a great deal depends upon the Organs and Disposition of that Body to which it is joyned and as hath been already explain'd at large more especially upon the Brain Now since Anatomists have not been able to observe any very remarkable Differences between the Contexture of the Humane Brain and that of Brutes we are not to think it strange if there appear some small Resemblances in some particular Actions of Men and Beasts tho' these do not proceed from the same Principle of Motion but owe their Similitude to that of the Body and Medium put into those Motions Secondly That the Impressions of external Objects have very strong Effects upon the Imagination and Memory and these assisted by Custom and Imitation and Example will perform many wonderful things which yet are not the Operations of Reason properly so called Of this kind it is easie to observe great Number of Instances in Them who either by means of their Infancy have not yet attain'd to the use of Reason or Them who by some Natural Defects never have it at all or Others who by some accidental Disturbance have lost it In all which Cases not during the lucid Intervals only or when the Powers of the Mind seem a little to be awakened but even in the most profound Ignorance or most raging Madness Those which are frequently distinguished by the Sensitive Faculties of the Soul put forth sometimes a marvellous Efficacy and Vigour And that These are moved entirely by material and sensible Objects and act as necessarily as any other Parts of Matter whatsoever hath been the Opinion of many new Philosophers some of whom imagine that all the Operations of this kind are as capable of being resolved by Principles of Mechanism those Operations I mean of Imagination and Memory and Custom as any other Affections and Motions of common Matter How just this Conclusion is I do not pretend to determine for They themselves seem to confess it insufficient when they call in to their Assistance another Principle which is Thirdly That of Instinct By which is meant a strong Tendency and Natural Impulse discernible in these Creatures to certain necessary and useful Actions Something of a Principle implanted in them by their wise Creator to qualisie them for their own Preservation and the answering the Ends of his good Providence in Making them And this appears so early as to be plainly antecedent to either Memory or Fancy and yet is so constant too and always the same in the same Circumstances and Occasions as neither to depend upon Causes so mutable as the Impressions of outward Objects nor a Principle so capricious as the Choice of such a Mind perfectly free feels in its Deliberations And as Instruments put together by a skilful Hand perform many Operations so astonishing that a Man unexperienc'd in the Art cou'd not possibly imagine such Materials capable of them so these Philosophers conceive that Almighty God in his infinite Wisdom hath so disposed the Sensitive Parts of the Soul that They by their wonderful Structure shall be adapted to most amazing Effects and possessed with some Original Propensions and Impulses independent from and antecedent to the Impressions of Matter or the power of Institution and Custom which in the needful and most profitable Actions of Life serve these Animals for Fundamental Principles and bear some kind of Affinity to the first common Notions in the Rational and Intelligent Mind And upon these Impulses joyn'd to those other Advantages mention'd before the whole Oeconomy of Brutes and even those Actions which seem most exquisite and admirable in any of them have by the Modern Mechanick Philosophers been generally thought to depend Concerning which tho' almost every System treat in some measure yet I believe my Reader whether
Occasions argues want of Affection and sincere Friendship This is not only Misery but an exceeding Vanity too and as common as it is vain 12. The bearing a very great regard to those Actions which require a great deal of bustle and stir in the doing and make a Noise in the World and to slight and undervalue all that are done in a still sedate and obscure manner As if no Effects could ever follow upon such a dull heavy way of proceeding but all Men were asleep and did nothing that do it not with Hurry and Clutter In short All those vain Preferences which Men give to Art above Nature are likewise of this kind for One of These works with Labour and Observation the Other easily quiet and unseen And thus whatever is swell'd and blown up by Industry and Invention that which cracks about our Ears and strikes strongly upon our Senses and all this is Artificial we respect and value highly infinitely above That which is mild and gentle and simple and uniform and common for such are the Products of Nature The former of These awakens us into Attention the latter advances silently and leaves or lays us asleep 13. The putting unfair and perverse Interpretations upon the good Actions of Others and when the Thing is well in it self attributing it to base or trifling or wicked Causes or Occasions So did They whom Plutarch is angry with for pretending that the Death of Cato the Younger proceeded from no other Principle than his Fear of Caesar And some Others yet more senselesly charg'd it upon Ambition This is a most infallible Symptom of a sick Judgment a Disease that proceeds either from Wickedness at home and a general Corruption of the Will and Manners disposing Men to pervert every Thing to the worst Sense or else from Uneasiness and Envy against Persons that are better than Themselves or else from a Mis-giving Quality within which reduces all their Belief to the Compass and Size of their own Abilities so measuring others by their own Standard believing Every one as bad as they know Themselves to be and absolutely incapable of doing things better or proposing nobler Ends in their Actions than their own usually are Or perhaps as probable an Account of this as any of the former may be a Natural Weakness and Littleness of Soul which like tender Eyes cannot bear to look at so strong and clear a Light as that which Virtue sheds when Pure and in its native Beauties Nor is it amiss here to take notice of a Practice exceeding common which is Men's affecting to shew the Nicety of their Judgment and the Smartness of their Wit in finding Faults suppressing extenuating disguising Circumstances setting Things in their worst Light and eclipsing the Glory of the bravest Actions In all which one would wonder they should suppose any thing worth valuing themselves upon since it is manifest all Dexterity of this kind is a much greater Demonstration of their Ill-Nature than it can be of their Parts and as it is the Vilest and most Disingenuous so is it the Easiest and most Vulgar way of Wit in the World 14. Another which seems to be a very convincing Testimony of the Misery of Humane Minds tho' somewhat more nice and out of the way of common Observation is That the Soul in its calm and sound and composed Estate can rise no higher than the perception of those Objects and the performance of such Operations as are Common and Natural and of a moderate Size But in order to the raising it up to such as are Divine and Supernatural such as admit Men into the Secrets of Heaven it is distemper'd and violently agitated either by vehement Impulses Extasies and Enthusiasms or by Trances and deep Sleeps This I gather not only from the Tripods and Oracles of the Heathen Pythia but from the authentick Accounts given us of Revelations and the extraordinary Manifestations God was pleased to make of Himself to Prophets and Holy Men in Scripture Such as Abraham and Ezekiel and Daniel and others in the Old Testament and St. Peter and St. Paul in the New All which Instances seem to argue that the only Natural ways of attaining to these extraordinary Communications are by Transport and Sleep by Visions and Dreams So that our Mind it seems is never so Wise as when it is out of its Senses nor ever so truly Awake as in Sleep It arrives best at its Journey 's End by leaving the Common Road and takes the Noblest and most successful Flights when it s own Faculties appear most depressed as if it were necessary to Lose it self for the Finding somewhat better and more lofty and to be Miserable in order to its being Happy This seems most Natural Advert because we are assured it was most usual not that there was an impossibility of other Methods but that these were best adapted to Humane Infirmities And therefore it is worth observing upon this Occasion what Truth Himself mentions as a Prerogative by which Moses was distinguished from other Prophets In that God talked with him Face to Face as a Man talketh to his Friend Deut. xii that is Easily and Familiarly without any of those vehement Commotions of Body or extatick Raptures of Soul which the rest of Mankind us'd to feel upon such Occasions And this proves both that the Other Method was so ordinary as to justifie our Author's Observation and yet that there was no utter Incapacity for this freer way in Humane Nature which deserved this additional Remark upon it for God who is absolute Master of Nature can reveal himself in what manner he sees sit 15. Lastly Can any greater Desect or Misery be imagin'd incident to the Minds of Men than the Neglect and Disesteem of their best and most useful Faculty And yet This is almost every one's Case while we extol Memory and Imagination and are fond of excelling in These but let the Judgment lie idle and unimprov'd no Care taken to employ it nor any account at all made of it Do but look abroad a little and you will soon be convinced of what I say For what are all the neat Harangues the learned Treatises the quaint Discourses the celebrated Sermons and Books with which the World is so mightily taken What in a Word are all the Productions of this fruitful Age the Works of some few Great Men only excepted but common Places and Quotations tack'd and sil'd up together a Collection of other Men's Labours put into a new Method with some few Strokes and Illustrations and so naturaliz'd and made all our Own And what can we make of this but a work of Memory the Excellency of a School-Boy and That which requires very little Brains or Trouble as to all that part which we pick up from Authors and find ready cut to our Hands And the Work of Imagination for those little Graces and Garnitures which make up the much less part added by our Selves This
curb to hold them in and prevent the wild and furious sallies of vice unrestrained or else a rebuke and chastisement the rod of an Affectionate but Provoked Father to reduce and reclaim them that they may be more considerate and mindful of their duty hereafter and abandon utterly those courses which have cost them so much smart and pain Thus it is with our minds as with our bodies and the health of both is consulted by the same applications These sufferings are like the breathing of a Vein and seasonable Physick sometimes made use of as preservatives to prevent the gathering of ill humours and divert them another way at other times as correctives and restoratives to purge the corrupted mass and carry off a disease already formed To the Obstinate and Incorrigible they are a Punishment and Plague a Sickle to cut those down speedily whose Iniquities are ripe for destruction or else to make them more lingring and languishing spectacles of vengeance And thus you may plainly discern very excellent and necessary effects of the troubles Men are used so bitterly to complain of such as may abundantly convince us how erroneous that opinion is which looks upon such dispensations as evils and ought to prevad upon us to entertain them with Patience and a becoming temper of mind to take them in good part as the instances and operations of the divine justice and not only so but to welcome them gladly as the useful instruments and sure pledges of the tenderness and love and careful providence of God and especially using our utmost diligence to benefit under them and to answer the intention of that wise and kind being in whose disposal all these things are and who distributes them according to his own good pleasure and as they may be most suitable to every Man's occasions ADVERTISEMENT Of External Evils considered in themselves particularly ALl these Evils which are many in number and various in their kinds are so many privations of some contrary good for so much indeed is implyed in the very name and nature of evil Consequently the general heads of evil must answer and be equal to the several heads or species of good Now these may very properly be reduced to seven Sickness and Pain for these being Bodily indispositions I join them together as one Captivity Banishment Want Disgrace Loss of Friends and Death The good things we are deprived of in the forementioned Circumstanc's every one sees very plainly to be Health Liberty our Native Countrey Wealth Honour Friends and Life each of which we have had occasion to treat of at large in the foregoing parts of this Treatise All therefore that remains to be done at present is to prescribe such Antidotes against these as are proper to them respectively and that very briefly and plainly without any nice or formal Reasoning upon the Case CHAP. XXII Of Sickness and Pain IT hath been observed in the beginning of this Treatise Book 1. Chap. 6. that Pain is the greatest and in good truth the only evil attending this Mortal Body of ours the most sensible the most insupportable that which is least to be cured least to be dealt with or asswaged by consideration But still though this be not altogether so capable of advice as most other afflictions yet some Remedies there are drawn from Reason Justice advantage and usefulness imitation and resemblance of great persons celebrated for their illustrious Virtue and that branch of it which consists of Patience and these such as they are I shall just propound to my Reader 's Consideration First then the enduring what is tedious and troublesome is a necessary incumbrance of life and charged in common upon all living creatures upon Mankind most evidently and especially And it is by no means reasonable that providence should work a Miracle for our sakes and exempt us only How absurd is it therefore to fret and perplex our selves because that hath hapned to one Man in particular which might and may happen every moment to every Man without exception Nay it is not only general and common but natural too We are born to it and cannot in any equity and justice hope to be exempted for indeed should we cease to be subject to it we must cease to be Men. Whatever is a fixt and irreversible Law of our Creation ought to be entertained with meekness and moderation For we entred into life upon these terms and the conditions of humanity expresly indented for are old Age and Infirmities Decays and Diseases Anguish and Pain There is no possibility of avoiding these things and what we can never get clear of it will be our best Wisdom to settle a resolution of making the best of and to learn how we may go through with it * Confide summus non habet tempus dolor Si gravis brevis si longus levis If the pain be long it is but moderate and consequently very supportable and a Wise Man will be ashamed to complain of any thing less than extremities If it be violent and exceeding acute it is but short and we should not repine or be driven to impatience for a suffering which is quickly over And yet this must of necessity be the case for nature cannot sustain it self under the continuance of extream Torture There must be an end either of that or of the Patient in a little time and which of these two soever be the conclusion of it as to the suffering part the matter comes all to one and therefore let this give us courage and comfort Consider again that these sufferings can go no deeper than the Body we are not injured our very selves every real injury takes off from the excellence and perfection of the thing but now Sickness and Pain are so far from derogating from and doing any real prejudice to us that on the contrary they furnish matter and put occasions in our way for a more noble exercising of Virtue than any that we owe to Ease and perfect Health And surely where there is more occasion of praise and Virtue there cannot be less good If the Body be what the Philosophers usually call the instrument of the mind why should any one complain for this instrument being applied to its proper use and worn out in the service of its proper master The Body was made on purpose to serve the Soul but if every inconvenience which befalls the Body shall disorder and afflict the mind the order of nature is quite inverted and the Soul from thenceforth becomes a servant to the Body Would you not think that man unreasonably querulous and childish who should cry and roar and take on heavily because some thorn in the hedge as he passed by or some unwary passenger had spoiled or torn his Clothes A poor broker who was to make Money of the Suit might be allowed some concern upon such an occasion but a Gentleman and one of substance and condition would make a jest of it and
OF WISDOM THREE BOOKS Written Originally in French BY THE Sieur de CHARRON With an Account of the AUTHOR Made English By GEORGE STANHOPE D. D. late Fellow of King's-College in Cambridge from the best Edition Corrected and enlarged by the Author a little before his Death LONDON Prinâ—ed for M. Gillyflower M. Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Freeman T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker 1697. THE Sieur de CHARRON's Three Books of WISEDOM Made English London Printed for Mat Gillyflower M Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Free man T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM Lord Dartmouth My Lord IT is now near Two Years since I was desired to employ some of my leisure Hours in considering this Book and putting it into a Condition of becoming somewhat more useful and acceptable than it may without any suspicion of Vanity be said the former Translation could pretend to be A little Time spent in the Perusal satisfy'd me that there was Matter in it not unworthy my Pains and such as it was great Pity Men should want the Knowledge of who understand not the Original And as unreasonable did it seem that others should be discouraged from enquiring into this Author by the Misfortunes which naturally attend even the best Undertakings of this Nature when Time and Improvements of Language have given another Turn to Writing and created a Disrelish for every thing which is not suitable to the Genius of the present Age. The greatest Difficulty which lay upon me was that of finding Opportunities in the midst of those more important Cares of my Profession which neither This nor any other Attempt or Consideration however commendable or beneficial in it self must prevail with me to neglect But here I found even my Duty assisting for That requiring part of my Attendance in a Place of somewhat more Retirement and Ease than where Your Lordship's Father was pleased to fix me I made use of those Advantages to this purpose and finished much the greatest part of the following Book in a way of Diversion as it were and unbending from severer Studies and a more Laborious Station The particular Liberty taken by this Author is a Qualification which the present Generation at least in our Parts of the World will certainly be fond of But it happened to have the same Effect upon Him sometimes which we are not much to wonder if we find very frequent in those of less Judgment and that is over-straining Points of Dispute by affecting to say all which either the Case will bear or which any other Person hath said before This gave Occasion for my interposing sometimes with an Advertisement and that I hope in such a manner as may not have injur'd the Author while it designs the Benefit and Security of my Reader One thing only I cannot forbear adding upon this Occasion that in the midst of all his Free-Thinking he constantly expresses a due and absolute Deference for Revelation and Divine Truths And This indeed was by no means the Effect of his Profession but of his Judgment for Your Lordship is too discerning not to know that as a little and superficial Knowledge in Physick makes Men Quacks so it is not the Abundance but the Defect of Reason and good Sense which makes them Infidels and Scepticks in Religion How little the Sieur de Charron suffer'd his Thoughts to be under the Bondage of any private Respects will be sufficiently evident to any considering Reader from sundry Instances Particularly from what he hath deliver'd upon the Subject of Government in his Third Book In which tho' some Moot Points may seem a little uncouth to Us of this Nation yet if we reflect upon the Constitution under which he liv'd we shall rather have occasion to wonder at his admitting so few reserv'd Cases than mentioning so many Besides that even those mention'd would be of no mighty ill Consequence if always confin'd to those Conditions and Occasions which He hath temper'd and restrain'd them with But passing from the Mysteries of State and pressing unusual Emergencies to the Ordinary Measures of a Publick Administration there is somewhat of an Air so full of Ingenuity and such regard had to the Great Ends for which Government was instituted as a very gentle Application would think an Encomium upon the English Constitution and a sort of Prophetick Satyr upon the late Oppressions of a People to whom he stood nearly related Upon the whole Matter My Lord I have Reason to hope This may prove not only a Book of Good Entertainment but Great Benefit to Persons who have the Capacity and will give themselves the Pains to consider it Were it not so I should not have thought it worth my Trouble and should yet much less have presumed to make an Offer of it to Your Lordship I can with good Confidence say that no Man is better qualified to be a Master of the Subject it treats of The particular and intimate Knowledge of Your Abilities which my being Honour'd with the Care of Your Lordship at the University gave me would bear me out in delivering more upon this Occasion than Your Modesty will permit And indeed the General Opinion of all that have the Honour of Your Lordships Acquaintance saves You that Decency and hath prevented me in this Point The Manly Sense and Wonderful Penetration which appear'd very early in You have given me many pleasing Reflections and I am sure are Foundation sufficient for making Your Lordship a Greater Ornament and Honour to Your Family than even that Nobility which You have by Descent But I must beg leave My Lord to put you in mind that besides Your Own Your Lordship hath a mighty Stock of Honour and Esteem to set out upon deriv'd from the Memory of a Father than whom Few if Any of his Condition are more universally loved and admir'd I say loved my Lord for This as a more rare so is it a more valuable Tribute than that of Honour to Persons of Quality and in Great Offices For where so much is paid to the Station we can make very little Judgment what is sincere and what is the Effect of Formality or Fear or Interest But in His Lordship's Case there was something so Distinguishing in all the Respects paid to Him as plainly shew'd a particular Regard to his Person and that the outward Testimonies were not Things of Course but that he had engag'd the very Hearts of Those who paid them I will not so far seem to distrust Your Lordship's Acceptance of this Address as to make the least Apology for it You will interpret it I doubt not as a Testimony of the Honour I have for You and a Desire to publish my having it to the World And Your Lordship will do me the Justice too to believe that were it in my Power to give any other Evidence of This than such an open Declaration nothing should
certain Opinions and these are to be found in all Robes and all Conditions as in truth there is a World of Mobb in the Pit and Boxes as well as in the Upper-Gallery Vulgum tam chlamydatos quam coronam voco Let these Objectors but find me another Word as expressive of those Qualities and I will most readily consent to the Exchange In the mean while after this Declaration I think I may justly say that whoever shall still be peevish and have any resentment upon this account does but injure Me and accuse Himself 'T is true there are other Terms of Opposition to the Wise Man but not any I think so extensive and significant as This. The Vulgar the Ignorant and Others which I frequently take occasion to make use of These are opposed more directly like Low to High Weak to Strong Common to Scarce a Servant to his Master Prophane to Sacred Thus likewise Fool is set the most directly in opposition to Him but then This is as Crooked is opposed to Streight Vain-glorious to Modest Constraint to Freedom Sickness to Health But now Pedant includes all this and a great deal more in the Sense which I apply it to For it gives us an Idea of a Man not only different from and contrary to a Wise Man as the rest of them do but a Fellow that hath the Impudence to oppose and make Head against him that comes armed Cap-a-pe sawcily challenges him to Combat and talks magisterially and dogmatically And because in the midst of all this Vanity and sierce Arrogance he hath some sort of Misgivings and thinks himself discover'd therefore he bears an inveterate Spight to this Person who checks his Follies is eternally censuring condemning running him down esteeming and behaving himself as the only Person who has any Right to that Character of Wisdom tho' in reality he infinitely exceed all others in the exquisiteness and troublesomness of his Folly Having thus given my Reader a short Account of the Argument and Design of the following Treatise it may not be unseasonable to premise one Word or two concerning the Order and Method observed in it He must know then that it consists of Three Books The First directs the Knowledge of a Man's Self and the Condition of Human Nature in general This is laid as a necessary Preparation to Wisdom and largely illustrated under Five General Considerations each of which is subdivided into several Particulars The Second contains the principal Lines and general Rules of Wisdom The Third descends to particular Instructions and Circumstances branched out under the Four Cardinal Virtues of Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance and here every Part and Relation of Human Life hath some provision made for the Duties it engages us in I add too that I write and treat my Subject not after a Pedantick manner and in set Forms according to the Methods of the Schools nor with regular Arguments in Mood and Figure nor with Pompous Eloquence nor any other Artifice whatsoever I am verily persuaded what Tully says is most true That Wisdom could she but render her-self visible to Human Eyes would charm our Souls and ravish our Affections and make every Creature strangely in Love with her De Offic. Lib. 1. Quae si oculis ipsis cerneretur mirabiles excitaret amores sui And therefore she need only discover her native Beauties and is too noble too glorious to use any of those little modish Garbs to adorn and set her off but this I do too with a Liberty which all perhaps will not be well pleased with The Propositions and Truths are compact and close but ofientimes very dry and served up crude and coursely like Aphorisms Overtures or short Hints of Discourses Some Persons I am sensible may be apt to think me too bold with some commonly-receiv'd Opinions and take offence that I pay them no greater Deference To these Persons and the Fault they sind with my free way of expressing my Thoughts I answer First That Wisdom when above the common Standard hath a Right to this Liberty It is the Privilege and Jurisdiction of a Wise Man to call Matters before him to examine and try them to censure and condemn vulgar Notions which indeed for the most part are no better than vulgar Errors And who shall pretend to bar this Privilege Why should he who hath it decline the Exercise of it though he knows at the same time that this cannot be done without incurring the Envy and Displeasure of a great part of the World Nay Secondly I cannot but think the juster ground of Complaint lies on my side and must therefore reprove Them for this foolish and feminine Niceness as a thing that is infinitely too squeamish and tender to bear necessary Truth or attain to sound Wisdom The boldest Expressions and Truths are most becoming a truly great Soul and a Man who hath at all study'd the World will not think any thing strange or shocking For this proceeds from Weakness of Judgment only which ought to be corrected and a Man must harden his mind and accustom himself to consider patiently even the oddest and most uncouth things in order to giving them a fair Tryal There is nothing so extravagant but the Mind of Man you see is capable of thinking it and consequently nothing so extravagant but that a Man may and will do very properly and well to give it the hearing All the Care to be taken upon this Occasion is that we be not wanting to our Selves That while we endure to examine every thing tho' never so generally exploded yet we yield our Assent to nothing but what is good and decent tho' never so universally commended or receiv'd For the Wise Man gives instances of his Courage and Greatness of Soul in both these Cases whereas these nice Persons betray an Effeminate Weakness and Delicacy and are manifestly defective in them both Thirdly Whatever I propose here it is only with an Intention to have it considered I pretend not to oblige Others to think as I do I Offer my Thoughts but I do not Impose them If They differ in Judgment from Me it breeds no Quarrel I should injure my self extremely if it did because this is one of those detestable Qualities that concur to make up a Pedant Passion is generally an Argument that Reason is defective and He that is disposed to any Opinion upon One of these Motives hath seldom any great Mixture of the Other with it Wherefore then are these Gentlemen Angry Is it because I am of another Opinion Let them give me fair Quarter at least for I am not in any Degree displeased with Them for differing from me Is it for saying some things not agreeable to their Tast and that of the World Alas 'T is for this very Reason that I mention them I hope at least there is nothing said without Reason for it if they can relish it and discern the Force of that Reason 't is well If
Years together converted and establish'd many He never took any Degree or Title in Divinity but satisfy'd himself with deserving and being capable of the Highest and had therefore no other Title or Character but That of Priest only He never saw Paris in Seventeen or Eighteen Years and then resolv'd to come and end his days there but being a great lover of Retirement he had obliged himself by Vow to become a Carthusian and was absolved of it about the end of the Year 1588. He went from Bourdeaux coming by Xaintes and Anger 's where he made several learned Sermons and arriv'd at Paris at the time the States were conven'd at Blois Then he presented himself to the Prior of the Carthusians one John Michel a Person of great Piety who since dy'd Prior-General of the great Carthusian Monastery in Dauphiné To Him he communicated his Intention but it was not accepted by reason of his Age which was not less than Seven or Eight and Forty And all the most pressing Intreaties he could use were ineffectual for the Excuse was still this That That Order required all the Vigour of Youth to support its Austerities Hereupon he addrest himself to the Provincial of the Celestines in Paris but there too with the same Success and upon the same Reasons alledged for repulsing him Thus after having done his utmost to fulfil his Vow and himself not being in any degree accessory to its not taking effect he was assured by Faber Dean of the Sorbon Tyrius a Scotch Jesuite and Feuardent a Franciscan all very learned and able Divines that there lay no manner of Obligation upon him from that Vow But that he might with a very safe and good Conscience continue in the World as a Secular and was at large and at his own Disposal without any need of entring into any other Religious Order Hereupon in the Year 1589. he returned back by Anger 's where he preached the whole Lent to the great Admiration and Benefit of the People From thence he went back again to Bourdeaux where he contracted a very intimate Acquaintance and Friendship with Monsieur Michel de Montagne Knight of the Order of the King and Author of the Book so well known by the Title of Montagne's Essays For him Monsieur Charron had a very great Esteem and did from him receive all possible Testimonies of a reciprocal Affection For among other things Monsieur Montagne order'd by his last Will that in regard he left no Issue-Male of his own Monsieur Charron should after his decease be entituled to bear the Coat of Arms plain and as they belong'd to his Noble Family The Troublesome Times detaining Monsieur Charron at Bourdeaux from the Year 1589. to that of 1593. he composed his Book called Les Trois Veritez The Three Truths and published it in 1594. but without his Name to it This was received with great Applause of Learned Men and they printed it after the Bourdeaux Copy two or three times at Paris and afterwards at Brussels in Flanders under the Sham-Name of Benedict Valiant Advocate of the Holy Faith because the Third Part of that Book contains a Defence of the Faith in answer to a little Tract concerning the Church written formerly by the Sieur Plessis de Mornay The Publication of this Book brought him into the Acquaintance of Monsieur Antony d' Ebrard de S. Sulpice Bishop and Count of Caors who upon perusing and liking the Book sent for Monsieur Charron tho' he had never seen him before made him his Vicar-General and Canon-Theologal in his Church which he accepted and there he put out the Second Edition with his own Name to it in 1595. enlarging it also with a Reply to an Answer printed at Rochelle and written against what he called his Third Truth While he was at Caors the King was pleased to summon him to the General Assembly of all the Clergy of France held the same Year 1595. Hither he came in the Quality of a Deputy and was chosen first Secretary to the Assembly As he was in this Attendance an Invitation was sent him to preach at St. Eustache's Church the most populous Parish in the whole City of Paris which he did upon All-Saints-Day 1595 and two Days after As also the Six Sundays in Lent 1596. In 1599 he returned to Caors and in that Year and 1600. he composed Eight Discourses upon the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper as many others upon the Knowledge and Providence of God the Redemption of the World the Communion of Saints And likewise his Books of Wisdom While he was thus employing himself and enjoying that Retirement at Caors my Lord John Chemin Bishop of Condom presented him with the Chantership in his Church to draw him over into that Diocess But having at the same time an Offer from M. Miron Bishop of Angiers and being courted by Him to reside at Anjou this was most agreeable to his Inclination The making a determinate Resolution was a Work of Time for his Affection and Convenience drawing several Ways kept the Balance long in suspense Anjou he looked upon as the sweetest Dwelling the most delightful Retreat that France could give him but that Province being then embroyl'd in Civil Wars for Bretany was not then reduced and so like to make a very troublesome Neighbour Condom carry'd the Point It happen'd too that the Theologal Chair at Condom was just then void and this being tendred him by the same Bishop he accepted that and resolved to set up his Staff there To this purpose he bought a House which he built new and furnished to his own Fancy and Convenience resolving to give himself all the Ease and Diversion he could and make the best of his growing Years the Infirmities whereof would be soften'd at least by good Humour and a pretty Dwelling After he was setled at Condom he printed those Christian Discourses mention'd just now which were Sixteen in all and also his Books of Wisdom at Bourdeaux in the Year 1601. which gave him a great Reputation and made his Character generally known So that Monsieur Charron began from that time to be reckon'd among the Glories and topping Wits of France Particularly Messieur Claude Dormy Bishop of Bologne by the Sea and Prior of St. Martin's in the Fields at Paris wrote him several Letters upon that occasion expressing the great Esteem he had for Him and his Writings and as a Testimony of his Value and Opinion of him offer'd him the Theologal's Place in his Church These Letters made Monsieur Charron desirous to see Paris once more that so he might contract a Personal Acquaintance with and express his Acknowledgments for the Favours of this great Prelate and at the same time in hope to get an Opportunity of reprinting his Books and Discourses with the Addition of some new Tracts For indeed the Impression at Bourdeaux he thought wanted correcting and upon a Review was not at all to his Satisfaction In pursuance of this Design
of those Faculties he hath given us to distinguish things by Again If we observe the manner how these Operations are perform'd that it is by External Impressions by which the Object strikes upon the proper Organ and that Impression is continu'd till it be carry'd on to that which is called the Common Sensory or the inward Seat of Sense All this must depend upon the same necessary Laws of Matter and Motion by which Bodies in general act upon one another And therefore supposing the same Object the same force of Impression the same Situation the same Disposition of the Organ the same Medium and the like the Report of the Sense cannot but be the same But where there is a Variation in any of these the Perception is under a necessity of Varying too Thus to use the Instance mention'd by Charron When part of the Eye-Lid is press'd down by the Finger the Rays are differently admitted into the Pupil and fall upon two several places of the Tunica Retina which consequently creates a twofold Impression of the Object And This Duplicity is as natural and necessary in such a Disposition of the Eye as truly agreeable to all the Rules of Matter and Motion as a single Representation wou'd be in the usual Posture so far from a Reflexion upon the Truth of Sense that our Senses could not be true if the thing were otherwise represented A proportionable Difference must needs follow in the different Modifications of Light and Shades which is the Reason of that Appearance taken notice of here of Pieces in Relief the dextrous Management whereof makes the great Secret of the Art of Painting So it is again if there be any thing uncommon in the Medium through which the Rays pass from the Object to the Organ of Sense which is the Case of Prismes or of Eyes either distorted in their Situation or discolour'd in any of the Humours And as These make a Change in the represented Colour of the Object so does the Contraction or Dilatation of the Pupil in the Magnitude or Figure of it And the Eye and other Organs of Sense varying by Age Sickness Nature or Accidents unavoidably require different Sensations in Persons of different Years and Conditions The Matter coming much to one whether the Object be variously represented through Distance or its own Posture and Form or through some Change and Defect of the Organ which receives the Impression All Which sufficiently accounts for the differing Sensations of Children Grown-Men and Aged Persons the different Tastes of the Sick and the Healthful and indeed the vast Diversity of Palats among Mankind in general For here is a mighty Diversity in the Organ of Sense and the making one and the same Report is therefore impossible For our Senses are like Messengers and all their Business is To be Faithful and True in delivering their Errand as they have receiv'd it If it were not given as it ought to be at first that is if there be any accidental Defects to change the Appearance This they are not responsible for but they are to tell what they feel and hear and see and in This they are faithful and may be depended upon For That they may be trusted even in Matters of the greatest Consequence is beyond all reasonable Contradiction not only from the most necessary and important Matters of Humane Life being carry'd on upon the Confidence of this Testimony but which to a Christian is much more considerable from all the External Evidences of Religion being put upon this Issue The Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Blessed Saviour the Doctrines he taught and the Miracles he did in Confirmation of them being so many Appeals to the Senses of those with whom he convers'd and the great Motive to Persuasion which the Apostle urges is that he deliver'd That to his Proselytes concerning the Word of Life of which they had had all possible Demonstrations since it was what He and his Fellow-Preachers had heard what they had seen with their Eyes what they had looked upon 1 John I. 1. and their Hands had handled All which was certainly a very weak and impertinent Allegation if the Senses are so liable to Mistakes and so uncertain a Foundation of Knowledge that we cannot with safety fix any Conclusions from the Reports they make to us And yet it cannot be deny'd but Men do very frequently err by too easie a Credulity in this respect which ministers sufficient ground for our Second Enquiry II. Whence those Errours do really proceed which we find sometimes charged upon the Deceiveableness of our Senses In This as well as some Other Particulars Epicurus seems to have been very unfairly dealt withal by the Stoicks and some other Philosophers of a contrary Party who because he asserted the Truth of the Senses and vindicated their Fidelity in Reporting have charg'd him with affirming that a Man cou'd not possibly mistake in forming Judgments according to those Appearances Whereas in Truth Epicurus only places the Senses in the Quality of Evidence whose business it is to relate bare Matter of Fact but does by no means deny the Jurisdiction of the Court to which those Accounts are given to pass Sentence as shall seem just and equal To this purpose is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Diogenes Laertius in his Tenth Book mentions and Gassendus in his Comment upon it so rationally enlarges upon By which is meant that Men ought to avoid Precipitation and not rashly pronounce that things are in reality as they are represented but calmly and slowly examine Circumstances and observe the Causes of such Representations Thus likewise Lucretius in his Fourth Book after having instanc'd in several Appearances which when strictly enquir'd into are found to differ from the Nature of the things themselves closes his Account with these very significant Verses Caetera de genere hoc mirando multa videmus Quae violare fidem quasi sensibus omnia quaerunt Nequicquam Quoniam pars horum maxima fallit Propter Opinatus animi quos addimus ipsi c. Which the English Reader may take from Mr. Creech thus Ten Thousand such appear Ten Thousand Fees To Certainty of Sense and All oppose In vain 'T is Judgment not the Sense mistakes Which fancy'd Things for real Objects takes If then One Light appear to be Two when the Eye-Lid is press'd if a Square Building at a Distance seem Round if a Piece in Perspective seem a Cloyster or a Portico a Man is not presently to conclude that these are really such nor can he be excus'd if he do so For Reason and Considederation wou'd convince him that these Idea's must be so and cou'd not be otherwise That the unnatural Disposition of the Eye must needs double the Image in the first Instance That the Distance of the Object will naturally cut off the Angles and render the Perception less distinct in the second and that Shades artificially cast and
Commander of the Soul To qualify them for this Duty They are endued with a Power of perceiving things discerning and taking the Faces and Forms of them and embracing or rejecting them according as they appear Agreable or Disagreable Delightful or Odious to them But now in the Execution of their Office their Business is only to spy out and to report to take Care that their Intelligence be True and to bring it Faithfully and relate it Plainly and Calmly And they ought to satisfy themselves with delivering their Message without taking upon them to disturb the higher Powers or to sound to Arms immediately and so put all into Consternation and universal Disorder And thus it often happens that as the Centinels in an Army may lie under Mistakes because they are not acquainted with the secret Designs of the General and so receive Them for Friends which are Enemies in Disguise and suspect those for Enemies which are Allies and marching to their Assistance The Senses in like manner not being privy to all that passes above and for want of consulting Reason in the Case are frequently imposed upon by counterfeit Appearances and apt to take That for a Friend which is in truth our deadly Enemy And when they go giddily to work upon this Imagination and without ever expecting Orders from the Understanding fall on immediately and alarm the Concupiscible and Irascible Faculties then they raise Tumults and Mutinies in the Soul and while these last there is nothing but Clamour and Violence the Voice of Reason cannot be heard nor the Commands of the Understanding be at all obeyed Let us now in the next Place observe their several Regiments and Ranks Their Distinctions the General and the Subordinate Kinds and Divisions of them Now we must know According to the Object and Subject Six in the Concupiscible Part. Three for Good and Three for Evil. That all Passion whatsoever is moved by the Appearance either Real or Imaginary of Good or Evil what actually is or what is by the Person apprehended so to be If the Object be Good and the Soul considers it as such simply and without any other Circumstances this is that Motion of the Soul which goes by the Name of Love If to that Good so considered as before be added the Circumstance of its being present and the Man reflect upon himself as in full Possession and actual Enjoyment of it This is call'd Joy or Pleasure but if it be future and distant then it is Desire On the other Hand consider an Evil Object abstractedly and merely as such and the Passion it stirs in us is Hatred If it be present and affect us sensibly it is Grief and Pain if some other Person labour under it 't is Pity and Compassion if it be future and approaching only then 't is Fear And This is remarkable concerning the Passions already named that Those of them which proceed from the Apprehension or the Appearance of Evil such as we run away from and are possest with an Abhorrence of do of all others sink deepest into the Heart take fastest Hold of us and are most difficult to be dispossest again This now is the first Regiment of Mutineers which disturb the Content and break the Peace of our Souls and these are quarter'd in that which is term'd the Concupiscible Part. The Effects and Disorderly Carriage of These are it must be confest of very dangerous Consequence but yet they are not near so Outragious and Mischievous as those that we are going to mention For these first Motions formed here by the Representation of the Object Five in the Irascible Two for Good and Three for Evil are afterwards continued and communicated to the Irascible Part of the Soul that is The Place where the Soul is active and contriving Means to obtain what she apprehends to be Good and to deliver her self from that which she apprehends to be Evil. And then as a Wheel already in Motion when a fresh Force pushes it receives that Addition easily and whirls about with wonderful Strength and Swiftness so the Soul which is already stirred and warmed with the first Apprehension when a Second Attempt is made upon it and the Coals are blown flames out and is transported with Rage and Violence much greater than before The Passions Then raised ride higher are much more furious and ungovernable for now indeed they are double The first have come in and joyned them and thus they back and sustain one another by this Union and mutual Consent For the former Passions which were the Result of Good or Evil in Appearance considered in Speculation only now fall in with the Practical Consideration of Means proper for the acquiring or avoiding them and so excite in us Hope or Despair And here those that arise from the Prospect of a future Evil produce in us either Fearfulness or Courage the Apprehension of a present Evil kindles Anger and Indignation which are Passions extremely Furious and Violent and such as when they find the Reason once disturbed confound and absolutely overturn it These are the Principal Winds that raise all the Storms in our Souls and the Cavern like that of Aeolus where they are ingendred and from whence they break loose is nothing else but Opinion And Opinion is most commonly a false fleeting and uncertain Thing contrary to Nature and Truth to Reason and Certainty that is A Notion we have that the Things which are then represented to our Imaginations are Good or Evil. Nor matters it much how wild and extravagant this Notion is in it self provided We do but give it Entertainment For Men proceed not upon Realities but upon their own Fancies and when once we have taken a Conceit that a Thing is Good or Evil we run after or we run away from it with as much Eagerness and Impatience as if it were actually such and yet it often very often happens that the Nature of the Object is directly contrary to our Apprehensions and ought to move Resentments just opposite to those we feel upon its Account And such in general are our Passions ADVERTISEMENT THE Nature of these Passions comes next to be consider'd and my Design in it is See Book III. In the Vertuâ— of Fortitude and Temperance to expose the Folly the Vanity the Misery the Unreasonableness and Injustice the Horrour and Deformity that is in them that so Men may be taught to know them as they are and to hate them as they deserve The Advices proper for preserving our selves from the ill Effects of them will be deliver'd at large in the following Books For the two Parts of a Physicians Business you know are first to shew the Disease and then to apply sit Remedies My present Care then shall be to tell Men what they all and where their Distemper lies and for the Prescriptions they must wait a little longer Now of the several Passions here to be describ'd those shall first be spoken
are still but more enraging as Seneca observes In such Cases * Pertinaciores nos facit iniquitas irae quasi argumentum sit justè irascendi graviter irasci the Unreasonableness of our Passion makes us so much more obstinate and unpersuadable as if the being very Angry and Implacable were the best Argument that the Ground of our Anger is Just The Example of Piso upon this Occasion is well worth our Observation and the Story is generally known He who was in other Respects Eminent for Virtue and Goodness yet once in Heat of Passion pat Three Persons to Death Unjustly and strain'd the Law to bring them in Guilty only because there had been one proved not Guilty whom he by a former Sentence had adjudged Guilty Anger is likewise exasperated by Silence and Coldness because such Indisserence speaks Scorn and Neglect and when Men see their Resentments make no Impression they look upon themselves to be slighted and affronted This is very usual with Women who oftentimes put themselves into a Passion purely for the Sake of putting other People into one too And when they see that a Man does not condescend to be Angry and refuse to heap on more Fewel they take all imaginable Pains to cherish and blow up their own Fire and grow perfectly Outragious So Wild and Savage a Beast is Anger so Fierce and Intractable that neither Vindications nor Submissions neither Excusing nor Acknowledging neither Speaking nor holding one's Peace can do any Goood upon it No soul Means can tame no fair ones win it over or make it Gentle The Injustice of this Passion is farther Evident in that it always takes upon it self to be both Party and Judge in the same Cause in that it expects all manner of People that hear or know any thing of the Matter should take its Part and justify its Proceedings and takes it mortally Ill nay flies in the very Faces of all that either stand Neuter or in any Degree seem to think it in the Wrong II. A Second Effect of this Passion is Headiness and Obstinacy Rashness and Inconsideration It drives us forward and thrusts us down Head-long into unspeakable Mischiefs and very often draws upon our own Heads the very Calamities we are endeavouring to avoid by being Angry the very same Sufferings or many times worse than those which We in the bitterness of our Malice and Revenge are so eager to inflict upon others and thas while it punishes an Enemy it tortures and execates it self This Passion is no ill Resemblance of Great Rains which crush indeed and batter what ever they fall upon but in the same Fall break themselves to Pieces Anger is so eagerly bent upon the Hurt and Destruction of others that it sights out of all Guard and takes no manner of Care to avoid or ward off its own Death It draws us in and hampers us in a Thousand Inconveniences puts us upon speaking and doing many things that are Base and Unworthy such as by no means become us and what we cannot but be at least we ought to be most heartily Ashamed of To be short it transports Men to those Excesses of Extravagance and Rage that they know not what they do ensnares them in the most Injurious the most Scandalous Actions hurries them into Mischief incapable of any Reparation Murders and Bloodshed Treachery and Villany Poisonings and secret Assassinations Things that leave long and lasting Remorse behind and such as they cannot but have very afflicting Remembrance of ever after Alexander the Great was a remarkable Instance of this Kind and â—ythageras used to say that where Anger ended there Repentance always began This Passion is never to be convinced of Folly it is Big and always well Satisfied with its own Discretion and Justice flatters and pleases it self with a Notion that the Man does well and wisely to be Angry clears it self from all manner of Blame and lays the whole Fault upon some ill or indiscreet Thing done that gave the Provocation But supposing another guilty of Injustice it will not therefore follow that my Anger is guilty of none Suppose I receive Injury from another Hand will my paying back the same or a greater Wrong take off what I suffer Will it make me any real Amends or bring any true Profit to me that another Suffers as well as I The Truth is Anger hath too much of Obstinacy and Hair-brain'd Giddiness ever to do any Good It pretends to cure one Evil with another and when we turn over an Offence to be corrected by this Passion it is no better than setting Vice to chastise and punish it self Reason which ought always to bear the Sword and exercise the Supreme Authority in our Breasts does not desire any such Hot-Headed Officers to Execute her Commands as do things upon their own Head without waiting for Orders Reason like Nature works easily and gradually is sedate and slow and whatever is Violent is equally Foreign and contrary to both But you will say What must Virtue then be so Tame and soft as to see the Insolencies of Vice Triumphant without any Degree of Indignation and Concern Must she be so bound up as not to take the Liberty of being Angry nor dare to make any Opposition against unreasonable and wicked Men To this I answer Virtue hath its Freedoms but they are such as are Just it takes it desires none that are unsit or unbecoming It hath Courage too but this Courage must not be employed against it self Nor must another Man 's Ill be converted to its Prejudice and Disturbance A wise Man is as much obliged to bear the Vices of Naughty People without Passion as he is to see their Prosperity without Envy The Indiscretion of rash and heady Men must be endured with the same Patience and Pity that a Good Physician exercises toward his Patients when they are under the Ravings of a Fever There is not any one Instance of Wisdom more Commendable in it self nor more useful to the General Good of the World than that of being able to bear with the Follies and Extravagances of other People For if we do not so the Consequence will be that we shall fall into the same Extravagances and by not supporting Their Follies we make them our Own What hath been spoken here at large of Anger in particular is in great Measure Applicable to the Passions that follow such as Hatred and Envy and Revenge for these are the same in Substance and at the Bottom They are Anger too but they are somewhat otherwise modified appearing in different Forms and cloath'd with different Circumstances Proper Advice and Remedies against this Pastion will be treated of Book III. Chap. 31. CHAP. XXVI Hatred HAtred is a very odd Passion It gives us a great deal of unaccountable Vexation contrary to all the Reason in the World And yet What is there more Torturing and Insupportable than this Resentment By It we put our selves perfectly under the
his Opinion incline to that Account or not would at least think himself well entertain'd upon this Subject by the perusal of our Learned and Ingeious Dr. Willis in the Sixth and Seventh Chapters of his Book De Animâ Brutorum Two things are fit to be added upon this Occasion with regard to what Monsieur Charron hath deliver'd concerning Instinct The first is That in regard we observe these Animals constantly going on in the same beaten Track and keeping ever close to one Method and even in those Instances which have the greatest Appearance of Comparison and Choice of Ten Thousand that make the same Experiment or go about the same thing not one varying from the common and received Way This seems to be some Governing Principle in Nature which gives a necessary Determination to them and very different from that Liberty and Consideration which hath scarce any more convincing and demonstrative Proof of the Will being absolutely unconstrain'd in Mankind than that Multiplicity of Opinions and strange Variety of Proceedings observable upon Occasions and Junctures in themselves extremely alike The Other Remark Proper upon this Occasion is that what our Author suggests here is no Consequence at all as if too much Honour were done to these Creatures and such a Happy and Unalterable Determination to what is Profitable and Proper for them were a Privilege more than Humane a nearer Approach to that unerring Wisdom and unchangeable Goodness of the Divine Nature than We our selves can boast of For there is so very wide a Difference between Liberty and Necessity of acting the One is so Glorious so truly Noble the Other so Mean so Slavish a Principle that no Comparison can be made between them The most Glorious most Beautiful most Useful Parts of the Material Creation are in this Respect infinitely beneath the meanest of the Sons of Men and all their other Advantages put together cannot deserve to be laid into the Balance against this Single Dignity of Free and Spontaneous Action And though the Excellency of the Divine Nature be indefectible and unalterable Goodness yet would not even This be an Excellence if it were not the Effect of perfect Liberty It is indeed Our Misfortune that our Understandings are imposed upon our Affections perverted and so the Choice we have the use of often determines us to the wrong Side and entangles us in Errour and Vice But These Defects and Temptations are so many Clogs and Bars upon our Freedom and therefore God who is above any Possibility of such false Determinations is still so much the more Free For Freedom does not consist in a Power of choosing Evil as well as Good which is a Power indeed that never was or can be strictly speaking but in being Self-moved and Self-acted so as to be the Disposer of one 's own Will without any Compulsion or necessary Determination from a foreign or external Principle and only acting as one is acted upon If then this Instinct in Brutes be a Matter of Force and Necessary Determination they are in no Degree the Better or more Commendable for it but under a fatal Constraint which is so far from resembling the Divine Perfection that it admits of no Virtue nor ought to be esteemed any Excellence but the direct Contrary Fourthly Let us observe what mighty Difference there is between the Perceptions of Brutes and those of Men so great that in them we find no Footsteps of any but such as are Material and Single Objects and what this Author advances as Collections and Inferences from thence are not improbably assign'd by Others to the Force of Imagination or the Strength of Memory or to those Natural Impressions which commonly go by the Name of Instinct To the latter of These we find very Learned Men attributing that uniform Process of Birds and Bees and Ants in their Nutrition Generation Production and the like To the Former that which Charron terms deducing an Universal from a Singular and knowing by the having seen one Man how to Distinguish the Humane Form in any or all Individuals of the same Species But supposing we should allow that this proceeds from a distinguishing Faculty and not meerly from the refreshing and awaking an Image that lay dormant in the Memory 'till revived by this fresh Object yet what Proportion can even thus much bear to all those Abstracted Idea's by which Men distinguish the Natures and Properties of Things If a Brute from the Sight of a Man could collect so much as should serve to discriminate all other Men from Creatures of a Different Species yet what is This in Comparison of that Penetration which examines into the Abstruse Causes and essential Differences of Things and informs it self distinctly wherein that very Character of our Nature which we call Humanity consists And what account can there be given of any universal or abstracted Idea's in Beasts of any of those which we properly call Reasonable Actions For as to these seeming Demurrs and little Comparisons which we find instanced in here and in other Places it is usual to observe as much in Children so little and Naturals so wretchedly Stupid as that there are but very Faint if any Glimpses at all of Understanding in them I know indeed S. 1. Monsieur Charron hath provided a Reply to this Argument by saying That we cannot have any competent Knowledge of Their Internal Operations But though we do not see all the hidden Movements of their Souls nor can distinctly say whether they are feeble Reasoners or Stupendous Machines yet we may be very confident they cannot dive into the Causes and abstracted Idea's of Things because there do not appear the least Foot-steps or any of those Noble Effects of such Knowledge which Mankind have in all Ages been conspicuous for For to these abstracted Notions it is that all the amazing Inventions and Improvements of Arts and Sciences but especially the Wonders of Mechanism and Motion by Numbers and Proportions Duly adjusted owe their Birth and daily Growth And since in the Distinction and Perception of Concrete Bodies where Sensation is chiefly concern'd the Brutes are acknowledged to equal if not exceed Us in Accuracy it is not to be conceived that They who excel in a Faculty which is commensurate to a Sensitive Soul should be able to give No Marks at all of their being endued with a Capacity of entertaining and feeding upon those Ideas which are the Peculiar Prerogatives and Glories of a Rational one Much more might be added upon this Occasion with Regard both to the Objects themselves and the particular Manner of Conception and the infinite Disparities of the Humane Intellect and that Faculty which is affected in Brutes But it is Prejudice sufficient against them that so many very Wise and Inquisitive Persons have found Cause to do even something more than doubt whether Brutes be better than a sort of Divine Clock-Work and have any manner of Sense or Perception at all This at
Creech A Man cannot wrong his Innocence more than thus to stake his Conscience upon every slight Provocation and refer his Honesty to the Arbitration of all Companies he comes into †Perspicuitas argumentatione elevatur When Things are plain of themselves a set Argument does but perplex and confound them Socrates upon his Tryal would not submit to be vindicated either by Himself or by any Other and rather chose to die Silently than accept the Assistance of that Eminent Pleader Lysias in his Defence But the Other Weakness is just opposite to This when a Man of Courage gives himself no Trouble nor takes the least Pains about his own Justification tho' the Charge upon him have gain'd Ground and prepossest many when he despises the Accusation and the Persons that lay it as not worth his Answer or Notice and thinks it would be a Disparagement and a Reflection to engage with them This indeed hath been the Practice of some great and generous Spirits of scipio especially who several times weathered his Point thus with marvellous Constancy and Firmness of Soul But a great many Persons disapprove this Method and take offence at it for they think it proceeds from Haughtiness and Disdain too great a Value of Themselves and want of due Regard for other People That the depending too much upon one's Own Innocence and not submitting to remove Jealousies is ill Treatment Or else this obstinate Silence and Contempt they interpret Consciousness of Guilt Distrust of Justice and want of Ability to justifie one's self effectually Miserable Condition of Mankind in the mean while that when they are suspected and accused have no possible way of giving entire Satisfaction but whether they speak or whether they sit still and hold their Peace whether they do or do not take care to defend their Names from Reproach and sure to incur the Imputation of Weakness and Cowardice We think it a Mark of Courage and advise Men not to be Sollicitous in making Excuses and when they take our Advice we are such Fools to Resent it and complain that they do not think Us worth excusing Themselves to Another Evidence of Weakness is the enslaving our selves to any particular Manner and affecting to be distinguished by some uncommon way of Living This is a vile Effeminacy Niceness and Affectation a Niceness most unbecoming a Man of Honour it renders us ridiculous and disagreeable in Conversation and is highly injurious to our Selves by softening our Minds and making us tender and delicate and unfit to struggle with any Accident which may constrain us to change our Course of Life Besides it is a Reproach not to dare to do or endure what the rest of the Company do Such People are fit for no Place but an Alcove or a Dressing-Room The best Fashion when all is done is to be Negligent and Complying and Hardy if need be to dare and be able to do any thing but to use this Power in such things only as are innocent and good A Man does well to know and observe Rules but not to Enslave himself to them Another Vulgar Folly there is and a very general one Consulting of Books which comes under this Head of Weakness T is the running after foreign Examples in Authors being fond of Quotations allowing no Testimony to have Weight or Credit except it be in Print nor any thing to be True but what is Old and in Books According to this Rule the Press may give Reputation to the greatest Follies Whereas in truth every Day presents us with fresh Instances of Things in no degree inferiour to those more celebrated ones of Antiquity And if we had but the Wit and the Judgment to make good Reflections upon These to cull and collect carefully such as are for our Purpose to examine them curiously and discover all their Beauties the Improvement would be wonderful And every Age would be equal to any of the past the Transactions whereof we so zealously study and admire and to be plain we study and admire them for no other Reason so much as that they have Antiquity and Authors to recommend them This again is an Evidence of Weakness That Men are capable of nothing Extremes except in moderate Proportions Extremes of any kind are what they cannot bear If they are very small and make a despicable Figure we despise and disdain them as not worth our Consideration If they be exceeding great and glorious we are afraid of them admire and take offence at them The Former of these Remarks concerns Men of great Quality and great Judgment The Second is more generally true of meaner Attainments and Circumstances in the World This appears very plain too in our Hearing and Sight Sudden Accident when we are struck all on the sudden with some unexpected and surprizing Accident which seizes our Spirits before we know where we are The Amazements of this kind are sometimes so great as to deprive us of our Speech of our Senses so Virgil describes the thing * Diriguit visu in medio calor ossa reliquit Labitur longo vix tandem tempore fatur Virg. Aen. III. Her curdled Blood runs backward at the sight And pale numb'd Limbs a sudden Trembling shook She stiffens into Statue with the Fright Swoons and at last long Silence hardly broke nay sometimes Life it self hath gone too And This whether the Event were prosperous as that Roman Lady who dy'd for Joy to see her Son safe return'd out of a beaten Army and the Examples of Sophocles and Dionysius the Tyrant Tessifie or whether it be unhappy as Diodorus dy'd upon the Spot for Shame that he was baffled in a Dispute One Instance more I will add which discovers it self Two ways in direct opposition to one another Some Persons are vanquish'd into Mercy by Tears and Submissions and earnest Entreaties and are offended at Firmness and Courage as if this were Sullenness and Obstinacy and Pride Others Acknowledgments and Prayers and Complaints make no manner of Impression upon but Constancy and Resolution wins them The Former of these proceeds no doubt from Weakness and accordingly we find it more incident and common to Mean and Effeminate and Vulgar Souls But the Second it is not so easie to give an account of and yet this Temper is incident to Men of all Conditions One would think it an Argument of a brave and generous Spirit to be wrought upon by Virtue and a generous Manly Behaviour and so no doubt it is if This be done out of a due Veneration for Virtue as Scanderbeg receiv'd a Soldier into Favour for the gallant and obstinate Defence he made against him and as Pompey the whole City of the Mammertines out of the regard he had to Zeno who was one of their Body And as the Emperour Conrade forgave the Duke of Bavaria and the rest of them that were besieged with him for the Bravery of the Women who convey'd them away
upon their Heads But if this Yielding proceed from the Surprize and Confusion occasion'd by the over-bearing Power of some Superiour Virtue as the People of Thebes who were quite dispirited when they heard Epaminondas in his Defence reckon up his good Services and noble Exploits and Reproach their base Ingratitude with a becoming Indignation and Alexander when he despised the noble Resolution of Betis who was taken with the City of Gaza of which he was Commander then there is another Account to be given of it The Former of these was Weakness the Second neither the effect of Courage nor Weakness but of Anger and Rage which in Alexander was never subject to any Check nor ever knew any Moderation ADVERTISEMENT THis Author had said in the Preface to his Book that his Design was to write after the manner of the Academick Philosophers who made it their Business o represent each side of the Question in its utmost beauty and Strength without delivering any decisive Opinion in the Case or being bound to stand by either branch of the Controversie An Attentive Reader will easily observe that Monsieur Charron hath thus far maintain'd the Character he propos'd for his Pattern as to make the most of the Arguments that offer'd for his present purpose without precluding himself from putting quite another Face upon the Matter when his Subject requir'd that it should be taken by another Handle Thus you will find him varying concerning the Attaining of Knowledge by Sense and whether This be the Only possible way of Information by comparing Chapter X. and Chapter XIII Sect. 10.11 And in the very Subject of this Chapter and Section how distant is the Reflection he makes here from those others which He and other Philosophers propose to us elsewhere upon the Noble Excellence of Virtue the Largeness of its Scope and Extent it s Independence upon Fortune and Casualties and the mighty Convenience of furnishing something commendable and proper for our Exercise and so making us Happy in every possible Condition of Humane Life This Variety then of Thought is a good warning to avoid what our Author so frequently condemns Too easie a Credulity and taking his Notions upon Trust For we find even those Notions not always the same but accommodated to his present Subject and Design And That Design well attended to and taken along with us will be a very good Guide to our Understanding him aright For Instance He had laid it down in the beginning of this Treatise as a Fundamental Principle That the Ignorance of a Man's Self is the great and most governing Errour of his Life of an Influence so universally pernicious that all his Vices and Misfortunes are owing to it But then This was such an Ignorance as disposed Men to over-value and neglect themselves by covering and quite overlooking the Defects and Disadvantages of Humane Nature and so kept the Patient incurable because insensible of his Disease In order to remedy this Evil it is that Monsieur Charron undertakes to shew Men to Themselves and 't is evident his Design requires that he should shew the worst of them and paint only Those Features and Lines strong which may discover their Deformity and tend to humble and to mortifie them first and then to awaken that Care which can never be vigorously employ'd till they are first con'â—inc'd of the Weakness and Danger of those Circumstances that want it A Philosopher now under these Circumstances is thus far like a Law-giver that it will be Prudence in him to suppose and provide against the Worst and therefore as I wou'd not extenuate the Art or Wisdom of my Author nor do Injury to his Argument so neither can I be just to the Dignity of our Nature and grateful to the Wise and Good Creator of it unless I give my Reader these short and as I conceive necessary Directions in perusing this First Part of the Book First That What is here truly said of some or most Men and was sit to be said in general Terms because the worst Men have most need of such Treatises and so are most concern'd in them must not be so universally apply'd or understood as to be taken for a common Standard and universal Representation of all Mankind without Exception Secondly That in those Vices and Defects which are general we should make a Distinction between such as are essential to Humane Nature and inseparable from its Original Constitution and such as are the effects of Custom and Corruption of either Adam's or our own Sin Thirdly That what we Charge as a Defect be really so and owing to the Cause we ascribe it to These are necessary Cautions for the sake of doing common Justice as well as preventing Mistakes in our Selves It were unreasonable to take our Measures of all Mankind in respect of their Bodies from the Sick or Lame and from the Fools or the Sots every whit as extravagant for their Souls It were a charging God foolishly to ascribe those Impotencies and Evils to Him which have been the Consequences of our Disobedience against Him And it is a most unthankful Aspersion upon the Beauty and Wisdom of his Providence to charge That upon a Defect in Nature Which is really no other than a natural Result of the different Fortunes and Conditions of Men Which is exactly the Case here before us For wherein is the Excellent Wisdom of that Providence more clearly seen than in that useful Variety of Circumstances which Men are placed in And what can more Vindicate the Justice and Goodness of God from any reasonable Exception than This That there are particular Virtues appropriated to every sort of Persons and Accidents and that no Circumstance of Life is possible or supposable but it may be adorned and recommended by Virtues which are seasonable and distinguishing for that very Condition This Variety of Virtues then is far from a Natural Weakness it is not owing to Nature but to Fortune and Providence and is so far from a Disparagement that it is rather an Ornament and Advantage to the World Indeed if Nature have any thing to do in it it is the Nature of Virtue it self for even Almighty God who is Goodness in Perfection yet does not exercise both Justice and Mercy for Instance at once to the same Person and in the same respects And how is Man the worse for not doing things inconsistent and incompatible and what even Almighty God himself does not do The same may be said of the Defects of Justice taken Notice of afterwards at least in some degree Those being the unavoidable Consequences of Multitudes incorporated into Civil Societies and so many Interests nicely interwoven with one another All which I thought it my Duty to hint at thereby to prevent any mean repining or ungrateful Thoughts which such Reflections as These when lavishly spoken or unwarily received might be apt to raise in Men's Minds to the Disquiet of their own Hearts and the Dishonour
oftentimes is mere Vanity no one Stroke of a Judicious Man no one eminently Good Quality discernible in it and accordingly the Authors themselves under whose Names good Things are published are often known to be Persons of weak Parts and very indifferent Judgment loose in their Principles and debauch'd in their Morals And how much better than all this is it to hear a good honest Farmer or a common Shopkeeper talking in their own Gibberish plain downright Truths in a dry rough way without Trick or Dress to adorn and set them off and giving good useful Advice which is the Natural Product of sound Sense and an unsophisticated Judgment Thus much for our Understanding The Will The Will is in no degree inferiour in Misery but hath at least as many Sources and the Instances of it are more deplorable than any under the former Head These are indeed innumerable some few of them are such as follow 1. The being more desirous to be thought Virtuous and Good than really to be so and when one does good Actions doing them more for the sake of Others than our Own making Reputation a more powerful Motive and Principle of Virtue than Conscience coveting and taking greater Satisfaction in the Commendation and Applause of the World than in the secret Consciousness and Comfort of having done our Duty 2. The being much more forward and eager to revenge an Injury or Affront than to acknowledge a Favour and return a Kindness Insomuch that to own an Obligation is a perfect Trouble and Mortification a lessening one's self but the taking Satisfaction reputed a Pleasure a Pride an Advantage And what can be a greater Reproach to our Nature what more betray the Baseness and Malignity of it than the verifying that Observation * Gratia oneri est Ultio in quaestu habetur Thanks are a Toil and a Burden but a Retaliation of Injuries is esteemed an Addition and a Gain 3. The being more violent and fierce in the Passion of Hatred than in That of â—â—ve more disposed to more vehement in Detraction and Calumnies than in our Commendations and good Characters of Men and Actions to seed upon Evil rather than Good and entertain ill Reports and an odious Representation of our Neighbour with more sensible Relish than his Praises To enlarge more willingly upon These allow them a greater Share in our Conversation to employ one's Wit and Arts of Expression upon this Subject rather than the Contrary As the generality of Historians Orators and Poets do who are cold and flat in relating Men's Virtues but sharp and poignant eloquent and moving in the Description of their Vices And thus we find that the Expressions and Figures of Rhetorick which serve to expose and blacken Men and Things are mighty different much more full and copious more emphatical and significative than Those which are employed in Recommendation and Praise 4. The declining Evil Book II. Chap. 3. and addicting one's Self to Good upon false and improper Ends when This is not the result of Virtuous Motions and Inclinations from within nor the Dictate of Natural Reason nor the Love of Virtue nor the Sense of Duty but some Consideration altogether foreign and wide of the Matter Some mean and sordid Prospect of Gain and Interest the Itch of Vain-glory the Hope of Advancement the Fear of Reproach Complyance with Custom Obsequiousness to the Company and in a Word the not doing Good for the sake of doing it and because it becomes us and binds our Conscience but upon some occasional Motive and external Circumstance that happen'd to fall in with us at that time And at this rate the greatest part of Mankind are only good by Chance Which gives the true Reason of their being so extremely various and unequal and sickle and inconsistent with Themselves for so must all things needs be that are govern'd by Impulse and Accident and nothing but true and well-weigh'd Principles grounded upon Duty and Reason can produce a steddy constand and uniform Virtue 5. The lessening our Affection for the Persons we have wronged and that for no other Reason but merely because we have done them an Injury Is not this very odd What account can be given of it We cannot pretend that this Coldness always proceeds from Apprehensions of Revenge for perhaps the injur'd Party hath no such Thought and is as kindly disposed to Us as ever But the Reason seems to be that the very Sight and Remembrance of him accuses Us to our Selves and our Conscience takes these Occasions to fly in our Faces and reproach our Baseness and Indiscretion So that if the Person offending does not abate of his Kindness this is a good Argument that he did not offend wilfully and is not conscious to himself of any thing that can give him a just Dissatisfaction at his own Proceedings For commonly speakking Every one that offends knowingly and with a malicious Design changes in his Affection afterwards and either turns an Enemy or at least very cold and indifferent according to that usual Proverb * Chi offende mai non pardonna He that does the Wrong never forgives 6. And Observation not much unlike the former may be made concerning Persons who have highly oblig'd us The Sight of such is often an Uneasiness it upbraids us with a Debt and awakens ungrateful Remembrances of our Want either of Disposition or of Power to require Then Nay sometimes Men are so abominably wicked as even to rejoyce at the Death of a Benefactor because it eases them of this sort of Pain according to the Remark of an Old Author Some the more they have been obliged the worse they hate A small Debt makes a Man your Friend but a great one will be sure to make him your Enemy 7. The taking Delight in Mischief being glad at the Pains and Dangers and Difficulties of other People and conceiving a secret Indignation and Displeasure at their Prosperity and Promotion Nor do I mean here any such Envy or Uneasiness as proceeds from Passion and particular Resentment for this is chargeable upon the Vices of single Persons only But the Thing I aim at is the common Temper and natural Condition of Mankind in general which without any Pique or Spleen or Provocation disposes even Good Men †Suave Mari magno c. Lib. 2. to receive a sort of Satisfaction from the Risques of Men in Seas and Storms to be angry at any Preference of our Friends before Us either in point of Merit or Fortune to laugh at any little Misfortune that happens to them * All this argues the Seeds of Ill-Nature to be thick sown and to have taken deep Root in us The First of these Instances which of all the rest seems most hard-hearted Lucretius gives a much more innocent account of and acquits it of the severe Imputation laid upon it here in the beginning of this Second Book And indeed what is said There upon that one
Instance is applicable to all Here mention'd which are owing to the Love of our Selves and comparing our own Case with that of other People T is pleasant when the Seas are rough to stand And view another's Danger safe at Land Not ' cause he 's troubl'd but 't is sweet to see Those Cares and Fears from which our Selves are free Mr. Creech And sure there is a great difference between Malignity and Self-Love between Tenderness for our own Safety and a Malicious Joy in Calamities and Dangers In a Word To give you a true Representation of the greatness of our Misery 〈◊〉 of Spiritual Miscries I only add That the World abounds with Three sorts of Men which out-do all the rest both in Number and Reputation and those are The Superstitious The Formal and The Pedantick These tho' they are concern'd in different Matters move by different Springs and act upon different Stages for the Three principal Topicks are Religion Common Conversation and Learning and each of These is the Field appropriated to each of these Persons Religion to the Superstitious Common Conversation and the Dealings of Humane Life to the Formal and Learning to the Pedants But These I say tho' engag'd in Matters so distant are yet all cast in the same Mould and agree in their general Qualities and Characters That they are all weak and mean Souls extremely defective either in Natural or Acquir'd Abilities incapable or ignorant Men of dangerous Opinions sick Judgments nay sick of a Disease that scarce ever admits of a Recovery For all the Pains and Trouble you give your self to instruct these Men better is but so much Time and Labour lost upon them They are so much in the Wrong and so highly conceited that none who differ from them can be in the Right that no good is ever to be done If you will take Their Judgments none are comparable to themselves for Virtue or for Wisdom Obstinacy and Self-sufficiency which every where hath too great an Ascendent reigns Absolute here and is in its proper Kingdom Whoever hath once drunk in the Infection of these Evils there are little or no Hopes left of ever making him a sound Man again For what is there more exquisitely foolish what more stiff and inflexible than these Fellows They are secur'd by a double Barrier from the Conquests of Reason and Persuasion First by their Weakness and Natural Incapacity which disables them from seeing the Strength of Arguments and Reproofs and then by a false Confidence in their own Excellencies above the rest of the World which makes them despise all Others as their Inferiours unable to advise and unfit to reform Those who are already so much wiser and better than They. As for the Superstitious The Superstitious See Book II. Chap. 5. they are highly Injurious to God and dangerous Enemies to True Religion They disguise themselves with a Mask of Piety and Zeal and Reverence and Love for God and this Jest they carry so far as to teaze and torment themselves with Austerities and Sufferings that were never requir'd at their Hands And what is to be done with such infatuated Wretches as These who imagine that those voluntary Afflictions are highly meritorious that the Almighty is indebated to them and much oblig'd by Works which he never commanded and that all the rest ought to be released in consideration of These Tell them they take things by the wrong Handle that they stretch and pervert and misunderstand the Scriptures and lay Burdens upon themselves more and heavier than God ever laid Their Answer is that They intend well and that Intention they doubt not will Save them that what they do is from a Principle of Piety and Devotion and cannot want Merit and Acceptance upon that Account Besides there is something of Interest in all this which you can never prevail with them to part with for what Gain is to be proposed in Prospect what Satisfaction to be receiv'd in Present which can make them amends for the mighty Expectations and Raptures of that fond Notion that by this means God becomes Their Debtor and they merit at His Hands The Formalists are a sort of People entirely devoted of Form Formalists and Shew and Outside and These think themselves at liberty to indulge their Passions and gratifie any though never so unlawful Desires without Check and Controul provided they do not offend against the Letter of the Law nor omit any of those external Observances which are required in their Behaviour and lookt upon as the Rules of Living Here you shall see an old griping Jew that hath brought God knows how many Families to Beggery and Ruine but he hath done no hurt in all this For he never asked for more than his Own at least what he thought so and if upon these Demands Arrests and Suits and Prisons have ensu'd yet he only suffer'd the Law to take its Course and who can blame this honest Man for coming by his Right in the way of Justice But O Good God! how many good things are neglected and how many wicked and barbarous things done under the pretence of Forms and the Protection of the Laws Nothing can be truer than that Extremity of Right is Extremity of Wrong He that makes This the Rule of all his Proceedings and allows himself to take the Advantage of the Law upon every occasion is so far from an honest Man that he is one of the most dangerous Knaves Such Reason was there for that Saying us'd to this purpose God deliver us from the Formalists By Pedants I mean a sort of prating Fellows who first tumble over Books with great Pains and Study and afterwards let fly in all Companies and vend all they have pick'd up in their Reading with as much Impertinence and Ostentation and all this too to turn a Penny and promote their Interest or their Credit by it There are not in the World a Pack of more little Mercenary Wretches more unfit for Business and yet at the same time more forward and presuming and conceited of Themselves Hence perhaps it is that in all Countries and all Languages Pedant and Scholar are Terms of Ridicule and Reproach To do a thing aukwardly is to do it like a Scholar To behave one's self like a Clown and be ignorant of the World is to be a mere Scholar Such Scholars I mean as These I am now treating of for these Reflections do not concern Learned Men in general but such superficial Pretenders to it as are only walking and living Nomenclatures that have a Memory stuff'd full of Other Men's Knowledge but none at all of their Own Their Judgment their Will and their Consciences are not one whit improved by it They are never the wiser nor more prudent never the more dextrous in Business nor the more honest and virtuous for all the Schemes and Institutions they have run thro' They can repeat These but they have not digested them are Masiers
upon and under them beginning at Those which are Private and Domestick are mentioned here with no other Design than to give a distinct View of the several States and Conditions of Men It being the Intention of this Present Book only to Know Man in all his Capacities And therefore a great Part of what might be expected upon the Head of Power and Subjection the Reader must be content to wait for till we come to the Third and last Part of this Treatise Where under the Head of Justice these several Chapters and Capacities will come under our Consideration again and the several Duties and Virtues required upon their Account will be specisied and explained But before we enter upon any of them in particular it may not be amiss to premise somewhat briefly concerning Command and Obedience in general These being the Reciprocal Exercises of the Relations here mentioned The Two Foundations and principal Causes of all that Variety of Circumstances in which Mankind have been already described CHAP. XLV Of Command and Obedience THese as I said are the Ground-work upon which all Humane Society is built And the many different Conditions Professions and Relations that go to making it up do all arise from and depend upon Them These Two are Relative Terms they mutually Regard Produce Preserve and Support each other and are equally necessary in all Companies and Communities of Men but are notwithslanding liable to Envy and Opposition Misrepresentation and Complaint All which are the Natural and Constant Effects even of That without which we are not able to Subsist The discontented Populace would reduce their Sovereign to the Condition of a Car-Man The Ambition of Monarchs would represent him greater than a God In Command is imply'd Dignity Dissiculty These Two commonly go together Goodness Ability and all the Characters and Qualities of Grandeur The Command it self that is The Sufficiency the Courage the Authority and other Qualifications of it are deriv'd from above and the Gift of God * Imperium non â—iâ—i divino fato datur Rom. xiii 1. Empire and Dominion are bestowed by the Divine Appointment and There is no Power but of God says the Apostle to the same Purpose From whence it was that Plato said God did not place some Men over others that is not Mere Men and such as were of the Common Sort and Vulgar Qualisications but the Persons whom he set apart and exalted for Government were such as exceeded others were more sinished eminent for some singular Virtue and distinguishing Gift of Heaven in short were somewhat more than Men and such as former Ages gave the Title of Heroes to Obedience is a Matter of Benesit and Advantage of Ease and Necessity The Obeying well is of the Two more conducive to the Publick Peace and Safety than the Commanding wisely and the Consequences of withstanding and refusing the Commands of our Superiours or the complying with them Imperfectly and Negligently are much more Dangerous and Destructive than Ill and Improper Commands Themselves are or want of Skill to Govern Just as in the Case of a Married Life the Husband and Wife are equally obliged to Constancy of Affection and Fidelity to the Bed and the Words in which they Solemnly engage for This are the very Same for both Parties the same Ceremonies and Formalities to signifie and confirm it but yet the Consequences are by no means equal but the Mischiefs of Disloyalty are incomparably More and Greater in an Adulterous Wife than an Adulterous Husband So likewise Commanding and Obeying are equally Duties and necessary in all manner of Societies which unite Men to one another but yet the Disobedience of the Subject draws much greater Inconveniences after it than the Unskillfulness or the real Faults of the Governour Several States and Kingdoms have held out a long Course and been reasonably Prosperous and Flourishing under not only Ignorant but very Wicked Princes and Magistrates by the mere Force of the Unity and Compliance and ready Obedience of the Subjects Which agrees well with the Answer made by a Wise Man to that Question How it came to pass that the Republick of Sparta was so remarkably Flourishing and Whether it proceeded from the Wisdom and good Conduct of their Governours Nay said he I impute it not to their Princes Commanding well but to the Subjects Obeying well But when the People break their Yoak or throw it off and refuse Obedience there is no Remedy but such a State must be ruin'd and fall to the Ground CHAP. XLVI Of Marriage NOtwithslanding the State of Marriage be antecedent to any other of the greatest Antiquity and the highest Importance The very Foundation and Fountain of all Humane Society for Families first and then Commonwealths spring out of it according to that Observation of Cicero The First Union and nearest Relation is between Man and Wife This is the Beginning of Cities the Nursery and first Plantation of all Publick Communities yet it hath had the Ill-Fortune to be disesteem'd and run down by several Persons of considerable Wit and Character who have traduc'd it as a Condition beneath Men of Understanding and drawn up several formal Objections against it in particular These that follow * Prima Societas in Conjugio est quod principium Urbis seminarium Reipublicae Cic. de Offic. Lib. 1. First of all They tell you the Covenants and Obligations they enter into by it Objections against Marriage are unreasonable and unjust we may call it a Band of Union but it is no better than the Chains and Fetters of a Captive For What Consinement can be more insupportable than That by which a Man stakes himself down and becomes a Slave as long as he lives to Care and Trouble and the Humours of another Person For this is the Consequence if the Couple are unsuccessful and unsuitable in their Tempers That there is no Remedy but a Man must stand by his Bargain be it never so bad and continue wretched without any other possible Cure but Death Now what can be more contrary to Equity and Justice than that the Folly of one half Hour should poyson the whole Term of all his Years to come That a Mistake in one's Choice or perhaps a Trick by which he was Trapann'd into this Condition but to be sure an act of Obedience many times to the Commands of a Parent or Complyance with the Advice of a Friend a submitting one's Own Judgment and Inclination to the Pleasure and Disposal of Others What Reason say They is there that any of these Things shou'd engage a Man to perpetual Misery and Torment Were not the other Noose about the Neck the wiser Choice of the Two and to end one's Days and Troubles immediately by leaping headlong from some Rock into the Sea than thus to launch out into an Eternity of Pains to have a Hell upon Earth and always live and lie by a Storm of Jealousie and Ill-nature of Rage and Madness
vis abdita quaedam Obterit pulchros fasces saevasque secures Proculcare ac ludibrio sibi haberi videtur Lucret. Lib. 5. And hence we fancy unseen Powers in Things Whose Force and Will such strange Confusion brings And spurns and overthrows our greatest Kings Creech To summ up all in a Word The Condition of Sovereign Princes is above all Others incumbred with Difficulties and exposed to Dangers Their Life provided it be Innocent and Virtuous is infinitely laborious and full of Cares If it be Wicked it is then the Plague and Scourge of the World hated and cursed by all Mankind and whether it be the One or the Other it is beset with inexpressible Hazards For the greater any Governour is the less he can be secure the less he can trust to Himself and yet the more need he hath to be secure and not to trust Others but Himself And this may satisfie us how it comes to pass that the being betray'd and abus'd is a thing very natural and easie to happen a common and almost inseparable Consequence of Government and Sovereign Power Of the Duty of Princes see Book III. Chap. 16. CHAP. L. Of Magistrates THere are great Differences and several Degrees of Magistrates with regard both to the Honour and the Power that belongs to them For These are the two considerable Points to be observ'd in distinguishing them and they are entirely independent upon one another They may be and often are each of them single and alone Sometimes Those Persons who are in the most honourable Posts have yet no great Matter of Authority or Power lodg'd in their Hands as the King's Council Privy-Counsellors in some Governments and Secretaries of State Some have but One of these two Qualifications others have Both and all have them in different Degrees but those are properly and in strict speaking Magistrates in whom both Honour and Power meet together Magistrates are in a middle Station and stand between the Prince and Private Men subordinate to the One but superiour to the Other They carry Justice home and hand it down from above but of this they being only the Ministers and Instruments can have no manner of Power inherent in Themselves when the Prince Himself who is the Fountain of Law and Justice is present As Rivers lose their Name and their Force when they have emptied and incorporated their Waters into the Sea and as Stars disappear at the Approach of the Sun so all the Authority of Magistrates in the Presence of the Sovereign whose Deputies and Vicegerents They are is either totally suspended or upon sufferance only And the Case is the same if we descend a little lower and compare the Commissions of Subalterns and inferiour Officers with Those in a higher and more general Jurisdiction Those that are in the same Commission are all upon the Level there is no Power or Superiority There over one another all that they can do is to consult together and be assisting to each other by concurrence or else to obstruct and restrain each other by opposing what is doing and preventing its being done All Magistrates judge condemn and command either according to the Form and express Letter of the Law and then the Decisions they give and the Sentences they pronounce are nothing else but a putting the Law in execution or else they proceed upon Rules of Equity and reasonable Consideration and then this is call'd the Duty of the Magistrate Magistrates cannot alter their own Decrees nor correct the Judgment they have given without express Permission of the Sovereign upon Penalty of being adjudged Falsifiers of the Publick Records They may indeed revoke their own Orders or they may suspend the Execution of them for some time as they shall see Occasion But when once a Cause is brought to an Issue and Sentence given upon a full and fair Hearing they have no Power to retract that Judgment nor to mend or try it over again without fresh Matter require it Of the Duty of Magistrates See Book III. Chap. 17. CHAP. LI. Lawgivers and Teachers IT is a Practice very usual with some Philosophers and Teachers to prescribe such Laws and Rules as are above the Proportions of Virtue and what the Condition of Humane Nature will suffer very few if any at all to come up to They draw the Images much bigger and more beautiful than the Life or else set us such Patterns of Difficult and Austere Virtue as are impossible for us to equal and so discourage many and render the Attempt it self Dangeous and of ill Consequence to some These are merely the Painter's Fancy like Plato's Republick Sir Thomas More 's Utopia Cicero's Orator or Horace his Poet. Noble Characters indeed and a Collection of acknowledged Excellencies in Speculation but such as the World wants living Instances of The Best and most perfect Law-giver who in marvelous Condescension was pleased himself to be sensible of our Infirmities hath shewed great Tenderness and Compassion for them and wisely consider'd what Humane Nature would bear He hath suited all Things so well to the Capacities of Mankind that those Words of His are True even in this Respect also My Yoke is easie and my Burden is light Now where these Powers are not duly consulted the Laws are first of all Unjust for some Proportion ought to be observ'd between the Command and the Obedience the Duty imposed and the Ability to discharge it I do not say These Commands should not exceed what is usually done but what is possible to be done for what Vanity and Folly is it to oblige People to be always in a Fault and to cut out more Work than can ever be finished Accordingly we may frequently observe that these rigid Stretchers of Laws are the First that expose them to publick Scorn by their own Neglect and like the Pharisees of old lay heavy Burdens upon others which they themselves will not so much as touch with one of their Fingers These Examples are but too obvious in all Professions This is the Way of the World Men direct one Thing and practise another and That not always through Defect or Corruption of Manners but sometimes even out of Judgment and Principle too Another Fault too frequent is That many Persons are exceeding Scrupulous and Nice in Matters which are merely Circumstantial or free and indifferent in their own Nature even above what they express themselves in some of the most necessary and substantial Branches of their Duty such as the Laws of God or the Light of Nature have bound upon them This is much such another Extravagance as lending to other People while we neglect to pay our own Debts A Pharisaical Ostentation which our Heavenly Master so severely exposes the Jewish Elders for and is at the Bottom no better than Hypocrise a mocking of God and Miserable deluding of their own Souls Seneca indeed hath said something concerning the Impracticableness of some Duties which if rightly observ'd is of
Reward of a Man's performing commendably that which is his proper Business to do Thus we find Reason and Common Sense determine us in publick Theatres which are but so many Images in little of this Great Theatre of the Universe The Condition and Splendor of the Character is not enquired into nor weighs at all with our Judgments but He who upon the Stage plays the Part of a Servant or Bussoon if he do it well and to the Life meets with as much Applause as if he had represented a General or an Emperour And he that cannot work in Gold if he shew the Perfection of his Art and carve the Postures and Proportions well in Copper or in Plaister is reputed a good Statuary because this Excellence depends not upon the Fineness or Value of the Materials but in the Skill shewed upon them But yet it seems more reasonable to think that Honour is an Advantage for something more Noble and Sublime than Ordinary and that no Actions but such only which have Difficulty or Danger in them can make just Pretensions to it Those that are but just what they ought to be such as our respective Stations require and proceeding from a Sense of Obligation and Duty cannot aspire to so great Worth nor put in for so ample a Reward a Reward which is disparaged by being made Common or Ordinary and not suited to all Degrees of Persons and Performances Thus every virtuous and chaste Wife and every Man of Integrity and good Conduct is not therefore a Person of Honour For there must go more than Probity to the denominating them so there must be Pains and Difficulty and Danger nay and some will tell you there must be somewhat of general Good and Advantage to the Publick to justifie that Character in its full and true Extent Let a Man's Actions be never so Good never so Useful if they be private and the Advantage redound to himself alone another sort of Payment belongs to them They will have the Approbation of his own Conscience they will procure the Love and Favour and good Word of his Neighbours and Acquaintance they will ensure his Safety and put him under the Protection of the Law but except the Influence and Advantage of them be large and diffusive they cannot come up to Honour for Honour is a publick Thing and implyes more of Dignity and comprehends Splendor and Noise Admiration and Common Fame in the Nature and Notion of it Others add farther that an Honourable Action must not be a part of our Duty but perfectly free and supererogating for if Men were obliged to it all â—retension to Honour is lost The Desire of Honour and Glory and a Sollicitous seeking the Approbation and good Opinion of Others is a very vicious violent and powerful Passion The Inordinacy whereof hath been sufficiently explained and proved already in the Chapter concerning Ambition Chap. xxii But as Bad as it is in it self it does great Service to the Publick For it restrains Mens Extravangancies and keeps them within the Bounds of Decency and Duty it awakens their sleeping Powers shakes off Sloth and kindles in them generous Desires inspires great Thoughts and Glorious Actions Not that it is much for their Credit to be acted and invigorated by so corrupt a Principle but rather a Testimony and strong Evidence of the Weakness and Poverty of our Nature and Condition who are thus forced to use and accept clipt and counterfeit Money in Payment when Standard and true Sterling cannot be had But for the Determining precisely in what Cases and how far this Passion is excusable and where it is to blame and must be rejected and disallow'd and for the making it manifest Book III. In the Virtue of Temperance Ch. XLII that Honour is not the proper Recompence of Virtue I must refer you to those Distinctions and Discourses upon it which will occur hereafter Of the Marks of Honour there is great Variety but the most desirable and charming are Those where there are no Mixtures of private Gain and Interest such as nothing can be drawn out of nor any Share lie in Common for the Advantage of a Vicious Man or of such low and inferiour People as shall pretend to serve the Publick by mean and dishonourable Offices The less of Advantage they bring with them the more Valuable they are And accordingly we find the Ancients infinitely fond of and with all their Industry and Pains aspiring after those which had nothing else to recommend them but purely their being Marks of Distinction and Characteristical Notes of Honour and Virtue Of this Nature in the several Republicks of old were the Garlands of Laurel and Oaken-Leaves and so are the particular Bearings in Coats of Arms at this Day added to the former Charges of the Field upon some special piece of Service distinct Habits and Robes the Prerogative of some Sirname as Africanus to Scipio and the like Precedence and Place in publick Assemblies and Orders of Knighthood It may also fall out that when a Man's Deserts are Notorious and Celebrated it shall be more for his Honour not to have these Ensigns and Marks than to have them And therefore Cato said well that it would make more for the Glory of his Name and Virtues that People should ask why the City had not erected a Statue to his Memory in the Forum than that they should enquire why they had done it CHAP. LXI Of Learning LEarning is without all Dispute a Noble and Beautiful Ornament an Instrument of exceeding use when in the Hands of one that hath the Skill to use it aright But what Place and Proportion it deserves in our Esteem is a Matter not so generally agreed upon And here as in all Cases of the like Nature Men fall into Extremes and are to blame in both Some in overvaluing and Others in disparaging and undervaluing it Some run it up to that Extravagant Height that they will not allow any other Advantage to come near or be thought comparable to it They look upon it as the Supreme Happiness a Ray and Efflux of the Divinity they hunt after it with Eagerness and insatiable Appetite with vast expence and indefatigable Labour and Pains and are content to part with Ease and Health and every Thing in exchange for it Others as much diminish and despise it treat Those with Scorn who make it their Business and Profession And when we have observed this of either side I suppose my Reader will make no Difficulty to allow that a Moderation between both is best most safe most just and reasonable I for my own part were I to execute the Herald's Office in this Dispute should think that Place is without all question due to Integrity and Prudence to Health and Wisdom and Virtue nay See Book III. ch 14. I should not scruple to give precedence to Skill and Dexterity in Business But then for Dignity and Noble Descent and Military Valour I
his Aim and End ought in the first place to be throughly well acquainted with Himself and with Mankind The true Knowledge whereof is a very important and beneficial Study of wonderful Efficacy and Advantage For Man is the Subject proper for the Philosophers Consideration none but the Wise understand it and every man that does really understand it is Wise But at the same time it is a matter of great Intricacy and Difficulty for Man is extremely addicted to fallacy and disguise so full of it as to impose very often not only upon other People but upon Himself too Every one takes a pleasure in cheating himself is industrious to flatter his own Conscience solicitous to hide and extenuate his own Failings and diligent to magnify his few commendable Actions and Qualities shutting his Eyes and fearful to see the worst of himself and therefore since Sincerity even at home is so very little regarded we cannot reasonably think it strange that Wisdom is so very rarely to be met with For how can we expect it should be otherwise when so very few are perfect so few indeed give any attention to the very first Lesson in this Science and Men are so far from undertaking to Instruct others that they are wretchedly Ignorant and take no care of informing themselves How many profess'd Masters how many zealous Learners do we see in other matters which are foreign and of little or no moment while every body neglects the business which most nearly concerns him and while he is taken up with other matters abroad is absolutely in the dark at home What an Unhappiness What an exquisite Folly is this How great a Reproach to the Generality of Mankind Now in order to the being competently skill'd in this point we should get acquainted with all sorts of Men Those of the most distant Countries and Climats the most differing Tempers and Ages Conditions and Professions in which History and Travelling are very considerable Helps we should observe their Motions their Inclinations and their several Dealings and Behaviour not only in publick for these are full of Artifice and consequently less improving but their most secret and reserved Actions the most natural and freest from Constraint such as may let us into the dark and mysterious part of Human Nature and discover some of the hidden Springs by which Men are moved And particularly great regard should be had to those Passages wherein Mens Interests or particular Humours come to be nearly touch'd because there the Man will be sure to shew himself in his own true Colours When these Remarks are made a man must draw them together and form some general Notions and judicious Reflections from them But particularly one must be very careful to descend into Himself to try and found his own Breast to the bottom that no lurking Deceit escape him there but every Thought and Word and Action be justly and nicely weighed The Result of such Observations would certainly be a sad but serious Sense how miserable and weak how defective and poor a Creature Man is on the one hand and yet how vain and arrogant how proud and presumptuous how bloated and big with Air and Wind what a mere Tumour a Bladder a Bubble he is on the other The former of these Representations will move our Compassion the latter will raise our Horrour and Indignation Now the former Book hath done him right in all these respects by taking him to pieces and examining every part and feature by it self viewing him in all the different Lights and taking every Prospect the Picture was capable of being drawn in So that I shall trouble my Reader no further with any account of this nature at present But hope he make a good Proficiency in the business of this Second Book by the Assistances given him in the First And in order to it we will proceed to warn him of the chief Obstructions in his way to Wisdom as They who build must first clear the Ground and remove the Rubbish out of the way The Man who desires to become Wise must at the very first entrance into this design seriously set about and stedfastly resolve upon delivering preserving and guarding himself effectually from two Evils which are directly opposite and irreconcilable Enemies to Wisdom and such absolute impediments to our progress in the studies of it that till They be got over or taken out of the way no Advances can possibly be made One of these is External consisting of the Vices and the Opinions in common Vogue which by the advantage of being Popular spread and propagate Folly like a contagious Disease the other Internal and consists of a man 's own Passions so that in short the Two great Adversaries we have to fear and are most concerned to defend our selves against are the World and our Selves And after such an Advertisement there needs no more be said to shew how hard this undertaking is What course shall we take to get quit of these two or how shall we run away from them Wisdom indeed is difficult and rare but it is upon this account chiefly that it is so This is the troublesome part of it This in a manner the sole Conflict we have to fear when once This Combat is won all the rest is easy and the Day our own For the first thing that can fit or put us into any Capacity for Wisdom must be to get clear of that Evil which obstructs our whole Design and will not admit Wisdom to dwell with or grow near it Now this is the Benefit my Reader is expected to reap from the First Book which as I said may furnish him with sufficient Instructions for the getting throughly acquainted with the World and Himself and this Knowledge will possess him with so just a Character of Both as cannot but assist and lead him on to Consideration and Care and teach him to stand upon his guard and diligently beware of both Thus there is a strict and natural Connection between the two parts of this Treatise for the Beginning and First Step of the Second Book is the End and Fruit of the Former Let us first then say somewhat to that Hindrance which is External Popular Error Now we have heretofore given a large and lively Description of the Temper of the Common People the strange unaccountable Humours of That Book I. Ch LII which is by much the most numerous part of Mankind and it can be no hard matter to make a Judgment from thence what monstrous effects those humours must in all reason be expected to produce For since the Vulgar are so bewitched with the love of Vanity since they abound with Envy and Malice since they are so totally void of Justice and Judgment and Discretion since they are perfectly strangers to Moderation and good Temper and what sort of Deliberations and Opinions and Judgments and Resolutions can we suppose them taken up with How indeed is it possible that they
disability is Fear and Phlegm Coldness and Listlessness There is oftentimes not the least of Real Conviction or any Principle of Conscience in it And sure a feeble Body is a very unfit Conveyance to carry us to God and drive us to Repentance and our Duty For true Repentance is somewhat very different from all this it is a particular Gift of God by which we grow wise in good earnest a Remorse which checks our hottest Career even in the midst of Springhtliness and Courage and this is what must be created and cherished in us not by the want of opportunities or of power to use them not by the weakness of a Body broken and worn out and grown unserviceable to Vice any longer but by the Strength of Reason and Thought and the better consideration of a Resolute and Vigorous Mind For nothing more argues Greatness of Soul than the Correcting our former Follies and Steadiness in a new Course of Life notwithstanding all the Difficulties and Discouragements of an entire Reformation Now One fruit of true Repentance is a frank and conscientious Confession of one's Faults Of Confessing and Excusing Faults This is usually the Sign the Consequence and in some Cases so necessary a Qualification that all Professions of Penitence without it are Hypocritical and vain It is with the Mind in these Respects as with our Bodies For as in Bodily Distempers there are two sorts of Remedies made use of One that make a perfect Cure by going to the very Root and removing the Cause of the Disease Another which only sooth the Patient consult his present Ease and are properly termed Quieting Medicines and as in this case that former Application is much more painful but withal more powerful and effectual and better for the person than the latter So likewise in the Wounds and Sicknesses of the Soul the true Remedy is of a searching and a cleansing quality and This is such an Acknowledgment of our Faults as is full of Seriousness and Shame a being content to take the Scandal and the Folly of them upon our selves But there is another deceitful Remedy which only covers and disguises them its design is not to heal so much as to conceal the Disease and this consists in Extenuations and Excuses from whence we commonly say That Wickedness makes it self a Garment to cover its own Shame This is a Remedy invented by the Author of Evil himself and it answers the Malice of his Nature and his purposes by rendring the Party so much the worse and obstructing the Methods of his Recovery Such were the Shifts and Shufflings such the Covering of their Nakedness which the First Transgressors made the Fig-leaves and the Excuses were both alike and made the Matter but so much the worse while they laboured to mend it We should therefore by all means learn to accuse our selves and get that necessary Conquest over our Pride and Self-love as frankly and fully to confess the very worst of our Thoughts and Actions and not allow our selves in any reserves of this kind For besides that this would beget a brave and generous Openness of Soul it would likewise be a wonderful Check and effectual Preservative against all such Actions and Thoughts as are not fit to be publickly known and what a Man would be ashamed of if they were so For He that obliges himself to tell all he does will be sure to take care not to do any thing which shall need to be concealed But alas the Common Practice of this naughty World is the direct contrary to the Advice I am giving Every Man is discreet and modest and secret in the Confessing but bold and free from all restraint in the Committing part For as indeed the Confidence and Hardiness of the Crime would be very much curbed and abated so likewise would it be in some measure compensated by an equal frankness and hardiness in the accusing of our Selves and acknowledging what we have done amiss For whatever Indecency there may be in doing an ill thing not to dare to confess our selves in the wrong is ten thousand times more odious and base To this purpose we may observe that there are several Instances of Persons eminent for Piety and Learning such as St. Augustin Origen Hippocrates and the like who have taken pains to disabuse the World and to publish Books wherein they confess and retract their own Mistakes and erroneous Opinions and well were it if People could be brought to such a Degree of Sincerity as to do the same in point of Morals and Misbehaviour Whereas now they oftentimes incur a greater Guilt by endeavouring to hide and smother a less for a publick premeditated Lye seems to Carry some Aggravations along with it which render it more abominable and more Vicious than some other Facts committed in secret though these be such as in their own Nature are apt to raise a greater Abhorrence and Detestation in us All This does but inflame the Reckoning it either makes the first Fault worse or adds a fresh one to it and in either case the Guilt of the Man is not abated but increased and whether we count this Increase by way of Addition or of Multiplication the Matter comes all to one CHAP. IV. The Second Fundamental Point of Wisdom The Fixing to one's self a particular End and then chalking out some determinate Track or Course of Life which may be proper for leading us to that End AFter having spoken so largely concerning this first Fundamental Point the Real and Hearty Sincerity upon which Wisdom must be built we are now led to say some small matter of the Second Predisposition which is also necessary in order to living prudently and well And That is the Pitching upon and Drawing out to one's self some determinate Method or Course of Life that we may not live at large and at random but betake our selves to some particular sort of Business or Profession which may be proper and convenient for us My meaning is such as a Man 's own Temper and Natural Disposition qualifies him for and applies it self chearfully to with this Caution only that while we follow our own Nature in particular there be a constant Regard had to the Dictates of Human Nature in general which is and ought to be the Great the General the Governing Mistress of us all as you were told in the last Chapter For Wisdom is a gentle and regular Management of our Soul that moves and acts in due measure and proportion and consists in a constant Evenness of Life and Consistency of Behaviour It must then of necessity be a matter of very great momment This no eaâ—â— matter to manage our selves well in making this Choice with regard to which People behave themselves very differently and act with great confusion and perplexity by reason of the great variety of Considerations and Motives which they are influenced with and These many times such as interfere and confound one another
And this they are obliged in Duty and Conscience to do upon the account of the Reasons laid down by me at large in the first and last Chapters of my Third Truth which places alone are sufficient to satisfy those Readers who either have not the opportunity or will not give themselves the trouble of perusing the whole Book One necessary Caution there is yet behind Piety and Probity must go together and he who makes any pretensions to Wisdom must by all means attend to it which is That he do not separate the Piety spoken of in this Chapter from that Probity and Integrity treated of before and so imagining that One of these is sufficient for his purpose be at no pains to qualify himself with the Other and as careful must he be too not to confound and jumble these two together as if they were but two names for one and the same thing For in truth Piety and Probity Devotion and Conscience are distinct in their very nature are derived from different Causes and proceed upon different Motives and Respects I desire indeed that they may go hand in hand and be both united in the Person whom at present I am forming into Wisdom and most certain it is that Either of them without the Other is not cannot be perfect But still they must both meet and both continue distinct and though we would join yet we must take care not to confound them And These are two Precipices which must be diligently avoided and few indeed keep clear of them for either they separate Religion and common Honesty so as to satisfy themselves with one of them alone or else they jumble Godliness and Morality together so as to make them all one or at least to represent them as exactly of the same Species and effects of the same Common Principle The Persons under the former Error Piety without Probity which separate these Two and content themselves with One of them singly are of two sorts For some devote themselves entirely to the Worship and Service of God spend all their time and pains in Praying and Hearing and other holy Ordinances and place all Religion in These but as for Virtue and strict Honesty in their Dealings Sincerity and Charity and the like and in a word living in agreement to their Prayers and practising what they hear and read they have no relish or regard for These things nor make any account of them at all This is a Vice taken notice of as Epidemical and in a manner Natural to the People of the Jews who were above all Mankind addicted to Superstition and upon that account scandalous and detestable to all the World besides and among them the Scribes and Pharisees in a yet more infamous degree The Prophets exclaim against it loudly and afterwards their own Messiah reproaches them with it perpetually He exposes that villanous Hypocrisy Matt. xxi which made their Temple a Den of Thieves which exalted their Ceremonies and outward Observances to the prejudice of inward and substantial Holiness which made a Conscience of Traditions that they might xv under that pretence get a convenient Cloak and Excuse for the most unnatural Barbarities which Tithed Mint and Anise and Cummin xxiii but overlook'd Judgment and Righteousness and Fidelity In one word They were so overrun so extravagantly conceited in the matter of external Devotion and ceremonious Observances that provided they were punctual in These they fancied themselves discharged of all Other Duties nay they took occasion from thence to harden their hearts and thought This would atone for other Faults and give them a Privilege of being wicked This is a sort of Female and Vulgar Piety and vast numbers are tainted with it every where at this very day they lay out all their Diligence and Care upon those little Exercises of outward Devotion for Little sure they are as They use them who never carry the Effects of them home to their Lives and Consciences but Pray and Read and frequent the Church and Ordinances and are not one whit the better Men for doing so This gave occasion to that Proverb A Saint at Church and a Devil at Home They lend their hand and their outside to God pay Him all the demonstrations of Reverence and Respect And a fair outside it is but all This as our Lord told the Pharisees is but a whited Wall and a whited Sepulchre This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me Nay they do not only neglect the Practice of other Duties and take no pains to be all of a piece but their very Holiness it self is from a wicked Design they make this Piety a Cover for greater Impieties alledge and depend upon their Devotions first to give them Credit in the World and greater Opportunities to deceive under the Mask of so much Sanctity and then for the extenuating or making a compensation for their Vices and sinful Liberties Others there are who run into a distant and quite contrary Extreme They lay so great Stress upon Virtue and Moral Honesty as to value nothing else and make Religion and Piety strictly so called no part of their Concern This is a Fault observable in some of the Philosophers and may be observed very commonly in people of Atheistical Principles And surely it is the proper Fruit of such a Corrupt Tree for that Men should believe God and his Revelations that they should call Themselves Christians and yet be of opinion that we are excused from all the Acknowledgments and Marks of Homage due and paid to God in our Faith and Worship and That Branch of our Duty which is properly distinguished by the Title of Godliness is very inconsistent and unaccountable These are the two Vicious Extremes whether of the Two is the more or less so I shall not at present take upon me to determine nor will I dispute whether Religion or Morality will stand a Man in greater stead Thus much only give me leave to add by way of Comparison as to Three Considerations which is that the Former as described in the last Paragraph and practised by the Jews is without dispute by much the easier the more pompous and more incident to weak and vulgar Souls The Latter must be allowed infinitely more difficult and laborious it makes less Noise and Ostentation in the World and is more proper to Brave Resolute and Generous Minds for the former reasons as being more substantial and of a larger compass meeting with great opposition and having less to feed Mens Vanity with My business is next with a Second Sort of Men Against them that confound these two who confound and spoil all for want of a just Distinction but perplex these Two and the Grace of God and jumble all together These in truth are defective in all Three When you come to examine the matter strictly they will be found to have neither true Religion nor true Moral Honesty nor true
this Little or to express the thing in terms every whit as true though more acceptable A moderate Proportion and Sufficiency of Mind is the thing that brings Wisdom and Satisfaction This is what will content a Wise Man and keep him always in a State of Ease and Tranquillity Upon the full Conviction of this Truth it is that I have chosen for my Motto those two significant words Paix Peu Quiet and a Little A Fool thinks nothing enough he is sickle and irresolute knows not what he would have nor when to have done and consequently can never be contented because he never knows what would satisfy him Such a Man is well enough represented by the Story Plutarch tells of the Moon which came to her Mother and begged she would give her some New Cloaths that would sit her but received this Answer That such a Garment was impossible to be made for she was sometimes very Big and at other times very Little and continually Increasing or Decreasing and how then could she expect to be sitted with a Garment which must always be the same when her own Body was so changeable that its Bulk was never two days together the same 2. The next Point is That our Desires and Pleasures be Natural and this in truth carries great Affinity and Resemblance to the former For we cannot but observe that there are Two sorts of Pleasures Some of which are Natural and These are Just and Lawful They have a foundation in our very Temper and Frame and are imparted not to Men only but are exactly the same in Brutes These Appetites and the Gratifications of them are short and bounded in a narrow compass it is an easy matter to see to the End of them Now with regard to such no Man is or can be poor because all Circumstances and all Places furnish enough to satisfy these Inclinations For Nature is Regular and Abstemious a very little contents her and not only so but she is very well provided too and puts into every Man's hand as much as will suffice to support him Thus Seneca observes * Parabile est quod Natura desiderat expositum Ad manum est quod sat est That the Sustenance Nature requires is always ready and any-where to be had and it is very easy to come at enough for the supply of our Necessities For that which Nature requires for the preservation of its Being is in reality as much as we need and sure we ought to acknowledge it a particular Happiness and a special Favour that Those things which we stand in need of for the support of Life as they must be had or we perish so they are easy to be had and no body need perish for want of them and that the matter is so contrived that whatever is hard to be obtained we can be without it and suffer no great Prejudice If we lay aside Fancy and Passion and follow Nature and Necessity we are always rich and always safe for these will direct us to such pursuits as all the malice of Fortune cannot defeat To this sort of Desires we may add too those others which regard the Customs of the Age and Place we live in and the Circumstances and Quality of our Persons and Fortunes For I can easily allow that They should be comprehended under this Head too though it must be confess'd that they do not come up to the same degree of Necessity with the former If we will speak strictly and consider things according to their utmost rigour These are neither Natural nor Necessary but if they be not absolutely so yet they follow close in order and are next to Those that are They do indeed exceed the bounds of Nature which hath done her part when she maintains us in Any Condition but yet we are not tied to all that Exactness but are permitted to enlarge our Desires farther and may without any breach of Virtue desire a Competency in proportion to the Rank Providence hath placed us in We may I say desire and endeavour this fairly and reasonably but yet with this Reserve that it is against Justice and Reason both to murmur and be discontented if we be disappointed in our Hopes or deprived of the Possession of it For These are Additional Advantages and the Effect of Bounty all that Nature hath bound her self to is the Subsistence of our Persons and we have no Right to depend upon more But we must not omit to observe that there are as I hinted before another sort of Pleasures and Desires which we may truly call Unnatural because they are quite beside and beyond the Bounds already mentioned With These Nature hath nothing at all to do she knows them not They are of a Bastard Race Fancy and Opinion give them birth Art and Industry Cherish and Improve them They are superfluous and studied Follies and must not be allowed so mild a Term as Appetites but are most truly and in the worst sense of the word Passions I know not well indeed what Title to distinguish them by they are so fantastical that it is not easy to find a Name for them but call them if you will Lustings Longings Any thing that expresses the Whimsy and Impatience of a wild and wanton Mind These we have therefore spoken to already when in the First Book we treated of the Passions at large all that is necessary to be added here concerning them is only That the Greatest part of what Men call Desires are such as These and that They are the proper source of that Misery and Fretfulness we see Mankind so generally disquieted by and That a Wise man will think himself concerned to distinguish his Virtue in no one Instance more than in keeping himself absolutely and entirely clear from any Vanities of this kind 3. See Book III. Ch. 40. The Third Qualification requisite upon these Occasions is That all our Pleasures and Desires be Moderate by which I mean that they should be guilty of no Excess in any respect whatsoever Now This is a Rule of a very large Extent and capable of being parcelled out into a great many subdivisions but I think All of them may be reduced to these Two That neither first our Neighbour nor secondly our Selves suffer by them When I mention other People's Sufferings I design by it that we should indulge our Selves in nothing that may any way give any person disquiet by scandalizing him or ministring just cause of Resentment nothing that may contribute to his loss or prejudice by hurting his Person Estate or Reputation By Our Own suffering I mean that we should have all due regard to our Health our Leisure our Business and particularly the Offices of our Calling and Capacity our Honour and above all our Duty And He that is content with being subject to these Restraints and takes care not to break in upon any of the forementioned Boundaries I admit to be such a one as exercises what
Chapters containing the Creation and Fall of our first Parents the VIth VIIth VIIth and IXth giving an Account of the Deluge and Preservation of Noah's Family there remain but four more before the Call of Abraham and in those the Succession from Adam to Noah the Dispersion of Noah's Posterity for peopling the World and the Occasion of that Dispersion are contained 'T is true some things are inserted which to Us seem of less moment but besides that some account may in reason be given why they should be mentioned the Holy Spirit who indited these Books was the best Judge of That But it is also true that several other things as considerable as This are omitted likewise which we do not upon that score disbelieve such particularly as Those of Times stated and Assemblies convened for the Publick Worship of God and certainly it is as necessary and as important at least to expect a Revelation for the Solemn Service of God as for any particular Mode of Serving or Addressing to him I have now laid before my Reader the State of the Case as They who alledge Human Invention for Sacrifices have put it and in the Answer to those Arguments have given some for the Contrary Opinion That the Authorities on that Side are considerable is acknowledged but the General Sense of the Christian Church seems to incline to Divine Institution And the most reasonable account of this Matter if I apprehend it rightly stands thus That Almighty God instructed Adam how he would please to be worshipped and Adam trained his Family and Posterity both by Example and Instruction in the same Solemn Methods of Serving and Addressing to God That from the Time of a Redeemer's being promised Expiatory Sacrifices were both instituted and practised partly as an Intimation to Men of their own Guilt and the final Destruction they deserved and partly as a Shadow and Prefiguration of that Vicarious Punishment which God had promised to admit for the Sins of Men in the Redemption of the World by the perfect Sacrifice of his Son That as no Age of the World can be instanc'd in when God did not afford Men some visible Signs and Sacraments of his Favour and the Covenant between Him and Them so the Ages before the Institution of the Jewish Law which abounded with very expressive and particular Significations of this kind had Sacrifices for that purpose That the Heathen Sacrifices were not pure Inventions of Men but Corruptions of a Divine Institution Which being propagated to all the Offipring of Adam was differently received and depraved by the Uncertainty of Tradition long Tract of Time the Artifice of the Devil and Mens own Vicious Affections Of which whoever reads the Apologies for Christianity will find Proofs in abundance and be convinced that the Pagan Idolatry was built originally upon the Worship of the true God vitiated and perverted and misapplied For we must in reason be sensible that the likeliest and most usual way by which the Devil prevails upon Men is not by empty and groundless Imaginations or Inventions perfectly new but by disguising and mimicking the Truth and raising erroneous and wicked Superstructures upon a good and sound Bottom It is therefore it seems at least in my poor Opinion most probable that the Jewish Ceremonies were indeed adapted to the Egyptian and other Pagan Rites which the Israelites had been acquainted with and were not then in a Condition to be entirely weaned from But withal that those Pagan Sacrifices were Corruptions of the old Patriarchal not entirely mere Inventions of their own but Additions only and Extravagant Excrescencies of Error to which the Truth and Positive Institution of God first gave the hints and occasions For though it can very hardly be conceived how Sacrifices should be of mere human Motion yet there is no difficulty in supposing that the Thing once Instituted and once Established might be abused and depraved to very prodigious and abominable purposes As it was no doubt very early in that universal degeneracy to Idolatry from which it pleased God to rescue Abraham and his Posterity One very Remarkable Circumstance contributing to the strength of this Opinion is that almost every where the Ceremonies in the Act of Oblation seem to be very much alike which is very Natural to an Exercise and Institution derived down from One common Head and originally sixed by a Positive Command but scarce conceivable of an Invention merely Human where Men in all likelyhood would have run into as great Diversity and thought themselves as much at Liberty as they do in the Affairs of Common Life But especially the Sacrificing Beasts by way of Atonement obtained universally and the Imagination of Their Blood being necessary and effectual for Pardon Which I confess if a Dictate of Reason and Nature only is certainly the strangest and most remote from any present Conceptions we are able to form of the Dictates of Nature of Any that ever yet prevailed in the World And therefore This is scarce accountable for any other way than from the Promise of a Redeemer and Sacrifice to come which the Sacrifices of Beasts were in the mean while appointed to represent That such an Institution agrees very well with all the Ends of Sacrifice is not to be denied For the Death of the Beast though not personally felt by the Offender would yet give him a full and very expressive Idea of the fatal Consequences of Sin and the Acceptance of that Life instead of his own which was forfeited and by that Act of Sacrificing acknowledged obnoxious to Divine Justice was a lively representation of the Mercy of God But still the Apostles Argument is founded in Reason and may be an Appeal to all Mankind It is not possible that the Blood of Bulls and of Goats should take away Sin And therefore not only Eusebius in his Xth Chap. of Demonstrat Evang. Lib. I. ascribes this Worship to Divine Inspiration but Aquinas says that before the Law Just Men were instructed by an Inward Instinct after what particular manner God would be Worshipped as they were afterwards under the Law by External Precepts So Plato says That no Mortal Capacity can Know or Determine what is fit to be done in Holy Matters and therefore forbids the Alteration of the Established Rites and Sacrifices as Impious And the Testimonies of St. Chrysostome and Justin Martyr Taylot's Ductor Dubit B. II. Chap. 3. N. 30. have been thought to mean not so much that all Sacrifice was a Dictate of Nature as that some Circumstances relating to it were left to the Dictates of Man's Reason So that when God had taught Adam and his Posterity that they should worship in their several Manners and what he would please to accept The Manner and Measure and such like considerations were left to Choice and Reason and Positive Laws In short the Religion of our Hearts and Wills our Prayers and Praises might be natural and the result of meer Reason but
Personis sed contrà And the Christian Faith will sufficiently clear its own Divine Original if we will but give it free Course and suffer it to draw us to a Resemblance of that Excellence which first Inspired and taught it Book II. Chap. XI Sect. 10. According to the Custom of the Egyptians c. The Meaning of this Custom is very often misunderstood and misapplied For whereas the Bringing this Death's head in to the Company at Publick Entertainments is frequently look'd upon as done with a design to check the Excesses of Mirth with this Melancholy but never Unseasonable Reflection Both Herodotus in his Euterpe and Plutarch in his Tract de Isid Osiride give a quite different Account of the Matter and report it to have been done for the heightning of their Jollity by considering that their Time was but short and therefore they ought to make the best of it This Emblem in effect speaking that Maxim of the Epicure Let us Eat and Drink for to morrow we dye Book II. Chap. XI Sect. 18. Page 289. Although the Answers to these Pretences usually alledged in favour of Self-murder be in a great measure taken off in the latter part of the Section and the Determination at last be sound and good yet in regard those Returns are general and do not reach every Particular I will so far trespass upon the Reader 's Patience as to run over this part of the Argument Period by Period as fresh Matter arises and observe to him what hath been or may very reasonably be replied upon each of the Excuses produced here for I rather call them Excuses than Justifications to give Countenance to that Unnatural Act of Self-murder First It is urged that there are great Examples for it in all Story and of Persons of all Persuasions particularly those of Razias and the Women under the Tyranny of Antiochus among the Jews and Pelagia and Sophronia among the Christians the Former drowning her self to escape the Rudeness of the Soldiers the Latter stabbing her self to get free from the Lust of Maxentius Now here in the first place I observe by the way That Example in General is a very insufficient and deceitful Rule nor can we always make any sure Conclusions of the Lawfulness or Unlawfulness of a Fact by the Relation given of it Because many times the Thing is commended with regard to One Part or Circumstance and yet not thereby justified as to all the rest This I say when there is a Commendation positively added to it but many if not most are barely related and left for Us to interpret without any Character at all fixed upon them Nay I add farther that the Circumstances of Person Time and several others of the like nature are so infinitely different that as it is exceeding hard for Us who are not perfectly acquainted with the Reasons and Motives upon which others act to pass an exact and true Judgment upon their Actions so is it much more difficult to find Instances where Their Circumstances and Ours shall agree so nicely and in every Particular that we shall deserve just the same Commendation or Blame which they did by imitating their Proceedings Thus much was not amiss to be hinted concerning the Fallacy of Examples in general and how very unfit they are to be made a Rule for the Behaviour of other People I shall now touch briefly upon each of the Particulars above-mentioned As for That of Razias It is indeed delivered after such a manner as seems to carry a Commendation with it but this is only a Commendation of his Valour and Heroick Greatness of Soul not of the Virtue of the Action or any thing which might render it Imitable by others St Augustine's Reflection upon it is Dictum est quod elegerit nobiliter mori Cap. xxiii contra 2. Epist Gaudent meliùs vellet humiliter sic enim utiliter Illis autem verbis historia Gentium laudare consuevit sed viros forte hujus seculi non Martyres Christi His Character says he is That he chose to dye Nobly it had been much better if the Commendation had been that he chose to dye Modestly and Humbly for This had been a profitable way of Dying But those are Pompous Terms usual in Prophane Story such as are counted an Honour to the Men of this World but not to Martyrs for Christ The Account in the Maccabecs expresses his resolute Detestation of Idolatry and that is commendable but certainly had he been taken and suffered Torments and Death under Nicanor his Praise had been much more just and his Character clear and indisputable For even Persecution it self is not a Reason sufficient for our making this Escape according to that of St. Jerome in his Comment upon Jonah Non est nostrum Mortem arriperc sed illatam ab alijs libenter excipere Under in persecutionibus non licet propriâ perire manu It is not our business to bring death upon our selves 2 Mac. xiv 37 c. but to receive it willingly when inflicted by Others and for this Reason even the Case of Persecution will not warrant a Man's dying by his own hand But in truth Razias his Case as the Historian describes it was none of this for his Account at the 42d Verse is very Remarkable He fell upon his sword chusing rather to dye manfully than to come into the hands of the wicked to be abused otherwise than beseemed his Noble Birth So that Razias at this rate was what the World vainly calls a Man of Honour and his Life was sacrificed to that Principle Had he done this Act to avoid offending God it had had a fairer Pretence at least though neither would That have excused it but to kill himself for fear of Indignities and Affronts not fit for a Man of his Quality to submit to this was far from a Religious Principle and we cannot wonder that the Commendation it receives hath given so strong a Prejudice to the Church against the Book of Maccabees as not to admit it into their Canon of Scripture I add too upon this occasion that some have thought this whole matter a Fiction Spanhem de Author Lib. Apocryph in Disp Theol. V. 41. 43. 44. 45. 46. and I confess the Circumstances are very Odd and Romantick That a Man should fall upon his Sword first then leap down from a Wall into the midst of his Enemies That they should make way for him where he fell among the thickest of them that he should rise up again in anger but withal in such a Condition that his blood gushed out like Spouts of Water and his Wounds were very grievous but he ran through the midst of the throng notwithstanding and standing upon a steep rock When his blood was now quite gone he pluck'd out his bowels took them in both his hands cast them upon the Crowd and yet for all this his Senses it seems were not lost at the last Gasp but
Satisfaction and breaking Prison So far therefore as this Desire is consistent with Patience and Resignation to the Divine Will so far it is truly Magnanimous and Commendable and no farther To that Question What Law does this offend against it is easy to answer Against the Laws of God and of Nature against the Condition of Mankind against our Duty to the Publick against the Sixth Commandment in particular which no more argues us Guiltless when we Kill our Selves because chiefly designed to restrain us from Killing Others than it can be proved from the Seventh that we do not Sin against our own Bodies when we Invade another's Bed The Love of our selves is proposed as the standard of our Love to others and the Rule must be supposed as perfect at least as the thing to be regulated by it If there be no Prohibition against this in express words it was because none was thought needful and sure it is no excuse to say That no Law is violated in Terms When the Case was such as needed no Law As to the other part of the Argument That Men may dispose of themselves as they please and a willing Person can receive no Injury it supposes an Absolute Right to dispose of our selves such as no Creature hath with respect to God and Providence and no Man can have with regard to the several Relations and Dependencies in which he is engaged And if so little can be said for this Horrid Fact when the most favourable Cases are put How detestable and impious must it needs be when Disgrace or Poverty Disappointments and Crosses Raging Passions and Repining at Providence prevail with Men to commit it For these are such Motives as no body ever undertook to justify and the Stoicks themselves who went the farthest in this matter yet stopp'd short of these and to speak the Truth even wavered in all the rest A more full account whereof I refer my Reader for to Lipsii Manuduc ad Stoic Philosoph Lib. III. Cap. XXIII XXIV and for a larger discussion of this whole matter to Spanhem Disput Theolog. De Lib. Apocryph Authoritate Disp XIII XIV and Bishop Taylor 1. De Civ Cap XXVI Ductor Dubitant Book III. Chap. 2. Rule 3. From all which compared St. Augustin's determination I doubt not will seem most reasonable His exceptis quos vel Lex justa vel ipse Fons Justitiae Deus jubet occidi quisquis Hominem vel seipsum vel quemlibet occiderit Homicidij crimine innectitur Those only excepted whom either a just Law or God himself who is the Fountain of all Justice shall command to put to Death whosoever shall kill any Person be it himself or any other Man he becomes thereby guilty of Murther and is Answerable for his Blood Of WISDOM The Third BOOK In which Particular Rules are laid down and Directions for the several Parts and Offices of Wisdom branched out under Four General Heads as they have relation and are reducible to the Four Cardinal Virtues The PREFACE OVR Design in this Last Part of the present Treatise being to give the Reader the most particular Instructions we can possibly and so to follow and compleat the General Rules of Wisdom touched upon in the Book foregoing the most Convenient and Methodical way of proceeding seemed to me to range all I have to say under the Four great Moral Virtues of Prudence Justice Fortitude and Temperance Since these are of a comprehension so large that it is almost impossible to instance in any Duty of Morality or Practical Religion which is not directly contained or may very fairly be reduced within the compass of them Prudence supplies the place of a Director and Governor it instructs Vs in other Virtues and is the Guide of our Life and all the Actions of it though indeed it be more peculiarly concerned in matters of Dealing and good Conduct and its strict proper Notion is Dexterity in the Management of Business Now as This regards Actions so Justice which is the next is chiefly concerned about Persons for the Province of Justice is to render to every Man his due Fortitude and Temperance have respect to the Events of Human Life the Prosperous and Adverse such as move our Passions and are matter of Joy or Grief of Pleasure or Pain to us Now it is plain that these Three Persons and Actions and Contingencies extend to all the parts of Human Life and our Condition and Dealings in the World cannot possibly oblige us to be conversant with or employ'd about any thing whatsoever which is not comprehended under One or Other of these Considerations CHAP. I. Of Prudence in general THere is great Reason It s Excellence why Prudence should have the first and most honourable place alotted to it because it is really the Queen of Virtues the general Superintendent that presides over and gives directions to all the Rest Where this is wanting there can be no such thing as Goodness or Beauty Propriety or Decency It is the very Salt of Life the Lustre and Ornament of all our Actions That which recommends them to the Eye and gives them that Seasoning and Relish which is necessary 'T is the Square and Rule by which all our Affairs ought to be measured and adjusted and in one Word This is the Art of Acting and Living as the Science of Physick is the Art of Health Prudence consists in the Knowledge and the Choice of those things Definition which it concerns us to desire or to decline It is a just and true Valuation first and then a picking and culling out the best It is the Eye that sees every thing and conducts our Motions and Steps accordingly The Parts or Offices of it are Three and these all naturally consequent and in order after one another The First is Consulting and Deliberating well the Second Judging and Resolving well the Third Managing and Executing those Resolutions well It is very deservedly esteemed an Universal Virtue 'T is Universal because of a Comprehension so general so vast that all manner of Actions and Accidents belonging to Humane Life are within its Extent and Jurisdiction and This not only considering them in the gross but each of them singly and in particular So that This is as infinite as all those Individuals put together You cannot wonder if the next Property I assign to it be that of Difficult Difficult the infinite Compass I have already mentioned must needs make it so For Particulars as they cannot be positively numbred so they cannot be fully understood It is a standing Rule * Si quae siniri non possâ—nt extra sapiâ—ntiam sunt That whatever is infinite exceeds the Bounds of Wisdom But that which adds yet more to the Hardship is the great Uncertainty and Inconstancy of Human Affairs which is still rendred more intricate and unaccountable by the inexpressible Variety of Accidents Circumstances Appurtenances Dependencies and Consequences the Difference of Times and
not govern'd without him But he for the most part prospers fit and proper means to encourage our Industry and as a proof that the World is governed regularly by him Now That which principally requires Our Prudence is that we have to do with Men and the corrupt Disposition of the Persons we deal with their perverse unmanageable Temper makes Address necessary in all our Transactions For of all Creatures in the Universe there is not any so hard to be subdued and brought to compliance as Mankind * Impatiēns aequi nedum servitutis Senec. de Clement They who cannot bear so much as Equity and Neighbours fare must needs be much less contented with Subjection and Slavery And thefore nothing less than great Art and Industry is sufficient to reduce and keep them in order For though we are always disposed to mutiny against them that are in any respect our Superiors and to fall soul upon People of all Conditions yet we never do it with so much Zeal and such eager Malice as when we make Head against those who pretend to Authority and Dominion over us Now Prudence is the knack of managing Mankind and keeping this Factious Principle under a slack and gentle Rein by which the Skilful Rider keeps this Skittish Horse in the Road and Ring of Obedience Now although Nature have implanted this as well as other Virtues in us and more or less in proportion to every Man's Capacity and Parts and though it be from those Original Seeds that Prudence takes its beginning yet is this more acquired more learned and improved more the Effect of Study and Application of Thought than any other Virtue whatsoever And this Acquisition is in some measure the Fruit of wise Precepts and good Advice which we commonly call the Theory or Speculative Part of Prudence but the best and Principal Instrument and Help toward it is Experience though this require much more Time and Pains which is term'd therefore the Practical Part. And This again is of Two sorts The One truly and properly so because it is Personal learnt by what happens to or is done by our own selves arising from Observations of our own making and to This in strict speaking the Name of Experience is appropriated The Other is not our own but the result of other Peoples Judgment or Practice and such is History which informs us by Hearsay and Reading Now our own Proper Experience is much the firmer more assur'd and what may with better reason be depended upon for Vse as Pliny says is the best Master the Author and Teacher of all Arts and Sciences the perfectest though the most tedious and expensive way of Learning * Seris venit Usus ab Annis it is the result of many Years and Gray Hairs exceeding hard to be mastered very laborious and very rare The Knowledge of History as it is less satisfactory and assured so is it likewise more easie more frequently to be met with more obvious and in common to all sorts of People A Man indeed is more resolute and confident when he learns Wisdom at his own Cost but it is much easier and cheaper to grow wise at the Expence of other People And from these Two Experience properly so call'd and Historical Prudence is deriv'd according to that common Saying †Usus me genuit peperit Memoria Seu memoriae anima vita Historia Experience is my Father and Memory my Mother or rather History which is the Life and Soul of Memory Now Prudence may and in order to the giving us a clear Notion of the thing 't is necessary it should be distinguished in several Respects both with regard to the Persons concern'd in the use of it and the Affairs about which it is employed As to the Persons we are to observe That there is first That which we may call private Prudence and that is either solitary and individual wherein a Mans single Person only is concern'd this is something so low and narrow that it scarce deserves the noble Title of Prudence or else it is Social and Domestick confin'd to some small Company and lesser Societies and then there is Secondly Publick Prudence which is commonly known by the Name of Policy This is the more Sublime more Excellent and Useful and more difficult to be attained and to This it is that all those lofty Characters and large Commendations in the beginning of this Chapter do of right belong which is again subdivided according to the different Subjects and Occasions that call for it into Civil and Military Prudence With regard to the Affairs it is conversant about These are of two kinds Some Ordinary and Easie Others Difficult and Uncommon There are also several Contingencies by the interposition of which some new difficulties spring up which were not in the nature of the things and consequently doubts and perplexities not foreseen at the first setting out and accordingly that Prudence whose business it is to manage all these may be termed either Ordinary when it proceeds in the plain easie way and governs its self by known Rules established Laws and Customs in common Use or else Extraordinary when it is obliged to go out of the beaten Road and have recourse to difficult Stratagems and unusual Methods There is still one Distinction more behind which extends both to the Persons and to the Affairs or as the Schools speak the Subject and the Object of this Prudence But it is such a one as regards not so much the several Kinds as the different Degrees of this Virtue I mean that Prudence which is truly and properly a Man 's Own and gives him the Denomination of Wife when one acts upon his own Judgment and trades with his own Stock the Other a Borrowed and Precarious Prudence when we follow the Advice of others And thus it is that all Philosophers agree in allowing two sorts of Wise Men. The First and Highest rank are those who walk by their own Light that penetrate and see through all Difficulties and always contrive Remedies and Expedients by the force of their own Judgment and happy Forecast But where shall we find these Able Men They are certainly Prodigies in Nature The Other of Inferior Condition are such as understand how to judge and take and make the best advantage of good Counsel when it is given them Now all Persons whatsoever that make any manner of pretence to Wisdom must be included in this Division for They who neither know how to give good Advice nor how to take it when others give it are by no means fit to come under this Character but the contrary of Stupidity and Folly The General Rules which concern Prudence at large in it's most comprehensive Signification as it relates to Persons and Affairs of all Sorts and Qualities have been already handled and some short account given of them in the Book that went before And those you remember were Eight First The true understanding of
they allow of no Intermission but if the Difficulties are occasion'd by the principal Persons in the Family they fret and gall and wrankle inward and scarce admit of any Rest or Remedy The Best Method of rendring this Care easie and effectual is To procure some faithful Servants in whose Honesty we can have entire Confidence and Security To buy in Provisions in their proper Seasons and wait for the best Markets To prevent all unnecessary Waste which is the Province proper to the Mistress of the House To make Necessity and Cleanliness and Order our first Care and when These are served if our Circumstances will extend farther then to provide for Plenty and Shew and Niceness a gentile Appearance and every Thing fashionable in it's Kind To regulate our Expences by cutting off our Superfluous Charge yet so as to have a Regard to Decency and Convenience and grudge Nothing which either Necessity or Duty call for from us One Shilling saved with these Limitations will do us more Credit than Ten idly squandered away But to the avoiding Profuseness we should also add the other commendable Quality of good Contrivance for it is a Mark of great Address when we can make our Peny go a great Way and appear Handsomely with little Charge But above all things a Man must be sure to keep within Compass and sute his way of Living to his present Circumstances For the most probable Prospects are still but Futurities and as such they must needs be uncertain so that there cannot be a more ridiculous Folly than to spend high in Confidence of Reversions and distant Expectations A Master's Eye must be every where and if either He or the Mistress be ignorant and unexperienced in Business they must take Care to conceal this Infirmity and pretend at least to understand all that belongs to them But especially they must never appear Negligent or Remiss but put on an Air of Diligence and Concern however For if once the Servants get a Notion of their being Careless how their Affairs are managed they will not fail to take their Advantage and in a short Time leave them little or nothing to take Care of CHAP. XIV The Duty of Parents and Children THE Duty of Parents and Children is Reciprocal and Natural on both sides Thus far they both agree But if the Obligation be somewhat stricter on the Child's Part that Difference is compensated by being more Ancient on the Parents side For Parents are the Authors and first Cause and of the Two of much greater Consequence to the Publick The Peopling the World with Good Men and Good Patriots is their Work the Educacation and Instruction of Youth is the only Method of effecting it so that here the first Seeds of Political Societies and Institutions are first laid And of the Two Inconveniencies That is much less which the State suffers from the Disobedience and Ingratitude of Children toward their Parents than from the Remisness and Neglect Parents are guilty of toward their Children Hence in the Lacedoemonian and some other very wise Governments there were Mulcts and other Penalties inflicted upon Parents when their Children prov'd Perverse and Ill-tempered And Plato declared he knew no one Instance that needed a Man's Care more or deserved it better than the endeavouring to make a good Son And Crates in great Wrath expostulated thus with his Country-men To what Purpose is all this Pains to heap up great Estates while it is no part of your Concern what manner of Heirs you leave them to This is like a Man's being Nice of his Shooe and Negligent of his Foot What should a Man do with Riches who hath not the Sense nor the Hert to make a good Use of them This is like an embroidered Saddle and sumptuous Furniture upon a Jaded Horse Parents indeed are doubly obliged to the Performance of this Duty In Kindness to themselves as they are their own Offspring and in Regard to the Publick because these young Suckers are the Hopes of the Tree the promising Shoots upon the thriving and kindly cultivating whereof the Strength and Succession of the Body Politick depends So that this is killing Two Birds with One Stone serving one 's own private Interest and promoting the Welfare and Honour of one's Country at the same time Now this Duty consists of Four Parts each of which succeed in order to the other and these are proportion'd to the Four Advantages which Children ought to receive from their Parents in their proper Seasons Life and Nourishment Instruction and partaking of the Advantages of Life with them The First respects the Time of a Child's Existence till his Birth inclusively The Second his Infancy The Third his Youth and the Last his riper Age. Concerning the First of These I shall only say that though it be very little attended to yet is it of mighty Consequence and of strict Obligation For no Man who hath any the least Insight into Nature can be ignorant how hereditary Constitutions and Complexions are And therefore we may be good or ill Parents even before our Children are born And I am sure among other Inducements to the care of Health and a regular Way of living This ought not to be the least that Those who derive their Being from us do depend upon this Care for a great part of their Happiness For by what hath been largely discoursed in the first Book it may plainly appear that the Capacity and Turn of Men's Minds and the Soundness and Vigour of their Bodies are in great Measure owing to a Parents good Constitution And certainly To Men of any Conscience it should be an Eternal Sting and Reproach to reflect what Rottenness and Diseases they entail upon their Posterity by abandoning themselves to Lewdness and Debauchery how dearly those Innocents pay for their Ancestor's Excesses and what a Barbarity it is to send poor Wretches into the World to languith out a Life of Misery and Pain and suffer for Sins which they never committed So Necessary so Important a Virtue is Temperance to Successions and Families as well as to Mens own Persons So Mischievous is Vice and so Subtilly does it propagate its dismal Effects even to those that are yet unborn The Second of these Heads I leave to Physicians and Nurses and having thus briefly dispatch'd the Two First because somewhat foreign to our present Design and necessary to be mention'd only for the rendring this Division compleat I shall proceed to the Third which concerns the Instructing of them and is a Subject more worthy our serious Consideration So soon as the Child begins to move his Soul and the Faculties of That as well as the Organs of his Body shew that he is a Rational and not only a Living Creature Great Application should be used to form him well at first And this Care may be allowed to take Place about Four or Five Years Old for by that time The Memory and Imagination and some little Strokes
of Europe this is the only way to make a Noise in the World Reputation and Riches are not to be got without it So that the Persons we now speak of make a Trade of Learning and sink it into a Mercenary Pedantick Sordid Mechanical Thing A Commodity bought dear to be sold again dearer at second Hand These Hucksters are past all Cure and it is not worth while to give our selves any Trouble about them Not but that our Men of Mode are some of them as Extravagantly Foolish in the other Extreme who esteem Learning an ungentile Thing and somewhat too Pedantick and Mean for Quality and esteem a Man the less for being a Scholar This is but another Proof of their Folly and Emptiness and Want of all Sense of Virtue and Honour which their Ignorance Impertinence sauntring Lives and vain Fopperies give us such abundant Demonstrations of every Day But now for the Instruction of those Others Learning and Wisdom compar'd that give us some Hopes of Recovery and for the discovering where their Mistake lies we must shew Two Things First That there is a Real Difference between Learning and Wisdom and that the Latter is infinitely to be preferred before any the most exquisite and exalted Degree of the Former Secondly That they do not always go together nay that most commonly they obstruct each other insomuch that your Men of nice Learning are not often eminent for Wisdom nor your Truly wise Men deep Learned There are I confess some Exceptions to this last Observation but it were heartily to be wished there were more of them They that are so are Men of Great and Noble Souls of which Antiquity furnishes some Instances but the more Modern Times are very barren of them In order to the doing this Argument Right we must first know what Learning and Wisdom are Now Learning is a vast Collection of other Peoples Excellencies a Stock laid in with Labour and long Trouble of all that we have seen and heard and read in Books the Sayings and Actions of Great and Good Men who have lived in all Ages and Nations The Repository or Magazine where this Provision is treasured up is the Memory He who is provided by Nature with a good Memory hath no body to blame but himself if he be not a Scholar for he hath the Means in his own Hands Wisdom is a calm and regular Government of the Soul That Man is Wise who observes true Measures and a due Decorum in his Thoughts and Opinions and Desires his Words and Actions and Deportment In short Wisdom is the Rule and Standard of the Soul and he that uses this Rule aright that is The Man of Judgment and Discretion that sees and discerns judges and esteems Things according to their Nature and Intrinsick Value who places each in its just Order and Degree is the Person we would have every one attempt to be And how Reasonable that Advice is will quickly appear by observing how far the greater Excellence of the Two this of Wisdom is Learning however Valuable in it self is yet but a poor and barren Accomplishment in Comparison of Wisdom For it is not only unnecessary being what Two Parts in Three of Mankind make a very good Shift without but the Usefulness of is but small and there are but a very few Instances comparatively to which that Usefulness extends It contributes nothing at all to Life for how many do we see of all Qualities and Conditions High and Low Rich and Poor that pass their Time in great Ease and Pleasure without knowing any thing at all of the Matter There are a great many other Things more Serviceable both to Men's private Happiness and to Human Society in General Honour and Reputation Noble Birth and Quality and yet even These are far from being absolutely necessary The most they can pretend to is the being Ornaments and Conveniences and additional Advantages It contributes Nothing to any Natural Operations the most ignorant Man in this Respect is upon the Level with the greatest Clerk For Nature is of her self a sufficient Mistress and deals to every one the Knowledge needful for supporting her own Occasions Nor does it in any Degree assist a Man's Probity no body is one whit the Honester or Juster for it rather indeed it hinders and corrupts the Integrity of the Mind by teaching Men to be Subtle and to distinguish all Plain-dealing quite away Look into the Characters of Excellent Persons in History and you shall find most amongst them of moderate and very indifferent Attainments Witness Old Rome which in the Days of her Ignorance was renowned for Justice and Honour but when Learning and Eloquence got the Ascendent the Fame of her Virtue was in its Declension and in Proportion as Mens Wits grew more Subtle and Refin'd Innocence and Simplicity fell into Decay and Contempt Sects and Heresies Errours and Atheism it self have ever been set on foot and propagated by Persons of Artifice and Learning The primitive Source of our Misery and Ruine and that first Temptation of the Devil which inveigled and undid Mankind was an unseasonable and intemperate Desire of Knowledge Ye shall be as Gods discerning between Good and Evil was that fatal Expectation which deprest our first Parents and made them less than Man The more Men employed their Wits in Study the more plausible and consequently the more dangerous Notions they started which made St. Paul bid his Colossians beware that they were not seduced by Philosophy and vain Deceit And one of the Learnedest Men that ever liv'd speaks but very meanly of it as a Thing Vain and Unprofitable Hurtful and Troublesom such as was never to be enjoyed without many grievous Incumbrances since he that increaseth Knowledge must unavoidably increase Sorrow at the same Time In a Word Learning it is confest may Civilize and refine us but it cannot moralize us we may be more courteous and conversable and accomplished but we cannot be one jot the Holier the Juster more Temperate or more Charitable for it Nay Fourthly it does us no Service neither in the sweetning of our Lives or abating our Resentments for any of the Afflictions that embitter them It rather sets a Sharper Edge upon our Calamities and raises our Sense of them to be more quick and tender Accordingly we see that Children and plain ignorant People who measure their Misfortunes only by what they feel at present and neither anticipate and give them an Imaginary Being nor revive and as it were raise them from the Dead again by melancholy Reflections get over their Sufferings much more easily and support themselves under them with much greater Temper and Moderation than your quaint and refined and more thinking Men. Ignorance is in some Degree a good Remedy a strong Amulet against Misfortunes and our Friends it is very manifest are of that Opinion when they beg of us to forget and not to think of them For what is this but to drive us
Learning Let us next enquire whether we can find Learning destitute of Wisdom and the Instances of this Part are no less obvious and numerous than the other Do but take notice of great part of the Men who make Learning their Study and Profession whose Heads are full of Aristotle and Cicero the Philosophers and the School-Men Are there any People in the World more aukward and uncouth in Business Is it not a common Proverb when we see a Man Odd and Clumsie to say He is a mere Scholar One would almost think that they had pored away their Senses and that excess of Knowledge had stunn'd and stupify'd them How many are there who would have made excellent Persons had they not sunk and dwindled into Pedantry and had been wiser Men if they had traded upon their own Natural Stock and never sat down to Books at all and how many of their own Brethren do we see who never had that Education and prove much shrewder Men and better Contrivers more quick and expert in all manner of Business Take one of your Nice Disputants or quaint Rhetoricians bring him into a debate at the next Corporation where any Matter of Government or Civil Interest is under Deliberation put him upon speaking to the Point and he shall Blush and Tremble turn Pale and Cough and Hem But it is Odds if he say any Thing to the Purpose At last perhaps you shall have a formal Harangue some Definitions of Aristotle or Quotations out of Tully with an Ergo at the End of them And yet at the same Meeting you shall have a dull plodding Alderman that chalks up all his Acounts behind the Door and can neither write nor read and yet this Fellow by seeing and knowing the World shall out of his own Observation and Experience come to better Resolutions and propose more feasible and proper Expedients than the subtilest and most refin'd Student of them all Were Matters indeed so managed that Men turned their Speculation into Practice and took Care to apply their Reading to the Purposes of Human Life the Advantage of Learning would be unspeakable and we see how illustriously such Persons shine in the World And therefore what I have said upon this Occasion is not to be stretched to the Prejudice of Learning in general but only to such a false Opinion of it as depends upon This alone for the most eligible and Only Qualification of the Mind of Man and so rests upon it and buries it in Inactivity This the foregoing Instances shew is frequently done and a very vulgar Error and consequently they prove the Point for the Illustration of which alone they are produced and that is That this Distinction between Wisdom and Learning is not Imaginary but grounded upon a real Differece and that in Fact these Two do not always go Hand in Hand nor meet in the same Person This I design to make appear more fully in the following Paragraphs of this Chapter for I have already promised not to content my self with urging bare matter of Fact but likewise to enter into the Reason of the Thing An Enquiry which I am the more Zealous and look upon my self obliged to satisfie that so I may prevent any Offence being taken at the former Reflection and cut off any Suspicious which some might be provoked to entertain concerning me as if I were an Enemy to Learning and thought it Insignificant and Despicable There is I confess ground sufficient for this Question why Wisdom and Learning should not go together for it is a very odd Case and seems foreign to the Reason of the Thing that a Man should not be very much the Wiser for being a better Scholar since Learning and Study is without Controversie the ready Road and a most Excellent Instrument and Preparation to Wisdom Take any Two Men equal in all other Respects let the One be a Man of Letters the Other not so 'T is plain He who hath employed his Time in Study ought to be a great deal Wiser than the other and it will be expected from him that he should prove so For he hath all the Advantages that the Unletter'd Man hath a Natural Capacity Reason and Understanding and he hath a great deal more besides too the Additional Improvements of Reading which have furnish'd him with the Examples Directions Discourses and Determinations of the Greatest Men that ever were in the World Must not this Person then be Wiser more Apprehensive and Judicious of a more exalted Virtue and greater Address than the other who is altogether destitute of such Helps Since he hath the same Stock to set up with and all these foreign Assistances acquired and transported to him from all the Quarters of the Universe besides Since as one says very truly The Natural Advantages when joyn'd and strengthened by the Accidental make a Noble and Complete Composition And yet in despight of all our Reasonings to the contrary Experience and undeniable Matter of Fact give us Ten thousand Instances of it's being otherwise Now the true Reason and satisfactory Answer to this Doubt stands really thus That the Methods of Instruction are not well ordered Books and Places of Publick Education furnish Men with admirable Matter but they do not imbibe and use it as they should do Hence it is that vast Improvements in Knowledge turn to so very slender Account They are Poor in the midst of Plenty and like Tantalus in the Fable starved with the Meat at their Mouths When they apply themselves to Reading the Thing they principally aim at is to learn Words more than Things or at least they content themselves with a very slight and superficial Knowledge of Things and He is reputed the best Scholar who hath made the largest Collections and cramm'd his Memory fullest Thus they are I earned but not with any Care of polishing their Minds and forming their Judgments or growing practically Wise Like a Man that puts his Bread in his Pocket and not in his Stomach and if he go on Thus he may be famish'd for want of Sustenance notwithstanding both Pockets are full Thus they continue Fools with a vast Treasure of Wisdom in their Brains They study for Entertainment or Ostentation or Gain or Applause and not for their own true Benefit and the becoming Useful to the World They are living Repertories and Common-place Books and would be rare Compilers of Precedents and Reports Cicero they tell you or Aristotle or Plato say Thus and Thus but all this while They say not one Tittle of their own Observation They are guilty of Two great Faults One is that they do not apply what they read to themselves nor make it their own by Meditation Reflection and Use so that all this while they have not advanc'd one Step in Virtue nor are One whit more Prudent more Resolute and Confirm'd in Goodness and thus their Scholarship is never digested and incorporated with the Soul but swims and floats about in the Brain
Proverb That he who never asks Questions will never be a Wise Man that is If a Man's Mind be not kept stirring it will rust and mould and nothing but constant Use and Exercise can cleanse and brighten it Now whatever of this Kind falls under his Consideration should be managed to the best Advantage applyed and brought home to himself discoursed and advised upon with others and that whether it be somewhat already past to discover what Defects there were and which were the false Steps in it or whether it be somewhat future that he may govern himself regularly be warned of any Hazards and Dangers that attend what he goes about and prevent Miscarriages and Inconvenience by growing wise in Time Children should never be left to their own idle Fancies to dare and trifle alone For their Age and Capacity not being of it self able to furnish Noble Matter of Thought will certainly dwindle into Vanity and feed upon Impertinencies and Whimsies of a Size with their Imaginations They should therefore be kept in constant Employment to exercise and give them a Manly Way of thinking and particularly to beget and excite this inquisitive Humor and eager Appetite of Knowledge which will be sure to keep their Souls always awake and busie and by inspiring them with a Noble Emulation be Eternally putting forward to fresh and larger Attainments And this Curiosity if qualified as I have here described it will neither be Vain and Fruitless in it self nor Troublesome or Unmannerly to any they converse with Thirdly Another necessary Care in the Instructing of Children is To frame and mould their Minds after the Model of Universal Nature taking the World at large for our Pattern to make the Universe their Book and whatever Subject lies before them to draw it in sull Proportion and represent the several Opinions and Customs which do or ever have prevailed with regard to it The Greatest and most Excellent Persons have always had the freest and most enlarged Souls For this indeed strengthens and confirms the Mind delivers it from Wonder and Surprise and fixes it in Reason and Resolution which is the highest Point of Wisdom This Particular and the Benefits of it as well as the Absurdity and great Uneasinesses of the Contrary hath been so largely insisted upon heretofore See Book II. Ch. 2. that I shall omit what might be said more upon it here adding only this Observation That such a large and universal Spirit must be the Business and Acquest of early Application and Diligence in the Master before the Prepossessions of his Native Country and Customs have taken too fast Hold upon his Scholar and when he is ripe for Travelling and Conversation that which will contribute most to the perfecting him in this Disposition is going abroad conferring much with Foreigners or if that cannot be yet informing himself at Home by reading such Books as give Account of Travels into remote Parts of the World and contain the Histories of all Nations Lastly Children ought to be taught betimes not to swallow things at a venture nor receive any Opinions upon Trust and the bare Authority of the Person who delivers them but to seek and expect all the Evidence that can be had before they yield their Assent The contrary Easiness of Mind is to suffer one's self to be led about hood-winked to renounce the Use of Reason quite and submit to the Condition of Brutes whose Business is only to know their Driver and go as they are directed Let every Thing therefore be fairly propounded let the Arguments on each Side be stated and set in their true Light and then let him choose as Judgment shall determine him If he be at a Loss which Side he should incline to let him deliberate longer and doubt on such a distrust and uncertainty of Mind is an excellent Sign more Safe more Promising than a rash Confidence which resolves Right or Wrong and thinks it self always sure though it can give no reason why The Perplexities and Dilemmas of a cautious and considerate Person are much to be preferred before even the true Determinations that are made in a Heat and by Chance But then as the Youth should be taught always to practise upon his own Judgment so should he learn likewise to have a Modest Diffidence of his Abilities and when any Difficulty interposes or the Resolution is of great Consequence to consult those who are proper to be advised with and never venture to come to a peremptory Determination merely upon the Strength of his own reasoning For As the being able to examine and compare Things is One Argument of Sufficiency so is the calling in Help Another and the refusing to rest upon one's own single Opinion is no Reflexion upon our Wisdom No Disparagement to what we think alone but rather the quite contrary Next after the Soul of Children Parents are obliged to take Care of their Bodies Advice for the Body and this is not to be deferr'd any more than the other It hath no distinct and separate Seasons but must go along with the Former and only differs in This that tho' we ought to express a constant Care and Concern for both yet we are not obliged to have that Concern equal for both But since Nature hath united these Two into One and the same Person we must contribute to the Good of each by our joynt Endeavours Now the Care of the Body will be most profitably Exprest not in the Indulging its Appetites or treating it tenderly as the Generality of those who pretend to resined Education do but by utterly abandoning all Softness and effeminate Nicety in Cloths and Lodging Meat and Drink to give it plain and hearty Nourishment a simple and wholesome Diet considering the Convenience of Health and Digestion more than the Pleasures and Delicacy of the Palate To support it in a Condition of Strength capable of supporting Labour and Hardship and accordingly inure it to Heat and Cold Wind and Weather That so the Muscles and Nerves as well as the Soul may be fortified for Toil and by That for Pain For the Custom of the Former hardens us against the Latter In a Word to keep the Body Vigorous and Fresh and the Appetite and Constitution indifferent to all forts of Meats and Tasts For the several Parts of this Advice are by no Means so insignificant as they may seem It were enough to say that they conduce mightily to the preserving and confirming our Health but That is not all for the Benefit extends beyond our own Persons and the Publick is the better for them as they enable and qualifie Men for the enduring Fatigues and so fit them for Business and the Service of their Country It is now Time to apply our selves to the Third Branch of this Duty Directions for Manâ—ners which contains a Parents Carey of his Childrens Manners in which Soul and Body both are very highly concern'd Now this Care consists of Two
like seed for a plentiful and joyful harvest at the general Resurrection the considence in the promises of him who cannot lye These inspired the noble Army of Martyrs and these are able to support all their followers who have a title to the same expectations and are heirs through hope to the same Kingdom And all the Stoical Philosophy put together cannnot minister the hundredth part of that Consolation which those two short Sentences of S. Paul do No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous Heb. 12.11 Nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of Righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby And We know that if our earthly house of this Tabernacle be dissolved 2 Cor. 5.1 we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the Heavens CHAP. XXIII Of Captivity or Imprisonment THis Affliction is very inconsiderable in comparison of the former and the conquest of it will prove exceeding easie to them upon whom the prescriptions against Sickness and Pain have found their desired effect For Men in those circumstances have the addition of this misfortune confined to their houses their Beds tied to a Rack and loaded with fetters and this very consinement is a part of their complaint though the least part But however we will say one word or two of it Now what is it that Captivity or Confinement imprisons The Body that which is it self the cover and the Prison of the Soul but the Mind continues at large and at its own disposal in despight of all the World How can it indeed be sensible of any inconvenience from a Prison since even there it ranges abroad as freely as gaily takes as noble as sublime as distant slights if not much more so than it does in other circumstances The Locks and Bars and Walls of a Prison are much too remote to have any power of fastening it down or shutting it in they must needs be so since even the Body it self which touches upon is linked to and hangs like a Clog fastened to it is not able to keep it down or six it to any determinate place And that Man will make a jest of all these artisicial and wretched these slight and childish enclosures who hath learnt how to preserve his native liberty and to use the privilege and prerogative of his condition which is to be confined no where no not even in this World Thus Tertullian derides the cruelty of the Persecutors and animates his Brethren by relling that a * Christianus etiam extra carcerem saeculo renunciavit in Carcere etiam carceri nihil interest ubi siris in saeculo qui extra sacalam estis Auseramus carceris nomen secessam vocemus â—â—si corpus includitur caro detinetur omnia Spiritui patent totum hominem animus circumfert quo vult transfert Christian even when out of Prison had shaken hands with the World that he desied and was above it and that when under Confinement the case was the same with his Gael too What mighty matter is it in what part of the World you are whose principle it is not to be of the World Let us change that name of so ill a sound and instead of a Prison call it a retreat where when you are shut up the slesh may be kept to a narrow room but all doors are open to the Spirit all places free to the Mind this carries the whole Man along with it and leads him abroad whithersoever it will Prisons have given very kind entertainment to several valuable and holy and great Men to some a Gaol hath been a refuge from destruction and the Walls of it so many fortifications and entrenchments against that ruine which had certainly been the consequence of liberty nay some have chosen these places that there they might enjoy a more perfect liberty and be farther from the noise and clutter and confusion of the World He that is under Look and Key is so much safer and better guarded And a Man had better live thus than be crampt and constrained by those Fetters and hand-cuffs which the World is full of such as the places of publick business and concourse the Palaces of Princes the conversation of great Men the tumult and hurry of Trade the vexation and expence of Law-suits the envy and ill-nature the peevishness and passions of common Men will be continually clapping upon us * Si recogiâ—emus iâ—sum magls mundum carcerem esse exisse nos è carcere quam in carcerem introisse intelligemus Majores tenebras habet mundus quae hominum praecordia excaecant graviores caâ—enas induit quae ipsas animas coustringunt pejores immunditias expirant libidines hominum plures postremo reos coutinet universum genus hominum If we do but reflect says the same Author again that the World it self is no better than a Prison we shall imagine our selves rather let out of a Gaol than put into one The darkness by which the World blinds Man's minds is thicker and grosser the chains by which it clogs and binds their affeclions heavier the silth and stanch of Men's lewdness and beastly conversation more offensive and the Criminals in it more numerous for such in truth are all Mankind There have been several instances of persons who by the benefit of a Prison have been preserved from the malice of their eâ—emies and escaped great miseries and dangers Some have made it a studious retirement composed Books there or laid a foundation of great vertue and much learning so that the uneasiness of the flesh hath been a gain to the spirit and the confinement of the body was well laid out in a purchase so valnable as the enlargement of the mind Some have been disgerged as it were by a Prison thrown up when it could keep them no longer and the next step they made hath been into some very eminent dignity as high as this World could set them this remark the Psalmist hath left us of the wonderful dispensations of providence Psal 113. He taketh the simple out of the dust and lifteth the needy off from the dunghill That he may set him with Princes even with the Princes of his people And he indeed who was an Israelite might well make this reflection since even among his own Ancestors they had so eminent an instance as Jeseph of the mighty alteration we are now speaking of But others have been advanced yet higher exhaled as it were and drawn up into Heaven from thence But thus much is certain that there can be no such thing as perpetual Imprisonment general Gaol-deliveries are unalterably established an Article of the Law of Nature for no Prison ever yet took in a Man whom it did not shortly after let out again CHAP. XXIV Of Exile or Banishment EXile is in reality no more than changing our Dwelling and this hath nothing of substantial Evil in it If we are afflicted upon the account our
of Reason begin to dawn and display themselves It is not to be imagined of what consequence these first Tinctures and Impressions are to the following part of Life and what wonderful Efficacy and Influence they have even to the changing and conquering Nature it self For Education is frequently observed to be Stronger than Natural Disposition either for the bettering or corrupting of the Man Lycurgus made People sensible of this by taking Two Whelps of the same Litter which he had brought up different Ways and in the Presence of a great Company setting before them Broth and a young Leveret The Dog which had been brought up tenderly and within Doors fell to the Broth but the Other which had been used to range and hunt neglected his Meat and pursued his Game Now that which renders such Instructions so marvellously powerful is that they are taken in very easily and as hardly lost again For that which comes first takes absolute Possession and carries all the Authority you can desire there being no Antecedent Notions to dispute the Title or call the Truth of it in Question While therefore the Soul is fresh and clear a fair and perfect Blank flexible and tender there can be no Difficulty in making it what you please for this Condition disposes it to receive any manner of Impression and to be moulded into any manner of Form Now the laying these first Foundations is no such trivial Matter as is generally believed rather indeed the Difficulty of doing it well is proportionable to the Importance of its being done so Nay not of private only but publick and general Importance which makes me think the Complaint of Aristotle and Plutarch most just though there is little or no Care taken to redress it when they cryed out Loudly against the Education of Children being left entirely to the Mercy and Disposal of Parents as a most notorious deplorable and destructive Injury to the State For why should This rest wholly upon Persons who are so often found to be Careless or Ignorant or Indiscreet and by no Means sit to govern themselves Why should not the Publick concern themselves in the Thing and order some better Care to be taken of it rather than suffer what they Daily do by sitting still and seeing their own Ruin Lacedamon and Crete are almost the only Constitutions where the disciplining of Children hath been prescribed by National Laws And Sparta was indeed the best School in the World which made Agesilaus persuade Xenophon to send his Children thither because there they would be sure to be instructed in the Best and Noblest Science that of Governing and of Obeying well and because this was the Work-house where they made admirable Law-givers Generals Civil Magistrates and Private Subjects They seem'd indeed to be more intent upon the Instruction of Youth and to lay greater Stress upon it than upon any other Thing whatsoever Insomuch that when Antipater demanded Fifty Children for Hostages they Reply'd That they did not care to part with any at that Age and had much rather give him twice as many grown Men. Now before I enter upon this Subject particularly permit me by the way to give one Advertisement which seems to carry somewhat of Weight in it Many People take a great deal of Pains to find out the Inclinations of their Children what sort of Business they are â—it for But alas This at those Years is somewhat so very tender so much in the Dark and so very uncertain that Parents after having as they imagine pitch'd right and been at a World of Pains and Charge find themselves miserably Mistaken And therefore without troubling our selves about these dim Prognosticks and depending upon the very weak and slender Conjectures capable of being drawn from the Motions of Minds so very Young the best course will be to possess them with such Instructions as may be universally Good and of general Use at first and when they are seasoned well with these That will prove a most excellent Preparation for their taking to any particular Employment afterwards Thus you build upon a sure Bottom and perfect them presently in that which must be the constant and daily Business of their Lives and this first Tincture like the Ground of a Picture fits them for the receiving any other Colours To proceed now on to the Matter it self which may very conveniently be reduced to three Heads The Forming of the Mind Managing the Body and Regulating of the Manners But I must once more beg my Reader 's Pardon for another Digression if it deserve to be thought so since before I proceed to consider these Particulars it seems to me highly Expedient to lay down some General Rules relating to this Matter which may direct us how to proceed with Discretion and Success The first of these Directions is To keep this little White Soul from the Contagion and Corruption so universal among Men that it may contract no Blemish no Taint at its first coming abroad into the World In order hereunto strict Centry must be kep at the Doors I mean the Eyes and especially the Ears must be diligently guarded that no unclean Thing get Admittance there Now This is done by taking Care of those that are about the Child and not suffering any even of his Relations to come near him whose Conversation is so lavish and dissolute that we have Reason to fear they may convey any ill Idea's into him though never so little never so secretly For One single Word One distant Hint is sufficient to do more Mischief in a Child than a great deal of Pains will be able to root out or retrieve again Upon this Account it was that Plato would never endure that Children should be left to Servants or entertained with their Stories For if they talk nothing worse yet the best we can expect from them is idle Tales and ridiculous Fictions which take such deep Root in this tender Soil that I verily believe a very great Part of the Vulgar Errours and Idle Prejudices most Men are possest with is owing to the Giants and Hobgoblins and the rest of that ridiculous Stuff which they were kept in awe or diverted with in their very Infancy The Second Direction concerns the Persons to be entrusted with this Child what they are what Discourse they have with him what Books they put into his Hands As to the Persons themselves They should be Men of Honesty and Virtue of a good Temper and winning Behaviour Men whose Heads lie well and eminent rather for Wisdom than Learning They must also keep a good Correspondence together and perfectly understand each other's Method for fear while they take contrary Ways as if one would gain upon his Charge by Fear and another by Flattery they should happen to cross and hinder one another confound the Child perplex the Design and be perpetually doing and undoing The Books and the Discourse intended for his Entertainment should by no Means be such as
treat of mean and tristing frivolous and idle Subjects but Great and Serious and Noble such as may help to enrich his Understanding to direct his Opinions to regulate his Manners and Affections Such particularly as set before him Human Nature as it really is descry the secret Springs and inward Movements of the Soul that so he may not mistake the World but be well acquainted with him self and other People Such as may teach him which are the proper Objects of his Fear and Love and Desire how he ought to be affected with Regard to all external Things What Passion what Virtue is And how he shall discern the Difference between Ambition and Avarice between Servitude and Subjection between Liberty and Licentiousness And suffer not your self to be diverted from such early Attempts by a ridiculous Pretence of the Child's Incapacity for Matters of so important a Nature for assure your self he will swallow and digest these as easily as those of another and more ludicrous Kind There is not one jot more of Capacity or Apprehension required to the Understanding all the illustrious Examples of Valerius Maximus than there is to the knowing the Fears of Guy of Wurwick or Amadis of Gaul The Greek and Roman History which is the Noblest and most Useful Dearning in the World is every whit as entertaining as easie to be comprehended as any Romance of the same Bulk A Child that can tell how many Cocks and Hens run about his Mother's Yard and can count and distinguish his Uncles and Cousins what should hinder him from remembring with the same ease the seven Kings of Rome and the Twelve Caesars There is indeed a great Difference between several Sciences And the Faculties of Children have their proper Seasons but then this makes no Difference between the different Parts of the same Science and Exercises of the same Faculty and no Man will ever be able to prove that one Matter of Fact is easie and another difficult or impossible to be attained but especially that the False and Fictitious Inventions are accommodated to the Capacity of Children and that True and Serious Narratives are above and unfit for them This looks as if God had made our Minds only capable of being deceived and given them a strange Alacrity in Lyes and Fables But the Matter is much otherwise For the main Business is to manage the Capacity of a Child well and if this be done the Improvement will quickly shew the Vanity of trifling with Children and distrusting their Abilities for greater and better Things The Third Admonition to this purpose is that these Tutors and Governors would behave themselves as becomes them towards their Charge Not putting on always solemn and austere Looks or treating them with Harshness and Severity but with Methods that are gentle and engaging good Humour and a cheerful Countenance I cannot here but condemn without more ado that general Custom of beating whipping scolding and storming at Children and keeping them in all that Terror and Subjection which is usual in some great Schools For This is really a most unreasonable Thing of pernicious Consequence and as indecent as it would be in a Judge to fall into violent Passions with Criminals at the Bar or a Physician to fall foul upon his Patients and call them all to naught How Prejudicial must this needs be in the Effect how contrary to the Design of Education which is to make them in love with Virtue betimes to sweeten their Tempers and train them in Virtue and Knowledge and Decency of Behaviour Now this Imperious and rough Treatment gives them a Prejudice to Instruction makes them hate and be afraid of it fills them with Horrour and Indignation and Rage tempts them to be Desperate and Head-strong damps their Spirits and depresses their Courage Till at last by being used like Slaves they degenerate entirely into cowardly and slavish Dispositions The Holy Ghost himself hath given us fair Warning of this Mischievous Consequence when he commands by St. Paul Coloss iii. 21. that Parents should not provoke their Children to Wrath lest they be discouraged This is the ready way to make them good for Nothing they curse their Teacher and hate the Government they are under If they do what they are bidden it is only because Your Eye is upon them and they dare not do otherwise not with any Cheerfulness or Satisfaction or because they are acted by any Noble and Generous Principle If they have been tardy in their Duty they take Sanctuary in the vilest Methods to save themselves from Punishment Lyes and Equivocations and shuffling Excuses Trembling and Tears of Madness and Despair Playing Truant and Running away from School all which are Refuges infinitely worse than the Fault they were guilty of before * Dum id rescitum iri credit tantisper cavet Si sperat fore clam rursum ad ingenium redit Ille quem Beneficio adjungas ex animo facit Studet par referre praesens absensque idem erit Terent. Adelph He that 's compell'd by Threats to do his Duty Will be wary no longer than you 've an Eye over him But when he sees he shan't be found out He 'll even follow his own Inclinations But he that 's govern'd by Love obeys most cheerfully Strives to make due returns and is the same Present or Absent Now I would have Children used with greater Easiness and Freedom bred as becomes Men and Gentlemen argued into their Duty by fair and mild Remonstrances and possest with Principles of Honour and Modesty and Shame to do amiss The Former of these Affections would prove a Spur and mighty Incitement to Goodness and the Latter a Curb and powerful Restraint to disengage them from Vice and work in them a just Abhorrence and Detestation of Evil. There seems to me to be somwhat so mean and servile in Severity and rigorous Constraint that it can never be reconciled with Honour and true Freedom of Mind We should therefore exalt rather and ennoble their Affections with Ingenuity of Temper and Behaviour and the Love of Virtue winning upon their Minds with setting before them it's Desirableness and displaying all it's Charms and attracting Beauties * Pudore Liberalitate Liberos retinere Satius esse credo quà m metu Hoc Patrium est potius consuefacere filium Suâ Sponte rectè facere quà m alieno metu Hoc Pater ac Dominus interest hoc qui nequit Fateatur se nescire imperare Liberis 'T was always my Opinion that 't is much better To keep Children in Order by Shame and Generosity Of Inclination than by Fear This is a Father's part to use his Child So as his own Choice rather than Constraint Should put him upon doing well Here lies the Difference between a Father and a Master And he that acts otherwise let him confess That he understands not at all the Art Of managing Children Blows are for Beasts which are incapable of hearing Reason and Rage