Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	work_v	world_n	write_n	28	3	8.0635	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36424	A voyage to the world of Cartesius written originally in French, and now translated into English.; Voyage du monde de Descartes. English	Daniel, Gabriel, 1649-1728.; Taylor, Thomas, 1669 or 70-1735.; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1692 (1692)	Wing D201; ESTC R5098	166,321	301

in answering the Argument brought against the Essence of Matter and drawn from the Sacrament of the Host think they have right to cry out They are injur'd That their Philosophy is sequestred from Things relating to Faith That they are Philosophers and not Divines and undertake the explaining the Mysteries of Nature not of Religion I would I say they 'd do me the like Justice or if they had rather the same Favour And supposing any one so Religious as to suspect me of the Heresie of those who say The Souls in parting from the Body are not doom'd for Eternity I wish he 'd consider once more that I am in this an Historian and Philosopher not a Theologist and give a Relation of Descartes's World am not making a Profession of Faith Which the Character of an History such as I am upon will bear far more independently of the Truths of our Religion than a System of Philosophy Any one that knows never so little must be forc'd to acknowledg this Which being once suppos'd I return to the Narrative of my Old Gentleman who thus went on M. Descartes's Soul returning to Stockholm found her self in the like unlucky Circumstances as did one Hermotimus L. de Anima mentioned by Tertullian who having procur'd the self-same Secret as Descartes left constantly anights his Body asleep in Bed whilst his Soul went a rambling through the World Both one and the other at their return found their Lodgings out of a Capacity to receive them The Task Descartes's Soul enjoyn'd her self then was to meet at Paris She would not tell me presently of the Accident but only invited me to take a turn or two No sooner said than done With one Snuff of the Tobacco I equipt my self to wait on her My Soul was no sooner out of my Body but she said in Language Spiritual she was about to tell me strange News I am says she no longer Imbody'd my Corps is this day to be interr'd at Stockholm and he gave me the Particulars of what I have been relating Nor did she seem sab or afflicted thereupon I then demanded of her if she experienc'd what the Philosophers report That the Soul being the substantial Form of the Body when separated for good and all is in statu violento She answer'd me she knew nothing of that violent State but found her self incomparably better out than in the Body And that she had but one Concern upon her to know in what part of the vast Space was best to settle her Abode in That she would take my Directions in the thing but that she found her Will inclin'd for the third Heaven The third Heaven according to the division Cartesius makes of the World is the last of all and that which is the farthest remov'd from us For the first is nothing but the Vortex in which is plac'd the Earth whose Centre is the Body of the Sun about which the Coelestial Matter that composes the Vortex carries us and makes us turn continually like the other Planets The second Heaven is incomparably larger than that in which we are and takes up all that mighty space in which we see the fix'd Stars which are so many Suns and have each of them a Vortex of which they are themselves the Centre as our Sun is of this Lastly the third Heaven is all that Matter or all that indefinite Extent which we conceive above the Starry Heaven and is void of Bounds and in respect of which the space of all the other may be consider'd as a Point Now many Reasons determin'd M. Descartes to choose his place of Residence in the highest Heaven The first was To avoid the Company of an Innumerable gang of Souls of Philosophers that were vaulting and fluttering on all parts of this our Vortex for to tell you by the way 't is incredible how many Souls we met upon our Journey And M. Descartes was much surpriz'd to see the Secret of which he took himself to be the first Inventer made use of in all times even by those of a very mean Quality whereby they have escap'd a dying or whose Souls have lost their Bodies by some Accident not unlike that of M. Descartes But that which made their Company so disrelisht and perfectly intolerable to Cartesius his Spirit was That these Souls so disentangled as they were from Matter were tinctur'd still with Prejudice wherewith they were prepossess'd when united with their Bodies That when he would have converss'd with them about the Principles of Bodies and the Causes of several Phoenomena's they faintly suppos'd to him or prov'd by the Authority of Aristotle substantial Forms absolute Accidents and occult Qualities as is done to this day in many Schools And except some few Souls of the highest Rank which he hath converted and proselyted to Cartesi●nism all are inveterate and inleagu'd against him with as immoderate Fury as the Philosophers of this World when he began to publish his Doctrin here The second Reason that byass'd him to that Election was because he look'd upon those indefinite Spaces as a new Discovery of which he was the Author For it was upon his forming a distinct Idea of Matter whose Essence consisted in Extension that he concluded Space Extension and Matter to be one and the same thing signify'd under different Names And being it was necessary to admit of a Space and an Extension above our World since we have a most clear Conception of them it was plain That above our World there was Matter too and as we can have no Idea of any Bounds or Limits that Matter has it is necessary it should be Infinite or rather Indefinite Finally the third and most prevailing Reason of all and which he intimated not to me until we arrived upon the place is that well conjecturing the Matter above the fix'd Stars to be uninform'd and not yet shap'd into a World he was in good hopes that he was able to set it to work himself and fancy'd that in dividing and agitating it according to his Principles he could reduce it to a World like this excepting that it would be destitute of real Men and only stor'd with Automatous Machines in their Likeness That Project was the Subject of the most part of his Books especially of his Book of Principles and that Entituled The World of M. Descartes We set out immediately for the third Heaven I shall not descend to the Particulars of our Voyage I hope in a few days you 'll bear me Company there your self I 'll only say that upon our Coasting we found all Things exactly in that Portrait we had drawn before without Form without due Order or any regular posture of the Parts as rude and unsightly Materials that require the Hand of the Artist We survey'd it all about and bewilder'd our selves a long time in the vast Deserts of the other World which perfectly represented to me the Face of the Chaos and that confus'd Mass of which the

the Cynique habited like a Morris-Dancer mounted upon a Cross-way-stone at bottom of which lay his Tub expounding to an Auditory much like that of the Singers du pont neuf In the last sate Aristotle on an exalted Seat that looked more like a Throne than a Magisterial Chair and at his Feet stood all the Philosophers that lived before him in Admiration and listning to him as an Oracle Before the Throne of Aristotle were heaped the Books that represented the Writings of those same Philosophers his Predecessors which one was putting Fire to to sacrifice them to the Goddess Wisdom whose Head resembled a Sun brandishing abundance of Rays upon the Face of Aristotle and making a Glory round about it At the Bottom of the Hall upon a kind of Altar stands a large Silver Statue of the beautiful Pythias formerly Aristotle's Lady for whom his Passion was so strong as to Sacrifice unto her At the Top of the Hall was a Ceiling enrich'd with admirable Paintings lately done divided likewise betwixt Alexander and Aristotle agreeable to the Embossings for on one Side was the Hero receiving a Thunderbolt from the Hand of his pretended Father Iupiter Ammon to fulminate all the Princes of Asia and on the other the Philosopher receiving another from the Hand of Minerva to thunderclap all the Chieftains of the New Sects of Philosophy among which we easily knew M. Descartes M. Gassendi Father Maignan and many others As we were taken up with the Curiosity of all these different Pieces of Sculpture and Painting the Vice-roy of the Place came in to give us Audience Never was Man so much surprized as my old Gentleman at first Sight of the Governour he had formerly known him in Holland when he there accompanied M. Descartes He was called M. Voetius the most resolved Peripatetique in the World and the most avowed of all Descartes's Enemies he that most disturbed the Quiet he came to seek in Holland and the most obstinately as successfully opposed his Design of gaining a Party there Whereas that Man acts the greatest part in the History of Cartesianism of which at the Entrance of my Relation I engaged to give some Particulars when occasion served and seeing at the Intercourse of which I speak we fell upon a Negotiation with him as to a Project of Peace between the Peripatetiques and the Cartesians it will not perhaps be troublesome and impertinent briefly to insert the Difference he had with M. Descartes and the Motive that determined him to fix in the Globe of the Moon M. Descartes Diss●rt de Meth. after he had finished his Course of Philosophy in the Colledge de la Fleche ceased not to be a Philosopher thereupon nay pretends he commenc'd one but from that Time As he was fully convinced there was far less to be gained from the most curious of Books and Libraries than from the great Volume of the World the most Compleat and Instructive of all others to such as know how to study it as they ought he pitch'd upon Travel During nine or ten Years he run through most Countries frequented the Court as also the Armies of most Foreign Princes But still as a Philosopher i. e. continually making serious Reflections upon the Intellectual and Moral Part of Man upon the different Customs of Countries upon the contrary Judgments Men make of the self-same things conformably to the different Notions they have imbibed concerning them endeavouring always herein to alembeck Truth from Falshood and to advantage himself equally by the Folly and Wisdom of other Men that he might collect a System of Life composed and regulated by defecated Reason whose Happiness as far as possible should be independent of the Turns and Wheels of Fortune He began to put his Project in Execution in a certain Place in Germany which he does not name where he passed the Winter at his Return from the Coronation of the Emperor Ferdinand III. where closeting himself whole Days together in his Stove he recollected in his Mind all the Observations he had made upon the Conduct of Mankind which he imployed to constitute his Rules of Morality as they are at present in his Book entituled Dissertation de la methode de bien user de sa raison From whence passing to Metaphysical Notices and those of Natural Philosophy he laid the Scheme to the most part of his Works he since hath left us making at the same Time an Essay of his Physicks in the Mechanical Explanation of the Motion of the Heart and A●teries which certainly is not the worst Piece we have of his Works Next he deliberated what Place was most convenient for a Settlement Ibid. he was byassed against his stay in Britanny his Native Country where his Family then bore as it does to this Day a considerable Port foreseeing the Incumbrances he should find among his Relations would inevitably retard his vehement Pursuit of Philosophy In fine he resolved on Holland as a Retreat freest from Disturbance where every one said he minds his own concerns without medling with other Men's and where the Maintenance of those numerous Troops served but to recommend with more Security to the whole Country the Advantages of Peace in the midst of a rageing War He passed near eight Years in Peace and Quiet Ibid. making his ordinary abode at Egmond a little Town on the Coast of Holland insomuch that during all that Space he never left the Country but on the account of his Domestick Occasions that indispensibly oblig'd him to make some Journies into France Ibid. p. 20 Happy if his Zeal for the Publick Good and his Compassion for the Miserable Condition of Philosophy had not made him transgress that excellent Moral Maxim he had prescribed himself to leave the World as he found it without endeavouring to reform it or rectifie its Ideas to think only of finding Truth for himself and of conquering his own Passions but he was worsted first by that of Printing and after by all the other Authors are subject to when they find their Opinions contradicted For it must be confessed although M. Descartes had formed an Idea of a Wise-man to himself much like that of the Stoicks yet any one may see in reading some of his Works he was not yet arrived to that Apathy and Indolence which makes their Essential Character No sooner had he impressed his Dioptriques and his Meteors Next that his Dissertation concerning Method and since his Meditations But he found himself set upon from all Hands all the Vniversities of Holland took the alarm Doctor Revi●s for that of ●eyden Voetius and Dem●tius for Vtrecht Schook for that of Groiningue ratified a triple Alliance against this upstart Enemy who for his Part before he declared and set up his Standard against Aristotle had made underhand a considerable Party Revius having engaged Doctor Tkill on his Side a hot and active Man undertook the Censuring his Meditations throughout his Divinity and the