our vicious inclinations other where then within our selves it being deriv'd from the structure and composition of our Bodies For he who hath not what to eat and wherewith to defend himself from cold or who fears distress finds the seeds of theft in his natural inclination of self-preservation The same Fear makes him become covetous When any thing obstructs the accomplishing of his wishes if he be weak he becomes sad thereupon if strong he falls into Choler This Passion leads him to revenge the height of whose violence is Murther If the enjoyment thereof be free to him the pleasure which he takes therein produceth Luxury and debaucheries and thus 't is with all Vices On the contrary poor Virtue meets with nothing in us but opposition The Stomack the Intestines and all the natural parts revolt against Temperance and Continence The Cholerick Humour fights against Clemency Covetousness inciteth to Injustice the Comparison of our condition with that of our betters to Ambition and Envy with that of our Inferiors to Pride and Disdain In brief Virtue finds nothing in us that makes for her interest which seems to me the reason why it is less familiar to us then Vice The Sixth said No person is either vicious or virtuous of his own nature but he becomes so by Instruction and Custome Instruction is so powerful that it makes even Beasts capable of Discipline Custome is of such influence that it is rightly term'd an other nature Wherefore our being rather vicious then virtuons is not from any natural inclination For on the contrary we have the seeds and sparks of Virtue within us and I almost believe with Plato that when Men become vicious it is by force and against their nature But the fault proceeds from our bad Education and corrupt Customes which become yet worse by the conversation of vicious persons who are very numerous The Seventh said Though we consent more easily to Virtue then to Vice yet the number of the good and virtuous being less then that of the wicked and vicious hath caus'd the contrary to be believ'd The reason whereof is not the difficulty of doing well but because Vices are esteem'd and rewarded instead of being punish'd and Virtue instead of Recompence receives nothing but Contempt So the Exorbitancy of Clothes instead of being punish'd causeth him to be honoured who is unworthy to be so Wherefore if there were a State in which Reward and Punishment were duly dispens'd from the Cradle it would be a rarer thing to see a wicked man there then a black Swan because the good which we love and the evil which we hate would be inseparably joyn'd together the one with Virtue and the other with Vice CONFERENCE XXII I. Of Judiciary Astrology II. Which is least blameable Covetousness or Prodigality I. Of Judiciary Astrology THe weakness of our reasoning is a strong argument to abate the presumption of our being able to judge of the power of the Stars For if we are ignorant of the nature of the least Herb we tread upon we must be more so of that of the Celoestial Bodies which are so remote from us and our knowledge that the greatest masters of this Art dispute still whether every Star be a several world whether they are solid or not what qualities they have and which are the true places Besides the local motion of Animals may wholly frustrate the effect of their influences And if Xanthus hindred the Sun from making his head ake when he walk'd abroad and the Moon doth not chill those that are in the house certainly the effects of less active and remoter Stars may be declin'd by the same wayes since Fire the most active thing in nature doth not burn if the hand be mov'd swiftly over it And what more was to be fear'd by Americus Vesputius Ferdinand Magellan and others who sail'd round the Earth one way whil'st the Heaven turn'd the other Why should we seek in Heaven the Causes of Accidents which befall us if we find them on Earth And why should we look so far for what is so near Is it not more fit to refer the cause of Knowledge to study of Riches and Honour to Birth Merit or Favour of Victory to the dexterity and diligence of the General who cast his contrivance well to surprize his Enemy then to attribute these Events to the Planets If experience be alledg'd to manifest the effect of many Predictions I answer that as the Animal which is said to have made a letter by chance with its Hoof in the dust was no Scribe for all that so though amongst a thousand false predictions one by chance proves true yet is not the Art ever the more certain Yea I will urge it against themselves for it is not credible that we should see so many unfortunate Astrologers if they could fore-see their own infelicity or else they must acknowledge themselves fools since they grant that the Wise-man rules over the Stars The Second said That every thing here below suffers mutation and nothing is able to change it self whence it follows that that which is the cause of Alteration must it self be exempt from the same Whence consequently the Heavens which are the sole Body that suffer no change must be the cause of all mutation For the Elements are the material cause thereof and therefore cannot be the Efficient And as the Stars are the thickest and onely visible part of Heaven so they have most light and influence by which assisted with their motions they communicate their qualities to the Air the Air to the Bodies which it toucheth especially to the humours in Man over which it hath such power that its diversity diversifyes all the complexions of Man-kind Now our Humours model our Manners and these our most particular Actions They may talk that the Wise-man over-rules the Stars but Experience shews that the Stars guide the Will not by compelling it but by inclining it in such a manner that it cannot resist because they subminister to it the means determined to the End whereunto they incline it whence it is as hard yea impossible for it to draw back as for a Drunkard to forbear drinking when he is very thirsty and hath the bottle at his command The Impostures which are affirm'd of the Casters of Nativities can no more prejudice or disparage Judiciary Astrology then Mountebanks do Physick Yea though the state of Heaven be never twice the same yet is it not so in the subjects of all other Disciplines Never were two diseases found altogether alike in Physick nor in Law two Cases alike in all their circumstances yet the Precepts of thse Sciences are nevertheless true because it sufficeth that the principal conditions concur as it is also sufficient that the same principal aspects and situations of the Stars be found in Heaven for the making of Rules in Judiciary Astrology The Third said Every Effect followeth the Nature of its Cause and therefore the Actions and
afforded before God had curs'd it and so inseparably connected man's labour with those fruits that now a days to express a hundred acres of Land we commonly say A hundred acres of Labour And as a place ceases to be the Court when the King is no longer in it so the Divine Benediction withdrawn from the Earth it ceas'd to be Paradise Yea Adam having ceas'd to be King of it and by his sin lost the Dominion which he had over all even the fiercest Creatures the Earth became no longer a Paradise to him But if I be requir'd to assign a particular place to this Paradise leaving the description of places which I never saw to the belief of Geographers I find none more fit for it then France Its Climate is temperate especially towards the East and South It hath four Rivers which bring into it Gold and all the other Commodities attributed unto Paradise by the first Historian It so abounds with all sorts of flowers that it hath taken three Lillies for its Arms And with fruits that it hath for it self and its Neighbours yea above any other it produces every Tree fair to look upon and good for food to use the Scripture-words One interpos'd That he should think 't was Normandie so fruitful of goodly Apples were it not that no Vines grow there whose fruit is so pleasant to behold The fourth said As there is no great certainty in the consequences drawn from Allegories so neither are Allegories very successfully drawn from Histories and substituted in their places I know not what History is if that of our first Father be not nor where to stop if people will subtilize upon the first circumstance of his Creation and what he did afterwards But if we find difficulty in according the Geographical Tables of the present time with the truth of that why do not we likewise make Allegories of the Creation and all its sequels which are so many Miracles If we see no Angel that guards the access to it no more did Balaam see that which stood in his way though visible to his Asse And being the space of the Garden of Eden is not determinately set down nothing hinders but that it might be of very vast extent and this takes away the scruple of those who object the distance which is between all those great Rivers Besides being Enoch and Elias were since Adam's fall transported into this Paradise where they must be till the coming of Antichrist 't is a certain Argument of its real subsistence II. Of Embalmings and Mummies Upon the second point it was said That the Ancients were much more careful then we not only to preserve the Images of their Fore-fathers but also to keep their Bodies which they variously embalmed The Grecians wash'd them in Wine mingled with warm Water and then put them them into oyl of Olives Honey or Wax The Aethyopians first salted them and then put them into Vessels of Glass In the Canary Islands they season them in the Sea and afterwards dry them in the Sun The Scythians place them upon Mountains cover'd with snow or in the coolest Caves Indeed every one knows there is a Cave at Tholouze which hath a particular virtue to preserve carkasses from corruption and in which is seen at this day the entire body of the fair Saint Baume and many others dead above 200 years ago The Indians cover'd them with ashes The Aegyptians conceiving that bodies corrupted rose not again and that the Soul was sensible of the Bodies corruption did not yield to any people in curiosity of preserving them they fill'd with Myrrhe Cinamon and other Spices or with Oyl of Cedar then they salted them with Nitre whose aerimony consumes all the superfluous humidities which cause putrifaction 'T is from these bodies that we have that excellent Mummie whose admirable effects I ascribe to sympathy But concerning what is affirm'd that being transported by Sea they cause tempests and strange agitations in the Ship 't is an effect which is to be attributed to a more occult cause The Second said Man is so admirable an Edifice that even his Ruines have their use His Fat is one of the most excellent Anodynes His Skull serves against the Epilepsic This liquor which is drawn from his Tomb hath several vertues and the reasons of the great and admirable effects imputed to it as the healing of inwards Ulcers and Contusions of Blood arriving to such as have fallen from on high seem to me imputable to three Causes a Spiritual a Celestial and an Elementary The first ariseth hence that so perfect a Form as the reasonable Soul having inform'd part of this Compositum which by the mixture of some Ingredients as Myrrhe and Aloes hath been preserv'd from corruption the same thing arrives to it which the Chymists say doth to their white Gold when they have extracted its Sulphur and Tincture For being re-joyn'd to other Gold it easily resumes the same form and is sooner and more inseparably combin'd with it then any other thing as having been of the same species So when you put Mummie into a body of the same species it takes part with the nature whence it proceeded and siding with it incounters the disease and its symptomes like Succour coming to relieve a besieged City with provisions and ammunition The Celestial cause is drawn from the Heavens for that the light and influence of superiour bodies act upon all the sublunary but by the consent of all none is so susceptible of their actions as man and if his soul be not subject thereunto yet his body is undoubtedly to each part of which each part of Heaven not only answers as some hold but the whole to all Whence is seen the diversity of disposition inclinations and manners such and so great that 't is a palpable mistake to attribute the same to the meer mixture of the Elements Now Mummie having receiv'd not only while it was animated but afterwards all the influences whereof the humane body is susceptible it becomes as it were the abstract of all the Celestial powers and better then Talismanical figures communicates the same to him that uses it The last reason drawn from the mixture of the Elements and their qualities might suffice alone without the preceding For Man being the abridgement of the world ought also to contain all the faculties of it and his Mummie being inanimate but having liv'd the life of a plant an animal and a man it contains all these natures eminently The Third said That Man affecting nothing so much as immortality because he fears nothing more then death and being unable to secure himself from it do's all that he can to perpetuate himself in some fashion since he cannot wholly The desire of supporting his Individual person and defending it from all inconveniences which may abridge his life makes him count nothing difficult In Propagation he seeks the eternity of his species And though he is assur'd by Reason of
blemish Cato's reputation by making him appear 46 times in full Senate to justifie himself from the accusations Envy had charg'd upon him made him more famous And the poyson which it made Socrates drink kill'd his body indeed but render'd his memory immortal The truth is if the Greek Proverb hold good which calls a life without envy unhappy Envy seems in some manner necessary to beatitude it self Whence Themistocles told one who would needs flatter him with commendations of his brave actions that he had yet done nothing remarkable since he had no enviers The Fourth said 'T is such an irregular passion that it seems to aim at subverting the establish'd order of nature and making other laws after its own phancy yea so monstrous that 't is not a bare grief for another's good or a hatred of choler or such other passion but a monster compos'd of all vicious passions and consequently the most mischievous and odious of all CONFERENCE LXXIV I. Whence comes trembling in men II. Of Navigation and Longitudes I. Whence comes trembling in men THe correspondence of the great to the little world requir'd that after the tremblings of the earth those should be spoken which happen to men some of which seize but one part of the body as the head lips hands or legs some the whole body with such violence sometimes that Cardan relates of a woman taken with such a trembling that three strong persons could not hold her 'T is a symptom of motion hurt in which the part is otherwise mov'd then it ought being sometimes lifted up and sometimes cast down For in trembling there are two contrary motions One proceeds from the motive faculty endeavouring to lift up the member which is done by retraction of the muscles towards their original which by shortning themselves draw their tail to the head and at the same time what is annex'd thereunto This motive power serves also to retain the elevated member in the posture wherein we would have it continue the abbreviation of the Muscles not suffering it to return to its first situation The other motion is contrary to the will and to that of the motive power the member being depress'd by its own gravity From which contrariety and perpetual war of these two motions arises trembling one of them carrying the part as the will guides it and the other resisting thereunto which is done more speedily then the pulse and with such short intervals that the senses cannot distinguish any middle and makes us doubt whether there be two motions or but one as a ball sometimes returns so suddenly towards him that struck it that the point of its reflexion is not perceiv'd The causes are very different as amongst others the debility of the part and of the animal faculty as in decrepit old men impotent persons and such as are recovering out of long and dangerous diseases or who have fasted long the weakness of the Nerve the instrument of the animal spirits its obstruction contraction or relaxation the coarctation of the Arteries which send the vital spirits to the Brain there to be made animal spirits and proper for motion as in fear which puts the whole body into an involuntary trembling An Ague also do's the same the natural heat which resides in the arterial being carri'd to the relief of the labouring heart and so the outward parts particularly the nerves whose nature is cold and dry becoming refrigerated and less capable of exercising voluntary motion The Second said That the actions of the motive faculty as of all others may be hurt three ways being either abolish'd diminish'd or deprav'd They are abolish'd in a Palsie which is a total privation of voluntary motion They are diminish'd in Lassitude caus'd either by sharp humors within or by tension of the muscles and tendons or by dissipation of the spirits They are deprav'd in trembling convulsion horror and rigor or shivering Convulsion is a contraction of the muscles towards their original caus'd either by repletion or inanition Rigor shaking and concussion of all the muscles of the body accompani'd with coldness and pain is caus'd according to Galen by the reciprocal motion of natural heat and its encounter with cold in the parts which it endeavours to expell or according to some others by any sharp mordicant and troublesome matter which incommoding the muscles and sensitive parts the expulsive faculty attempts to reject by this commotion Horror differs not from Rigor but in degrees this being in the muscles and that only in the skin produc'd by some matter less sharp and in less quantity But trembling being a depravation and perversion of motion cannot be known but by comparison with that which is regular Now that voluntary motion may be rightly perform'd the brain must be of a due temper for supplying animal spirits and the nerves and parts rightly dispos'd Hence the cause of tremblings is either the distemper of the brain or the defect of animal spirits or the defect of animal spirits or the bad disposition of the nerves and parts A fitting temper being the first condition requisite to action every intemperature of the brain but especially the cold is the cause it cannot elaborate spirits enough to move all the parts But this defect of spirits comes not always from such bad temper but also from want of vital spirits which are sent from the heart to the brain by the arteries to serve for matter to the animal spirits These vital spirits are deficient either when they are not generated in the ventricles of the heart through the fault either of matter or of the generative faculty or are carri'd elsewhere then to the brain by reason of their concentration or effusion As in all violent passions these spirits are either concentred in the heart as in fear and grief or diffus'd from the centre to the circumference as in joy and not sent to the brain and in these cases the motive faculty remains weakned and uncapable of well exercising its motions Lastly the nerves being ill dispos'd by some distemper caus'd either by external cold or other internal causes or else being shrunk or stop'd by some gross humors not totally for then there would be no motion at all they cause tremblings which are imperfect motions like those of Porters who endeavouring to move a greater burthen then they are able to carry the weight which draws downwards and the weakness of their faculty which supports it causes in them a motion like to those that tremble The Third said That to these causes Mercury Hellebore Henbane Wine and Women must be added For they who deal with Quick-silver who have super-purgations use stupefactives and things extreamly cold and Venery in excess and Drunkards have all these tremblings according to the diversity of which causes the remedies are also different Gold is an Antidote against Mercury which will adhere to it Repletion against the second Heat Continence and Sobriety against the rest Galen saith that blood
or triple The Second said That every thing that is mortal and corruptible is such in that it hath in it self some cause of this corruption All mortal bodies being compos'd of contrary ingredients have in themselves the principle of corruption from which as well simple bodies as the Elements and Heavens as Spirits and separate intelligences are free because a thing simple in its own nature cannot act upon it self by a destructive action though even those Spirits have but an arbitrary existence from their first cause on whom they depend But in the first sence and of their own nature they are absolutely incorruptible for were they corruptible then must some new substance be generated out of that which is corrupted which is absurd because they are simple and free from composition and consequently from corruption Now were reasonable Souls which are part of man who is compounded of matter and form again compounded of matter and form there would be a progression to infinity in causes which is contrary to natural reason Moreover nothing is corrupted but by its contrary and therefore that which hath no contrary is free from corruption But such is the rational soul which is so far from having any contrary that the most contrary things in Nature as habits and their privations being receiv'd in the Understanding are no longer opposites or enemies but friends and of the same nature whence the reason of contraries is alike and there is but one Science of them The Third said That such as a thing is such is its action A corporeal and material substance cannot produce an action which is not corporeal and an immaterial action owns no other principle but what is immaterial and incorruptible Hence the same reasons which prove the souls of brutes mortal because their operations exceed not the bounds of the body and tend onely to self-preservation and sensible good conclude also though by a contrary sense for the immortality of the rational soul whose operations are spiritual and abstracted from the body For nutrition concoction assimilation sense motion and other such actions being corporeal because terminated upon sensible and corporeal objects must consequently be produc'd by a faculty of the same nature corporeal and material But the reasonable soul besides those actions which are common to it with those of beasts hath some peculiar and much more sublime as by the Intellect to understand eternal truths to affirm deny suspend its judgement compare things together abstract them from matter time place and all other sensible accidents by the will to love and embrace vertue in spight of the contrary inclinations of the sensitive appetite to do good actions though difficult to avoid the evil which flatters the senses and the like which actions being above the body and material objects cannot be produc'd but by an immaterial and incorruptible substance such as the reasonable soul is Moreover since the soul can know all sorts of bodies it must consequently be exempt from all corporeal entity as the tongue to judge aright of sapours must have none and the eye to discern colours well The Fourth said That Nature which makes nothing in vain hath imprinted in every thing a desire of its end whereof it is capable as appears by induction of all created Beings Now the greatest desire of man is immortality whereunto he directs all his actions and intentions and therefore he must be capable of it But since he cannot accomplish this end in this life as all other things do it must be in another without which not only good men would be more unhappy then wicked but in general the condition of men would be worse then that of beasts if after having endur'd so many infelicities which brutes experience not the haven of our miseries were the annihilation of the noblest part of our selves Yea if the soul could not subsist without the body its supream good should be in this life and in the pleasures of the body and its chiefest misery in afflictions and the exercises of vertue which is absurd For whereas 't is commonly objected that the soul cannot exercise its noblest functions but by help of corporeal organs rightly dispos'd and that when it is separated from those organs it can act no longer and consequently shall exist no more action and subsistence being convertible this is to take that for granted which is in controversie namely that the soul cannot act without the organs of the body when it is separated from the same since it operates sometimes more perfectly when 't is freest from the senses as in Extasies burning Fevers in the night time and in old age The Fifth said As in Architecture the principal piece of a building is the Foundation so the most necessary of a Science is to lay good Principles without which first establish'd all our Sciences are but conjectures and our knowledge but opinion Now in order to judge whether the souls immortality be demonstrable by natural reasons 't is to be enquir'd whether we can find the principles of this truth whose terms being known may be naturally clear and granted by all The most ordinary are these 1. Every thing which is spiritual is incorruptible 2. That which is material is mortal 3. That which is immaterial is immortal 4. That which God will preserve eternally is immortal 5. A thing acts inasmuch as it exists and some other principles by which this so important verity seems but ill supported For the first is not absolutely true since habits of grace and natural habits which are spiritual are annihilated and corrupted those by sin these by intermission of the actions which produc'd them Then for the second 't is notoriously false since not only the forms of the Elements which are material and the Elements themselves consider'd according to their whole extent but also the first matter are incorruptible and eternal and according to the opinion of many Doctors of the Church 't is not an article of faith that the Angels are incorporeal although it be de fide that they are immortal to say nothing of igneous aerious demons and other corporeal genii of the Platonists As for the third the actions of the understanding and the will are immaterial and nevertheless perish as soon as they are conceiv'd and the intentional species are not incorruptible though not compos'd either of matter or form on the contrary the Heavens which are so compos'd are yet incorruptible Whereby it appears that immortality depends on something else As for the fourth 't is as difficult to prove that God will eternally preserve reasonable souls as that they are immortal And for the last 't is certain that many things act above their reach and the condition of their nature since that which exists not as the end nevertheless acts by exciting the efficient cause motion begets heat which it self hath not and light a corporeal quality is mov'd in an instant which is the property of incorporeal substances as also
chastisement and blame ought to follow the Offenders This being done then onely when the precepts which were necessary to his education shall have taken such deep root in his Mind as not to be stifled by the multitude of others My Method proceeds to furnish him with those of the Liberal Sciences But with this order again that for the same reason the Rules be not confounded to him with Exceptions but that these latter be then onely taught him after he ha's well comprehended the former For conclusion there was an overture of a Way to teach by Playing from the A B C to the sublimest Sciences The Proposers reason was that the best Method of Sciences is that which takes away Difficulties the principal of which is The tediousness of Study That there is nothing less tedious then Play for the sake of which both great and small oftentimes lose their rest and food That 't was the intention of the first Authors that Children should learn as it were playing instead of the great rigors which cause them to study against their inclination with the loss of time and other inconveniences observ'd therein That hence the Place of Learning retains still in Latine the name of the Play of Letters and the Regents Masters of the Play Then he desired of the Company of Commissioners to receive their Judgement upon the Book which he had made upon this Subject and the same was deliver'd into their hands for them to make their report thereof that day seven night After which all were desired that they would please to report there at the following Conferences the Inventions which they conceiv'd likely to profit the publick with assurance that the honour and benefit thereof should be secur'd to themselves and so the Company was dismiss'd CONFERENCE II. I. Of Principles II. Of the End of all Things I. Of Principles THese five several acceptions of Principle were first considered I. As it is taken for a Cause especially the Efficient even that of all Things and which hath no Beginning namely God who also being the End of all is upon that account called Alpha and Omega II. For the beginning of quantity as a point is the beginning of a Line III. For the beginning of some Action as the first step is the beginning of the race IV. For that which is not made of it self nor any other but of which all things are made V. For that of which a thing is made is compos'd and is known Which definition comprehendeth the Principles of Generation Composition and Cognition For according to the Order of Nature a thing is made before it is and it is before it is known The Second said That the Principles of Entity and Cognition are the same For in that they constitute the thing they are called the Principles of Entity and inasmuch as Conclusions are drawn from them they are called Principles of Cognition Nevertheless deriving their original the one from the other As from this Principle of Cognition Nothing is made out of nothing it is concluded That then there must be a First Matter The Third said That that distinction of the Three Principles of Generation viz. Privation Matter and Form whereof the first and the last are contraries two onely of Composition viz. the two last do's not signifie that there are three Principles of the thing which is made Seeing that in the instant that a thing is made to be making fieri and to be made factum esse are the same Since then the thing made hath but two Principles that which is in making hath no more Privation being but a Condition requisite to Generation as the Agent the End and some other External Principles are The Fourth said That our Mind alone doth not make distinction between those three Principles but they differ in reality Those who say Privation is more a Principle of Generation then the rest are mistaken in that they make Generation participate more of Non-entity then of Entity But it is not seeing it ariseth out of the former to tend to the latter being in truth neither the one nor the other He added that the Principle of Cognition is either First or Second The First proves all and is prov'd by none 't is the basis of all Sciences and hath two conditions namely that it can neither be deny'd nor prov'd As it cannot be deny'd That of two Contradictories one is true and the other false Neither can the same be prov'd because there is nothing beyond it or more clear and evident The Second Principles are those of the Sciences which they prove as themselves are prov'd by the first Principle For example That Principle of Physick Contraries are cured by their Contraries proves this Evacuation cureth the diseases caused by plenitude and it self is proved by that other Principle of Natural Philosophy to which it is subordinate that Action is onely between Contraries which is again prov'd by this That Action tendeth to render the Patient like to the Agent Which if it be deny'd 't is answer'd that if the Agent do not render the Patient like to it self then this latter would not be altered and so not be a Patient Which cannot be by the first Principle of Knowledge That a thing cannot be and not be at the same time The Fift divided Principles into those of Logick which constitute a Definition viz. The Genus and the Difference into those of Physicks which constitute corporeal things viz. Matter and Form into those of Metaphysicks which are Act and Power Essence and Existence and the Nature and Inherence in all Accidents And lastly into Principles Mathematical which are a point in continu'd quantities and an Vnite in Numbers The sixth fram'd this Question Since every thing that hath a Beginning hath also an End how is Number which hath a Unite for its Beginning Infinite It was answer'd by another That that infinity of Number is not in Act as its Beginning is but onely in Power For when 't is said That there is no Number so great but may be made greater to infinity this ought not to be accounted more strange then that other Proposition which is also true viz. That a Quantity which hath a Beginning may be divided without End There being no Body so small but may be divided again into a less For that some thing cannot be resolv'd into nothing as of nothing cannot be made some thing naturally This matter was ended with another division of Principles into General and Particular The General said they are some times but indiscreetly confounded with Causes and Elements For every Principle is not a Cause nor every Cause an Element nor any Element a Principle Although every Element be a Cause and every Cause be a Principle External or Internal That every Principle is not a Cause appears by Privation which is a Principle notwithstanding what hath been otherwise argu'd by the Maxim above alledg'd That Action is onely between Contraries Principles then
proceed but from Heaven or the Elements there is no probability in attributing them to these latter otherwise they would be both Agents and Patients together And besides if the Elements were the Efficient Cause of the Mutations which come to pass in Nature there would be nothing regular by reason of their continual Generation and Corruption Wherefore 't is to the Heavens that it ought to be ascrib'd And as the same Letters put together in the same order make alwayes the same word So as often as the principal Planets meet in the same Aspect and the same Coelestial Configuration the Men that are born under such Constellations are found alike Nor is it material to say though 't is true that the Heavenly Bodies are never twice in the same scituation because if this should happen it would not be Resemblance longer but Identity such as Plato promised in his great Revolution after six and forty thousand years Besides there is no one so like to another but there is alwayes found more difference then conformity The Sixth affirm'd That the same Cause which produceth the likeness of Bodies is also that which rendreth the inclinations of Souls alike seeing the one is the Index of the other Thus we see oftimes the manners of Children so expresly imitate those of their Parents of both Sexes that the same may be more rightfully alledged for an Argument of their Legitimacy then the External Resemblance alone which consists onely in colour and figure This makes it doubtful whether we may attribute that Resemblance to the Formative Virtue Otherwise being connex'd as they are it would be to assign an Immaterial Effect as all the operations of the Rational Soul are to a Material Cause The Seventh ascrib'd it to the sole vigour or weakness of the Formative Virtue which is nothing else but the Spirits inherent in the Geniture and constituting the more pure part of it The rest serving those Spirits for Matter upon which they act for the organizing it and framing a Body thereof Now every Individual proposing to himself to make his like he arrives to his End when the Matter is suted and possess'd with an Active Virtue sufficiently vigorous and then this likeness will be not onely according to the Specifical Nature and the Essence but also according to the Individual Nature and the Accidents which accompany the same This seems perhaps manifest enough in that First Degree of Children to Fathers but the difficulty is not small how a later Son that hath no Features of his Fathers Countenance comes to resemble his Grand-father or Great Grand-father The Cause in my Judgement may be assign'd thus Though the Geniture of the Ancestor was provided with sufficient Spirits to form a Son like himself yet it met with a Feminine Geniture abounding with qualities contrary to its own which infring'd its formative vertue and check'd the Action thereof hindring the Exuberance of its Spirits from attaining to frame such lineaments of the Countenance as Nature intended or else it met with a Matrice out of due temper by some casual cold though otherwise both the Genitures were laudably elaborated For when those Spirits or Formative Virtue become chil'd and num'd they shrink and retire into their mass as he that is cold to his bed and wanting heat in which their Activity consists they remain in a manner buried and without Action in reference to this Resemblance And nevertheless there is left enough to make a Male like to the Father as to the species This Son thus form'd comes to Age to Generate and meeting with a Feminine Geniture proportion'd to his own in vigour and strength and a Matrice proper to receive them those Spirits of his Father which till then lay dormant are awaken'd to Action and concurring from all parts of the Body suddenly impregnate the Geniture of the Immediate Father having by their long residence in the corporeal mass been recruited refined and elaborated And as old Wine surpasseth new in strength and vigour of Spirits because it hath less Phlegme so those Spirits of the Grand-father having digested all the superfluous Phlegm wherewith those of the Father abound are more strong then they and win possession in the Geniture for the forming and organizing of it according to the shape of the Body from whence they first issued The Eighth said That he was very backward to believe that any Thing of our Great Grand-fathers remaineth in us seeing it is doubted upon probable grounds whether there remaineth in our Old Age any thing of our Child-hood and that the Body of Man by the continual deperdition of its Three-fold Substance Spirits Humours and solid parts is like the ship Argo which by the successive addition of new matter was the same and not the same That he conceiv'd not yet how the Geniture can proceed from all the parts seeing Anatomy teacheth us that the Spermatick Veines derive it immediately from the Trunk of the Hollow Vein Vena Cava and the Emulgent and the Arteries from the great Artery Aorta conveying it to be elaborated in the Glandules call'd Prostatae from whence it is set on work by Nature The solid Parts can have no Influence upon it for what humour or juice is brought to them for their nourishment goeth not away naturally but by sweat insensible transpiration and the production of hair The Spirits are too subtle and dissipable to preserve in themselves a Character and imprint the same upon any Subject That Resemblance in my Judgement proceedeth from the natural heat which elaborateth and delineateth the Body of the Geniture and by it the Embryo First with the general Idea of its species and then with the accidents which it hath and which it borroweth from the Matrice from the menstruous blood and the other Circumstances requisite to Generation and when chance pleaseth there is found a likeness to the Father Mother or others Which Circumstances being alike in the Formation of Twinns cause them to resemble one another unless when the Particles of the Geniture which is sufficient for two are of unlike Natures and are unequally sever'd by the natural heat So that for Example the milder and more temperate Particles are shar'd on one side and on the other the more rough and bilious As it hapned in Jacob and Esau the former of whom was of a sweet and the other of a savage humour and then Bodies as different as their Manners One the contrary many resemble one another in Countenance who are nothing at all related as Augustus and that young Man who being ask'd by the Emperour whether his Mother had never been at Rome answer'd No but his Father had And the true and false Martin Guerre who put a Parliament their Wife and all their kinred to a hard task to distinguish them II. Whether Letters ought to be joyned with Armes The Second Hour design'd for treating of the Conjunction of Armes and Letters began with this discourse That Armes seem not
else but an execess of heat which is a meer Accident as well in its little degrees as in its excesses More and less making no change in the species Our Fire then is an excessive heat which adheres to Things that have some crass and oleaginous humour in them and continues there by a continual efflux and successive Generation without any permanence like the Water of a River which Heat lasts so long till that humour be consumed If it be said that it ascends upwards seeking its own place I answer that 't is the Exhalation that carries it up yea that it descends too as we see in a Candle blown out and still smoaking if it be held beneath another burning one the flame descendeth along the smoak and lighteth it again So that the Fire is indifferent of it self where it goes for it lets it self be govern'd and carry'd by the Exhalation And it appears further That Fire is less subtile then Air for flame is not transparent and it engendreth soot which is very gross The Third added That indeed Fire cannot be a Substance because it hath a Contrary viz. The Water Besides every Substantial Form preserves its own Matter and acts not against it but Fire destroyes its own Moreover a certain degree of some Quality is never necessary to a Substantial Form as the Earth ceaseth not to be Earth though it be less cold or dry and so of the rest But Fire cannot be Fire unless the supreme degree of heat be in it Add hereunto that Fire may be produc'd in a Substance without corrupting it as we see in a Flint or a burning Bullet Now a Substantial Form is not produc'd in a Subject till the preceding be destroy'd the Generation of the one being the corruption of the other Lastly Every substance produceth by way of Generation an indivisible substantial Form But Fire produceth a divisible Quality For that which was cold becometh first warm then hot and by degrees becometh Fire which cannot be with a mixture of cold non consist therewith unless as degrees of qualities The Fourth said That Fire is a most perfect Element hot and dry according to Aristotle of the most perfect form and activity of all the Elements according to Plato the principal instrument of Nature according to Empedocles the Father of Things Whence it was that the Assyrians ador'd it The Persians carry'd it out of Honour before their Kings and at the head of their Armies The Romans made so great account of it that they assign'd it to the care of certain Virgins to be kept immortal Pythagoras believ'd it to be an Animal because it is nourish'd as Animals and for want of Aliment dyes And because a lighted Torch being cast into the Water the Fire extinguishing sendeth forth such a noyse as Animals do at the gasps of Death But he esteemed its natural place to be the Centre of the Subterranean World Whence it is said he that we see so many Volcanoes and other Fires issue out of the entrals of the Earth as those of Monte Vesuvio in the Kingdom of Naples Monte Gibello formerly Aetna in Sicily and Monte Hecla in Iseland and so many other burning Mountains The Fifth said That as the Sea is the Principle from whence all the Waters come and the end whether they return So the Sun is the Element of Fire from whence all other Fires come and whether at length they reascend as to their Source 1. For that all Effects Qualities and Properties of Fire agree particularly to the Sun seeing he heats burnes dryes and is the cause of all the Generations that are made here below 2. Because the Elements stay in their natural places Now the Fire not onely ascendeth from the Subterraneous places where it is detain'd by reason of a sulphureous and bituminous Matter which serves it for food but it passeth also beyond the Heavens of the Moon Mercury and Venus as appears by Comets which are igneous and particularly by that which appear'd in the year 1618. acknowledg'd by all the Astronomers upon the reasons of Opticks to have been above the said places The Sixth denyed That the Sun can be the Element of Fire 1. Because 't is a Coelestial and Incorruptible Body and by consequence not Igneous or Elementary 2. If all Fires come from the Sun it will follow that all his rayes are Igneous Bodies for there cannot be imagin'd other Fires to come from the Sun hither but his beams Now the Sun-beams are neither Bodies nor Igneous Not Bodies since Illumination and Eradiation being made in an instant it will follow that a Body cometh from Heaven to Earth in a Moment Which is absurd because No Motion is made in an instant Besides being those Rayes penetrate Glass and such other solid and diaphanous Bodies there would be a penetration of Dimensions which is impossible Nor are they Igneous seeing Fire being of its own nature light descendeth not but the beams of the Sun descend down hither Moreover Fire is actually hot but the Sun-beams are onely so in power viz. when they are reflected by an opake body as appears in the Middle Region of the Air where it is colder then upon the Earth though its beams are nearer Wherefore it is more reasonable to hold to the common opinion which placeth the Fire immediately under the Heaven of the Moon For there is no fear that that Fire how great soever can burn the World it s hear being allay'd and dull'd by the extreme humidity of the Air its Neighbour and by the great coldness of the same Air which is in the Middle Region and counter-checketh that heat which on one side hath already lost its violence and acrimony by its natural Rarity Nor is there any trouble to be taken for its nourishment for being in its own Centre and Empire it hath no enemies nor contraries and needeth no food for its support as our common Fire doth What if we behold it not 'T is not because there is none but because it is so rare and so pure that it cannot fall within the perception of our Senses As there is such a thing as Air though we see it not How many Colours Odours Sapours and Sounds are there which we never knew And as for what is observ'd in a Candle newly put out it is clear that the Fire descendeth not to it but inflameth the unctuous Matter which it toucheth and this the next even to the Candle from whence that Matter proceedeth II Of the Vniversal Spirit Upon the Second Point it was said That it must First be known what is meant by Universal Spirit 2. Whether there be one 3. What it is As for the First By the word Universal Spirit is understood some universal cause and principle of all the actions and motions which are made in Generation Just as they assign one same First Matter for the Subject of all Formes so they speak of an Vniversal Form which containes all the rest in
nothing but Water rarifi'd and subtiliz'd by heat as also when they are reduc'd into Water by condensation this Water is nothing but Air condens'd And so Air and Water differ not but by Rarefaction and Condensation which are but Accident and consequently cannot make different species of Element Both the one and the other may be seen in the Aeolipila of Vitruvius out of which the heat of Fire causeth the Water which is therein to issue in the form of Air and an impetuous wind which is the very Image of that which Nature ordinarily doth I conceive also that the Air is neither hot nor moist nor light as Philosophers commonly hold For as to the First the Air is much more cold then hot and for one torrid Zone there are two cold Besides Heat is but Accidental to it being caus'd by the incidence and reflections of the rayes of the Sun So that this cause failing in the night when the Sun shines not or in Winter when its rayes are very oblique and their reflection weak or in the Middle Region whether the Reflection reacheth not the Air becometh cold and consequently in its natural quality since there is no External Cause that produceth that coldness As for the Second The Air dryeth more then it moistneth and if it moistneth it is when it is cold and condensed and consequently mix'd with many particles of Water and when it dryeth it is by its own heat For the Definition which Aristotle giveth of Humid and Moist is onely proper to every thing which is fluid and not stable and in this respect agrees to the Air which is fluid and gives way to all sorts of Bodies As for the Last which is its levity the harmony of the world by which all things conspire to union and so to one common Centre seemeth to contradict it For if the Air hath its Motion from the Centre the parts of the world might be disunited For the Air would escape away there being no restraint upon it by any External Surface Moreover if we judge the Air light because we see it mount above water we must also say that Wax and Oyle are light since we observe the same in them But that which they do is not mounting above the Water but being repell'd by the Water And so the principal of Motion being External the same is violent and not natural Whereas when the Air descends into the Well it descends thither naturally there being no External Cause of that descent For Vacuum not existing in Nature cannot produce this Effect Since according to the received Maxime Of a Thing which is not there can be no Actions Besides it would be it self-self-cause of its own destruction and do contrary to its own intention preserving Nature by this Action whereas it is an Enemy to it and seeketh the ruine thereof Lastly Since many Particles of Air being condens'd and press'd together give ponderosity to a thing as is seen in a Baloon or foot-ball it must needs be ponderous it self for many light Bodies joyn'd together are more light The Second said That the difference between Water and Air is as clear as either of those Elements For that the Vapours which arise from the Water by means of the Suns heat and the wind which issueth out of the abovesaid Vessel full of Water and placed upon the Fire cannot be call'd Air saving abusively But they are mixts actually compos'd of Water and Fire For the rayes of the Sun entring into the Water raise it into Vapour And the Fire infinuating it self by the Pores of the Vessel into the Water which it containeth causeth the same to come forth in the form of wind which is compos'd of Fire and Water Of Fire because the property of Fire being to mount on high it lifts up that subtiliz'd Water with it self Of Water because this Vapour hath some coldness and humidity whence meeting with a solid Body it is resolv'd into Water because the Fire alone passeth through the Pores of that Body Besides Water being moist and Air on the contrary dry as the precedent opinion importeth they cannot be the same thing And since all Alteration is made between two different things Water and Air transmuting one into another as it hath been said cannot be the same Lastly as there are two Elements whereof one is absolutely light as the Fire the other absolutely heavy as the Earth So there are two which are such but in comparison with the rest The Water compar'd with the Earth is light because it floateth above it The Air in comparison of the Water is light too because it is above it So that when it descendeth lower then the Water into the Caverns of the Earth 't is Nature that obligeth it to renounce its proper and particular interest for preserving the general one which is destroy'd by the Vacuum not that the Vacuum is the Cause thereof for it hath no existence And the Air wherewith the Baloon is fill'd rendreth the same more heavy because it is impure and mixt with gross Vapours Which it would not do were it pure and Elementary such as is that of which we are speaking which is not to be found in our Region The Common Opinion hath also more probability which holdeth that the Air is hot and moist Hot because it is rare and light which are effects of heat Moist because it is difficultly contain'd within its own bounds and easily within those of another Thence it is that the more Bodies partake of Air the more they have of those qualities As we see in Oyl which is hot being easily set on flame And Moist in that it greatly humecteth and easily expandeth it self on all sides But if the Air seemes sometimes to be cold 't is by accident by reason of the cold vapours wherewith it is fill'd at that time The Third said That he conceiv'd that contrarily the Air is cold and dry 1. Because it freezeth the Earth and Water in Winter and therefore is colder in either of them 2. Because it refresheth the Lungs and by its coolness tempereth the extreme heat of the Heart and of the other parts which it could not do if it were hot 3. Inasmuch as hot things expos'd to the Air are cooled which they would not be but at least preserve their heat being in a place of the same Nature 4. The more it is agitated the more it refresheth as we see by Fans because then the unessential things being seperated from it it is more close and united quite contrary to the other Elements which grow hot by being agitated 5. In the night time the more pure and serene and void of mixtures the Air is the colder it is 6. Thence it is that flame burnes less then boyling water or hot Iron because in flame there is a great deal of Air which being colder then Water and Iron represseth more the strength of the Fire Lastly since according to Aristotle Air doth not putrifie what is
it is now straitned and takes less room then before Whence Water freezing in Vessels well stopp'd the same break for the avoidance of Vacuum Moreover Humidity is not one of its essential proprieties because it may be separated from it as we see in frozen water which is less humid then when it was cold It followes then that Second Qualities being Tokens of the First and the goodness of Water requiring that it have the least weight that can be as also that it have neither Taste nor Smell the most pure i. e. the Elementary of which we are speaking is without First Qualities having been created by God onely to be the band or tye of the other parts of a mixt body The Fifth said That the Scripture divideth the Waters into those which are above the Heavens and those upon the Earth as if to teach us that Water is the Centre the Middle and the end of the Universe Which agrees with the opinion of those who establish it for the Sole Principle of all things Those Supercoelestial Waters are prov'd by the Etymology of the word for Heavens Schamaim which signifies in Hebrew There are Waters Because 't is said that God divided the Waters from the Waters and placed them above the Firmament Which Supercoelestial Waters are also invited by the Psalmist to bless the Lord And lastly because it is said that at the time of the Deluge the windows of Heaven were opened The Sixth said That the gravity of those Supercoelestial Waters would not suffer them to remain long out of the place destinated to that Element which is below the Air And therefore it were better to take the word Heaven in those places for the Air as 't is elsewhere in the Scripture which mentioneth the Dew and the Birds of Heaven Since also the Hebrew word which there signifies Firmament is also taken for the Expansion of the Air and those Supercoelestial Waters for Rain II. Of Wine and whether it be necessary for Souldiers Upon the Second Point it was said That if we speak of Wine moderately taken the Sacred Text voids the Question saying that it rejoyceth the Heart Which it performeth by supplying ample matter to the Influent Spirits which the Heart by the Arteries transmitteth to all the parts and which joyning themselves to the private Spirits strengthen them and labour in common with them And so the Souldier entring into fight with a cheerful Heart is half victorious Yea the greatest exploits of War are atchieved by the Spirits which constitute Courage the Blood heated by them over-powring the coldness of Melancholy and Phlegme which cause backwardness and slowness of Action For it is with the Virtues as with Medicines which become not active and pass not from power into act but by help of the natural faculties So the Virtues do not produce their effects but by the Spirits But Wine taken in excess is wholly prejudicial to the Valour of a Souldier who hath need of a double strength One of Mind to lead him on valiantly to dangers and keep him undaunted at dreadful occurrences The other of Body to undergo the long toiles of War and not draw back in fight Now Wine destroyes both of these For as for the former Valour or Fortitude is a Moral Virtue which as all other Virtues its companions acteth under the conduct of Prudence which alone ruleth and employeth them and knoweth where and how they ought to act So that what assists Prudence assists Valour too and that which hureth the one hurteth the other also Now excessive Wine hurteth the former very much For by its immoderate heat it causeth a tumult and disorder in the humours it maketh the Brain boyle and work and consequently embroyleth and confoundeth the Phantasines which are imprinted in it as it happeneth in sleep or in the Phrensie and by its gross vapour it obstructeth all its passages So that the Understanding cannot take its Survey there having no free access to come and form its judgements and conclusions upon the Ideas and Phantasmes And although it should have its Avenues free yet the Phantasmes being in confusion like Images in stirred waters it would be impossible for it to judge aright and prudently to discern what fear or what eagerness ought to be check'd and repel'd For all Fear is not to be rejected no more then 't is to be follow'd nor is the bridle to be let loose at all adventures nor alwayes restrain'd The strength of the Body is also impaird by Wine For though Galen and others will have it Hot and Dry yet it being so but potentially 't is as subject to deceive us as that Dutchman was who hearing that Cresses were hot commanded his Man to fill his Boots therewith to warm him For the truth is Wine is moist and vapourous and that to such a degree that by reason of its extreme humidity it cannot be corrupted with a total corruption For this happeneth when the external heat hath wholly drawn out the moisture of the corrupted Body and so dissolved the Union of all the dry parts which moisture keeps together So that the Elements flying away there remains nothing to be seen but Earth alone Which cannot come to pass in Wine by reason of the little dry substance in it and of its great humidity which cannot be wholly separated In which regard it is never corrupted but in part viz. when the external heat draws away the more pure substance and the better Spirits as we see when it grows sour thick or turbid Being then humid to such a degree and our parts partaking of the nature of their food if Souldiers nourish their Bodies excessively with Wine they must retain the qualities thereof viz. softness and weakness which follow humidity Whence possibly came the word Dissolute for such as addict themselves to this debauchery and the other which follow it Therefore the Souldier would be more robust if he never drank Wine because he would eat the more and produce the more solid substance which would make him more vigorous less subject to diseases and more fit to indure in sight and undergo the other toils of War The Second said That it belongs to the prudent States-man to weigh the benefit and the mischief which may arise from his orders So that he alwayes propose to himself that he hath to do with imperfect men and who incline rather to the abuse then the right use of things This holds principally in War Souldiers willingly aiming at nothing else but pleasure and profit Even in this Age wherein we are past the Apprentisage of War except some constant Regiments Souldiers are tumultuously chosen almost alwayes out of the dregs of the people of whom to require the exercise of Temperance in the use of that which ordinarily costs them nothing were to seek an impossibility Such is Wine that though it makes the Souldier sturdy yet it makes him unfit to govern himself much less others Whereunto notwithstanding he oftentimes
Body by the Umbilical Veins engrave upon it the Image configur'd to them The Third said That he could not ascribe this Effect to the Imagination no more then all other Monsters because the Girl resembling neither Father nor Mother seem'd to him by this uncouth and strange hairiness to deserve the name of a Monster For First The Imagination cannot produce any real Effect the Intentions of Men produce nothing such this belongs onely to the Deity Secondly All the Animal Faculties being almost intercepted in Generation how can the Formative Faculty which according to Erastus is the sole Agent conceive and apprehend those Images and Representations For there is little appearance that the formes of the Imagination are engraven upon Aerial Spirits in the same manner that these of the Formative Faculty of the Heavens or Vniversal Spirit are imprinted in the Air for the production of Mixt Bodies For if it were so then Children would have upon their Bodies marks or tokens of every thing that their Mothers had ardently desir'd and imagin'd and in their Imagination and desires they have no commendation for Constancy by reason of the continual Agitation of their blood which is incessantly attracted by the Foetus So that we should see strange portraits of the Mothers Phancies upon the Infants Body whereby would be sav'd much of the pains that Baptista Porta takes in his Natural Magick to teach how to produce Monsters Moreover as the Common Sense judgeth of the difference of Objects which it carrieth to the Imagination so the Imagination retaineth not those Species saving to present them to Reason which judgeth and determineth upon them Wherefore if for example the Common Sense represents to the Imagnation a Centaur or some other Monster and the Imagination represent the same to Reason this Reason of ours will never allow or consent that the Formative Faculty attempt to bring it to effect The Fourth said That he did not think this Girl ought to be termed a Monster unless in the large signification of the word as it comprehends every thing that is contrary to the intention of the agent or is extraordinary Thus Aristotle calls a Woman a Monster and a fault of Nature which always designes the making of a Male as the more perfect which being unable to do either in regard of the disposition of the Agent or of the Matter she makes a Woman And for the same reason he calls a Child which doth not resemble its Father a Monster because the Father design'd to beget a Man like himself But this person is not truly such since she is faulty onely in the excess of superfluities or excrements not of any part that varies the species As one that voideth more excrements then others or hath greater Nails then usual cannot be stil'd a Monster Besides what we account monstrous in this person we have the same our selves For were our Sight acute enough we might see that there is no part of the Body but is cover'd with Hair and perhaps not so fair and soft as hers in which we find nothing extraordinary but in the length For whereas she hath a light-colour'd beard of four or five fingers length the cause thereof is because the Hair is carefully shav'd off the rest of her countenance which otherwise would be all of the same length This Hair proceedeth from extreme Moisture and Moderate Coldness the former supplyeth the matter for its Generation and the latter helpeth the Action of Heat by the occlusion of the Pores which it causeth So that if among Children which according to Hippocrates are more humid then those who have attain'd to Adolescence there be found any who have such a degree of Coldness as is able to support the root of the Hair by condensing the skin it will grow in all parts of the Body though unequally according to the difference of humour The Fifth said That besides the Imagination already alledg'd which caus'd Perfina Queen of Ethiopia to bring forth a white Daughter and a Woman in our time to bring forth a Child like a Frog by having held a Frog in her hand for some disease this Hair proceeds from a certain temper proper for producing the same which temper is found in this little person as it is in other persons in some places onely and at a certain Age. This temper seemes to be cold for we see that Men and other Creatures are most hairy in the coldest Countries and cold hath a great influence upon Hair some persons having in one night had their Hair extremely grown and chang'd through an excess of fear and consequently of cold for fear causeth all the heat of the external parts to retire inwards As it hapned to a Gentleman of twenty eight years old who being condemned to death for an Adultery committed in the Palace of Charles V. the next morning was found all white in the Prison whereupon the Emperour granted him his pardon As the Grandfather of the same Emperour did formerly upon the same account to a Spaniard nam'd Osorio The like hapned to an other in shorter time who found the rope begin to break by which he was let down by the side of a steep rock to get an airy of Hawks Now this great abundance of Hair cannot proceed from extreme Humidity for then it must either be radical and consequently mild and no sit Matter for Hair or else adventitious sharp and corroding which would destroy their root Besides it is not credible that so little a Body as this can afford so much excrementitious matter Nor can it proceed from excess of Heat for we see heat makes Hair to shed in those that have a burning Fever or a Hectick and the Hair and Nails grow in dead bodies which have no natural heat II. Whether it be harder to resist Pleasure then Pain Upon the Second Point it was said That if Pleasure be consider'd as a Good and Pain as an Evil it is not to be doubted but that the latter is as insupportable to our Nature as the former is agreeable to it But there are two sorts of Good and Evil of Pain and Pleasure One of the Mind and another of the Body and many times the pains and sufferings of the Body are the joyes of the Mind and the pleasures and the gratifications of the flesh the crosses and torments of the Spirit Now there are scarce any pure and unmixt pleasures or pains in the world but they are usually mingled one with the other And if they could be separated Pain would turn the scale as being the more heavy and difficult to be supported In reference to which mixture the Greek Poet judiciously feigned that there are two vessels at the entrance of Heaven one full of Honey and sweetness the other of Gall and bitterness Of which two Liquors mingled together Jupiter makes all men to drink and tempers with them every thing that he pours down here below So that the Pains and Pleasures of the
Mind or the Body being moderate and indifferently temper'd with each of those Liquors may be supported by Men Pleasure and Good as the more natural much more easily then Evil and Pain which are destructive to Nature But when both of them are extreme and the sweetness of Pleasures and contentments is not abated by some little gall nor the bitterness of displeasures sweetned by some little Honey then Men cannot rellish this Potion because they are not accustom'd to things pure and sincere but to confusion and mixture and cannot bear the excess of Grief or Joy the extremities of which are found to be fatal As first for Grief Licinius finding himself condemn'd for the crime of Cheating the publick dy'd with regret Q. Fabius because he was cited before the Tribunes of the People for violating the Law of Nations Caesar's Daughter at the sight of the bloody garments of her Husband Pompey And in the last Age one of the Sons of Gilbert Duke of Montpensier going into Italy dy'd with resentment at Puzzole upon the Sepulchre of his Father whom he went thither to see Then for Joy Diagoras Rhodius seeing his three Sons victorious in one day at the Olympick Games dy'd with Joy The same Fate befell Chilo the Lacedemonian upon the same victory of one of his Sons Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily and the Poet Sophocles having heard that they had won the bayes for Tragedies dy'd both immediately And so did the Poet Philippides upon winning that for Comedies The Painter Zeuxis having made the portraiture of an old woman very odly dy'd with laughing at it To which Paulus Jovins produces two like examples of later date one of Sinas General of the Turk's Gallies upon the recovery of his onely Son whom he accounted lost and the other of Leo X. upon the taking of Milain which he had passionately desir'd both of which dy'd for Joy Thus each of these Passions have great resemblance in their excesses They equally transport a Man beyond the bounds of Reason The one by its pleasingness makes him forget himself the other by its bitterness leads him to despair Grief destroyes Life either by the violent agitation of the Spirits or by their condensation which stopping the passages hinders respiration From whence follows suffocation and death Pleasure and Joy produce the same effect by contrary causes namely by too great a dilatation of the Spirits which causes weakness and that weakness death It may be doubted under which rank they ought to be plac'd who dye for Love But the sweetness of this kind of death is too much extoll'd by the Poets that being to choose said he I should prefer it before the others The Second said They who dye for Joy are of a soft temper and rare contexture and their Hearts being too easily dilated and expanded by it the Spirits evaporating leave the same destitute of strength and so the Ventricles close together and they perish under this Passion On the contrary they who dye with grief and sadness have the Pores more closed but are of a very hot temper which requires room and freedom for the dilatation of the Heart which becoming compress'd by sadness which like Fear stops and refrigerates and renders the Spirits too much throng'd ad condens'd among themselves the Spirits having their avenues obstructed and their commerce with the Air hindred stifle the Heart That nevertheless the Passions of Joy are much less then those of Grief because Evil more vehemently moves the Appetite then Good For Grief destroyes the simple and absolute Existence of a thing Pleasure brings onely a transient and casual effect and is but a redundancy or surplusage An Animal hath its perfect essence without it but Grief puts its Being into evident danger and changes it essentially II. The preservation of an Animal for which Nature endu'd it with the Passion of Grief is the highest internal end whereunto also Pleasure is ordain'd as a means the pleasure of the Taste for the preservation of the Individual that of the Touch for the preservation of the species In fine Delectation is a Female Passion or rather but half a Passion for when its Object is present it is languid and asswag'd and hath no more but a bare union with the Object that is the present Good which is rather a Rest then a Motion of the Sensitive Appetite Whereas Grief which respects a present Evil is not onely redoubled by the presence of the same but summons all the other Passions to its Relief Anger Audacity Courage and all the Faculties to revenge it self The Third said That if we consider these two Passions as streams running within their ordinary channels and do not respect their inundations then Grief seemes to be more powerful then Joy for it causeth us to break through all difficulties that might stop us it rallies the Forces of Nature when there needs any extraordinary performance gives Armes to extremities and renders Necessity the Mistress of Fortune On the contrary Pleasure and Joy abate the greatness of the Courage enfeeble a Man by exhausting his Spirits and emptying his Heart too much thereof The Fourth said Pleasure and Grief are two Passions of the Concupiscible Appetite the former of which is the perception of an agreeable Object the latter of a displeasing one For all Sensation is made by a Mutation and that either from Good to Evil whence ariseth Grief and if it persisteth Sadness or from Evil to Good whence springeth Pleasure which if it be lasting causeth Joy which are to be carefully distinguish'd They easily succeed set off and give conspicuousness one to the other Socrates would never have found pleasure in scratching the place where his fetters fastned his Legs if he had not borne those shackles a long time in Prison Their vehemence hath commonly reference to the Temper Pleasure hath more dominion over the Sanguine The Melancholy Man makes more reflexion upon Grief But considering them absolutely it seemes to me more difficult to support Ease then Disease Joy then Sadness Pleasure then Grief First because Hope the harbinger of good and contentment hath greater effects then Fear which fore-runs Evil and causeth to undertake greater things for all glorious and Heroical Actions have Hope for their impulsive cause whereras commonly Fear produceth none but servile Actions Secondly a Passion is term'd strong or violent when by the impression of the species of the Object first upon the Senses and then upon the Phancy it becometh so much Mistress of Reason that it hinders the Man from freely exercising the functions of knowing aright and doing aright Now Pleasures and Contentments cause Men not to know themselves but to forget God and run into Vices whereas Grief and Afflictions usually retain them within their duty in the Fear of God and in the exercise of the Virtues of Patience Obedience and Humility Many persons have bravely and couragiously resisted torments and yet yielded to Pleasure And that Emperour of whom Saint
as Imprisonment solitary and gloomy places immoderate watchings Agitations and Motions of Body and Mind especially Sadness and Fear immoderate fasting the use of base and black Wines gross food as Pulse Coleworts Beef especially salted and Animals that have black hair such as are the Stag the Hare and all Water fowle Aristotle conceiv'd that this Natural Melancholy was the fittest humour to make Men ingenious as he treats at large in his Problemes and shews that the greatest persons that have excell'd in Philosophy Policy Poetry and other Arts have partaken most of it yea of the atribilarious Humour as Hercules Ajax and Bellerophon And before him Hippocrates in his Book De Flatibus saith That nothing contributes more to Prudence then the blood in a good consistence as the Melancholy Humour is Galen will have Dexterity to proceed from Choler Integrity and Constancy from Melancholy The first reasons are taken from the similitude which Melancholy hath with Wine I. First as Wine is stronger upon its Lee and keeps longer so is the blood upon Melancholy II. The Spirit which is drawn from Wine mingled with its Lee is far better then that which is drawn from Wine alone So the Spirits which proceed from blood joyn'd with Melancholy are much more vigorous thereby III. As it easier to leap on high when one hath his foot upon firm ground then in a fluid place So Melancholy being more firm then the other Humours makes the Spirits bound the higher and they are also better reflected as the rayes of the Sun are better reflected by the Earth then by the Water IV. Melancholy persons have a stronger Imagination and so more proper for the Sciences because Knowledge is acquir'd by the reception of Phantasines into the Imagination V. Old Men who are prudent are Melancholy Whence came that saying The prudent Mind is in a dry Body And the blood of studious and contemplative persons becomes dry and Melancholy by study Therefore Plato said That the Mind begins to flourish when the Body is pass'd its flower In fine the Melancholy are very patient and are not discourag'd by any obstacles which they meet with And as they are very slow in taking resolutions so when they are once taken they perform them notwithstanding what ever difficulties they encounter therein The Second said He could not conceive how this Humour which causeth the greatest diseases in the Spleen and in the Veins the Hypochondriacal Dotage and the Quartan Ague in any part the Scirrhus and the Cancer and in the whole Body the Leprosie and other incurable diseases should increase Wit and contribute to Prudence For considering it even in its natural constitution it renders those in whom it predominates of a leaden colour pensive solitary slow in motion sad and timerous and causes them to have a small Pulse which is an argment of the weakness of their Spirits On the contrary the Sanguine Humour opposite to it hath none but commendable signes and effects a rosey colour a cheerful aspect a sociable humour an active promptitude In brief all actions in perfection Whence it follows that the Humours of a well temper'd Man being more exquisite the Spirits which proceed from purer blood must be also more more refin'd The Third Said That to know whether the Melancholy Temper be most proper for Prudence it behoveth to consider the nature both of Prudence and of Melancholy and see how they agree together Prudence is the Habit of acting according to Reason Whereunto is requisite a clear Knowledge of the End of Man and of his actions as also of the Means which conduce to that end together with an integrity and firmness of Mind to guide a Man in the election and practice of those means Wherefore it is not without good reason that Prudence is accounted the Queen and Rule of all Virtues and that all of them are but species or kinds of Prudence Whence he that hath all the Virtues and hath not Prudence cannot be said to have any Virtue For indeed it is to Action what Sapience or Wisedom is to Contemplation Melancholy not-natural which becometh such by adustion of the natural of the Blood Choler and salt Flegme is easily inflam'd and being inflam'd renders Men furious and so is very contrary to Prudence which requires a great tranquillity and moderation of Mind for right judging of the End of things and of the Means to attain thereunto Choler indeed makes good Wits capable of well judging of the End and the Means yea it gives Courage for the execution But the bilious Spirits are usually fickle and want constancy in resolutions and patience in executions which defects are very remote from Prudence The Flegmatick have as we say ny bouche ny esperon neither counsel nor dispatch They are dull both of Body and Mind and incapable of understanding and performing well The Sanguine have Wit good enough and gentle qualities but they they are too sensual and tender by reason of the softness and mildness of the numour which ought to be moderated in a Prudent Man But Natural Melancholy gives a solid Judgement Gravity Constancy Patience and Temperance which are the principal pillars of Prudence So then the Melancholy Temper alone is proper for it and of the rest that which nearest approacheth it namely the Sanguine Now every Temper being compounded of the Four Humours that in which Blood and Natural Melancholy predominate will be the most proper of all for Prudence For these two Humours make a very perspicacious Wit and a profound and solid Judgement Melancholy when moderately heated by the Blood and Choler carries a Man to undertake and execute boldly and confidently because it is with knowledge of the End and Means Thus I have given you the Common Opinion But I esteem it absurd to believe that the Elementary Qualities cause such noble Effects as the Inclinations to Prudence Magnanimity Justice and other Virtues For they are caus'd by the Influence of the Stars as is found most evidently in Nativities by which without seeing the person or his temper one may tell his Inclinations But because in every Generation the superior and inferior causes concur together and the temper almost alwayes corresponds to the Influences thence Aristotle and Galen who understood not the true Science of Coelestial Powers have affirm'd the former in his Physiognomy That the Manners of Man follow his Temper And the latter That the Temperament is by it self the first and true efficient cause of all the actions of the mixt Body and consequently of the Manners of a Man Whereby they ascribe that to the Temper which ought to be attributed onely to the Influences And indeed the Hermetick Philosophy assignes to the Elementary Qualities no other Virtues but of heating cooling moistning drying condensing and rarifying Now according to Astrologers Prudence is from the influence of Saturn and Jupiter who preside over Melancholly and Blood according as those Planets reign or favourably regard all the points
in the Tuilleries justifies him Yet Art finds a greater facility in this matter near Lakes Hills and Woods naturally dispos'd for such a re-percussion But which increases the wonder of the Echo is its reduplication which is multiply'd in some places seven times and more the reason whereof seemes to be the same with that of multiplication of Images in Mirrors For as there are Mirrors which not onely receive the species on their surface so plainly as our Eye beholds but cannot see the same in the Air though they are no less there then in the Mirror so there are some that cast forth the species into the Air so that stretching out your arm you see another arm as it were coming out of the Mirror to meet yours In like manner it is with the voice And as a second and a third Mirror rightly situated double and trebble the same species so other Angles and Concavities opposite to the first cause the voice to bound and by their sending it from one to another multiply it as many times as there are several Angles but indeed weaker in the end then in the beginning because all Reaction is less then the First Action CONFERENCE XVI I. How Spirits act upon Bodies II. Whether is more powerful Love or Hatred I. How Spirits act upon Bodies IT is requisite to understand the Nature of ordinary and sensible actions that we may judge of others as in all Sciences a known Term is laid down to serve for a rule to those which are inquir'd So Architects have a Level and a Square whereby to discern perpendicular Lines and Angles Now in Natural Actions between two Bodies there is an Agent a Patient a Contact either Physical or Mathematical or compounded of both a Proportion of Nature and Place and a Reaction Moreover Action is onely between Contraries so that Substances and Bodies having no contraries act not one against the other saving by their qualities Which nevertheless inhering in the subjects which support them cause Philosophers to say that Actions proceed from Supposita Now that which causeth the difficulty in the Question is not that which results from the Agent for the Spirit is not onely a perpetual Agent but also a pure Act nor that which proceedeth from the Patient for Matter which predominates in Bodies is of its own Nature purely Passive But 't is from the want of Contact For it seemeth not possible for a Physical Contact to be between any but two complete substances And if we speak of the Soul which informes the Body it is not complete because it hath an essence ordinated and relative to the Body If we speak of Angels or Daemons there is no proportion of Nature between them and Bodies and much less resemblance as to the manner of being in a place For Angels are in a place onely definitively and Bodies are circumscrib'd with the internal surface of their place How then can they act one upon the other Nor can there be reaction between them For Spirits cannot part from Bodies But on the other side since Action is onely between Contraries and Contraries are under the same next Genus and Substance is divided into Spiritual and Corporeal there ought to be no more true Action then between the Soul and the Body both Contraries not onely according to the acception of Divines who constantly oppose the Body to the Spirit and make them fight one with the other but speaking naturally it is evident that the proprieties of the one being diametrically opposite to those of the other cause a perpetual conflict with them which is the same that we call Action Contact is no more necessary between the Soul and the Body to infer their action then it is between the Iron and the Load-stone which attracts it What Proportion can be found greater then between Act and Power the Form and the Matter the Soul and the Body which are in the same place As for Reaction supposing it to be necessary whereof yet we see no effect in the Sun nor the other Coelestial Bodies which no Man will say suffer any thing from our Eye upon which nevertheless they act making themselves seen by us And Lovers are not wholly without reason when they say a subject makes them suffer remaining it self unmoveable It is certain that our Soul suffers little less then our Body as is seen in griefs and corporal maladies which alter the free functions of the Mind caus'd by the influence of the Soul upon the Body through Anger Fear Hope and the other Passions The Soul then acts upon the Body over which it is accustom'd to exercise Dominion from the time of our Formation in our Mothers womb it governs and inures it to obey in the same manner as a good Rider doth a Horse whom he hath manag'd from his youth and rides upon every day Their common contentment facilitates this obedience the instruments the Soul makes use of are the Spirits which are of a middle nature between it and the Body Not that I fancy them half spiritual and half corporeal as some would suppose but by reason they are of so subtile a Nature that they vanish together with the Soul So that the Arteries Ventricles and other parts which contain them are found wholly empty immediately after death The Second said That if we would judge aright what ways the Soul takes to act upon the Body we need onely seek what the Body takes to act upon the Soul For the lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal to those from the circumference to the centre Now the course which it holds towards the Soul is thus The Objects imprint their species in the Organ of the outward Sense this carries the same to the Common Sense and this to the Phancy The Memory at the same time presents to the Judgement the fore-past Experiences which she hath kept in her Treasury The Judgement by comparing them with the knowledge newly arriv'd to it by its Phantasmes together with its natural habit of first principles draws from the same a conclusion which the Will approves as soon as Reason acquiesseth therein According to the same order the Will consignes the Phantasmes in the Memory and the Phancy this to the Common Sense and this to the Organs of the Senses For Example as soon as my Judgement hath approv'd the discourse which I make to you and my Will hath agreed thereunto she consign'd the species to my Memory that it might remember to reduce them into this order according to which my Memory distributed them to my Imagination this to my Common Sense this to the Nerves appointed for the Motion of my Tongue and the other Organs of Speech to recite the same and now into those of my hand to write them down to you The Third said That the clearing of the Question propounded depended upon two others First what link or union there may be between a Spiritual and a Corporeal thing Secondly supposing
that of the six sorts of Motion the Spirits can act onely by the Local how they can touch a Body to remove it locally since there is no Contact but between Bodies To the first I answer that there is no need of union such as that which joynes the Soul to the Body for joyning the Act with its true Power if there be any in us it must be that which we see is necessary for the communion of Action For when Actions cannot be exercis'd but by two parties of different Nature there is found an Union between those different Natures which is very natural and founded upon the necessity of such Action Wherefore I am so far from thinking the union of the Soul with the Body a strange thing that I should wonder more if there were none For the better understanding whereof it is to be observ'd that our Soul hath two sorts of Actions one peculiar to it self as to Will and to understand the other common with the Body as to See Hear Feel c. These latter are as much natural as the former And as if it were in a State in which it could not exercise the former that State would be violent to it and contrary to its Nature so it is equally troublesome to her while she cannot exercise the latter Since therefore it is a part of the Nature of the Soul to be able to exercise its functions it is consequently natural to it to be united to the Body seeing without such union it cannot exercise those functions Now I am no more solicitous to know what this union is then to understand what that is which unites one part of an essence with the other since the Body is in some manner the essence of the Soul making one suppositum and individual with it and the Soul hath not its Nature intire saving when it is united with the Body I pass to the Second and say that supposing two sorts of Contact one of a suppositum the other of Virtue the Spirits touch the Body which they move locally by a Contact of Virtue by impressing the force of their motive faculty upon the Body which they will move as my hand impresseth its motive virtue upon the ball which I fling which virtue though extrinsecal persists in the ball as long as it moves even when it is distant from my hand And although there is some disparity inasmuch as the hand and the ball are both corporeal which a Spirit and a Body are not yet since our Soul applyes its motive virtue to the Body which it animates it is probable there are many qualities common both to Spiritual and Corporeal Substances as is the power of acquiring habits And it is also likely that the power of moving from one place to another which is in a Spirit is not different in specie from that which is in a Horse although their Subjects differ If therefore the motive faculty of Bodies is that of the same species with that of Spirits why should we account it strange that that of a Spirit should be communicated to a Body The Fourth said That the Example of our Lord carried by the Devil to the top of a Mountain and of a pinnacle of a Temple shews sufficiently that Daemons can act upon Bodies and that all natural things falling under the cognisance of Sense are moveable in their activity yet not at once and in gross but one thing after another For an Angel not being an Informing Form ty'd and connected to any particular sensible Nature as the Rational Soul is but an Assisting Form that is an External Agent which moves and agitates it to pleasure it is indifferent and can determine to move what Body it pleases But sensible things are not subject to Spirits saving so far as Local Motion For the Devil acts either upon the Body or upon the Soul as it is in its Organs If upon the Body he either doth it alone or by the intervention of another Agent If the latter then there must be a Local Motion to apply the same to the Body upon which he causeth it to act for the tormenting or moving of it If he doth it by himself immediately and causeth pain in the parts it is either by solution of continuity or by distention of those parts or by compression of them All which is no more but dislocating them and moving them out of their right situation If he causes a Fever it is either by collecting the humours from all the parts For Example Choler which congregated together in too great quantity distempers the Body or else by restraining the perspiration of the fuliginous vapour which is the excrement of the third Concoction and being with-held within causeth the putrefaction of the humours and all this is local motion too By which also he produceth all the diseases which he is able to cause inspiring a putrid Air which like Leven sowers and corrupts the humours If he acts upon the Senses and the Passions he doth it either outwardly by some mutation of the Object or inwardly by some alteration of the Faculty If the former it is because by a Local Motion he formes a Body heaping together uniting and adjusting the materials necessary thereunto as the Air an aqueous vapour a terrene and unctuous exhalation and the heat of the Sun or some other which he employes artificially according to the experience which he hath acquired throughout so many Ages till he make them correspond to the Idea of the Body which he designes to form All the Actions of Men are perform'd in like manner by putting together conjoyning or retrenching or separating things In one word by apposition or separation If he acts internally upon the Faculty 't is either upon the Phancy or the Appetite or the External Sense Upon the Phancy either by compounding one Phantasm of many as it happens in sleeping or else by acting upon a single one to make it appear more handsome or ugly More handsome by the concourse of many pure clear refin'd Spirits which enliven and embellish that Phantasm as we see a thing appear more handsome in the Sun More ugly by the arrival of certain gloomy and dark Spirits which usually arise from the humour of Melancholy In the Appetite if he excites Love there 't is by the motion of dilatation expanding the Spirits and making them take up more room If Hatred or Sadness it is coarcting the same Spirits by compression He can also cause a subtile mutation in the outward Senses internally especially upon the sight As we see those that have a suffusion beginning imagine that they see Pismires and Flyes which others besides themselves behold not Moreover Melancholy persons often terrifi'd with various frightful representations the cause whereof is an humour extravasated between the Tunicles of the Eye under the Cornea before the Crystalline which disturbs the sight with various shapes by reason of its mobility as the Clouds appear to us of several figures
Thus and more easily can the Devil trasfer the humours and managing them at his pleasure make them put on what figure he will to cause delusion In fine all this is perform'd by the Local Motion of the parts humours or Spirits The Fifth said That the foundation of doubting is that there is requir'd proportion between the Agent and the Patient Which is prov'd because it is requisite that the patient which is in Power be determin'd by the form receiv'd and it seemeth that a spiritual thing cannot produce a form that may determine a material thing That it produceth nothing material is evident because the action and the product are of the same Nature Now the action of a Spiritual Entity cannot be material to speak naturally Yet it is certain that God acts in corporeal things though he is a pure Spirit But it may be answered That an Infinite Power is not oblig'd to the Rules of Creatures Besides that his Ubiquitary Presence sufficeth to impart Motion to all as also that he containing all things eminently is able to produce all things But if to contain eminently is to have a more perfect Being capable to do what the lesser cannot this is not satisfactory For the Question is How that more perfect Immaterial Being can produce that which Material Beings produce To which the saying that it is a more perfect Being doth not satisfie For then an Angel should be naturally able to produce all the perfections which are inferior to him which is absurd It followes therefore that the Cause must contain the Effect that it may be able to produce it and that since a spiritual Being doth not contain material things either those which we call Immaterial are not so at all or else God immediately produceth in them the effects which we attribute to them For I see not how immateriality is infer'd from immortality since there may be an incorruptible matter such as that of the Heavens is Which nevertheless is spoken rather to make way for some better thought then that I hold it as my own The Sixth said That there may be some Medium serving for the union between the Body and the Soul beside the Animal Vital and Natural Spirits to which Medium the many wonderful effects which we are constrain'd to ascribe to Occult Qualities ought to be referd'd For as they who know not that the Ring which Juglers make to skip upon a Table according to the motion of their fingers is fasten'd to them by the long Hair of a Woman attribute that Motion to the Devil So they who cannot comprehend the subtility of the Medium uniting not onely the Body with the Soul which informes it but also the other Spirits with the Body which they agitate find no proportion therein and are constrain'd to let experience cross their reason Now to understand the Nature of this uniting Medium I conceive is as difficult as to give an account of the Sympathies and Antipathies of things II. Which is more powerfull Love or Hatred Upon the Second Point the First said That Eâ—pedocles had reason to constitute Love and Hatred for the two Principles of Nature which though Aristotle endeavours to confute yet is he constrain'd to acknowledge the same thing though disguis'd under other words For when he saith that two of his Principles are contraries and enemies namely Form and Privation and nevertheless that they are united in one common Subject which is the Matter what is it else but to confess that all things are made and compos'd by the means of Love and Hatred They who own no other Principles but the Four Elements are of the same opinion when they say that all Mixt Bodies are made with a discording concord and a concording discord For as the Elements united together will never compose an Animal unless they be reduc'd to a just proportion and animated by rebatement of some little of the vigor of their active qualities so if there be no kind of War and Amity between them if the Hot act not against the Humid the Animal will never live since Life is nothing but the action of Heat upon Humidity However Amity hath something more noble and excites greater effects then Enmity For the former is the cause of the Generation and Preservation of Mixt Bodies and the latter of their dissolution and corruption Now it is much more noble to give and preserve Being then to destroy it Whence God himself found such perfection in his Creation and was so pleas'd with his Divine Work that though it frequently deserves by its crimes to be annihilated yet his Punishments have not hitherto proceeded so far This is no less true in Spiritual and Intellectual Substances then in Natural Gods Love hath more noble effects then his Hatred For to leave to Divines the consideration of that Love which had the power to draw the Second Person of the Trinity from Heaven with that which produces the Third as also to leave them to proclaim that God loves Good Actions and that the effect of this Love is Eternal Bliss that he hates Sins and that the effects of this hatred are the punishments of Hell that it is manifest that the glory of Paradise is much greater then of those Chastisements since what ever penalties God inflicts upon Man for his mis-deeds he renders Justice to him and do's not reduce him into a state inferior to or against his Nature but when he rewards with Eternal Glory he exalts our Nature infinitely higher then it could aspire let us consider Love and Hatred in Men and particularly as Passions according as the Question propounded seemes principally to be understood and no doubt Love will be found more violent then Hatred To judge the better whereof we must not consider them nakedly and simply as Love is nothing else but an inclination towards Good and Hatred an Aversion from Evil nor yet as such Good or Evil is present For in these two manners they have no violence nor any Motions since according to the receiv'd Maxime When the End is present all Motion and Action ceaseth But to know which of these two passions acts with most force and violence for the attaining of its end we must contemplate them with all the train and attendance of the other Passions which accompany them not as the one is an inclination to Good and the other an Aversion from Evil present For in this sense no doubt a Present Evil which causeth Grief is more sensible and violent then a Present Good which causeth Pleasure but as the one is a Desire of the Absent Good which is propos'd and the other a Flight from an Absent Evil which is fear'd I conceive the Passions excited by an Absent Evil have no great violence but rather partake of heaviness and stupidity as Fear and Sadness which render us rather unmoveable and insensible then active and violent in our Motions The Passions which lead towards an Absent Good are otherwise For
cannot be without great resentment of grief and sadness since its natural Colour is its brightness and to deprive the Soul of brightness and splendor is to deprive it of Life II. Why Men love Musick Upon the Second Point the First said That if Musick be not natural to the Heavens considering the regularity of their Motions which the custome of alwayes hearing hinders us from perceiving yet it is so to Man since he takes such Pleasure therein that Nurses quiet the frowardness of their Children in the Cradle by their Songs the Devotion of grown persons is increased by singing of Psalmes the Pipe and the Drum animate the Souldier to War and even Horses become more courageous by the sound of the Trumpet Not to mention David's Harp which drave away the evil Spirit from Saul nor the cure which Hoboys effect in those that are stung with the Tarantula causing them to dance till they sweat by which means they are cur'd of what otherwise would be mortal All which seemes more to be admir'd then explicated The Second said That the Solution of the present Question depends upon this other namely why certain Objects excite Pleasure and others Grief The truth is Nature hath joyn'd Grief with Hurtful Objects and Pleasure with profitable For otherwise having plac'd Living Creatures amidst Life and Death it might have hapned that through want of knowledge or else through intemperance some Creature might neglect the things which are profitable to it or made use of such as are hurtfull It is not to be fear'd that an Ox will eat Worm-wood or that an Animal will not pluck its leg out of the fire For Pain admonisheth both the one and the other to abstain from those Objects as on the other side Pleasure attracts us to those which preserve our Nature This Pleasure is not onely in the Object as it is suitable to our Nature but also in the Action it self As it is a very sweet thing to live so it is a great pleasure to exercise the Actions of life more or less according as the same are noble or necessary Whence it is that Nature hath placed more Pleasure in the Action which tends to preserving the species of Men then in that which preserves every individual in particular and yet more in this latter then in that of Seeing Tasting and the rest because that which regards the preservation of the individual namely Eating and Drinking is considerable in reference to Life and Being which it preserves but the rest are onely for well-being But in the Sense of Hearing there is not observ'd any Pleasure or Pain arriving by reason of the Object because in Hearing as well as in Seeing the Objects act onely intentionally not really and corruptibly Now Pain and Pleasure are not excited on the part of the Objects but by real Actions which cause alteration in their subject But the Hearing is capable thereof because it is a Natural Action and every Natural Action is perform'd with Pleasure Whence then cometh the Pain which our Ear receiveth with the sound It must be observ'd that the Sense of Touching is diffus'd through all the Body and every sensible part admits Pain which is an Accident of Touching Upon which account the Ear is endew'd with Two Senses it receives not onely sounds but the Tactile qualities Sounds of themselves excite neither Pain nor Pleasure but if together with sound the Air enters into the Organ and strike it too vehemently or stretches the Membrane more then its Nature is able to bear Pain is excited in the Ear not as it is the Instrument of Hearing but as it is endew'd with the Sense of Touching Moreover Pain may be excited in the Sense of Hearing another way For the understanding whereof it is to be noted that it is not sufficient that the word of him that speaks be formed and articulated in his Mouth by the help of the Teeth and the Tongue but the Ear must form it anew that you may hear it For which end it is contriv'd in form of a Snail-shell at the bottome whereof is plac'd a Drum an Anvil and a Hammer for the formation of sounds anew Now as we see the Organs which form words one after another are troubled and discompos'd when they are to form certain sounds which have any Cacophonia or uncouth sound amongst them as when I say il alla à Alenson I feel a certain unaptness in my Organs of speech and the reason of this unaptness is because the sequel or coherence of those sounds together doth not well sute with the manner of the Organs operation in regard it is natural to shut the Mouth after wide opening it as we do in the pronuntiation of A. Now if another A must be pronounc'd immediately after there is need of more force which is troublesome or else time must be allow'd between both to shut the Mouth without speaking a word which is also tedious to the Organ of speech which hastens as much as he can to pronounce the words intended So when the Ear comes to form the sounds anew as I said it doth if two or more happen together which require to be formed at once as they do which have the same tone or which gives not the Organ leisure to rest from one end to the other it resents the same unaptness and inconvenience Hence certain Concords in Musick please the Ear and others displease it This is seen ordinarily that it is displeasing to the Ear to form many sounds at a time as when two persons speak together or if it happen that the two sounds presented together to be formed are wholly opposite one to the other as one grave and the other sharp the Organ cannot form them both at once because they require two different wayes of operation to which the Ear cannot attend at the same time For it operates otherwise in forming a sharp sound then a grave and they both strike the Organ and rend it each after its own mode Whereby it is constrain'd to form them but as it is by force so it is not without Pain But when those two sounds the grave and the sharp are united in one proportion so that the sharp serves as it were for salt to the other and they are blended together this conjunction makes them consider'd but as one sound which the Ear finds very agreeable because it formes the same not onely without difficulty but also with Pleasure Hence the good Concord of Musick delights our Ears so much The Third said We have suffer'd under the Tyranny of the Peripateticks too long whereas the other Philosophers afford us excellent reasons Plato and Pythagoras will have all things to be Number or at least a participation and similitude of Numbers Aristotle agrees too that Musick is Number Now the perfect Number according to Pythagoras is that of Ten seeing all other Numbers are but repetitions of the first Ten. Of these Numbers the first pair is Female
that evil is the cause that we are never contented therewith I add further If it were possible to heap all the goods of the world into one condition and all kind of evils were banish'd from the same yet could it not fill the Appetite of our Soul which being capable of an infinite Good if she receive any thing below infinite she is not fill'd nor contented therewith Nevertheless this dissatisfaction doth not proceed from the infirmity and ignorance of the Humane Soul but rather from her great perfection and knowledge whereby she judging all the goods of the world less then her self the goods intermingled with miseries serve her for so many admonitions that she ought not to stay there but aspire to other goods more pure and solid Besides these I have two natural reasons thereof First Every Good being of it self desirable every one in particular may desire all the goods which all Men together possess Yet it is not possible for him to obtain them wherefore every one may desire more then he can possess Whence there must alwayes be frustrated desires and discontents Secondly The Desires of Men cannot be contented but by giving them the enjoyment of what they desire Now they cannot be dealt withall butas a bad Physitian doth with his Patients in whom for one disease that he cures he causeth three more dangerous For satisfie one Desire and you raise many others The poor hungry person asketh onely Bread give it him and then he is thirsty and when he is provided for the present he is sollicitous for the future If he hath money he is troubled both how to keep it and how to spend it Which caus'd Solomon after he had deny'd his Soul nothing that it desir'd to pronounce That All is vanity and vexation of Spirit The Third conceiv'd That the Cause of this Dissatisfaction is for that the conditions of others seem more suitable to us and for that our Election dependeth on the Imagination which incessantly proposeth new Objects to the Soul which she beholding afar off esteemes highly afterwards considering them nearer sees as the Fable saith that what she accounted a treasure is but a bottle of Hay The Fourth said That because every thing which we possess gives us some ground of disgust and we do not yet perceive the inconvenience of the thing we desire therefore we are weary of the present and hope to find less in the future Whence we despise the one and desire the other The Fifth added That Man being compos'd of two parts Body and Soul which love change it is necessary that he love it too Choose the best posture and the best food you will it will weary you in a little time Let the most Eloquent Orator entertain you with the most excellent Subject suppose God himself you will count his Sermon too long if it exceed two hours or perhaps less Is it a wonder then if the Whole be of the same Nature with the Parts The Sixth attributed the Cause of this Discontent to the comparison which every one makes of his own State with that of others For as a Man of middle stature seemes low near a Gyant so a Man of moderate fortune comparing his own with the greater of another becomes discontented therewith Wherefore as long as there are different conditions they of the lowest will always endeavour to rise to the greatest and for the taking away of this Displeasure Lycurgus's Law must be introduc'd who made all the people of Sparta of equal condition If it be reply'd that nevertheless they of the highest condition will be contented I answer that our Mind being infinite will rather fancy to it self Epicurus's plurality of worlds as Alexander did then be contented with the possession of a single one and so 't will be sufficient to discontent us not that there is but that there may be some more contented then our selves The Seventh said That the Cause hereof is the desire of attaining perfection which in Bodies is Light whence they are alwayes chang'd till they become transparent as Glass and in Spirits their satisfaction which is impossible For Man having two principles of his Actions which alone are capable of being contented namely the Vnderstanding and the Will he cannot satiate either of them One truth known makes him desire another The sign of a moderate Mind is to be contented with it self whereas that of a great Mind is to have alwayes an insatiable appetite of knowing Whence proceedeth this It is for that it knows that God created every thing in the world for it and that it cannot make use thereof unless it have an exact and particular knowledge of the virtues and properties of all things It knows also that it self was created for God and the knowledge of the Creatures is nothing but a means to guide it to that of God So that if it take those means which lead it to the end for the end it self it deceives it self and finds not the contentment which it seeks and will never find the same till it be united to its First Principle which is God who alone can content the Vnderstanding His Will is also hard to be satifi'd The more goods it hath the more it desires It can love nothing but what is perfect It finds nothing absolutely perfect but goodness it self For the Light and knowledge wherewith the Understanding supplieth it discover to it so many imperfections and impurities in the particular goods it possesseth that it distasts and despises them as unworthy to have entertainment in it Wherefore it is not to be wonder'd if Man can never be contented in this world since he cannot attain his utmost End in it either for Body or Soul CONFERENCE XIX I. Of the Flowing and Ebbing of the Sea II. Of the Point of Honour I. Of the Flux of the Sea THe First said That if there be any other cause of this Flux then the heaping together of the Waters from the beginning under the Aequinoctial by Gods Command whence they descend again by their natural gravity and are again driven thither by the obedience which they owe to that Command which is so evident that they who sail under the Aequator perceive them selves lifted up so high by the currents that are usually there that they are many times terrifi'd thereat there is none more probable then the Moon which hath dominon overall moist Bodies and augments or diminishes this Flux according as she is in the increase or the wane The Second said That the Moon indeed makes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea greater or less yea she governes and rules it because being at the Full she causeth a Rarefaction of its Waters But this doth not argue that she is the Efficient Cause of the said Flux The Sea rises at the shore when the Moon riseth in the Heaven and retires again when the Moon is going down their motions are indeed correspondent one to the other yet I know not how
Inclinations of the Soul cannot be ascrib'd to a corporeal cause such as the Stars are For if all were govern'd by their influences we should see nothing but what were good as being regulated by so good causes I acknowledge but two virtues in the Heavens Motion and Light by which alone and not by any influences of occult qualities they produce corporeal effects Thus ought Aristotle to be understood when he referreth the cause of the continual Generation of Inferior things to the diversity of the Motions of the First Moveable and the Zodiack And Hippocrates when he foretelleth the events of Diseases by the several Houses of the Moon The Fourth said It is impossible to make an Art of predicting by the Celoestial Motions for five reasons besides the dominion which our Will hath over Effects without which it were free 1. The Connexion that is between the Celoestial Bodies and the Sublunary is unknown to Men. 2. The diversity of the Celoestial Motions causeth that the Heaven is never in the same posture as it ought to be for the making of a sure and certain Art grounded upon many repeated Experiments according to which like Effects are to be referr'd to like Causes 3. The extreme rapid and violent turning about of the Heavens doth not afford to find the precise minute of a Nativity for drawing the Theme or Figure of the true state of Heaven which they say is necessary 4. As of sixteen Consonants joyn'd with five Vowels are made words without number so of a thousand and twenty two Stars and more with seven Planets may be made Conjunctions and Combinations to infinity which surpass the comprehension of humane wit there being no Art of things infinite 5. Two persons or more born at the same time under the same Elevation of the Pole and disposition of the Heavens as they speak yea two Twins as Jacob and Esau are found oftentimes different in visage complexion inclination condition and end But is it probable that a hundred Pioneers stifled in the same Mine or ten thousand Men dying at the same battle have one and the same influence The Fifth said God having from all eternlty numbred the hairs of our Heads that is to say foreseen even the least Accidents which ought or may befall Men he hath establish'd an order for them in the Heavens disposing the course aspects and various influences of the Stars to draw out of Nothing those accidents at the time that they are to happen to Men whom they incline to meet the same yet so as to leave it in the power of their Free-will to avoid or expose themselves unto them without any constraint This truth is sufficiently confirm'd by the exact and admirable correspondence which is found between the most signal accidents of our lives and the hour of our Nativities so that Astrologers not onely conjecture by the time of the Nativity what is to come to pass but they also come to the knowledge of the true minute of the Nativity by the time at which accidents arrive and take this course to correct Horoscopes and Figures ill drawn And although long Experience may attest the certainty of this Art yet I confess since the faculties and qualities of the Stars are not perfectly known to us and we cannot alwayes precisely know the disposition of Heaven much less all the combinations of the Stars Astrology in respect of us is very uncertain and difficult but not therefore the less true and admirable in it self It is like a great Book printed in Hebrew Letters without points which is cast aside and sleighted by the ignorant and admir'd by the more intelligent So the Heavens being enamel'd by Gods Hand with Stars and Planets as with bright Characters which by their Combinations figure the various accidents which are to befall Men are never consider'd by the ignorant to dive into their Mysteries but onely by the Learned who themselves many times commit mistakes when they go about to read them because those shining Characters have no other Vowels or rather no other voice but that of God who is the true Intelligence thereof The Sixth said Three sorts of persons err touching the credit which is to be given to Astrological Predictions Some believe them not at all others believe them too little and others too much As for the first since they cannot deny that the Stars are universal causes of sublunary effects that such causes are of different natures and virtues and that their action and virtue is dispens'd by the motion which is successive and known they must of necessity confess that knowing the disposition of sublunary subjects the nature of the Stars and their motion many natural effects may be fore-seen and fore-told from them The Devil himself knows no future things certainly but by foreseeing the effects of particular causes in their universal causes which are the Stars They who believe too little confess that the Stars act upon the Elements and mixt Bodies for very Peasants know thus much besides many particular effects of the Moon But as for Man whose Soul of it self is not dependent upon any natural cause but free and Mistress of its own actions they cannot or for Religion's sake dare not affirm that it is subject to Coelestial Influences at least in reference to manners Yet it is no greater absurdity to say that the Soul is subject to the Stars then to say with Aristotle and Galen that it is subject to the Temperament of the Body which also is caus'd by the Starrs from the influence and action whereof the Soul cannot exempt its Body nor the Temperament thereof by which she acts Lastly they who give too much credit to the Stars hold that all things are guided by a fatal and irrevocable order of Nature contrary to Reason which admits the Author to be the Master of his own work and to Experience which assures us of the standing still of the Sun for Joshuah of his going backward for Hezechiah and of his Eclipse at full Moon during the Passion The Fourth Opinion is certain that there is truth in Astrological Predictions but it behoveth to believe them onely in a due measure since the Science of it self is but conjectural II. Whether is less blameable Avarice or Prodigality Upon the Second Point it was said That Avarice is less blameable then Prodigality For the latter is more fertile in bad actions then the former which though otherwise vicious yet refrains from the pleasures and debaucheries in which the Prodigal usually swims The Holy Scripture intending to set forth an example of Infinite Mercy relates that of the Prodigal Son who obtain'd pardon of the sin which is least worthy of it Moreover Prodigality doth far less good then Covetousness for this always looks at its own profit and takes care for its own benefit and the preservation of its dependents so that it exerciseth at least the first fundamental of Charity which is to do well to those who are nearest
or seen some ridiculous thing we many times laugh at it though the Object be not present 'T is also Disproportion that makes us laugh for we do not so when we behold a great Beauty but we do so when we look upon some odd ill-contriv'd countenance or when we find little sutableness between the Objects which are represented to us as an Old-man making Love a huge Hat upon a small Head one intending to make a graceful Reverence or cut a fine caper and falling all along in brief every thing that is said or done incongruously besides our expectation especially if no other more violent Passion interpose as Fear Respect and Pity which suppress Laughter We laugh at a Man that falls down but should he break his neck with the fall our Laughter would give place to Compassion In fine it appears that there is made a retraction of the Nerves during Laughter for we see a Convulsion causeth the same motion of the Muscles of the Face that Laughter doth whence cometh that malady which is called Risus Sardonicus in which by the retraction of the Nerves towards their Original the Patient seemes to laugh as he dyes The Third said He knew not whether of the two had most reason Democritus the Laugher or Heraclitus the Weeper For though the Faculty of Laughing be peculiar to Man and inseparable from Reason yet immoderate Laughter is as unacceptable as continual Tears And whereas we read in the Holy Scripture that our Lord sometimes wept but not that he ever laught this may be resolv'd That nothing was new to him The same being recorded of Heathens so stay'd and reserv'd that they were never seen to laugh as Crassus Cato the Censor Phocion and some others There is more difficulty in stating the Cause of Laughter Aristotle attributes it to the Diaphragme which is dilated by heat But seeing we laugh less in a Fever when the Diaphragme is most heated it is certain either that every heat of the Diaphragme doth not produce this effect or some other cause must be joyned with it Which I conceive to be an impression made in our Senses and by them in our Phancy of some agreeable unusual and un-foreseen Object when the same slips into it unawares Which Object exciting Joy in us by the Dilatation of the Spirits which is made first in the Arteries of the Brain and thereby insinuated into these of the Heart which opens to that Joy those dilated Spirits swell the Blood in the Veins which accompanies them so that not being containable in their own place the Veins and Arteries swell till they make a reflux in the Brain Diaphragme Lungs Face and all the parts of the Body where they cause the concussion and agitation observ'd in excessive Laughter and sometimes Tears by the compression of the Brain whilst it is not possible for any to check the eruption what ever respect be presented to them yea sometimes the Spirits are so rarifi'd that they evaporate whence follows sudden death as it befell Chrysippus of old who seeing an Ass eat figgs at the end of his table fell into so vehement Laughter that he dy'd immediately The Fourth said Laughter is a motion of the Body which follows that of the Soul Its Object is a sudden Joy surprizing us as a pleasant word after a serious discourse The scorn we make of any one causeth Laughter likewise because Contempt is a kind of Anger made up of Pleasure and Grief When the Pleasure happens to be greater then the Grief as it happens when our Enemy is so weak that we can be reveng'd on him when we list this contentment causeth us to laugh And hence it is that Sleighting is more offensive then Hatred alone Joubertus thinks Laughter is excited when Pleasure expands the Heart which by that dilatation gives motion to the Diaphragme and this consequently draws the Muscles of the Lipps Aristotle saith that by tickling a motion is caused in the Spirits which go and come to the place where the Man feels the Pleasure which Spirits passing and repassing light upon the Nerves who being too sensible and sollicited by the continual motion and agitation thereof endeavour to drive the same away and to that purpose contract themselves and draw unto themselves the parts into which they are inserted Hence in a great Laughter a Man is forc'd to compress himself and the sides ake with much laughing by reason of the tension of the Muscles and Nerves which are most agitated in that place Wherefore in my judgement Laughter is caus'd in this sort The sudden Pleasure or Titillation excites a motion of the Spirits which being very subtile are easily carry'd up to the Head there their agitation and motion importunes the Nerves and the Brain so that in the midst of this Pleasure there is caus'd a kind of Convulsive Motion And for that this agitation is chiefly inward therefore the internal parts first feel the effects of that gentle Convulsion the Diaphragme being more pliant and receiving more Nerves of the sixth Conjugation is agitated the most vehemently In profuse Laughter the Nerves of the whole Body sympathize with this disposition of the Brain their Common Original which being importun'd by those Spirits who though but natural are yet able to incommode the same by their too great agitation it contracts it self to be discharged of them attracting the Nerves to it self as much as it can whence proceeds this kind of Convulsion The Fifth said That the cause of Laughter is two-fold namely its Object which is of great latitude as good news unexpected joy which it is impossible to receive without laughing and its Subject which is indeed the Diaphragme for they who are wounded in that part seem to dye laughing as Hippocrates in the seventh of his Epidemicks observes to have befallen one Plychon for the same cause And this is no otherwise then as a certain kind of Ranunculus an Herb we call Crowfoot being eaten causeth loss of the Spirits and by the contraction of the Lips represents the Convulsion which is made during Laughter CONFERENCE XXV I. Of the Diversity of Countenances II. Whether Man or Woman be the more noble I. Of the Diversity of Countenances IDentity is so disagreeable that in all the objects of the Senses it displeases us Our Taste is glutted with alwayes eating the same Bread The most excellent Odour at length causeth the Head-ake To look too wistly upon the same object or to be too long together beheld by the same Eye fixed upon us is troublesome The Ear is tyr'd with twice hearing the same Tune and being continually struck upon by one and the same discourse how excellent soever it be The Touch the grossest of all the Senses is weary of one and the same temper of Air whence is drawn a certain consequence That the people under the Equinoctial or other Climate alwayes like to it self are sooner weary of living then others who have not leasure to be
good examples who may innocently follow their inclination because it will lead them only to vertuous or at least indifferent things And for the vicious 't is certain the evil which they do not by reason of the repugnance which they have to it and the fear of punishment cannot be imputed to them for vertue nor consequently make them happy CONFERENCE XXXII I. Sympathie and Antipathy II. Whether Love descending is stronger then ascending I. Of Sympathy and Antipathy WHat a Father once said That the first second and third Point of Christian Philosophy was humility meaning that it all referr'd thereunto the same may be said of Sympathy and Antipathy which is the Similitude or Contrariety of Affections For the generation and corruption of all things is to be referr'd to them The sympathy of the simple qualities and the Elements wherein they are found are causes of the temperament of mixt bodies as the antipathy is of their dissolution 'T is they who unite and dis-unite those compound bodies and by approximating or removing them one from another cause all their motions and actions When these causes are apparent to us and may be probably imputed to qualities we recur to them as the most easie general and common But when we find bodies whose qualities seem alike to us and nevertheless they have very different effects we are then constrain'd to seek the cause thereof elsewhere and finding none we call it an Occult Propriety whose two daughters are Sympathy and Antipathy For Man being a reasonable creature is desirous to know the reason of every thing and when he cannot attain to it he becomes as much tormented as a Judge whose Jurisdiction is retrench'd and this through want of apprehending that what he knows hath no other proportion to what he ignores then finite yea very little hath to infinite And being unable to find the true reason of an infinite number of effects which ravish him with admiration yet resolving to have some one he feigns one under these names of Sympathy and Antipathy those two Hocus Pocus's to which he refers the cause why Corral stays bleeding Amber draws straw the Loadstone Iron which the Theamede rejects why the Star-stone moves in Vinegar the Cole-wort is an enemy to the Vines Garlick a friend to the Rose and Lilly increasing one the others ' odour why a man's fasting-spittle kills the Viper why Eeles drown'd in Wine make the drinker thenceforward hate it why Betony strengthens the Brain Succhory is proper to the Liver Bezoar a friend to the Heart and infinite others But because general causes do not satisfie us no more then Definitions whose Genuses are remote and the Differences common it seems we are oblig'd to a particular inquisition of their causes The Second said The Subjects in which Sympathies and Antipathies are found must be distinguish'd in order to assign their true causes For in things alike we may refer their effects to the similitude of their substances and accidents Thus the Lungs of a Fox are useful to such as are Phthisical the intestine of a Wolf is good for the Colick Eye-bright for the Eye Solomons's-Seal for the Rupture the black decoction of Sena for Melancholy yellow Rhubarb for choler white Agaric for Flegm Yet 't is not requisite that this resemblance be total for then a man's Lungs should rather be serviceable to the Phthisical then that of a Fox and the Load-stone should rather draw a Load-then Iron which yet do's not hold because there 's no action between things perfectly alike Antipathy also arises from the contrariety of Forms their qualities and other accidents Now we are much puzzl'd to assign the causes of this Sympathy and Antipathy in things which have nothing either of likeness or contrariety as when I see two unknown men play at Tennis the one with as good a grace as the other I have a kind of desire that one may rather win then the other Is it not rather chance which causes this Our will though free being always oblig'd to tend this way or that way and cannot chuse the worst or else all things being made by weight number and measure those affect one another most who have the same proportion in their composition or who had the same configuration of heaven at their birth Or every thing naturally affecting to become perfect seeks this perfection in all the subjects which it meets and when the same disposition is found in two several bodies or minds if they would arrive at that perfection by one and the same way this meeting serves for the means of union which is our sympathy and their different disposition or way the contrary The Third amongst sundry examples of Antipathy said That if we believe Apuleius the Look-glassing us'd by an incontinent woman spoils the visage of a chast that it is manifest between the horse and the Camel the Elephant and the Swine the Lyon and the Cock the Bull and the Fig-tree the Adder and a naked man the Ape and the Tortois the Serpent and the shadow of the Ash. For that which is observ'd amongst Animals who devour and serve for food to one another as the Wolf and the Sheep the Kite and the Chicken or amongst those who always offend and hurt one the other as Man and the Serpent deserve rather the name of Enmity whereof the causes are manifest But to speak truth all these effects are no more known to us then their causes are unknown He who endu'd them with Formes having annex'd Proprieties thereunto both the one and the other impenetrable to humane wit The Fourth said That for a lasting order amongst the creatures it was requisite that every one were naturally lead to its own preservation by adhering to what was conducible thereunto and eschewing the contrary Now to do this they needed instruments whereby to act which are their qualities either manifest which proceed from the Temperament and are either First or Second or else occult which proceed from every form and substance to which the Sympathies and Antipathies correspondences and contrarieties of all natural Bodies ought to be referr'd from whence issue some spirits bearing the character and idea of the form from which they flow These spirits being carried through the air just as odours are if their forces and vertues be contrary they destroy one another which is call'd Antipathy If the same be friendly they unite and joyn together the stronger attracting the weaker Hence Iron doth not attract the Load-stone but the Load-stone Iron So when a Wolf sees a man first the man loses his voyce or at least becomes hoarse because venomous spirits issue out the Wolfe's eyes which being contrary to those which issue out of the man inclose the same and by hindring them to flow forth hinder them from forming the voyce But when the man spies the Wolf first his effluvia being foreseen hurt less and have less power upon him because the man encourages himself against them The
temper a great quantity of subtile and brisk spirits quickness of wit a habit custom of doing some action as the Postilion who sadled bridled and rid his horse asleep and after making some careers brought him back to the Stable The Second said Though according to Aristotle in the 5. Book of the Generation of Animals there is some difference between a dream and this affection which causes men to walk in their sleep because saith he a dream is when the sleeper takes that for true which is presented to him though it be not so But when one dreams that he is in a place and is there indeed and doth really that which he imagines 't is rather a vision then a dream Nevertheless methinks their extraordinary motions may as well be referr'd to dreams as any other motions which are made in sleep considering that they come from the same cause are made by the same organs and differ not but in degree The one being made by a bare representation of the species and the other by a strong impression So that 't is no more wonder to see a man rise out of his bed walk get upon the ridge of a house climb a tree and do other like things without waking then 't is so see another dreamer speak in his sleep laugh cry stir his arms and legs both of them being led thereunto by the same means The Third said He wonder'd not so much to see a man walk in his sleep considering that 't is ordinary enough to those which travel provided they walk in a plain and even way as Galen records to have hapned to himself he having gone almost a league in that manner and not waking till he stumbled at the foot of a tree But he wonder'd indeed how they perform'd their actions better in the night then in the day and with more courage and wake not during those violent motions and stirrings The cause whereof is as I conceive that being awake they have a Reason which contradicts their Imagination and Appetite and which having an eye over all their actions the same are not so sure because they are less free in sleep at which time the faculties of the Understanding being as 't were consopited the others are carried towards their objects with more certainty then when they are controll'd and restrain'd by that superior faculty as we see servants are more brisk in their motions when they are out of their masters presence They act also with more boldness because having no knowledge of the present dangers they do not apprehend the same Which is observ'd in fools and children who do themselves less hurt in dangers because they apprehend them less Lastly the cause why they wake not during those great motions although they swim over rivers proceeds from the great quantity of those thick and glutinous vapours which stop the pores serving to the commerce of the spirits during the long time that they are dissipating according as 't is observ'd in drunkards or those that have taken somniferous medicaments who by reason of the excessive vapours of the wine or drugs awake not whatever be done to them Whence the melancholy temper is most prone to this affection because black choler which hath the consistence of pitch sends its gross vapours up to the brain and they are the most difficult to be resolv'd The Fourth said If men left themselves to be conducted by their natural inclination without making so many reviews and reflections upon what they do their actions would be much better and surer For as where two Masters are neither is obey'd so both the superior and inferior appetite striving to command in man neither the one nor the other is perfectly master Besides 't is an establish'd order of nature that things which have most proprieties and faculties have less certainty those which have most certainty have fewest proprieties Thus the Swallow makes its nest with more certainty then the Architect doth a house The Vine more assuredly makes the Grape then the Swallow its nest the stone more infallibly descends towards its centre then the Vine-makes the Grape because a stone hath only the first step of being the Vine besides hath a Vegetative being and the Swallow a Sensitive but Man who besides all these degrees hath Reason endeavours to make use of all these several Utensils and consequently makes use of none imperfection as he who is skill'd in sundry Crafts discharges not any so well as he who addicts himself but to one Now whilst a man is awake the variety of objects and of the powers which are mov'd in him hinder him from performing so perfect an action as when all the other faculties are bound up by sleep the sensitive alone remains mistress The Fifth said As there is but one straight line and infinite crooked so there is but one right manner of acting and infinite oblique The right line is that a man perform all his animal functions only awake the vital and natural as well asleep as awake Deviation from this rule happens a thousand several ways One is asleep when he should wake another is unquiet when he should sleep In a third inquietudes are only in the spirits the body remaining asleep In some both the spirits and the body are agitated only the judgement and reason are bound up Some Morbifick causes go so far as to inflame the spirits whence comes the Ephemera others more vehement alter and corrupt the humours whence the diversity of Fevers and amongst them Phrensies in which you see bodies scarce able to turn in the bed cast themselves out at a window run through the streets and hard to be restrain'd by the strongest So great a force hath the soul when she gets the head of Reason which serv'd as Bit and Cavesson to her Indeed if Naturalists say true that a spirit is able to move not only a Celestial Sphere but the whole world it self were it not restrain'd by a greater power 't is no wonder if the same spirit have a great power over a body which it informs when it hath shaken off the dominion of Reason as it happens in sleep-walkers The Sixth said 'T is probable that the more causes contribute to one and the same effect the more perfectly it is done Man being awake hath not only the action of all his parts but that of all his senses strengthned by the concourse of spirits renders his parts much more strong and vigorous then when his is asleep Reason assisted by daily experience avoucheth that he acts better waking then sleeping and yet we see the contrary in the persons under consideration Wherefore their agitation cannot be attributed to the soul alone which informs the body but to some spirit good or bad whether such as they call aerial Hob-goblins or others which insinuating into the body as into a ship whose Pilot is asleep governs and guides it at pleasure and as a thing abandon'd to the first occupant carries
that these changes can be real is repugnant to Reason and the order which God hath establish'd in Nature in which being nothing can act beyond its bounds 't is impossible for Devils to have the power to make a transmutation of substances For though they have some power upon natural bodies and even upon Men to try the good and punish the wicked yet the same is so limited that as they cannot create a Hand-worm so much less can they change substances and transform them into others which were to annihilate and create both together Besides 't is repugnant in regard of the Form which cannot inform and actuate any matter but that which is prepar'd and dispos'd for it Wherefore these transformations are either to be attributed to the Phancy alone which being perverted makes some conceit themselves not only beasts but glass earth other absurd things or else they are to be deduc'd from the depravation of manners For as in the Heroical State Men approach'd the Deity so in that of ferity they come near to the nature of beasts differing therein according to each Vice In regard of their voluptuousness the Companions of Vlysses were accounted Swine for his Cruelty one Lycaon a Wolf for their voices and thieveries the Companions of Diomedes transform'd into Birds the Learned taking that metaphorically which the vulgar doth literally II. Of the means to acquire Nobility Upon the Second Point it was said There are as many wayes of acquiring Nobility as there are several kinds of it That which comes by descent and is called Civil is not acquir'd but onely preserv'd and upheld by the resemblance and correspondence of our laudable actions with those of our Fore-fathers It begins in him who is ennobled encreases in the Children is perfected in the Nephews and lyes in the common opinion that the generous beget a generous off-spring That which comes from Riches is acquir'd by industry and good husbandry That which attends Ecclesiastical Dignities comes from Learning Piety and Favour Thus the Cardinals are Princes and the Nephews of Popes are Sovereigns in Italy The Doctoral which extends to Physitians and Lawyers the Body of whom the Emperours call the Seminary of Dignities declaring them Counts that is Counsellors and Assessors of Kings after exercising their charge twenty years comes from study knowledge and experience The Military from Courage and Valour That which is obtain'd by the grace or favour of a Prince whether it be by granting a Fief or Mannor which alone ennobles its possessor or not is acquir'd by merit and the services done to him They who desist from all mechanick and sordid action may become noble by virtue of the Prince's Letters That which comes from the Custome of places is obtain'd by administration of the chief Magistracies in a City to which the Officers are admitted by Election as the Capitouls or Sheriffs at Tholouse and at Poictiers and Maires and Scabins were ennobled by the priviledge of King Charles V. where we must not confound the ancient Chevalry which are the Gentlemen with the newly ennobled who may indeed be call'd Nobles but not Gentlemen The Second said The Sacred History gives the first Nobility to Hunters when it saith that Nimrod who was the first King upon Earth was a mighty Hunter Aristotle gives it to such as excell in any Art or Exercise whom he saith are so many Kings in their profession Many to the Inventors of things profitable to Humane Society and indeed Antiquity plac'd such in the number of the gods Experience causes us to add a fourth sort of persons whose Bodies or Minds or both are endu'd with such gentle and winning perfections that in what ever condition they be even the meanest that they discover a connatural Nobility through it and differ as much from the vulgar as precious stones from others to use Ronsard's comparison who saith that when Deucalion and Pyrrha repair'd mankind they threw precious stones to make the Nobility and common stones to re-people the world with the vulgar The Fifth said That true Nobility cannot be acquir'd but by arms which are the only original of ancient Nobility For since more hazards are to be undergone in war then in time of peace it was necessary to sweeten the toil of arms by annexing Nobility more inseparably to them then to any other exercise to the end that the life of Warriors being usually shorter then that of others by reason of the dangers whereto it is subject they may in recompence live with more honour Otherwise there 's none but would prefer the shadow and ease of Cities before the travels and hardships of the Campaigne whereas the most desirous of honour prefer above any thing that guerdon of warlike vertue which is in the hand of Sovereigns who as Solon saith hold the life honour and estates of men of whom they make some Deniers others Millions according as they dispose the same The Fourth said There 's no true Nobility besides that of extraction this being unanimously receiv'd in all States yea amongst the most barbarous Nations 'T is for this reason desin'd by the Civilians an Illustriousness of Lineage and splendor of Ancestors with succession of Coat-Armour and Images confer'd upon some person and through him to his Family by the Prince Law or Custom in reward of Vertues which are serviceable to the State and humane Society And although such vertues are proper and particular to their Possessor yet as the dishonour and infamy which follow Vices and Crimes reflect upon Descendants so the Nobility which follows those vertuous actions and is nothing else but the honour and reward which accompanies them is diffus'd also to Posterity and like the streams of Springs less considerable in their original is increas'd by time and the more remote it is the more it is esteem'd the highliest priz'd being that which is like Nilus whose rise is unknown Thus the Athenians glory'd that they were Autocthones or sprung from the Earth because their Nobility was so ancient that they affirm'd it impossible to assign the first Author of it for which reason they wore golden Cockle-shells at their hair because these Insects never relinquish the place of earth whence they took birth As the Arcadian Nobles wore Moons in their Hats and the Romans Crescents upon their shooes but for several ends the former intimating thereby that they were a people as old as the Moon and the latter denoting by this figure of the changeable Moon the inconstancy of Woman which sometimes abases the most illustrious and raises the most abject Families The Fifth said That Nobility depends not only on opinion as they seem to conclude who have no other ground of it but it hath its foundation in a solid and real cause namely in the proper merit and peculiar actions of every one So that to speak accurately 't is no more in the power of any one whatever to ennoble an unworthy and undeserving person then to make a
their internal is unknown to us Now divers Minerals have the same proportion that Trees have and the cause why Mines are larger is because they are not agitated by winds nor in danger of falling as Trees are to whose magnitude for that reason Nature hath been constrain'd to set bounds and although Minerals grow much more then they yet it do's not follow that they have not certain terms prefix'd to their quantity If they bear neither flowers nor fruits 't is so too with some Plants upon which the Sun shines not as the Capillary Herbs which grow in the bottom of Wells and some others also as Fern. And the case is the same with this common Mother the Earth as with Nurses for as when they become with child the infant whom they suckle dyes so where there are Mines under the Earth nothing grows upon the surface The decaying and old age of stones is also a sign of their being vital as appears by the Load-stone which loseth its strength in time and needs filings of Iron to preserve its life All which being joyn'd to what Scaliger relates that in Hungary there are threds of gold issuing out the earth after the manner of Plants perswades me that Minerals have a particular soul besides that universal spirit which informs the world and its parts but this soul is as much inferior to that of Plants as the vegetative is below the sensitive II. Whether it be best to know a little of every thing or one thing perfectly Upon the second Point it was said Sciences are the goods of the mind and the riches of the soul. And as 't is not sufficient to happiness to have riches but the possesser must be able to preserve and enjoy them so 't is not enough to have a great stock of notions but they must be brought into the light and put in practice Now this is done better by him who understands but one single thing perfectly then by him who knows a little of all ordinarily with confusion which is the mother of ignorance This is what they call knowing a little of every thing and of all nothing For being our mind is terminated the object of its knowledge ought to be so too whence it is that we cannot think of two thing at the same time Thus of all the world mine eye and my mind can see but one thing at one time one single Tree in a Forest one Branch in a whole Tree yea perfectly but one single Leaf in a whole Branch the exception of the mind like that of the eye being made by a direct line which hath but one sole point of incidence And the least thing yea the least part is sufficient to afford employment to the humane soul. Hence the consideration of a Fly detain'd Lucian so long that of a Pismire exercis'd the wit of a Philosopher three and forty years That of the Ass sufficiently busi'd Apuleius Chrysippus the Physitian writ an entire volumn of the Colewort Marcion and Diocles of the Turnep and Rape Phanias of the Nettle King Juba of Euphorbium Democritus of the number of Four and Messala made a volumn upon each Letter Even the Flea hath afforded more matter to sundry good wits of this age then they found how to dispose of How then can man who is ignorant of the vilest things be sufficient to know all The Second said If the word knowledge be taken strictly for a true knowledge by the proper causes 't is better to know a little of every thing then one thing alone If for a superficial knowledge 't is better to know one thing solidly then all superficially that is a little well then all badly For 't is not barely by action that the Faculty is perfected but by the goodness of the action One shot directly in the mark is better then a hundred thousand beside it one single Science which produces truth is more valuable then all others which afford onely likelihoods and all conjectural knowledge is no more wherewith nevertheless almost all our Sciences overflow out of which were all that is superfluous extracted it would be hard to find in each of them enough to make a good Chapter as appears by the small number of Demonstrations which can be made in any Science yet those are the onely instruments of knowledge Hence it is that he who applyes himself to many Sciences never succeeds well in them but loses himself in their Labyrinth for the Understanding can do but one thing well no more then the Will can Friendship divided is less as a River which hath more then one Channel is less rapid and he that hunts two hares catches none Of this we have many instances in Nature which ennables the Organs to perform but one action the Eye to see and the Ear to hear and one tree brings forth but one kind of fruit In well govern'd Families each officer discharges but one employment In States well order'd no Artificer exercises above one Trade whereas in Villages one work-man undertakes five or six Mysteries and performes none well like the knife or sword of Delphos spoken of by Aristotle which serv'd to all uses but was good for none The Third said The Understanding being a most subtile fire a Spirit alwayes indefatigably moving and which hath receiv'd all things for its portion 't is too great injustice to retrench its inheritance to clip its wings and confine it to one object as they would do who would apply it but to one single thing not considering that the more fewel you supply to this fire the more it encreases is able to devour Moreover it hath a natural desire to know every thing to go about to confine it to one were to limit the conquests of Alexander to an acre of Land And as every Faculty knows its object in its whole latitude and according to all its species and differences the Eye perceives not onely green and blew but all visible colour'd and luminous things the Touch feels cold hot soft hard things and all the tactile qualities the Phancy is carry'd to every sensible good the Will loves all that is good and convenient In like manner the Understanding which is the principal Faculty of Man and though it be most simple yet comprehends all things as the Triangle the first and simplest of all figures containes them all in it self since they may be resolv'd into and proved by it ought not to be in worse condition then the others its inferiors but must be carry'd towards its object in the whole extent thereof that is know it If sundry things cannot be conceiv'd at a time that hinders not but they may successively Besides that the variety of objects recreates the Faculties as much as the repetition of one and the same thing tires enervates and dulls it The Fourth said All things desire good but not all goods So though Men be naturally desirous of knowing yet they have a particular inclination to know
equal The reason is because all the world is eager to get and therefore 't is a trouble to a Man to keep what he hath For the profit of one not arising without the dammage of another as there is no generation without corruption nothing accrues to one but what the other loses Wherefore the striving of every one to get shews the pains there is in gaining something from another and again being every one gapes after another's goods it is difficult to preserve the same as a beast after which all the world is in chase can hardly save it self Hence Diogenes said that Gold might well be pale since every one layes plots to entrap it The Second said That as for the guarding of a Place it is requisite that the same be fortifi'd on all sides whereas there needs but one breach or one gate open'd for the surprizing of it so it seems there is more pains requir'd to keep then to get Besides the ways of losing and spending are almost infinite and far easier then those of gaining or acquiring which are very few To get 't is sufficient to have strength common to Men and Beasts but to preserve there needs Prudence not onely peculiar to Man but with which very few are well provided This is prov'd also by Nature which acquires new formes by one single action but cannot preserve the same without many For Conservation is the duration of the existence of a thing and this duration a continual production of it and consequently more difficult then Acquisition which is dispatch'd by one simple generation The Third said States and Families are increas'd by acquiring and upheld by preserving what they acquir'd Both the one and the other are very difficult as Experience teaches us for we see but few Families and States advanc'd and on the contrary many others fall to decay Nevertheless it seemes more painful to get then to keep For if he who possesses much is troubled to preserve it he that hath nothing is much more troubled to get something it being far easier for him who hath a stock already not onely to preserve but increase it then for him who hath nothing at all to become Master of any thing as there is more of miracle in Creation then in Conservation of the Universe and as 't is harder to make leven out of nothing then to make new paste with the leven which one hath already Therefore the Latin verse tells Aemilian that if he is poor he will alwayes be so because no body gives any thing but to the rich as too many examples evidence The Fourth said As 't is the same virtue in the Load-stone which retains and which attracts the Iron and that which preserves is the same with that which produces so to keep and to get are but one and the same thing since he who by his good management preserves his goods continually makes them his own But as the harder a weight is to be lifted up 't is the harder to be held up so the more labour there is in acquiring the more there is also in preserving the thing acquir'd Hence those who have undergone hard toyle to get an estate are more busied in keeping it then they who receive one from another without pains And upon this account 't is that Aristotle saith Benefactors love those they do good to better then they are belov'd by them because 't is more pains to oblige then to be oblig'd and women love and preserve their children so tenderly and dearly because of the pain which they undergo in bringing them forth Yet because this Sex is designed to look after the goods of the family and men to procure them it may seem thereby that 't is harder to get then to keep otherwise the strongest should not have the more difficult task as equity and justice require The Fifth said The Question is resolv'd chiefly by considering the diversity of times inclinations capacities and things In Seditions or Wars 't is hard for a man to keep his own the stronger dispossessing the weaker and the Laws being little heard amidst the clashing of Arms. In Peace when justice secures every man's possession 't is easier to preserve In Youth acquisition is more facile yet keeping is not so easily practis'd then as in old age The Prodigal does violence to himself when he finds a necessity of saving and thinks nothing more difficult The Slothful man knows not how to get any thing The Covetous finds difficulty in both but the greatest in keeping and therefore apprehending no security amongst men after having experienc'd the trouble of securing his wealth by the honesty of others from the frauds of Debtors the subtlety of Lawyers the violence of Thieves he is oftentimes reduc'd to hide his Treasure under ground Persons of courage and great vivacity of spirit but defective in discretion are more in pain to keep then to get As it was said of Alexander Hanibal and many other great Captains that they knew better how to overcome then to make use of their Victory And indeed these two qualities seem inconsistent for Conquerors have almost always been so magnificent as that they have given away with one hand what they acquir'd with the other reserving nothing to themselves but hope and glory whereas preserving seems proper to the Magistrate and civil Judge Lastly some things are acquir'd with great facility but difficulty kept as Friendship which oftentime is gotten in an instant but more difficult yea almost impossible to continue The favours of Lovers are ordinarily of this rank being more easily gotten then kept On the contrary Knowledge is kept with more ease then it is gain'd because ignorance must first be remov'd out of the Understanding and this is a matter of difficulty whereas to preserve knowledge the species need only be stirr'd up again and the more they are excited they become the more strong and vigorous contrary to other things which perish in the use For the same actions which produc'd the habit preserve it but with much less difficulty then it was acquir'd The same may be said of Vertues for 't is harder for a bad man to become good then for one of this latter sort to continue in the exercises of vertue As for the goods of the Body Beauty Strength and Health as they are frail so they are easie to lose the Jaundise the small Pox the least disorder in our humours are sufficient to alter or destroy them utterly The goods of Fortune so call'd because they depend upon so incertain and mutable a cause that he that hath them can searce call himself master of them as riches and honours are hard to get and easie to lose inasmuch as a man must perform an infinite number of vertuous actions to obtain promotion but a single bad action is enough to ruine him It having pleas'd God in order to keep every one within their duty that in this world as well as in the other our felicity
naturally keep up above the water yet by enclosing it in some sort of vessel you may violently make it continue under the water II. Of the capricious or extravagant humours of women Upon the second Point it was said It is not here pronounc'd that all women are capricious but only the reason inquir'd of those that are such and why they are more so then men To alledge the difference of souls and suppose that as there is an order in the Celestial Hierarchies whereby the Archangels are plac'd above Angels so the spirits of men are more perfect then those of women were to fetch a reason too far off and prove one obscure thing by another more so Nor is the cause to be found in their bodies taken in particular for then the handsome would be free from this vice the actions which borrow grace from their subject appearing to us of the same nature and consequently their vertues would seem more perfect and their defects more excusable whereas for the most part the fairest are the most culpable We must therefore recur to the correspondence and proportion of the body and the soul. For sometimes a soul lights upon a body so well fram'd and organs so commodious for the exercise of its faculties that there seems more of a God then of a man in its actions whence some persons of either Sex attract the admiration of all world On the contrary other souls are so ill lodg'd that their actions have less of man then of brute And because there 's more women then men found whose spirits are ill quarter'd and faculties deprav'd hence comes their capricious and peevish humour For as melancholy persons whose blood is more heavy are with good reason accounted the more wise so those whose blood and consequently spirits are more agile and moveable must have a less degree of wisdom and their minds sooner off the hooks The irregular motions of the organ which distinguishes their Sex and which is call'd an animal within an animal many times have an influence in the business and increase the mobility of the humours Whence the health of their minds as well as that of their bodies many times suffers alteration A woman fallen into a fit of the Mother becomes oftentimes enrag'd weeps laughs and has such irregular motions as not only torment her body and mind but also that of the Physitian to assign the true cause of them Moreover the manner of living whereunto the Laws and Customs subject women contributes much to their defects For leading a sedentary life wherein they have always the same objects before their eyes and their minds being not diverted by civil actions as those of men are they make a thousand reflections upon their present condition comparing it with those whereof they account themselves worthy this puts their modesty to the rack and oftentimes carries them beyond the respect and bounds which they propos'd to themselves Especially if a woman of good wit sees her self marri'd to a weak husband and is ambitious of shewing her self Another judging her self to merit more then her rival not knowing to whom to complain of her unhappiness does every thing in despight And indeed they are the less culpable inasmuch as they always have the principles of this vice within themselves and frequently find occasions abroad The Second said that the word Caprichio is us'd to signifie the extravagant humour of most women because there is no animal to which they more resemble then a Goat whose motions are so irregular that prendre la chevre signifies to take snuffe without cause and to change a resolution unexpectedly For such as have search'd into the nature of this animal find that its blood is so sharp and spirits so ardent that it is always in a Fever and hence it is that being agitated with this heat which is natural to it it leaps as soon as it comes into the world Now the cause of this temper is the conformation of the Brain which they say is like that of a woman the Ventricles of which being very little are easily fill'd with sharp and biting vapours which cannot evaporate as Aristotle affirms because their Sutures are closer then those of men those vapours prick the Nerves and Membranes and so cause those extraordinary and capricious motions Hence it is that women are more subject to the Meagrim and other diseases of the head then men And if those that sell a Goat never warrant it sound as they do other animals there is no less excuse in reference to women Which caus'd the Emperour Aurelius to say that his Father in law Antoninus who had done so much good to others had done him mischief enough in giving him his daughter because he found so much bone to pick in a little flesh Moreover the Naturalists say that the Goat is an enemy to the Olive-tree especially which is a symbol of peace whereunto women are not over-well affected For not to mention the first divorce which woman caus'd between God and man by her lickorishness her talking her ambition her luxury her obstinacy and other vices are the most common causes of all the quarrels which arise in families and in civil life If you would have a troop of Goats pass over any difficult place you need force but one to do it and all the rest will follow So women are naturally envious and no sooner see a new fashion but they must follow it And Gard'ners compare women and girles to a flock of Goats who roam and browse incessantly holding nothing inaccessible to their curiosity There is but one considerable difference between them the Goat wears horns and the woman makes others wear them The Third said There is more correspondence between a woman and a Mule then between a woman and a Goat for leaving the Etymology of Mulier to Grammarians the Mule is the most teasty and capricious of all beasts fearing the shadow of a man or a Tree overturn'd more then the spur of the rider So a woman fears every thing but what she ought to fear The obstinacy of the Mule which is so great that it has grown into a Proverb is inseparable from the whole Sex most of them being gifted with a spirit of contradiction Mules delight to go in companies so do women the bells and muzzles of the one have some correspondence with the earings and masks of the other and both love priority The more quiet you allow a Mule it becomes the more resty so women become more vitious in idleness neither of them willingly admits the bridle between their teeth The Mule is so untoward that it kicks in the night time while 't is asleep so women are oftner laid then quiet Lastly the Mule that hath seem'd most tractable all its time one day or other pays his master with a kick and the woman that has seem'd most discreet at one time or other commits some notorious folly The Fourth said That those who invented the little
Medals representing the upper part of a woman and the lower of a Mule commend this Sex whilst they think to blame it For there is nothing more healthy strong patient of hunger and the injuries of seasons or that carries more and is more serviceable then a Mule Nature shews that she is not satisfi'd with her other productions whilst she makes other animals propagate by generation but when she has made a Mule she stops there as having found what she sought Now if certain actions of women seem full of perverseness and capricio to some possibly others will account them to proceed from vivacity of spirit and greatness of courage And as the Poet in great commendation of his black Mistress chanted her cheeks of Jet and bosom of Ebeny so whatever some people's mistake may say to the contrary the most capricious woman is the most becoming Nor is this humour unprofitable to them for as people are not forward to provoke a Mule for fear of kicks so we are more shie of women then otherwise we should be for fear of capricioes well understanding the difference which the Proverb puts between the van of the one and the rear of the other Yet some hold that this capriciousness of women follows the Moon no less then their menstruosities do Others that the flower of beans contributes very much to it The Fifth said That if credit is to be given to experience Solomon who had experience of a thousand women compares an ill capricious woman to a Tygress and a Lyoness Such were Medea Xantippe and many others Moreover the Poets say that the Gods intending to punish Prometheus for having stoln the celestial fire gave him a wife And when Satan afflicted Job he depriv'd him of his flocks of his houses and of his children but had a care not to take his wife from him knowing that this was the onely way to make him desperate as it would have done without God's special grace The Rabbins say three sorts of persons were exempted from publick charges and could not be call'd into judgement to wit the Poor the Nephritick and he that had a bad wife because they had business enough at home without needing any abroad The Laws likewise exempted new marry'd men from going to the wars the first year of their marriage allowing them this time which is the roughest and most important to repress their quarrelsomeness and reduce their fierce Spouses to duty Which if the Husbands could not effect a little bill of Divorce appointed by God and the Laws for putting an end to the poor Man's miseries did the business Though the Chaldeans us'd not so much formality but onely extinguish'd the domestick fire which the Priest kindled at the marriage Yet the priviledge was not reciprocal neither Divine nor Humane Laws having ever allow'd women to relinquish their Husbands for then being as capricious and inconstant as they are they would have chang'd every day For the same reason the Laws have alwayes prohibited to women the administration of publick affairs And the Religion of the Mahumetan Arabians assignes them a Paradise apart because say they if the women should come into that of the men they would disturb all the Feast CONFERENCE XLVII I. Of the Virtue of Numbers II. Of the Visible Species I. Of the Virtue of Numbers THe Mind of Man resembles those who make the point of their tools so small that they spoil them with too much sharpning and in the contemplation of natural causes there is more then enough to satisfie his desire of knowledge were it not that he will attempt every thing Hence it is that the causes of different effects here below are sought in things the most remote and no otherwise appertaining to them then that as accidents and circumstances Of these accidents some have action as Quality others have none as Quantity under which are comprehended Number Figure Lines Surface and its other species which are consider'd either in some matter or else abstracted from it in the former of these wayes they have some virtue in regard of their matter but not in the latter An Army of fifty thousand Men is potent but the number of fifty thousand can do nothing yea is nothing if taken abstractedly Wherefore as reasonable as it is to seek the virtues of simple and compound bodies in their qualities and to say e. g. that Pepper bites and alters the Tongue because it is hot and dry so absurd it seemes to think that five or seven leaves of Sage apply'd to the Wrist have more virtue then six or eight The Second said Nothing includes more wonders in it self then Number and if our Reason cannot penetrate their cause they ought to be the more esteem'd for being unknown This is the universal opinion of all Antiquity both Jewish and Pagan which otherwise would not have made so much adoe with them Yea there 's divine authority for it contain'd in the eleventh Chapter of Wisedom God made all things in number weight and measure Experience justifies their Energy teaching us that certain numbers are to be observ'd in cases where we would have the like effects which possibly is the canse why the operations of one and the same remedy are found so frequently different We see Nature so religious in this observation in all her works that she never produces an Animal but the proportion of seeds is adjusted most exactly that in Plants their grains and all other parts have the same taste colour and virtue whence it is that simple medicaments are alwayes more certain then compound because Nature either produces them not at all or makes them with the same number weight and measure of matter and qualities 'T is through the virtue of number that such a Plant as Coloquintida is mortal when it grows alone and medicinal when many of them grow together The Third said The Pythagoreans and Platonists ascrib'd so great power to numbers that they thought all things were compos'd of them and more or less active according to their several proportion Of which they made four sorts First the Poetical or Musical the virtue whereof is such that it gave occasion to the Fable of Orpheus who is said to have drawn even beasts trees and rocks by the harmonious sound of his Harp 'T was by the cadence of the like numbers that David chas'd away Saul's evil spirit and Poetry which differs from Prose onely by its numbers hence derives the power it hath over mens souls The Second sort is the Natural and is found in the composition of all mixt bodies The Third is Rational peculiar to Man whose soul they term'd a moving number the connexion whereof with the body they said continu'd so long as the numbers which link'd them remain'd united together The Fourth Divine upon which and the Natural the Cabalists and Magicians have founded their profoundest secrets and Agrippa his Occult Philosophy But above all others they particularly esteem'd the odd number styling
it perfect and Masculine as on the contrary the even imperfect and Feminine Indeed we observe that the Birth of Man happens for the most part in an odd moneth to wit the seventh or ninth in the rest the Infant seldome comes forth alive Also most of the alterations of our bodies happen according to the septenary number whence the number 83. call'd for this reason the grand Climacterical is so greatly fear'd because 't is produc'd by seven multiply'd into nine Physicians never appoint Pills in an even number Good Crises alwayes happen on an odd day and he that loses his Ague at an even fit necessarily falls into a relapse Which cannot be attributed to any thing but number For such effects as are produc'd by the quality or quantity of the matter appear with it and therefore if these caus'd the Crisis it would not be wholly at once but begin and proceed by degrees according to the augmentation of the matter as fire is increas'd by new wood cast upon it But the motion of Crises is alwayes sudden and many times against all appearance The Fourth said As the beginning of all things is a most simple essence so all Numbers spring from Unity which is no Number of it self but the beginning of Number Osellus calls it the Symbol of Peace and Concord because it is indivisible and with the Philosophers Unity Verity Goodness and Essence are one and the same thing Whence it follows that the Binary is the first of all numbers wherewith Nature is so highly delighted that she ha's exactly observ'd it in the structure of Man the Organs of whose senses and almost all his members are double and therefore 't is also so carefully observ'd by Architects But the Ternary concerning which Ausonius writ an entire volumne being the first odd number is of more efficacy it is competent to the Deity and his works the world is distinguish'd into three Ages there are three sorts of Souls in Nature three Faculties in Man and three principal parts in his Body Which caus'd Aristotle to say in his first Book De Coelo Chapter 1. That all things are comprehended under this Number Tria sunt Omnia The Qaternary dedicated to Mercury is the first even and square number highly esteem'd by the Pythagoreans because it contains the grand number of Ten for 1 2 3 4 put together make Ten and by the Jews upon the Art of the Divine Tetragrammaton or Name of four Letters Moreover there are four Elements four Seasons four Humours four Ages and four Cardinal Virtues As for the Quinary we see there are five most Simple Bodies in Nature five Senses and five Fingers on a Hand The Senary according to Saint Jerome contains the mysterie of the Creatures because it arises from the double proportion of the quaternary to the binary Nevertheless the Septenary ha's been accounted the most mysterious of all because 't is compounded of the first odd number and first even Square namely three and four And 't is held that by virtue of this number the seventh Son born of the same Mother without any interposition of the other sex hath a particular gift of doing cures Orpheus so esteem'd the Octonary that he swore onely by it and the Eight Deities to wit the four Elements the Sun the Moon Light and Darkness This number was alwayes held for the Emblem of Justice because 't is the first Cube and hath a most perfect equality in all its parts The Novenary being compounded of three Triads the first odd and most perfect number is also of great efficacy whence the Heavens the Muses and the orders of Angels have been compriz'd in it Lastly the Denary which is the first conjoyned number includes all the preceding By all which it appears that there is some efficacy not onely in numbers in general but also in every one in particular The Fifth said That which is most considerable in number is that 't is the most sensible exemplar of the Deity of whom you cannot conceive so many perfections but there will still remain more to be imagin'd as you cannot ad so many numbers together but you may yet add more This is peculiar to it that there is a least number to wit two but no greatest because you may alwayes assign a greater Yet there 's no number how great sover but may be expressed For set down a thousand figures in a row and as many below them multiply the one by the other the sand of the sea do's not equal this number What will it be then if you multiply the same again which you may do as often as you please Here writing will surpass speech for you cannot count it It s perfection is also manifest in that the Philosophers knew not how to express the formes and essences of things better then by comparing them to numbers For as every number is so perfect and complete a total in it self that you cannot add or diminish any thing from it and it remain the same number so are the essences of things Moreover t is particular to Man for he alone amongst all Creatures reasons speaks and computes Whence Amphistides was adjudg'd a fool because he could not count above five And Pythagoras assignes no other cause of the ratiocination of Man but this that he understands how to compute or reckon For Number is made by order and connexion of many unites which actions cannot be perform'd but by the Understanding The Sixth said Number being nothing in it self but a simple work of the Understanding cannot produce any real effect And supposing it could yet Parity and Imparity are but accidental not substantial formes and therefore incapable of rendring a number more or less active Which made Galen doubt whether Pythagoras could attribute so much power to it and yet be wise For as for Plato 't is very probable he ascrib'd this virtue to Formes and Essences which he termes Formal and Rational numbers rather then to real and true numbers abstracted from Essence Whereas some have divin'd prosperous and sinister accidents by the imparity or parity of the syllables in some person's name or whether should live longest the Husband or the Wife by the greater or less number of their letters this is rather to be referr'd to Chance then to any thing else The Seventh said Nature makes all her works in Number since she makes them in Time which is the number of Motion Yet 't is not Number that acts but Nature alone For Number is incapable of all action having no essence of it self but by accident and not so much as an essence of reason For the Understanding conjoyning many unites together which are indivisibles and consequently negations frames a number And if many unites of substance cannot make a real total it self much less can many unites of Quantities II. Of the Visible Species Upon the Second Point it was said That there is nothing barren in Nature but every thing incessantly produces its
made for man the greatest happiness that can befall them is to serve him in something though by the loss of their lives But this is rather a fair excuse to cover our cruelty and luxury seeing Animals are no more proper then Plants to nourish man Witness our first Fathers before the flood who were so long-liv'd although they liv'd not of flesh Whence 't is inferr'd too that inanimate things may nourish us better then Plants For the taste is an ill judge in this cause the Eele amongst animals and the Peach amongst fruits affording the worst nourishment though they rellish most deliciously The Similitude of substance is of little consideration for Animals live not of their like and the Cannibals are ordinarily all Leprous That a thing may be food 't is sufficient that it have an humidity or substance proportionate to ours in what order of things soever it be found And nature has had no less care of nourishing an animal then of healing it but she has endu'd all sublunary bodies with properties medicinal to man Lastly we cannot reckon among Plants those excrescenses which we call Truffes and are held to be produc'd by thunder in some kinds of earth whence they are gather'd and yet they nourish extremely The Sixth said When that which enters into the Stomack is alter'd by it 't is call'd aliment for heat is the chief Agent by which it is united and assimulated whence it comes to pass that according to the diversity of this heat Hemlock serves for nourishment to the Starlings but kills man Now to judge whether that which hath had life be more proper for nutrition then that which hath not we need only consider upon which of the two the natural faculty which disperses this heat acts most powerfully which no doubt it doth upon that which hath had life since it hath the conditions requisite to food being in some sort like as having been alive and also qualifi'd to become so again because when a form forsakes its subject it leaves dispositions in it for a like form to ensue 't is also in some sort unlike being actually destitute of life Wherefore as that which hath life really cannot nourish a living thing because of its total resemblance and there is no action between things alike otherwise a thing might act against it self since nothing is more like to any thing then it self So that which never had life cannot nourish an animal by reason of its intire dissimilitude and because between things wholly unlike there is no action II. Of Courage Upon the second Point If 't is worthy admiration that amongst Animals a little dog gives chase to a multitude of Oxen whence the Hebrews call a Dog Cheleb that is to say All heart in regard of his courage 't is more to be wonder'd that amongst men who are of the same species and fram'd after the same manner one puts to flight three others greater stronger and oftentimes more dextrous then himself The cause hereof is attributed to heat but besides that we see many sufficiently heated in every other action but cold when it comes to fighting as they say there are good Grey-hounds of all sizes so there are great courages of all tempers and although the hair complexion stature and habit of body are the most sure witnesses yet every body knows that there are valiant men found of all hairs and statures yea of all Ages the seeds of courage being manifest in children and the remainders in old men It seems therefore that courage proceeds from the fitting and well proportion'd temper and structure of the heart and arteries for when these are too large the spirits are more languid and the actions less vigorous either to repell present dangers or meet those which are future Yet the Cholerick are naturally more dispos'd to magnanimity the Phlegmatick and Melancholy less and the Sanguine are between both Education also and custom are of great moment as we see Rope-dancers and Climbers perform strange feats with inimitable boldness because they have been us'd to walk upon Ropes and climb the Spires of Churches from their youth So a child that has been accustom'd to dangers from his infancy will not fear any Moreover Honour and Anger are great spurs to valour especially when the latter is sharpned by the desire of revenge which is excited by injury derision or ingratitude Exhortations too are very effectual And therefore when ever Caesar's Souldiers did not behave themselves well he observes that he had not had time to make a speech to them Nor is Necessity and the consideration of present danger to be omitted for the greatest cowards oftentimes give proofs of courage upon urgent occasions when there 's no hope of flight and one of the best wiles of a General is to take from his Souldiers all hope of retreat and safety otherwise then in victory Example also prevails much both as to flying and to fighting Wherefore those that run first ought to be punish'd without mercy as they who first enter a breach or are farthest engag'd amongst the enemies deserve great acknowledgement of their vertue But particularly amongst persons acquainted and mutually affectionate courage is redoubled by the presence of the thing belov'd witness the sacred Legion of the Thebans But the desire of honour and hope of reward are the most powerful incitements to valour Upon which account the King's presence is always counted equivalent as all his Troops together The Second said Courage is a vertue plac'd between boldness and fear Yet it is chiefly conversant in moderating fear which is an expectation of evil Amongst the evils and adversities which cause terrour to men some are to be fear'd by all and cannot be slighted by a vertuous man as ignominy punishment for a crime or other infamy Others may be fear'd or despis'd without blame if our selves be not the causes of them as Poverty Exile and Sickness And yet a man is never the more couragious for not fearing them For a Prodigal is not couragious for not fearing Poverty an impudent fellow that hath lost all shame may easily despise banishment as Diogenes did and a Sot will be insensible of an incurable disease which a wise man supports patiently Lastly some evils are to be contemn'd as all dangers and misfortunes which necessarily come to pass in life and death it self in the despising of which the greatness of courage principally appears especially in that which happens in the wars fighting for one's Prince and Country as being the most honourable and glorious of all The Third said No vertue can keep us from fearing death which gave so great apprehension to the most wise and to our Lord himself and which Aristotle deservedly calls the most terrible of terribles the same Philosopher also teaching us that a vertuous man infinitely desires to live and ought to fear death because he accounts himself worthy of long life during which he may do service to others and he knows
which have a great latitude according to the degrees of their mixtion from which they are said to be attenuating or incrassating detersive or emplastick rarefying or condensing laxative or astringent attractive or repelling mollifying or hardning And by this Second Faculty alone Medicaments act upon the Matter The Third Faculty of Medicaments arises not from their qualities or matter but from their form and specifick occult virtue as in Sena the Faculty to purge Melancholy in Terra Sigillata or Lemnia to fortifie the Heart against poysons as also that Scorpions kill with the tail and certain poysons cause death without any alteration of the Temper The Fourth said diseases are consider'd either in their genus in their species or in their individuals In the first way as a Disease is nothing but a disposition contrary to Nature and injuring the actions so it is cur'd by introducing the natural disposition In the second if it be a intemperature e. g. cold in the second degree its specifick is hot in the same degree if it be an Organical Disease as an Obstruction the onely remedy is to unstop the passages if it be solution of Continuity all that 's to be done is to conjoyn that which is divided But if a Disease be consider'd in the Individual then particular remedies of the same nature be employ'd which are the true specificks The Fifth said 'T is true of the causes of Health as well as of those of Diseases that the same thing is hurtful or healthful to one but not to another not onely amongst the different species but also amongst the individuals of the same species in regard of the several circumstances A remedy that recover'd one kills another yea that which not long ago was healthful to an individual person is now quite contrary So that 't is impossible to assign any specificks for an individual person which nevertheless is the subject on which the cure is to be done and not the species of man The Sixth said Every thing in Nature is determin'd to a particular action proceeding from its form and essence which is more adapted to such action then to any other So a Tree is determin'd to produce one kind of fruit rather then another Now the same may be said of Remedies drawn from the three families some are proper to purge a particular humour whence they are callld Cholagoga Melanogoga Hydragoga Emeticks Diureticks Diaphoreticks Discussives Sternutatories and Bechicks others strengthen a particular part whence they are call'd Cardiacks Cephalicks Hepaticks and Splenicks some have a faculty of resisting particular poisons so Treacle is specifical against the biting of a Viper a Scorpions flesh apply'd upon its own wounds heals it Oyle of Pine-nuts is good against Arsenick Long Aristoloch or Rue against Aconitum or Wolfs-bane Citron Pill against Nux Vomica or the Vomiting Nut the seeds of Winter-cherry against the Cantharides or Spanish Fly Mumie against Ulcers caus'd by Tithymal the flower of Water-lilly against Hellebore the root of Eglantine Gentian Bawme Betonie Pimpernel are excellent against the biting of a mad Dog and so others of the like nature Some Medicaments are call'd Amulets because being worne about the neck or lay'd to some part of the Body they preserve from Diseases So by the testimony of Galen Peony worne about the neck averts the Falling-sickness the dung of a Wolf eases the Cholick and the Jasper strengthens the stomack Trallianus affirmes that the Eagle-stone Aetites cures Quotidian Agues the Beetle and green Lizard Quartanes that the forehead of an Ass and a nail taken out of a shipwrack'd vessel is excellent for the Epileptick Fits The ashes of Frogs is good against bleeding the Lapis Judaicus and the blood of a Goat are useful against the stone of the Kidneys the water of a Stag's horn and the bone of his heart are excellent for infirmities of the heart Now to refer all these wonderful effects to the First Qualities is a groundless thing And therefore Galen derides his Master Pelops for attempting to render a reason of them The Seventh said That Physick invented at first by use and experience has nothing to do with Reason in things which fall manifestly under our senses but onely in such as surpass their comprehension which being confirm'd by Reason are much more infallible Nevertheless when Reason seems repugnant to Experience we must rather hold to Experience provided the same be establish'd upon many observations Now since Experience shews that there are Specifical Remedies although humane wit in regard of its weakness cannot find out the cause of them yet 't is better in this case to rely upon the testimony of the senses destitue of Reason then to adhere to Reason contradicted by Experience Moreover if there be Specificks for some Diseases there are so for all but they are unknown to us by reason of their multitude And who is he that can know the virtues and properties of every thing which is in the world The Chymists are of this opinion for they hold that all Medicaments have Signatures or particular marks and figures by which they have resemblance with the parts or diseases of Man's Body and which are as 't were the titles and inscriptions imprinted upon them by God's Hand to teach Men their faculties Hence the herb Lung-wort is very good for the Lungs Ceterach and Harts-tongue for the Spleen Poppy and green Nuts for the Head Satyrium for the Testicles Winter-cherry for the Bladder Birth wort for the Womb Madder for broken Legs Eyebright for the Eyes Solomons seal and Thorow-wax for Ruptures because the root of the one resembles a Rupture and the stalk of the other passes through its leaf as the Intestine doth through the Peritonaeum the roots of Tormentil red Sanders and the stone Haematites for bleeding blessed Thistle and other prickly Plants for the pungent pains of the side II. Whether Tears proceed from Cowardise The Second Point may be determin'd by comparing the great and little world together In the former the Suns heat draws up vapours and exhalations into the Air if the vapours be more in quantity then the other they dissolve into rain if less then the exhalations are turn'd into winds lightnings and other igneous meteors And as we cannot infer from thence that the Sun suffers any alteration or is colder and hotter for whether it rains or be fair he is still the same So neither must we attribute new qualities to the reasonable soul though it finds in the brain a matter either apt to be condens'd into tears or to be resolv'd into the blustering stormes and other effects of Choler yet 't is alwayes the same soul which according to the various temper of the body is easily or hardly mov'd to tears Women Children and old men are prone to weep because their brain is more moist then that of men of middle age and again those of them who are flegmatick and sanguine are more inclin'd to tears then the cholerick and
the subtilest sense to wit the Sight The Fifth said That the nobleness of the Touch appears principally in that 't is the most infallible of all the senses as the most honourable persons are accounted most worthy of credit Therefore our Lord being to convince S. Thomas at that time incredulous caus'd him to feel his side and manifest things are call'd palpable because the Touch is the last sense that is deceiv'd Whence they who dream do not frequently find their errour till putting forth their hands to the phantasin they begin to be convinc'd that it is nothing but air The Sixth said That as 't is a common vice to all the Senses to be deceiv'd so that of Touch is not more exempt from it then the rest and the less because it judges of the quality of its objects only by comparison according to the diversity of which one and the same thing diversly affects it and is sometimes apprehended one way sometimes another A man that comes out of a hot Bath shivers in the same air which he accounted warm before he enter'd into the water and when he that learns to dance puts off his leaden soles he thinks his feet lighter then he did before he put them on The Seventh said The Touch is an external sense terrestrial and gross it perceives hot and cold dry and moist heavy and light hard and soft smooth and rough or unequal acide viscous or slippery thick and thin tough and friable or brittle and other such tactile and earthy qualities For as there are five simple Bodies in Nature namely the Heaven and the Elements so each of the five external Senses corresponds to one of them the Sight to Heaven in regard of its transparence and lucidity the other four to the Elements of which the Earth symbolizeth with the Touch because every thing that is felt must have some solidity and consistence which proceeds from the Earth otherwise it could not make it self felt by it self but only by some predominant quality as we feel not the air when it touches us unless it be extreamly cold or hot The Organ of Feeling is inward skin which incompasses the whole body of a creature by reason of its so perfect and equal temperature that it is neither hot nor cold dry moist but equally partakes of all these qualities a requisite condition in the Organs of the senses which must be unprovided of all the qualities whereof they are to judge So the Crystalline humour is without colour the tongue without sapour the nostrils without scent the ears without any sound And the skin is neither hard like the bones nor soft like the flesh but of a temper between both being therefore call'd a Nervous flesh and a fleshy Nerve which skin never so little touch'd feels perfectly which would not come to pass if it were not the Organ of the Touch. 'T is therefore woven of infinite nerves terminated in it and bringing the animal spirits to it which are the efficient causes of the Touch as well as of all the other Senses For what the Philosopher saith That a sensible object apply'd upon the Organ is not perceiv'd must be understood only of the three Senses which are for the convenience of an animal to wit the Sight Hearing and Smelling not of the other two which are for its absolute necessity upon which consideration Nature hath appointed them to judge more neerly exercising these two Senses by a medium internal and inseparable from the Organ II. Of Fortune Upon the second Point it was said Fortune is a cause by accident in things which are done for some end by an Agent that makes use of Reason So 't is fortune when one walking for his health or divertisement finds a Purse but chance hazard or adventure is in things which act for some end without election as brutes mad people and children who are not fortunate or unfortunate unless in hope The difficulty of understanding the nature of Fortune ariseth from the infinite abundance of things which may be causes of things which befall men And as 't is proper to man to admire what he understands not upon the observation of the many strange and unforeseen accidents in the world some say that they come to pass by a fatal destiny necessarily guiding every cause to its effect others that they fall out by chance to which the ancient Philosophers ascrib'd so much that Empedocles accounted the situation of the Elements fortuitous Democritus and Leucippus thought the production of all things was effected by the casual concourse of their atomes flying in the vacuum insomuch that out of a blind superstition they erected Temples and Altars to Fortune For indeed there is nothing divine in Fortune since there is not any cause by it self but may be a cause by accident and consequently Fortune Nor is it the Divine Providence since that which is foreseen cannot be call'd fortuitous But we give the appellation of Fortune to any cause which missing of its proper effect produceth another which it intended not The Second said 'T was the ignorance of men that invented Fortune which hath no other existence but in their imagination For every thing that is hath a certain cause determined to its effect But Fortune and Chance are uncertain and indeterminate therefore not causes And although the proximate cause of every thing be unknown to us yet 't is not the less certain for all that in respect of God who ignores nothing Therefore if there be a fortune in respect of us 't is an effect of our ignorance The Third said We must establish in Nature either Destiny or Fortune The former seems to fasten man to Ixion's wheel which permits him not to do any thing of himself and takes from him the commendation of good and blame of evil rendring him by this means guiltless of whatever he do's and laying all upon universal causes whatever distinction may be made of God's will in general and particular it not being conceivable that two contrary wills can at the same time proceed from the same source The second is more correspondent with the daily events which produce effects whereof no necessary cause can be found Indeed if effects are to be divided according to their causes 't is certain that some are necessary and some contingent whereof the latter being fortuitous cannot be referr'd to any thing but to Fortune Yea of the things which come to pass in the world some always arrive in the same manner as day and night when the Sun rises and sets others fall out ordinarily but not always as that a child is born with five fingers on a hand there being some that have six and others on the contrary arrive very rarely as Monsters But if this variety of causes and effects hath place in natural things 't is found much oftner in humane actions whose constancy is unconstancy it self there being not any whose effect is certain For what man can promise himself
be a corporeal substance and Democritus and Epicurus conceiv'd saying that Light is an Emanation of particles or little bodies from a lucid body or as they who make it a species of fire which they divide into That which burnes and shines That which burns and shines not and That which shines but burns not which is this Light For no natural body is mov'd in an instant nor in all sorts of places as Light is but they have all a certain difference of position or tendency some towards the centre others towards the circumference and others circularly The Sixth said 'T is true Light is not of the nature of our sublunary bodies for it is not generated and corrupted as they are It is not generated since generation is effected by corruption of one form and introduction of another But we have instances of incorruptible Light even here below as that in the Temple of Venus which could not be extinguish'd nor consum'd though neither oyle nor wick were put to it and that other found in a Sepulchre where it had burn'd for fifteen hundred years but as soon as it took Air went out And indeed the subtilety and activity of Fire is such that it may be reasonably conceiv'd to attract the sulphurous vapours for its subsistence which are in all parts of the Air but especially in Mines whose various qualities produce the diversity of subterraneal fires as to their lasting continuance and interval which some compare to the intermitting fevers excited in our bodies by a praeternatural heat II. Of Age. Of the Second Point it was said That Age is the measure of the Natural Changes whereunto Man is subject by the principles of his being which are various according to every ones particular constitution some being puberes having a beard or grey haires or such other tokens sooner then others according to the diversity of their first conformation Whence ariseth that of their division Aristotle following Hippocrates divides them into Youth Middle Age and Old Age or according to Galen into Infancy or Child-hood vigour or Man-hood or old age or according to most they are divided into Adolescence Youth the Age of Consistence and Old Age. Adolescence comprehends Infancy which reacheth to the seventh year Puerility which reacheth to the fourteenth year Puberty which reacheth to the eighteenth and that which is call'd by the general name Adolescence reaching to the five and twentieth Youth which is the flower of Age is reckon'd from twenty five to thirty three years of age Virile and Consistent Age from thirty five to forty eight where Old Age begins which is either green middle or decrepit These Four Ages are the Four Wheeles of our Life whose mutations they denote the First being nearest the original hot and moist symbolizing with the blood the Second hot and dry with Choler the Third cold and dry with melancholy the Fourth cold and moist with Phlegme which being contrary to the radical humidity leads to death Now if it be true that they say that life is a punishment and an Abridgement of miseries Old Age as being nearest the haven and the end of infelicities is the most desirable Moreover being the most perfect by its experiences and alone capable to judge of the goodnesse of Ages 't is fit we refer our selves to the goodnesse of its judgement as well in this point as in all others The Second said Since to live is to act the most perfect and delightful of all the Ages of life is that in which the functions of body and mind whereof we consist are best exercis'd as they are in Youth which alone seems to dispute preheminence with Old Age not onely by reason of the bodily health and vigor which it possesses in perfection and which supplies Spirits and Courage for brave deeds whereof that declining Age which is it self a necessary and incurable malady is incapable but also in regard of the actions of the mind which is far more lively inventive and industrious in young persons then in old whose wit wears out grows worse with the body whence came that so true Proverb That old men are twice children For 't is a disparagement to the original of wisdom to deduce it from infirmity to name that ripe which is rotten and to believe that good counsels can come only from the defect of natural heat since according to his judgement who hath best described wisdom old age causes as many wrinkles in the mind as in the face and we see no souls but as they grow old smell sowre and musty and acquire abundance of vices and evil habits of which Covetousness alone inseparable from old age which shews its weakness of judgement to scrape together with infinite travel what must shortly be forsaken is not less hurtful to the State then all the irregularities of youth Now if the supream good be in the Sciences then the young men must infallibly carry the cause since sharpness of wit strength of phancy and goodness of memory of which old men are wholly destitute and ability to undergo the tediousness of Lucubration are requisite to their acquisition If it consists in a secret complacency which we receive from the exercise of vertuous actions then young men who according to Chancellor Bacon excel in morality will carry it from old men it being certain that the best actions of life are perform'd between twenty and thirty years of age or thereabouts which was the age at which Adam was created in Paradise as our Lord accomplish'd the mystery of our Redemption at the age of 33 years which shall also be the age at which the blessed shall rise up to glory when every one shall enjoy a perfect youth such as given to the Angels and put off old age which being not much different from death may as well as that be call'd the wages of sin since if our first Parent had persisted in the state of Innocence we should have possess'd the glory of perpetual undeclining Youth Moreover 't is at this Age that the greatest personages have manifested themselves we have seen but few old Conquerors and if there be any he hath this of Alexander that he aspires to the conquest of another world not having long to live in this Wherefore in stead of pretending any advantage over the other ages old men should rather be contented that people do not use them as those of Cea and the Massagetes who knock'd them on the head or the ancient Romans who cast them head-long from a Bridge into Tiber accounting it an act of piety to deliver them from life whose length was displeasing to the Patriarchs the Scripture saying that they dy'd full of days The Third said That the innocence of Infants should make us desire their age considering that our Lord requires that we be like them if we would enter into his Kingdom and the Word of God speaks to us as we do to children Moreover since Nature could not perpetuate infancy she
and these being dissipated by age the species put forth themselves by little and little as Characters engraven on wood or stone cover'd over with wax appear proportionably as it melts off And therefore he term'd all our knowledge a remembrance but although he err'd herein yet reason'd better then Aristotle who admitted the Metempsychosis but deny'd the Reminiscence both which are necessary consequents one of the other The Second said That the operations of the Intellect are so divine that not being able to believe the same could proceed from it self it refers them to superiors For it invents disposes meditates examines and considers the least differences it compounds and divides every thing apprehends simple termes conjoynes the subject and the attribute affirms denyes suspends its judgements and alone of all the Faculties reflects upon it self yea by an action wholly divine produces a word For as in speaking a word is produc'd by the mouth so in understanding is form'd the word of the Mind Yet with this difference that the former is a corporeal patible quality imprinted in the Air and not the latter for intellection is an immanent operation Hence some have thought that all these divine actions were perform'd by God himself whom they affirm'd to be that Agent Intellect which irradiating the phantasmes produces out of them the intelligible species which it presents to our Intellect Others ascrib'd them to an Assisting Intelligence Some to a particular genius But as I deny not that in supernatural cognitions God gives Faith Hope and Charity and other supernatural gifts in which case God may be said to be an Agent Intellect I conceive also that in natural and ordinary knowledge of which alone we speak now no concourse of God other then universal is to be imagin'd whereby he preserves natural causes in their being and do's not desert them in their actions ' This then the Understanding it self which performes what ever it thinks surpasses its strength which it knows not sufficiently and the Agent and Patient Intellect are but one being distinguish'd onely by reason As it formes that species 't is call'd Agent as it keeps and preserves them Patient For as the Light causes colours to be actually visible by illuminating them together with the Air with their medium so the Agent Intellect renders all things capable of being known by illustrating the phantasmes separating them from the grosness of the matter whereof they have some what when they are in the Imagination and forming intelligible species of them Otherwise if these phantasmes remain'd still in their materiality the Understanding being spiritual could know nothing since that which is sensible and material remaining such cannot act upon what is spiritual and immaterial Besides the species of the Phancy representing to us onely the accidents of things it was requisite that the Intellect by its active virtue subliming and elevating those species to a more noble degree of being should make them representative species of their own essence Which it doth by abstraction of the individual properties of their subject from which it formes universal conceptions which action is proper to the Intellect This supreme Faculty being so noble that it ennobles all beings rendring them like to it self The Third said That the Intellect is to the Soul such as the Soul is to the body which it perfectionates And as it knows all corporeal things by the senses so it knows incorporeal by it self This Faculty serves for a medium and link uniting all things to their first cause and 't is Homer's golden chain or Jacob's ladder which reaches from Earth to Heaven by which the Angels that is the species and most spiritual notions ascend to the heaven of man which is his brain to inform him and cause the spirits to descend from thence to reduce into practice the excellent inventions of the Understanding Now as Reason discriminates men from brutes so doth this Intellect men amongst themselves And if we believe Trismegistus in his Pimander God has given to all men ratiocination but not Understanding which he proposes for a reward to his favourites Aristotle saith 't is the knowledge of indemonstrable principles and immaterial forms Plato calls it Truth Philo the Jew the chief part and torch of the Soul the Master of the little world as God is of the great both the one and the other being diffus'd through the whole without being mix'd or comprehended in any part of it The fourth said That the humane is a substance wholly divine and immortal since it hath no principle of corruption in it self being most simple and having no contrary out of it self Eternal since 't is not in time but above time Infinite since its nature is no-wise limited and is every thing that it understands changing it self thereinto not by a substantial mutation but as the First Matter is united with the formes remaining alwayes the same Matter the wax remaining entire receives all sort of figures So the intellect is not really turn'd into the things which it understands but only receives their species wherewith it is united so closely that it is therefore said to be like to them As likewise though it be call'd Patient when it receives them 't is not to be inferr'd that it is material since these species are material and acting upon the Intellect alter it not but perfectionate it Moreover it hath this peculiarity that the more excellent these species are the more perfect it is render'd whence after the highest things it can as easily comprehend the less An assured token of its incorruptibility and difference from the senses which are destroy'd by the excellence of their objects But as the soul being freed from the body hath nothing to do with sensitive knowledg because then it ratiocinates no more but beholds effects in their proper causes commanding and obeying it self most perfectly exempted from the importunity of the sensitive appetite so while it is entangled in the body it receives some impressions resulting from the parts humours and spirits destinated to its service being in some sort render'd like to them So the soul of one born blind is ignorant of colours the cholerick are subject to frowardness and the melancholy timerous by reason of the blackness of that humour The Fifth said All actions of men depending on the temper those of the Understanding so long as it is entangled in the bonds of the body are not free from it For as that of Plants gives them the qualities proper to attract concoct and convert their aliments and generate their like and beasts having a temper sutable to their nature are lead as soon as they come into the world to what is convenient for them without instruction So men are lead of their own accord to divers things according as their souls meet dispositions proper to certain actions yea they are learned without ever having learn'd any thing as appears in many phrantick and distracted persons amongst whom some although ignorant
have been seen to make good Verses others to discourse learnedly of the sublimest matters some to speak languages and tell things to come Which may naturally proceed from the souls being capable of it self to know every thing the past by help of the memory the present by all the senses and the future by the Understanding and meeting with a brain whose temperature is by disease render'd proper for such actions the same being possible to befall it by such accidents as happens by age which changing the temper of the body is also the cause of the diversity of actions Therefore children cannot perform the functions of the reasonable soul because they are of a hot and moist temper unapt for the actions of the actions of the Understanding as on the contrary very fit for the actions of the vegetative and sensitive soul. So that if men were born cold and dry they would come into the world perfectly wise and judicious but because they acquire this temperature of brain only with time therefore they are not knowing but with time II. Whether the Husband and Wife should be of the same humor Upon the second Point it was said That it might be handled either physically or morally If it be demanded upon the former principles whether the Husband and Wife should be of the same temper 't is answer'd that as Nature hath distinguish'd the Sex so she hath assign'd to either its peculiar temperament if a woman which should be cold and moist be hot and dry she is unapt for generation as the husband also is when being ill qualifi'd with hot and dry he falls within the Law de Frigidis But if it be question'd morally whether conformity of manners be more requisite to Matrimony then their diversity and difference then since diversity of actions is necessary in a family the office of the husband being other then that of the wife it seems they ought to be as different in manners as they are in the temper which produces such manners and these the inclinations and actions The Second said Those Philosophers who held that the Male and Female were each but one part of man which name is common to both would have concluded for resemblance of humours and manners for they said that either sought his other half till they found it Which made the friendships so boasted of in pass'd ages and so rare in this and likewise marriages of which they that take more notice find that but few married couples have no resemblance even in their countenance Moreover marriages being made in heaven and the most considerable accidents of life the same influence which makes the marriage of the husband must also make that of the wife and if all actions here below borrow their force from the heavens as Astrologers hold the husband and wife having the same universal cause of so great and notable a change whereon depends almost all the welfare and misery of either cannot but resemble one another And therefore those who resemble one another most will agree best with their universal cause and consequently the Stars will find less resistance to produce their effects upon them and so they will live more sweetly then if by contrariety of manners they should do as the Traveller at sea who walks in the ship contrary to its course or who attempts to sail against wind and tyde or rather like those that draw several ways whereby the cord is sooner broken then any advancement made of the load so during this contrariety of manners nothing can go forward in the management of domestick affairs Hence the Proverb that we must eat many a bushel of Salt with a man before we chuse him for a friend is interpreted that by semblance of food a similitude of manners with him must be acquir'd which if requisite between two friends how much more between two married persons who ought not to have greater friends then they are one to the other being in society of all the goods and all the evils of this life Imagine one of a pleasant the other of a melancholy humour one loving company the other solitude the opposition of these contrary inclinations will render the presence of the one as insupportable to the other as Musick and Dancing are displeasing to a sad man or tedious complaints for one dead are to him that is dispos'd to mirth For by this disproportion the mind receives a check which is very disagreeable to it If one be young and the other old one handsome the other deformed one of an amorous complexion and the other not the mischiefs which follow thereupon are too common to be enumerated If one be nimble and the other slow the actions of the one will displease the other whereas that which pleases being or appearing good and nothing next our selves being so acceptable to us as what resembles us two persons who shall agree to do something or not to do it shall have peace and tranquillity of mind The Third said That in Oeconomy as well as Policy there ought to be a harmony which consists in diversity and not in unisonance or identity which is every where disagreeable and dull This made Aristotle desire that the man were at least ten years elder then the woman the disparity of age causing that of humours and this makes the difference which is found between individuals one of the greatest wonders of the world Therefore the husband and wife ought to be unlike in their manners and actions to the end either may keep their station the one above the other below one command the other obey Moreover the husband and wife that always agreed would have no matter to talk of Be the man a great talker and the woman too the house will be always full of noise on the contrary the silence of the one will give place to the other's talkativeness and excuse it If both be knowing or skilful they will not esteem one another but if one admire the other there will be greater love between them If both be prodigal they will quickly see the bottom of the bag whereas the thriftiness of the one will make amends for the expensiveness of the other If one be sad the other being pleasant will divert him if not they will both fall into the excess either of sadness or joy If one be prophane the party that is devout will convert him by good example In brief if one be severe 't is good that the other be gentle if one be passionate that the other be patient otherwise the house will be always in an uproar The Fourth said If Justinian or rather his Wife Theodora had not abolish'd the laudable custom of divorcing wives introduc'd by Spurius Carrilius to abate their pride and malice or at least if the wives of these times were of the humour of those Roman women who having displeas'd their husbands ask'd them pardon in the Temple of a Goddess call'd for that reason Viriplaca it would not
require so much care to consider the conditions requisite to a happy wedlock In which 't is to be observ'd that both in nature and manners there are tempers of body and habits of soul absolutely good others absolutely evil and others indifferent as the passions The husband or wife whose body is of a perfect temper should seek for the like For temperate added to temperate changeth not its temperature Otherwise 't is fit that the defect of the one be amended by the excess of the other For the production of man being the noblest of all actions requires a most perfect temperature of the four Elements in the seed of the two parents which would not be if both of them be hot and dry or cold and moist The vertuous must seek his like the vicious his unlike for there 's no friendship among the wicked the converse of Thieves not deserving that name As for the passions and the manners commonly following them 't is fit that the husband have such as nature has most commonly given to men and consequently that he be unlike to the wife and she to her husband CONFERENCE LXVI I. Of Drunkenness II. Of Dancing I. Of Drunkenness THe common saying That the more excellent a thing is the more pernicious is its abuse is verifi'd chiefly in Wine which is not only the best of all aliments turning soonest into our substance making fewest excrements and most spirits with which it hath great affinity but also the most excellent and benigne of all medicaments For it so cheers and fortifies the heart that so long as a man is cup-shot he is never invaded by the Pestilence the Wine being his antidote and preservative It tempers the natural coldness of the Brain helps digestion begets laudable blood opens obstructions attenuates gross humours and gives a good habit to the whole body But taken in excess it produces mischiefs without number as the Palsy Apoplexie Epilepsie Convulsions Catarrhes and such other cold Diseases the natural heat being unable to overcome the actual coldness of the Wine in regard of its great quantity Yet this were not much if its disorders did not reach the soul subverting its government and clouding its beauty defacing the character which it bears of the Deity and hindring those excellent functions of the Intellect and the Will So that Mnesitheus the Physitian with good reason term'd Wine the greatest benefit and the greatest mischief of man And therefore as the Philosopher counsell'd such as were apt to fall into choler to behold themselves in a Looking-glass for so the deformity of their aspect would avert them from that vice so he that is subject to be overcome with Wine must like the Lacedemonians behold the turpitude of this vice in others and so abhor it for behold it in himself he cannot because drunkenness prohibits him the use of the Senses The Second said Man being the most intemperate of all creatures has need of vertues to moderate his irregular appetites of nutrition and generation which nature has season'd with pleasure as well as the other animal actions whereof as the moderate use is agreeable to nature so the excess is contrary to reason which not enduring those gross and material pleasures of the Touch and Taste employs Temperance to repress the former by Chastity and the latter by Abstinence and Sobriety the one as the rule for the eating and the other for drinking both of them plac'd between two extreams although their defect be so rare that it hath not yet found a name amongst Philosophers But the excess of eating is call'd Gluttony that of Wine Drunkenness Now habitual Drunkenness Ebriosity is never to be tolerated but Ebriety may sometimes for health's sake be allow'd yea every moneth according to the Arabian Physitians who maintain that it strengthens all the faculties which a regular life renders drooping and languid Whence also Hippocrates pronounces in the end of his third Book of Diet and elsewhere that too exquisite a regiment of living is most dangerous those that are accustom'd to it being less able to endure any errors which they may occasionally commit in their course of Diet. The Third said Drunkenness is a Laesion of the Animal Faculty caus'd by the vapours of some alimentary liquor For medicaments or poysons swallow'd down cannot be said the cause of drunkenness none ever having conceiv'd that Socrates dy'd drunk when he had taken the potion of Hemlock though he had all the same symptomes which a drunken person hath nor is every Laesion of the nobler faculties Drunkenness otherwise the Phrenetick Vertiginous and such as are troubled with tremulation of their members ought to be accounted drunk their Reason Memory Imagination and Motion being either deprav'd or abolish'd like theirs who are intoxicated But such Laesion is not caus'd by the fumes of Wine which alone properly cause drunkenness it deserves rather to be term'd Alienation of the Mind which may be caus'd by other vapours either internal or external as by the smoke of Tobacco the steam of a Cellar or any place where new Wine is boil'd as also that of Char-coal which kill'd the Emperour Jovinian The Oyl of Henbane-seed as Pliny reports being drop'd into the ears causes the same trouble of judgement Matslack and Opium cause the same disorder in the Turks that Darnel mingled with bread doth in our Peasants and Baume Frankincense and the fruit call'd Anacardium mingled with food Among Beasts the Ass is inebriated with Hemlock the Swine with Henbane or the husks of Grapes all Fish with baits made of Oak-bark coque de Levant a small medicinal shell call'd Vnguis odoratus yea Aristotle saith that Flyes are inebriated with the smell of perfumes which therefore they abhor so much that the laying of some neer their resort is enough to drive them away Now drunkenness properly taken is caus'd by the hot and moist vapours of Wine rais'd by the natural heat into the Brain whose temperature they destroy by their heat which renders the motions of the soul violent spoil its structure by repletion of the Ventricles distention of the membranes humectation and obstruction of its Nerves For Wine being hot and moist and inebriating by those two qualities 't is therefore more uneasily born by hot or moist Brains Hence the cholerick children women and old men are less able to withstand its violence and are sooner overcome with it then those whose Brain is of a middle temper between hot and moist who are therefore said to have good Brains For which reason stout drinking hath been so much esteem'd by some Nations and Cyrus found no better argument to evince himself worthier of command then his brother Artaxerxes then that he was a better drinker Moreover Philip Alexander and Mithridates counted it a glory to drink well but Socrates Plato Xenocrates and many other Sages of Antiquity disdain'd not to carouse sometimes And Homer speaking of the wise Hector seldom forgets his great goblet The Athenians
The contact above spoken of hath no difficulty nor yet the objection why other wounded persons residing in some intermediate place between the anointed Instrument and the Patient are not rather cur'd then he considering that the same thing is observ'd in the Load-stone which draws not the wood or stone laid neer it but the Iron beyond them and the Sun heats not the Sphere of the Moon and the other Heavens nor yet the two higher Regions of the air but only ours cross that vast interval of cold and humid air because he finds no congruency thereunto besides the not reflexion of his beams Wherefore the contact of the anointed Javelin and the Wound may as well be call'd Physical as that of the Sun and us which never stirs from his Sphere Besides that we have examples of many contacts made without manifest mediums as those of pestilential and contagious Fevers of blear'd-eyes of the Wolfes aspect causing hoarsness and the killing looks of the Basilisk And indeed if you take away all cures that are wrought by occult and inexplicable means there will be nothing admirable in Physick The Fourth said That in assigning the reason of effects men ordinarily mistake that for a cause which is not so The Rose is not cold because it is white for the Red-rose is so too Spurge is not hot because it hath a milky juice for so have Lettice Eudive c. which are cold Aloes is not hot because it is bitter for Opium which kills through its coldness is of the same taste They also erroneously attribute the cure of diseases to sympathy to the power of characters words images numbers celestial figures and such other things which have no activity at all and most extraordinary cures are effects of the strength of the Mind which is such that where it believes any thing firmly it operates what it believes and that with efficacy provided the subject on which it acts do not repugne But if it comes to have a firm belief of the effect then it follows far more easily For if the understanding is identifi'd with what it knows why shall it not make things like to it self To which firm belief I refer the magnetick cure of wounds and not to that sympathy of the blood on the weapon with that in the veins since if two parts of the same body be wounded the healing of the one will not suffice to the healing of the other and yet there 's more sympathy between the parts of the same body animated with the same form then they have with a little extravasated blood which hath lost all the dispositions that it had like the whole mass II. Of Anger Upon the second Point it was said That Nature has so provided for the contentment of animals that she has given them not only an appetite to pursue good and avoid evil when both may be done without difficulty but also a different one to give courage to the former and to surmount the difficulties occurring in the pursuite of that good and the eschewance of that evil term'd the Irascible appetite from anger the strongest of its passions which serves to check the pungency of grief as fear and boldness come to the assistance of flight and desire is guarded with hope and despair This is the opinion of Plato who makes three sorts of souls one which reasons another which covets and the third which is displeas'd the former of which he places in the Brain the second in the Liver and the last in the Heart Anger then is a passion of the Irascible Appetite caus'd by the apprehension of a present evil which may be repell'd but with some difficulty It s principle is the soul its instrument the spirits its matter the blood its seat the heart not the will as Cardan erroneously conceiv'd for the actions of the will not being organical make no impressions or footsteps upon the body It proceeds either from a temper of body hot and dry and easie to be inflam'd or from the diversity of seasons times ages and sexes Hence the cholerick and young persons are more inclin'd to it then the phlegmatick and aged because they have a temper more proper to this passion Women and children are easily displeas'd through weakness of spirit as 't is a sign of a sublime spirit not to be troubled at any thing but to believe that as every thing is below it self so nothing is capable to hurt it Which reason Aristotle made use of to appease the choler of Alexander telling him that he ought never to be incens'd against his inferiors but only against his equals or superiors and there being none that could equal much less surpass him he had no cause to fall into anger The Second said That the Faculties extending to contraries the eye beholding both white and black and the ear hearing all sort of sounds only the sensitive appetite is carri'd both to good and evil whether accompani'd with difficulties or not as the will alone is carri'd towards all kind of good and evil And as the same gravity inclines the stone towards its centre and makes it divide the air and water which hinder it from arriving thither so the sensitive appetite by one and the same action is carri'd to good flees evil and rises against the difficulties occurring in either Thus anger and grief are in one sole appetite yea anger is nothing but grief for an evil which may be repell'd For it hath no place when the offender is so potent that there is no hope of revenge upon him although 't is rare that a man esteems so low of himself as not to be able to get reason for a wrong done him or apprehended to be done him this passion as all others being excited by causes purely imaginary Thus a single gesture interpreted a contempt offends more then a thrust with a sword by inadvertency And this the more if the contemners be our inferiors or oblig'd to respect us upon other accounts Which makes the enmities between relations or friends irreconcileable For as a good not foreseen rejoyces more so the injury of a friend displeases us far above one done us by our enemies against whom he seem'd to have some reason who implor'd not so often the aid of Heaven because he said Nature taught him to beware of them as against his friends because he did not distrust them The Third said Anger may be consider'd two ways either according to its matter or its form In the former way 't is defin'd an Ebullition of the blood about the Heart In the latter a desire with grief to be reveng'd for an injury done to himself or his friends whom a man is oblig'd to uphold especially if they be too weak to avenge themselves Injury consists either in deeds or words or gestures The first is the most evident and oftimes least sensible for words offend more because being the image of thoughts they shew us the little esteem made of us
that two Spheres may be so contiguous as the Celestial are that there can be no air between them yet they might nevertheless be mov'd and heated yea much more then if there were air interpos'd between them The Third said As a form cannot be receiv'd into any subject without previous dispositions so when they are present they suddenly snatch the form to themselves Those of fire are rarity lightness and dryness of which the more bodies partake the more they will be susceptible of the nature of fire Therefore what is capable of being heated by motion must be dry not moist whence fire is never produced by water any more then of air agitated by reason of their excessive humidity perfectly contrary to the dryness of fire But that which is extreamly dry is half fire needing no more but to become hot as happens necessarily when it is rarefi'd and attenuated by motion and consequently inflam'd every substance extreamly tenuious and dry being igneous since in the order of nature all matter necessarily receives the form whereof it hath all the dispositions For there being a separation and divulsion of parts made in every sort of motion as is seen in water when it falls from on high it follows that they are render'd more rare and capable of being converted into fire The Fourth said That motion rarity and heat ordinarily follow and are the causes one of another Thus the Heavens by their rapid motion excite heat in all sublunary bodies and this heat as 't is its property opening the parts rarefies the whole Water receiving the rayes of the Sun is mov'd and agitated by them this motion produces rarity this heat which makes the subtilest parts ascend upwards as on the contrary heat being the most active quality is the cause of motion this of rarity by collision attenuating the mov'd parts So that motion is not more the cause of heat then this is of motion The Fifth said That heat and fire which is only an excess of heat are produc'd four ways by propagation union putrefaction and motion In the first way one way generates another fire a thing common to it with all other bodies in nature which is so fruitful that even the least things produce their like In the second manner when the Sun-beams are reflected by bellow glasses they burn in the point of union provided the matter be not white because whitenesse takes away the reason upon which they burn which is their uniting whereas white disunites and disgregates the rayes To which manner that of antiperistasis is also to be referr'd when external cold causes such a union of the degrees of heat that it becomes inflam'd The third cause of heat is putrefaction proceeding from disunion of the Elements amongst which fire being the most active becomes becomes also more sensible to us The last is motion by which bodies rub'd or clash'd one against another take fire by reason of the Sulphur contain'd in them which alone is inflamable as we see Marble and Free-stone yield not fire as Flints do whose smell after the blew seems sulphureous For if only the air be fir'd whence comes it that in striking the steel the sparkles of fire fall downwards contrary to the nature of fire which ascends besides the air would be turn'd into flames not into sparkles and two stones rub'd one against the other would cause as much fire as steel and the flint or other stones out of whose substance these igneous particles are struck Whence according to their differences they make different sparkles If the stones be hard and struck strongly they render a sprightly fire if soft they either render none at all or such as is less vigorous Moreover the observations of fire issuing forth upon the rubbing of a Lyon's bones as also Laurel and Ivy and Crystal with Chalcedon and that which comes from stroking the back of a Cat in the dark and from the casting a drop of rectifi'd oyl of Vitriol into cold water evidence that this fire is produc'd out of the bosom of the matter which is more dispos'd thereunto then any other not from the encompassing air But that which serves most to shew that 't is from the matter this fire of motion comes is the duration of the Heavens which being in all probability solid would have been set on fire were it not that they are not of a combustible matter nor apt to conceive fire for how little soever that heat were there would be more neer the Sphere of the Moon then at the Centre of the Earth and nevertheless the air is frozen while heat causes corruptions and generations upon the earth and at the centre of it and this heat having been always encreasing as is that of the motion would be insupportable II. Of Chastity Upon the second Point it was said That Reason regulates the inclinations of the appetite by the vertues amongst which temperance serves to moderate that of eating by abstinence and of drinking by sobriety as also the concupiscence of the flesh by chastity which is more excellent then the two former in that its business lies with more powerful adversaries which assail it without as well as within by so many avenues as there are senses amongst which the hearing and sight receiving the poyson of glances and words cause chastity to stagger and languish but it receives the deadly blow when the touch surrenders it self to the inchantment of kisses and the other delights which follow them Moreover the necessity of natural actions being the standard of pleasure and generation which concerns the general being more necessary then nutrition which relates only to the particular it hath also more pleasure and consequently being more hard to withstand chastity which surmounts it not only deserves Palmes and Triumphs in the other world but also in this hath been rewarded by God with the gift of Prophecy in the Sibyls and is honour'd by all even the most wicked for its rarity which made the Poet say that there was none in his time chaste but she that had not been tempted Now Chastity is of three sorts Virgineal Conjugal and that of Widows to which the Fathers attribute what is said of the grains of Corn which brought forth one a hundred other thirty and other sixty For Virgineal Chastity in either sex consisting in integrity of body and purity of soul and in a firm purpose to abstain from all sort of carnal pleasures the better to attend divine service is more worthy then the other two and prefer'd before any other condition by S. Paul who counsels every one to desire to be like him in this point Hence the Church hath chosen it and is so immutably affected to it to the end souls freed from worldly care might be more at leisure for divine things from which Matrimony extreamly diverts The chastity of Widows hath for pattern the Turtle and the Raven who having lost their mates live nine ages of men without coupling with
and jet burnt whence the Ancients being about to buy a slave made him snuff up smoak of brimstone to try whether he were not subject to this disease so many Antepileptical remedies cure it but that which proceeds by sympathie from the stomack or other parts more easily then that which is idiopathical and radicated in the brain As the shavings of man's skull not buried drunk with water of Teile-tre and Paeony so contrary to this evil that it cures the same by being hung about the neck II. Whether there be any Art of Divination Upon the Second Point 't was said That Man who alone understands the nature and difference of Time is more solicitous about the future then about the present which is but a moment or the past which concerns him only historically Hence arises his ardent desire of presaging to satisfie which he makes use of every thing in the world Which is an infallible argument of the vanity of this Art of Divination because effects cannot be fore-told by all sorts of causes but onely by those wherewith they have connexion and wherein they are potentially contain'd as leaves and fruits are in the seeds and 't is receiv'd a Maxime that when an effect may be produc'd by sundry causes none of them is the true cause since we cannot from such an effect proceed to the knowledge of its cause Now Divination is not taken here as Hippocrates speaks of it in his Prognosticks when he saith that nothing is makes Physitians more resemble Gods then the foretelling of what will befall and hath already befallen their Patients For there he speaks of the predictions of Physick but here to divine is to affirm an event whereof we see not any cause or probable sign For if by seeing a Rain-bow I prognosticate rain or that a tree will bear fruit when it is well blossom'd or that a sick person that rests ill the night before the seventh day will have a Crisis this is not Divination But if not knowing a prisoner nor his affairs I fore-tell that he will be set at liberty or not that an unknown person will be married and how many Children he will have or such other things which have no necessary nor yet contingent causes known to me this is properly to Divine Whereby it appears that there is no Art of Divination Art being a body of precepts tending to some profitable end whereas were Divination certain it would cause nothing but either despair or negligence and precepts being of things hapning necessarily or most commonly that whose cause we know not cannot be known by precepts And therefore all your Soothsayers Augurs Sorcerers Fortune-tellers and the like are but so many Impostors The Second said That Divination which is a prediction of future things remote from our knowledge is of three sorts Either from God as Prophecy from Devils as Conjuring or from causes purely natural which is Prognostication or Conjecture Prophecy is a divine inspiration whereby one fore-sees and declares remote things infallibly 'T was exercis'd at first by the Priests of the Law with the Vrim and Thummim which were twelve precious stones in the high Priests Ephod and afterwards by the Prophets instructed in dreams or visions whence they were call'd seers Diabolical Divination depends upon some compact either tacite or express with the Devil who being able to declare such things as have appear'd by some outward act as the authors of robberies things lost or such futurities as depend on natural and necessary causes but not such as proceed from causes purely free or contingent the Soothsayers his servants can know no more concerning the same then their Master This Divination is of two sorts The first is call'd Daemonomancy when the Devils themselves give answers out of Caves or Images sometimes by beasts men or most frequently by women rendring oracles by their mouths stomacks or bellies but for the most part ambiguous and doubtful for fear of being mistaken The other is call'd Mangania or Goetia the most detestable species of which is Necromancy which draws answers from the mouths of the dead Others more remarkable are 1. Hydromancy or Divination by water into which they pour drops of oyle or cast three little stones observing the sections of the circles which they describe 2. Lecanomancy by a basin of water at the bottom of which the answers are heard after casting thereinto some plates of Gold and Silver and precious stones engraven with certain characters 3. Gastromancy by glass bottles full of water in which a big-belly'd woman or an innocent child beholds images 4. Catoptromancy by Looking-glasses 5. Crystallomancy by crystal cylinders 6. Dactylomancy by enchanted Rings like that of Gyges 7. Onychomancy by anointing the nail of a child with oyle or tallow and holding it towards the Sun they see in it what they demand 8. Aeromancy by conjurations of the Air. 9. Coscinomancy by a sieve and sizzars All which species of Divination presume either an express or tacite compact with the Devil But there were three without compact 1. Aruspices who drew conjectures from the entrails and motions of beasts sacrificed from the figures made by melted wax cast into water call'd Ceromantie or Daphnomancy from the crackling of burning Lawrel Omphalomancy when by the knots and adhering to the navil and secundines the Mid-wives fore-tell how many Children the new deliver'd woman shall have afterwards Amniomancy foretelling the Childs fortune from the red or livid colour of the coat Amnios Parthenomancy to discover Virginity by measuring the neck or drinking powder'd Agat which she that is no Virgin vomits up again 2. Augures or Auspices who divin'd from birds beasts prodigies and accidents as Pliny reports of the Servilii that they had a piece of brass money which they fed with Gold and Silver and it increas'd when any good was to befall their Family and diminish'd upon some approaching evil 3. Unlawful Lots are Cleromancy which comprehends Homer and Virgil's Lots Alectriomancy by a Cock eating corns of wheat lay'd upon the Letters of the Alphabet Oniomancy by names Arithmancy by numbers Lastly Natural Divination which is Conjecture either taken from the Stars as Judiciary Astrology the Air and its several dispositions the Sea and Trees as when a Plague is fore-told by the flourishing of Roses or Violets in Autumn Animals also supply some presages as Mice running away from an house presignifie its downfall or burning and Sparrows delinquishing a Country denote the Pestilence and infection of the Air. The Third said That the Soul being immortal is also capable of knowing things after the manner of eternity which being a total and simultaneous possession of endless life knows all things at once things future and past as present which knowledge is like that of a man who beholds a whole Army at the same time from the top of a Mountain and that of time in which things are seen successively is like that of him who through a hole sees every
That every thing that disturbs the publick quiet is to be repress'd concludes that the Seditious are to be punish'd So 't is not enough for a Mathematician to know that equal things added to equal things are likewise equal unless he apply this universal principle to particular lines surfaces and bodies Which is done either by the Synthetical or by the Analytical way which nevertheless must be follow'd by the Synthetical Now 't is in the application of these general rules to particulars that errour is committed even in the most certain Sciences The Seventh said That there are few Sciences because there are few Principles and Proposition's demonstrable as the contingent and the absolute are not Whence it is that the future is not demonstrable and hence follows the incertainty of Politicks Wherefore only necessary Propositions whereof the truth is permanent and eternal are demonstrable and all these are necessarily demonstrable because they have infallible principles yet only such of these whose principles are known by men are demonstrable by men So 't is certain that the Inundation of Nilus and the flux and reflux of the Sea are not demonstrable because men know not the principles are not known Whereby it appears how ridiculous they are who undertake to demonstrate every thing CONFERENCE LXXXV I. Whether the manners of the Soul follow the temperament of the Body II. Of Sights or Shews I. Whether the manners of the Soul follow the temperament of the Body THe extream variety of men's actions and manners cannot proceed from the diversity of their souls which are accounted all equal but from that of the bodies wherein according to the various tempers thereof the soul produces that variety of manners And as in natural and animal actions one and the same Soul digests in the stomack makes blood in the Liver and Veins sees by the Eyes and reasons in the Brain so likewise it is sometimes sad when the melancholy humour predominates in the body sometimes cheerful when blood abounds and sometimes also froward or angry when the choler is agitated The Second said That the soul being the form as the body is the matter it must be the cause of all humane actions not the body which receives them since the soul informs and perfectionates the body and begets in it the habit which produces the manners and actions As the horse governs not the rider but the contrary and 't is to the rider that the honour or blame of the course is to be imputed And were the soul but a quality as the most prophane have ventur'd to affirm yet the same priviledge must be reserv'd to it which is allow'd to the predominant quality in every compound which gives it not only the denomination but also the action as in compound medicaments the most active simple carries the credit from the rest Besides if the body and the humours thereof were the author and cause of manners an ignorant person could never become learned and a single Lecture of Xenocrates had never made a Drunkard cast off his chaplet of flowers and turn a Philosopher The examples of many grand personages sufficiently ill furnish'd with graces of the body evidence what certainty there is in arguing from the out-side of the corporeal structure to the furniture of the soul and that the signs of malice remark'd in some as in Zoilus from his having a red beard a black mouth and being lame and one-ey'd of Thersites and Irus from their having sharp heads rather shew the malice or ignorance of such as make these remarks then prove that these dispositions of body are the true cause of malice we see people of the same temper hair stature features and other circumstances very different in their manners and inclinations And the same is observ'd in horses For since the Stars the most powerful agents do not constrain but only incline certainly the humours cannot do more True it is their inclination is so strong that no less grace of Heaven is needful to resist the same then strength to retain a man that is rolling down the declivity of a hill Yet Socrates remaining unmov'd by the embraces of a Curtezan whom his Scholars contriv'd into his bed to try him although he was naturally very prone to vice justifies that how hard soever it be to stop the slipping foot when it is once going yet 't is not impossible and therefore the manners of the soul do not always follow the constitution of the body Not considering the power which the fear of God hath over our wills the effects whereof I here meddle not with as being supernatural since they have sometimes destroy'd all the maximes of nature witness those that give themselves to be burnt for the faith The Third said That the body must needs contribute to the soul's actions as being its instrument But it contributes only what it hath namely its temperament and other proprieties Therefore 't is from this temperament that the same are diversifi'd The soul sees no longer when the eyes are shut or blinded 't is wise in a well temper'd brain not only in a dry as Plato in his Timaeus conceiv'd because he saw children grow more prudent as their brain was desiccated 't is stupid in a too moist brain and foolish or furious in one inflam'd as in deliration or madness 'T is also forc'd to leave its body when a violent Fever hath so deprav'd the humours thereof that there remains not the temper necessary to its reception Therefore it follows the temper of the humours Thus because we see fire introduc'd into any combustible subject and extinguish'd when the same is consum'd we say fire follows combustible matter and becomes of the same nature quantity and other qualities Moreover Hippocrates saith Nations are warlike or cowardly laborious or not of good or bad nature according to the diversity of climates and soils they inhabit which render them diversly temper'd Hence in Asia where the air is temperate and less subject to changes then Europe and Africa men are more healthy and handsome their manners more equal and laudable on the contrary in Countries more cold or hot the inhabitants are either more cruel or more boisterous more hardy or more timerous and Mountaineers are more industrious as on the contrary those who live in a fertile soil are commonly more slothful Hence amongst the Greeks the Thebans and all the Baeotians whose Country was rich and the air very thick were very dull and the Athenians very subtle which was the cause that 't was said people were born Philosophers at Athens on the contrary 't was a prodigious thing to see one wise Anacharsis among the Scythians Hippocrates addes the seasons too according to the change whereof men's manners are also found divers But all these cannot act upon the soul but by the organ of the body changing its humours and introducing new qualities into the parts thereof The Fourth said Even sucking children give some tokens to what their
constitution inclines them before the contraction of any habit vertuous or vicious some of courage others of timidity some of modesty others of impudence and as soon as they begin to speak some are lyers others love truth And of two children taught by the same Master the hardest student is many times a less prosicient then the other who hath a temper proper for learning and is as inclin'd to it as another is to Merchandize Mechanicks Travel War or this will be quarrelsome the other respectful and discreet one is born to servitude and the other prefers his liberty before a Kingdom So that not only the moral actions of the will but also those of the understanding absolutely depend on the body the soul being of a spiritual nature which of it self can never produce any sensible effect without the mediation of some body not so much as exercise its proper actions of Willing and Understanding both which depend on the phantasms which are intellectual species fabricated by the agent intellect in the Patient upon the model of those that were brought by the senses into the imagination hence if these be alter'd or deprav'd by the spirits or humous flowing to the brain reasoning becomes either diminish'd or deprav'd or else wholly abolish'd the spirits so confounding these phantasms that the intellect cannot make its reviews nor compose or divide them in order to elicite its conclusions and frame its notions For souls differ only by the spirits the tenuity and lucidity whereof is proper for contemplation their abundance makes a man bold their inflammation renders him frantick their defect causeth sloth and cowardize and being design'd to serve equally to the actions of the soul and body they were made of a middle nature between body and spirit whence they are called spiritual bodies and are the cause of union between them and mutual communication of their passions and affections So the bodies diseases affect the soul and disturb its operations the spirits abandoning the brain to succour the grieved parts the bilious humour in the ventricles of the brain or a tumour and a Sphacelus cause madness the blood overheated causeth simple folly accompani'd with laughter melancholy produceth serious folly In like manner the body resents the passions of the soul fear causeth trembling and paleness shame blushing anger foaming and all this by the spirits The Fifth said If manners depended on tempers vertues might be easily acquir'd by the course of diet which seems ridiculous For then the divine faculties of the soul should depend not only upon meats but upon all other things not natural which would be to subject the Queen to her servants to enslave the will and take away its liberty which makes it to be what it is Besides Theology cannot consist with this conclusion which would acquit persons of blame and lay it upon nature as its author For he that should commit some evil cholerick action or other sin could not avoid it being lead thereunto by the bilious humour produc'd by nature whereunto 't is almost impossible to resist and so he would seem innocent and unjustly punish'd for what he committed not voluntarily though without the will there is no sin Moreover men would not be variable but always the same the bilious always angry the sanguine ever in love c. and yet we see men exercise all sorts of virtues and capable of all vices Many beasts have not only the same constitution of brain but also external shape like that of man as Apes whose bones are so like those of men that in Galen's time Anatomists consider'd only their Sceletons yea the same temper and all internal parts alike as Swine and there 's little or no difference between the brain of man and a calf and yet none of these animals have actions like those of men which being purely spiritual and intellectual must depend upon another cause the rational soul whose actions are not any way organical for then it should be corporeal because proceeding from the body and consequently mortal II. Of Sights or Shews Upon the second Point 't was said That the communication of the ills and goods of the soul and body has put men upon searching what may relieve the languishing strength of either And as the soul is delighted by bodily pleasures so it also in gratitude returns the like pleasure to the body by the contentment which it receives in acquiring knowledge the least laborious of which is that most recreative as that is which is convey'd by the sight For the hearing makes us know things only one after another but the sight shewing them all at once more fully satisfies our natural desire of knowing Hence all people from the highest to the lowest are so delighted with shews or spectacles that the Romans kept Actors and Comedians with publick pensions and Cicero publickly commended Roscius who alone had 12000 crowns for a stipend from the Roman people They employ'd the incomes of the woods about Rome dedicated to their gods for the maintaining of Theatres Amphitheatres Cirques and other places destinated to shews wherein the Senators and Knights had the fourteen first ranks or seats for whose conveniency Q. Catulus cover'd the Scene with veils of sine linen Lucius and Cinna made a versatile or shifting Scene P. Claudius was the first that adorn'd it with pictures and tables C. Antonius cover'd it with silver Murena made one of pure silver Trebonius one guilded others inlay'd with Ivory Nero sprinkled all the place of the Cirque where the horses run with gold-sand and cover'd it with veils beset with stars in form of a sky Heliogabalus made an Euripus of wine at the Circensian plays in which he caus'd a Naval Battle to be represented as if the wickedest Princes could not have cover'd their enormities with a more specious liberality or more agreeable to the people These spectacles were likewise us'd at the funerals of great Princes and made part of their service of the gods They divert the great make the miserable forget their affliction are the true physick of the soul the book of the ignorant and the only way truly to revive the transactions of former ages The Second said Nothing is so destructive to good manners as the frequentation of Theatres and most other spectacles which is the most dangerous for that things represented to the eyes make deeper impression in the mind then by any other sense Which made Aristotle advise the prohibiting of Comedies and S. Augustin declare them contrary to piety and honesty The same is the opinion of all the Fathers particularly Tertullian who in an express treatise blames all sort of spectacles as proceeding from the superstition of Paganism causing troubles and quarrels yea rendring men capable of all sort of wickedness by the impression of their examples For the sights of Mimes and Pantomimes are ridiculous Rope-dancers unprofitable Farces or Enterludes dangerous and enemies to purity Comedy the least dangerous of all sights
nothing can be annihilated so nothing can be made of nothing Which was likewise the error of Aristotle who is more intricate then the Stoicks in his explication of the first matter which he desines to be almost nothing True it is they believ'd that every thing really existent was corporeal and that there were but four things incorporeal Time Place Vacuum and the Accident of some thing whence it follows that not onely Souls and God himself but also the Passions Virtues and Vices are Bodies yea Animals since according to their supposition the mind of man is a living animal inasmuch as 't is the cause that we are such but Virtues and Vices say they are nothing else but the mind so dispos'd But because knowledge of sublime things is commonly more pleasant then profitable and that according to them Philosophy is the Physick of the Soul they study chiefly to eradicate their Vices and Passions Nor do they call any wise but him that is free from all fear hope love hatred and such other passions which they term the diseases of the Soul Moreover 't was their Maxime that Virtue was sufficient to Happiness that it consisted in things not in words that the sage is absolute master not onely of his own will but also of all men that the supream good consisted in living according to nature and such other conclusions to which being modifi'd by faith I willingly subscribe although Paradoxes to the vulgar II. Whence comes the diversity of proper names Upon the Second Point 't was said That a name is an artificial voice representing a thing by humane institution who being unable to conceive all things at once distinguish the same by their differences either specifical or individual the former by appellative names and the other by proper as those of Cities Rivers Mountains and particularly those of men who also give the like to Horses Dogs and other domestick creatures Now since conceptions of the Mind which represent things have affinity with them and words with conceptions it follows that words have also affinity with things by the Maxime of Agreement in the same third Therefore the wise to whom alone it belongs to assign names have made them most conformable to the nature of things For example when we pronounce the word Nous we make an attraction inwards On the contrary in pronouncing Vous we make an expulsion outwards The same holds in the voices of Animals and those arising from the sounds of inanimate things But 't is particularly observ'd that proper names have been tokens of good or bad success arriving to the bearers of them whence arose the reasoning of the Nominal Philosophers and the Art of Divination by names call'd Onomatomancy and whence Socrates advises Fathers to give their Children good names whereby they may be excited to Virtue and the Athenians forbad their slaves to take the names of Harmodius and Aristogiton whom they had in reverence Lawyers enjoyn heed to be taken to the name of the accused in whom 't is capital to disguise it and Catholicks affect those of the Law of Grace as Sectaries do those of the old Law the originals whereof were taken from circumstances of the Bodie as from its colour the Romans took those of Albus Niger Nigidius Fulvius Ruffus Flavius we those of white black grey red-man c. from its habit Crassus Macer Macrinus Longus Longinus Curtius we le Gros long tall c From its other accidents the Latines took Caesar Claudius Cocles Varus Naso we le Gouteux gowty le Camus flat-nos'd from Virtues or Vices Tranquillus Severus we hardy bold sharp from Profession Parson Serjeant Marshal and infinite others But chiefly the names of places have been much affected even to this day even since the taking of the name of the family for a sirname And if we cannot find the reason of all names and sirnames 't is because of the confusion of languages and alteration happening therein upon frequent occasions The Fourth said That the cause of names is casual at least in most things as appears by equivocal words and the common observation of worthless persons bearing the most glorious names as amongst us a family whose males are the tallest in France bears the name of Petit. Nor can there be any affinity between a thing and a word either pronounc'd or written and the Rabbins endeavour to find in Hebrew names which if any must be capable of this correspondence in regard of Adam's great knowledge who impos'd them is no less an extravagance then that of matters of Anagrams In brief if Nero signifi'd an execrable Tyrant why was he so good an Emperor the first five years And of that name import any token of a good Prince why was he so execrable in all the rest of his life CONFERENCE LXXXIX I. Of Genii II. Whether the Suicide of the Pagans be justifiable I. Of Genii PLato held three sorts of reasonable natures the Gods in Heaven Men on Earth and a third middle nature between those two whose mansion is from the sphere of the Moon to the Earth he calls them Genii from their being the causes of Generations here below and Daemons from their great knowledge These Genii whom his followers accounted to be subtile bodies and the instruments of Divine Providence are according to them of three sorts Igneous Aereous and Aqueous the first excite to contemplation the second to action the third to pleasure And 't was the belief of all Antiquity that every person had two Genii one good which excited to honesty and virtue as the good Genius of Socrates whom they reckon'd in order of the Igneous and the other bad who incited to evil such as that was which appeard to Brutus and told him he should see him at Philippi Yet none can perceive the assistance of their Genius but onely such whose Souls are calm and free from passions and perturbations of life Whence Avicenna saith that onely Prophets and other holy Personages have found their aid in reference to the knowledge of future things and government of life For my part I think these Genii are nothing else but our reasonable souls whose intellectual and superior part which inclines us to honest good and to virtue is the good Genius and the sensitive inferior part which aims onely to sensible and delightful good is the evil genius which incessantly sollicites us to evil Or if the Genii be any thing without us they are no other then our good and evil Angels constituted the former to guard us the second to make us stand upon our guard Moreover 't was expedient that since inferior bodies receive their motion from the superior so spiritual substances inherent in bodies should be assisted in their operations by superior spirits free from matter as 't is an ordinary thing in Nature for the more perfect to give law to such as are less in the same kind And not onely men but also all other parts of the world have Angels deputed
to their conservation tutelary Angels being nothing but the organs of Divine Providence which embraces all things The Second said That the Genii produce in us those effects whereof we know not the cause every one finding motions in himself to good or evil proceeding from some external power yea otherwise then he had resolved Simonides was no sooner gone out of a house but it fell upon all the company and 't is said that as Socrates was going in the fields he caus'd his friends who were gone before him to be recall'd saying that his familiar spirit forbad him to go that way which those that would not listen to were all mired and some torn and hurt by a herd of swine Two persons formerly unknown love at the first sight allies not knowing one another oftimes feel themselves seiz'd with unusual joy one man is alwayes unfortunate to another every thing succeeds well which cannot proceed but from the favour or opposition of some Genii Hence also some Genii are of greater power then others and give men such authority over other men that they are respected and fear'd by them Such was the Genius of Augustus in comparison of Mark Antonie and that of J. Caesar against Pompey But though nothing is more common then the word Genius yet 't is not easie to understand the true meaning of it Plato saith 't is the guardian of our lives Epictetus the over-seer and sentinel of the Soul The Greeks call it the Mystagogue or imitator of life which is our guardian Angel The Stoicks made two sorts one singular the Soul of every one the other universal the Soul of the world Varro as Saint Augustine reports in his eighth book of the City of God having divided the immortal Souls which are in the Air and mortal which are in the Water and Earth saith that between the Moon and the middle region of the Air there are aerious Souls call'd Heroes Lares and Genii of which an Ancient said it is as full as the Air is full of flies in Summer as Pythagoras said that the Air is full of Souls which is not dissonant from the Catholick Faith which holds that Spirits are infinitely more numerous then corporeal substances because as celestial bodies are incomparably more excellent and ample then sublunary so pure Spirits being the noblest works of God ought to be in greater number then other creatures What the Poets say of the Genius which they feign to be the Son of Jupiter and the earth representing him sometimes in the figure of a serpent as Virgil do's that which appear'd to Aenaeas sometimes of a horn of plenty which was principally the representation of the Genius of the Prince by which his flatterers us'd to swear and their sacrificing Wine and Flowers to him is as mysterious as all the rest The Third said That the Genius is nothing but the temperament of every thing which consists in a certain harmonious mixture of the four qualities and being never altogether alike but more perfect in some then in others is the cause of the diversity of actions The Genius of a place is its temperature which being seconded with celestial influences call'd by some the superior Genii is the cause of all productions herein Prepensed crimes proceed from the melancholy humour the Genius of anger and murders is the bilious humour that of idleness and the vices it draws after it is phlegme and the Genius of love is the sanguine humour Whence to follow one's Genius is to follow one's natural inclinations either to good or to evil II. Whether the Suicide of the Pagans be justifiable Upon the Second Point 't was said That evil appears such onely by comparison and he that sees himself threatned with greater evils then that of death ought not onely to attend it without fear but seek it as the onely sovereign medicine of a desperate malady What then if death be nothing as the Pagans believ'd and leave nothing after it For we must distinguish Paganisme and Man consider'd in his pure state of nature from Christianity and the state of Grace In the former I think Diogenes had reason when meeting Speusippus languishing with an incurable disease who gave him the good day he answer'd I wish not you the like since thou sufferest an evil from which thou maist deliver thy self as accordingly he did when he returned home For all that they fear'd in their Religion after death was Not-Being what their Fasti taught them of the state of souls in the other life being so little believ'd that they reckon'd it amongst the Fables of the Poets Or if they thought they left any thing behind them 't was only their renown of which a couragious man that kill'd himself had more hope then the soft and effeminate The same is still the custom of those great Sea Captains who blow themselves up with Gun-powder to avoid falling into the enemies hands Yet there 's none but more esteems their resolution then the demeanor of cowards who yield at mercy This is the sole means of making great Captains and good Souldiers by their example to teach them not to fear death not to hold it with poltron Philosophers the most terrible of terribles And to judge well of both compare we the abjectness of a Perseus a slave led in triumph with the generosity of a Brutus or a Cato Vticensis For 't were more generous to endure patiently the incommodities of the body the injuries of an enemy and the infamy of death if man had a spirit proof against the strokes of fortune But he though he may ward himself with his courage yet he can never surmount all sort of evils and according to the opinion of the same Philosopher all fear is not to be rejected Some evils are so vehement that they cannot be disposed without stupidity as torments of the body fire the wheel the loss of honour and the like which 't is oftentimes better to abandon then vainly to strive to overcome them Wherefore as 't is weakness to have recourse to death for any pain whatsoever so 't was an ignominious cowardize amongst the Pagans to live only for grief The Second said That nature having given all individuals a particular instinct for self-preservation their design is unnatural who commit homicide upon themselves And if civil intestine wars are worse then forreign then the most dangerous of all is that which we make to our selves Wherefore the ancients who would have this brutality pass for a virtue were ridiculous because acknowledging the tenure of their lives from some Deity 't was temerity in them to believe they could dispose thereof to any then the donor and before he demanded it In which they were as culpable as a Souldier that should quit his rank without his Captain 's leave or depart from his station where he was plac'd Sentinel And did not virtue which is a habit require many reiterated acts which cannot be found in Suicide since we have
Third said That the heat which preserves our lives is natural gentle and agreeable not extraneous as that meant in the question is Therefore external cold must be compar'd with heat likewise external and extraneous not with the vital heat which is of a more sublime order then these elementary qualities Now 't is certain external heat is more powerful and active then external cold since it consumes and dissolves Metals which cold cannot and is more hurtful because it dries up humidity which is the foundation of life 'T is also less tolerable for we can bear the touch of the coldest body in the world namely Ice yea eat it without harm but none could ever resist flames Whence fire is the cruellest of punishments not cold from which besides we may more easily defend our selves then from excessive heat which may be abated a little by winds shadows or other artifices but not wholly as cold is by help of fire clothes and motion The Fourth said If it be true which Cardan saith that cold is nothing but a privation of heat Nature which dreads nothing so much as non-entity must abhor it most nor can it be any way active since that which exists not cannot act But I will suppose as 't is most probable that both the one and the other are positive entities since cold enters into the composition of bodies as well as heat the bones membranes skin nerves and all but the fleshy parts being cold as also the brain the noblest part of man And I conceive that heat and cold consider'd either as internal principles of a living body or as two external agents enemies of life cold is always more hurtful then heat On the one side hot distempers alter the functions but cold abolish them depriving us of sense motion and life as in the Lethargy Apoplexie Epilepsie and other cold diseases And on the other external heat indeed draws forth part of our spirits and thereby weakens us whence come faintings after too hot a bath or too great a fire but it never wholly quenches and destroys them as the light of the Sun drowns that of a Candle at noon but do's not extinguish it The Fifth said Because as Hippocrates saith in his Aphorisms some natures are best in Winter others in Summer as old men are not much inconvenienc'd by the most vehement heats whereas cold kills them on the contrary young people of hot tempers endure heat more impatiently then cold and there is no temperament ad pondus or exact Reason must be call'd to the aid of our senses not only to judge of moist and dry as Galen thinks but also of hot and cold which being absolutely consider'd in their own nature without respect to us I conceive heat much more active then cold and consequently less supportable because the more a thing hath of form and less of matter 't is the more active the one of these principles being purely active and the cause of all natural actions the other simply passive Thus the earth and water are dull and heavy elements in comparison of the air and fire which are less dense and material Heaven the universal cause of all sublunary things is a form without matter as Averroës affirms Now heat rarifies and dilates its subject and seems to make it more spiritual and so is more active then cold which condenses and stops all the pores and passages Which also appears in that the hottest diseases are the most acute and if cold diseases kill sometimes they charm and dull the senses and so render death more gentle and supportable On the contrary the cruellest deaths great pains and the most violent diseases are ordinarily caus'd by some hot humour Hence it is that no person dyes without a Fever and Hippocrates affirms that the same heat which generates us kills us In fine God who is the prime Reason hath judg'd heat more active and less supportable then cold since he appoints fire to torment the devils and damned souls II. Who are most happy in this world Wise Men or Fools Upon the second Point 't was said As there is but one right line and infinite crooked so there is but one wisdom and one way to attain it namely to follow right reason but follies are of all sorts and of as many fashions as there are different minds which conceive things under divers apparences of goodness So that the number of fools being greater then that of wise men these will always lose their cause Moreover if happiness be well defin'd by contentment who is there but accounts fools more happy then the wise Witness he who otherwise intelligent enough was a fool in this only point that he would diligently repair alone to the Theatre and phancy that he saw and heard the Actors and applauded them although no body was there besides himself but being cur'd of his folly he complain'd of his friends in stead of thanking them for having been too careful to render him miserable being a happy man before Besides folly hath this priviledge that we bear with that truth from the mouth of a fool which would be odious in another and the tribe of fools is indeed exceeding great since we are born such for a child is agreeable upon no other account but its simplicity which is nothing else but folly by which many faults are excusable in youth which are not to be endur'd in other ages And those whom we account happiest and that dye of old age end thus and are therefore call'd twice children and folly serves to take away the sense of all the discontents and incommodities of old age Yea he that more neerly considers the course of our life will find more of folly in it then of wisdom For if self-conceit play love and the other passions be so many follies who is free from it The Second said That wise men alone are happy is justly accounted a Stoical Paradox since 't is contrary to true natural sentiments which shew us that the happiness of this life consists only in two points namely in the privation of grief and the possession of good As for the first not to speak of bodily pains from which the wise are no more exempt then fools the strongest minds are more intelligent by their more vigorous reasoning and consequently more susceptible of inward grief and affliction of hope fear desire and as other passions besides that they are ordinary of a melancholy temper and more fix'd upon their objects then fools who are more inconstant to say nothing of the scruples of conscience which many times rack their spirits of the points of honour of civilities nor of the knotty questions in the Sciences As for the latter the possession of good fools have a better share then the wise because there is no absolute but onely relative good in this world whence proceeded the many different opinions touching the chief good and the saying that none is truly happy unless he thinks himself
by expulsion of the noxious humours Moreover humidity revives Plants and Animals and Man Nature's perfectest work abounds most with it to which cause Cardan refers his greater sagacity And being life is nothing else but the Prime Humidity thence thirst comes to be the greatest bodily inconvenience and diseases caus'd by a dry intemperature are generally incurable Rheum is not so dangerous as an Hectick Fever and experience shews us that land too moist may be render'd fertile but there 's no remedy for the droughts of Africa humane Art being puzled to preserve a Garden during those of Summer Lastly Physick takes the opportunity of moist weather for purgations as most convenient for health The Third said That all the first qualities are active but heat and moisture more then the other two whence the air being imbu'd with humidity alters our bodies more sensibly then when 't is charg'd with dry exhalations For our radical moisture is aerious oyly and benigne and the extraneous moisture is aqueous maligne and pernicious a capital enemy to that balsame of life as extraneous heat is to our vital heat which is suffocated by abundance of excrements collected by humidity which stops the pores but dissipated by dryness which opens them Which made the Prince of Physick say Aph. 15. Sect. 3. that of the seasons of the year droughts are more healthy and less fatal then rainy and moist weather in which happen long Fevers Fluxes Epilepsies Apoplexies and divers others putrid maladies Though 't is impossible to determine the question absolutely because 't would be requisite to consider siccity and humidity separate from other qualities and in their own nature wherein they are not to be found being never separated from cold or heat which render their natures and consequently their effects various The Fourth said That the pleasure we take in a thing is the surest evidence of the good or hurt it does us Hence rain is always more grateful to us in droughts then the contrary Besides Death and old age which leads to it is nothing but a desiccation and dry diseases are most perillous because they are either conjoyn'd with heat which encreases them and makes them very acute or with cold which generates Schirrusses and other maladies accompani'd with obstruction which are not cur'd but by humectation Summer and Autumn are the sickliest and dryest seasons of the year but we are more healthy in Winter and the Spring And do's not the humidity of the night repair the loss caus'd by the siccity and actions of the day as in the morning the most humid part of the day our minds are more serene then all the rest of the day whence it was call'd the friend of the Muses The Brain the mansion of the soul and its divinest faculties is not only most humid but the seat of humidity as choler melancholy fear and all other passions common to us with beasts have their seat in the Gall the Spleen and the heart which are dry parts But although humidity seems more a friend to nature then siccity yet the question must be voided by the distinction of temperaments of which the melancholy and the bilious especially receive very great incommodity from droughts and benefit from moist seasons which on the contrary much torment the phlegmatick II. Which is to be preferr'd the contemplative life or the active Upon the second Point 't was said That man being born to live in society and employment the contemplative life seems incongruous to this end and our first Parent was plac'd in the earth to Till it and eat his bread in the sweat of his countenance not to live idly and look about him Moreover the end is more noble then the means which tend to it but we generally contemplate only in order to act In Divinity we consider God's Commandments in order to perform them In Mathematicks Lines Surfaces Solids Numbers and Motions to make use thereof for Fortifications Carpentry and the Mechanicks In Natural Philosophy its Principles and Causes to refer the same to Medicine In Law Right to apply it to Fact In Morality the Virtues in order to exercise them Consider what difference there is between the contemplation of an empty brain and solid action that is to say between theory and practice you will find the former only a chimera and the other a reality as excellent and profitable as the first is useless except to feed the phancy with vain imaginations and fill the mind with presumption there being none but thinks himself a greater master then others before he hath set his hand to the work and yet 't is by their works that our Lord tells us we shall know every one and not by their discourses which are as much below them as effects and things are more then words The Second said Contemplation is as much more excellent then action as the soul is then the body and to compare them together is to equal the servant with her mistress For not to speak of the raptures of an extasi'd soul nor of eternal blisse which consisting in contemplation that of this world must do the like in reference to natural things Nature alone teaches us that things which are for themselves are more excellent then those which are for others But the contemplation and knowledge of truth hath no other end but it self action the common uses of life Whence contemplation less needs external things then action which requires the help of Riches Honours Friends and a thousand other circumstances which hinder a contemplative person more then they help him who therefore delights most in Desarts and Solitudes Moreover the end is to be prefer'd before the means and the end of active life is to bring us rest as the military life is in order to establish and the civil to preserve peace therefore the rest of the contemplative life being the end of the turbulent active life it is much more noble then its means As appears also by its duration which is greater then that of transient and transitory action but contemplation is durable and permanent which is a sign of the Divinity of the Intellect that produces it infinitely more excellent then all the other inferior powers the principles of actions Contemplation being abstracted from matter and earthly things wearies not the body as actions do which require corporeal organs and therefore the pleasure of it is most pure and simple and constant in regard of its object those sublime things which wisdom contemplates whereas that of action is never intire by reason of the inconstancy of its object which are political things continually mutable The contemplative man finds full satisfaction in himself without going abroad to beg approbation and rewards from men without which virtues languish and are imperfect Moreover the pleasure of contemplation is peculiar to men and not competent to brutes who have not only external actions as well as we as Speaking Singing Dancing Fighting Spinning Building and other Works
the terrestrial mass and the dark the water or the contrary it will be necessary that this earth also have its Heaven that its stars and so to infinity The Fourth said That they who have imagin'd spots in the Sun had them in their Eyes it being improbable that there is any defect of light in that Star which is the fountain of it but they are produc'd by the vapours between the Sun and the Eye and therefore appear not at full noon and change with the vapours and clouds As for those which appear in the Moon 's face there is great diversity of opinions as of the Rabbines and Mahometans of the ancient Philosophers reported by Plutarch in his treatise thereof and of the moderns The first are ridiculous in believing that Lucifer by his fall and the beating of his wings struck down part of the light of this great Luminary or that the same was taken away to frame the Spirits of the Prophets Those Philosophers who attributed the cause to the violence of the Sun-beams reflected from the Moon to our Eyes would conclude well if the like spots appear'd in the Sun as do in the Moon because the rayes coming directly from the Sun to the Eyes have more brightness and dazle more then those reflected by the Moon Nor can these spots be the Images of the Sea and its Streights for the Ocean surrounding the Terrestrial Globe that part of it which remains in the lower part of the Globe cannot send its species so far as the Moon whilst she enlightens the upper part the Moon being able to receive onely the species of that part which she enlightens according to the principles of Theodosius who teaches us that from the Zenith of one Hemisphere right lines cannot be drawn to the other Hemisphere by reason of the solidity of the Globe the caliginous fire the wind the condensation of the Air and the like opinions of the Stoicks and other ancient Philosophers though erroneous yet seem to me more probable then those of some Moderns who will have the Moon inhabited not considering that 't is too small to make an habitable earth her body being the fortieth part of the Terrestrial Globe and its surface the thirteenth of that of the Earth or thereabouts besides that she comes too near the Sun whose Eclipse her interposition causeth They who make the Moon and the Earth to move about the Sun may indeed with Copernicus explicate the most signal motions and phaenomena But the stability of the Pole and the Stars about it requires a fix'd point in the Earth with which the inequality of the dayes and seasons could not consist if the Sun were stable and in one place Moreover the difference of dayes proceeds from the obliquity of the Ecliptick which is the cause that the parallels of the Solstice are nearer one to another and the dayes then less unequal then at the Equinoxes which cannot hold good in this Scheme But 't is less reasonable to say that the hollow places in the Moon seem dark for by the rules of perspective they should remit the Sun's rayes redoubled by their reflection by reason of the cone which is form'd in hollow parts nor can they be eminences which appear obscure because in this case the spots should not appear so great or not come at all to us being surpass'd by the dilatation of the rayes redoubled by the conical figure of the cavities of the Moon 'T is therefore more probable that as a Star is the thicker part of its Orbe so the Moon hath some dense then others which are the most luminous as those which are more diaphanous letting those beams of the Sun pass through them which they are not able to reflect for want of sufficient density seem more obscure and make the spots The fifth said The spots of the Sun cannot be from the same causes with those of the Moon which experience shews us changes place and figure those of the Sun remaining always alike and in the same figure whereby we may also understand the validity of what is alledg'd by some That the Sun moving upon his own Centre carries his spots about with him For granting this motion yet if these spots interr'd in the Sun they would always appear in the same manner and at regular times by reason of the Sun 's equal and uniform revolution Nevertheless the most diligent observers find that some of them are generated and disappear at the same time in the Solar face Which would incline me to their opinion who hold those spots to be generated out of the body of the Sun in the same manner that exhalations are out of the bosom of the earth did not this derogate from the receiv'd incorruptibility of the Heavens For it cannot be any defect of our sight mistaking the vapours between the eye and the Sun for spots inherent in his body since they are seen by all almost in the same number and figure which should alter with the medium if this were the cause of them and 't is impossible that vapours should follow the Sun in his course for so many days together as one of these spots appears for it must move above 6000 leagues a day though it were not much elevated above the earth Nor do our Telescopes deceive us since without them we behold these spots in a Basin of water or upon a white paper in a close Chamber whereinto the Sun is admitted only by a small hole Nor Lastly are they small Stars call'd by some Borboneae and Mediceae because we perceive both their nativity and their end II. Whether 't is best to use â—â—verity or gentleness towards our dependents Upon the second Point 't was said That he who said a man hath as many domestick enemies as servants imply'd that we are to use them as such converse with them as in an Enemy-Country and according to the Counsel of good Captains build some Fort therein for our security Which Fort is severity and its Bastions the reasons obliging us to this rigour The first of which is drawn from the contempt ensuing upon gentleness and familiarity and from the respect arising from severity and gravity especially in low and servile souls which being ill educated would easily fall into vice to which men are more inclin'd then to vertue if they be not restrain'd by fear of punishment which makes deeper impression upon their minds then the sweetness and love of virtue wherewith they are not acquainted Besides that servants are apt to grow slack and luke-warm in their duties unless they be spurr'd up by severity And 't is a great disorder when a servant becomes equal to his master as it happens by mildness nor was Paganism ever more ridiculous then in the Saturnalia when the servants play'd the masters It must likewise be confess'd that severity hath a certain majesty which exacts such honour and service as gentleness cannot obtain By this virtue Germanicus became so considerable and was
so well obey'd as on the contrary Nerva's mildness weakned and enervated the Roman Commonwealth Was ever King more severe and better obey'd then Tamberlane or any family more powerfully establish'd then that of the Ottamans which owes all its grandeur to severity and rigour the sole upholder of Military Discipline a good Captain never pardoning any in war For the misery of inferiors whether true or imaginary joyn'd with the natural desire of liberty easily carries them to rebellion if fear and rigour tye not their hands Thus the war undertaken by the Servants against their Masters at Rome was the effect of mildness nor was there any other means to repress it but by blood and slaughter as another Nation once routed an Army of their Slaves with Whips and Stirrup-leathers the sight of which reviving the memory of their former scars was more effectual then ordinary weapons Therefore when the Law gave power of life and death over slaves it intended not to authorize homicide being sufficiently careful of men's lives but judg'd it expedient to retain these persons in their duty by the apprehension of death The reason which once oblig'd the Senate to put 600 innocent slaves to death for an example to others The Second said whatever security there may be in severity it hath effects too violent to be durable Man's mind is too delicate a piece and whatever difference fortune hath put between men their spirit which is the same in all is too noble to be curb'd with a cudgel and biting of brutish severity which on the other side causes hatred as mildness doth love and is therefore to be prefer'd there being none but had rather be lov'd then hated and no way to be belov'd but by loving For the same Proverb which reckons servants amongst necessary evils reckons a wife so too and the tyrannical Aphorism So many servants so many enemies is not true but in those who have cause given them to be so And indeed a Master's condition would be the worst of all if he must live always at home upon his guard as in a den of Lyons or Tygres For what is alledg'd that servants are ill bred and ill-natur'd and seldom acknowledge the obligations they have to their Masters is indeed too true in the most eminent conditions but that which we call ingratitude in them comes especially from the rigour of our deportments which offuscate the benefits and commodities they receive from us Their low fortune is unpleasant enough without making them desperate to our prejudice And indeed the Laws which have allow'd most severity to Masters over their slaves have sometimes been insufficient to secure them from the fatal strokes of their discontent as many Histories of Roman Masters murder'd by their slaves notwithstanding that rigour of Silanus's Law and the dangerous revolts of Spartacus and others in the Provinces sufficiently testifie Whence it appears that a man must be in as much fear of his servants as he would be fear'd by them and that suspicion and diffidence is as well the mother of treacheries as of safety since it seems to leave those whom we distrust to do all the mischief they can For to pretend severity for avoidance of contempt and too great familiarity in my judgement speaks great weakness of mind and as if dominion and majesty could not be more agreeably maintain'd by clemency and gravity affected by rigour is as ridiculous as odious yea 't is to fall into an extremity too vicious to make one's self hated for fear of being sleighted and to appear cruel to avoid being familiar The Third said That although gentleness be more acceptable then severity yet 't is also more dangerous witness that of Lewis the Debonnaire and Eli the chief Priest towards their children for whom the Wiseman recommends the rod as Aristotle doth discipline for servants and slaves and the indulgence of good husbands to their wives is the most apparent cause of the luxury reigning in that Sex to say no worse A family is a kind of Republick and the principles of Occonomy and Policy are much alike Now we see States are preserv'd by the exact severity of Laws signifi'd by the Rods Axes Maces and naked Swords born by Magistrates and the Scepters of Kings But no Magistrates have Ensigns of gentleness as being more dangerous because directly oppos'd to justice all whose rights and priviledges are preserv'd by severity And hence clemency is not permitted to be us'd by inferior Judges but that it may be more rare 't is reserv'd to Princes themselves who are above Laws and Customs The Fourth said It belongs to Prudence to determine when how where and why ways of gentleness or severity are to be us'd some minds being exasperated by severity like those tempers on which violent medicines work least and others turning sweetness into bitterness whilst they think it to proceed from timerousness or impotence and so take license to do any thing whom benigne medicines act not But to speak absolutely the way of gentleness must always precede and be found unprofitable before coming to rigour according to the precept of the Physitians who use fire and cauteries only when the malignity of the malady will not yield to ordinary remedies which the ancient Arabians never us'd till having first try'd a diet and regiment of living Nor do's wise Nature ever use violence till she is forc'd to it by some potent cause as the fear of Vacuity or the penetration of Dimensions In all the rest of her actions she proceeds with sweetness wherewith she hath so endow'd man that the same humour which gives and preserves his being namely Blood is the cause of Clemency and Gentleness call'd for this reason Humanity Wherefore 't is more sutable to our nature then to lean towards its contrary and the way from gentleness to rigour is more rational and natural then from rigour to gentleness For when a rough master speaks flatteringly to his servants they are no more mov'd therewith then a Horse accustom'd to the spur is with the voice alone Yea a Horse that will not stir for words will go for the spur and Masters who incessantly rate and beat their servants are like those ill Horse-men who have alwayes their spurs in the Horses sides where they make by this means a callous scar insensible to the most quick stimulations CONFERENCE XCIV I. Of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon II. Whether all Sciences may be profitably reduc'd to one I. Of the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon T Is an ancient saying that the Luminaries have never more spectators then when some Languishment befalls them because ordinary effects how excellent soever affect us less then such as are not common whose novelty raises admiration in our minds otherwise much delighted in considering others defects and imperfections Those of the Celestial Bodies are deficiencies of light call'd Eclipses which happen by the diametrical interposition of some opake body To speak onely of those
incessantly assault it And if we compare it to other Sciences it overthrows most of their Principles by establishing the Mysteries of Faith This is it which made the wisest of men and who perfectly understood all Sciences to say That they were but vanity And were this union possible he hath so highly recommended sobriety of knowing that 't would be a kind of intemperance to desire to know every thing no less presumptuous by exceeding the bounds set by God to each of our capacities then ridiculous by attempting to make a necessary and infallible thing of many contingent and uncertain and not yet agreed upon The Third said That Unity which is one of the Transcendents co-eternal and co-essential to Good ought to be the attribute of all good things and consequently of Discipline which likewise being the good of the Understanding which is one cannot be comprehended by it but by their becoming conformable the one to the other If any reply That 't is enough that things enter into it successively and so need not be one which would be inconsistent with their nature I answer That the series and order which is found in those things belongs to one single Science otherwise they would have no conection together and by this means could not be made use of to purpose And since all our Notions depend one of another our Discourse being but a continual Syllogism whose Conclusions depend upon the Premises it follows That the Syllogism being the subject but of one Science they all pertain but to one Science whence Philosophy is defin'd the knowledge of things divine and humane that is to say of every thing Indeed since all moral Virtues are so connected together that 't is impossible to possess one without possessing all the Sciences which are the intellectual virtues must be streightly united likewise and the more for that they have but one most simple subject to wit the Uderstanding And since the means of Being are the same with those of Knowing every thing that is in the world having the same Principles of existence must also have the same principles of knowledg and so make one sole Science because Sciences differ only by reason of their principle all which too depend upon one Metaphysical principle namely That one and the same thing cannot be and not be which proves all others and therefore it follows That there must be one sole Science general comprehending all the rest For to say That every several manner of handling a thing makes a distinct Science is to imitate him who would make an Art of every Simple Lastly Nature would not have given us a desire of knowing every thing if this desire could not be accomplished But it is impossible to be so whilst the Sciences remain so diffuse as they are at present CONFERENCE XCV I. Of the diversity of Wits II. Of New-years Gifts I. Of the diversity of Wits DIversity is found in all things but no where more remarkably then in man for not to speak now of Bodies that of Minds is so great that none have been ever found to have the same inclinations or motions or that have been so much as like to themselves the Mind being an indefatigable Agent varying postures every moment according to the several occurrences of new objects to which it becomes like But though the division of Wits be so unequal and disadvantageous to some that there 's observ'd as great difference between one man and another as between some men and a brute yet all are well pleas'd with their lot and every one thinks he hath enough to spare and to govern and instruct others so conceited are we of what belongs to our selves Now the cause of this diversity of Spirits and Inclinations seems to be the various constitution of bodies whose temper the motions and inclinations of the Soul follow and this temper being incessantly mutable by causes internal and external not only in the four seasons of the year but also in the four parts of the day hence ariseth the diversity of the actions and inclinations of the Mind which is so great that the same thing pleases and displeases us in a little space of time The Second said That the Faculty which they call Ingenium or Genius cannot proceed meerly from the temperament of the four qualities For we see those that come nearest the temperament of man are the most stupid and Ages Seasons and Aliments changing those qualities continually should also incessantly change mans wits But 't is a quality or ray of the Reasonable Soul which finding the four qualities variously mix'd in every one makes use thereof in different operations and so this difference is only accidental not essential Moreover we see that whatever difference be conceiv'd in Minds yet their fundamental inclinations are alike the hatred and aversion of evil things and the desire and prosecution of good if the means imploy'd to these purposes be different this proceeds from a particular imagination caus'd by the constitution of the humours which makes this difference appear as through a colour'd glass So the choler of the Souldier puts him upon seeking honour and profit in Arms the Advocate is mov'd to seek them in the Sciences either by his more moderate temper or by the example and pleasure of his Ancestors Yet this Proportion cannot change the essence of Wits but only the appearance as a Painter out of the mixture of four or five colours makes infinite others which differ only in shew The Third said There are many partial causes of this variety and they may be various to infinity according to the various haps they meet with like the letters of the Alphabet diversly combin'd yet they may be referr'd to three principal Nature Art and Fortune The Nature of Man is the Soul and the Body Souls cannot differ specifically as some hold for then a species should be part of an individual since the Soul makes a part of man which is absurd because the species must be predicated of many individuals Yet I think there is some individual difference between our Souls not wholly depending upon the conformation of the organs or the temper of humours because excellent Souls have been found to lodg in ill-made Bodies as those of Socrates and Aesop and the contrary Art may also contribute much to this diversity especially in Youth when wits are more flexible some very dull ones having been incredibly improved by study So also may Fortune and Occasion amongst others the place of residence as the fertility of Palestine in Pasturage made the Jews Shepherds and the plains of Aegypt fitted for tillage by the inundation of Nilus made the Aegyptians Plow-men Those that inhabit the coasts of the Sea are Merchants in regard of the conveniency of transportation And necessity which forces our wits upon sundry things makes the Arabians who live in an unfertile soil for the most part Thieves as sterility has constrain'd others to make war upon their
it self and causes them to act and move in the Matter rightly dispos'd As for the Second Like as they argue that the world is finite round and corruptible because its parts are so So also it may be said that the world hath a Spirit which enlivens it since all its principal parts have a particular one for their Conservation Action and Motion the parts being of the same Nature with the whole This Universal Spirit is prov'd by the impotency of the Matter which of it self having no activity or principle of Life and Motion needeth some other to animate and quicken it Now particular Forms cannot do that for then they would be principles of that Virtue that is to say principles of themselves which is impossible Wherefore there must be some Superiour Form which is the Universal Spirit the principle of Action and Motion the Uniter of the Matter and the Form the Life of all Nature and the Universal Soul of the World Whence it may confidently be affirm'd that the World is animated but with what Soul or Spirit is the difficulty For if we prove by Local Motion or by that of Generation that a Plant or Animal are animated why may we not say the same of all the World since its more noble and principal parts afford evidence thereof As for the Heaven and the Stars they are in continual Motion which the more â—ober Opinion at this day confesseth to produce from their Internal Form rather then from the Intelligences which some would have fastned to the Spheres as a Potter to his wheel The Sun besides his own Motion which some call in controversie gives Life to all things by his heat and influences The Air Water and Earth afford also instances of this Life in the production and nourishing of Plants and Animals Thus the principal parts being animated this sufficeth for the Denomination of the whole seeing even in Man there are found some parts not animated as the Hair and the Nails As for the Last Point which is to know what this Universal Soul is there are many Opinions The Rabbins and Cabalists say that it is the RVAH ELOHIM that is the Spirit of God which moved upon Waters Trismegistus saith that it is a Corporeal Spirit or a Spiritual Body and elsewhere calleth it the Blessed GreenWood or the Green Lyon which causeth all things to grow Plato affirmeth it to be the Ideas The Peripateticks a certain Quintessence above the Four Elements Heraclitus and after him the Chymists that it is a certain Aethereal Fire For my part I conceive that if by this Spirit they mean a thing which gives Life and Spirit and Motion to all which is found every where and on which all depends there is no doubt but 't is the Spirit of God or rather God himself in whom and through whom we live and move But if we will seek another in created Nature we must not seek it elsewhere then in that corporeal creature which hath most resemblance with the Deity The Sun who more lively represents the same then any other by his Light Heat Figure and Power And therefore the Sun is that Spirit of the World which causeth to move and act here below all that hath Life and Motion The Second said That that Soul is a certain common Form diffus'd through all things which are moved by it as the wind of the Bellows maketh the Organs to play applying them to that whereunto they are proper and according to their natural condition So this Spirit with the Matter of Fire maketh Fire with that of Air maketh Air and so of the rest Some give it the name of Love for that it serves as a link or tye between all Bodies into which it insinuates it self with incredible Subtility which Opinion will not be rejected by the Poets and the Amorous who attribute so great power to it The Third said That the Soul being the First Act of an Organical Body and the word Life being taken onely for Vegetation Sensation and Ratiocination the world cannot be animated since the Heavens the Elements and the greatest part of Mixed Bodies want such a Soul and such Life That the Stoicks never attributed a Soul to this world but onely a Body which by reason of its Subtility is called Spirit and for that it is expanded through all the parts of the world is termed Vniversal which is the cause of all Motions and is the same thing with what the Ancients call'd Nature which they defined the Principle of Motion The reason of the Stoicks for this Universal Spirit is drawn from the Rarefaction and Condensation of Bodies For if Rarefaction be made by the insinuation of an other subtile Body and Condensation by its pressing out it follows that since all the Elements and mixt Bodies are rarifi'd and condens'd there is some Body more subtile then those Elements and mixts which insinuating it self into the parts rarifies them and makes them take up greater space and going forth is the Cause that they close together and take up less Now Rarefaction is alwayes made by the entrance of a more subtile Body and Condensation by its going out This is seen in a very thick Vessel of Iron or Brass which being fill'd with hot Water or heated Air and being well stop'd if you set it into the cold it will condense what is contain'd therein which by that means must fill less space then before Now either there must be a Vacuum in the Vessel which Nature abhorreth or some subtile Body must enter into it which comes out of the Air or the Water which fills that space Which Body also must be more subtile then the Elements which cannot penetrate through the thickness of the Vessel There is also seen an Instance of this in the Sun-beams which penetrate the most solid Bodies if they be never so little diaphanous which yet are impenetrable by any Element how subtile soever And because a great part of the Hour design'd for Inventions was found to have slip'd away during the Reciprocation of other reasons brought for and against this opinion some curiosities were onely mention'd and the examination of them referr'd to the next Conference In which it was determin'd first to treat of the Air and then to debate that Question Whether it is expedient in a State to have Slaves CONFERENCE VII I. Of the Air. II. Whether it be best for a State to have Slaves I. Of the Air. THe First said That he thought fit to step aside a little out of the ordinary way not so much to impugne the Maximes of the School as to clear them and that for this end he propros'd That the Air is not distinguish'd from the Water because they are chang'd one into the other For what else are those Vapours which are drawn up from the Water by the power of the Sun and those which arise in an Alembic or from boyling Water if we do not call them Air Now those Vapours are
person the latter being oftimes more profitable for them then the former which as a Lacedemonian told Diogenes frequently do's hurt in stead of good for the giving to a stout Beggar encourages him to accustomed laziness But on the other side being Charity is not suspicious it seems that it ought to be little material to the giver of an Alms whether the receiver be worthy of it or no provided he give it with a good intention according to his power and without vanity so highly blamed by our Saviour The Fourth said That the poor ought to be left as they are and 't is enough for us that we relieve them with our Alms according to our ability Experience shews that it has been a fruitless attempt in our days to confine and discipline them whatever care could be us'd by such as were intrusted therein But since Poverty is no vice why should it be punish'd with imprisonment Besides our Lord having told us that we shall always have the poor with us implies that there will always be poor Zea were the thing possible yet it ought not to be put in execution since charity will become extinguish'd by losing its object For present objects have most power upon us in all cases and 't is not credible that he who scarce feels himself touch'd with compassion at the sight of a wretch languish at his door would think of the poor when they no longer occurr'd to his view The Fifth said That although we are always to have the poor with us yet 't is not thence to be inferr'd that Begging ought not to be restrain'd should the one include the other as it doth not no more then 't is a good consequence that because scandal must necessarily come to pass therefore 't is not lawful to hinder it or that because the good designs of pious persons which have labour'd in this godly work have not succeeded in one time therefore they cannot at another But to shew how easie it is to take order for the regulation of the poor 't is manifest that almost all forreign Countries have made provision therein many whereof when they come to fetch away our corn justly wonder how we suffer such a multitude of Beggars considering what order they take with them in their publick penury Yea the City of Lyons whose territory is none of the most fertile of France and by its example divers other Cities have already made provision for them I conceive therefore that 't is easie not only for this populous City of Paris but for this whole Kingdom to do the same Now that may be apply'd to this regulation which Aesop said to those with whom Xanthus laid a wager that he would drink up the whole Sea namely that he could not do it unless they first stop'd the course of all the rivers which empty themselves thereinto so neither is it possible ever to regulate the flux and reflux of poor which come by shoals from all parts of France into this gulph or rather Parision sea without prohibiting them entrance into the same which cannot be done Christianly nor indeed politickly without taking care for redress of their miseries in those places which they abandon To effect which we must imitate Physitians asswage the most urgent symptomes and remove the concomitant cause yet not forgetting the antecedent nor the general remedies since as Aristotle saith he that would purge the eye must purge the head The robust poor must every one be sent to the place of his birth if he knows it or will tell it by which means the burden will become lighter being divided there they must be distinguish'd according to sex age conditions ability of body and mind capacity and industry that so they may be distributed into the several imployments whereof they shall be found capable with absolute prohibition not to beg or wander from one place to another without permission in writing from him who hath the charge of them under the penalty of the whip as also the people being forbidden under a fine to give Alms elsewhere then at the places appointed for that purpose The children of either sex must be put out for some certain number of years to Masters and Mistresses that will take charge of them Likewise such fellows as understand any Mystery or Craft shall be dispos'd of to Masters to whom upon that account and to all those who shall have the care of such poor shall be granted the most priviledges and immunities both Royal and Civil and of Communities that the rest of the inhabitants of the place can allow Out of the body of which inhabitants shall be chosen from time to time the most considerable persons to govern them who shall not be admitted to the highest Offices without having first pass'd through this Such as are able to do nothing else shall be imploy'd in publick works repairing of Bridges Banks Causeys or Buildings at the charge of the Proprietors And to the end that all these poor may find a livelihood they shall buy all their Victuals one of another and have certain Counters instead of money peculiarly current amongst themselves Aged persons incapable of labour shall have the care of the little children Such as are fit to travel shall be sent to the Plantations of New France But all this with such restrictions and modifications as the circumstances of each place shall require This design will be much further'd by new inventions by working at Mills by combing old wool and stuffs by cleansing the streets by night and many other occupations CONFERENCE XXXVI I. Of the tying of the Point II. Which is the greatest of all Vices I. Of the tying of the Point THis obstacle proceeding from the jealousie of Corrivals or Covetousness of Parents is a Ligature by which with certain words pronounc'd during the nuptial benediction a man becomes incapable of rendring to his wife the legitimate duty of Marriage This kind of enchantment is as all others of the Devil's invention who bearing an irreconcilable hatred to man endeavours all he can to hinder the fruit of generation and of the Sacrament of marriage by which man acquires that immortality in his species and his successors which that evil spirit caus'd him to lose in his individual 'T is one of his old impostures Virgil speaks of it in his eighth Eclogue where he makes mention of three knots made with three ribbands of different colours and of certain words of enchantment S. Augustine in the second Book and twentieth Chapter of Christian Doctrine declaims against these Sorceries Our Salick Law tit 22. sect 4. makes mention of some Sorcerers who hinder issue by ligatures In our time this kind of Maleficium hath been so common that it would be ridiculous to call the experience of it in question But since the author of it is the spirit of darkness 't is no wonder that we see not a whit in the inquiry of its causes The Second said That he could
not attribute this impediment of generation to charms and enchantments but rather to the power of the Imagination which is of great moment in this case as we see also in Love or Hatred which though by several ways render a man incapable of this action For if one be sollicited by a woman whom he thinks unhandsome and hates he cannot satisfie her because sadness makes his spirits to retire Another being surpriz'd with the enjoyment of some rare beauty becomes alike impotent because joy dissipates the same spirits The desire of doing well and the fear of failing are also frequently obstacles to it witness the impotence of Ovid Regnier the man mention'd in Petronius the Count spoken of by Montague and many others Now these passions making an impression in the Phancie disturb and hinder it from moving the Appetite and consequently the motive faculties depriving them by this means of their ordinary functions The Third said There are two sorts of Impotence one natural and the other supernatural The first happens two ways either through want of matter which is the geniture and spirits or through defect of emission The former not to mention the parts serving to generation happens through the extinction of virility and that by reason of old age sickness violent exercises aliments or medicaments cold and dry and generally by all causes which dissolve the strength and dissipate the spirits and flatuosities as Rue according to Aristotle The second defect proceeds from the obstruction of the Vessels or from a Resolution or Palsie befalling the foresaid parts That which is supernatural is acknowledg'd according to the Canon by the practise of the Church which ordains the two parties to be unmarried if at the end of three years they cannot undo this Gordian knot in the presence of seven witnesses It is made by Sorceries and charms which indeed have no action of themselves yet when men make use of them the Devil according to a compact either tacite or express acts with them imploying to that end the natural things whereof he hath perfect knowledge and hinders generation in two manners either by disturbing the phancie with some images and species of hatred and aversion or else by suspending the generative faculty by the dissipation of flatuosities retention of spirits and concretion of the geniture Now natural impotence is discern'd from supernatural because the first is alwayes alike towards all sort of persons but the second is onely in reference to some particular Woman the Man being well enough dispos'd for all others But change is to no purpose when the impotence is natural The Fourth said That Ligature is a subverting of the order establish'd in order by which all things are destinated to some particular action and are lead to what is sutable for them 'T is an impediment whereby the actions of agents as it were repress'd and restrain'd and 't is either Physical or Magical The former proceeds from a particular Antipathy between two Agents the stronger whereof by some occult contrary property extinguishes and mortifies the virtue of the weaker Thus Garlick or a Diamond hinder the Loadstone from attracting Iron Oyle keeps Amber from drawing straw and the spirits of the Basilisk fix those of a Man The second of which kind is the tying of the Point is done by Magick which thereunto employes certain words images circles characters rings sounds numbers ointments philtres charmes imprecations sacrifices points and other such diabolical inventions but especially barbarous names without signification yea sometimes to that degree of impiety as to make use of sacred things as the divine appellations prayers and verses taken out of the Holy Scripture which it prophanes in its charmes and fascinations Because as Saint Augustine saith the Devils cannot deceive Christians and therefore cover their poyson with a little honey to the end that the bitterness being disguis'd by the sweetness it may be the more easily swallow'd to their ruine These Magical Ligatures if we may credit those who treat of them are almost infinite For there are some particularly against Thieves restraining them from carrying away any thing out of the house others that hinder Merchants from buying or selling in certain Faires and retain ships in the Port so that they cannot get out to sea either by wind or oars or keep a mill from grinding the fire from burning the water from wetting the Earth from producing fruits and upholding buildings swords and all sorts of weapons and even lightning it self from doing mischief dogs from biting or barking the most swift and savage beasts from stirring or committing hurt and the blood of a wound from flowing Yea if we believe Virgil there are some which draw down the Moon to the Earth and effect other like wonders by means for the most part ridiculous or prophane Which nevertheless I conceive are to be referr'd either to natural causes or to the credulity of those who make use of them or to the illusions of the Devil or to the hidden pleasure of God sometimes permitting such impostures to deceive our senses for the punishing of the over-great curiosity of Men and chastising of the wicked For I see not what power of action there is in a number even or odd a barbarous word pronounc'd lowdly or softly and in a certain order a figure square or triangular and such other things which being onely quantities have not any virtue power or action for these belong onely to Qualities The Fifth said That we ought not to do as the vulgar do who refer almost every thing to supernatural causes If they behold a Tempest or Lightning fall down upon any place they cry the Devil is broke loose As for effects which are attributed to Occult Properties 't is Sorcery as they say to doubt that the same are other then the works of Sorcerers But we must rather imitate true Philosophers who never recurr to Occult Properties but where reasons fail them much less to supernatural causes so long as they can find any in nature how abstruse soever they may be Those of this knot or impotence are of three sorts Some proceed from the want of due Temper as from too great cold or heat either of the whole constitution or of the parts serving to generation For a good Temperature being requisite to this action which is the most perfect of any Animal immoderate heat prejudices the same as much as cold because it dries the Body and instead of producing consumes the Spirits The Second Cause is in the Mind for the Body is of it self immoveable unless it be agitated by the Soul which doth the same office to it that a Piper doth to his instrument which speaks not a jot if he blow not into it Now the Phancy may be carri'd away else where or prepossess'd with fear or some other predominant passion Whence he that imagines himself impotent and becomes so indeed and the first fault serves for a preparatory to the second Hereupon
besides loss of time renders mens minds soft and effeminate and more susceptible of the passions represented therein Tragedy is too sad to serve for divertisement to the soul. If you proceed to Gladiators is any thing more inhumane and that renders men more barbarous then to see our fellow-men kill one another in cold blood and expose themselves to wild beasts and 't is always a dangerous practise to accustom the eyes to murders and bloody spectacles nature being easily perverted by custom Moreover all these Mimes Actors Sword-players and the like were always held infamous and incapable of publick charges insomuch that the Emperor Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius in L. 4. C. de Spectaculis Scenicis and Lenonibus forbid to defile their sacred images by the society of those people who act upon the Theatre ranking them with the corrupters of chastity And the Romans who practis'd the same more then any Nation felt the inconvenience of them when the most potent became masters of the Commonwealth by means of the spectacles wherewith they allur'd the people to their party as Julius Caesar who being Aedile and having given Gladiators Huntings Sports Races and sumptuous Feasts to the people of Rome they created him Chief Pontife although Q. Catulus and Servilius Isauricus two great personages were his competitors which was his first step to Sovereignty and Suetonius observes that the conflux of people was so numerous that many and amongst the rest two Senators were smother'd in the throng The Third said That Spectacles or Shews are good or bad according to the things which they represent But absolutely speaking they ought to be permitted not only for the diversion of men but also for the exercising of youth and animating them to courage by rewards for their fortitude as the Greeks sometimes appointed Statues Crowns of gold Olive Palm Smallage and other such guerdons to those who overcame in Running Wrastling Caestus or fighting with Whorlbats and such exercises carrying them in a triumphal Charriot to the Town of their Birth shewing themselves so careful of the Olympick Games that they committed the charge thereof to the Sicyonians after Corinth the place where they were formerly celebrated had been raz'd by the Romans who transferr'd those Plays into their own City by the perswasion of Cato for the same end of educating their youth For as profit delights some spirits so pleasure allures all and of pleasures none is more innocent and communicable then that of the sight CONFERENCE LXXXVI I. Of the Dog-days II. Of the Mechanicks I. Of the Dog-days THat the Stars act upon sublunary bodies is agreed upon but not the manner some holding that they impress some qualities by motion others by light others by their influence others by both together producing heat by the two first and other more extraordinary effects by influences For every thing that is mov'd heats as also all sort of light united even that of the Moon whose rays may be made to burn with glasses as well as those of the Sun But because natural agents cannot act beyond the natural bounds of their power therefore heat produc'd of light and motion here below can produce only its like heat or such other alteration in inferior bodies not those strange and irregular changes not only in the temper of the air but of every other body As that it is sometimes hotter and sometimes colder in the same elevation of the Sun cannot be attributed to his approach or remotion or to the incidence of his perpendicular or oblique rays but it must proceed from the conjunction opposition or several aspects of other Stars Amongst which the Canicula or Dog-star hath very extraordinary effects as to weaken mens bodies to make dogs run mad to turn the wine in the vessel to make the sea boile to move lakes to heat the air so much that Pliny affirms that Dolphins keep themselves hid during the 30 Dog-days at which he wonders the more because they can respire neither in the water nor upon the earth but partly in the air partly in the water Moreover Experience shews that the Hyades or Pleiades stars in the back of the Bull have such a moist quality that they alwayes cause rain at their rising which happens in November as Arcturus never rises without bringing hail or tempest the Moon being full Oysters Muscles and the sap of Trees are so too and therefore being cut at this time they soon rot and Pliny counsels to cut them during the Dog-dayes when the heat of the season ha's dry'd up all their aqueous moisture which is the cause of their corrupting The Second said That the vanity of Astrologers who have phancy'd monsters and sundry figures in Heaven and attributed imaginary effects to them the better to amuse mens minds with some resemblance of the truth hath also feign'd two dogs there one less consisting of two stars and another of eighteen the the greatest of which is the brightest in our Hemisphere and is in the tongue of this Dog whom the Greeks and Latins call Sirius and ascribe so much power to him that they conceive his conjunction with the Sun in the East causes the scorching heat of Summer yea the people of the Isle of Cea near Negropont as Cicero reports took their presages of the whole year from the rising of this star determining the same to be rainie in case this star appear'd obscure and and cloudy and the contrary But this cannot be true as well in regard of the great distance of the fix'd stars which also being of the same substance cannot have contrary qualities as also by reason of the retrogradation of their sphere which hath a motion contrary to that of the First Mover namely from West to East which motion though insensible in few years yet amounts to much at the end of many Ages As is justifi'd by the Dog-star which Ptolomy in the tables of his time places at 18. degr 10. min. of Gemini Alphonsus King of Castile at the 4. degr of Cancer and now 't is found at 9. degr 54. min. according to Tycho and at 9. degr 30. min. according to Copernicus Whereby it appears that after many years this star will be in the winter signes and that at the Creation it was in Aries at the Vernal Equinox and that consequently the Dog-dayes will be in the time of the greatest cold In brief were there such power in this conjunction the Dog-dayes would be hot and burning and yet in some years they are cold and rainie Which the Astrologers attributing to the several Aspects of Saturn or other cold stars see not that by weakning the force of some by others they subvert all Wherefore the Dog-star is at present the sign but not the cause of hot dayes that is the hapning of this Constellation in the Summer signes and its conjunction with the Sun during hot weather ha's been erroniously believ'd the principal cause thereof which in my judgement is to be
sought onely in the continuance of the Suns action during the Spring and half the Summer whereby the Air is hotter then when he was neerer us So 't is hotter at two a clock in the afternoon then at ten in the morning although the Sun be at the same distance yea then at noon although he be then nearest of all and we read that an Ambassador of Presbyter John dy'd with heat as he landed at Lisbone although the heat be not so great there as in his Country but of louger continuance If it rains sometimes during the said season 't is by reason of too great attraction of Vapours by the heat of the Sun as is seen in the torrid Zone where when the Sun is in the greatest Apogaeum it rains continually The Second said That the Longitude of the Dog-star call'd by the Arabians Athabor is at this day about the 9. degr of Cancer and its meridional latitude 39. degr and a half Now the Ancients observing the greatest heat of the whole year to be commonly when the Sun is at the end of Cancer and beginning of Leo and at the same the Dog-star to rise with the Sun which the Astronomers call the Cosmical Rising nam'd those dayes Dog-dayes which begin with us about the two and twentieth of July whether they believ'd the cause of this heat to be that star assisting the Sun or else according to their order of distinguishing seasons before years and moneths were regulated by the course of the Sun they denoted those dayes by the rising of this star conceiving that it did not change place any more then the other stars of the Firmament As not onely the Poets but also Hippocrates distinguishes the four Seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades and Arcturus And thus the name of the day hath remain'd to these dayes although the star be not in the same place following Ages observing that besides the eight motions admitted by the Ancients in the Heavens namely of the seven Planets and the First Mover there 's another peculiar to the starry Heaven which is finish'd according to some in 36000 years whereby it comes to pass that the Dog-star is no longer in the same place where it was at the first observation of these Dog-dayes For 't is about two thousand years since this star arose exactly with the Sun in the dayes which we call Canicular the heat whereof hath alwayes continu'd and yet the star hath pass'd forward and at this day rises not with the Sun till about the eighth of August when the Dog-dayes and strength of heat begins to expire Since therefore the effect continues and the pretended cause exists not at that time as the Astronomical Tables justifie it follows that it is not the cause of that effect Wherefore some have conceiv'd that the star which made the Dog-dayes was another star in the little Dog call'd Procyon But this Procyon did not rise with the Sun in the dayes of the Ancients till about the beginning of July which is three weeks before the Dog-dayes which consequently cannot be attributed to the fix'd stars by reason of their particular motion which causes them to vary situation the Dog-star by its proper motion proceeding 52. min. every year which make about 1. degr in 70. years 3. degr in 200. years and one sign in 2000. Besides if the stars had any force the same would be sensible at their coming to the meridian of the place with the Sun then when they rise with him because their greatest strength is when they are under the meridian being then in their greatest elevation above the Horizon and nearest the Zenith and consequently most active as experience shews in the Sun Therefore the true cause of the heat of Dog-dayes is because the Sun being towards the end of Cancer and the beginning of Leo we have more causes concurring together to produce heat then in any other season of the year namely the elevation of the Sun above the horizon the length of the days and shortness of the nights For then the dayes are not sensibly diminish'd nor the nights sensibly encreas'd the Sun hath not yet suffer'd any considerable change in his altitude above the Horizon but above all the preparation of the earth which hath been heated during the three moneths of the Spring and a moneth and half of the Summer whereby all the aqueous humidity which refrigerates is dissipated and the heat so far impacted into the earth that the night it self is less cold then in any other season The Fourth said As 't is absurd to seek in the stars for causes of effects when we see them manifest in the qualities of inferior bodies and the various concourse of so many different natural causes So 't is stupidity to deny all virtue to those great superior orbs rejecting wise Antiquity and all the most learned judiciary Astrologers who ascribe a particular virtue to each star as to the Dog-star to heat and scorch the Air. Moreover the Divine Hippocrates lib. de Affect inter Sect. 5. affirms that the disease call'd Typhos happens commonly in Summer and in these Dog-dayes because it hath a power to stir the choler through the whole Body And in his book De Aere locis aquis he adds that the rising of the stars is diligently to be observ'd especially that of the Dog-star and some few others at which times diseases turn into other kinds for which reason he saith Aph. 5. Sect. 4. That purging is dangerous when the Dog-star rises and some while before The Fifth said That all purging medicaments being hot t is no wonder if they are carefully to be manag'd during very hot weather in which there is a great dissipation of the spirits and strength so that our Bodies being then languid cannot be mov'd and agitated without danger Not that the Dog-star contributes any thing thereunto but onely the heat of the season caus'd by the Sun which attracting from the centre to the circumference and purging from the circumference to the centre there are made two contrary motions enemies to Nature which is the cause that many fall then into fevers and fainting fits II. Of the Mechanicks Upon the Second Point 't was said That as the object of the Mathematicks is two-fold either intellectual or sensible so there are two sorts of Mathematicks Some consider their object simply and abstracted from all kind of matter namely Geometry and Arithmetick others consider it as conjoyn'd to some matter and they are six Astrology Perspective Geodaesie Canonick or Musick the Logistick and the Mechanick Art which is nothing less then what its name imports being otherwise the most admirable of all because it communicates motion which is the most exquisite effect of Nature 'T is divided into Organical which composes all instruments and engines of war sordid which makes utensils necessary to the uses of life and miraculous which performs strange and extraordinary things 'T is this
which makes water ascend in the Pneumaticks whereof Hero writ a Treatise rendring the same melodious and resembling the singing of birds in the Hydraulicks It makes use of the four Elements which are the causes of the motions of engines as of Fire in Granadoes Air in Artificial Fountains both Fire and Air by their compression which water not admitting since we see a vessel full of water can contain nothing more its violence consists in its gravity when it descends from high places The Earth is also the cause of motion by its gravity when 't is out of Aequilibrium as also of rest when 't is equally poiz'd as is seen in weights The Second said The wit of Man could never preserve the dominion given him by God over other creatures without help of the Mechanicks but by this art he hath brought the most savage and rebellious Animals to his service Moreover by help of mechanical inventions the four Elements are his slaves and as it were at his pay to do his works Thus we see by means of the Hydraulicks or engines moving by water wheels and pumps are set continually at work the Wind is made to turn a Mill manag'd by the admirable Art of Navigation or employ'd to other uses by Aealipila's Fire the noblest of all Elements becomes the vassal of the meanest Artisans or serves to delight the sight by the pleasant inventions of some Ingineer or employes its violence to arm our thunders more powerfully then the ancient machines of Demetrius The Earth is the Theatre of all these inventions and Archimedes boasted he could move that too had he place where to fix his engine By its means the Sun descends to the Earth and by the artificial union of his rayes is enabled to effect more then he can do in his own sphere The curiosity of man hath carry'd him even to Heaven by his Astrological Instrumens so that nothing is now done in that republick of the stars but what he knows and keeps in record The Third said That since Arts need Instruments to perform their works they owe all they can do to the Mechanicks which supply them with utensils and inventions 'T was the Mechanicks which furnish'd the Smith with a hammer and an anvil the Carpenter with a saw and a wedge the Architect with a rule the Mason with a square the Geometrician with a compass the Astronomer with an astrolabe the Souldier with sword and musket in brief they have in a manner given man other hands Hence came paper writing printing the mariner's box the gun in these latter ages and in the preceding the Helepoles or takecities flying bridges ambulatory towers rams and other engines of war which gives law to the world Hence Archimedes easily drew a ship to him which all the strength of Sicily could not stir fram'd a heaven of glass in which all the celestial motions were to be seen according to which model the representation of the sphere remains to us at this day Hence he burnt the Roman ships even in their harbour defended the City of Syracuse for a long time against the Roman Army conducted by the brave Marcellus And indeed I wonder not that this great Archimedes was in so high in Reputaion For if men be valued according to their strength is it not a miracle that one single man by help of mechanicks could lift as much as ten a hundred yea a thousand others And his pretension to move the whole Earth were a poynt given him out of it where to stand will not seem presumptuous though the supposition be impossible to such as know his screw without-end or of wheels plac'd one above another for by addition of new wheels the strength of the same might be so multiply'd that no humane power could resist it yea a child might by this means displace the whole City of Paris and France it self were it upon a moveable plane But the greatest wonder is the simplicity of the means employ'd by this Queen of Arts to produce such excellent effects For Aristotle who writ a book of mechanicks assignes no other principles thereof but the Lever its Hypomoclion or Support and a balance it being certain that of these three multiply'd proceed all Machines both Automata and such as are mov'd by force of wind fire water or animals as wind-mills water-mills horse-mills a turn-broch by smoak and as many other inventions as things in the world CONFERENCE LXXXVII I. Whether the Soul's Immortality is demonstrable by Natural Reasons II. Whether Travel be necessary to an Ingenuous Man I. Whether the Soul's Immortality is demonstrable by Natural Reasons NAtural Philosophy considers natural bodies as they are subject to alteration and treats not of the Soul but so far as it informes the Body and either partakes or is the cause of such alteration And therefore they are injust who require this Science to prove supernatural things as the Soul's Immortality is Although its admirable effects the vast extent of its thoughts even beyond the imaginary spaces its manner of acting and vigor in old age the terrors of future judgement the satisfaction or remorse of Conscience and Gods Justice which not punishing all sins in this life presupposes another are sufficiently valid testimonies thereof should not the universal consent of heathens themselves some of which have hastned their deaths to enjoy this immortality and man 's particular external shape infer the particular excellence of his internal form So that by the Philosophical Maxime which requires that there be contraries in every species of things if the souls of beasts joyn'd to bodies die there must be others joyn'd to other bodies free from death when separated from the same And the Harmony of the world which permits not things to pass from on extreme to another without some mean requires as that there are pure spirits and intelligences which are immortal and substances corporeal and mortal so there be a middle nature between these two Man call'd by the Platonists upon this account the horizon of the Universe because he serves for a link and medium uniting the hemisphere of the Angelical Nature with the inferior hemisphere of corporeal nature But there is difference between that which is and that which may be demonstrated by Humane Reason which falls short in proving the most sensible things as the specifical proprieties of things and much less can it prove what it sees not or demonstrate the attribute of a subject which it sees not For to prove the Immortality of the Soul 't is requisite at least to know the two termes of this proportion The Soul is immortal But neither of them is known to natural reason not immortality for it denotes a thing which shall never have end but infinitie surpasses the reach of humane wit which is finite And the term Soul is so obscure that no Philosophy hath yet been able to determine truly whether it be a Spirit or something corporeal a substance or an accident single