difference between not feeling Pleasure or being deprived of the sensation of it and actually suffering Pain so that all Evil is not such precisely because it deprives us of good but only as I have shewn the Evil which is External and which is not a manner of being that is in us Nevertheless as by Goods and Evils we generally mean things Good and Evil and not the Sensation of Pleasure and Pain which are rather Natural Marks whereby the Soul distinguishes Good from Evil it seems that we may say without equivocation that Evil is only a privation of Good and that the Natural motion of the Soul which drives us from Evil is the same with that which inclines us to Good For all Natural Motion being an impression of the Author of Nature who acts only for himself and can only incline us towards himself The true Motion of the Soul is always an essential love of good and but an accidenttal aversion to evil It is true that Pain may be considered as an Evil and in this sense the Motions of the Passions that it excites is not real for we do not will Pain and if we will positively that Pain should not be it is because we would positively preserve or perfect our Being The third thing that we may observe in every Passion is the Sensation which accompanies them for the Sensation of Love Aversion Desire Joy Sorrow are always different in different Passions The fourth is a new determination of the course of the Spirits and Blood towards the External parts of the Body and towards the Internal ones before the sight of the Object that moves the Passion the Animal Spirits were dispersed through all the Body to preserve all the parts of it in general but at the presence of this new Object the whole Oeconomy is troubled the greatest past of the Spirits are pushed into the Muscles of the Arms Legs Face and all the External parts of the Body to put them in a proper disposition for the Passion that Rules and to give it the necessary posture and motion for the acquisition of good or to fly the evil that presents it self but if its own Forces are not sufficient to answer its occasions these same Spirits are so distributed that they Mechanically make it utter certain words and cries which diffuse over the Face and the rest of the Body such an Air as is capable of agitating others with the same Passion it self is moved with For as Men and Animals are united together by the Eyes and Ears when any one of them is agitated he necessarily moves all those that look upon him and hear him and naturally makes an impression upon their imagination which interests them in his preservation As for the rest of the Animal Spirits they violently descend into the Lungs Liver Spleen and the rest of the Bowels to demand Contributions from all those parts and hasten them in a little time to furnish necessary Spirits to preserve the Body in the extraordinary action it must be in The fifth is the sensible emotion of the Soul which feels it self agitated by the unexpected overflowing of the Spirits This always accompanies the motion of the Spirits so that it interests it self in whatever affects the Body even as the motion of the Spirits are excited in the Body as soon as the Soul is carried toward any Object the Soul and Body being mutually united their motions are reciprocal The sixth are the different Sensations of Love Aversion Joy Sorrow Desire caused not by the intellectual fight of good or evil as those we have already spoke of but by the different shakings that the Animal Spirits cause in the Brain The seventh is a certain Sensation of Joy or rather of inward Complacency which stops the Soul in its passion and assures it that 't is in the condition that is proper for it in relation to the Object it considers This internal Complacency generally accompanies all the Passions those which proceed from the prospect of an Evil as well as those that proceed from the prospect of a Good Sorrow as well as Joy 'T is this Complacency that renders all our Passions agreeable and which inclines us to consent and abandon our selves to them In short 't is this Complacency that must be overcome by the delight of Grace the joy of Faith and Reason For as the joy of the Mind always results from the certain or evident knowledge that we are in the best estate we can be in relation to the things we perceive so the Complacency of the Passions is a Natural Consequence of the confused Sensations we have that we are in the best condition we can be in relation to the things we feel Now by the joy of the Mind and delights of Grace we must conquer the false Complacency of our Passions which makes us slaves to sensible goods All these things we have spoke of occur in every Passion when they are excited by confused Sensations and that the Mind perceives neither the good nor evil which can cause them for then 't is plain the three first things are not concerned in them We likewise see that all those things are not free that they are in us without our consent and even against it since the Fall and that there is only the consent of our Will which truly depends upon us But it seems necessary to explain all these things more at large and to render them more sensible by some Examples Let us suppose then that a Man has actually received some affront or that being naturally of a very lively and quick imagination he has been agitated by some accident as a disease a melancholy retirement or the like and imagines to himself in his Closet that such a Person who does not so much as think upon him is willing and prepared to hurt him The sensible prospect or imagination of the relation which is betwixt the actions of his Enemy and his own Designs will be the first cause of his Passion It is not even absolutely necessary that this Man should receive or imagine he received some affront for the motion of his Will to receive some new determination It is enough that he think it in his Mind only without the Body's having any part in it But as this new determination wou'd not be a determination of Passion but a pure inclination very weak and languishing we shou'd suppose that this Man actually suffers some great opposition in his designs or that he strongly imagines that he shall do so rather than make another supposition wherein the Senses and Imagination have little or no share The second thing we may consider in the Passion of this Man is an increase of the motion of his Will towards the good the possession whereof his real or imaginary Enemy would hinder him and the increase is so much the greater as the opposition that would be made appears stronger to him He first hates his Enemy only because he loves
force of Bodies therefore is not in the Bodies which move since this power of Motion is nothing else but the Will of God Thus Bodies have no Action and when a Bowl which is moved by meeting it moves another yet it communicates nothing of its own for in it self it hath not the Impression that it communicates to the other Yet a Bowl is the Natural Cause of the motion which it communicates A Natural Cause then is not a real and true Cause but only an occasional one and which determined the Author of Nature to act after such and such a manner in such and such an Occurrence It is certain that 't is by the Motion of visible or invisible Bodies that all things are produced For Experience teaches us that Bodies whose parts are in greatest Motion always act more than others and produce the greatest Change in the World All the Powers of Nature then proceed from the Will of God He has created the World because he willed it Dixit facta sunt He moves all things and so produces all the Effects that we see happen because he has also willed certain Laws according to which Bodies communicate their Motions in their Rencounter and because these Laws are Efficacious they act and Bodies cannot act There is therefore no Force Power or true Cause in the Material and Sensible World nor must we admit of Forms Facilities and real Qualities to produce Effects that Bodies cannot and to divide with God the Force and Power which is Essential to him Not only Bodies cannot be the true Causes of any thing the most noble Spirits also are under a like Impotence They can know nothing it God does not enlighten them nor can they have any Sensation if he does not modifie them They are capable of willing nothing if God moves them not towards him I confess they can determine the Impression that God gives them towards him to other Objects but I know not whether that can called a Power If the Capability of Sinning is a Power it would be a Power which the Almighty has not St. Austin says in some of his Works It Men had in themselves the Power of loving Good we might say they had some Power But can only Love because God Wills they should Love and because his Will is Efficacious They Love only because God continually inclines them to Good in General that is towards himself For God has created them only for himself he never preserves them without turning them towards and inclining them to himself They have no Motion towards Good in general 't is God who moves them they only follow by an entire free Choice this Impression according to the Law of God or determine it towards a false Good after the Law of the Flesh They can only be determined by a Prospect of Good For being able to do only what God makes them they can love nothing but Good But if we should suppose what is true in one Sense that Spirits have in themselves the Power of knowing Truth and loving Good if their Thoughts and Wills produced nothing External we might always say they were able to do nothing Now it appears most certain to me that the Will of Spirits is not capable of moving the least Body in the World For 't is evident there is no necessary Connexion between the Will we have of moving our Arms and the Motion of them It is true they are moved when we please and by that means we are the Natural Cause of their Motion But Natural Causes are not true Causes they are only Occasional ones which act meerly through the Power and Efficacy of God as I have already explained For how can we move our Arms To move them we must have Animal Spirits and convey them by certain Nerves into such and such Muscles to swell and contract them For by this means the Arms move or according to the Opinion of some we know not yet how 't is performed And we see that Men who do not so much as know they have Spirits Nerves and Muscles to move their Arms yet move them with as much Art and Facility as those that understand Anatomy best 'T is then granted that Men Will the Motion of their Arms but 't is only God that can and knows how to remove them If a Man cannot throw down a Tower at least he knows well what must be done in order to it But there is no Man that knows so much as what he must do to move one of his Fingers by the help of his Animal Spirits How then can Men move their Arms These things appear evident to me and to all those that will think of them though perhaps they may be incomprehensible to such as will not consider them But Men only are not the True Causes of the Motions produced in their Bodies it seems even a Contradiction that they should be so A True Cause is such an one as the Mind perceives a necessary Connexion between it and its Effect 't is that I mean Now there is only the Infinitely Perfect Being whose Mind can perceive a necessary Connexion between his Will and the Effects of it 'T is only God then who is the True Cause and who has really the Power of moving Bodies I say moreover 't is not probable that God should communicate either to Men or Angels this Power he has of moving Bodies and those who pretend the Power we have of moving our Arms is a true Power must confess that God can also give to Spirits the Power of creating annihilating and performing all possible things In a word That he can make them Almighty as I shall further shew God has no need of any Instrument to act it is sufficient if he Wills a thing for it to be because it is a Contradiction to suppose he Wills it and that it should not be His Power then is his Will and the communicating of his Power is a Communication of his Will But to communicate his Will to a Man or an Angel can signifie nothing else but Willing some body for instance should be effectively moved when 't is Will'd by a Man or an Angel Now in this case I see two Wills which concur when an Angel would move a Body that of God and that of the Angel and to know which of the two will be the true Cause of the Motion of this Body we must know which it is that is Efficacious There is a necessary Connexion between the Will of God and what he Wills God Wills in this case that a Body should move when it is willed by an Angel There is a necessary Connexion therefore between the. Will of God and the Motion of this Body and consequently 't is God who is the true cause of the Motion of the Body and the Will of the Angel only an occasional one But to shew it yet more clearly let us suppose that God Wills it should happen quite contrary to what some
necessity of sending Dragoons into the Monasteries and Societies and to an infinite number of honest Men to cause them to abjure the Errours of the Cartesian Philosophy So true is it that Devotees do not always see the fatal Consequences of an Advice which impetuous Zeal dictates to those that are in Authority Monsieur Regis well known by the Philosophy he has Published having undertaken to oppose some Sentiments of F. Malebranch this Father neglected at first to Answer his new Adversary but when Monsieur Regis would have drawn an advantage from the silence of a Man who plainly perceived himself unfairly attack'd Father Malbranche published the last Year a short Answer to Monsieur Regis The name of Monsieur Arnaud was made use of in this Contestation which occasioned him to appear again upon the stage In the Journal des Scavans at Paris he Printed two Letters addrest to F. Malebranch who soon answered him and gave two Letters to the Journalist that were also Printed Monsieur Cousin left off his Correspondence with Monsieur Arnaud and refused to put in his Journal other Letters which M. Arnaud had written a little before his Death we shall doubtless see them in his Posthumous works for it is not probable that they will rob the Publick of the Remains of so great a man We shall be gainers thereby two wayes F. Malbranche will break that silence which he seems to have condemned himself to and we shall have new Explanations upon some important Difficult ties which M. Arnaud may have found in the VVorks of so hard an Adversary I have but one thing more to say of F. Malebranch It is that his Heart agrees perfectly with his Vnderstanding There is as much Vprightness in the one as Justness in the other He is a Christian Philosopher who acts as he thinks Never did any Man more perfectly regulate his Manners and Actions upon the Principles of his Philosophy Being perswaded that God is the only cause which acts truly upon our Body and in our Soul F. Malebranch accustoms himself upon every Sensation upon every Perception to elevate himself always towards the Supreme Being to humble himself in his Presence and to praise him continually VVith what assurance does not he as often as it 's possible approach to the Throne of Grace of the Eternal High Priest who continually intercedes for us VVith what fervour does he not beg to be admitted as a Living Stone in the Structure of the Mysterious Temple which this Divine Architect builds up to the Glory of his Father He is in a continual watchfulness and attention over himself to divert the Impressions which sensible Objects may make upon his Body and to stop whatever is capable of exciting the Passions He is the most sober and temperate Man in the World And if F. Malebranch so exactly observes his Duties towards God and himself he is not less regular in those which respect his Neighbour He is tender and compassionate to the unhappy courteous and affable to all the VVorld preventing and sincere in respect of his Friends good and indulgent to all those who injure him Being perswaded that the Love of his Neighbour ought to have for its principal end that Eternal Society to which we are called by the Gospel He endeavours to inspire all those who come near him with Sentiments of Piety and Religion to procure as much as he can their Eternal Happiness which he earnestly desires day and night In a word F. Malebranch has drawn his own Pourtraiture in his Treatise of Morality To compose the greatest part of which he had no need of long and new Reflexions upon the Duties of Man He hath told us without thinking of it what he exactly practiced after he had applied himself to the regulation of his Manners upon the Truths he had so attentively Meditated and so happily Explained A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH BOOK V. of the Passions CHAP. I. Of the Nature and Original of the Passions in general THE Mind of Man has two essential or necessary relations which are very different the one to God and the other to its Body as it is a pure Spirit it is essentially united to the Word of God to the Eternal Wisdom and Truth for 't is only by this Union that it is capable of thinking as has been shewn in the 3d Book as an humane Spirit it has an essential relation to its Body and because of this union it is sensible and imagines as has been explained in the First and Second Books I call that sense or imagination of the Mind when the Body is the natural or occasional cause of its thoughts and that understanding when it acts of it self or rather when God acts in it or when his light enlightens it after many different manners independantly of any thing whatever that passes in its Body 'T is the same in respect of the humane Will as a Will it essentially depends upon the Love which God bears to himself upon the Eternal Law in a word upon the Will of God 'T is only because God loves himself that we love any thing and if God did not love himself or if he did not continually imprint upon the Soul of Man a Love like to his I mean that motion of Love which we receive for good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently we should be without any will since the will is nothing else but the impression of Nature which carries towards good in general as we have often said before Book I. Ch. I. and elsewhere But the Will as it is an humane Will essentially depends upon the Body for 't is only from the motions of the Blood and Spirits that it perceives it self agitated with all sensible Emotions I therefore give the name of Natural Inclinations to all the motions of the Soul which are common to us with pure Intelligences and some of those in which the Body has a great share but whereof it is only indirectly the Cause and the End as I have explained in the preceding Book and here I design by the word Passions all the Emotions which the Soul naturally feels by means of the extraordinary Motions of the Animal Spirits and Blood These are the sensible Emotions which shall be the Subject of this Book Although the Passions are inseparable from the Inclinations and Men were no farther capable of sensible love or hatred than as they are capable of the mental yet I thought it would not be amiss to treat distinctly of 'em to avoid confusion Those that consider the Passions are much more strong and lively than the Natural Inclinations for other Objects and which are always produced from other Causes will acknowledge that 't is not without reason that I have separated things that are inseparable in their nature Men are only capable of Sensations and Imaginations as they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind however
this good and his hatred is so much the greater as his love is stronger because the motion of his Will in his hatred is here in effect only a motion of love the motion of the Soul towards good not differing from that whereby we fly the privation of it as has been already said The third thing is the Sensation proper to the Passion and in this it is a Sensation of Hatred The motion of Hatred is the same as that of Love but the Sensation of Hatred is quite different from that of Love which every one may know by his own experience Motions are actions of the Will but Sensations are modifications of the Mind The Motions of the Will are the Natural Causes of the Sensations of the Mind and these Sensations of the Mind in their turn maintain the Motions of the Will in their determination The Sensation of Hatred is in this Man a Natural Consequence of the Motions of his Will which is excited at the sight of Evil and this Motion is afterwards maintained by the Sensation it causes What we have said of this Man might even happen although he should have no Body But because he is composed of two parts naturally united the Motions of his Mind communicate themselves to his Body and those of his Body to his Mind Thus the new determination or the increase of the Motions of his Will naturally produces a new determination in the Motion of the Animal Spirits which always differs in all the Passions although the Motion of the Soul be generally the same The Spirits then are forcibly pushed into the Arms Legs and Face to give the Body a disposition necessary for the Passion and to disperse over the Face the Air a Man ought to have when we offend him in relation to all the circumstances of the Injury he receives and the quality or power of him that does and of him that suffers the Affront And this diffusion of the Spirits is so much the stronger more abundant and quicker as the good is greater the opposition stronger and the Brain more sensibly affected If then the Person of whom we speak should only receive some injury in his imagination or if he receives a real one but flight and such as can make no considerable shaking in the Brain the diffusion of the Animal Spirits will be weak and languishing and perhaps insufficient to change the common and natural disposition of the Body But if the injury be great and his imagination be heated it will cause a great shaking in his Brain and the Spirits would he diffused with so much force that in a moment they would create in his Body the air and gesture of the ruling Passion If it is strong enough to overcome his air would be threatning and fierce If it is weak and cannot resist the evil that oppresses him his air would be humble and submissive His Complaints and Tears would naturally excite in the Standers-by and even in his Enemy motions of Pity and from thence they would draw the relief that could be hoped for from his own power It is true that the Spectators and Enemy of this Miserable Person have the Spirits and Fibres of their Brain already agitated I with a violent motion contrary to that which produces Compassion in the Soul the Complaints of this Man would but exasperate their Rage and so his Misfortune would be inevitable should he always continue in the same air and gesture But Nature has well provided in this case for at the sight of the near loss of a great good it naturally forms upon the Face such lively and surprizing Characters of Rage and Despair as to disarm the most Barbarous Enemies and make them become like Statues The terrible and unexpected fight of the Lineaments of Death drawn by the Hand of Nature upon the Face of a Miserable Wretch stops in the Enemy who is affected with it the Motion of the Spirits and Blood which carried him to Revenge and in that moment of favour and attention Nature draws a-new a humble and submissive air upon the Face of this unfortunate Man who begins to hope because of the change of his Enemy's Countenance whose Animal Spirits receive a new determination they were not capable of a moment before so that he Mechanically enters into the motions of Compassion which naturally incline his Soul to Charity and Mercy A Passionate Man cannot without a great abundance of Spirits either produce or preserve in his Brain an Image of his misfortune lively enough or a commotion strong enough to give the Body a forced and extraordinary gesture the Nerves which answer to the inward part of his Body receive at the sight of any evil the necessary shocks and agitations that cause the humours that are fit to produce the Spirits which the passion requires to run into all the Vessels that have communication with the heart For the Animal Spirits being dispersed through the Nerves which go to the Liver Spleen Pancreas and generally to all the Bowels they agitate and shake them and by their agitation press forth the humors that these parts preserve for the Exigencies of the Machine But if these humors always flowed after the same manner into the heart if they there received at divers times a like fermentation and if the Spirits which are formed therein equally ascended into the Brain we shou'd not see such hasty changes in the motions of the Passions The sight of a Magistrate for instance wou'd not in a moment stop the transports of of a furious Man who is persuing his revenge and his face heated with Blood and Spirits wou'd not all of a sudden become pale and languid through the apprehension of some punishment Thus to hinder these humors that are mixt with the Blood from entring after the same manner into the Heart there are Nerves which environ them at their passage which by being contracted or dilated by the impression that the sight of the Object and power of the Imagination produce in the Spirits shut up or open the way to those humors And to hinder the same from receiving a like agitation and fermentation in the heart at divers times there are also Nerves that cause the Palpitations which being not equally agitated in the different motions of the Spirits do not push the Blood with the same force into the Arteries Other Nerves dispersed through the Lungs distribute the Air to the heart by contracting and dilating the branches of the Trachea which serve for respiration and after this manner regulate the fermentation of the Blood in relation to the circumstances of the Passion which rules And in fine to regulate the course of the Spirits with the greatest exactness and speed there are Nerves which environ the Arteries as well those which go to the Brain as those which conduct the Blood to all other parts of the Body So that the shaking of the Brain which accompanies the unexpected sight of some Circumstance because
God only because they freely and falsly judge that he is Evil For they cannot hate Good considered as such So that 't is by the same motion of love that God imprints on them to Good that they Hate him Now they judge that God is not Good because they make not that use as they ought of their liberty Not being convinced by an undoubted evidence that God is not Good they ought not to believe him Evil nor consequently Hate him We must distinguish two things in Hatred the Sensation of the Soul and motion of the Will The Sensation cannot be bad For 't is a modification of the Soul which Morally speaking has neither Good nor Ill in it For the motion it is not ill neither since it is not distinct from that of Love For external Evil being only a privation of Good it is evident that to fly Evil is to fly the privation of Good that is to incline towards Good So that whatever there is of real and positive in the Hatred even of God hath nothing bad in it And the Sinner cannot hate God but by making an abominable abuse of the action that God continually gives him to induce him to love himself God causes whatever we have that is real in the Sensations of Concupiscence This Explanation relates to the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and yet he is not the Author of our Concupiscence As the difficulties that are raised about Concupiscence have much relation to those things I have explained it will be proper for me here to show that God is not the Author of Concupiscence altho' he performs all things in us and 't is only he who produces even sensible Pleasures in us It seems undoubted to me that we ought to grant for the Reasons I have given in the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and elsewhere that following the Natural Laws of the union of the Soul and Body Man even before Sin was carried by a foresight of Pleasure to the use of sensible Goods and that every time that certain traces were formed in the chief part of his Brain certain thoughts were produced in his Mind Now these Laws were very just for the Reasons brought in the same Chapter This supposed as before the Fall all things were perfectly well regulated so Man had necessarily a power over his Body that he cou'd hinder the formation of these traces when he wou'd for order requires that the Mind shou'd govern the Body Now this power of Mans Mind over his Body consisted strictly in that according to his desires and different applicacations he could stop the communication of the Motions which were produced in his Body by those Objects that were about him over which his Will had not an immediate and direct power as it had over his own Body I dont see how we can conceive that after any other manner he coud hinder the traces from being formed in his Brain Thus the Will of God or general Law of Nature which is the true cause of the communication of Motion wou'd on certain occasions depend upon Adams Will for God had this respect for him that he produced not new Motions in his Body if he consented not to them or at least in the chief part of it to which the Soul is immediately united Such was the Institution of Nature before Sin Order requires it so and consequently he whose Will is ever conformable to Order Now this Will continuing always the same the Sin of the first Man has overturn'd the Order of Nature because the first Man having Sinned Order woud not permit him absolutely to rule over any thing In the Objection of the 7th Article of the Explanation of the 7th Cap. of the 2d l. I explain what I speak here in general of the loss that Man sustain'd as to the power he had over his Body It is not just that the Sinner shoud suspend the communication of Motions that the Will of God shou'd be accommodated to his and that in favour of him there shoud be exceptions in the Law of Nature So that Man is subject to Concupiscence his Mind depends upon his Body he feels in himself indeliberate Pleasures and involuntary and rebellious Motions in consequence of his most Just Law who united both parts of which he is composed Thus formal Concupiscence as well as formal Sin is nothing real It is in Man only the loss of that power he had of suspending the communication of Motions on certain occasions We must not admit in God a positive Will of producing it This loss that Man has sustained is not a Natural consequence of the Will of God which is ever conformable to order and always the same 't is a consequence of Sin which has made Man unworthy of an advantage due only to his Innocence and Justice So that we must say that God is not the cause of Concupiscence but only Sin Yet whatever is real and positive in the Sensations and Motions of Concupiscence is performed by God Aug. against the two Epistles of the Pel. l. 1. cap. 15 c. for God effects whatever is done but that is no Evil 'T is by the General Law of Nature 't is by the Will of God that sensible Objects produce certain Motions in the Body of Man and that these Motions excite certain Sensations in the Soul useful for the preservation of the Body or propagation of the Species who dares then say that these things are not good in themselves I know very well that we say Sin is the cause of certain Pleasures we say it but do we know it Can we think that Sin which is nothing shou'd actually produce something Can we conceive nothing to be a Cause However we say it but it may be the reason is because we will not take pains enough to think seriously upon what we say or else it is because we will begin an Explication which is contrary to what we have heard persons say who it may be spoke with more Gravity and Assurance than Reflexion and Understanding Sin is the cause of Concupiscence but it is not the cause of Pleasure as Free-will is the cause of Sin without being the cause of the Natural Motion of the Soul The pleasure of the Soul is good as well as its motion or love and there is nothing good that God does not The rebellion of the Body and malignity of Pleasure proceeds from Sin as the inclination of the Soul to or its acquiescence in a particular good comes from the Sinner But these are only privations and nothings that the Creature is capable of All Pleasure is good and even in some manner makes him happy that enjoys it at least whilest he enjoys it But we may say that Pleasure is Evil because instead of raising the Mind to him that causes it it happens through the errour of our Mind and corruption of our Heart that it
merited for us and in another place I call it absolutely the Grace of Jesus Christ it is not that there is no other Grace but that or that there is any which Christ has not purchased for us But I call it the Grace of Jesus Christ to distinguish it from the Grace that God gave to the first Man when he Created him which is commonly call'd the Creator's Grace For the Grace by which Adam might have preserved his Innocence was chiefly a Grace of Light as I have explained in the preceding Remark because that Adam having no concupiscence he stood in need of no Pre-ingaging Pleasures to oppose it But the Grace which we now stand in need of to keep us within the bounds of our Duty and to produce and maintain Charity in us is Pre-ingaging Delectation For as Pleasure produces and maintains the Love of those things which occasion it or seem to occasion it the Pre-ingaging Pleasures we receive in relation to our Bodies produce and maintain Cupidity in us So that being directly contrary to Charity unless God were pleased to produce and maintain Charity in us by Pre-ingaging Delectations it is plain that the Pre-ingaging Pleasures of Concupiscence would weaken it proportionably as Cupidity should be strengthned What I say here supposes that God permits our Concupiscence to Act in us and that he does not weaken it by inspiring us with horror against all sensible Objects which as a result of Sin must needs tempt us I speak of things as they commonly happen But supposing that God diminishes Concupiscence instead of increasing the Delectation of Grace that may produce the same Effects We are sensible that there are two ways of putting Scales in Equilibrio when one of them is over-charged not only in adding Weights to the other side to even it but also in removing some of the other weights which bear it down Neither do I pretend that Men can do no good Actions without Pre-ingaging Delectation I have sufficiently explained my self upon that subject in the 4th Chapter of the 3d Book And it appears so evident to me that a Man who has the Love of God in his Heart may by the force of his Love and without Pre-ingaging Delectation give for Example a Penny to the Poor or bear some small injury with patience that I can not apprehend how any body can question it In my opinion Delectation is only necessary when the Temptation is Strong or Love Weak If however it may be said that it is absolutely necessary to a righteous Man whose Faith I think may be firm enough and his Hopes strong enough to overcome great Temptations The joy or fore-tast of Eternal Happiness being capable to resist the sensible Charms of Transitory Pleasures It is true that Delectation or Actual Grace is necessary for all good Actions if by the Word Delectation or Grace is understood Charity as St. Austin commonly takes it for it is evident that what ever is not done for God is no wise good But removing the Equivocation and taking the Word Delectation in my sense I do not think any body can question what I have said But this is the Case It is supposed that Pleasure and Love are one and the same thing because the one seldom goes without the other and St. Augustin does not always distinguish them And this being supposed Men are in the right in saying what they say We may conclude with St. Austin Quod amplius nos delectat secundum id operemur necesse est for Men certainly Will that which they Love and we may also say that we can do nothing good or meritorious without Delectation or without Charity But I hope to shew in an Explanation I shall give upon the Treatise of the Passions that there is as much difference betwixt Pleasure and Deliberate or Indeliberate Love as there is betwixt our Knowledge and our Love or to express that difference sensibly as there is between the Figure of a Body and its Motion AN EXPLANATION OF What I have said at the beginning of the 10th Chapter of the First Book and in the 6th of the Second Book of Method That it is very difficult to prove that there are Bodies Which must be understood of the the Proofs that are alledged of their Existence IT is very usual among Men to be perfectly ignorant of what they think they understand best and to understand certain things pretty well which they fancy they have not so much as Ideas of When their Senses have some share in their Judgments they yield to what they do not apprehend or to things they have but a very imperfect knowledge of and when their Ideas are purely Intellectual I desire the like Expressions may be allowed me they unwilling receive Indisputable Demonstrations For Example What can the generality of Men think when the major part of Metaphysical Truths are proved to them When the Existence of God is demonstrated to them the Power of his Will the Immutability of his Decrees That there is but one God or one real Cause which does all in all things That there is but one soveraign Reason of which all Intelligences participate That there is but one necessary Love which is the Principle of all Created Wills They think Men speak Words absolutely void of Sense that they have no Ideas of the things they advance and that they would do well to hold their Tongues Metaphysical Truths and Proofs having nothing that is sensible in them Men are not moved and consequently not convinced by them Nevertheless it is most certain that abstracted things are the most distinct and Metaphysical Truths are the clearest and the most evident Men say sometimes that they have no Ideas of God and that they have no knowledge of his Will and moreover think often as they say but 't is only because they fancy they do not know that which perhaps they know best For where is the Man who hesitates to answer when he is ask'd Whether God is Wise Just Powerful whether he is or is not Triangular Divisible Moveable Lyable to any Alteration Nevertheless it is impossible to answer without fear of being deceived whether certain qualifications agree not to a subject if one has no Ideas of that subject So likewise Where is the Man who dares say that God does not Act by the Plainest Means That he is Irregular in his Designs That he makes Monsters by a positive direct and particular Will and not by a kind of necessity In a Word That his Will is or may be contrary to the Order of which there is no Man but has some knowledge But if we had no Idea of the Will of God we might at least question whether he acts according to certain Laws which we clearly conceive he must follow supposing he will Act. Therefore Men have Ideas of things that are purely Intelligible and these Ideas are much clearer than those of sensible Objects Men are more certain of the Existence of
act of God as I have already show'd but also because we know those things after a very perfect manner and also we should know them after an infinitely perfect manner were the capacity we have of thinking infinite since nothing is wanting in the Idea which represents them We ought also to conclude that it is in our selves we see whatever we know by Sensation Not that we can produce any new Modification in our selves or that the Sensations or Modifications of our Soul can represent objects by whose means God excites them in us but because our Sensations which are not distinct from us and consequently can never represent any thing that is distinct from us may nevertheless represent the existence of Beings or make us judge that they do exist For God exciting our Sensation in us at the presence of Objects by an action which is no wise sensible we fancy we receive from the Object not only the Idea which represents its Essence but also the Sensation which makes us judge of its Existence for there is alwayes a pure Idea and a confused Sensation in the knowledge we have of the Existence of Beings if we except that of God and our Soul I except the Existence of God for that is known by a pure Idea without Sensation his Existence not depending on a Cause and being included in the Idea of the necessary Being as the equality of Diameters is included in the Idea of the Circle I also except the Existence of our own Soul because we know by an Internal Sensation that we think will and feel and that we have no clear Idea of our Soul as I have sufficiently explained in the Seventh Chapter of the Second Part of the Third Book and elsewhere These are part of the Reasons that may be added to those I had already given to prove that God only inlightens us and that the immediate and direct object of our clear and evident Knowledge is an immutable and necessary Nature Men commonly make some Objections against this Opinion I shall now indeavour to resolve them Against what has been said That God only Inlightens us and that we see all things in Him FIRST OBJECTION Our Soul thinks because it is its Nature God in Creating it has given it the Faculty of Thinking there needs no more Or if there is any thing more required let us rely on what Experience teaches us about our Senses We find enough by Experience that they occasion our Ideas 'T is ill Philosophizing against Experience ANSWER I wonder that the Cartesians who have so much and yet so reasonable an aversion against the general Expressions of Nature and Faculty so freely use them on this occasion They will not allow Men to say that Fire burns by its Nature and that it turns certain Bodies into Glass by a Natural Faculty And yet some of them are not afraid of saying that the Mind of Man produces in it self the Ideas of all things by its Nature and because it has the Faculty of Thinking But yet they must give me liberty to say that these Expressions are no more significant in their Mouths than in those of the Peripatetics I am sensible the Soul is capable of Thinking but I know also that Extension is capable of Figures The Soul is capable of volition as well as Matter is of motion But as it is false that Matter though capable of Figure and Motion has in it self a Power a Faculty a Nature by which it can move it self or assume sometimes a round Figure and sometimes a square one so that the Soul is Naturally and Essentially capable of Knowledge and of Volition yet it is false that it has Faculties by which it can produce its Ideas in its self or its tendency towards good There is a great difference between being Movable and Moving Matter of its Nature is moveable and capable of Figures Besides it cannot subsist without Figure But it moves not it self it gives not it self a Figure it has no Faculty for all that The Mind by its Nature is capable of Motion and Ideas I grant it But it moves not it self it inlightens not it self God does all in Spirits as well as in Bodies Can we say that God makes all the alterations which happen in Matter See the first Illustration and that he makes not those which happen in the Mind Do we give that unto God which belongs to him in abandoning the last of all Beings to his Disposition Is he not equally the Master of all things Is he not the Creator the Preserver the only true Mover of Spirits as well as Bodies Certainly he makes all things Substances Accidents Beings manners of Beings We take away his Knowledge by putting bounds to his Action But if Men will needs have it that Creatures have such Faculties is are commonly conceived that we must say that Natural Bodies have a Nature which is the Author of their Motion and Rest as Aristotle and his followers say This overthrows all my Ideas But yet I would rather allow it than say that the Mind inlightens it self Let Men say the Soul has that power of differently moving the Members of their Body and to communicate Sensation and Life to them Let them say if they please that it gives Heat to the Blood Motion to the Spirits and to the rest of the Body its Magnitude Disposition and Figure But let them never say that the Mind gives it self its Motion and Light If God does not all at least let us allow him to do that which is greatest and most perfect in the World And if Creatures do something let them move their Bodies and let them order them as they please but let them not act upon Minds Let us say that Bodies move one another after having moved themselves Or rather let us not pretend to understand the different dispositions of Matter that little concerns us But we ought not to suffer our Minds to be ignorant from whom they receive the Light which lightens them Let them know from whom they receive that which can make them happier and more perfect Let them know their dependance according to its utmost extent and that whatever they have actually they receive it from God every moment For as a great Saint sayes upon another Subject It is a very criminal Pride to make use of those things which God gives us as if they were Naturally ours Above all things let us not imagine that the Senses instruct our Reason that the Body directs the Mind and that the Soul receives that from the Body which it has not it self It were better to fancy our selves independant than to think we have a real dependance on the Body It is better to be our own Master than to seek out a Master among the Creatures that is less valuable than we But it is much better yet to submit to the Eternal Truth which assures us in the Gospel that he is our only Master than to give
advance what they do not clearly conceive For if the Heathen Philosophers had a clear conception that Second Causes have a true Power to act and produce their like being a Man as well as they and with them partaking of the soveraign Reason I might probably discover the Idea which represented the Power to them but what efforts soever I make I can find no Strength Efficacy or Power but in the Will of the infinitely perfect Being Moreover when I think of the different Opinions of Philosophers upon this Subject I cannot doubt of what I advance For if they clearly saw what this Power of the Creatures is or what there is in them that is really powerful they would not differ in their Opinion about it When persons cannot agree and having no interested Reason which hinders them from it 't is a certain mark they have no clear Idea of what they say and that they understand not one another chiefly if they dispute upon such Subjects as are not complext or difficult to be discust like this Question before us For we should find no hard matter to resolve it if persons had but a clear Idea of a Created Power These are therefore some of their Opinions whereby we may see how little they agree amongst themselves For the most extraordinary of these Opinions see Suarez Metaph Disp 18. Sect. 2. Assert 2 3. Scot. in 4. sent dist 12.1 D. 37.2 D. 17. Paludan in 4. sent D. 12. Q. 1. Art 1. Peter 8. Phys Ch. 3. Conimb upon Aristotles Phys and many others which Suarez cites Some Philosophers here affirmed that Second Causes act by their Matter Figure and Motion and these in one Sense are in the right Others by a substantial Form Many by Accidents or Qualities Some by Matter and Form Others by Form and Accidents And some again by certain Vertues or distinct Faculties from all this There are others amongst them who maintain that Substantial Forms produce Forms and Accidental Forms Accidents Others that Forms produce both Forms and Accidents And some again that Accidents alone are capable of producing Accidents and Forms too See the Metaph. of Fonseca qu. 13. sect 3. That of Socin and Javell upon the same Question But we must not imagine that those for instance who say that Accidents can produce Forms by vertue of what they have received from the Form they are joyn'd to mean the same thing Some of them will have it that these Accidents themselves are only the Power or Vertue of the Substantial Form Others that they receive into themselves the influence of the Form and so act only by vertue of it And in fine some of them will only have them to be Instrumental Causes But these last are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves either what must be understood by Instrumental Cause or what is the vertue they receive from the Principal Cause The Philosophers don't so much as agree upon the action whereby Second Causes produce their Effects Some amongst them pretend that Causality ought not to be produced since that produces it self Others will have it that they act truly by their own action but find great difficulties in explaining precisely what this action is and there are about this so many different Opinions that I shall omit the reciting them Here is a great variety of different Sentiments although I have not related those of the Antient Philosophers or of such as were born in very remote Countries But we have reason enough to judge that they are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves upon the Subject of Second Causes no more than those we have already mentioned Avicen for instance thought Corporeal Substances could produce nothing but Accidents And this is his Hypothesis as Ruvio relates it He supposed that God immediately produced a most perfect Spiritual Substance and that this produced another less perfect and that a third and so on to the last which produced all Corporeal Substances and these Corporeal Substances Accidents But Avicembrom who could not apprehend how Corporeal Substances Ruvio l. 2. ph tract 4. qu. 2. which cannot penetrate one another should be capable of Alteration would have it that there were Spirits which were capable of acting on Bodies because they only could penetrate them For these Gentlemen not admitting a Void nor the Atoms of Democritus and the Subtil Matter of D' Cartes was unknown to them they could not think with Gassendus and the Cartesians That there were Bodies small enough to enter into the Pores of those which appear'd the most Hard and Solid It seems to me that this diversity of Opinions gives us a Right to judge That Men often spoke such Things as they did not understand and that the Power of the Creatures being a pure Fiction of the Mind of which we have no Natural Idea each Person imagined it what he pleased It is true in all Ages this Power was acknowledged as Real and True by most Men But it is as certain it was without any Proof I do not say Demonstration but even without such a Proof as was able to make any impression upon an Attentive Mind For the Confused Arguments which are maintained only upon the deceitful Testimony of the Senses and Imagination ought not to be received by those who make use of their Reason Aristotle speaking of what they call Nature sayes It is ridiculous to endeavour to prove That Natural Bodies have an Inward Principle of their own Motion and Rest Because sayes he it is self-evident He doubts not also but a Bowl which hits another has power to put it in motion It appears so to the Eyes and that 's enough for him for he commonly follows the Testimony of the Senses and rarely that of Reason never troubling himself whether it be intelligible or not Those who oppose the Opinion of some Divines that have writ against Second Causes say with Aristotle That the Senses convince us of their Efficacy This is their First and Principal Proof It is evident say they See Fonseca Ruvio Suarez and the rest already cited that Fire burns the Sun shines Water cools and he must be a Fool that doubts it The Authours of the contrary Opinion says the Great Averrors had their Brains disturbed We must say almost all the Peripatetics use Sensible Proofs to convince those who deny this Efficacy and so oblige them to confess They may be moved and hurt by Second Causes It is the Judgment which Aristotle has already pronounced against them and it ought to be executed But this pretended Demonstration cannot but produce pitty L. of his Topi. ch 1. since it discovers the Weakness of the Humane Mind and that even Philosophers themselves are infinitely more Sensible than Rational It discovers that those who glory in the Enquiry after Truth do not themselves know who they ought to consult to learn any thing of it Whether 't is the Soveraign Reason which never deceives them but always speaks Things as they
freezes the Water in Rivers We must say that the Air dryes the Earth because it agitates and sucks up the Water which is tempered with it And that the Air or subtle Matter freezes Rivers in Winter because it does not then communicate motion enough to the parts of which the Water is composed In a word we must if we can give the Natural and Particular Cause of the Effects produced But as the action of these Causes consist only in the Moving Power which acts them and that this Moving Power is nothing else but the Will of God who creates them or successively preserves them in different places we must not say that they have in themselves a Strength or Power to produce any Effects And when in Reasoning we are at last come to a general Effect whose Cause we seek 't would be a very ill way of Philosophizing to imagine any other besides the general one And to feign a Certain Nature a First Moveable an Vniversal Soul or some such like Chimera of which we have no clear and distinct Idea would be to argue like the Heathen Philosophers For instance When we are ask't whence it comes that some Bodies are in Motion or how the Air when agitated communicates its Motion to the Water or rather from whence it proceeds that Bodies impell one another As Motion and its communication is a general Effect whereupon all others depend it is necessary I dont say to be a good Christian but to be a Philosopher to recur to God who is the Universal Cause since 't is his Will which is the Moving Power of Bodies and which also regulates the communication of their Motions If he had Will'd there should be no new production in the World he would not have put the parts of it in Motion And if he should hereafter Will the incorruptibility of any of the Beings he has Created he would cease to Will certain communications of Motions in respect to these Beings The Third Proof All Labour would be useless 't would be un necessary to water and to give certain preparatory dispositions to Bodies to fit them for what we desire of them For God has no need of preparing the subjects upon which he acts ANSWER Suarez in the same place To which I Reply That God can absolutely do what he pleases without finding any dispositions in the subjects he works upon But he cannot do it without a Miracle or by Natural wayes that is according to the general Laws of the communication of the Motions he has established and according to which he generally acts God never multiplies his Wills without Reason but alwayes acts by the most simple wayes and therefore he makes use of the meeting of Bodies in giving them Motion not as their shock is absolutely necessary to move them as our Senses tell us but because that being the occasion of the communication of Motion there needs only a few Natural Laws to produce all the admirable Effects that we see For by this means we can reduce all the Laws of the communication of Motion to one only which is That Bodies which shock each other being look'd upon but as one in the moment of their contact or shock the Moving Power is at their separation divided between them according to the proportion of their magnitude But as concuring Bodies are incompassed with an infinite number of other Bodies which act upon them by vertue and efficacy of this Law how constant and uniform soever it may be it produces an infinite number of different communications because it acts upon infinite Bodies which all relate to one another See the last Chap. of the Search after Truth It is necessary to water a Plant to make it grow because according to the Laws of the communication of Motions there is scarce any other but watery Particles which by their Motion and Figure can insinuate themselves and enter the Fibres of the Plants and by various uniting themselves together take the Figure necessary for their Nourishment The subtle matter which the Sun continually diffuses may by agitating the Water draw it up into the Plants but it has not Motion enough to raise gross Particles of Earth However the Earth and even the Air are necessary to the growth of Plants The Earth to preserve the Water at their Root and the Air to excite a moderate fermentation in the same Water But the action of the Sun Air and Water consist only in the Motion of their parts and to speak properly none but God can act For as I have just said there is only he who by the efficacy of his Will and infinite extent of his Knowledge can produce and regulate the infinite communications or Motions which are made every moment and according to an infinite exact and regular proportion The Fourth Proof Can God oppose or resist himself Bodies meet shock and resist one another therefore God acts not in them except by his concurrence For if he only produced and preserved Motion in Bodies he would divert them before their meeting since he knows very well that they are impenetrable Why should Bodies be impelled to be thrown back again or made to advance that they may recoil Or wherefore are useless Motions produced and preserved Is it not extravagant to say that God fights against himself and destroys his own works when a Bull opposes a Lion or a Wolf devours a Sheep and a Sheep eats the Grass which he gave growth to Therefore there are Second Causes ANSWER Then Second Causes do every thing and God does nothing at all For God cannot act against himself and to concur is to act Concurring to contrary actions is giving contrary concourses and consequently a performing contrary actions To concur with the action of the Creatures which resist one another is to act against himself and to concur to useless Motions is to act unusefully Now God does nothing in vain he performs no actions contrary to one another Therefore he concurs not in the action of the Creatures who often destroy one another and make useless actions and motions Hither 't is that this Proof of Second Causes conducts us but let us examine what Reason teaches us about it God does all in every thing and nothing resists him He performs all things since 't is by his Wills that all Motions are produced and regulated and nothing resists him because whatever he wills is effected And thus it ought to be conceived He having resolved to produce by the most simple wayes as the most conformable to order this infinite variety of Creatures that we admire he determined Bodies to move in a right line because this line is the most simple But Bodies being impenetrable and their Motions inclining to opposite lines or such as intersect they must necessarily meet one another and consequently cease to move in the same manner God foresaw this and nevertheless positively willed the meeting or opposition of Bodies not because he was pleased
to fight against himself but because he designed to make use of this shocking of Bodies as an occasion to establish the general Law of the communication of Motions by which he foresaw he might produce an infinite number of admirable Effects For I am perswaded that these two Natural Laws which are the most simple of all Viz. That all Motion inclines to put it self in a right Line And That in the time of concurrence Motions are communicated in proportion to the magnitude of the Bodies which are shockt are sufficient to produce the World as we see it at this day I mean the Heavens the Stars the Planets Comets Earth and Water Air and Fire In a word the Elements and all inorganized or inanimate Bodies For organized Bodies depend upon many other Natural Laws which are wholly unknown to us It may be also that animate Bodies are not formed like others by a certain number of Natural Laws For 't is very probable they were all formed at the Creation of the World and that by time they only received that growth which was necessary to make them visible to our eyes Let it be how it will 't is certain they receive this growth from the general Laws of Nature according to which all other Bodies are formed upon which account their growth is not alwayes regular I say then that God by the first Natural Law positively will'd and consequently produced the Collision of Bodies and that he afterwards made use of it as an occasion to establish the second Natural Law which regulates the communication of Motions and that thus the actual shock is a Natural or Occasional Cause of the actual communication of Motions If we consider this well it will be visibly discovered that nothing could be better ordered But supposing God had not ordained it thus and that he had diverted Bodies when ready to hit each other as if there were a void to receive them First Bodies would not then have been subject to this continual vicissitude which causes the Beauty of the Universe for the generation of certain Bodies is only produced by the corruption of some others and 't is the contrariety of their Motions which produces their variety Nor Secondly Would God then act by the most simple wayes For that Bodies ready to shock each other might continue their Motion without striking it would be necessary that they should variously describe an infinite number of Curve-Lines and consequently we must admit different Wills in God to determine their Motions Lastly If there was no uniformity in the action of Natural Bodies and if their Motion was not performed in a right Line there would be no certain Principle for us to Reason upon in Natural Philosophy nor to guide us in many Actions of our Lives 'T is no disorder for Lyons to eat Wolves Wolves Sheep and Sheep the Grass which God has taken so much care of that he has given it all things necessary for its own preservation and also a Seed to preserve its Kind Yet this proves Second Causes no more than the Plurality of Causes or contrary Principles of Good and Evil which the Manichees invented to give a Reason for these Effects But 't is a certain Mark of the Wisdom Greatness and Magnificence of God for he does nothing unbecoming an Infinite Wisdom and performs all things with such a Munificence as sufficiently shows his Power and Greatness Whatever is destroy'd is again repair'd by the same Law which destroy'd it so great is the Wisdom Power and Fruitfulness of this Law God does not prevent the destruction of Beings by a New Will not only because the first is sufficient to repair them but chiefly because his Wills are much more valuable than the reparation of these Beings They are of much more value than all they produce And if God made this visible World although in it self unworthy of the action whereby it was produced 't was for ends unknown to Philosophers and to Honour himself in JESVS CHRIST with such an Honour as the Creatures are uncapable of giving him When a House by its fall crushes a good Man to death a greater Evil happens than when one Beast devours another or when one Body is forced to give way by the shock it receives at the meeting of another But God multiplies not his Wills to redress such disorders real or apparent as are necessary consequences of Natural Laws He ought neither to correct nor change these Laws although they should sometimes produce Monsters He must not confound the order and simplicity of his wayes He ought to neglect inconsiderable things I mean he should not have particular Wills to produce Effects of no value or unworthy the action of him who produces them God works Miracles only when the Order he always follows requires it and this Order wills that he should act by the most simple wayes and that there should be no exceptions in his Wills but when 't is absolutely necessary to his designs or on certain occasions which are wholly unknown to us For although we are all united to the Order or Wisdom of God we know not all the Rules of it We see in it what we ought to do but comprehend not by it what God ought to Will nor must we be too solicitous about it We have a great instance of what I have been saying in the damnation of an infinite number of persons that God has permitted to perish in times of Ignorance God is infinitely good loves all his works would have all Men be saved and come to this knowledge of the Truth for he has Created them to injoy him And yet the greatest number are damn'd They live and dye in blindness and will continue in it to all Eternity And does not this proceed from Gods acting by the most simple wayes and from his following Order We have shown that according to Order God ought not by preingaging Pleasures to have prevented the Will of the First Man although his Fall caused the disorder of Nature See the Explanation of the fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method It was requisite that all Men should descend from one not only because this is the most simple way but for Reasons too Theological and abstracted to be here explained See also the First Explanation of the Fifth Chapter In fine We ought to believe that this is conformable to the Order which God follows and the Wisdom he alwayes consults in the intention and execution of his designs The Sin of the first Man has produced an infinite number of Evils 't is true but certainly Order required that God should permit it and that he should place Man in an estate wherein he was capable of sinning God is willing to repair his work but rarely gives those victorious Graces which conquers the Malice of the greatest Sinners He often gives Graces that are useless to the Conversion of those who receive them although in respect to them he foresees
God makes him will and continually inclines him towards Good and gives him all the Ideas and Sensations which determine him I also acknowledge that Man of himself commits sin But I deny that in that he does any thing for Sin Error and even Concupiscence are nothing Which Point I have sufficiently cleared in the First Explanation Man wills but his Determinations are weak in themselves they produce nothing nor hinder God from doing all Things for it is even he who causes our Wills in us by the impression he gives us towards God Man of himself is only capable of Errour and Sin which are nothing There is a great deal of difference between our Minds and the Bodies which are about us Our Mind in one sense wills Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium peccatum Conc. Araus 2. Can. 22. acts and determines I grant it Of which we are convinced by the inward sensation we have of our selves To deny our Liberty would be to take from us future rewards and punishments for without Liberty there is neither good nor bad Actions So that then Religion would be an Illusion and a Fancy But that Bodies have any power to Act is what we do not clearly see but appears incomprehensible and is also what we deny when we reject Second Causes Even the Mind does not act so much as we imagine I know that I Will and Will freely I have no reason to doubt of it which is stronger than that inward sensation I have of my self I likewise don't deny this But I deny that my Will is the True Cause of the Motion of my Arm the Ideas of my Mind and other Things which attend my Determinations for I see no relation between Things which differ so much On the contrary I clearly discover that there can be no relation between the Will I have to move my Arm According to the sense discussed in the Chapter upon which this Explanation is made and between the Agitation of some little Bodies of which I neither know the Motion nor Figure which make choice of certain Nervous passages amongst a Million of others I know not to cause that Motion in me which I wish by an infinite Number of Motions I wish not I deny that my Will produces my Ideas in me for I do not so much as see how it could produce them For since my Will cannot Act or Will without knowing it supposes my Ideas but does not make them Nay I do not so much as precisely know what an Idea is I cannot tell whether they are produced out of nothing or become nothing again as soon as we cease to behold them I speak according to the Opinion of some persons I produce they will tell me my Ideas by the Faculty God hath given me of Thinking And move my Arm because of the Union God has placed between my Mind and Body But Faculty and Vnion are Logical Terms rambling and indeterminate Words There is no Being whatever nor Manner of Being which is either a Faculty or an Vnion Therefore these Terms must be explained If they will say That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods Willing that when I wish my Arm should be moved the Animal Spirits are then dispersed into the Muscles of it to move it according to my desire I clearly understand this Explanation and receive it But it is the same Thing which I maintain For if my Will determine that of God it is evident my Arm will be moved not by my Will which is impotent in it self but by that of Gods which can never fail of its effect I always mean a true and efficacious power But if it be said That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods having given me the power to move my Arm as he has given my Body the power of feeling pleasure and pain that I might be assiduous about my Body and interest my self in its preservation Certainly by this we should suppose the Matter in dispute and make a Circle on 't We have no clear Idea of this power that the Soul has over the Body nor of that the Body has over the Soul Nor very well know what we say when we positively affirm it Prejudice first gave rise to this Opinion we believed it from Infants as soon as we were capable of sensation But the Understanding Reason and Reflection have no share in it as sufficiently appears by what I have said in the Search after Truth But they will say I know by the inward sensation of my Action that I truly have this power So that I shall not be deceived in believing it To which I Answer When we move our Arm we have an inward sensation of the Actual Will whereby we move it and are not mistaken when we believe we have this Will And further We have an inward sensation of a certain Effort which accompanies this Will and we ought likewise to believe that we make this Effort In short I mean that we have an inward sensation that the Arm is moved in the very instant of the Effort Which supposed I consent to what is said That the Motion of the Arm is performed in the same instant we feel this Endeavour or that we have a practical Will to move it It appears evident to me that the mind does not so much as know by inward sensation or Conscience the Motion of the Arm which it animates It knowes by Conscience only what it feels or thinks We know the sense we have of the Motion of our Arm by inward Sensation or Conscience But Conscience does not inform us of the Motion of our Arm or the pain we suffer in it any more than the Colours we see upon Objects Or if this will not be granted I say that inward sensation is not infallible for Errour is often found in Complex Sensation as has been shewed in the First Booke of the Search after Truth But I deny that this Effort which is only a Modification or Sensation of the Soul given us to make us apprehend our Weakness and which affords us but an obscure and weak discovery of our power should be capable of moving or determining the Animal Spirits I deny that there is any relation between our Thoughts and the Motions of Matter or that the Soul has the least knowledge of the Animal Spirits it makes use of to move the Body it Animates In fine although the Soul should exactly know the Animal Spirits and should be capable of Moving them or determining their Motion I deny that with all this advantage it could be capable of making choice of those Nervous Canals of which she is wholly ignorant so as to impel the Spirits into them that thereby the Body might be moved with that quickness exactness and strength as we observe in those who are least acquainted with the Structure of their Bodies For even supposing our Wills were truly the Moving power of
Wills of Spirits For First According to the General Laws of the Communication of Motions the invisible Bodies which surround the visible ones by their divers Motions produce all these various Effects the Cause of which does not appear to us Secondly According to the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body when Bodies which are about us Act upon ours they produce in our Souls an infinite variety of Sensations Ideas and Passions Thirdly Our Mind produces by its Wills a great many different Ideas in it self For it is our Wills which apply and modifie our Minds as Natural Causes whose Efficacy nevertheless proceeds from the Laws which God has Established Lastly When our Mind Acts upon our Body many Changes are therein produced by vertue of the Laws of its Union with it And by the means of our Body it also produces in those about it a great Number of Changes by vertue of the Laws of the Communication of Motions Thus all Natural Effects have no other Natural or Occasional Cause than the Motions of Bodies and Wills of Spirits which will easily be granted by any who will use but a little application supposing he is not already prepossessed by such as know not what they say who instantly imagine Beings which they have no clear Idea of and pretend to explain Things they understand not by what is absolutely incomprehensible So that God executing by his Concourse or rather by his Efficacious Will whatever the Motions of Bodies or Determinations of Spirits perform as Natural or Occasional Causes it 's plain God does every Thing by the same Action of the Creature Not that Creatures of themselves have any Efficacious Action but because the Power of God is in some sort communicated to them by the Natural Laws which God has Established in their favour This is all that I can say to reconcile my Thoughts with the Opinion of those Divines who maintain the necessity of immediate Concourse and that God does All in all Things by the same Action as that of the Creatures For as to the rest of the Divines I believe their Opinions are indesensible every way and chiefly that of Durandus See Durand in 2. Dist 1. Qu. 5. Dist 37. de Genesi ad Litteram l. 5. c. 20. and some Ancients whom St. Austin refutes who absolutely denyed the necessity of Concourse and would have Second Causes do every Thing by a Power which God had given them at the Creation For although this Opinion be less perplexed than that of the other Divines yet it appears to me so opposite to Scripture and conformable to Prejudices to say no more that I believe it cannot be maintained I confess that the Schoolmen In 4. Sent. Dist 1. q. De aliaco ibid. who say the immediate Concourse of God is the same Action as that of the Creatures do not absolutely understand it according to my Explanation And except Biel and Cardinal D' Ailly all those I have read think that the Efficacy which produces Effects proceeds from the Second Cause as well as the First But as I determined with my self not to say any thing but what I conceive clearly and always take that Side which best agrees with Religion I believe it will not be taken amiss if I forsake an Opinion which to many persons appears so much the more intricate as they endeavour more assiduously to apprehend it And since I have established another which agrees perfectly not only with Reason but also with the Holiness of Religion and Christian Morality 'T is a Truth I have already proved in the Chapter upon which I make these Reflection but it will be very proper for me to offer yet something more fully to Justifie what I have already said upon the present Question Reason and Religion convinces us than God would be loved and rever'd by his Creatures Loved as good and Rever'd as powerful Which is a Truth we cannot doubt of without impiety and folly To love God as he requires and deserves to be loved we must according to the First Command both of the Law and Gospel and even of Reason as I have elsewhere shown do it with all our strength or according to the utmost Capacity we have of Loving It is not enough to prefer him to all Things but we must also love him in all Things Else is not our Love so perfect as it ought to be l. 4. ch 1. nor do we give to God all the Love he has impressed upon us and that only for himself since all his Actions center in himself Likewise to render to God all the Reverence due to him it is not enough to adore him as the Soveraign Power and fear him more than any of his Creatures We must also fear and adore him in all his Creatures and all our Actions must tend towards him for Honour and Glory are due only to him Which is what God has commanded us in these Words Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo ex tota anima tua Deut. 6. ex tota fortitudine tua And in these Dominum Deum tuum timebis illi soli servies Thus the Philosophy which teaches us That the Efficacy of Second Causes is a Fiction of the Mind that the Nature of Aristotle and some other Philosophers is a Chimera that God only is strong and powerful enough not only to Act in our Souls but also to give the least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say agrees perfectly with Religion the design of which is to unite us to God after the strictest manner We commonly love such Things only as are capable of doing us some good This Philosophy therefore only Authorises the Love of God and absolutely condemns the Love of every Thing else We ought to fear Nothing but what is able to do us some Evil This Philosophy therefore only permits us to fear God and positively forbids our fearing any Thing else So that it Justifies all the Motions of the Soul which are Just and Reasonable and condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For this Philosophy will never Justifie the Love of Riches the Desire of Greatness nor the Extravagance of Debauchery since the Love of the Body appears mad and ridiculous to the Principles established by this Philosophy 'T is an Undoubted Truth a Natural Opinion and even a common Notion that we ought to love the Cause of our Pleasure and love it in proportion to the Felicity it does or can make us enjoy It is not only Just but it is also very Necessary that the Cause of our Happiness should be the Object of our Love Thus following the Principles of this Philosophy we ought only to love God for it tells us that He alone is the True Cause of our Happiness that the Bodies which are about us cannot Act upon that which we Animate consequently much less upon our Minds 'T is not the Sun which enlightens us
the execution of his designs Therefore 't will not be useless for me to prove and explain this Truth for 't is of the greatest consequence not only for the knowledge of Nature but much more for the knowledge of Religion and Morality By the word God we understand a Being infinitely Perfect whose Wisdom and Knowledge have no limits and who consequently knows all the means whereby he can execute his designs This being granted I say God acts alwayes by the shortest means and most simple wayes That I may be the better understood I 'll make use of a sensible Example I suppole that God wills the Body A should strike the Body B. Since God knows every thing he perfectly knows that A. can go to strike B. by an infinite number of Curve-Lines and but by one Right-Line only Now God only wills the shock of B. by A. and we suppose that he only wills the transferring of A. to B. to effect this shock Therefore A. must be transferred to B. by the shortest way or by a Right-Line For if the Body A. were transported to B. by a Curve Line that would show either that the Transporter knew no other way or else that he not only will'd the concurrence of these Bodies but also the means to produce it which is against the supposition There 's as much more action requisite to transfer a Body A. to B. by a Curve-Line than by a Right-Line as the Curve is greater than the Right If God therefore should transfer A. to B. by a Curve-Line which is double to a Right half the Action of God would be wholly useless consequently produced without design or end as well as without effect Moreover Action in God is Will therefore there must be more Will in God to cause A. to be transported circularly than directly Now we have already supposed that God had no Will in respect to the motion of A but only as it relates to the shock Therefore there is not Will enough in God to move A. by a Curve-Line And consequently this motion of A. to B. is a contradiction Thus 't is a contradiction that God should not act by the most simple wayes except we suppose that God in the choice of wayes he makes use of to execute his designs has something else in view besides these designs which is a contradiction in our supposition When I say there is more Will in God to transfer a Body from A. to B. by a Curve than by a Right Line we must from thence conclude nothing against the simplicity of the Being and Action of God For it must be confessed that it cannot be comprehended either how the simplicity of an Infinite Being includes all the different Perfections of Finite Beings nor how his Will continuing alwayes the same and alwayes conformable to Order changes with reference to the different Beings it produces and preserves I speak only according to our manner of conceiving It seems to me now that we clearly conceive when God Wills and for instance creates a Cubic Foot of Matter he Wills another thing than if he creates two For 't is evident that God could not create two different things nor know whether he had created one or two feet of Matter or if he conveyed a Body circularly or directly if there was not some difference in his Wills in respect to Matter or to its Motion since God sees only in himself and in his Wills the variety of his Creatures Now whatever that Action is in God which relates to the different Beings he produces or preserves I call it the differences augmentations and diminutions of Wills in God And according to this manner of conceiving things I say God cannot imploy more Will than is necessary to execute his designs So that God alwayes acts by the most simple wayes in reference to them I don't deny however but God may have a great number of wayes equally simple to produce the same effects or that he may produce them by different means but he alwayes produces them by the most simple provided they are all of the same kind for 't is a contradiction that a Being infinitely Wise should have useless and irregular Wills If we would apply this Principle to Morality we shall see that those secure their Salvation who so prepare themselves for Grace by Self-denyal Repentance and an exact Obedience to the Commands of our Saviour that God acting in them by the most simple wayes I mean by giving them but few New Graces operates very much in them For although God would have all Men be saved he will only save those that can be saved by the most simple means which have relation to the great design he has of Sanctifying through JESVS CHRIST a certain number of the Elect and he will multiply the Children of Eve till that number be fulfilled for 't is because God is willing to sanctifie us through the most simple means that after Sin it was necessary for him to multiply the Children of Men to compleat the number of his Elect since there are many persons who cause their own Damnation by withdrawing themselves from the Order of God Now as God acts not as a particular Cause we must not imagine that he has like us particular Wills for every thing he produces for if it were so it appears evident to me that the generation of Monsters would be impossible and that it would never happen that one work should destroy another As God cannot have contrary Wills we should have recourse to a Principle of Evil as the Manichses had for instance to freeze the Fruits produced by God This being so we are methinks obliged to suppose that there are some general Rules according to which God predestinates and sanctifies the Elect and that those Laws are what we call the Order of Grace as his general Wills whereby God produces and preserves whatever is in the World are the Order of Nature I don't know whether I am not mistaken but methinks from this Principle a great many Consequences may be drawn which perhaps would resolve some Difficulties about which there has been much Controversie some years since but I don't think my self obliged to deduce them every one may do it according to his own Capacity 'T is more convenient to be silent than to say such things as are not necessary to be known and which perhaps will one day be more easily agreed upon than they would now I would only have it known that the most simple ways of our Sanctification are Self-denyal and Repentance or that at least we should continually reflect that our Blessed LORD distinctly knowing the Laws of the Order of Grace we run perpetual dangers when we don't follow the wayes that he has showed us not only by his Words but also by his Actions But as in the course of our Lives there happens particular Occurrances wherein we don't know which way to determine our selves because of the contrary Reasons that may be
no one has opposed a distinct Treatise of these two Faculties of the Soul although they are naturally inseparable In fine the Senses and Imagination don't differ any more from the pure Understanding than the Passions do from the Inclinations so that we must distinguish these two last Faculties as it has been usual to do with the three first that we may be better able to discern what the Soul receives from its Author by means of the Body from that which it has from him independant of the Body The only inconvenience that will naturally result from the distinction of these two things thus naturally united will be as it happens upon like occasions a necessity of repeating some things which have been already said Man is one although composed of many parts and the union of these parts is so strict that it can't be touch'd in one place without affecting the whole all his Faculties have such a mutual dependance upon one another and are so subordinate that 't is impossible to explain any one of 'em without speaking something of the other Thus by endeavouring to avoid confusion I am obliged 10 repetition but 't is better to repeat than confound because my business is to write as clear as I can and in this necessity of repetition I can only endeavour so to repeat as not to be troublesom to my Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love out Body and whatever may be useful to its preservation as the Natural Inclinations are the Impressions of the same Author which chiefly incline us to love him as the Soverain Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the motion of the Animal Spirits to beget and cherish an agreeable disposition to the Object which is perceived so that the Mind and Body are mutually assistant on this occasion For 't is the Order of God that the Motions of our Body which are proper to execute the Order of our Will should follow it and that the Motions of our Body which are mechanically excited in us at the sight of any Object should be accompanied with a passion of our Soul which inclines us to will that which appears useful to the Body 't is this continual impression of the Will of God upon us which so strictly unites us to a portion of Matter and if this impression of his Will should but cease for one moment we should from that moment be freed from the dependance we have upon all the changes which happen to our Body I can't comprehend how some persons imagine that there is an absolutely necessary connection between the Motions of the Spirit and Blood and the Emotions of the Soul some little particles of Choler are violently mov'd in the Brain therefore the Soul must necessarily be agitated with some Passion and this Passion must rather be Anger than Love What relation can be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemies Imperfection a Passion of Contempt or Hatred and betwixt the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of Blood which beat against some parts of the Brain How can a Man perswade himself of such a dependance and that the Union or Alliance of two things so different and incompatible as Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved after any other manner than by the continual and Almighty and Omnipotent Will of the Author of Nature Those who think that Bodies do necessarily and of themselves communicate Motion in the moment of their Concourse think something like truth for indeed this prejudice has some foundation Bodies seem to have an essential relation to Bodies but the Mind and Body are two kinds of Beings so opposite that those who think the Emotions of the Soul do necessarily follow the Motions of the Spirits and Blood think something that has not the least appearance of truth certainly 't is only our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and our Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures which makes us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body besides the Will of God It is difficult to determine whether this relation or connexion of the thoughts of Mans Mind with the Motion of his Body is the Punishment of Sin or the Gift of Nature and some Persons believe it would be rashness to decide either way 't is well known that Man before Sin was no Slave but absolate Master of his Passions and by his Will did easily stay the agitation of the Blood which caused them But I should be hardly perswaded that the Body did not sollicite the Soul of the first Man to an enquiry after things which were proper for the preservation of his Life or that Adam before his Fall was insensible that Fruits were agreeable to his sight and pleasant to his taste especially if I may believe the Scripture and that this so just so marvellous an Oeconomy of his Senses and Passions for the preservation of his Body was a Corruption of Nature rather than the first Institution Doubtless Nature is now corrupted the Body acts with too much power upon the Mind instead of submissively representing to it its necessities it tyrannizes over it and ravishes it from God to whom it ought to be inseparably united and continually prompts it to a pursuit of such sensible things as may be proper for its conservation the Mind is become as it were immaterial and earthy by Sin that relation and Essential Union which it has with God is lost I mean God has withdrawn himself from it as much as possible without destroying or annihilating it Innumerable disorders have followed the absence or estrangement of him who kept it in order and without making a longer enumeration of our Miseries Man is by the fall throughly corrupted in all his parts But this fall has not destroyed the Work of God that which God gave to the first Man is always sound in him the immutable Will of God which constitutes the Nature of every thing was not changed by the levity and inconstancy of Adam s Will every thing that God did Will he yet Wills and because his Will is efficacious he effects whatever he Wills Mans Sin was indeed the occasion that the Divine Will did not constitute the Order of Grace but Grace is not contrary to Nature the one destroys not the other Because God fights not against himself he never repents and his Wisdom having no limits his Works will have no end The Will of God which constitutes the Order of Grace is joined to that Will which effects the Order of Nature not to change it but to repair it There are only two General Wills in God and whatever is well regulated in the World depends upon one of these The Passions are very well ordered if they are only considered in order to the Bodies preservation although they sometimes deceive us in few and particular Cases which the Universal Cause has not
the Brain as well as those which excite the chief Idea of the Object of the Passion as those that relate to it We must not therefore wonder if Men carry their Hatred or Love so far and perform such Capricious and Surprizing Actions There is a particular Reason of all these Effects although we do not know them because their accessory Ideas are not always like ours we cannot discover them Thus there is always some cause or other for those actions which appear most ridiculous and extravagant CHAP. VII Of the Passions in particular and first of Admiration and its ill Effects WHatever I have hitherto said of the Passions is general but it will not be very difficult to draw particular Inferences from thence It is only requisite to make some reflexion upon what passes within our selves and the actions of others for us to discover more of these sort of Truths at one view than we could explain in a considerable time Yet there are so few Persons who think of retiring into themselves and make any endeavour to that end that to excite them to it and stir up their attention it will be necessary to descend to particulars When we hit or strike our selves it seems as if we were almost insensible but if we are only touched by others we receive Sensations lively enough to stir up our Attention In short we never tickle our selves or so much as think of it and it may be we could not do it if we had a mind to it 'T is almost for the same reason that the Soul neglects to enquire into and examine it self it is immediately displeased with this sort of enquiry and is commonly incapable of discovering or perceiving what belongs to it except when excited or stirred up by others Thus to assist some Persons in the knowing of themselves it is necessary to relate some of the particular Effects of the Passions that by affecting them therewith we may make them sensible of all the parts their Soul are composed of Those who will read what follows must nevertheless be advertized that they will not always be sensible that I touch them nor will they always find themselves subject to the Passions and Errors I shall speak of because all particular Passions are not always the same in all Men. 'T is true indeed all Men have the same Natural inclinations which have no relation to the Body when their Bodies are perfectly well disposed But the different temperaments of Bodies and their frequent changes cause a great deal of variety in particular Passions And if to the diversity of the Body's constitution we add that which proceeds from Objects which likewise makes very different impressions upon all those who have neither the same Employs nor manner of living it is evident that such a Person may feel himself strongly affected in some place of his Soul by certain things who will yet absolutely remain insensible of many others Thus we should often be deceived if we judged of what others feel by what passes in our selves I am not afraid of being mistaken when I affirm that all Men would be happy for I am absolutely assured that the Chinese and Tartars Angels Devils and even all Spirits whatever have an inclination for felicity I know likewise that God will never produce any Spirit without this desire Yet is it not experience that has taught it me I never saw either Chinese or Tartar nor is it the inward testimony of my Conscience for that only teaches me I would be happy my self But 't is God alone who can inwardly convince me that all other Men Angels and Devils have a desire to be happy and 't is he only who can assure me that he will never give a Being to any Spirit who will be indifferent in respect to it For who is there besides himself that can positively assure me of what he does and even of what he thinks And as he can never deceive me so I cannot doubt of what he teaches me I am therefore certain that all Men would be happy because this inclination is natural and depends not upon the Body But it is very different in particular Passions For though I should extreamly love Musick Dancing Hunting Sweetmeats or Luxurious Dishes c. I could conclude nothing certain from thence concerning the Passions of other Men. Pleasure doubtless is sweet and agreeable to all Men but every one does not find it in the same Object The love of pleasure is a Natural inclination depends not on the Body and is therefore general to all Men. But the inclination for Music Dancing and Hunting is not general because the disposition of the Body on which it depends being different in all Men whatsoever Passions depend upon it are not always the same General Passions as Desire Joy Sorrow c. keep the mean between Natural inclinations and particular Passions They are general as well as the Inclinations but not equally strong because that which produces and maintains them is not always it self equally active There is also a great deal of variety in the degrees whereby the Animal Spirits are agitated in their plenty and fineness and in the relation betwixt the Fibres of the Brain and these Spirits Thus it often happens that we don 't at all affect some Persons when we speak of particular Passions but if we chance to touch them they are violently moved But with general Passions and Inclinations it is quite contrary we are always affected when they are mentioned yet after such a weak and languishing manner that we scarcely perceive it I speak these things to prevent any Persons judging whether I am deceived by the Sensation only which he has received of what I have already or shall afterwards say for I would have every one judge by considering the Nature of the Passsions I treat of If I proposed the treating of every particular Passion or to distinguish them by all the Objects which excite them it 's plain I should never conclude and should only repeat the same thing The first is evident because the Objects of our Passions are infinite and the last also since we must always treat of the same Subject The particular Passions for Poetry History Mathematics Hunting and Dancing are only one and the same general Passion for for instance the Passions of Desire or Joy or for whatever pleases differ not although the peculiar Pleasures which excite them do We must not therefore multiply the number of the Passions according to the number of Objects which are infinite but only by the chief relations they may have in respect to us And after this manner we shall discover as will further appear upon our Explanation that Love and Hatred are the Mother Passions Which produce no other general Passions but Desire Joy and Sorrow and that particular Passions are composed only of these three first and are so much the more compounded as the chief Idea of Good or Evil which excites them
But when we come to consider attentively the Idea we have of Cause or Power of acting we cannot doubt but that it represents something Divine For the Idea of a Sovereign Power is the Idea of Sovereign Divinity and the Idea of a Subordinate Power is the Idea of an inferiour but a true Divinity at least according to the Opinion of the Heathens if it be the Idea of a Power or true Cause We admit therefore something Divine in all Bodies which encompass us when we admit Forms Faculties Qualities Vertues and real Beings capable of producing certain Effects by the Power of their own Nature And thus they insensibly enter into the Opinions of the Heathens by the Respect they have for their Philosophy Faith indeed works it but it may perhaps be said that if we are Christians in our Hearts we are Heathens in our Minds Moreover it is difficult to perswade our selves that we ought neither to love or fear true Powers and Beings who can act upon us punish us with Pain or recompense us with Pleasure And as Love and Fear are a true Adoration 't is also difficult to perswade our selves that we ought not to adore them For whatever can act upon us as a real and true Cause is necessarily above us according to St. Austin and right Reason The same Father and the same Reason tells us 't is an immutable Law that Inferiour things should submit to superiour And from hence Ego enim ab animâ hoc corpus animari non puto nifi intentione facientis Nec ab isto quicquam illam pati Arbitror sed facere de illo in illo tanquam subjecto divinitus dominationi suae l. 6. mus c. 5. * this great Father concludes that the Body cannot act upon the Soul and that nothing can be above the Soul but God In the Holy Scriptures when God proves to the Israelites that they ought to adore him that is that they ought to fear and love him the chief Reasons he brings are taken from his Power to recompence and punish them He represents to them the Benefits they have received from him the Evils wherewith he hath chastised them and that he has still the same Power He forbids them to adore the Gods of the Heathens because they have no Power over them and can do them neither Good nor Hurt He requires them to honour him only because he only is the true Cause of Good and Evil and that there happens none in their City according to the Prophet which he has not done for Natural Causes are not the true Causes of the Evil that appears to be done to us 'T is God alone that acts in them and 't is he only that we must fear and love Soli Deo Honor Gloria In short this Opinion that we ought to fear and love whatsoever is the true Cause of Good and Evil appears so natural and just that it is impossible to destroy it so that if we suppose this false Opinion of the Philosophers which we endeavour here to confute that Bodies which encompass us are the true Causes of the Pleasures and Evils which we feel Reason seems to justifie a Religion like to that of the Heathens and approves of the universal Irregularity of Manners It is true that Reason does not tell us that we must adore Onyons and Leeks as the Sovereign Divinity because they cannot make us intirely happy when we have of them or intirely unhappy when we want them Nor have the Heathens ever done to them so much Honour as to the great Jupiter upon whom all their Divinities depend or as to the Sun which our Senses represent to us as the universal Cause which gives Life and Motion to all things and which we cannot hinder our selves from regarding as a Sovereign Divinity if with the Heathen Philosophers we suppose it includes in its being the true Causes of whatever it seems to produce not only in our Bodies and Minds but likewise in all Beings which encompass us But if we must not pay a Sovereign Honour to Leeks and Onyons yet we may always render them some particular Adoration I mean we may think of and love them in some manner if it is true that in some sort they can make us happy we must honour them in Proportion to the Good they can do us And certainly Men who give Ear to the Reports of their Senses think that Pulse is capable of doing them good for else the Israelites for instance would not have regretted their Absence in the Defect nor considered it as a Misfortune to be deprived of them if they did not in some manner look upon themselves happy in the Enjoyment of them These are the Irregularities which our Reason engages us in when it is joyned to the Principles of the Heathen Philosophy and follows the Impressons of the Senses That we may longer doubt of the Falseness of this Miserable Philosphy and the Certainty of our Principles and Clearness of the Idea's we make use of It is necessary clearly to establish those Truths which are opposite to the Errors of the ancient Philosophy and to prove in short that there is only one true Cause because there is only one true God That Nature or the Power of every thing proceeds only from the Will of God That all Natural things are not true Causes but only occasional ones and some other Truths which will be the Consequences of these It is evident that all Bodies both great and small have no power of removing themselves A Mountain an House a Stone a grain of Sand and in short the least or biggest Bodies we can conceive have no power of removing themselves We have only two sorts of Idea's that of Bodies and that of Spirits whereas we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive we should reason according to these two Idea's Since therefore the Idea we have of all Bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves it must be concluded that they are moved by Spirits only But when we examine the Idea we have of all finite Minds we do not see the necessary Connexion between their Wills and the Motion of any Body whatsoever it be On the contrary we see that there is none nor can be any whence we ought to conclude if we will argue according to our Knowledge that as no body can be able to move it self so there is no created Spirit can be the true or principal cause of the Motion of any body whatever But when we think of the Idea of God viz. of a Being infinitely Perfect and consequently Almighty we know that there is such a Connexion between his Will and the Motion of all Bodies that 't is impossible to conceive he should Will the Motion of a Body that should not be moved We must then say that his Will only can move Bodies if we will speak things as we conceive them and not as we feel them The moving
Spirits desire as we may think of Devils or some other Spirits who merit this Punishment we cannot say in this case that God communicates his Power to them since they can do nothing that they would do Yet the Wills of these Spirits would be the Natural Causes of whatever Effects should be produced as such Bodies should be moved to the Right Hand because these Spirits would have them moved to the Left and the desire of these Spirits would determine the Will of God to act as our Wills to move the parts of our Bodies determine the first Cause to move them So that the Wills of Spirits are only occasional Causes Yet if after all these Reasons we will still maintain that the Will of an Angel which moves any body should be a true Cause and not an occasional one it is plain that this same Angel might be the true Cause of the Creation and Annihilation of all things For God could as well communicate to him his Prower of Creating and Destroying Bodies as that of moving them if he will'd that things should be created and annihilated In a word If he will'd that all things should happen as the Angel wishes them even as he Wills Bodies should move as the Angel pleases If it be said that an Angel or a Man would be the true movers because God moves Bodies when they wish it it may also be said that a Man and an Angel may be true Creators since God can create Beings when they will it Nay perhaps it might be said that the molt Vile Animals or Matter of it self should be the effective Cause of the Creation of any Substance if we supposed as the Philosophers do that God produces substantial Forms whenever the Disposition of Matter requires it In fine Because God has resolved from all Eternity in certain times to create such or such things we might also say that these times should be the Causes of the Creation of these Beings as reasonably as to pretend that a Bowl which meets another is the true cause of the motion it communicates to it Because God has determined by his general Will which constituted the Order of Nature that when two Bodies should meet there should be such and such a Communication of Motion There is then but one only true God and he the one only true Cause And we must not imagine that which precedes an Effect to be the true Cause of it God cannot even communicate his Power to the Creatures if we follow the Light of Reason he cannot make them true Causes because he cannot make them Gods Bodies Spirits pure Intelligences can all do nothing 'T is he who hath made these Spirits that illuminates and acts them 'T is he who has created the Heavens and the Earth which regulates the Motions thereof In short 't is the Author of our Being that executes our Wills semel jussit semper paret He even moves our Arms when we make use of them against his Orders for he complains by his Prophets that we make him serve our unjust and criminal Desires All these little Heathen Divinities and all these particular Causes of the Philosophers are only Chymera's that the wicked Spirit endeavours to establish to ruin the Worship of the true God It is not the Philosophy they have received from Adam which teaches these things 't is that they have received from the Serpent for since the Fall the Mind of Man is perfectly Heathenish 'T is this Philosophy which joyned to the Errors of the Senses has made them adore the Sun and which is fall at this Day the universal Cause of the Irregularity of the Mind and Corruption of the Heart of Man By their Actions and sometimes by their Words why say they should we not love the Body since the Body is capable of affording us all Pleasures And why do we laugh at the Israelites which regretted the Loss of the Garlick and Onyons of Egypt since in Effect they were unhappy by being deprived of what in some Measure could make them happy But the new Philosophy which they represent as a dismal thing to affrighten weak Minds that is despised and condemned without being understood The new Philosophy I say since they are pleased to call it so destroys all the Arguments of the Libertines by the Establishment of the chiefest of its Principles which perfectly agrees with the * Haec est Religio Christiana fratres mei quae praedicatur per universum mundum horrentibus inimieis ubi vincuntur murmurantibus ubi praevalent saevientibus haec est Religie Christiana ut Colatur unus Deus non Dii qui facit Animam Beatum nisi unus Deus Aug. tr 23. in Joan. first Principle of the Christian Religion that we must love and fear but one God since there is only one God who can make us happy For if Religion teaches us that there is but one true God this Philosophy shews us there is but one true Cause If Religion informs us that all the Divinities of the Heathens are only Stones and Metals without Life and Motion This Philosophy discovers to us also that all second Causes or all the Divinities of their Philosophy are only Matter and inefficacious Wills In short if Religion teaches us that we must not bow our Knees to false Gods This Philosophy also tells us that our Imaginations and Minds ought not to be prostituted to the Imaginary Greatness and Power of Causes which are not true Causes That we must neither love nor fear them nor busie our selves about them but think upon God only see him adore him fear and love him in all things But this agrees not with the Inclination of some Philosophers They will neither see nor think upon God For since the Fall there is a secret Opposition between God and Man Men take Pleasure in erecting Gods after their own Fancy they voluntarily love and fear the Fictions of their own Imagination as they Heathens did the Works of their own Hands They are like Children who tremble at their Companions after they have daubed their Faces Or if they will have a more Noble Comparison although perhaps it be not so just they resemble those famous Romans who had some Fear and Respect for the Fictions of their own Minds and foolishly adored their Emperors after they had let loose the Eagle when they deified them CHAP. IV. An Explanation of the Second Part of the general Rule That Philosophers neglect it but Mr. Descartes has very exactly observed it WE have already shewed unto what Errors we are subject when we reason upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses and upon the rambling and indeterminate Idea's of pure Logick We have sufficiently discovered that to preserve Evidence in our Perceptions it is absolutely necessary exactly to observe the Rule that we have prescribed if our Idea's are clear and distinct and then to reason according to these Idea's In this same general Rule which respects the Subject
and undoubted Principles For we have discovered that the Air which encompasses the Loadstone c was driven from between the Loadstones by Bodies which are continually emitted from their Poles ' which find free passage on one side and are stopt on the other And if we would discover near what the Magnitude and Figure of the Pores of this Loadstone are through which these little bodies pass we must yet make other Experiments but they would lead us to subjects which we intend not to treat of Upon these Questions we may consult the Principles of M. Descartes I shall only answer an Objection which immediately offers it self from whence is it that these little bodies cannot re-enter by the same Pores they came out that besides a certain Figure representing the Spiral Chanels of a Screw which we may suppose to be in the Pores producing this Effect the Inflexion of the little Branches which compose these Pores may in one Sense obey the little Bodies which pass a-cross them and in another Sense make them rough and stop their passage So that we need not be too much surprised at the difference of the Poles of the Loadstone for this difference may be accounted for many ways and all the difficulty is amongst several Causes to discover the true one If we had endeavoured to resolve the Question we have just now examined in beginning with the Corpuscles which we suppose to be emitted from the Loadstone C we should have found the same thing And we should likewise have discovered that the Air is composed of an infinite Number of Particles which are in continual Agitation for without it 't would be impossible that the Loadstone c should approach to the Loadstone C. I shall not stay to explain this because 't is not difficult I will give you here a Question more compound than the foregoing in which many Rules must be made use of 't is demanded what can be the Natural and Mechanical Cause of the Motion of our Members The Idea of Natural Cause is clear and distinct if we understand it as I have explained it in the precedent Question but the Term of the Motion of our Members is equivocal and confused for there are many sorts of these Motions some of the Will Natural and Convulsive ones There are likewise different Members in Mans Body So that according to the first Rule I must ask of which of these Motions it is that they would know the Cause But if the Question is left indeterminate so that I may make use of any I shall chuse I would examine the Question after this manner And first consider the Properties of these Motions and because I immediately discover that Voluntary Motions are commonly more readily performed than the Convulsive ones I conclude from thence that their Cause is different Therefore I can and ought to examine the Question by Parts for it would appear to be of too long a Discussion I would oblige my self therefore first to consider Voluntary Motion and because we have many Parts which concur to this Motion I would first consider the Arm as composed of many Muscles which have generally some Action when we lift a Weight up or when we differently move Bodies but I keep only to one supposing the rest to be formed very near after the same manner I instruct my self of its Composition by the Help of some Book of Anatomy or rather by a Sensible Sight of its Fibres and Tendons which I get some able Anatomist to dissect for me to whom I make all the Demands which shall afterwards produce in my Mind some Method for me to find what I seek Considering therefore all things attentively I cannot doubt but the Principle of the Motion of my Arm depends upon the Contraction of the Muscles which compose it And if I have not a mind to perplex my self with too many things I may suppose according to the common Opinion that this Contraction is produced by the Animal Spirits which fill these Muscles and by this means shorten them the whole Question then which respects Voluntary Motion will be reduced to know how the few Animal Spirits which are contained in an Arm can suddenly swell the Muscles according to the Orders of the Will with a sufficient Force to lift a Burden of an Hundred Weight or more When we consider this with any Application the first means that presents it self to the Imagination is commonly that of some violent and quick Fermentation like to that of Gunpowder or certain Liquors filled with Volatile Salt when they are mixed with those that are Acid or full of fixt Salt A little Gunpowder when lighted is capable of raising not only an Hundred Pound Weight but a Tower and even a Mountain Earthquakes which overthrow Towns and shake whole Provinces are also produced by Spirits which are kindled under Ground much like Gunpowder Thus supposing in the Arm such a Cause of the Fermentation and Dilatation of Spirits we may say that it is the Principle of the Power that Men have to perform such quick and violent Motions However as we ought to distrust this means which enters into the Mind only by the Senses and whereof we have no clear and evident Knowledge we must not too easily admit of it For indeed it is not sufficient to give a Reason of the Force and Quickness of our Motions by a Comparison since this Reason is confused and imperfect For we must here explain a Voluntary Motion and Fermentation is not Voluntary The Blood excessively ferments in Feavers and we cannot prevent it The Spirits are inflamed and agitated in the Brain and their Agitation diminishes not according to our Desires When a Man moves his Arm after diverse Ways according to this Explanation he must make a Million of great and small quick and slow Fermentations that begin and which is still more difficult to explain according to this Supposition that end in the same Moment he wills it These Fermentations must not dissipate all their Matter and this Matter must be always ready to take Fire When a Man walks Ten Miles how many Thousand Times must the Muscles which he uses in walking be filled and emptied And what a vast Quantity of Spirits would be required if Fermentation should dissipate and destroy them at every Step. This Reason is therefore imperfect to explain the Motions of our Bodies which entirely depend upon our Will It is evident that the present Question consists in this Mechanical Problem By Pneumatick Machines to find the means of overcoming such or such Force suppose a Hundred Weight by another as small as we will suppose the Weight of an Ounce and that the Application of this little Force shall produce its desired Effect and depend upon the Will Now this Problem is easily resolved and the Demonstration of it is clear We may resolve it by a Vessel which has two Orifices one of which is a little more than 1600. Times greater than the other
much the harder as they are more solid and have fewer Pores the Question now is to know how the parts of a Column composed of a Matter which has no Pore can be strongly joyned together and compose a very hard Body for we cannot say that the parts of this Column is held by little Links since being without Pores they have no particular Figure I find my self yet extreamly inclined to say that this Column is naturally hard or else that the little Links whereof hard Bodies are composed are Atoms whose parts cannot be divided as being the essential and utmost parts of Bodies which are essentially crooked or branched or of some perplex'd Figure But I freely confess that this is not to explain the Difficulty and that quitting the Prejudices and Illusions of my Senses I should be in the wrong to recur to an abstracted Form and embrace a Logical Phantom for the cause I seek I mean I should be in the wrong to conceive as something real and distinct a rambling Idea of the Nature of Essence which expresses only what we know And thus to take an abstracted and universal Form as a Physical Cause of a real Effect For there are two things which I cannot too much distrust the first is The Impression of my Senses and the other The Facility I have to receive abstracted Natures and general Logical Idea's for those which are Real and Particular I remember I have been many times seduced by these two Principal Errors But to return to the Difficulty It is not possible for me to conceive how these little Links should be indivisible by their Nature and Essence nor consequently how they should be Inflexible since on the contrary I conceive them very Divisible and necessarily divisible by their Nature and Essence For the part A is most certainly a Substance as well as B and consequently it is clear that A can exist without B since Substances can exist one without another because otherwise they would not be Substances We cannot say that A is not a Substance for it is plain it is not a bare Mode and all Beings are either Modes or Substances So since A is not a Mode 't is a Substance then it may exist without B and much more may the part A exist separately from B. So that this Link is divisible in A and in B. Moreover If this Link was Indivisible or crooked by Nature and Essence it would be quite contrary to what we Experience for then we could not break any body Let us suppose as before that a piece of Iron is composed of many Links which is intermix'd one in another whereof A a and B b are two of them I say that we cannot unlink them and consequently that we could not break this Iron For to break it we must bend the Links that compose it which are nevertheless supposed naturally and essentially inflexible And if we do not suppose them inflexible but only indivisible by their Nature the Supposition will be of no use to resolve the Question For then the Difficulty would be to know why these little Links do not obey our Efforts when we try to bend a Bar of Iron Yet if we suppose them not Inflexible we must not suppose them Indivisible for if the parts of these Links can change their Situation one in respect to another it is plain that they may be separated since there is no reason why if one part could remove it self a little from the other it could not be absolutely done Then whether we suppose these Links Inflexible or Indivisible we cannot by this means resolve the Question For if we suppose them only Indivisible we must without trouble break a bit of Iron And if we suppose them Inflexible it will be impossible to break them since the little Links which compose the Iron being embarrassed one in another it will be impossible to unlink them Let us try then to resolve the Difficulty by clear and undoubted Principles and to find the reason why this little Link hath these two parts A and B so firmly united I see evidently that it is necessary to divide the Subject of my Meditation into parts that I may examine it more exactly and with less Intention of Mind since I have not been able immediately with one simple view and all the Attention I am capable of to discover what I would find And 't is what I might have done from the beginning for when the Subjects that we consider are a little intricate 't is alwayes the best way to examine them in parts and not fatigue our selves unusefully upon false Hopes of meeting luckily with the Truth What I enquire after is the cause of the strict Union that is between the little Particles which compose the Link A B. Now there is only three things that I distinctly conceive capable of being the cause which I seek viz. The parts of this little Link the Will of the Author of Nature or lastly the Invisible Bodies which surround these little Links I might yet bring for the Cause of these things the Form of Bodies the Qualities of Hardness or some occult one the Simpathy which would be between the Particles of the same kind c. but because I have not a distinct Idea of these fine things I neither ought nor can maintain my Arguments from them so that if I find not the Cause I seek in things that I have a distinct Idea of I will not uselessy fatigue my self in the Contemplation of these rambling and general Logical Idea's and will cease from speaking of what I understand not But let us examine the first of these things which may be the Cause how the Particles of this little Link are so strictly united viz. the little Parts it is composed of When I consider only the Parts whereof hare Bodies are composed I find my self inclined to believe That we cannot imagine any Cement which unites the Parts of this Link besides themselves and their own Rest For of what Nature could it be It would not be a thing which subsists of it self for all these little Particles being Substances for what Reason should they be united by other Substances than by themselves Neither will it be a different Quality from Rest because there is no Quality more contrary to Motion which might separate these Parts than Rest But besides Substances and their Qualities we know of no other kind of Beings It is very true Defc Prin. 1. Art 55. p 2. the Parts of hard Bodies continue united whilst they are in Rest one with another and when they are once in Rest they continue so of themselves as long as they can But this is not what I seek I know not how I came to mistake the Subject I endeavour here to discover why the Particles of hard Bodies have Power to continue in Rest one by another and how they resist the Efforts we make to move them I might then answer my self Descartes
Princip Article 43. of the second Part. that each Body has truly a Power to continue in the State 't is in and that this Power is equal either in respect to Motion or Rest But that which makes the Parts of hard Bodies continue in Rest by one anotherd so that we are troubled to separate and move them is because we employ not Motion enough to conquer their Rest This is probable it is true but I seek a Certainty if it can be found and not only a Probability Articl 63. And how can I certainly and evidently know that each Body has this Power to continue in the Condition it is in and that this Power is equal in respect to Motion and Rest since on the contrary Matter appears indifferent to Motion and Rest and absolutely without any Power Let us have Recourse then with Mr. Descartes to the Will of the Creator which is it may be the Power that Bodies seem to have in themselves 't is the second thing that we before supposed was able to preserve the Parts of this little Link we speak of so strongly united Certainly 't is impossible that God may will each Body to continue in the Condition it is in and that his Will is the Power which unites the Parts one to another after the same manner as I have elsewhere considered his Will to be the moving Power which puts Bodies in Motion For since Matter cannot move of it self it seems to me that I must judge it to be a Spirit and even that 't is the Author of Nature who maintains it and puts it in Motion by successively preserving it in many Places by his Simple Will since a Being infinitely powerful acts not by Instruments and the Effects necessarily follow his Will I perceive then Descartes Art 33. of the 2d Part. Art 45. and in those which follow 't is possible that God should keep every thing in the Condition it is in whether it be in Rest or in Motion and that his Will is the Natural Power that Bodies have to continue in the State in which they have once been placed If it is so we must as Descartes has done measure this Power conclude what ought to be the Natural Effects of it and thus give Rules for the Power and Communication of Motions at the Concourse of different Bodies by the Proportion of Magnitude that is found between these Bodies since we have no other Way to discover this general and immurable Will of God who causes the different Powers that Bodies have to act upon and resist one another besides their different Magnitudes and Celerities Yet I have no certain Proof that by a positive Will God keeps Bodies in a State of Rest and it seems sufficient for him to will the Existence of Matter not only to cause it to exist but to remain in Rest It is not the same in respect to Motion because the Idea of Matter moved certainly includes two Powers to which it relates viz. That which created it and that which moves it But the Idea of Matter in Rest only includes the Idea of a Creating Power without a Necessity of one to keep it in Rest since if we simply conceive Matter without thinking of any Power we shall necessarily conceive it in Rest Thus 't is I determine things for I must judge of them according to my Idea's and according to them Rest is but a Privation of Motion For 't is sufficient for God to cease to will that a Body should he moved for its Motion to cease and cause it to remain in Rest But I remember I have heard many Ingenious Persons say that it appeared to them that Motion was as well the Privation of Rest as that Rest was a Privation of Motion Some even have assured me by Reasons I could not apprehend that it was more probable that Motion was rather a Privation than Rest I do not distinctly remember the Arguments they brought but it ought to make me suspect my Idea's to be false For although most Men speak what pleases them upon Matters that do not appear very Important Yet I have Reason to believe that the Persons I speak of took Pleasure in speaking what they conceived I must therefore still examine my Idea's very carefully 'T is a thing which appears undoubted to me and these Gentlemen I speak of grant it viz. That it is the Will of God which moves Bodies The Power then that a Bowl has which I see in Motion is the Will of God which causes it to move And what must God now do to cause it to stop Must he by a positive Will determine it to be in Rest I imagine here that there is only God my self and a Bowl or else is it sufficient that he ceases to will it should be moved It is evident that if God only ceases to will that this Bowl should be moved the Cessation of this Will of God will be the Cessation of the Motion of the Bowl for the Will of God which was the Power that moved the Bowl being no more this Power will continue no longer nor the Bowl therefore any more moved Thus a Cessation of the Power of Motion causes Rest Rest has therefore no Power which produces it 'T is then only a pure Privation which supposes not a positive Will in God so that it would be unreasonable and unnecessary to admit a positive Will in God to give Bodies any Power to continue in Rest But let us if possible overthrow this Argument suppose now a Bowl in Rest whereas we supposed it before in Motion what must God do to actuate it Will it be enough for him to cease to will it should be in Rest If it is so I have yet advanced nothing for Motion would as well be the Privation of Rest as Rest the Privation of Motion I suppose then that God ceases to will it should continue in Rest but if this be granted I do not see that the Bowl moves and if any one sees it moved I desire them to tell me after what Degree of Motion it is moved Certainly 't is impossible that it should move and not have some Degree of Motion and from our conceiving only that God ceases to will it should be in Rest it is impossible to conceive it to go with any Degree of Motion because it is not the same with Motion as Rest Motions are infinitely various they are capable of More or Less But Rest being nothing one cannot differ from another A Bowl even which goes twice as fast in one Time as in another has twice as much Power or Motion in one Time as in another but we cannot say that the same Bowl has twice as much Rest in one Time as in another Thefore it must be a positive Will from God to put a Bowl in Motion or to give a Bowl such a Power as to move it self and it is enough for him to cease willing its Motion for it to
be in Rest just as in the Creation of the World it is not sufficient that God should will the World should exist but it is necessary that he positively wills the Manner in which it must exist And to annihilate it it must not be God's willing that it should not be because God cannot will nothing by a positive Will it is enough only that God ceases to will that it should exist I do not here consider Motion and Rest according to their Relative Being For 't is plain that Bodies in Rest have as real Relations to those which encompass them as those that are in Motion have I only conceive that Bodies which are in Motion have a moving Power and those that are in Rest have no Power to keep themselves in Rest because the Relation that Bodies moved have to those which encompass them always changing it must be a continual Power which produces these continual Changes For indeed 't is these Changes that cause whatsoever Revolutions we see in Nature But there is no need of Power to do nothing When the Relation of a Body to those that surround it is always the same there is nothing done and the Preservation of this Relation I mean the Action of the Will of God who preserves this Relation is not different from that which preserves the same Body By a Body in a Void I mean one so separated from others as well hard as liquid that there is none which helps or hinders the Communication of Motion If it is true as I conceive that Rest is only a Privation of Motion the least Motion I mean that of the least agitated Body includes more Force or Power than the rest of the greatest Body Thus the least Force or smallest Body that we should conceive moved in a Void against a great and vast Body would be capable of moving it since this great Body being in Rest it will have no Power to resist the little Body which will strike against it so that the Resistance that the Parts of hard Bodies make to hinder their Separation necessarily proceeds from some other Cause than that of Rest But we must demonstrate by Sensile Experiments what we have been proving by abstracted Reasonings to see if our Idee's agree with the Sensations that we receive of Objects For it often happens that such Arguments deceive us or at least cannot convince others and particularly such as are prejudiced on the contrary Side The Authority of Descartes has so much Power over the Reason of some Men that one must prove by all imaginable Ways that this great Man is deceived to be able to disabuse them What I have said will make a deep Impression on the Mind of those that are not prejudiced with the contrary Opinion and I plainly see they will blame me for proving things which appear indisputable to them But the Cartesians very well deserve that I should use my endeavour to satisfie them others may pass over this Discourse if they think it tedious Here then are some Experiments which sensibly prove that Rest has no Power to resist Motion and which consequently discover that the Will of the Author of Nature which gives the Power and Force that each Body has to continue in that State wherein it is respects only Motion and not Rest since Bodies have no Power of themselves Experience shews us that very great vessels which swim in the Water may be agitated by the least Bodies which hit against them From thence I pretend notwithstanding all the Evasions of Descartes and the Cartesians that if these great Bodies were in a Void they might yet be more easily agitated For the Reason why there is some little Difficulty to move a Vessel in Water is because the Water resists the Power of the Motion we impress on it which would not happen in a Void and what manifestly shews us that Water resists the Motion we impress on the Vessel is the Vessels ceasing to be agitated some time after it has been moved for this would not happen if the Vessel did not lose its Motion by communicating it to the Water or if the Water gave way without resisting it or in fine if it partook of its Motion Thus since a Vessel agitated in the Water by little and little ceases to move 't is an undoubted Mark that the Water resists its Motion instead of facilitating it as Descartes pretends and consequently it would yet be infinitely more easie to agitate a great Body in a Void than in Water since there is no Resistance from Bodies about it It is therefore evident that Rest has no Power to resist Motion that the least Motion contains more Power and Force than the grearest Rest Or at least that we ought not to measure the Force of Motion and Rest by the Proportion that is found between great Bodies which are in Motion and in Rest as Descartes has done It is true there is some Reason to believe that a Vessel is agitated as soon as it is in the Water because of the continual Change which happens to the Parts of the Water that encompass it although it seems to us that it does not change its Place It is that which has made Descartes and some others believe that 't is not the Force only of that which impels it that makes it advance in the Water but having already received much Motion from the little Parts of liquid Bodies which surround it and which equally push it on all sides This Motion is only determined by the new Motion of that which pushes it So that that which agitates a Body in Water could not do it in a Void Thus it is that Descartes and those that are of his Opinion defend the Rules of Motion that he has given us For instance let us suppose a Piece of Wood a Foot square in a Liquid Body All the little Parts of the Liquid Body acts upon it and moves against it and because they equally push it on all sides as well towards A as B It cannot advance nearer to one side than another But if I then push another Piece of Wood of half a Foot against the first toward the Side A I shall see it advance And from thence I conclude that it might be moved if in a Void with less Force than that whereby this Piece of Wood pushes it for the Reasons I have already brought But the Persons I speak of deny it and answer that what makes the great Piece of Wood advance as soon as it is pushed by the little one is because the little one which could not move it of it self being joyned with the Parts of the Liquid Body which are agitated determine them to push it and communicate to it one Part of their Motion But 't is plain that according to this Answer the Piece of Wood being once agitated must not diminish its Motion but on the contrary continually augment it Art 5. For by this Answer the Piece
of Wood is pushed more by the Water to the Side of A than to the Side of B therefore it must always advance towards it And because this Impulsion is continual its Motion must always increase But as I have already said the Water is so far from facilitating its Motion that it continually resists it and its Resistance always diminishes it and at last will make it perfectly cease We must now prove that the Piece of Wood that was equally pushed by the little Particles of the Water that surrounds it has no Motion or Power at all that is capable to move it although it continually changes its Place and though the Surface of the Water which encompasses it is different at different Times For if it is so that a Body equally pushed on all Sides as this Piece of Wood is has no Motion it is certain that 't is only the Forreign Force that strikes against it which communicates it since in the same Time that this forreign Force pushes it the Water resists it and by little and little destroys the Motion which is imprest on it for by degrees it ceases to move It is certain at least to those whom I speak to that there never is in Nature more Motion at one Time than at another and that Bodies in Rest are moved only by meeting with some agitated Bodies which communicate their Motion to them From thence I conclude that a Body which I suppose created perfectly at rest in the middle of the Water will never receive any Degree of Motion from the little Particles of Water which surround it and continually strike against it provided they push it equally on all Sides because all these little Particles which strike against it equally on all Sides reflecting with all their Motion they communicate none to it and consequently this Body must always be considered as in Rest and without any moving Power although it continually change its Surface Now the Proof I have that these little Parts reflect thus with all their Motion is that besides this that we cannot conceive the thing to be otherwise the Water that touches this Body must grow cold or even freeze and become very near as hard as the Wood upon its Surface since the Motion of the Particles of Water would be equally distributed to the little Parts of the Body they encompass But to accommodate my self to those that defend Descartes's Sentiment I grant we must not consider a Boat in the Water as in Rest I also allow that all the Parts of the Water which are about it agree to the new Motion that the Water-man imprints on it although it be but too visible by the Diminution of the Motion of the Boat that it resists it more on the Side it goes to than from that whence it was pushed This supposed I say that from all the Particles of Water that are in the River there is according to Descartes only those that immediately touch the Boat on the Side from whence it was pushed that can assist its Motion Art 63. For according to this Philosopher The Water being fluid all the Parts of which it is composed act not together against the Body we would move but only those that touching it conjoyntly bear upon it Now those which are conjoyntly born upon the Boat and the Waterman together are twenty times less than the Boat See Art 63. of the second Part of his Principles It is therefore plain by the Explanation that Decartes has given in this Article upon the Difficulty we have to break a Nail between our Hands that a little Body is capable of agitating a much greater than it self For indeed our Hands are not so fluid as Water and when we would break a Nail there is more Parts joyned together which act conjoyntly then in the Water which pushes a Boat But here is a more Sensible Experiment If we take a Board well plained or some other very hard Plane drive in it a Nail half-way and set the Plane in an inclining Position placing a Bar of Iron an hundred times thicker than the Nail above it and suffer the Bar to slide down I say this Nail will not break And we must further observe That according to Descartes all the parts of this Bar rest upon and conjoyntly act upon this Nail for this Bar is hard and solid If then there was no other Cement than rest to unite the parts of this Nail the Bar of Iron being an hundred times greater than the Nail Art 63. Art 50. would according to Descartes's fifth Rule and according to Reason communicate some of its Motion to the part of the Nail it fell upon that is break it and pass beyond it although even this Bar should slide but very slowly So that we must seek another Cause than the Rest of the parts to make Bodies hard or capable of resisting the Efforts that we make when we would break them since Rest has no power to resist Motion And I believe these Experiments suffice to shew that the abstracted Proofs we have brought are not false We must then examine the third thing we have before supposed might be the cause of the strict Union that is found between the parts of hard Bodies viz. An invisible Matter that environs them which being extreamly agitated with much Violence pushes the External and Internal Parts of these Bodies and compresses them after such a manner that to separate them more Force is necessary than this invisible and extreamly agitated Matter has It seems then I might reasonably conclude that the Union of the constituent parts of hard Bodies depends upon the subtle Matter which encompasses and compresses them Since the two other things that we can think to be the Causes of this Union are not truly so as we have already seen for since I find resistance enough in breaking a piece of Iron and that this resistance proceeds neither from the Iron nor the Will of God as I think I have proved it must necessarily proceed from some invisible Matter which can be no other than that which immediately encompasses and compresses it Nevertheless I shall further give some positive Proofs of this Opinion after I have explained it more at large by some Example Take a Globe of any hard Metal which is hollow within cut it into two Hemispheres and joyn these two Hemispheres with a little Wax at the place of their union and exhaust the Air out of it these two Hemispheres joyned one to the other after this manner if many Horses were fastened to them some on one side and some on the other could not be separated by them supposing the Magnitude of the Hemispheres to be in Proportion to the number of Horses Yet if we suffer the Air to re-enter one Person alone could separate them without any Difficulty It is easie to conclude from this Instance That what so strongly unites these two Hemispheres proceeds from their being compressed and surrounded
Agitation of this Matter by what I have said of Gunpowder It will not be difficult to see that 't is absotutely necessary that the Matters acting infinitely more upon the Surface of hard Bodies that it encompasses and compresses than within the same Bodies it must be the Cause of their Inflexibility or the Resistance we feel when we endeavour to break them Now as there is always many Particles of this Invisible Matter which passes through the Pores of hard Bodies they make them not only hard as we have already explained but further are the Cause that some are Springy and Elastick others stand bent and that others are fluid and liquid and in fine that they are not only the Cause of the Force that hard Bodies have to continue united together but also that fluid Bodies have to separate that is are the Cause that some Bodies are hard and others fluid But because 't is absolutely necessary to know distinctly the Physicks of Descartes the Figure of his Elements and Parts which compose particular Bodies to give a Reason why certain Bodies are stiff and some others pliable I shall not stay here to explain it Those who have read the Works of this Philosopher will easily enough imagine what may be the Cause thereof which I could not explain without great Difficulty and those who are unacquainted with this Author would but confusedly understand the Reason that I might bring for it Nor shall I also stop here to resolve a great Number of Difficulties that I foresee may be brought against what I have established Because if those that raise them have no Knowledge of true Physicks I should only tire and displease them instead of satisfying them But if they are learned Persons their Objections being stronger I could not answer them but by a great Number of Figures and long Discourses so that I believe I ought to desire those that find any Difficulty in what I have advanced very carefully to read this Chapter over again for I hope if they do so and meditate on it as much as is necessary all their Objections will vanish But if they find my Request incommodious they may omit it for there is no great Danger in being ignorant of the Cause of Bodies inflexibility I speak not here of Contiguity For 't is plain Contiguous things touch so little that there is always much Subtle Matter which passes between them and which endeavours to continue its Motion in a right Line to prevent their uniting For the Union that is observed between Marbles which have been polished one upon another I have explained it and 't is easie to see that although this Subtle Matter always passes between these two Parts how united soever they may be the Air cannot pass it and therefore 't is that which compresses and binds those two Pieces of Marble together and causes some Trouble to disunite them if we do not make them slide off one another It is plain from all this that the Continuity Contiguity and Union of two Marbles will only be the same thing in a Void neither have we different Idea's of them so that 't is as much as to say we do not understand them if we make them absolutely differ without any Relation to the Bodies which surround them Here now follows some Reflexions upon Descartes's Sentiment and the Original of his error I call his Opinion an Error because I find no Expedient to defend what he says of the Rules of Motion and Cause of the Hardness of Bodies in many Places at the End of the Second Part of his Principles and it seems to me that I have sufficiently proved the Truth of the contrary Opinion This great Man very distinctly conceived that Matter could not move of it self and that the Natural moving Power of all Bodies was nothing else but the general Will of the Author of Nature and that the Communications of the Motions of Bodies at their mutual Meeting could only proceed from this same Will If we take this for granted we can give no Rules for the different Communication of Motions but by the Proportion that is found between the different Magnitude of Bodies which beat against them since it is impossible to penetrate the Designs of God's Will And because he judges that every thing had Power to continue in the State it was in whether in Motion or Rest because that God by his Will determined this Power always to act after the same manner he concludes that Rest has as much Power to act as Motion So he measures the Effects of the Power of Rest by the Magnitude of Bodies which possessed it as those of the Power of Motion and hence he gave the Rules for the Communication of Motion that are in his Principles and the Cause of the Hardness of Bodies which I have endeavoured to refute It is difficult enough not to be of Descartes's Opinion when we look upon it as he did for once more since the Communication of Motions proceed only from the Will of the Author of Nature and that we see all Bodies continue in the State they are once placed in whether it be Motion or Rest It seems we ought to seek the Rules of the different Communication of Motions at the meeting of Bodies not in the Will of God which is unknown to us but in the Proportion there is between the Magnitudes of these Bodies I do not therefore wonder that Descartes had this Thought but I only wonder that he did not correct it when he had made a farther Advance in his Discoveries and found both Existence and the Effects of the Subtle Matter which environs all Bodies I am surprized that in the 132 Article of the 4th Part he attributes the Elastick Force that certain Bodies have to this subtle Matter and that in Articles 55 and 43 of the Second Part and in other Places he does not attribute it to their Hardness or the Resistance they make when we endeavour to bend or break them but to the rest of their Parts It appears evident to me that the Cause of the Elasticity and Stiffness of certain Bodies is the same with that which gives them the Power of Resistance when we would break them for indeed the Force that we use to break Steel differs but insensibly from that by which we bend it I will not here bring all the Reasons that might be urged to prove these things nor answer to any Difficulties that we might form from hard Bodies making no Sensible Resistance and yet we have some Trouble to bend them For it will be enough to make these Difficulties vanish to consider that the Subtle Matter cannot easily take a new course in Bodies which break when we bend them as in Glass and in tempered Steel and that it cannot more easily do it in Bodies that are composed of branchy Parts which are not brittle as in Gold and Lead And indeed there is no hard bodies which make not some
little Resistance It is difficult enough to perswade our selves that Descartes positively believed the Cause of Hardness was different from that of Elasticity And what appears most probable is that he has not sufficiently reflected upon the Matter When we meditate long upon any Subject and are satisfied in things we would know we often think no more of them We believe that the Thoughts that we have had are undoubted Truths and 't is useless to examine farther But in Men there are many things which disgust them against Application incine them to a rash Assent and make them subject to Error and although the Mind continues apparently satisfied it is not always because it is well informed of the Truth Descartes was a Man like us I confess we never saw more Solidity Exactness Extension and more Penetration of Mind than what appears in his Works yet he was not infallible So that it is probable he was so very strongly perswaded of his Opinion from not sufficiently reflecting that he asserted something elsewhere in nis Principles contrary to it He maintained it upon very specious and probable Reasons but such however as were not of sufficient Force to make us submit and therefore he might and ought to have suspended his Judgment It is not enough to examine in a hard Body what might be the Cause that made it so We ought also to think of the invisible bodies which might render them hard as he has done at the End of his Philosophical Principles when he attributes the Cause of Resistance to them He ought to have made an exact Division which comprised whatsoever might contribute to the Inflexibility of bodies It is not sufficient still to seek the Cause in God's Will he ought also to have thought of the Subtle Matter which environed them For although the Existence of this extreamly agitated Matter was not yet proved in that Place of his Principles where he speaks of Hardness it was not then rejected He ought then to have suspended his Judgment and to have remembered that what he had writ of the Cause of Hardness and Rules of Motion ought to have been reviewed anew which I believe he did not do carefully enough Or else he did not sufficiently consider the true Reason of a thing that is very easie to discover and which yet is of the utmost Consequence in Physicks I will explain it Descartes well knew that to maintain his System of the Truth which he could not reasonably doubt It was absolutely necessary that great bodies should always communicate their Motion to the lesser bodies they should meet and the less reflect at their meeting with the greater without a like Loss on their Side For without that the First Element would not have all the Motion that it is necessary it should have above the Second nor the Second above the Third and his whole System would be absolutely false as is sufficiently known to those that have but thought a little upon it But in supposing that Rest had Force enough to resist Motion and that a great Body in Rest could not be moved by another that is less than it although it strike it with a furious Agitation It is plain that great Bodies must have much less Motion than a like Mass of little Bodies since according to this Supposition they can always communicate what they have and cannot always receive from the lesser Thus this Supposition not being contrary to whatsoever Descartes has said in his Principles from the Beginning unto the Establishment of his Rules of Motion and agreeing very well with the Sequel of his Principles he believed that the Rules of Motions which he thought he had demonstrated in their Cause were also sufficiently confirmed by their Effects I agree with Descartes that great Bodies communicate their Motion much more easily than little Bodies do and therefore his First Element is much more agitated than the Second and the Second than the Third But the Cause of it is clear without having any Regard to his Supposition Little and fluid Bodies as Water Air c. can only communicate to great Bodies an uniform Motion which is common to all their Parts The Water in a River can only communicate to a Boat the Motion of Descent which is common to all the little Parts of which the Water is composed and every one of these Parts besides this common Motion has also an infinite Number of other Particulars Thus by this Reason 't is plain that a Boat for instance can never have so much Motion as an equal Bulk of Water since the Boat can only receive from the Water that Motion which is direct and common to all the Parts that compose it If Twenty Particles of a fluid Body push any other Body on the one Side and as many on the other it will continue immoveable and all the little Particles of the fluid Body in which it swims rebound up without losing any thing of their Motion Thus great Bodies whose Parts are united can only receive the Circular and Uniform Motion of the Vortex of the Subtle Matter which environs them This Reason seems sufficient to them to make it comprehended how great Bodies are not so much agitated as the lesser and that there is a Necessity for an Explanation of these things to suppose any Force in Rest to resist Motion The Certainty of Descartes's Principles cannot be a sufficient Proof to defend his Rules of Motion and we may believe that if Descartes himself had again without Prejudice examined his Principles and compared them with such Reasons as I have brought he would not have believed that the Effects of Nature had confirmed his Rules nor have fallen into a Contradiction by attributing the Hardness of Bodies only to the rest of their Parts and their Elasticity to the Force of a Subtle Matter Here follows now the Rules of the Communication of Motions in a Void which are only the Consequences of what I have established about the Nature of Rest Bodies not being hard in a Void since they are only hard by the Pressure of the Subtle Matter which surrounds them if Two Bodies meet they would flatten without rebounding we must therefore give these Rules Suppose them hard of themselves and not by the Pressure of this Subtle Matter Rest having no Power to resist Motion and many Bodies before being considered as one only in the moment of their meeting it is plain they ought not to rebound when they are equal in Magnitude and Velocity or that their Velocity supplies the Desect of their Magnitude or their Magnitude the Defect of their Velocity And it is easie from thence to conclude that in all other Cases they must always communicate their Motion A general Rule for the Communication of Motion so that they may afterwards proceed with an equal Swiftness So that to know what must happen in all the different Suppositions of Magnitude and Swiftness of Bodies which meet one another we need
striking Body rebounds more because the Elasticity is stronger If the striking is very small and the stricken very great and heavy the striking will rebound still more because of the Weight and great Quantity of Air which encompasses the stricken that resists this Motion In fine if the Force of the Hardness is either diminished or encreased by the Colum of Air which answers to the stricken the striking which rebounds would continue in Rest after Percussion Or on the contrary the striking which would continue in Rest after the Percussion may rebound All that is to be done then is to compare the Hardness of Bodies which meet and the Air which the impuls'd Body must agitate anew in the Time of Percussion that it may move to foresee very near what must happen in the Percussion of different Bodies I always suppose an equal Swiftness in the meeting for the Air resists a great Motion more than it does a small one and there is as much Motion in a Body half as little again as another when it goes as fast again as this other Thus the stricken being pushed twice as swift again it may be considered as having a Colum of Air twice as great to impel it But we must also observe that in the Moment that one Body shocks another the Parts of these same Bodies have two contrary Motions For those that are foremost have an Inclination to turn because of the Shock at the same Time that those that are behind incline to advance because of the first Motion and 't is this Countermotion that flattens soft Bodies and even makes certain hard Bodies break Now when Bodies are very hard this counterblow which shakes their Parts and causes a kind of trembling in them as appears by the Sound they make always produces some Change in the Communication of Motion which is very difficult to be discovered for many Reasons and it seems to me very useless to examine it in particular If one would think upon all these things I believe he might easily answer some Difficulties that may still remain upon this Subject But if I thought what I have said was not sufficient to shew that Rest has no Power to resist Motion and that the Rules of the Communication of Motion given by Descartes are in Part false I would here prove that according co his Supposition 't would be impossible to move in the Air and that what makes the Circulation of Motion in fluid Bodies to be possible without recurring to a Void is that the first Element being easily divided after many different Manners the rest of its Parts would have no Power to resist Motion THE CONCLUSION OF THE Three Last Books IT seems to me that I have in the fourth and fifth Book sufficiently shown that the Natural Inclinations and Passions of Men make them often fall into Error because they incline them more to precipitate Judgments than to examine things carefully In the fourth Book I have shown that the Inclination for Good in general is the cause of the Wills inquietude That the Inquietude of the Will puts the Mind into a continual Agitation And that a Mind that is always agitated is wholly incapable of discovering Truths that are but a little intricate That the Love of new and extraordinary things often prejudice us in favour of them and whatever bears the Character of Infinity is capable of dazling our Imagination and seducing us I have explained how the Inclination we have for Greatness Honours and Independance insensibly engage us into false Learning or into the Study of all these vain and useless Sciences which flatter our secret Pride because they make us be admir'd by the Vulgar I have shew'd that our Inclinations for Pleasure continually turn the Mind from the Contemplation of abstracted Truths which are the most Simple and most Fruitful and permit it not to consider any thing with sufficient Attention and Disinterest to be able to judge well of it That Pleasures being the Modes of the Souls Existences they necessarily divide the Capacity of the Mind and a Mind divided cannot fully comprehend whatever has any thing of Extension In fine I have shewn that the Relation and Natural Union we have with all those we live with is the occasion of many Errors that we are subject to and communicate to others as others communicate those to us wherein they fall themselves In the fifth Book I have endeavoured to give some Idea of our Passions I have I think sufficiently shewn that they are established to unite us to all sensible things to assist with a Disposition which is proper for the Preservation of our Life And that as our Senses unite us to our Body and diffuse our Soul if I may so say into all the parts which compose it so our Emotions make us as it were go out of our selves to be diffused through all things that are about us And lastly That they continually represent things to us not as they are in themselves to form true Judgments but according to the Relation they have to us to form Judgments that are useful for the Preservation of our Being and of those with whom we are naturally or voluntarily united After having attempted to discover our Errors in their Causes and to deliver the Mind from the Prejudices to which it is subject I thought it was time to prepare it for an Enquiry after Truth Thus I have in the sixth Book explained the means which seem to me the most Natural to increase the Attention and Capacity of the Mind by shewing the use that we may make of our Senses Passions and Imagination to give it all the Force and Penetration whereof it is capable Afterwards I have established certain Rules that are necessary to be observed in the Discovery of any Truth whatever it be I have explained them by many Instances to make them more sensible and have made choice of those which appeared the most useful to me or which included the most pregnant and general Truths that they may be read with more Application and made more Sensible and Familiar If may be by this Essay of Method we shall discover the Necessity there is of reasoning upon clear and eviden Idea's and such as we are inwardly convinced that all Nations agree in and never pass to Compound things before we have sufficiently examined the Simple ones upon which those depend And if we consider that Aristotle and his Followers have not observed the Rules I have explained as we ought to be convinced by the Proofs I have brought of it and by a Knowledge of the Opinions of the most Zealous Defenders of this Philosopher perhaps we shall condemn his Doctrine notwithstanding all the Impressions which perswade some who suffer themselves to be entangled by words they understand not But if we observe the manner of Descartes's Philosophy we cannot doubt of Solidity for I have sufficiently shewn that he reasons only upon clear and evident Idea's and
abases it towards sensible Objects which seem to cause it It is Evil in as much as it is Injustice in us who are Sinners and consequently deserve to be punish'd rather than rewarded to oblige God in pursuance of his Primitive Will to recompence us with agreeable Sensations In a word for I will not repeat here what I have already said it is Evil because God now forbids it since it alienates the Mind from him for whom it was made and preserv'd for that which God ordain'd to preserve the Righteous Man in his Innocence now establishes the Wicked Man in his Sin and the Sensations of Pleasure which he wisely ordain'd as the easiest and most obvious expedient to teach Man without diverting his Reason from his true Good whether he ought to unite himself with the Bodies about him these Sensations I say at present fill the Capacity of his Mind and fix him on Objects incapable of acting and infinitely below him because he looks upon these Objects to be the true Causes of the Happiness he occasionally enjoys from them THE SECOND EXPLANATION OF THE First Chapter of the First Book Where I say That the Will cannot differently determine the Impession it has towards good but by Commanding the Understanding to represent some particular Object to it WE must not imagine that the Will commands the Understanding otherwise than by its desire and motions for the Will has no other Action Neither must we believe that the Understanding obeys the Will in producing in it self the Ideas of those things which the Soul desires For the Understanding does not Act It only receives the Light or the Ideas of Objects by the necessary union it has with him who includes all Beings after an intelligible manner as we have explained it in the Third Book See the Explanation of the 6th Chapter of the 2d Part of the 3d Book This then is the whole Mystery Man participates of the Soveraign Reason and Truth discovers it self to him proportionally as he applies himself to it and prays it The desire of the Soul is a Natural Prayer which is always granted for it is a Natural Law that the Ideas should be so much the more present to the Mind as the Will desires them with the more fervency Thus provided the Capacity we have of thinking or our Understanding be not filled with the Confus'd Sensations we receive by means of what passes in our Body we never desire to think on any Object but the Idea of the said Object is immediately present to us and as experience it self teaches us the said Idea is the more present and clear according as our desire is stronger and that the confused Sensations we receive by the Body are weaker and less sensible as I have already observ'd in the preceding Remark Therefore in saying that the Will commands the Understanding to present some particular Object to it I only meant that the Soul which would consider that Object with attention draws near unto it by its desire because this desire pursuant to the efficacious Will of God which is the inviolable Law of Nature is the cause of the presence and clearness of the Idea which represents that Object I could not express my self otherwise nor explain my self as I do now since I had not as yet proved that God alone is the Author of our Ideas and that our particular Wills are the Occasional Causes of it I spoke according to the common Opinion and I have often been forced so to do because all things cannot be said at one and the same time Readers must have Equity and trust for some time in order to be satisfied for none but Geometricians can always pay in ready Coin AN EXPLANATION OF THE THIRD CHAPTER Where I say That it is no Wonder we have no Evidence of the Mysteries of Faith since we have not so much as Ideas of them VVHen I say that we have no Ideas of the Mysteries of Faith Ne omnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cum tres esse fateamur De Trinitate B. 7. Ch. 4. Cum quoeritur quid tres Magnâ prorsus inopiâ humanum laborat eloquium Dictum est tamen tres Personae non ut illud diceretur sed non taceretur In the same place B. 5. Ch. 9. it is visible by what precedes and what follows that I speak of the clear Ideas which produce Light and Evidence and by which we have a Comprehension of the Object if I may so speak I grant for Instance that a Peasant could never believe that the Son of God was made Man or that there are Three Persons in the Godhead unless he had some Idea of the union of the Word with our Humanity and some notion of Person But if those Ideas were clear we might by applying our selves to them perfectly apprehend those Mysteries and explain them to others they would no longer be ineffable Mysteries The Word Person according to St. Augustin has been spoken of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost not so much clearly to explain what they are as not to be silent upon a Mystery which we are oblig'd to speak of I say here that we have no Ideas of our Misteries as I have said elsewhere that we have no Ideas of our Soul because the Idea we have of our Soul is not clear no more than that of our Mysteries Thus this Word Idea is Equivocal I have sometimes taken it for whatever represents to the Mind any Object whether clearly or confusedly I have taken it yet more generally for whatever is the immediate Object of the Mind But I have also taken it for that which represents things to the Mind in so clear a manner that a Man may discover at first fight whether such or such Modifications belong to them Therefore I said sometimes that we had an Idea of the Soul and sometimes I have denied it It is difficult and often tiresom and disagreeable to keep too rigorous an exactness in our Expressions since it is sufficient to make our selves understood When an Author only contradicts himself in the Mind of those who Criticise upon him and who are desirous he should contradict himself he needs not much value it and if he should undertake by a tedious Explanation to solve whatever the malice or ignorance of some Persons might urge against him he would not only make an ill Book but moreover the Readers would be displeased at his Answers to his Objections that would be contrary to a certain Equity which all Men pretend to For Men hate to be suspected either of Malice or Ignorance and commonly Men are not allowed to answer weak and malicious Objections until they are actually made whereby the Readers are secured against the reproach which such Answers seem to charge those with who exact them AN EXPLANATION OF These Words of the First Chapter This being granted we must say that Adam was not induced to the Love of God
easily when it has a Spherical Figure than when it has a Cubical one But the Figure of a Body is different from its Motion and it may be Spherical and stand still It is true Spirits are not like Bodies they can feel no Pleasure without being in Motion because God who only makes and preserves them for himself moves them continually towards Good But this does not prove that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion for two things though different may always meet together Finally I answer That though Pleasure were not different from the Love or Motion of the Soul that which the first Man felt in the use of the Goods of the Body did not incline him to love those Bodies Pleasure inclines the Soul towards the Object which occasions it I grant it But it is not the Fruit which we eat with Pleasure which occasions that Pleasure in us Bodies cannot act in the Soul and make it in any measure happy God only can do that 'T is through Error we fancy that Bodies have that in them which we feel by their means Adam was not so stupid before his Fall as to imagine that Bodies occasion'd his Pleasure Therefore the Motion which accompanied his Pleasures did not move him towards Bodies If Pleasure contributed towards the Fall of the first Man it was not by causing that in him which it now causes in us It is only the taking up or dividing the Capacity he had to think it blotted or diminished in his Mind the Presence of his real Good or of his Duty Objection against the Sixth Article WHat likelihood is there that the immutable Will of God should have depended on the Will of Man and that in favour of Adam Exceptions should have been made in the general Law of the Communication of Motions Answer At least it is not evident that there can be no such Exceptions But it is plain that immutable Order requires that the Body should be subject to the Mind and it were contradictory to believe that God neither loves nor wills Order In the Explanation which relates to the Nature of Ideas I shall explain more particularly what Order is and why God loves it necessarily For God necessarily loves his Son Therefore it was was necessary before the fall of the first Man that Exceptions should be made in his Favour in the general Law of the Communication of Motions This perhaps may seem abstruse but here is something that is more sensible Man though a Sinner has the Power to move and stop his Arm whenever he pleases Therefore according to the different Volitions of Man the Animal Spirits are determin'd to produce or stop some Motions in his Body which certainly cannot be done by the general Law of the Communication of Motions Thus the Will of God being still at this very time subject to ours why might it not have been subject to Adam's If for the advantage of the Body and for the sake of Civil Society God stops the Communication of Motions in Sinners why should he not have stopt it in favour of a Just Man for the Good of his Soul and for the Preservation of the Union and Society he had with him for God had only made Man for himself As God will have no Society with Sinners he has taken from them after the Fall the power they had to leave as it were the Body to unite themselves to him But he has left them the Power to stop or change the Communication of Motions in reference to the preservation of Life and Civil Society because he was unwilling to destroy his own Work having even before he had form'd it designed according to St. Paul to restore it and reform it in Jesus Christ Objection against the Seventh Article MAN still conveys his Body at this time where he will he moves as he pleases all the parts of it the motion of which is necessary for the prosecution and avoiding of sensible Good and Evils And consequently he stops or changes every moment the Natural Communication of Motions not only in things of small Consequence but also in things which are of no use for Life or Civil Society and even in Crimes which ruine Society shorten Life and dishonour God in all respects God Wills Order I grant it But does Order require that the Laws of Motion should be violated for Evil and remain inviolable on the account of Good Why should not Man have the Power to stop the Motions which sensible Objects produce in his Body since those Motions hinder him from doing good from drawing near to God again and from returning to his Duty and still have the Power to do so much evil with his Tongue his Arm and with the other parts of the Body the Motions of which depend upon his Will Answer To answer this Objection we must consider that Man having sinn'd was to return to his Original Nothingness For being no longer in order nor in a possibility to return to it he ought to cease to exist God loves nothing but Order See the 5th Dialogue of the Christian Conversation a Sinner is not in Order Therefore God does not love him Sinners then cannot subsist since Creatures only subsist because God will have them to be and God will not have them to be unless he loves them Neither can a Sinner restore himself to Order because he cannot justifie himself and whatever he can suffer cannot attone for his Offence Therefore he ought to be reduced to nothing again But whereas it is unreasonable to think that God should make a Work to annihilate it or to put it yet into a worse condition it is evident that God would not have made Man nor permitted his fall which he had foreseen had he not had in view his Sons Incarnation in whom all things subsist and by whom the Universe receives a Beauty Perfection and Greatness worthy the Wisdom and Power of its Author We may then consider that Man after his Sin is without a Restorer but under expectation of one If we consider him without a Restorer we see clearly that he can have no Society with God that he cannot have the least power in himself to draw near unto God again that God must needs repulse and use him ill when he pretends to leave the Body to unite himself to him That is to say that Man after Sin must lose the power of freeing himself from sensible Impressions and Motions of Concupiscence Moreover he ought to be annihilated for the reasons abovesaid But he expects a Restorer and if we consider him under that expectation it is plain he must subsist together with his Posterity out of which the said Restorer is to come and therefore it is necessary that Man after his fall should still retain the power of moving diversly all those parts of his Body whose motions may be useful towards his preservation It is true Men continually abuse that Power they have
the Husband is her Head and Master We see that the Evangelists and even the Blessed Virgin calls Joseph the Father of Jesus Christ when she says unto her Son Thy Father and I have sought thee sorrowing Ecce pater tuus Ego dolentes quaerebamus Therefore since the Holy Scripture assures us that it is by the Woman we are all liable to Death and to Sin it is absolutely necessary to believe it Nor can it be thrown upon Man But though it assure us in other places that by Man Sin came into the World there is not the same necessity to believe it since that may be attributed to the Man which belongs to the Woman And if we were obliged by Faith to excuse either the Man or the Woman it would be mote reasonable to excuse the Man than the Woman However I am of opinion that the Passages I have quoted ought to be explained in the Literal sense and that we ought to conclude That both the Man and the Woman are the Real Causes of Sin each in their way The Woman because Sin is Communicated by her as it is by her that Man begets Children And Man because his Sin has occasion'd Concupiscence as his Action is the Cause of the Impregnation of the Woman or of the Communication which is between the Woman and her Child 'T is certain that it is the Man who impregnates the Woman and consequently he is the Cause of the Communication which is between her Body and the Childs since that Communication is the Principle of its Life The said Communication does not only give to the Bodies of Children the Dispositions of their Mothers it also gives to their Minds the Dispositions of her Mind Therefore we may say with St. Paul That By Man Sin was introduced into the World and nevertheless upon the account of that Communication we may also say that Sin proceeds from the Woman that it is by her we are all lyable to Death and that our Mother has conceived us in Iniquity as it is said in other places of the Scripture Perhaps it may be urged That though Man had not sinned the Woman would have had sinful Children for having sinned her self she had lost the Power God had given her over her Body And therefore though the Man had remained Just she would have Corrupted the Brain and consequently the Mind of her Child upon the account of the Communication she had with it Certainly this does not appear lively For Man whilst Righteous knowing what he does cannot give the Woman that miserable Fruitfulness of conceiving sinful Children If he remains Righteous he will have no Children but for God and sinful Children can never be acceptable to God for I do not suppose a Mediator in this place However I grant that in this case the Marriage might not have been dissolved and that the Man might have known his Wife But it is certain the Body of the Woman did belong to her Husband since it was taken out of his and was of the same Flesh Duo in carne una It is also certain that the Children belong as much to the Father as to the Mother This being granted we can never imagine that the Woman after her Sin would have lost the power she had over her Body unless her Husband had sinned as well as her self for had the Woman been deprived of that power her Husband remaining in Innocence there would have been this disorder in the Universe That a Just Man should have had a Corrupt Body and Sinful Children Now it is contrary to Order or rather it is contradictory that a Just God should punish the Man when he is in perfect Innocence Therefore Eve feels no Involuntary and Rebel Motions immediately after her Sin She is not as yet ashamed to see her self naked She does not hide her self On the contrary she draws near to her Husband though naked as well as her self Her Eyes are not as yet opened She is as before the absolute Mistress of her Body Order required that immediately after her sin her Soul should have been disturbed by the Rebellion of her Body and by the shame of her own and Husband's Nakedness For it was not reasonable that God should any longer suspend the Laws of the Communication of Motions in favour of her as I have said in the Seventh Article But whereas her Body belongs to her Husband and her Husband is still Innocent she is not punished in that Body That punishment is deferred until he has himself eaten of the Fruit which she presented to him Then it was they both felt the Rebellion of their Bodies they perceived they were naked and that shame obliged them to cover themselves with Fig-Leaves Therefore we must say That Adam is really the Cause of Original Sin and Concupiscence since it is his sin that has deprived his Wife as well as himself of the power they had over their Bodies and that it is for want of this power the Woman produces Traces in her Brain and in the Brain of her Child which corrupt the Soul from the very moment it is created OBJECTION Against the Twelfth Article Those speak by guess who say that the Communication of the Mothers Brain with that of her Child is necessary or useful towards the Conformation of the Foetus For there is no such Communication between the Brain of a Hen and her Chickens and yet the Chickens are perfectly well form'd ANSWER I Answer that in the Seventh Chapter of the Second Book I have sufficiently demonstrated that Communication by the use I make of it to Explain the Generation of Monsters and certain Marks and Natural Apprehensions For it is evident that a Man who falls into a swoon at the sight of a snake because his Mother was frightned by one while she bore him can only have this Weakness because the Traces were formerly form'd in his Brain like unto those which open themselves when he sees a snake and that the said Traces have been attended with the like accident Therefore I guess not for I do not presume to determine wherein the said Communication does precisely consist I might say it proceeds from the Fibres which the Foetus shoots into the Mothers Womb and by the Nerves with which that part is probably fill'd And yet I should no more guess in this than a Man who never having seen the Machines of the * Samaritan Fountain upon Pont Neuf in Paris should affirm that there are Wheels and Pumps in it to draw up the Water However I am of opinion it is sometimes lawful to guess provided we do not pretend to set up for Prophets or speak with too much assurance I fancy Men may be allowed to say what they think provided they do not aim at Infalibility or injustly impose upon Mens Minds with a discisive behaviour or by the help of some Terms of Art We do not alwayes guess in saying things that are not seen and are contrary
are in themselves or the Body which speaks only out of interest and in relation either to the preservation or conveniency of Life For in fine What Prejudices will not be justified if we take the Senses for Judges to whom almost all Prejudices owe their birth As I have already shewn in the Search after Truth When I see one Bowle hit another my Eyes tell me or seem to tell me that it is truly the Cause of the Motion it impresses For the true Cause which moves Bodies does not appear to my Eyes Bur when I ask my Reason I see evidently that Bodies cannot move themselves and their Moving power depending only upon the Will of God which successively preserves them in different places they cannot communicate a power which they have not nor could communicate if they had it For 't is plain there is a Wisdom requisite and one that is infinite too to regulate the Communication of Motions with the exactness proportion and uniformity that we see A Body moved cannot know the infinite number of Bodies it meets at every moment It is farther clear That although we should even suppose knowledge in it it could not have enough to regulate in the instant of the Shock the distribution of the Moving power it self is carried with If I open but my Eyes it appears plain to me that the Sun is very gloriously bright and seems not only to be visible it self but makes all the World so too 'T is that which covers the Earth with Flowers and Fruits which gives Life to Animals and which by its Heat penetrates into the very Bowels of the Earth and produces Stones Marbles and Metals there But when I consult Reason I see nothing of all this and if I consult it faithfully I clearly discover that my Senses seduce me and that it is God who performs all in all Things For knowing that whatever changes happen in the Body they have no other principle but the different communication of Motion which occur in visible or invisible Bodies I see that it is God who does all Things since it is his Will which Causes and his Wisdom which Regulates all these Communications I suppose that Local Motion is the principle of Generations Corruptions Alterations and generally of all the Changes which happen in the Body which is an Opinion that is now sufficiently received amongst the Learned But whatever Opinion they have about it signifies little for it seems much more easie to conceive that a Body drives another when it meets it than to apprehend how Fire produces Heat and Light and draw from the power of Matter a Substance which was not there before And if it be necessary to acknowledge That God is the True Cause of the different Communications of Motions by a much stronger Reason we ought to conclude That none but he can Create and Annihilate Real Qualities and Substantial Forms I say Create and Annihilate because at least it seems as difficult to me to draw from Matter a Substance which was not in it or to cause it to re-enter again as to Create or Annihilate it But I shall not stand upon Terms I only make use of them because there is no other which I know of that clearly and without Equivocation express the Changes which the Philosophers suppose every Moment to happen through the power of Second Causes I had some difficulty here to relate the other Proofs which they commonly give for the Power and Efficacy of Natural Causes for they appear so weak to those who are able to resist Prejudices and prefer their Reason to their Senses that it does not seem likely that reasonable Men should be perswaded by them Yet I will produce and Answer them since there are many Philosophers who make use of them The first Proof If Second Causes do effect nothing we could not says Suarez In his Metaph. Disp 18. Sect. 1. Assert 1. In Metaph. Arist qu. 7. Sect. 2. Fonseca and some others distinguish Animate from Inanimate Things for neither of them would have an inward principle of their Actions ANSWER I Answer That Men would have the same Sensible Proofs that have convinced them of the distinction they put between Animate and Inanimate Things They would alwayes see Animals perform Certain Actions as Eating Growing Crying Running Leaping c. Nor would they observe any thing like this in Stones And it is this only which makes the common Philosophers believe that Beasts live and Stones do not for it must not be imagined that they know by a clear and distinct View of the Mind what the Life of a Dog is It is their Senses which regulate their Decisions upon this Question If it were necessary I could here prove That the Principal of a Dog's Life differs very little if at all from that of the Motion of a Watch. For the Life of Bodies whatever they be can only consist in the motion of their parts and it is not difficult to judge that the same Subtil Matter which in a Dog causes the Fermentation of the Blood and Animal Spirits and is the principle of his Life is not more perfect than that which gives Motion to the Springs of a Watch or causes Gravitation in the Weights of a Clock which is the principle of their Life or to speak as others do of their Motion The Peripatetics ought to give to those whom they stile Cartesians a clear Idea of what they call The Life of Beasts Corporeal Soul Body which perceives desires sees feels wills and afterwards we will clearly resolve their difficulties if they continue to propose them The Second Proof We could not discover the Differences nor Powers of the Elements So that Fire might cool as Water does and the Nature of nothing would be settled and fixed ANSWER I Answer That Nature continuing as it is that is whilst the Laws of the communication of Motions remain constantly the same it is a contradiction that Fire should not burn or not separate the parts of certain Bodies Fire cannot cool like Water except it becomes Water For Fire being only fewel whose parts have been agitated with a violent Motion by an invisible Matter which incompasses them as is easie to be demonstrated it is impossible these parts should not communicate some of their Motion to the Bodies which they meet Now as these Laws are constant the Nature of Fire its vertues and qualities cannot change But this Nature and these Vertues are only consequences of the general and efficacious Will of God who does all in all things as we learn from the Scripture So that the study of Nature is false and vain in every respect when we seek for any other true Causes than the Will of the ALMIGHTY I own we must not have recourse to God or the Universal Cause when we inquire into the reason of particular Effects For we should make our selves ridiculous if for instance we said that 't was God who dryes the wayes or
their unserviceableness he sometimes bestows them in great number which nevertheless produces but little Effect Why all these Ambages and indirect wayes Would it not have been sufficient for him to have will'd the Conversion of a Sinner to have effected it after an efficacious and invincible manner Is it not plain that 't is because he acts by the most simple wayes and that Order requires it although we do not alwayes see it For God can only act according to Order and Wisdom although his Order and Wisdom are often impenetrable abysses to the Mind of Man There are certain very simple Laws in the Order of Grace consonant to which God commonly acts For this Order has its Rules as well as that of Narure although we know them not as we see in the Communication of Motions Let us only follow the Counsel given us in the Holy Gospel by him who perfectly knew the Laws of Grace I say this to quiet the unjust Complaints of Sinners who despise the Advice given them by JESVS CHRIST and who charge God with their Malice and Disorders They would have him to perform Miracles in their Favour and dispence with the common Laws of Grace They live in Pleasure seek after Honour and continually renew those Wounds which sensible Objects have made in their Brain and often add more to them and yet would have God cure them by a Miracle Like to wounded Men who in the excess of their Pain rend their Cloaths tear up their Wounds and then at the sight of approaching Death complain of the Cruelty of their Surgeons They would have God save them because say they he is Good Wise and Powerful and need but Will it and we are Happy He ought not surely to have made us to Damn us But they ought to know that God has done all that could be done by Order and Wisdom which he consults We should not believe that he leaves us since he has given us his own Son to be our Mediator and Sacrifice Yes God would have us all saved But by such wayes as we ought carefully to study and exactly to follow He consults not our Passions in the execution of these designs but only his Wisdom and follows Order And Order requires us to imitate JESVS CHRIST and to follow his Counsel that we may be sanctified and saved But if God has not predestinated all Men to be conformable to the Image of his Son who is the Model and Exemplar 't is because in this he acts by the most simple wayes in relation to his designs which tend all to his Glory And God is an Universal Cause and ought not to act like Particular Causes which have particular wills for whatever they do 'T is also because his Wisdom which in this respect is an Abyss to our Understandings wills it should be so In fine 'T is because this conduct is more worthy of God than any other which would be more favourable to Reprobates For even the Order which condemns them is as worthy of our Adorations as that whereby the Elect are sanctified and saved And nothing but our Ignorance of Order and our Self-love could make us condemn such a Conduct as Angels and Saints will eternally admire But let us return to the Proofs of the Efficacy of Second Causes The Fifth Proof If Bodies had not a certain Nature or Power to act and if God did all things there would be nothing but what was Supernatural in the most Common Effects The distinction of Natural and Supernatural which is so well received in the World and established by the universal consent of all the Learned would be Chimerical and Extravagant ANSWER I Answer That this distinction is as ridiculous in the Mouth of Aristotle for the Nature that this Philosopher has established is a pure Chimera I say that this distinction is not clear in the mouth of the Vulgar who judge of things by the impression they make upon their Senses For they know not precisely what they mean when they say that Fire burns by its own Nature I confess this distinction may pass from the Mouth of Divines if by Natural Effects they mean those which are consequences of General Laws that God has established for the general production and preservation of all things and that Supernatural Effects are such as depend not upon these Laws In this sense this distinction is true But the Philosophy of Aristotle joyn'd to the impression of the Senses I think makes it dangerous because this distinction may turn those from God who have too much respect for the Opinions of this wretched Philosopher or such as consult their Senses instead of entering within themselves to seek the Truth there So that we ought not to make use of this distinction without explaining it St. Austin having used the word Fortune L. 1. de Retract 1 Cor. 10.19 retracted it although there were few persons who could be deceived by it St. Paul speaking of Meats offered to Idols tells us That Idols are Nothing If the Nature of the Heathen Philosophy is a Chimera a Nothing Men ought to be advertized of it for there are many Men who will be deceived by it And more than we suppose who inconsiderately attribute the Works of God to it who are taken up with this Idol or Fiction of Mans Mind and render it Honours which are only due to the Divinity They are willing that God should be the Author of Miracles and certain extraordinary Effects which in one sense are unworthy of his Greatness and Wisdom and they refer to the Power of their imaginary Nature those constant and regulated Effects that Wise Men only know how to admire They likewise pretend that this wonderful disposition which all living Bodies have to preserve themselves and beget their like is a production of Nature For according to these Philosophers 't is the Sun and Moon which begets a Man We may further distinguish Supernatural from Natural Order in many respects For we may say that the Supernatural refers to future good that it is established in consideration of the Merits of JESVS CHRIST that it is the first and chief of all Gods designs and many other things sufficient to preserve a distinction which they are vainly apprehensive should fall to the ground The Sixth Proof The Chief Proof that Philosophers bring to prove the Efficacy of Second Causes is deducted from the Will and Liberty of Man Man wills and determines of himself and to will and determine is to act It is certain it is Man who commits sin God is no more the Author of it than he is of Concupiscence and Error Therefore Man acts ANSWER In many places of the Search after Truth I have sufficiently explained what the Will and Liberty of Man is and principally in the First Chapter of the First Book and in the First Explanation upon that Chapter It is useless to repeat it here I confess that Man wills and determines of himself because
designed either to maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes or the Nature of Aristotle For although they often spoke after such a manner as favoured Prejudices and the Judgments of the Senses Omnia quippe portenta contra Naturam dicimus esse sed non sunt quomodo enim est contra Naturam quod Dei fit voluntate Cum volantes tanti utique conditorio conditae rei cujusque Natura sit Portentum ergo fit non contra Naturam sed contra quam est nota Natura St. Aug. de Civitate Dei l. 21. c. 8. they sometimes so explained themselves as sufficiently discovered the disposition of their Mind and Heart St. Austin for instance believed the Will of God to be the Power or Nature of every thing as he declares when he speaks thus We are wont to say that Prodigies are against Nature but 't is not true For the Will of the Creator being the Nature of all Creatures how can what is performed by the Will of God be contrary to Nature Miracles or Prodigies therefore are not against Nature but only against what we know of Nature 'T is true St. Austin speaks in many places according to Prejudices But I affirm that proves nothing since we ought to explain literally only such passages as are opposite to Prejudices for the Reasons I have already given If St. Austin in all his Works had never said any thing against the Efficacy of Second Causes but had alwayes favoured this Opinion we might perhaps make use of his Authority to establish it Yet if it does not appear that he ever seriously examined this Question we should alwayes have had Reason to think that his Judgment was not determined upon this Subject and that 't was not impossible but he might be drawn by the impression of his Senses without Reflection to have believed a thing which appeared undoubted until it was carefully examined It is certain for instance that St. Austin alwayes spoke of Beasts as if they had a Soul I don't say a Corporeal one for that Holy Father too well knew the distinction between the Soul and Body to believe there were Corporeal Souls I say a Spiritual Soul for Matter is incapable of Sensation Yet I believe it more reasonable to make use of his Authority to prove that Beasts have no Souls than to prove they have any For from the Principles he has carefully examined and strongly establish'd it manifestly follows they have none Some of St. Austins Principles are these That what has not sinned can never suffer evil Now according to him Pain is the greatest evil and Beasts suffer it That the most noble cannot have the least noble for its end But with him the Soul of Beasts is Spiritual and more noble than the Body and yet has no other end than the Body That what is Spiritual is Immortal and the Soul of Beasts that 's Spiritual is subject to Death There are many such like Principles in the Works of St. Austin from whence it may be concluded that Beasts have no such Spiritual Soul as he admits in them See c. 22 23. de Anima ejus origine as is shown by Ambrose Victor in his Sixth Volume of Christian Philosophy But the Sentiment that Beasts have a Soul or feel Pain when they are beaten being agreeable to Prejudices for there 's no Child who does not believe it we have alwayes reason to think that St. Austin speaks upon this matter according to the general Opinion and never seriously examined the Question and that if he had but begun to doubt and make any reflection upon it he would not have said a thing which is so contrary to his Principles Thus although the Fathers should alwayes have favoured the Efficacy of Second Causes perhaps we should not have been obliged to have had any regard to their Opinion if it had appeared that they had not carefully examined the matter And that what they should have said had been only a Consequence of the Language which is formed and established upon Prejudice But 't is certainly the contrary For the Fathers the most Pious Persons and those who have been best instructed in Religion have commonly snown by some places of their Works what was the disposition of theis Mind and Heart in respect to this matter The most Learned and also the greatest number of Divines seeing on one side that the Holy Scripture was contrary to the Efficacy of Second Causes and on the other that the impression of the Causes publick Laws and chiefly the Philosophy of Aristotle established it For Aristotle thought that God did not concern himself in Sublunary Affairs because it was unworthy his grandeur And that Nature which he supposed in all Bodies was sufficient to produce what happened here below The Divines I say have found this Medium to reconcile Faith with the Heathen Philosophy and Reason with the Senses that Second Causes do nothing except God concurs with them But because this immediate concourse whereby God acts with Second Causes includes great difficulties some Philosophers have rejected it pretending that in order to their acting 't was enough if God preserved them with the same vertue he at first created them And because this Opinion is absolutely conformable to Prejudice and because the operation of God in Second Causes is not sensible it is therefore commonly received by the Vulgar and by those who apply themselves more to the Physicks of the Antients than to Divinity and the Meditation of the Truth The generality of the World believe that God at first Created all things and gave them all the necessary qualities or faculties for their preservation That he has for instance given the first Motions to Matter and afterwards left it to it self to produce by the Communication of its Motions this variety of admirable forms We commonly suppose that Bodies can move one another and even attribute this Opinion to Des Cartes although he expresly speaks against it in the 36th and 37th Articles of the Second Part of his Philosophical Principles Though Man cannot hinder himself from acknowledging that the Creatures depend upon God yet he lessens this dependence as much as possible either through a secret aversion to God or a wretched stupidity and insensibility in respect to his operation But as this Sentiment is chiefly received by those who have not much studied Religion and who often rather follow their Senses and the Authority of Aristotle than their Reason and that of the Holy Scriptures we have not so much reason to fear its establishment in the Minds of those who have any love for Truth and Religion For a little Application in the Examination of this Opinion will easily discover its falsity But that Notion of the immediate concourse of God to each action of Second Causes seems to agree with those passages of Scripture which often attribute the same effect both to God and the Creatures We must consider then that there are
places in Scripture where God is only said to act Ego sum Dominus sayes Isaiah faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram chap. 44.24 NVLLVS mecum A Mother animated with the Spirit of God sayes to her Children that it was not she who formed them Nescio qualiter in utero meo aparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI Mac. 7.22 23. sed Mundi Creator c. She does not say with Aristotle and the Peripatetic Schools that 't was she and the Sun who gave them birth but the Creator of the Vniverse Now this Opinion that 't is God only who works and forms Children in the Womb is neither conformable to Prejudices or the common Notions Therefore according to the Principle I have before established these passages must be explain'd literally But on the contrary the Opinion of the Efficacy of Second Causes being conformable to the common Notion and impression of the Senses Sol homo generant hominem Arist Phys ausc l. 2. c. 2. See St. Th. upon this Text. although we should find such passages as expresly tell us that Second Causes act of themselves alone they would be of no force when compared with these Concourse therefore is not sufficient to reconcile the different passages of the Scripture and all Force Power and Efficacy must be ascribed to God But although the immediate concourse of God with Second Causes should be proper to reconcile these different Texts I know not whether it ought to be admitted after all For the Sacred Books were not made for the Divines of these times but for the Jews So that if the Jews were not formerly sufficiently inlightened or subtle enough to imagine such a concourse as is admitted in our School-Divinity and to reconcile a thing that the most able Divines have had much trouble to explain it follows methinks that the Holy Scripture which attributed to God and to him only the production and preservation of all things would have thrown them into Error and that the Holy Penmen of these Books would have spoke to Men not only in an unknown but deceitful Language For by telling them that God does all things they would only have intended that God gives his concourse to all things and 't is probable the Jews never so much as thought of this concourse those amongst them that were not great Philosophers believing that God did all things and not that he concurred to all But that we may make a more certain Judgment about this Concourse it would be very proper carefully to explain the different Hypotheses of the Schools about it For besides the impenetrable obscurities which are common to all Opinions that we can explain or maintain only upon rambling and indeterminate terms there are upon this matter so great a variety of Opinions that it would not be very difficult to discover the cause of them But I will not ingage in a discussion which will be too tiresom both for my self and the greatest part of those who will read this Book I rather choose on the contrary to endeavour to show that my Opinions may in some respect be reconciled to the greatest number of the School Divines although I must not dissemble but confess their Language appears very equivocal and confused to me I will explain my self I believe as I have already said elsewhere that Bodies for instance have no power to move themselves and that their Moving Power is only the action of God Or to avoid a term which signifies nothing distinct their Moving Power is only the Will of God alwayes necessarily efficacious which successively preserves them in different places For I don't believe that God creates certain Beings to make them the Moving Power of Bodies Not only because I have no Idea of this kind of Being nor see how they could move Bodies but also since these Beings would themselves have need of some others to move them and so on ad infinitum For none but God is truly immovable and sole Mover together Which being supposed when a Body strikes and moves another I may say that it acts by the Concourse of God and that this Concourse is not distinct from its own action For a Body moves another which it meets only by its Action or Moving Power which at the bottom is nothing but the Will of God that successively preserves this Body in many places The transferring of a Body not being its Action or Moving Power but the effect of its Moving Power Most Divines likewise say That the Action of Second Causes differs not from the Action whereby God concurs with them For although they understand it variously they suppose that God acts in the Greatures in the same Action with the Creatures And they are it seems obliged to speak thus For if the Creatures acted by an Action which God did not produce in them their Action considered as such would as it appears to me be independant Now they believed as they ought that the Creatures depended immediately upon God not only as to their Being but also as to their Operation So in respect to Free Causes I believe that God continually gave the Mind an impression towards Good in general and that he also determined this impression towards particular Goods by the Ideas or Sensations he has given us as I have shewn in the First Explanation And 't is the same Thing with what the Divines believe when they say That God moves and prevents our Wills So that the power which puts our Minds in motion is the Will of God which animates and inclines us towards Good For God created not Beings to make them the Moving power of Minds for the same Reason that he did not create any to make them the Moving power of Bodies The Wills of God being Efficacious of themselves it is enough for him to Will a Thing to have it done And it is useless unnecessarily to multiply Beings Besides whatever is real in the determinations of our Motions likewise proceeds from the Action of God in us as is clear from the First Explanation Now we neither Act or produce any Thing but by our Wills I mean by the impression of the Will of God which is our Moving power For our Wills are Efficacious no farther than as they proceed from God even as Bodies put in motion impell not others but in as much as they have a Moving power which transfer them and this Moving power is only the Will of God which creates or successively preserves them in different places Then we Act only by the Concourse of God and our Action considered as Efficacious and capable of producing any Effect differs not from that of God's And is as most Divines say the very same Action Eadem numero Actio Now all the Changes which happen in the World See Suarez l. 1. de concursu Dei cum voluntate c. 1. have no other Natural Cause than the Motion of Bodies and
alledged on either side about certain Opinions 't will perhaps be useful to show here by some particular instance that much use may be made of the Principle that we have established viz. That God alwayes acts by the most simple means Let us suppose for instance that I am desirous to know whether I ought every day to take certain stated times to examine my self to represent to my self my weakness and miseries to consider my Duty in the Presence of God and to beseech him to assist me in conquering my Passions Or else whether I ought to stay till the Spirit of God who blows where and when it pleases should take me from my self and from my ordinary imployments to unite me to himself for very probable Reasons may be given both for and against these Opinions and Men are very often satisfied with Probabilities in such like cases And this even makes some Pious Persons to follow different wayes which are not alwayes very sure I consider therefore that if I stay for the particular Motions of the Spirit of God I shall never pray to him if to that end I don't receive either particular Revelations Illuminations or preventing Delectations Now these Illuminations or Delectations being produced by God by more particular Wills than are those general Wills which constitute the Order of Nature they are kind of Miracles so that this is to pretend that God impells Men to Prayer through means that are not the most simple Nay to expect those Graces which are not alwayes necessary is in some measure to tempt God But if I accustom my self to appear or endeavour to present my self before God at certain Hours the sound of a Clock will be enough to remember me of my Duty without its being necessary that God should have a particular Will of inspiring me with the thought of Praying The general Laws only of the Union of the Soul with the Body will make me think of my Duty when the time that I have chosen shall present it self by some sensible mark But as Self-Examination and Prayer is necessary and as we can't pray without having some thoughts of it nor have these thoughts unless God gives them 'T is some step towards Salvation to have these thoughts without obliging God to give them us by particular Wills which are kinds of Miracles or rather in consequence of the general Laws of the Order of Grace whereby God would save all Men through his Son Perhaps the want of the first thought of Prayer and of considering our obligations before God is the cause of the blindness of many Men consequently of their Eternal Damnation For God acting alwayes by the most simple wayes ought not by particular Wills to give those thoughts which might be obtained by vertue of his general Wills if once persons were accustomed to pray regularly at particular hours Therefore as God would save Men by the most simple wayes it is evident that as much as possible we ought to make the Order of Nature subservient to that of Grace and as I may say to reconcile Gods Wills together by regulating a time which may at least supply us with the thoughts of Prayer 'T was for these Reasons probably that God formerly commanded the Jews to write his Commandments upon the Doors of their Houses and alwayes to have some sensible Mark which might put them in mind of them This spar'd God if I may so say thoughts For Miracles of Grace were very rare amongst the Jews the time being not yet come wherein God design'd to ingrave his Law and infuse his Spirit and Charity into the Heart of Man I confess that whatever we do by a mere Natural Power cannot of it self meritoriously dispose us for Grace and yet without it all external Religion can only serve to maintain our Pride and Self-love The Pharisees grew vain from their bearing the sensible Signs and Memorials of the Law of God as our Saviour reproached them And Christians often make use of Crucifixes and Images out of Curiosity Hypocrisie or some other motive of Self-love Yet since these things may put us in mind of God it is requisite to make use of them for we must as much as possible make Nature subservient to Grace that God may save us by the most simple wayes For although we cannot Naturally fit our selves for Grace we may often contribute to the rendering it efficacious because we can lessen the eagerness of a Passion by removing those Objects from us which cause it or by presenting to our selves contrary Reasons to those which inspire it Those who most carefully watch the purity of their imagination and suffer it not to be so much corrupted by the continual use of sensible Pleasures and Commerce with the World make Grace efficacious by removing that resistance it finds in others In this sense even a Disease a shower of Rain or any other accident that keeps us at home may render Grace efficacious for such a degree of Grace as would be too weak to make us resist the sensible impression of the presence of an agreeable Object is strong enough to make us with horrour reject the impure thought or imagination of this same Object This is enough to show clearly that the Counsels of the Gospel are necessary that God may save us by the most simple wayes For 't is advantageous to follow them not only because when we follow them by the Motion of Gods Spirit they determine it by vertue of immutable Order or of the general Laws of the Order of Grace to increase in us our love to him but also because the practising these Counsels may often render Grace efficacious though we are induced to it only by Self-love as it may happen on many occasions FINIS A DEFENCE OF THE AUTHOR OF THE Search after Truth AGAINST The Accusation OF Monsieur de la Ville Wherein is shown That if every one was permitted to call in Question the Faith of others upon a good or bad deduction of Consequences from their Principles none could be secure from the Imputation of Heresie LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV A DEFENCE OF THE AUTHOR OF THE Search after Truth Against the ACCUSATION OF Monsieur de la Ville SOmetimes since there was Published a Treatise whose Title surprized many Persons and stir'd up their Passions Several wished I would interest my self in the Quarrel which the Author had with the Cartesians for as on one hand Monsieur de la Ville for that was his Name had done me the honour to list me among those Philosophers but with what design I know not and on the other hand diverted himself by Travestying me in Ridicule They assured me that if I was willing to pass for a Rash Ignorant and Extravagant Person for a Visionary nay even an Heritick yet I could not in Conscience desert the Cause of Truth and leave the Enemies of the Faith the Advantages he granted to them I must be Just to
is Just and Wise that He loves not Disorder that Nature is Corrupted that the Soul of Man is Immortal and the Soul of Beasts is Mortal Because indeed 't is not a Substance distinct from their Bodies Therefore in the Language of Monsieur de la Ville which condemns Men from Consequences which he draws from their Principles the Cartesians may represent him as criminal and all Mankind besides because they believe that Beasts have Souls What would Monsieur de la Ville say if from his own way of Arguing we should accuse him of Impiety because he maintains Opinions from whence we deduce That God is not Just Wise Powerful Sentiments which overthrow Religion which oppose Original Sin which take away the only Demonstration that Reason furnishes us with to prove the Immortality of the Soul What would he say if we should treat him as unjust and cruel for making innocent Souls suffer and even Annihilating them for the Nourishment of Bodies which they Animate He is a Sinner they are innocent 'T is only to nourish his Body that he kills Bodies and Annihilates their Souls which are of more value than bodies Again If his Body could not subsist but by the Flesh of Animals or if the Annihilation of one Soul could make him immortal this Cruelty however unjust it is might perhaps be pardonable but how many Substances wholly innocent does he Annihilate only to preserve for a few days a Body justly condemned to death for sin Would he be so little a Philosopher as to excuse himself upon the Custom of the places where he lives But if his Zeal had carried him to the Indies where the Inhabitants build * Linsch ch 37. Hospitals for Beasts where the Philosophers and many of the best Sort of Men are so charitable even in respect to Flies that for fear of killing them by breathing or walking they wear a fine Cloath before their Mouths and fan the Ways in which they pass would he then be afraid to make innocent Souls suffer or Annihilate them for the preservation of a Sinners Body Would he not rather choose their Opinion who allow the Soul of a Beast to be no more Noble than their Body nor distinct from it and by publishing this Sentiment acquit himself of the Crimes of Cruelty and Injustice whereof these People would accuse him if having the same Principles he followed not their Custom This Example might be sufficient to show That we ought not to treat Men as Heretics and dangerous persons because we may draw impious Consequences from their Principles even when they disavow these Consequences But be it as it will I think it is infinitely more difficult to Answer these Consequences that I have now drawn than these of Monsieur de la Ville The Cartesians would ve very ridiculous if they treated Monsieur de la Ville and other persons who are not of their Opinion as Impious and Heretical 'T is only the Authority of the Church which may decide in Matters of Faith and the Church has not obliged us and probably whatever Consequences shall be drawn from Common Principles will not oblige us to believe That Dogs have a Soul more Noble than their Bodies that they know not their Masters that they neither Fear Desire nor suffer any thing Because it is not necessary that Christians should be instructed in these Truths The Second Proof Almost all Men are perswaded that sensible Objects are true Causes of the Pleasure and Pain which is felt by their means They believe that Fire disperses that agreeable Heat which rejoyces us That Nourishments act in us and give us the agreeable Sensations of Tasts They doubt not but 't is the Sun which ripens Fruits that are necessary for Life and that all Sensible Objects have a Vertue which is proper to them by which they can do us much Good or Evil. Let us see whether we cannot draw from these Principles such Consequences as are contrary to what Religion obliges us to believe A Consequence impugning the First Principle of Morality by which we are obliged to love God with all our Power and to fear him only 'T is a Common Notion according to which all Men act That we should love or fear whatever has Power to do us good or hurt to make us sensible of Pleasure or Pain to make us Happy or Unhappy This is a supposed Principle we ought therefore to love and fear them This is a Reasoning which all the World Naturally makes and which is yet a general Principle of the Corruption of Manners It is evident by Reason and the first of Gods Commandments that all the Motions of our Soul whether Love or Fear Desire or Joy should tend towards God and that all the Motions of our Body should be regulated and determined by External Objects By the Morion of our Body we may approach to Fruit avoid a Blow fly a Beast that would devour us But we ought to love and fear God only All the Motions of our Soul ought to tend towards him alone We ought to love him with all our Power This is an indispensible Law We can neither love nor fear what is below us without being disordered and corrupted To be afraid of a Beast ready to devour us or to fear the Devil is to do them honour To love Fruit to desire Riches to rejoyce in the Heat of the Sun as if it were the true Cause thereof nay even to love ones Father Protectour Friend as if they were capable of doing as good this is to give them that honour which is due to God only We must not love any one in this sense 'T is permitted and we ought to love our Neighbour by wishing or procuring for him as a Natural or Occasional Cause whatever may conduce to his Happiness but not otherwise We must love our Brethren not as capable of doing us good but as of enjoying with us the true Good These Truths appear evident to me but Men strangely obscure them when they suppose that Bodies which are about us can act in us as true Causes Indeed the greatest part of Christian Philosophers pretend that Creatures can do nothing if God did not concur to their Action and so Sensible Objects cannot act in us without the Efficacy of the First Cause We ought neither to fear nor love them but God only on whom all things depend This Explication shows Men condemn the Consequences which I have drawn from their Principle But if I should say with Monsieur de la Ville that 't is a slight of Philosophers to cover their Impiety if I should charge them with the crime of maintaining at the expence of Religion Aristotles Opinions and the Prejudices of their Senses if by examining their Heart I should impute to them a secret desire of debauching Mens Morals by the defence of a Principle which justifies all sorts of disorders and opposes the first Principle of Christian Morality by the Consequences