there is such a disproportion in the duration of all States past and present that one hath lasted above 1200. years as the French Monarchy whose flourishing State promises as many more Ages if the World continue so long and another hath chang'd its Form several times in one yeat as Florence Upon which consideration the greatest Politicians have put their States under the Divine Protection and caus'd all their Subjects to venerate some particular Angel or tutelar Saint Thus France acknowledges Saint Michael for its Protector Spain Saint James Venice Saint Mark and even the Ethnicks thought that a City much less a State could not be destroy'd till the Deity presiding over it were remov'd Whence Homer makes the Palladium of Troy carry'd away by Vlysses before the Greeks could become Masters of it The Third said The Supream Cause exercises its Omnipotence in the Rise Conservation and Destruction of States as well as every where else yet hinders not subordinate Causes from producing their certain Effects natural in things natural as in the Life and Death of Men which though one of the most notorious Effects of God's Power and attributed to him by the Scripture and all the World yet ceaseth not to have its infallible and natural demonstrations Inlike manner subordinate Moral Causes produce their Moral and contingent Effects in Moral Things such as that in Question is which Causes depending upon Humane Actions which arise from our Will no-wise necessitated but free cannot be term'd natural and constrain'd unless either by those that subject all things here below to Destiny which subverts the liberty of the Will that is makes it no longer a Will or those who will have not only the manners of the Soul but also the actions always to follow the temperament of the Body which were hard to conceive and yet would not infer a necessity in the alteration of States since the effects of Love and Hatred and other passions which give inclination or aversion are oftentimes prevented by thwarting causes When the Lacedemonians chang'd the popular State of Athens into an Aristocracy of thirty Lords whom they call'd afterwards the thirty Tyrants no other cause can be assign'd thereof but the chance of War which subjected the will of the Athenians to that of the Lacedemonians And the same may be said of all other ancient and modern Revolutions Indeed if the causes in Policy had regular effects or States were subject to natural declinations Prudence which is conversant about contingent things to manage them freely and alter its course according to occasion should signifie nothing 'T is more credible that as in the state of Grace God hath left our actions to the disposal of Free-will that we may work out our Salvation our selves so in the administration of Republicks he hath left most things to chance for imploying men's industry according to their will whose motions being free and contingent are diametrically opposite to the necessity of natural causes The Fourth said That these alterations may be though voluntary yet natural yea necessary too our Will being as inclin'd to apprehended good as our Intellect is to Truth As therefore knowing this truth that 2 and 2 are 4 't is impossible but I must believe it so knowing that such an action will bring me good I shall do it so that the causes of humane actions have somthing of necessity and besides having their foundation in nature may in some sort be term'd natural Moreover since things are preserv'd by their like and destroy'd by their contraries which contraries are under the same genus it follows that all sublunary things having had a natural beginning must also have a like end Desire of self-preservation which is natural gave birth to States but if instead of this desire which renders Servants obedient to their Masters these to the Magistrate and him to the Sovereign Rebellion and Treason deprive their Chiefs of the succour they expect from them and by this means exposes the State in prey to the Enemies it cannot but fall to ruine unless that some other natural cause Perswasion as that of Menenius Agrippa taken from the humane body upon a Secession of the Mechanicks of Rome from the Senate or an exemplary punishment reduce the Subjects to their forsaken duty Whereby it appears that the State resumes its first vigor by as sensible and natural causes as 't is to be perswaded or become wise by others harm Amongst many examples the ruines of Troy and Thebes were caus'd by the rape of Helene whom the injustice of the Trojans deny'd to restore to her Husband and the feud of two Brothers aspiring to the same Royalty then which no causes can be assign'd more natural and more necessarily inferring the loss of a State CONFERENCE CLI Which is more healthful to become warm by the Fire or by Exercise THey who question the necessity of Fire for recalefying our Bodies chill'd by cold the enemy of our natural heat deserve the rude treatment of the ancient Romans to their banish'd persons whom they expell'd no otherwise from their City but by interdicting them the use of Fire and Water knowing that to want either was equally impossible Without Fire our Bodies would be soon depriv'd of life which resides in heat as cold is the effect and sign of death And as Aristotle saith those that deny Vertue would not be otherwise disputed with but by casting them into the fire so would not I otherwise punish those that decry it but by exposing them to freez in mid-winter instead of burning a faggot for them What could little Children and old people do without it For though the natural heat be of another kind then that of our material fire yet this sometimes assists that in such sort that those who digest ill are much comforted by it not to mention weak persons and those that are subject to swoonings Moreover the external cold must be remov'd by an external heat as Fire is which heats only what part and to what degree you please but motion heats all alike As the Sun which some Philosophers take to be the Elemental-fire contributes to the Generation so doth Fire concur to the conservation of Man not by immediate contact but by the heat which it communicates to the Air and the Air to our Body which by approaching or receding from it tempers its excess in discretion and thereby renders it sutable to our natural heat not destroying Bodies but in its highest degree as also the Sun offends those at Noon whom it refreshes at rising and setting The Second said That the violent action of Fire which destroys all sublunary Bodies argues its disproportion with our natural heat which disproportion renders the Stoves and places heated artificially by Fire so noxious and makes such as love the Chimney-corner almost always tender scabby and impatient of the least inclemency of the Air that heat against nature not only destroying the natural but corrupting the humors and exsiccating
Land had no doubt experienc'd the michiefs of that unfaithful Element the cruellest whereof is the Scurvy a Disease complicated with several others and whose chief symptoms are the ulceration and swelling of the Gums and Legs with pains over all the Body caus'd by the impurity and malignity of the Air. But the most frequent is vomiting caus'd by the sole agitation and violence of the Air. For our aerious Spirits not only receive the qualities of the air we breathe but also follow its temper and motion as is seen by the Head-ach seising those that are beaten by winds in the Country and by the seeming turning of their heads who attentively behold the circumgyration of a Wheel or some other Body So the Air at Sea being much agitated puts in motion the Spirits which are of the same nature and these being stirr'd set the humours on work which incommoding the parts are by them driven out by vomits and other ejections according to every one's temper and propensity For the cholerick and broad-breasted vomit more easily and successfully then the phlegmatick and narrow-breasted whose Organs of respiration are not sufficiently free Whereunto also the season of the year contributes for Summer provokes vomit more then Winter when the humours being more heavy rather tend downwards But especially Custom is considerable herein which renders those that go frequently to Sea not obnoxious to its inconveniences The Fourth said That the Earth consists of three substances one Unctuous which is the inflammable moisture call'd by the Chymists Sulphur another Cinereouâ— which they call the Faeces or Caput mortuum the third humid and incombustible which they divide into Mercury and Salt this latter again into Salt-nitre and Vitriol of which the Sea being full the same is communicated to the first Region of the Air contiguous to the Waters and insinuating it self into our Bodies by inspiration produces the same effects therein that it doth taken in substance four Grains of which is a sufficient Vomit Whereto also helps the gentle agitation of the waves which makes it penetrate the examples of others vomiting and especially the fear commonly incident to such as were never upon the Sea before who are most obnoxious to this trouble For that Passion so constringes the whole Body especially the inward parts that it weakens and relaxes the Nerves especially the Fibres which keep the parts in a just tenor and so the oblique Fibres and orbicular Muscles which serve to retain them being languid suffer the juices and humours to pass out The same fear which causes relaxation of the Sphincter Ani Vesicae relaxing the Muscles which serve to open and close the upper Orifice of the Ventricle Hence fear is commonly accompani'd with the pain of this part whose sense being very exquisite is the cause that the Vulgar call it The pain of the Heart which also for the same reason happens to such as look down upon low places CONFERENCE CXIX Of Love by Inclination or Sympathy 'T Is not only amongst the Poets that Love is blind the obscurity of this causes evidencing him no less so amongst the Philosophers who assign two sorts of it one of Knowledge which tends to a good known the other of Inclination whereby we love without knowing why Indeed there is no love without ground and some sort of knowledge but yet when the cause obliging us to love is manifest it makes the former kind of love when obscure the latter whereof we have many examples in nature not only in the Symbolical qualities of the Elements Electrical and Magnetical attractions of Stones particular alliances of Metals and all the amities of Plants and Trees as of the female Palm which is said to lean towards the male and those which are found amongst Animals but especially in the particular inclinations of some Persons to others unknown and void of all recommendations to qualifie them for the same and the emotions some have felt both in Soul and Body at the first sight of their unknown Parents as also of a contrary effect when a dead body bleeds upon the presence of its Murderer which is a testimony of an antipathetical hatred contrary to the abovesaid Love which we find in our selves almost upon all occurrences as when two equally strangers play at Tennis we wish that one may win and the other lose For the first motions of Love as well as of all other Passions are not in our power and afford not the Mind time to deliberate and make reflexion upon them Hence oftentimes Anger Sadness Panick fright and such other Passions seise upon us without cause and Love doth the like frequently without any apparent reason Yea we may say there is no Love of Knowledg but what took its first rise from that of Inclination which presently makes us enamor'd of the proportions of a Face which displeases another that understands the same as well as we but without being any way affected therewith because he finds not in it that correspondence and sympathetical resemblance that produces a Love of Inclination which may also arise without any knowledge as in that blind man who lov'd a Lass whom he had never seen as also in Petrarch who made so many Verses upon his Lawra whom he could never behold The cause whereof I should attribute to the power of the Imagination which fancies somthing of loveliness where there is none or else to the sole action of the Will which not able to remain neuter between love and hatred since its action is to will and to will is to love when it meets no cause of hatred in an object loves it and hates it when it finds nothing amiable therein For if you assign the reason of this love to the transpiration of Spirits issuing out of the lov'd person's body their substance is too volatile to act so far off and their issuing being never alike because the pores of the skin are more stopt at one time then at another this love would be remarkably alter'd every moment Besides we many times love by an inclination an absent person for his merit and many have been enamour'd of Beauties at the first sight of their Pictures but love was never produc'd between two blind persons notwithstanding any emission of sympathetical Spirits Moreover 't is the Species and not the Spirits that are receiv'd by our Senses and so none should ever love those they had not seen but by a Prospective-glass The Second said That it imports not much to the causing of love whether the object be really or only imaginarily good and indeed our minds seem to interess themselves more in the pursute and preservation of the latter then the former which maintains it self by its proper worth Wherefore if Love of Inclination presuppose goodness in the object the same must be apprehended either by the Imagination or by some other Faculty to which it must therefore be approximated either immediately by it self or by it self So the
resolves what is to be done So Man by his Senses discovers the nature of Objects as by so many Spies which make their report to the Imagination after which the Understanding judges of the same and lastly the Man resolves and determines by his Will Thus 't is the Man that makes all this progress employing all his Faculties diversly for that purpose And as 't were impertinent to ask how the Scouts and Council of War acted and mov'd the Troops which execute the General 's resolution to make them fight but it suffices to say That 't is his Order So 't is absurd to inquire how the Senses or Understanding move the Appetite or the Will 't is sufficient to say That a Man resolves to will after cognisance of the matter The Fifth said That that which moves the Will is something divine and more excellent then Reason namely that part of the Intellect which is the knowledg of First Principles and is to the Soul what she is to the Body which she informs This appears in all the Will 's actions whereof those that tend to the End are to Will to Desire to Enjoy when the said End is a Good and is either absent or present not to Will to Flee to be Sad when the said End is an Evil and that consider'd too either as absent or present those which respect the means leading to such End are To Chuse to Consent and to Employ some rather then others All which actions it cannot exert of it self but being mov'd by that divine power of the Intellect which represents to it the goodness of the End and the sutableness of the Means for attaining the same in like manner as the End moves the efficient Cause attracting it to its prosecution by an improper and metaphorical Motion The Sixth said As the Will is mov'd by the Intellect so is the Intellect mov'd reciprocally by the Will which commands it to divide define abstract and perform its operations in such and such manner Yea there is no Faculty but is subject to its empire It commands the Imagination to frame Idea's and Species the Memory to recall and represent them the Motive Faculty to speak walk and the like other actions the Sensitive Appetite to love hate be angry to raise and appease its passions though many times these are deaf to its dictats The Seventh said Since the Rational Soul is a simple Form and every Form a perfection of the subject wherein it resides that of Man being to know Truth to love Good and to be united to both by Fruition the same Soul when it knows is call'd the Intellect when it desires or loves the thing known the Will So that there is no need for the one to be mov'd by the other for 't is the Soul that moves it self which therefore Aristotle calls Entelechia and the Principle of motion the Pythagoreans a Self-moving number The Eighth said That the Will depends not any way on the Intellect and consequently is not mov'd by it Which is prov'd first because the Will is mutable and oftimes contrary upon the same ratiocination as it would not be if it were mov'd by the Understanding For if the Will were according to Aristotles definition a desire of good with reason the one ought always to follow the other But it not doing so 't is an argument that the Will hath another principle then the ratiocination In the second place as it was lately argu'd there are amities of Inclination properly so call'd because not grounded upon any Reason and therefore the Will which never exercises its dominion more freely then in Love follows not the Intellect in that kind of amities and consequently is not mov'd by it Thirdly whatever the Civilians say Fools and Children have their Wills as well as the Wiser and Elder yea both the former Will as resolvedly as the latter and Women who we say have less judgment then Men are yet more self-will'd and obstinate then they On the contrary the most judicious are commonly the least resolute and find most difficulties in willing An Emperick and ignorant Physician will be bolder and resolve things more pertinaciously then an old experienc'd Methodist A young and giddy Captain will sooner tell his opinion which is the issue of his Will then an old beaten Souldier who doubts of every thing and labours much to bring himself to a resolution But the contrary would happen if the Will follow'd the Duct of the Judgment Wherefore I conceive rather that the Will moves the Understanding as well as all the other Faculties since no body can reason inspite of himself but he must will to set his Mind upon a thing before the Intellect can make its reviews The Ninth said The best course was rather to salve the Opinions of the School by some Expedient then wholly to depart from them as a way too difficult to keep and that he conceiv'd it better to untye the Gordian knot then to cut it which belongs only to Alexander 'T is acknowledg'd that the Intellect and the Will are two Faculties of the Rational Soul that we will nothing unless the judgment believe it good whether it be really or only apparently such But the difficulty is concerning the means that the Intellect employs to carry the Will to such good Take it thus The Will is carri'd of it self to good as a Stone to the Centre but as this Stone is sometimes hinder'd from arriving thereunto by obstacles which stay it so Ignorance puts a bar to the Will Hereupon the Understanding falls to work till it have remov'd that obstacle by its reasoning Which done as there is nothing between the end of a shadow and the beginning of light so there is nothing between the end of our ignorance and the beginning of our volition where the operation of the Understanding ends there begins that of the Will no more induc'd mov'd and as little forc'd as the weight that tends downwards which cannot be said carri'd towards the Centre unless improperly by him that takes away the piece of wood or other obstacle that stop'd it in the Air. Moreover it were no longer a Will if mov'd by any other principle but it self As is seen in those who having a will to do somthing when the same is once commanded them change their resolution or do only with regret what before they desir'd with passion as the same motion which was natural to the Stone becomes violent to it when it is impell'd instead of being suffer'd to descend downwards CONFERENCE CXXI Whence come the Marks or Spots wherewith Children are born AS the Degrees of Life have dominion over the First Qualities so they have authority one over another each in his order The Vegetative life in Man makes use of the Elementary Qualities at pleasure even to the prejudice of their own Nature So Heat congregates things of the same and separates those of different Nature but our Vegetative Soul makes it do the
namely the Will and Notions in the Understanding which cannot know any thing but by the phantasms or species forg'd in the Imagination it must be the most excellent of all the Faculties of the Soul Moreover the Temper which constitutes it being the most laudable and the Age wherein it prevails being the most perfect its Actions must also be the most sublime since being not performable but by help of corporeal Organs the more perfect these are the more will the Minds actions be so too Now the Qualities of the Imagination have much more conformity to the Soul according to the Opinion of some Ancients of an igneous nature and according to others an Entelechie and continual motion which either causes or depends on heat the most active quality of all wherewith the Brain being impregnate renders the Spirit more lively quick in retorts and in all that they call Pointe d' Esprit or acumen and inspiring Enthusiasms to Poets On the contrary the Judicious who want this Imaginative Virtue are cold heavy and as tedious in conversation as the other are agreeable and welcome Yea the Judgment it self ows all its advantage to it For if it were equitable it would regulate it self only by the species which the Imagination represents to it and if it be corrupted and without having regard to the pieces offer'd to its view will follow its own sentiments it runs the hazard of committing a thousand extravagances and impertinences Yea all the Judicious Sciences are ambiguous and their followers divided a sure note of their weakness as well as of that of Judgment which guids them since Abstracted Truth its Object being unknown it must leave the same in perpetual darkness unless it borrow light from the Imagination Moreover the Sciences Arts and Disciplines of this Faculty are all pleasant and as delightful and certain as those of Memory are labile the Faculty only of Children and Liars Yea the maladies of the Imagination are in such veneration that Hippocrates calls them Divine as having miraculous effects The Third said That there is no intire and perfect Good in this World is verifi'd also in the Goods of the Mind which are not often possess'd by one single man but every one hath his share therein For goodness of Wit consisting in the excellence of his three Faculties Imagination Memory and Judgment the first of which forms the species the second preserves and the last judges of and frames its Notions from them 't is a very rare thing to find a man possessing these three advantages in an excellent degree besides that they are incompatible in one and the same subject inasmuch as they depend upon the contrary temperaments The Memory on a hot and moist such as that of Children which nevertheless must not be like water which easily receives but retains not all sorts of Figures but it must be aerial and have some consistence and viscosity to retain the imprinted species The Imagination requires a hot and dry temper for fabricating and composing abundance of species like that of cholerick and young men who are inventive and industrious The Judgment demands a constitution of Brain cold and dry like that of melancholy and old men to hinder the sudden eruptions or sallies of the Mind which therefore reasons better when the Body is at rest than when it is in motion which produces heat as much an enemy to the operation of the Reasonable Soul as profitable to those of the Sensitive or Vegetative whose actions are perform'd by the Spirits and Heat But the Imagination cannot know any thing without Memory which furnishes it with species nor this remember without help of the Imagination nor the Judgment conceive and judg without the help of both Nevertheless as amongst Qualities there is always one predominant so amongst these three Faculties one commonly excels the rest and the Judgment is the more excellent inasmuch as 't is peculiar to Man whereas the Imagination and Memory are common to him with Beasts So that the Judgment is our proper good and is better worth cultivating than the Memory to which they who wholly addict themselves are like bad Farmers who improve others Commodities and let their own perish On the contrary they who only form their Judgment acquire the true Treasures of Wisedom and may be said rich of their own Stock But great Memories are commonly like Aesop's Crow adorn'd with borrow'd Plumes and indeed raise admiration in the weak minds of the Vulgar but not in those who are accustomed to solid Truths the Principle whereof is the Judgment CONFERENCE CVI. I. Of Dew II. Whether it be expedient for Women to be Learned IF Pindar deem'd Water so good that he thought nothing better to begin his Odes with Dew which is celestial Water deserves to be esteem'd since it surpasses that as much as Heaven whence it comes is elevated above the Earth For Heaven is the source of Dew whence it distills hither below impregnated with all aethereal qualities and properties incommunicable to any other thing whether it come by a transcolation of super-celestial Waters which the Hebrews call Maim in the Dual Number to signifie the Waters on high and those below or whether there be a Quintessence and Resolution of the Heavens whence it proceeds like those Waters which Chymists distil from Bodies put into their Alembicks indu'd with their odour and other qualities and sometimes augmented in virtues Whence some Divines endeavour to derive the reason why Manna which is nothing else but Dew condens'd for fourty years together wanting one Moneth and allotted by God for sustenance of his people had all sorts of Tastes for say they Heaven whence it fell contains eminently as the efficient equivocal cause all the forms of things to whose generation it concurs here below and therefore God employ'd this Dew to represent the several kinds of each Aliment And Honey whose sweetness is so familiar to our Nature yea so priz'd by the Scripture that God promises his people nothing so frequently to raise their longing after the Land which he had promis'd them what else is it but this same Dew condens'd and gather'd by the Bees who rubbing their thighs upon the flowers and leaves of Plants on which this Liquor falls load themselves therewith and lodg it in their hives Wherefore Naturalists seem too gross in teaching Dew to be only a Vapour rais'd from the Earth by the heat which the Sun leaves in the Air at his setting and for want of other sufficient heat unable to advance it self higher than the tops of herbs for its tenuity and effects manifest the contrary its tenuity much exceeding that of Water witness their experiment who make an egg-shell fill'd with Dew ascend alone to the top of a Pike plac'd a little bowing in the Sun which it will not do if fill'd with common Water how rarefi'd soever Its effects also are to penetrate much more powerfully than ordinary Water which is the reason why
sweetness of Honey makes it self perceptible to the Tongue by it self but the proportion of a fair countenance cannot make it self known but by its species which is the picture and representation of it This way is produc'd the Love of Inclination as well as that of Knowledge only with this difference that the Species which produce the former act imperceptibly and more suddenly then those that produce the latter which is more deliberate and rational The Third said There are but two sorts of Love one improper and Metaphorical the other proper and formal That precedes Knowledg and is an Instinct inclining natural things to their proper good This follows Knowledg as its guide and is the first Expansion of the Heart pleasing it self with the good it likes And as that is diffus'd over all Creatures so this is restrain'd only to the sensible and rational The Appetite whence the former proceeds is immers'd and incorporated in the nature of every thing and not distinguish'd from the faculties and powers they have to act But the latter ariseth from the Appetite properly so call'd whose functions or motions are the eleven Passions to which as many acts correspond in the Rational Appetite The Question cannot be concerning that improper Appetite for then Stones should have Love as well as Instinct towards their Centre but of the true and proper Love subsequent to Knowledg which gives Amability to good as Light doth Visibility to colours Wherefore they who talk of certain Spirits issuing out of the lov'd person's body into the eyes of the Lover and seising upon the heart without falling under knowledge seem ignorant of the nature of Love For should such spirits arrive at the heart without being observ'd yet they must come out thence again to be known before they can cause Love as we cannot know any thing that is in the soul unless it come first out thence and become sensible since nothing is in the Understanding but what pass'd through the Sense So a man cannot know his own face but by reflection from a Looking-glass without him For the Soul at our Nativity is like a smooth table or white-sheet of Paper and thence its primitive notions during this present state is by Phantasms supplied to us by our Senses Now the essential reason of this dependance which keeps Love subject to Knowledg is that the Appetite which is the Principle of Love is only a Passion or Propriety of the thing wherein it is but the Principle of Knowledge is an essential degree of Nature Hence Souls are distinguish'd by Cognition not by Appetite we call the Sensitive Soul so from the knowledg of Sense which constitutes its essential difference and the Rational Soul so because Reason the principle of Knowledg is a degree of Nature but Appetite is a propriety which follows it And being there is the same reason of Actions and their Principles as the Appetite supposes a principle of Knowledg so Love which is the action of the Appetite supposes actual and clear Knowledg Hence there is no love without knowledg For that we have more phansie to the one of two persons playing then to the other 't is because we discern somthing in his face gestures or motion that pleases us better Sympathy pretended the cause of this love may indeed be the foundation of it inasmuch as we naturally love those like our selves but it can never make us love till we have found in the thing some Je-ne-scay-quoy of lovely It cannot be the sole cause of our love since 't is of it self imperceptible to our knowledg and consequently cannot produce love till the effects of such sympathy to wit such an Air such a Motion and such a Deportment have pleas'd us And whereas 't is said that from eyes which behold us attentively we perceive something come forth that animates us I answer that oftentimes quick fix'd and sweet intuitions are tokens of love from which 't is no wonder if ours take rise and growth as from its proper cause since Love begets Love CONFERENCE CXX How the Vnderstanding moves the Will 'T Is proper to the Understanding not only to conjoyn things wholly different but oftentimes to abstract and separate such as are perfectly united in one and the same substance and differ only in accidents which it severs from their subjects Hence reflecting upon it self it distinguishes in its operation two Faculties to wit its Cognition and the Reasonable Appetite or Will although they are one and the same thing not only in the Soul whose essence is simple but also in the Intellect nor are their objects different Truth the object of the Understanding being convertible and all one with Good the object of the Will Hence Civilians acknowledg no Will in those that want Understanding as Ideots and Children And as the same Sun-beam that produces light causes heat too by the continuation of its action or by its re-union in a Burning-glass so an object long consider'd or strongly apprehended by the Understanding as good immediately incites and inflames the same to seek and desire it So that the cognition of a thing in the Understanding is only Theory which the Will applying it self thereunto by desire reduces into Practice As the Theorical habit of an Art differs not from the Practical and the conclusion of a Syllogism is only a dependance upon its two Premisses Wherefore the Will which is the practice of the Understandings speculation and a result of its ratiocination is not distinguish'd from the Understanding and to know good to desire and seek means to possess it are operations continu'd by one sole motion Besides to separate the actions of the Souls faculties and make them independent one of another would infer a kind of divisibility in the Soul but the Will being only a desire every desire a species of motion and motion an accident it is separable from its subject the Understanding whereof 't is only an affection and propiety So that the Intellect and the Will being the same thing when the former is carried towards an apprehended good we say it moves the Will as it doth the other powers which it employs in quest of that good when the same is external and it cannot attain to it by it self The Second said That to know to will and to be able although of the same extent in things purely natural as in a Stone whose knowledge desire and power to tend to its centre are the same thing yet are different actions in rational agents For oftentimes we know without willing and will what we cannot do and sometimes we know not that which we would Oftentimes we will things not only without but even against Reason witness the irregular Appetite of breeding Women and Green-sickness Maids Wherefore these actions being different the Faculties from which they proceed the Intellect Will and Motive Faculty must be wholly distinct seeing their two adequate Objects which specifie Faculties are consider'd under divers formal Reasons which
are the sole Causes of the distinction of Faculties For Entity immaterial and spiritual is as true and intelligible the object of the Understanding but as good and desirable 't is the object of the Will which are two wholly different formal Reasons Now though the Intellect and the Will are two different Faculties yet there is such a dependance between them that the one can do nothing without the other and they communicate mutual assistance the Understanding supplies Reasons and Counsels which the Will causes the Powers under its dominion to execute for 't is a blind Queen having no knowledg of her own but only what light she receives from the Intellect But how can it see the same if blind as 't is fancied We answer that as all things have a bent and natural inclination to their proper good though they know it not as even the Intellect assents to a truth known by ratiocination but knows not why it assents to a first Principle as That the whole is greater then its part and that 2 and 1 make 3 these being connate Notions so the Will is carried to the Good propos'd to it by the Understanding because the goodness and sutableness thereof engage it to endeavours of enjoying it wherein its supream Felicity lyes The Third said Since the Will is a desire every desire a motion and every motion from some other nothing moving it self the Will cannot desire unless mov'd by some superior power and knowledg For as there is no desire without knowledg so to the end this may not be idle and unprofitable Nature hath joyn'd an Appetite to it to wit a Sensitive Appetite to the knowledg of a Sensible Good apprehended such by the Imagination which is common to Men and Brutes and a Rational Appetite the Will to the knowledg of an honest Good apprehended such by the Understanding And whereas immaterial things cannot be known by themselves but by such as are sensible and corporeal we cannot better judge of the manner whereby the Intellect moves the Will then by that whereby the Imagination moves the Sensitive Appetite which is the sweetness of the Object whose Species being receiv'd by some one of the outward Senses and carried from the Common sense to the Phansie which relishes the same to the full is then propos'd to the Sensitive Appetite which presently flyes to it oftentimes so impetuously as that it hurries the Reason and the Will along with it self and constrains them to yield to the violence of those Passions which it excites to joyn with it in pursuit of that good and which itre doubles upon the occurrence of any obstacle to its designs In like sort the Will is carried of it self to a vertuous action when the Understanding represents the honesty of the same to it provided it be not otherwise prepossess'd and the said action be not accompani'd with difficulties and thorns as commonly happens for then that Sensitive Appetite oftentimes gets the better of Reason the Flesh of the Spirit There is this difference between the motions of the Will and the Appetite that the latter necessarily follows the duct of the Imagination by which 't is inclin'd inspite of it self towards a Delectable Good but the Will common to us with Angels is so mov'd by the Intellect that nevertheless it always remains mistress of its own actions and can do either good or evil by vertue of its liberty which alone discriminates Man from Beast and gives him right of empire and command which the Civilians define a power of making use of any thing at one's pleasure and without which not only Judgments Vertues Vices Rewards and Punishments Praises and Dispraises Consultations and Deliberations would be useless but also all Laws would be to no purpose Man would be in worse condition then Brutes over whom he hath no other advantage but that of Reason which would serve for nothing if he acted things necessarily as other Agents do and not freely and voluntarily The Fourth said He had always accounted it a vain enquiry how the Understanding moves the Will and the Senses the Sensitive Appetite towards their Objects because the Cognoscitive Faculty and these Appetites being really distinct and having nothing common there cannot intervene any commerce between them They are Officers that have severed charges without having any thing to share or dispatch together Nevertheless it being true that we love nothing but what is first apprehended and judg'd amiable we must seek this dependance somwhat higher Now all actions are of the whole Compositum and consequently Man who is the whole is he who by his knowledg either of Sense or of the Intellect judges what both the one and the other Appetite ought to embrace or reject Then after he hath pass'd his judgment by his Cognoscitive Faculty he determines himself to follow by his Appetite what he hath judg'd fit to be done in consequence whereof he applies his Motive Faculty to the execution of his Resolution So that 't is Man that moves himself by his Will towards Good or Evil to pursue or avoid after he hath consider'd what he ought to will how and in what sort to comport himself By this means we obviate a world of difficulties arising from this Question and resolve many as amongst others How the Understanding comes to illuminate corporeal phantasms without establishing an Intellectus Agens for that purpose whose office is pretended to sublime those phantasms by denudating them of their singularity and materiality that so they may become actually intelligible and proportionate to the Intellect For besides that 't is impossible to conceive how any spiritual light can fall from the Intellect upon a corporeal phantasm that which is corporeal being incapable of receiving any thing spiritual and the Intellect of producing any thing out of it self since all its actions are immanent we are deliver'd from all this trouble by saying that in the state of this present life Man by his outward and inward Senses takes in as much knowledg of things as they can give him and afterwards by his Understanding deduces and infers things which the phantasms alone could not acquaint him with Thus when a phantasm represents to him a thing which his eye beholds afar off he by his Understanding judges the same a Substance because the phantasm shews him that it subsists of it self if he see it walk he judges it alive So that 't is sufficient to the drawing of all his Consequences that he infer from the phantasms what they are capable to represent to him without need of spiritualizing them or of commerce between them and the Intellect In like manner 't is not needful that the Intellect shew the Will its Object but the man's seeing it is sufficient to cause him to move himself by his Will towards the Good which he apprehends For as a King hath his Scouts to discover the state of his Enemies upon whose report he holds a Council of War wherein he
distill'd Waters difficultly by reason of their simplicity Vinegar though cold never by reason of the tenuity of its parts But the surface of waters being full of earthy and gross parts which could not accompany the Vapours or Exhalations drawn up by the Sun's heat is therefore first frozen even that of running waters though not so easily by reason of their motion makes a divulsion of their parts as neither Oyle very easily by reason of its aërious and unctuous humidity the Sea and Hot Spirits which yet Experience shews are sometimes frozen by Vehement Cold the Poet in his description of the sharpness of Winter in his Georgicks saying that they cleav'd Wine with hatchets and the Northern Navigations of the Hollanders relating that they were detain'd three moneths under the seventy fourth Degree where their Ships were frozen in the main sea The Second said That Heat and Cold are the immediate Causes of Freezing and Thawing but 't is hard to know Whence that Heat and Cold comes Now because Cold is onely the Privation of Heat as Darkness is of Light we shall sufficiently understand the Causes of Cold and of Freezing if we know those of Heat which causes Thawing The truth is the Sun whose approach and remoteness makes the diversities of Seasons according to the different mutations which he causes in the qualities of the Air contribute thereunto but the Earth helps too he cannot do it alone for we see that the Snow on the Mountains which approach nearest Heaven is last melted But the Sun's Rays piercing into the bosome of the Earth draw out that Fire which is inclos'd in its entralls and because the Sun removes but a very little from the Aequinoctial Line therefore that part of the Earth which answers to that of Heaven where the Sun continually resides is alwayes Hot and by a contrary Reason that under the Poles is alwayes extreamly cold And even Country-people observe winds to be the Cause of these Effects for those that blow from the North quarter bring with them an extream cold Air which is the cause of Freezing and those from the South bring on us an Air extreamly heated by the continuall action of the Sun and so are the cause of Thawing The Third said That Winds being continual because their matter never fails it happens that the strongest gets the better of the weakest and they chase one another whence Virgil calls them Wrestlers When the South Winds blow which are more frequent and more gross then the Northern or Eastern by reason of the Sun's strength in the South which opens the Pores of the Earth more the copious Exhalations which issue out of it are hotter than those which come out of the Pores of the Northern Earth which are closed up by Cold whence the Winds blowing from thence are colder and thinner just as our breath is cold when we contract our Mouthes and hot when we dilate them In like manner the Exhalations issuing out of the Earth's Pores are hotter or colder according as the passages out of which they proceed are more or less dilated and consequently cause Freezing or Thawing The Fourth said That the Sun or other Stars are onely remote Causes of Freezing and Thawing namely by their Heat which serves to raise the Vapors which are the next causes thereof according as they partake more or less of that external Heat or as the Chymists say as they are full either of certain nitrous and dissolving Spirits which cause Thawing or of coagulating ones which cause Freezing such as those are harden Plants into Stones which so presently congeal drops of water in Caves and Water-droppings and form the Crystals of the Rock Moreover just before it freezes Sinks and other stinking places smell more strong by reason that the Spirits and Vapors of the Earth are complicated with those stinks as they issue forth The Fifth said That the Cause of Thawing is to be attributed to the Heat of the Earth which exhaling warm Vapors fiâ—st heats the bottome of the Water for which reason Fish retire thither then they mollifie and moisten the surface of the Water or the Earth hardned by Cold. Moreover that Heat which is found in the deepest Mines where the Labourers work naked and most ordinarily in the Water without enduring any Cold the veins of Sulphur Bitumen Vitriol and Arsenick which are found in the entralls of the Earth the Hot Springs and the Volcanoes in its surface sufficiently argue That if there be not a Central Fire as the Pythagoreans held yet there is a great Heat there like that of Living Bodies which concocts Metals and makes Plants grow Hence the changes of Air are first discover'd in Mines by the Vapors arising from beneath which hinder Respiration and make the Lamps burn dim or go quite out Whereby 't is evident that they are exhaled by the Heat of the earth and not attracted by that of the Sun and Stars which penetrate but a very little way into the earth Now as our bodies are inwardly hotter in Winter so this heat of the earth being concentred in it self as appears by Springs which smoke in that season and by the heat of subterraneous places raises greater plenty of warm Vapors which in Winte render the Weather moist and rainy but when rain or the coldness of the air stops those pores then those Exhalations being shut up the Air remains cold and it freezes which frost is again dissolv'd by their eruption For the natural heat of the Earth being constring'd and render'd stronger by the ambient Cold drives out hotter and more copious exhalations which consist either of the rain-water wherewith it is moistned or of other humidities and which arriving at the surface of the Earth which is frozen soften it and fill the air with clouds which always accompany a Thaw as Serenity do's a Frost The Sixth said That as Hail is nothing but Rain congeal'd so Frost is nothing but Dew condens'd by the vehemence of Cold and in the Water 't is call'd Ice which coldness condensing the Water which is a diaphanous body and consequently hath an internal and radical light is the cause of its whiteness which is the beginning of light as the Stars are the condens'd parts of their Orbs. Unless you had rather ascribe that whiteness to the Air included in the Ice which also makes the same swim upon the water An Evidence that Cold alone is not the cause of Freezing for Cold alone render bodies more ponderous by condensing their parts whence Ice should be heavier then Water but there is requir'd besides some hot and dry exhalation which insinuating into the Water gives it levity The Seventh said That such bodies as are frozen are so far from receiving augmentation of parts that they lose the thinnest of their own hence a bottle so close stopped that the air cannot get in to supply the place of the thinner parts which transspire and perish upon freezing breaks in pieces for avoiding
Mixts are compounded The Sun indeed is the Efficient Cause of all productions here below but being a celestial and incorruptible body cannot enter into the composition of any thing as a Material Cause Much less can our common Fire which devours every thing and continually destroyes its Subject But it must be that Elementary Fire which is every where potentially and actually in its own Sphere which is above that of the Air and below that of the Moon Moreover being the lightest or least heavy of all the Elements the Harmony of the Universe which consists chiefly in their situation requires that it be in the highest place towards which therefore all other Fires which are of the same Nature ascend in a point with the same violence that a stone descends towards its Centre those remaining here below being detain'd by some Matter whereof they have need by reason of the contraries environing them from which that Sublunary Fire being exempt hath nothing to do with Matter or nourishment and by reason of its great rarity and tenuity can neither burn nor heat any more then it can be perceiv'd by us The Second said That subtlety one of the principal conditions requisite to the conversion of Matter into Fire is so far from hindring that it encreases the violence and activity of Fire making it penetrate even the solidest bodies whence that pretended Fire not being mixt with extraneous things to allay its heat as that of Aqua Vitae is temper'd by its Phlegm or aqueous humidity but being all Fire in its own Sphere and natural place which heightens the Virtue and qualities of all Agents must there also heat shine burn and produce all its Actions which depend not upon density or rarity or such other accidents of Matter purely passive but upon its whole Form which constituting it what it is must also make it produce Effects sutable to its Nature Wherefore as Water condens'd into Ice or Crystal is no longer Water because it hath ceas'd to refrigerate and moisten so the Fire pretended to be above the Air invisible and insensible by reason of its rarity is not Fire but subtile Air. They who say its natural inclination to heat and burn is restrain'd by the Influences of the Heavens particularly of the cold Starrs as Saturn and the Moon speak with as little ground since the circular motion of the Heavens whereby this Fire is turn'd about should rather increase than diminish its heat And besides Fire being a necessary Agent its action can no more be hindred by such Influences than the descent of a stone downwards Whereunto add that the beams of all Stars have heat and were any cold yet those of Saturn are too remote and those of the Moon too weak in comparison of this Fire the extent whereof is about 90000. Leagues for the distance between the Earth and the Moon is almost as much namely 56. Semidiameters of the Earth from which substracting between 25. and 30. Leagues which they allot to the three Regions of the Air the rest must be occupy'd by the Fire which they make to extend from the Concave surface of the Moon to the convex surface of the Air which it would consume in less than a moment considering the great disproportion between them Moreover were there such a Fire it could not be own'd an Element because its levity would keep it from descending and entring into the Composition of mixts and were it not leight yet it would be hindred from descending by the extream coldness of the Middle Region of the Air accounted by some a barrier to the violence of that Chymerical Fire which ought rather to be reckon'd amongst their Entia Rationis than the Natural Elements whereunto Corporeity and Palpability are requisite For these Reasons I conceive with Pythagoras that the Sun is the true Elementary Fire plac'd for that purpose in the middle of the World whose Light and Heat enter into the Composition not onely of all living things but also of Stones and Metals all other Heat besides that of the Sun being destructive and consequently no-wise fit for Generation The Third said He confounds Heaven with Earth and destroyes the Nature of the Sun who takes it for an Element that is to say a thing alterable and corruptible by its contraries which it must have if it be an Element The Heat of his beams proves it not the Elementary Fire seeing commonly the nearer we are to Fire the more we feel the Heat of it but the Supream and Middle Regions of the Air are colder than ours Besides were our common fire deriv'd from the Sun it would not languish as it doth when the Sun shines upon it nor would the heat of dunghils and caves be greater in Winter than in Summer Wherefore I rather embrace the common Opinion which holds That the heaviest Element is in the lowest place and the leightest in the highest whose Action is hindred by the proportion requisite to the quantity of each Element The Fourth said That the qualities of Fire viz. Heat Dryness and Light concurring in the Sun in a supream degree argue it the Elementary Fire for Light being the Cause of Heat the Sun which is the prime Luminous Body must also be the prime Hot that is to say Fire For as the pretended one above the Air was never yet discover'd so 't is repugnant to the Order of the Universe for the leightest of Elements to be shut up in the Centre of the Earth where some place it We have but two wayes to know things Sense and Reason the latter of which is founded either upon Causes or Effects Now we know nothing of the Sun or any other Celestial Bodies otherwise then by its Effects and sensible qualities which being united in Spherical Burning-glasses as they are in the body of the Sun notifie to us by their Effects the Nature of their Cause The Fifth said That Fire being to the World what the Soul is to the Body as Life is in all the parts of the Body so also is Fire equally diffused throughout the whole World In the Air it makes Comets and other Igneous Meteors In the Earth it concocts Metals and appears plentifully in Volcanoes whose Fires would not continue alwayes if they were violently detained in those Concavities yea 't is in the Waters too whose saltness and production of Monsters cannot be without Heat Yet being the most active of all Elements it is therefore distributed in much less quantity than the rest Nature having observed the same proportion both in the greater and lesser World Man's Body in which there is less of Fire than of the other Elements Otherwise had the Fire been equal to the rest it would consume all living things to ashes Nevertheless as the fixed Heat of Animals requires reparation by the Influent Heat from the Heart the Soul 's principal seat in like manner the Elementary Fire dispersed in all part of this great body of the World needs the
said Reason having been given Man to correct the Inclinations of the Sensitive Appetite 't is that alone must judge whether it be expedient for him to live long not Sense which makes us judge like beasts That nothing is dearer than Life But Reason illuminated either by Faith or by Philosophy teaches us that this World is the place of our banishment the Body the Soul's Prison which she alwayes carryes about with her Life a continual suffering and War and therefore he fights against Natural Light who maintaines it expedient to prolong so miserable a State For besides the incommodities attending a long Life which after 70. years as David testifies is onely labour and sorrow long Life is equally unprofitable towards attaining Knowlege and Virtue He that lives long can learn nothing new in the World which is but a Revolution and Repetition of the same Effects produc'd alwayes by the same Causes not onely in Nature whose course and changes may be seen in the Revolution of the Four Seasons of the Year but even in Affairs of State and Private Matters wherein nothing is said or done but what hath been practis'd before And as for Virtue the further we are from Childhod the less Innocence and Sanctity we have and Vices ordinarily increase with years The long Life of the first Men having according to some been the probable Cause of the depravation of those Ages CONFERENCE CXL Of the Lethargy AS the Brain is the most eminent and noble of all the parts being the Seat of the Understanding and the Throne of the Reasonable Soul so its diseases are very considerable and the more in that they do not attaque that alone but are communicated to all the other parts which have a notable interest in the offence of their Chief ceasing to diffuse its Animal Spirits destinated to Motion Sense and the Function of the Inferior Members Which Functions are hurt by the Lethargy which deprives a Man of every other Inclination but that to sleep and renders him so forgetful and slothful whence it took its Greek name which signifies sluggish oblivion that he remembers nothing at all being possess'd with such contumacious sleepiness that she shuts his Eyes as soon as he ha's open'd them besides that his Phansie and Reasoning is hurt with a continual gentle Fever Which differences this Symptom from both the sleeping and waking Coma call'd Typhomania the former of which commonly begins in the Fits of Fevers and ends or diminishes at their declination but the Lethargick sleeps soundly and being wak'd by force presently falls a sleep again The latter makes the Patient inclin'd to sleep but he cannot by reason of the variety of Species represented to him in his Phansie The signes of this Malady are deliration heaviness of the Head and pain of the Neck after waking the Matter taking its course along the spine of the back frequent oscitation trembling of the Hands and Head a palish Complexion Eyes and Face pufft up sweatings troubled Urine like that of Cattle a great Pulse languishing and fluctuating Respiration rare with sighing and so great forgetfulness as sometimes not to remember to shut their Mouths after they have open'd nor even to take breath were they not forc'd to it by the danger of suffocation The Conjunct and next Cause of this Malady is a putrid Phlegm whose natural coldness moistens and refrigerates the Brain whilst it s put refactive heat kindles a Fever by the vapors carry'd from the Brain to the Heart and from thence about the whole Now this Phlegmatick Humor is not detained in the Ventricles of the Brain for then it would cause an Apoplexy if the obstruction were total and if partial an Epilepsie wherein the Nerves contract themselves towards their original for discharging of that Matter But 't is onely in the sinuosities and folds of the Brain which imbibing that excessive humidity acquires a cold and moist intemperature from whence proceeds dulness and listelesness to all Actions For as Heat is the Principle of Motion especially when quickned by Dryness so is Cold the Cause of stupidity and sluggishness especially when accompanied with humidity which relaxes the parts and chills their Action In like manner Heat or Dryness inflaming our Spirits the Tunicles of the Brain produce the irregular Motions of Frenzy which is quite contrary to the Lethargy although it produce the same sometimes namely when the Brain after great evacuations acquires a cold and moist intemperature in which case the Lethargy is incurable because it testifies Lesion of the Faculty and abolition of strength But on the contrary a Frensie after a Lethargy is a good sign resolving by its Heat and dissipating the cold humors which produce the same The Second said That coldness being contrary to put refaction Phlegm the coldest of all humors cannot easily putrifie in the Brain which is cold too of its own nature much less acquire a Heat sufficient to communicate it self to the Heart and there excite a Fever it being more likely for such adventitious Heat to cause in the Brain rather the impetuous motions of a Frenzy than the dulness and languor of a Lethargy Nor is it less then absurd to place two enemy-qualities in the same Subject to wit Cold and Heat whereof the one causes sleep the other a Fever which I conceive to precede not to follow the Lethargy and which having raised from the Hypochondres to the Brain a Phlegmatick blood mixt with gross vapors there causeth that obscuration of Reason and sluggishness of the whole Body but especially the abolition of the Memory the sutable temperament for which is totally destroyed by excessive humidity Indeed the troubled Urine liquid Digestions Tumors and pains of the Neck bloated Flesh and other such signs accompanying this disease argue that its matter is more in the rest of the Body than in the Brain which suffers onely by Sympathie The Third said If it be true that sleep is the Brother of Death then the Lethargy which is a continual drowsiness with a Fever and Delirium seemes to be a middle Estate between Life and Death which is known by the cessation of Actions most of which fail in those afflicted with this Evil which nevertheless is less then the Carus wherein the sleep is so profound that the Patient feels not when he is prickt or call'd by name but is depriv'd of all Sense and Motion saving that of Respiration which scarce appears in the Catoche or Catalepsie a stranger symptom than any of the former wherein the Eyes remain wide open the whole Body stiff and in the same state and posture wherein it hapned to be when it first seiz'd the same The Cause whereof most say is a cold and moist humor obstructing the hinder part of the Brain but I rather ascribe it to a sudden Congelation of the Animal Spirits as I do the Lethargy to narcotick and somniferous vapors which are the sole Causes of Inclination to sleep which cannot
by the Sensitive Actions which may also have another cause For the infusion of the Reasonable Soul after forty days cannot be proved by actions proper to it for it reasons not till long after nor by the actions of a Soul simply for then you must grant that it is there before Organization which is an action proper to animated things Moreover the Soul must be admitted in the Body as soon as it may be there which is at the beginning of conception because even then there wants no fit disposition to this Soul which needs not any different Organs for the barely Vegetative Actions which she then performs no more then Plants do nor are different Organs necessary to her absolute exsisting since God hath created her immaterial and without any dependance and we see the similary parts of the Body are animated so that the dispositions wherewith the Soul can subsist and which suffice to retain her in the Body are also sufficient to introduce her thereinto Now these dispositions are no other then the same which are requisite for the actions of the Vegetative Soul For whatever indisposition happen to the Organs of Sense and Motion the Soul abides in the Body till the heat be dissipated or extinguished the Organs of Sense and Motion being not necessary to retain the Soul in the Body saving in as much as they contribute to respiration Even the Apoplexie which abolishes all the noble dispositions which the Philosophers hold necessary to the Soul never drives her away unless it be by accident since a Child in his Mothers belly may have that disease without incommodity saving when it comes to need respiration Now though Organization be not a disposition requisite to the introduction of the Soul yet she requires certain others some whereof we know not as that unexplicable character imprinted in the Seed besides the temperament which suffices perfectly to determine the matter for introdudion of this form and exclusion of all other The conformation of Organs being not a disposition which determines necessarily seeing amongst humane bodies some differ more from the generality of men in respect of the principal parts then they do from certain other Animals but 't is the temperament alone which arising in the first days after the mixture of the two seeds and according to Hippocrates the foetus having in the first seven days all that he ought to have this opinion is more pious and expedient for repressing the criminal license of those who without scruple procure abortion within the first forty days The Third said Though the Reasonable Soul be of a much sublimer nature then the souls of other Creatures yet being created with reference to the Body 't is not introduced thereinto till the same be fitted for its reception as no other natural form is ever received into a subject not previously fitted with all due dispositions And since the Soul is the principle of all actions hence she needs Organs and Instruments for performing them and the more sublime she is the greater preparation doth she require then the Sensitive Soul as this also doth then the Vegetative which demands only a certain mixture of the first qualities besides which the sensitive requires a more exquisite temperament of the two Principles of Generation Seed and Blood endued with a vital Spirit capable of producing Sense and Motion So that the Reasonable Soul ought not to be infused till after the conformation is in all points completed The Fourth said Since there is no proportion but between things of the same nature the Immortal Reasonable Soul cannot have any with the corruptible Body and so not depend more on the matter in its infusion then in its creation which is probably the third day after conception at which time the actions of life appear in nutrition growth alteration and configuration of the parts Which actions must proceed from some internal and animated principle which cannot be the Soul either of Father or Mother since they act not where they are not inherently nor yet the spirit of the Seed which is not a principal agent but only the instrument of a Soul nor the formative vertue which is only an accident or temper of qualities and in like manner the instrument of some more noble agent 'T is therefore the Soul contained in the bosom of the matter which produces all these actions therein They who hold the Reasonable Soul not introduced till after the two others consider not that Forms receiving no degrees of more or less cannot be perfected or changed one into another much less annihilated seeing corruption is caused only by contraries and Forms have none It follows therefore that the Reasonable Soul is the principle of all these functions which she performs according to the dispositions she meets with and that she is the architect of her own habitation CONFERENCE CXLIII Of Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls THough Metemphychosis or the Transmigration of Souls be rather imaginary then true yet because there is nothing which more inriches the Field of Philosophy then liberty of reasoning we shall here inquire whether the Heathen guided only by the light of Nature had any reason to maintain this extravagance which was first taught in Greece by Pythagoras who had learn'd it of the Egyptians by whom and most other Nations of antiquity it was believ'd not only that souls departed out of some bodies re-entered and animated others but also that all things after a certain revolution of Ages should resume the same state wherein they had formerly been This was also the opinion of Plato saving that he was more rational then Pythagoras who making three Souls of the same quality said that those of men after death went to animate the bodies of Men Beasts or Plants for which reason he abstained from the flesh of Animals and could hardly resolve to eat Beans for fear of biting his Fathers head But Plato held the Transmigration of Rational Souls only into humane Bodies Which opinion though less absurd then the former which destroys it self by the confusion it introduces amongst all natural beings yet it hath its inconveniences too since the Soul being an incompleat form making one whole with its other half the Body it can never meet with one in all points like the first besides that were it in another it would have an inclination towards the first and so would not be in such body in quality of a form but in a state of constraint and violence The Second said That the Pythagorical Metemphychosis is not more absurd in regard that being the form gives a determinate and specifical being to every thing if humane souls past into the bodies of Beasts or Plants these Creatures would be Men then that of Plato seems probable nothing hindring but that a humane soul may enter into another humane body after the dissolution and ruine of the former For if there be any thing to hinder it it must be because there is no return
in words gestures and actions pass for Wisdom call the French light because they are more nimble and active then themselves and being really what others are onely in appearance affect not that false mask of Wisdom whereof they possess the solidity and Body whilst these content themselves with enjoying its shadow and ghost For 't is not the change of habits or modes that argues that of the Mind but in great Matters as Religion and State in maintaining whereof the French may be affirm'd more constant than any Nation 'T is not an Age yet since France bad reason to glory as well as in Saint Jerom's time of never having produc'd Monsters but of planting the Faith well amongst all its Neighbors whose rigorous Inquisition is less a testimony of the Constancy than of the lightness or baseness of their Spirits since they are kept in their Religion by fear of the Wheel and the Gallows Then as for the State the French Monarchy is the ancientest in the world and hath been always maintain'd amidst the ruines and downfalls of other States by the exact observation of its fundamental Laws which is an eminent Argument of the Constancy of the French the Nations who have most charg'd them with this Vice shewing themselves the most inconstant whilst this puissant body of France remains always like it self which it could not do if the members which compose it were light and inconstant the greatest Vice where-with they can asperse us For since according to Seneca Wisdom is always to will and not-will the same things Inconstance and Irresolution in willing sometimes one thing sometimes another is a certain testimony of Folly Imprudence and weakness of Mind which coming to change intimates either that it took not its measures aright nor apprehended the fit means of attaining to the proposed end or that it had not Courage and Resolution enough to go through with its designes And not onely he who hath an inconstant and flitting Spirit is incapable of Wisdom which requires a settled Mind not mutable like that of the Fool who as the Scripture saith changes like the Moon but also of all sort of Virtue which consisting in a mediocrity is not attainable but by Prudence which prescribes its Bounds and Rules and by Stability and Constance which arms the Mind against all difficulties occurring in the way of Virtue in which as well as in the Sciences and Arts the French having more share than any other Nation 't is injurious to accuse them of Inconstancy The Third said 'T is not more vanity to believe one's self perfect in all things than temerity in going about upon blind passion for his Country to exempt it from a Vice whereof all strangers who know us better than we do our selves are universally agreed Let us confess therefore that we are inconstant since in comparison of the Vices of other Neighbouring Nations this will not onely appear light but make it doubtful whether it be a Vice since 't is grounded upon Nature which is in perpetual change whereby she appears more beautiful and agreeable than in identity and rest which is not found even in the prime Bodies and universal Causes which as well as others are in a continual mobility and change which is no-wise contrary to Wisdom which requires that we accommodate our selves to the circumstances of places persons and times which alter incessantly and that we consequently alter our Conclusions according thereunto besides that change of Opinion is a testimony of a free and ingenuous Spirit as that of the French is and it may be attributed to the power of example in a people environ'd with sundry Nations extreamly different and consisting of Spirits which are imbu'd with the qualities of them all For this Country lying under the forty third degree and the forty eighth the mixture of these people which partake a little of the Southern and a little of the Northern Neighbours sometimes conforms to the modes of one sometimes to those of the other And as in the change of Colours the difference is not seen but in the two extreamities those of the middle appearing changeable and diversifi'd so France situated between the Germans Italians and Spaniards mixing and tempering in it self the qualities of those Nations which are in its extreamities appears to them changeable and uncertain The Fourth said Though the French are not more inconstant than others yet their boyling and impetuous humor and the quickness of all their Actions having made them be esteemed such by all their Neighbors I shall rather refer the Cause thereof to their abundance of Spirits which are the sole Motors and Principles of all Actions produc'd by the purity of their Air and the variety of their Aliments than to the Aspects of Heaven or such other Causes since Nations under the same parallel with France as Podolia Hungary Tartary and many others should be subject to the same Vice which was sometimes imputed to the Grecians the most fickle and inconstant of all people without referring the Cause to the Winds as Cardan held that such as are most expos'd thereunto to have volatile Spirits otherwise the French and other Nations subject to Winds should quit their levity when they came into Climates less windy CONFERENCE CXLVII Of the sundry Motions of the Sea and Rivers NOthing ravishes us more than the Motion of Inanimate Bodies Automata or Bodies moving by Artifice having in the beginning made Idolaters who were undeceived when they came to know the Springs of them But above all the Motions of the Sea seem the more marvellous in that they are very different and contrary And they are of two sorts One Internal and common to all heavy Bodies whereby the Water descends downwards the agitated Sea becomes calm by returning to its level and Rivers follow the declivity of the Lands through which they pass The other violent which is either irregular render'd so by the irregularity of the Winds or regular which again is of two sorts namely that of reciprocation in the flux and reflux of the Sea and that which depends upon the several parts of the World being either from East to West or from North to South 'T is true Water being naturally fluid and moveable and not to be contain'd within its own bounds it were more strange if this great Body were immoveable than to see it move as it was necessary it should for Navigation and to avoid corruption The wonder onely is to see in one sole Body so great a diversity of Motions whereof onely the first is natural to it the others arise from some extrinsick Causes amongst which none acting more sensibly upon the Elements than the Celestial Bodies 't is to the diversity of their Motions that those of the Sea must be imputed but particularly that of its flux and reflux which being regular and always alike in one and the same Sea cannot proceed but from as regular a Cause such as the Heaven is and chiefly the
Danubius and Nilus The first which runs from West to East is observ'd in Hungary to move slower about Noon then at other hours of the day as appears by the Water-mills which grinde less at that time because the motion of the Earth being then contrary to that of the Ecliptick it consequently appears more slow And as for the other effect namely the increase and inundation of Nilus which begins at the Summer Solstice this River running directly from South to North from one Tropick to another which is just the middle part of the Earth when it comes to incline its Axis and return the Antarctick part to the Sun the stream of this River which is contrary to that motion waxes slower and being besides augmented by the continual Rains of Summer swells and overflows the Plains of Egypt Which made some Ancients imagine that the North Winds blew again the stream at that time and forc'd the water back upon themselves CONFERENCE CXLVIII Whether is better to Love or to be Lov'd THe same Nature which by an instinct common to us withall things in the world causes us to seek our own good obliges us likewise to Love when we meet Goodness or Beauty in an object capable to render us happy by its possession which consisting in being united to the thing lov'd 't is in this union that the Lover places his greatest felicity and accordingly goes out of himself to joyn himself to what he loves the motions of the will of whose number Love is differing in this point from the actions of the Understanding that these are perform'd by the Species receiv'd by mediation of the Senses into the Intellect which cannot know any thing but what comes home to it but the Will when it Loves must go out of it self and become united to the thing it Loves to the end to beget somthing for Eternity And because things are not known by the Understanding till they have been first purifi'd from the grossness of their matter by the illustration and abctraction which the Agent Intellect makes of their Phantasms or Species hence the notions of the foulest and most dishonest things are always fair and laudable being spiritualis'd and made like the Faculty which knows them On the contrary the Will in loving renders it self like the object which it Loves is turn'd into its nature and receives its qualities if the object be unlawful and dishonest it becomes vicious and its love is criminal Which seems to argue that the Lover is less perfect then the Loved into which he is transform'd as food is less perfect then the body into which it is converted And as that which attracts is more excellent then what is attracted because the stronger draws the weaker so the thing Loved must be more excellent and noble then the Lover whom it attracts to it self Moreover Love according to Plato is a desire of Pulchritude which desire implies want and therefore he that Loves shews thereby that he wants some perfection which renders the thing Lov'd amiable since the Will is never carri'd to any object but what hath some goodness either apparent or real Only God loves not his Creatures for their goodness since they have none of themselves but his will being the cause of all things he renders them good by loving them and willing good to them The Second said Since friendship consists in the union of two or at most of three Wills whose mutual correspondence makes that agreeable harmony and those sweet accords which make ravishing Lovers dye in themselves to live in what they love there is no true love but what is reciprocal which is the reason why none can be contracted with inanimate things no more then with Beasts or Fools And Justice commanding us to render as much as is given us 't is a great injustice not to love those that love us yea if we may believe the Platonists 't is a kind of homicide of the Soul since he that loves being dead in himself and having no more life but in the thing lov'd if that refuses his love by means whereof it should live also in him as he in it he is constrain'd either to dye or languish miserably And whereas he that loves is no longer his own but belongs to the thing lov'd to whom he hath given himself this thing is oblig'd to love him by the same reason that obliges it to love it's self and all that pertains thereunto But though perfect love be compos'd of these two pieces to love and to be lov'd yet the one is often found without the other there being many Lovers wounded with the Poets leaden Arrows who instead of seeing their love requited with love have for all recompense nothing but contempts and refusals 'T is true that it being harder to love without being lov'd then to be lov'd without loving there is no body but would chuse rather to be lov'd then to love upon those terms because nothing flatters our ambition so much as to see our selves sought unto Yet loving is a nobler thing then to be lov'd since honor being more in the honorer then the honored the honor receiv'd by the lov'd thing reflects upon him that loves who for that reason being commended by every one that esteems a good friend as a good treasure and not he that is lov'd is also more excellent and hath more vertue inasmuch as he hath more honor and praise which are the attendants of vertue Moreover the Lover acts freely and therefore more to be valu'd then the lov'd person who is forc'd to suffer himself to be lov'd For though desire commonly follow Sensual Love yet Love is not a desire nor consequently a sign of Indigence otherwise it should cease with the desire and expire after enjoyment which is false for Mothers love their dead Children and even before they came into the world not by a desire but by a motion of Nature which causes us to love what appertains to us and the more if it cost much pain which is the reason why Mothers who contribute more to the birth of their Children and have better assurance that they are their own love them also more tenderly then Fathers do The Third said That to compare the lov'd person with the Lover is to equal the Master with the Servant for the amorous assuming to themselves the quality of Servants of the Ladies whom they call their Mistresses manifest sufficiently thereby that they yield them the pre-eminence And although they be the most interessed in this cause yet they will never have the vanity to prize themselves above what they love which would be to condemn their own choice and their love of defect of judgment which making them sigh after the enjoyment of the object they adore argues their want and indigence not to be supply'd by possession of the good they expect from it which herein like the Intelligences which move without being mov'd themselves excites passions and motions in the
and the good Constitution of the Brain the fuliginous vapors whereof being repercuss'd by the abundance of Hair cause Vertigoes and pains of the Head not more certainly cur'd than by shaving the Head As for seemliness much Hair is rather frightful than handsome and our Ancestors were no less comely persons than we though they wore short Hair as at this day also do many warlike Nations Enemies of softness and delicacy whereof great Hair is a most certain token being proper to Women as on the contrary the long Beard is a note of Virility For inasmuch as he that loves conformes as much as possible to what he loves we may judge of the softness and dissoluteness of the manners of this time by the desire Men have to render themselves as like Women as they can by wearing like them much Hair and little Beard For when Men wore shorter Hair long Beards were in request and when the Hair ha's been long the Beards have almost ever been short the length of the one recompencing the brevity of the other which would otherwise render Men hideous The Third said If ever 't was true that Custom is a Tyrant 't is in this Case no variation having been so much as in matter of Hair The Scythians and Parthians wore both Hair and Beard long thereby to terrifie their Enemies The Greeks whose Hair is much commended by Homer kept it long to distinguish themselves from their slaves who were shorn as at present are Galley-slaves Artizans and Monasticks for Humility whom also Peter Lombard Bishop of Paris caus'd to shave their Hair and Beard in the year 1160 according to the 44th Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage which forbids Clerks to wear either Locks or Beards The Aegyptians wear their Hair long and shave off their Beards The Maxii a people of Africa are shorn on one side of the Head and let the Hair grow on the other The Abaudi had the fore-part onely shaven the Antii contrary The Arabians shave even their Daughters round about leaving a Lock on the top The Armenians shave their Hair into the form of a Cross but there is something more majestical in the Beard than in the Hair and even Animals furnisht there-with seem to have some sort of gravity more than others Hence such as have affected the title of Wise have likewise suffer'd their Beards to grow but the Ephori made the Lacedemonians cut theirs as also Alexander and many Captains did their Souldiers lest their Enemies might catch hold of them But as the caprichio of persons of authority especially Courtiers gives the first model of fashions particularly as to Hair and Beard so to wear short Hair now every one's reaches to his waste or a magisterial spade Beard now all are close shaven except such whose Age and Condition exempts them from this Rule were for a Man to make himself taken notice of for things which bring no commendation which hath no place in discreet Minds but argues a phantastical and humorsome person who is commonly appointed contrary to the Modes whereof the present continually out-vie the Antient. The Fourth said Hair which is rather the leavs and boughs than as Plato held the roots of Man's Body which he terms a Tree revers'd having been chiefly design'd for preservation of the Brain from External Injuries they who would have care of their Health must consult the Constitution of their Brain before they determine either for long or short Hair Cold and Moist Brains need store of Hair to fence off the cold Air Hot and Dry the contrary As for the Hair of the Chin it was design'd onely for Ornament and a Testimony of the Authority which the Male hath above the Female whence that part seemeth somewhat sacred it being an Injury to touch one's Beard of which the Emperor Otho made such account that according to Cuspinian he was wont to swear by his own The proportion of it ought to follow the model of others of like condition Wise Men following the advice of the greatest number in matters indifferent provided they be not contrary to Honesty and Health CONFERENCE CL. VVhether Alterations of States have natural Causes STates being compos'd of Realms or Provinces these of Cities and Towns these of Families these of particular Persons and each Person having Natural Causes 't is clear that the Alteration of the Whole is to be attributed to the same Causes which make the change of its parts Thus when all the Houses of a Town are afflicted with Pestilence or consum'd by Fire which Accidents are capable of producing great Mutations in a Common-wealth it cannot be otherwise express'd but by saying that the Town is burnt or wasted by the Plague And as when the particular suffrages of each Counsellor tend to the absolution or condemnation of a Criminal 't were senseless to say that the Sentence of the Court were other than that of the President and Counsellors so also it is ridiculous to say that the Causes of personal mutations are Natural but not those of Political As therefore 't is almost the sole demonstration we have in Physicks that our Bodies are chang'd and corrupted because they are compos'd of the four Elements in like sort I conceive the Cause of alteration befalling the body of a State is to be sought in the Collection of the several members that compose it which coming to lose the harmony proportion and respect which made them subsist they are dissolv'd and corrupted which is a mutation purely natural and of absolute necessity The Second said If God hath reserv'd any thing to his own disposal 't is that of Crowns and the preservation of States which are the first and universal Causes of the safety of every particular person Whence the transferring of those Crowns from one State to another which is a greater mystery is a mutation purely supernatural as not onely God himself hath manifested when he subjected the State of the Israelites first to Judges and Captains which was a kind of Aristocracy and afterwards to Kings reducing them to a Monarchy but also all such as have wrought great changes in States of the World And Legislators knowing this belief imprinted in all Men's Minds have affected the Reputation of being descended from or favor'd by some Deity as did Alexander the Great and Numa Pompilius Moreover the Holy Scripture attributes to God the changing of Scepters and frequently styles him the God of Battels the winning and losing whereof are the most common and manifest Causes of the change of States And 't is a pure effect of the Divine Will that Men born free subject themselves to the Will of one sole or few persons so the changing of that Inclination cannot proceed but from Him who is the searcher of Hearts and gives us both to will and to do If Natural Causes had their effects as certain in Politicks as in Physicks States should have their limited durations as Plants and Animals have and yet
raising and sending forth vapors and spirits when these spirits meet others like themselves they serve them instead of a recruit and increase the good disposition of the body wherein they are And 't is this way that old women prejudice the health of Children whilst their vapid spirits are imbib'd by the tender skin of the Infants and so corrupting the humors disorder their natural functions Hence also consumptive persons give their disease to such as breathe near them and so likewise all contagious and occult maladies are communicated by one morbid subject to another dispos'd to receive the same affection But the latter sort of Fascination whereby common people think that not onely men and Animals may be kill'd but also plants dry'd up streams stopt stones broken in pieces and the like is no-wise in the power of nature whatever the Arabians say who ascribe all these effects to imagination whose power they equal to that of Intelligences who are able to move the whole Universe For if it doth nothing of it self in its proper body where it simply receives the species of things it must do less without its precinct Moreover 't is impossible for a sound man to make another sick because he cannot give what himself hath not they in whom by an extraordinary corruption the blood seed or other humors have acquir'd a venomous quality being necessarily sick So that 't is a pure work of Devils who knowing the properties of things apply the same really to the parts of the body without our privity whilst they amuze our senses with other objects as the aspect of another person or some such insignificant thing Besides that children being apt to lose their flesh upon unapparent causes such a change may be purely natural whilst it is by mistake charg'd upon a strangers praises of the Infant who must necessarily grow worse because it cannot become better CONFERENCE CLXXIII Of Amulets and whether Diseases are curable by Words Tickets or other things hang'd at the Neck or applyed to the body of the Diseased THis Question depends upon the Precedent for if 't is possible to make a person sick by the Aspect alone it may seem also possible to cure him by Contact alone In the examining of the matter we must distinguish as elsewhere also supernatural cures from those which come to pass according to the course of nature Of the former sort are all the Miracles of the Holy Scripture and Ecclesiastical History those which Gods power manifests in all times by his Saints and the cure which he hath reserv'd to our Kings by their sole Touch. Some cure may likewise happen naturally by the pronouncing of words when the Patients Fancy is so strong that it hath power enough over his body to introduce some notable change therein whence that Physician cures most in whom most confide Thus I have seen some persons eas'd of the Tooth-ache upon sticking a knife in a Tree and pronouncing some barbarous words But it falls out oftentimes that the effect of one cause is attributed to another Such was the cure of a Gentleman of the Ligue whom the late King Henry the IV. surprized in the Town of Loges as he was shivering with a Quartain Ague and the King in Railery sent him a Receipt against his Ague the sight whereof presently cur'd him through the fear he had of that unexpected approach So also many remedies act by some occult property as Paeony hung about Childrens necks against the Epilepsy and Quick-silver apply'd upon the Breast or hung in a Quill is believ'd a preservative against the Pestilence all precious stones are thought to have some vertue against some indisposition of the body or minde The Eagle-stone apply'd to the Arm retains the child in the Womb and to the knee facilitates Delivery Coral and the Jasper stop Blood the Nephitick Stone is conceiv'd to void the Gravel of the Kidneyes the hinder foot of a Hare carry'd in the Pocket cures the Sciatica of the same side from which it was taken For Remedies whose sole application cures by their penetrating and sensible vertue are not of this rank Thus if Quick-silver apply'd cures the Pox by causing a Flux at the mouth it must not be term'd an Amulet nor Cantharides when apply'd as a vesicatory they cause Urine nor Epithemes apply'd to the Heart or Liver but herbs and other things laid to the Patients wrist may be so styl'd when they have no manifest qualities proper against an Ague The Question therefore is Whether such Applications Suspensions and Wearings have any Natural Effect I conceive they have not For a Natural Action requires not only some Mathematical or Physical Contact but also a proportion between the Cause and its Effect Now what proportion can there be between a Prayer or other Speech most commonly insignificative and the Cure of a Disease much less between a little Ticket or other suspended Body and an Ague what is said of the weapon-salve being either fabulous or diabolical and alwayes superstitious as the Phylacteries of the Jews were Although this Error is so ancient that the Greek Athletae were wont to arm themselves with such things against sluggishness of which trifles their Adversaries also made use to overcome them in Wrastling and at this day some wear certain Chracters about them that they may win at play In like manner the Romans hung Amulets about their Children's necks which they call'd Praefifcini and Fascini and made of Jet as the Spaniards make them at present To which to attribute any power upon the account of their Form Number or other regard beside their Matter is an Error as great in Philosophy as it would be impiety and contempt of the Church to extend his conclusion to Dei's Reliques and other sacred things whose so continual Effect cannot be question'd but by the prophane and heretical The Second said That by the Doctrine lately publish'd in the Treatise of Talismans it appears that not only Matter but also Figure Number and other correspondences with the Celestial Bodies have some efficacy which to question because we know not the manifest Cause would be too great presumption Yea I would not call all such Effects Supernatural since there are so many things feasible whereof we know not the Cause And as to the Supernatural Effects of Amulets they are of two sorts For either they are perform'd by the favour and blessing of God who redoubles yea heightens to a seemingly unpossible degree the Effects of Natural Causes or else changes them Or they are effected by help of the Evil Spirit who is the Ape of Divine Actions As then in consequence of the Sacraments God's Graces are conferr'd upon Christians so the Devil agrees with the Sorcerer or Magician that as often as he shall make such a sign or speak such a word such an Effect shall follow whence 't is no wonder if the Devil though inclin'd solely to Evil sometimes does good as healing a Disease by applying
some to the disproportion between the seeds whence she that is barren with her first Husband is fruitful with her second Those of the woman are either internal or external The internal depend partly upon the seed and menstrual Blood and partly upon the temper of the Womb and the habit of the body The seed of a woman as well as that of man must be of a laudable temper quantity and consistence and provided of spirits enough If the maternal blood which concurs likewise to generation be too plentiful or too little no effect follows any more then if it were corrupted or wanted other requisite conditions The Womb which is like the soil to corn may be hurt either in its temper or its conformation or in the solution of continuity all which disorders hinder gravidation As for the habit of body we observe that fat women are barren either because the matter of Seed which is the purer portion of the Blood is turn'd into fat or because the Epiploon of fat Women pressing upon the Orifice of the Womb hinders the Seed from entring into the bottom of it Nor are Women too lean fit for Children by reason of their dryness and the tenuity of their Womb although they are far more fit than fat Women but this leanness is to be understood of so great an extenuation that it leavs the parts dedicated to Generation destitute of their vigour and due temperature Neither are the very tall or very low much fitter but those that are of a moderate Corpulency and Stature whose Breasts are firm and their lower parts larger than their upper Now since Conception is an Action proper to the Womb which quickens the Genitures the Woman ought rather to be said the Cause thereof than the Man and by the reason of contraries the Defect thereof must likewise be charg'd upon her The Second said That to blame Women for being more frequently barren than Men is to deprive them of their chief Glory which is Fruitfulness For Nature form'd them chiefly for propagation as the Conformation of their Bodies seems to prove in which the parts serving to that purpose as the Womb and Breasts have direct communications not only between themselves but also with the noblest parts of the Body Whence the Civilians reckon not Praegnation amongst Diseases notwithstanding all its inconveniences but with Physitians as a sign of health and good disposition Whereof Vlpian l. 14. ff de aedilit edicto gives this Reason Because their greatest and peculiar Office is to receive and preserve the fruit And therefore Woman having been in Nature's first intention design'd for Generation she must be also much more fit for it because Nature never fails of her end than Man who being born for Command Labour Contemplation and other more sublime Employments is design'd for Generation but in the more remote intention of Nature For not to speak of the desire of Coition which might renew the old quarrel that cost Tiresias his Eyes Women seem far more desirous to be Mothers than Men do to be Fathers and Nature gives no desires in vain Besides Man is naturally Hot and Dry a Temper less proper for Generation and he inoreases the same by Hunting Warr Exercises and other violent Labours not to speak of business and study On the contrary Women living alwayes at ease have a Constitution both of Body and Mind more calm and consequently more fit for this Action or rather Passion As therefore 't is more easie to suffer than than to act so Women must find less difficulty in Generation and consequently have less impediment to propagate than Men. I say nothing of Excesses in Dyet wherein Men are alwayes more licentious yet 't is the Excess of Wine that some alledge as the chief Cause why some Northern Countries are at this day almost desart whereas anciently they were so populous that Historians call'd the North the Shop of Men and the Magazine of Nations Witness the frequent Colonies issu'd from thence and the great inundations they have upon other parts of the world And possibly the reason why the Hebrew Law oblig'd a Man to marry the Relict of his issuless Brother was because it suppos'd the defect to proceed from the Husband and not from the Wife otherwise why should the Sister of a Wife deceas'd with issue succeed in her stead too But this Sex is reckon'd alwayes fit for ingendring and indeed is ever ready for it as the other is not which is the reason as a late Lady said why Men make sute to Women rather than these to them Perhaps also upon the same account barrenness under the Old Law was accounted by Women so great a reproach because being very rare 't is a kind of a monstrous thing in their Sex to be barren Moreover we hear many Women complain to the Judges which is one of the principal Causes of unfruitfulness But Histories afford scarce above three or four Women of whose inability their Husbands complain'd And to speak truth as fertility is imputed to the field and not to the grain so it must also be to the Woman alone who is the field of Nature and not to the Man The Third said That besides the Internal Causes of fruitfulness and barrenness there are also External ones which depend upon the Air Dyet Exercises Passions and the abuse of the other things call'd Not-natural The Air by the continual alteration it causeth in the Body which attracts the same by Respiration and Transpiration sometimes occasioneth either fruitfulness or sterility according to the variety of its Substance Temper and Qualities two whereof viz. Excessive Heat and Cold are great Enemies to Generation the one melting the other congealing the Humors but the excess of Heat least hinders it especially in Women the coldness of whose Temper is corrected by the warmth and increas'd by the coldness of the Air whence they are more amorous in Summer than in Winter Whereas the greater heat of Men is weakned by that of Summer and augmented by the coldness of Winter during which therefore they are more prone to Love So Dyet too contributes much to render our Bodies fruitful or barren not only altering but making them of the same Temper with it self Thus the waters of Nilus are so fertile that they make the Egyptian Women bring forth three or four Children at once by reason of the Salt-Nitre wherewith that River is impregnated and wherein Chymists place the principle of Fecundity because Ashes and Earth depriv'd of their Nitre produce nothing But cold waters even such as have the Virtue to petrifie render Women especially barren as most Women in Spain are through their frequent use of Ice and cold waters though some lay the fault upon the rarity and tenuity of their Bodies and the excess of Heat which also is the reason why the African and Southern people are not so fruitful as those of the North. Dyet hot and moist easie of digestion nutritive and full
of good juice conduceth much to render Women fruitful On the contrary the frequent use of food hot and dry gross and of bad juice may render them barren as Leeks and Garlick do and amongst other Plants Mint which was therefore forbidden to be eaten or planted in time of war wherein 't is needful to repair by Fecundity the loss of Men it causeth In like manner want of Exercise by the heaping up of superfluous Humors and too violent and continual Exercises by desiccating the parts oftentimes occasion sterility Amongst the Passions Sadness is the greatest Enemy to Generation whence Hesiod forbids marry'd people to see one another after a Funeral but only at their coming from a Bath or from places of Mirth In fine what ever is capable to impair the goodness of the Temper is contrary to Fruitfulness and Generation which above all other Natural Actions requires an exact harmony of the qualities and a perfect disposition of the noble parts which supply Matter and Spirits fit for this Action And although Men and Women are alike expos'd to External Causes yet Women being less vigorous are sooner wrought upon by them For to Internal Causes which are the most considerable Women are undoubtedly more subject since beside Seed which they supply as well as Man who to deserve the name of fruitful ought only to supply the same in requisite quantity quality and consistence and place it in convenient Recepticles the Woman must also afford Blood and also a place for receiving and preserving both the Seeds and Blood namely her Womb the least disorder whereof is sufficient to marr the whole work of Generation Wherefore since she contributes most to Generation and there are more Causes in her concurring thereunto if it take not Effect she is more in fault than the Man who hath not so many several concurrences in the business The Fourth said That the Causes of sterility being either Natural or Adventitious and equal in the Man and the Woman nothing can be determin'd upon this Question For in either Sex there are both universal and particular deficiences of right Temper and as many Effeminate Men as Viragoes the one not less unfit for Generation than the other as Aristotle saith Castration is practis'd in both and disorderly living is equal as well in Male as Female in these dayes For if Men exceed in drinking Maids and Women are as bad in Gluttony and Lickerishness If there be any difference 't is from the diversity of Climate Women being found more fruitful in hot Countries and less in cold but Men contrarily the intemperies of either Sex being corrected by an opposite constitution of Air. Hence such Women as have been long barren sometimes become fruitful by change of Air Places manner of Life and especially of Age by which the temperament of the Body being sensibly alter'd it acquires the Fruitfulness it wanted by acquiring the Qualities and Conditions necessary to Generation Many likewise upon the same reason become fuitful after the use of Mineral Waters or Baths and being thereby deliver'd from several Diseases to which barren Women are more subject than such as have Children whom Parturition rids of abundance of Excrements peculiar to that Sex and occasioning many disorders in the barren The Fifth said That the observation made by Bodin in his Republick and several other famous Authors that the number of Women much exceeds that of Men seems to void the Question Nature having thereby sufficiently given us to understand That fewer men are as fruitful as more women Which observation is verifi'd not only in the East and other Countries where plurality of Wives hath places but also in France where there is no Province wherein Virgins remain not unmarry'd for want of Husbands Moreover one man may beget abundance of Children in the space of nine moneths during which a woman breeds but one or two and therefore Man seems more fruitful then Woman who beginning to be capable of Generation but two years before Man doth viz. at 12 years old at the soonest ends 23 years sooner then he for men generate at 70 years of age and more but women end at 50. During which time also they are subject to far more infirmities and maladies than men who have not above four or five whereof women are not capable but women have fifty or threescore peculiar to themselves CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit COmplaisance is a habit opposite to Roughness the first being a Species of Civility the latter of Rusticity Now since we are complaisant either in good or bad things to be so must be commendable or blameable according to the nature of the object But because no body doubts that we ought to be complaisant in vertuous actions and that they are as culpable who connive at vice as they that commit it It remains to consider of Complaisance in indifferent things as 't is in common practise amongst men and as Juvenal represents it in a person that falls a weeping as soon as he sees his friends tears and when he smiles laughs aloud and if you say you are very hot he sweats if cold he runs to his Fur-gown Now the Question is whether such a man hath more of courage or baseness I conceive he shews himself a very pitiful fellow For this deportment differs not from that servile Vice Flattery which is near akin to Lying and easily turns from an indifferent to a vicious action Thus Courtiers varnish vices with the name of such vertues as have most conformity therewith calling Avarice Frugality Lasciviousness Love Obstinacy Constancy and so in other cases till they render themselves ridiculous even to those they praise who how vain soever they may be yet cannot hear their own praises without blushing at them being conscious that they displease all the hearers Indeed when I am complaisant to any one 't is for fear to offend him and fear was never an effect of Magnanimity To which all that can be excepted is that it belongs also to Prudence to fear formidable things But Fortitude and Courage are never employ'd in the practise of this vertue which therefore is very much suspected and oft-times serves for an excuse of cowardice Hence old men whom their cold blood makes less courageous are esteem'd the most prudent and if they be not the most complaisant 't is to be imputed to the sullenness attending that age as jollity doth youth Moreover as Courage leads us to act without fear of danger what we conceive good and just so it teaches us to call things by their proper names as Philip's Souldiers did On the contrary Complaisance teaches people to admire beauty in a deformed woman to commend a bad Poets Verses and desire a copy of them from him to give fair words to such as we will not or cannot do any kindness to in brief to dissemble all things and to disguise our words contrary to the frequent express
as often of apprehension as they thought of that sad fate Which fear ended with the Swine's meat and the Ship 's arrival at a safe Port where it appear'd that that vile Animal had felt none of that trouble which the Tempest had caus'd in the more unhappy men and consequently that their Imagination was the sole cause of it The like may be said of all other afflictions which men give themselves call'd therefore deservedly by the Wise-man Vanity and vexations of spirit For most of the inductions and consequences which the Mind draws from events prove false and nevertheless they give us real sorrows we see frequently that a great Estate left by a Father to his Children makes them debauch'd and worthless and degenerate from the vertue of their Parent who having receiv'd no inheritance from his own was constrain'd to labour and by that means attain'd Riches and Honour Whence it appears that the trouble of a Father leaving a small Estate to his Children at his death hath no foundation in the thing but only in his abus'd Imagination and consequently cannot be a real Evil and yet this is the most general Evil of all with the Vulgar Thus two men lodging under the same roof lost both their Wives not long ago one of them was so afflicted therewith that he dy'd of sorrow the other receiving the consolatory visits of his friends could not so well dissemble his joy but that it was perceiv'd and yet their loss was equal So that the sadness of the one and the joy of the other depended only upon the different reflection they made upon this accident Thus also the same affront that made one of Socrates's Disciples draw his sword made the Philosopher himself laugh at the sottishness of his enemy and every thing which the Vulgar calls Good or Evil Pain excepted is a Medal which hath its right side and its reverse CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether Man be the most diseas'd of all Creatures and why A Disease being a preternatural disposition hurting the Functions every living Body capable of action may become sick by some cause impeding its actions Hence not only Men but also Animals and even Plants have their Diseases which Theophrastus diligently describes Amongst Beasts though some are subject to particular Diseases as the Dog to Madness the Swine to Leprosie the Goat and Lyon to Fevers yet there is none so invaded with all sorts of Maladies as Man who is not exempt from any the least of his similary parts that is nourish'd being subject to twelve sorts of Diseases namely when they attract their aliment either not at all or but weakly or otherwise then they should or when they are defective either in retaining or concocting it or in voiding superfluities But if such part have sense too it may have fifteen if motion also eighteen And if it not only be nourish'd it self but labours also for the publick 't is lyable to twelve more according to the three ways that its Functions may be offended in attraction retention concoction and expulsion The Eye alone is subject to almost 200 infirmities and as if there were not ancient Diseases enough we see daily new ones unknown to former Ages Now the reason hereof lyes in the nature of Man who being the most perfectly temper'd and best compounded of all Animals because design'd to the greatest actions is therefore apt upon the least occasion to lose that evenness of proportion which as it requires a great train and concurrence of many things so also there needs but a little thing to subvert it by defect of the least of those requisites Indeed there are but two causes of Diseases to wit Internal and External and man is alike subject to both to the former by reason of his hot and moist temper which is prone to putrefaction and the more upon account of his variety of Food whereas other Animals never change their Diet which is the most probable cause of their health and good constitution For diversity of aliments incommodes Nature weakens the natural heat produces Crudities the Sources of most Diseases which also are frequently caus'd in Men by the internal Passions of Anger Fear and Joy The most ordinary external causes are the evil qualities of the Air pestilential vapours and malignant influences whereof Man's body is the more susceptible by reason of the tenderness of his Flesh and the porosity of his skin which on the contrary in other Animals is hard and cover'd with Hair Feathers and Scales and renders them less subject to the impressions of external bodies as also to Wounds Contusions Fractures and other solutions of continuity The Second said That such perfections or defects of things as we know most exactly seem to us the greatest as the excellences and defects of Pictures are not well observ'd but by those that are skill'd therein and he that is unacquainted with some certain Nation cannot know its Vices so as they that converse with it do Now Beasts being unable to signifie to us the differences of their pains and the other circumstances of their diseases hence we judge them to have fewer although the contrary appears in the Horse in whom observant Farriers remark a great number of Diseases to which we are not subject So that other Animals may have as many or more than Men who being less concern'd therein less understand them 'T is true the parts of Animals resemble ours saving what serve to distinguish their outward shape as appears by the Dissection of Apes whereby Galen learnt Anatomy and no difference is found between the Ventricles of a Man's and a Calfe's brain If their blood and other humors differ so do those of one Man from those of another Moreover Beasts have the same inward Causes Fear Anger and the other Passions in short all the other Non-natural things and not at their discretion as Man hath If a Dog hath the harder skin yet man is less lyable to blows and the injury of the Air. In fine who knows but it may be with these Animals as 't is with rusticks who though Men as well as we and subject to the same inconveniences yet all their Diseases are reduc'd to a few Heads since the true and spurious Pleurisie the Asthma the Cough the Palsie and other Maladies whereof we make so many branches are all reckon'd by them only for a hot or a cold Rheume The Third said The nearer Nature promotes Bodies to their utmost perfection the more frail she renders them And as in Mixts Glass which is her utmost atchievement is weaker and brittler than Stones so in Animals Man the most excellent and perfect is the most frail and weak by reason of the part wherein he abounds more than they and which advances him to wit the Brain the root of most Diseases And as the most noxious Meteors are form'd in the coldest Region of the Air so those that have a moist Brain are soft and less vigorous as Women and
whereby their violence redoubled makes the Earth rise in some places and so forms Mountains which therefore are more frequent on the Sea-coasts then elsewhere and seldom further from the same then a hundred and fifty Leagues Now that the Sea is higher then the Earth the Scripture notes and those that travel upon the Sea observe the truth of Genesis which saith that the waters were gathered together on a heap For being remote from a Port at such distance as would otherwise suffer the same to be seen the rising of the interposed waters intercepts the view thereof The Fifth said 'T is easie to conceive how waters running underground make breaches and abysses such as that at Rome into which Q. Curtius cast himself and also in many other places even in our time wherein a Town of the Grisons was totally involved in the ruines of a neighbouring Mountain whose foundations the torrents had undermined And what is found in digging up the ruines of Buildings paved streets and other footsteps of mens habitations so deep that the cause thereof cannot be attributed to a bare raising of the ground in building by some humane artifice shews that these changes happen'd by the depression and sinking of the ground whereon such Towns stood and by the overturning of neighbouring Mountains which in this case turn Plains into Valleys and Valleys into Plains or else into Mountains as also these Mountains into Levels all these changes which to us seem prodigious being no more so to Nature whose agents are proportional to their effect then when we cover an Ant-hill with a clod of Earth But 't is not likely that subterranean waters whose violence is broken by their windings can raise Mountains or so much as ordinarily Hills much less can they raise higher the cavities of Rocks which are the ordinary Basis of such Mountains since our Vaults are ruined by the sole defect of one cliff or stone which joyns and knits the rest together the sand Hills which the winds heap up in Lybia as the waves do the banks in the Sea pertaining as little to the Question as they deserve the name of Mountains Wherefore 't is probable that Mountains are as old as the Earth which was formed uneven by Gods command that so its declivities might serve for assembling the waters together for to say that the situation of the Sea is higher then the Earth is not only contrary to the experience of Dreiners who find the declivity of the Land by no more certain way then by the inclination of the waters but also to the belief and manner of speech of all the world who use the term of going downwards when people pass along with the stream of Rivers which run all into the Sea whose surface must therefore necessarily be lower then that of the earth Whereas it is said that all waters come from the Sea this is meant of vapors exhaled from it and converted into Rain and Springs from whence arise Rivulets Brooks and at length Rivers which terminate again in the Sea The Sixth said In pursuance of Copernicus's opinion which makes the earth turn about the Sun that the several concussions it receives from that motion may possibly elevate one place and debase another CONFERENCE CXC Whence proceed good and bad Gestures Gracefulness and ill Aspects THe Soul being the principle of all the actions we need go no further to find the cause of Gestures and Postures 'T is true that as this Soul is but a general cause being according to the opinion of most Divines alike in all men it must like melted Metal borrow its form from the Mould whereinto it is infused so the Soul follows the model of the Body and as she formed it so in some sort be modified by it exercising her functions variously according to the diversity of its Organs Whereunto also the humors and their mixture or temperament contributes very much Hence a man of small stature and cholerick hath quick and hasty motions the tall and phlegmatick more heavy and slow the Sanguine and middle-sized between both Nevertheless the principal reason is drawn from the conformation of the parts whence the Lame halts he who hath the Muscles and Ligaments of the hinder part of the Neck too short holds his Head too upright He who hath a great Mouth and a large Breast is a great talker and so of all the other parts from the diversity whereof even that of Languages is said to have come These Gestures are either universal as we see some gesticulate with the whole body or particular one contracting his Forehead another shrugging his Shoulders beating of measures with his Foot like a good Horse rubbing his Hands as if they were scabby or to be washed not being able to speak to any one without touching him pulling his Button or pushing him upon the Arm or Breast Where also is but too observable the troublesome way of some who never end their discourse but by an Interrogatory whether you hear them or at least by an hem which they continue till you answer them yea others interlard their speech with some word so impertinent that it takes away the grace from all the rest all Gestures words and vicious accents to which may be opposed others not affected or repeated too often because 't is chiefly their frequent repetition which renders them tedious and as blamable as the saying over and over the same word as on the contrary their seldomness serves for an excuse to those who have no other Above all it must be endeavoured that the Gestures suit or at least be not wholly opposite to that discourse which they accompany as that ignorant Comedian did who pronouncing these words O Heaven O Earth look'd downward at the first and cast up his Eyes at the last Whence one and the same Gesture may be good or bad in respect of the subject whereunto it is applied and according to its seldomness or frequency As for ill looks they are always disagreeable disfiguring the proportion of the countenance and proceeding also from the first conformation of the parts For as the Arm is bowed only at the Shoulder Cubit and Wrist and the Leg at the Knee and Ancle though the Soul which makes the flection be alike in all other parts but the articulation is only in those parts so the motion is carried alike to all the Muscles but only those disposed by their conformation to receive the figure of such grimaces are susceptible thereof They likewise sometimes happen upon Convulsion of the parts which cause the strange bendings we observe therein though never without a precedent disposition which may be called their antecedent cause The Second said That we ought to ascribe to the Imagination all the Motions and Gestures of the Body which are agreeable or displeasing according as they suit with that of the beholder Hence Fools and Children whose judgment is irregular are pleased with seeing such gesticulations and the grimacies of Jack-puddings
which displease the more judicious So that as there is one beauty absolutely such and another respective and in comparison of those who judge differently thereof according as they find it in themselves whence the Africans paint the Devil white because themselves are black and the Northern people paint him black because themselves are white so there are Gestures and Motions purely and simply becoming honest and agreeable others such only by opinion of the beholders as are the Modes of Salutation and lastly others absolutely bad as Frowning Winking biting the Lip putting out the Tongue holding the Head too upright or crooked beating of measures with the Fingers in short making any other disorderly Gesture All which defects as they are opposite to perfections which consist in a right situation of all the parts without affectation proceed from the Phansie either sound or depraved Which happens either naturally or through imitation The first case hath place in Children who from their birth are inclined to some motions and distortions of their Muscles which being double if one become weaker and its Antagonist too short it draws the part whereto it gives motion out of its natural seat as is seen in those that squint The second is observed in Children somewhat bigger who beholding some Gesture repeated render the same so familiar to themselves that at length it becomes natural to them Hence the prohibition of Mothers give their Children not to counterfeit the vices their companions bodies is not void even of natural reason because the Phansie is stronger in a weak Mind and when the Memory is unfurnished or other species whence the Phansies of Women are more powerful then those of Men. The Minds of Children being weak and residing in soft pliant Bodies more easily admit any idea's once conceiv'd And as a Language is more easily learn'd by Use then by Precepts so example is Extreamly prevalent and sweetly insinuating into the Phansie by the Senses diffuses its influence over the whole Body The Third said That if the Soul be an harmony as the pleasure it takes therein seems to intimate we need seek no other cause of the several motions and cadences of the Body which it animates 'T is the Soul which moves all the Nerves of the Body and carries to all the parts such portion as she pleases of Spirits proper to move them whereby like a player upon a Lute or some other Instrument she makes what string sound she pleases stretching one and loosening another And as Musick is such as the Quirrester pleases to make it delighting the Ear if it be proportionate thereunto and procuring the Musitian the repute of skilfulness if not the contrary happens so the Soul imprints upon the Body one figure or another which make a good or bad grace insomuch that oftentimes gracefulness is more esteemed than Beauty unless it may be better said to be part thereof for want of which beautiful persons resemble inanimate Statues or Pictures But as true Beauty is wholly natural and an Enemy to Artifice so the Soul ows to its original and first temper the good or posture which it gives its Body and there is as much difference between natural gracefulness and affected postures as between the Life and the Picture truth and appearance yea the sole suspicion of affectation offends us Moreover a Clown seldom becomes Courtly and whatever pains be bestowed in teaching him good Carriage yet still his defects appear through his constraint as on the contrary amongst Shepherds most remote from the civilities of the Court we see gentileness and dexterities which manifest that good carriage or Gestures are purely natural The Fourth said That in the Gestures and Motions of the Body two principles must be acknowledged one natural and the other accidental The former is founded in the structure and composition of every one's Body the diversity whereof produceth with that of the spirits humors and manners all the Actions and Passions which depend thereon the true motive causes of our Gestures and Carriages Hence he that suffers pain frowns he that repents bites his Lip or Fingers he that admires something and dares not express it shrugs his shoulders he that muses deeply turns his Eyes inward and bites the end of his Pen or Nails The accidental principle is imitation which next to Nature is the most efficacious cause and acts most in us Man being born for imitation more than any other Creatures as appears in that scarce five or six Species of Birds imitate our Language the Ape alone our Gestures we on the contrary imitate not only the voices of all Animals but also all their Actions And therefore as it cannot be denied that Nature contributes to our Gestures so neither can it be doubted that Imitation hath a power therein CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning IF Antiquity had not had Errors the cause of those who prefer the study of the Evening before that of the Morning would be very desperate But Reasons having more force here than the Authorities of Pedagogues who hold Aurora the friend of the Muses only to the end that their Scholars rising betimes in the Morning themselves may have the more time left after their exercises I conceive the Evening much more fit for any Employment of the Mind than any other part of the day the Morning leaving not only the first and more common wayes full of Excrements but also all the Ventricles of the Brain wherein the Spirits are elaborated and also the Arteries and Interstices of the Muscles full of vapors whence proceed the frequent oscitations contortions and extension of the members upon our awaking to force out the vapors which incommode them On the contrary the Evening even after repast finds those first wayes full of good Aliments which send up benigne and laudable vapors which allay and temper the acrimony of other more sharp and biting found by experience in Men fasting who for that reason are more prone to Choler Moreover Study consisting in Meditation and this in reflection upon the Species received into the Phansie 't is certain that the report of these introduced all the day long serves for an efficacious Lesson to the Mind when it comes to make review of the things offered to the Intellect for it to draw consequences from the same and make a convenient choice but in the Morning all the species of the preceding day are either totally effaced or greatly decayed Moreover the melancholy humor which is most proper for Study requires constancy and assiduity which ordinarily accompanies this humor and it is predominant in the Evening as Bloud is in the Morning according as Physicians allot the four humors to the four parts of the natural day as therefore the Sanguine are less proper for Study than the Melancholy so is the Morning than the Evening Hence the good Father Ennius never versified so well as after he had drunk which seldom happens in
and therefore not to be omitted in this important choice First the Pyrrhonians who doubt of all things and say There is no knowledge of any thing Secondly Those that doubt of nothing but think they know every thing Thirdly Those who are neither in doubt nor in perfect certainty but in search of Truth The first do found their Opinion upon this receiv'd Maxim That there is nothing in the Understanding but what pass'd through the Senses and these being fallacious our Notions must be so too That being we perceive not the essence of things we cannot say that we know any thing But these people may be answer'd That since they have not so much as a knowledge of their doubts they cannot make the same pass for a demonstrative maxim if they think they have such a knowledge they must grant that there is knowledge of some thing and if of doubts why not of certainties Moreover if the Senses be always fallacious it will follow that there are Powers which acting without impediment never attain their end and if our Understanding be always abus'd 't is in worse case than the faculties of Brutes who acquiesce in embracing their Objects In brief these dreamers cannot be ignorant that themselves exist because they act and that existence is the foundation of all action Nor are those that think they know every thing much more intelligent the former offend against Truth by denying it these by thinking it their sole Mistress They argue that since the Understanding is the Subject of the Intelligible Species which contain they say either actually or potentially the impressions of all Objects it follows that as soon as we frame a Notion we know all things But I ask these Knowing Men What Truths they know so easily which other Wits hold so difficult to be known Whether created or uncreated Verity The former is knowable only to it self we may demonstrate That it is but not What it is in its own Nature And how many errors have there been concerning the Nature of that Sole Necessary and true Being And as for the latter we know not the Truth of Essences but by their Accidents and these by Species which are very often perverted either in the Medium or the Organ But how can we know other things perfectly whereas we know not our Selves We know that we act but we know not how so that the Opinion of those that profess only to seek Truth is the best and surest though it ingageth us to continual labour and be the punishment said by the Holy Scripture to be inflicted upon Men both to satisfie and chastise their Curiosity Now Action is the Life of the Soul and that Science which keeps the Mind always awake is justly preferrable before that which renders so good an Agent idle and impoverishes it by perswading it that it hath riches enough already Besides all Men are of this Opinion either directly or indirectly And Dissenters themselves seek Reasons every day to maintain it Astrologers still endeavor to discover new Stars Chymists new Secrets Physicians new Remedies and Philosophers new Opinions CONFERENCE CXCVIII. Why Mules breed not THe First said That Mules are barren because every perfect Animal can produce only its own like by univocal Generation defin'd The production of a Living Thing descending from another Living Thing by a conjoyn'd Principle in order to similitude of Species But Mules cannot generate thus because being produc'd by a Horse and an Ass they are neither the one nor the other nor yet both together but a third Species retaining something of both So that after what-ever manner they joyn together they cannot make their like that is produce an Animal part Horse and part Ass If a Mule could generate it must be by coupling with a Species different from its own as with a Horse or an Ass whence infinite several Species partaking more or less of the nature of Horse or Ass would arise and so Forms being increas'd or diminish'd Substance should receive degrees of More and Less contrary to the Maxim of Philosophers And in this matter Nature's Wisdom and Providence is observable who rather suspends her Action than suffers any inconvenience to come by it The Second said That there are particular as well as general causes of the Sterility of Mules As first they want distinction of Sex that between them being only similitudinary and the parts they have answering to the genitals of other Animals having only the outward figure not the internal form and energy thereof Just as the Teats in Men Dogs Swine c. signifie nothing as to any use but serve only for correspondence with the Female and Ornament The Third said That the Sterility of Mules cannot be design'd by Nature only to avoid multiplication of Species in infinitum since this consideration hinders not but that Leopards and other Mixt Animals generate and Plants ingrafted upon others of different Species bear fruit But the cause hereof must be sought in the divers Temperature and Complexion of the Ass and Horse the former being very melancholy that is Cold and Dry as appears by his slowness the other Hot and Dry as he testifies by his nimbleness their two seeds mingled together compose a third which indeed hath Natural Heat and Radical Moisture enough for making an Animal but Nature having brought her work to this point can go no further because she spent all the Radical Moisture and Natural Heat she had in the first production whereby Mules have the Courage of the Horse and the Laboriousness of the Ass But the Mule having only Heat and Radical Moisture enough for it self and not enough for the production of another the same cannot be produc'd The Fourth said That the Number of Forms and Species of things being limitted 't is not in the power of Art and Nature to multiply them And though it be easie to multiply them in the family of Plants which are but of one Sex though some are distinguisht into Male and Female upon account of some small differences Yet 't is not in the Gardener's power to ingraft all sorts of Fruits one upon another For excepting the Colewort in whose foot when 't is become hard and ligneous one may ingraft some shrubs Plants of divers kinds mingle not one with another as trees with herbs or shrubs and herbs with trees Nor will the Pepin admit insition into the Nut-tree or on the contrary Nature differs from Art in this chiefly that she hath her work bounded and determin'd but Art counterfeits what the Artist pleases Whence Painters oftentimes draw fine Pictures and beget deform'd Children Every mixture of Perfumes is not pleasant nor of Medicaments effectual nor do our Sawces admit of any ingredients but only of some that are suitable and proper So also two several grains mixt together produce nothing because Nature hath temper'd seeds in such degree that nothing can be added or diminisht from them but deprives them of their efficacy If
a Fore-teller of the Sun's approach That the Fish called a Remora stops Ships under sail That the eye of a Dog prepar'd after a certain way keeps others from coming near the person that hath it That the powder of Crab-shells prepar'd draws out Arrows and Bullets shot into the Body That there is a certain Stone got out of the Snake which cures such as are subject to the Dropsie That Serpents are not found within the shade of Ash-trees That the Marygold follows the motion of the Sun That the precious Stone called a Topaze put into seething water immediately stayes the seething of it That the Emerald the Saphire the Turqueis Stone and Coral change their colours upon the happening of certain accidents to those who have them about them That there are certain Herbs which chase away spirits as well as Musick does and that the dispositions of a black and adust choler invite and entertain them Now from all these instances it may be deduc'd that as it is a great presumption to think to give reasons of all things so does it argue a certain weakness of mind to doubt of all that hath been alledged so great are the abysses and inexhaustible treasures of Nature whose operations transcend humane belief in thousands of other things as well as in the Question now under dispute CONFERENCE CCXXIV. Of Stage-Plays and whether they be advantageous to a State or not HUmane Life is travers'd by such a vicissitude of distractions and disturbances that not only the Civil but also the Ecclesiastical Magistrates have unanimously concluded it necessary that men should have some divertisements whereby their minds and bodies not able to undergo continual labour might receive some relaxation for want whereof they would be crush'd under the burthen of their affairs Now among those relaxations there is not any brings greater delight with it then what is perform'd on the Theatre that is Plays which represent unto us things past heighten'd with all the circumstances they are capable of which cannot be done by History as being a thing dead and not animated by Voice Gestures and Habits But if we add thereto that this innocent divertisement is attended by those advantages which may be deduc'd from excellent Sentences and Instructions we must conclude him who finds fault with it to be of a more than Timonian humour and a profess'd enemy to civil Society The proof hereof is deriv'd from the Use of it the true Touch-stone whereby good and profitable things are to be distinguish'd from such as are hurtful and unprofitable For there have been an infinite number of things taught by Men which have been smother'd as soon as brought forth and there are others also which the Inventors of them have out-liv'd but when an Invention finds a kind entertainment through many Ages it is the best argument that may be of its goodness And such is that of Comedy which how weak or ridiculous soever it might be at the beginning at which time Thespis got himself drawn through the Streets in a Chariot as he recited his Poems presently met with those who made it their business to cultivate and heighten it to that pitch of perfection whereto it is now come which is such that it is no wonder the greatest minds should yield to the charms of it For as those things that are sensible are more apt to move and make impressions on the spirits of men then such as are purely intelligible so Plays exposing to our eyes all things with a greater circumspection decorum and order then is observable in the actions of men commonly disturbed by unexpected emergencies and the unconstancy of their passions accordingly raise in us a greater aversion for crimes and greater inclinations to vertue Nay these cause more apprehensive emotions in our souls than they are apt to receive from any other representations whatsoever not excepting even the precepts of Philosophy it self which are weak enough when they are destitute of their examples imprinting in us such Characters as can hardly be blotted out in regard they force their passage into our Minds through several of our senses and as History prevails more by its Examples than the reason of its Precepts so Playes have the advantage of History in this regard that in the former things act upon us with greater efficacy This Influences it hath on us in captivating our Senses and Understanding is the more remarkable in that the greatest Witts are incapable of other reflections while they behold what is represented on the Stage Besides if the great business of the world be truly consider'd it is but a Stage-Play wherein every one acts a part he who would avoid Plays and not see the vanity of humane actions must find out some way to get out of the world Nor are all persons in a capacity to learn how they should demean themselves by Books and Precepts but all are susceptible of some instruction by Playes since that in these there are such sensible Lessons that the most ignorant may find in them certain encouragements to Vertue which on the Stage appears to them in her lustre and attended by those honourable rewards which the Poets bestow on Heroick Actions And as Geographical Maps cannot so well acquaint those who study them with the dispositions of people together with all the circumstances of places as Travels and Relations may In like manner Philosophy smites not the Senses as those passages do which are represented on the Theatre where such as are in Love the ordinary subject thereof may observe their own Adventures personated and take notice of their vain pursuits and the unhappy events of those which are carried on by unjust wayes In fine if immortality flatters ours labours with promises to transmit our Memory to Ages yet at a great distance from us what greater satisfaction can there be than to hope that our noble actions shall be represented on Theaters before Princes and Magistrates The Second said That Humane Nature being more enclin'd to evil than to good those confus'd representations which are made on the Stage of all sorts of good and bad things are more likely to make impressions of evil in the minds of men than to render them more inclinable to that which is good Whence it is to be inferr'd that the danger and inconveniences of Plays will outweigh their advantages This consideration occasion'd the banishing of them out of several States And whereas the Subjects of them are commonly taken from the Loves of some extravagant persons and the crimes attending them the end thereof must be answerable to the means which are lewd Artifices whereby it is compassed and where-with mens minds are imbu'd and so inclin'd to wicked actions and such as are most likely to promote the execution of their pernicious designs which would not happen were they ignorant of them Nay to go to the original of this kind of entertainments the most ancient of them acted in the time of Romulus was
the Capacities of those who love since that considering the amiable objects whether they be such and consequently there be cause for the loving of them or are not really such but only so conceiv'd by the apprehensive faculty they are equally fit to move the Will to love them and to gain its affections and they ought to be the more agreeable to it in that it finds in them its perfection and the accomplishment of its desires And so the plurality of Friends is so far from being any prejudice to Friendship that it sets a greater esteem upon it as also on him who loves The Fourth said That Friendship taken generally is a mutual Good-will between those who are desirous to do one another some reciprocal kindness but taking it more precisely it may be defin'd a Vertue by means whereof vertuous persons are so united in Affection and Will that they become absolutely like one another through a hearty good Will Concord and good Turns mutually done and receiv'd The former resides particularly in the interior motions of the mind the second in words and discourse the third in effects These are the three essential marks of a vertuous Friendship which not regarding its proper interest as those do who love upon the account of pleasure or profit courts not the objects it loves out of any other consideration than that of the Vertue or Science which render it recommendable Now these qualities being seldom found among many who ought to be equally furnish'd therewith that the Friendship may be reciprocal it is very hard to meet with so many Subjects capable of so sublime a Vertue as that which besides that combination of Vertues requiring much experience and a great process of time that we might not be deceiv'd in the choice of Friends with each whereof a Man according to the common saying should eat a bushel of Salt before he contracted a Friendship it will be found a much harder task to make such a strict examination of the qualities and dispositions of many than it will be to do it of one alone with whom consequently it is more safe to enter into Friendship than it can be with many The Fifth said That Friendship being grounded on conversation and there being not any more divertive and delightful than that between those who eat and drink together the Case is the same with friends as it is with guests which ought not to be under the number of three nor exceed that of nine whence came the ancient Proverb that a well-ordered Feast should not be under the number of the Graces nor transcend that of the Muses In a word since conversation is the ground-work of perfect Friendship as the former cannot be pleasant among less than three and must be confus'd and wearisome among above nine but is most divertive when five or six persons well-qualifi'd and perfectly understanding one the other fall into mutual discourse so Friendship cannot be of long continuance between two but there must be a third to encourage it yet with this further caution that it is better maintain'd among a greater number of persons equally vertuous provided nevertheless it exceed not that of nine to prevent the confusion and inconvenices attending a greater The Sixth said That though there be an absolute necessity of Friendship in all he transactions of humane life in order to the more pleasant expence of it yet are there principally two certain times wherein its necessity is more apparent to wit those of Prosperity and Adversity In the former our friends participate of our happiness in the latter of our misfortunes and whereas these last are commonly more frequent than good successes the plurality of Friends who are our second-selves making the burthen the more supportable by the part every one takes in our misfortunes it is much more expedient that a Man should have many then content himself with a small number which being not able to bear the brunt of so violent an assault he would be in danger of being overcome thereby Nay though all things should happen according to our wishes yet were it convenient to have a considerable number of Friends the more to congratulate our good fortune which will make the greater noise in the world the greater their number is who approve and applaud it The Seventh said That the plurality of Friends was equally inconvenient as well in good as bad fortune For in the latter it must needs trouble us very much to give occasion of grief to a great number of Friends who though they bemoan us ever so much yet are we still in the same period of misfortune nay our unhappiness is the greater in that it is contagiously communicated to so many persons at the same time In the former there cannot be any thing more troublesom then that great number of people who love or pretend to love us in our prosperity it being then impossible for us equally to satisfie them all as we might easily do one single Friend from whom we may also derive greater comfort in Adversity than from many addressing themselves to us at the same time to whose humours to accommodate our selves well we must study an unconstancy equal to that of Proteus and put on as many Countenances as they have different Inclinations The Eighth said That since a good thing is so much the more excellent the more it is communicated and diffus'd several ways Friendship ought to derive its esteem from that communication which the greater it shall be the more recommendable shall it make the Friendship which consequently is the more perfect among many to whom it is always advantageous since it comprehends the three kinds of Goods the profitable the pleasant and the vertuous For is there not much to be gain'd in a society which the more numerous it is the greater advantages and assistances may be deriv'd from it There is not any thing so highly delightful as to love and to be belov'd of many But whereas Friendship is the Livery of Vertue whose inseparable attendant she is Can there be any thing more vertuous and commendable then after that manner to love several others who love us and by that reflux of mutual kindness give assurances of our Vertue answerable to the acknowledgements we had made of their merit the multitude of Friends not abating any thing of the esteem of civil Friendship no more than the great number of charitable persons does prejudice Charity which is a consummate Love and equally embraces all CONFERENCE CCXXVII Of Oracles THere is not anything disquiets the Spirit of Man so much as the desire he hath to know things to come and whereas he cannot of himself attain thereto by reason of the weakness of his knowledge which he derives from the Senses and other corporeal powers he will needs try what he can do out of himself and there is no place into which his curiosity hath not found a way to discover what he so much desir'd
to another they make several mixtures as when they come to separate after their union they are the causes of the corruption of mixt bodies And these bodies have so much the more Resistance which is the last property of these Atoms the more dense and solid these last are as on the contrary when they are less dense and solid by reason of the vacuity there is between their parts the bodies consisting of them have so much the less vigour and force to oppose external injuries The Fourth said That there is not any better instance whereby the nature of Atoms can be explicated then those little Motes which move up and down the air of a Chamber when the Sun-beams come into it at some little hole or cranny For from this very instance which is so sensible it may easily be concluded not only that they are bodies which have a certain bulk and quantity how little and indivisible soever it may be but also that they are in continual motion by means whereof as those little corpuscula or Motes incessantly move and strike one against another and are confusedly intermixt one among another so the Atoms by their perpetual agitation and concourse cause the mixtures and generations of all natural things So that all consider'd it is as ridiculous on the other side to affirm that they are only imaginary principles because they are not seen as to maintain that those little Motes are not in the air because they are not perceiv'd to be there in the absence of the Sun-beams which we must confess renders them visible but with this assurance that they are nevertheless there even when they are not discern'd to be there The Fifth said That it is certain there are abundance of bodies in Nature which are in a manner imperceptible to our senses and yet must be granted to be real bodies and consequently endow'd with length breadth profundity solidity and the other corporeal qualities Such as these are among others the sensible Species which continually issue out of the Objects and are not perceiv'd by the senses but only so far as they are corporeal and material especially the Odours exhaling from certain bodies which after their departure thence in process of time decay and wither Of this we have instance in Apples and other Fruits which grow wrinkled proportionably to their being drain'd of those vaporous Atoms whereof they were at first full which evaporate in a lesser or greater space of time the more closely those little bodies stick one to another or the more weakly they are joyned together Nay the intentional Species how sublimated soever they be by the defaecation made by the agent Intellect are nevertheless bodies as are also the Animal Spirits which are charged therewith and the vital and natural whereby the former are cherish'd In like manner Light the beams of the Sun and of other Stars their Influences their Magnetick Vertues and other such Qualities observable in an infinite number of things between which there is a mutual inclination and correspondence or antipathy cannot be imagin'd to act otherwise then by the emission of certain little bodies which being so small and subtile that they are incapable of further division may with good reason be called the Elements and material Principles of all Bodies since there is not any one but consists of them The Sixth said That the concourse of these Atoms being accidental if we may credit Epicurus we cannot attribute thereto the causes of the generations happening in this World inasmuch as an accidental cause not being able to produce a regular effect such as is that of Nature in Generation it is ridiculous to attribute it rather to these Atoms than to some other cause which is such per se and always regular in its operations such as is Nature her self But what further discovers the absurdity of that opinion is this that it thinks it not enough to refer the diversity of the other effects which are observ'd in all natural bodies to that of the Atoms whereof they consist but pretends also by their means to give an account of that of our Spirits which those Philosophers would represent unto us made of those orbicular atoms and accordingly easily mov'd by reason of that round figure and that those in whom it is most exact are the most ingenious and inventive persons as others are dull and blockish because their Spirits have a lesser portion of those circular Atoms But this speculation may be ranked among pure chimaera's since that the functions of our Understanding being absolutely spiritual and immaterial have no dependence on the different constitutions of those little imaginary bodies nay though there were any correspondence between them and the actions of our minds their round figure would not be so much the cause of our vivacity as might be the pointed or forked as being more likely to penetrate into and comprehend the most difficult things than the circular which would only pass over them without any fixt fastning on them CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why THough this noisom Disease sometime fastens on several parts of the body yet is there not any more sensible of its malice than the neck which by reason of its being full of glandules is extreamly troubled therewith which happens as well by reason of their thin and spongy constitution as their nearness to the brain from which they receive the phlegmatick and excrementitious humours more conveniently than any of the other parts can be imagin'd to do which are at a greater distance from it And yet these last notwithstanding that distance are extremely troubled therewith nay sometimes to such excess that if we may credit Johannes Langius in the first Book of his Medicinal Epistles a Woman at Florence had the Evil in one of her Thighs which being got out weigh'd sixty pound and a Goldsmith of Amberg had another of the same bigness in a manner neer his Knee And what is much to be observ'd is that though the Evil seems to be only external yet is it commonly preceded by the like swellings which ly hid within and whereof those without are only the marks which observation is confirm'd by the dissections made of those who are troubled with it in whose bodies after their death there are abundance of these Evils whereof the Glandules of the Mesenterium and the Pancreas which is the most considerable of any about Man's Body are full and which are commonly produc'd by Phlegm the coldness and viscosity whereof do indeed contribute to their rebellion but it is very much augmented by the external and common Causes such as are Air Aliment and Waters infected with some malignant qualities which render it Endemious and peculiar to certain Nations as for instance the Inhabitants of the Alps and the Pyrenean Mountains especially the Spaniards who are more infected with this foul disease than any others which is also
full enough of miseries without needing addition of those that commonly attend Marriage which a Philosopher who had triy'd it said hath but two good dayes the first when there is nothing but laughing and the last which delivers us from that sad slavery perfectly contrary both to liberty and quiet the two greatest Goods a wise Man can enjoy in this Life which are inconsistent with the turmoil of Houswifrie and the Cares of Marriage from which therefore the Brachmans Gymnosophists Galli and Vestals and at this day such as are devoted to God's Service have been exempted to the end the better to mind Contemplation and Virtuous Exercises both hard to be done in Marriage wherein scarce any other Virtue is practis'd but Patience whereof 't is the true School which Socrates said He had learnt better by the scolding of his Wife than by all the Precepts of the Philosophers The Fourth said Men would be Vagrants and Stragglers like wild Beasts were it not for Marriage which is the foundation of the State for it makes Families and Families make Common-wealths which consequently owe their Nativity and increase to marry'd people who have a much greater interest in the Conservation of the State than those that have neither House nor Home as unmarry'd Men seldom have But as there is no compleat Good in this World so Marriage though a most holy and good thing in it self instituted by God in Paradise and during the state of Innocence hath nevertheless its incommodities not so much from it self as from the fault of the persons who know not how to use it as they ought The Fifth said 'T is peculiar to Marriage to have nothing small or moderate every thing in it is extream 'T is either full of sweetness and Affection or of Hatred and bitterness 't is either a Paradise or a Hell When 't is suted with all Conditions requisite there 's no state happier but when any is wanting no Infelicity equals it And because Good requires the integrity of all its constituent parts but Evil comes from the least defect 't is no wonder that few or no Marriages are happy since there is none wherein there is not something to be wisht for especially when the match is made as most commonly 't is by another's Hand though 't is strange that Men who are so circumspect and wary in other bargains searching examining and taking Essay of what they buy should have so little Prudence in an Affair of such Consequence and Danger There is nothing but a Wife that a Man is oblig'd to keep as long as he lives but they have been taken at a venture since at the instance of the Roman Dames the Law of Ancus Martius was abolisht who had purposely built a Temple to Male-Fortune near the Tyber where Women were carefully examin'd And as t is an intolerable madness to engage voluntarily into fetters and a perpetual Prison by subjecting one's self to the Caprichio of a Woman so 't is great simplicity in a Man to entrust his Honor the chiefest of all Goods to her inconstant humor who may render us infamous when the Phansie takes her I think therefore every one ought to consult himself Whether it be fit for him to marry or not that is Whether he believes he ha's Virtue and Constancy enough to suffer the defects of a Woman who may be commendable in some Point but at the bottom is alwayes a Woman CONFERENCE CXLII At what time the Rational Soul is infus'd AS Religion obliges us to believe that the Soul which is of an Immortal Nature comes immediately from God who drawing it out of the Abysse of Nothing at the same time creates it in the Infusing and infuses it in the Creating so nothing is determin'd absolutely touching the time in which that infusion is made For knowing which we must observe that the whole time of the Child's residing in the Womb is divided into four parts namely the Conception Conformation Motion and Parturition so distinguished between themselves that the time of Motion is about treble to that of Conformation and the time of Parturition double to that of Motion The whole work of Conformation is divided again into four times according to which the Matter contained is diversly fashioned and wrought and is called Geniture or Coagulated Milk Foetus Embryo and an Infant when the Conformation of the parts is finished which is at the thirtieth day for Boyes and at the forty second for Girles whose less Heat and more waterish materials require a longer time for Conformation of their Spermatick parts After which the Blood arriving fills the void spaces of the Muscles Fibres and other carnous parts which are not perfectly shaped till towards the time of Motion which is the third month for Males and the fourth for Females at which time the Second Conformation ends and the whole organization is compleated At first the Infant hath onely a Vegetative Life by means of which his parts are generated by the Alteration and Conformation of the Matter and are nourished and take their growth not onely by their Attraction from all parts of the Matrix but also by an Internal Vital Principle which is the Vegetative Soul residing in all fruitful seed and being the same with the Formative Faculty Now because the Vegetative or Sensitive Soul is but an accident namely a certain Harmony of the Four Qualities therefore they easily give place upon the arrival of the reasonable soul which I think happens when the organization of the parts is perfected to wit about the third or fourth month before which time the Body not being organized cannot receive the Soul which is the act of an Organical Body which also she forsakes when upon any notable solution of continuity the Organs are destroyed and abolished oftentimes though the Temper of the similary parts be not hurt which consequently is not the sole requisite for the Infusion of the Soul but also the convenient Fabrick of the Organs The Second said That the opinion which introduces the Rational Soul in the first days of Conception as soon as the matter necessary for receiving it begins to put on the diversity of Organs is the most probable since by this means this soul differs from others in that it proceeds and makes the dispositions whereas others follow the same and absolutely depend thereupon And the same reason which obliges us to acknowledg the Reasonable Soul after motion constrains us to admit it before which nothing hinders us from attributing to some other cause as to the Sensitive Soul introduc'd before the Rational saving that causes are not to be multiplied without necessity and one Soul alone may suffice for Sense whilst yet the defect of Organs allow not the exercise of Reason The same reason shews how absurd it is to assign any other cause in the first days of the Vegetative Actions it being as easie to infer the presence of the Reasonable Soul by this sort of actions as
think 't is from some hideous Phantasms irregularly conceiv'd in the Brain as a Mola or a Monster is in the womb which Phantasms arising from a black humor cause Sadness and Fear a Passion easily communicable because conformable to the Nature of Man who consisting of a material and heavy Body hath more affinity with the Passions that deject him as Fear doth than with those which elevate him as Hope and Ambition do The moral cause of Panick Terror is Ignorance which clouds and darkens the light of the Soul whence the most ignorant as Children and Women are most subject to this Fear and Souldiers who are the more ignorant sort being taken out of the Country and from the dregs of the people become easily surpriz'd with it and by the proneness of Men to imitation upon the least beginning it finds a great accession and familiarity in Humane Nature The Fifth said That the cause of this Terror may be a natural prescience our Souls have of the evil which is to befall us which is more manifest in some than in others as appear'd in Socrates who was advertis'd of what-ever important thing was to befall him by his familiar Spirit or good Angel Now if there be any time wherein those Spirits have liberty to do this 't is when we are near our End our Souls being then half unloos'd from the Body as it comes to pass also at the commencement of a battel through the transport every one suffers when he sees himself ready either to die or overcome CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of Germain's Fair. THis Person is of a middle Stature hath a large Breast as also a Face especially his Fore-head very great Eyes and is said to be sixty years old though he appears to be but about forty He was born in the Town of Nota in the Island of Maltha and is nam'd Blaise Manfrede They that have observ'd him in private Houses and upon the Theatre relate that he makes his experiment not only every day but oftentimes twice in one afternoon Moreover vomiting so freely as he does he is always hungry when he pleases His Practise is very disagreeing from his publish'd Tickets wherein he promises to drink a hundred quarts of water but he never drinks four without returning it up again His manner is thus He causes a pail full of warm water and fifteen or twenty little glasses with very large mouths to be brought to him then he drinks two or three of these glasses full of water having first washt his mouth to shew that there is nothing between his teeth Afterwards for about half a quarter of an hour he talks in Italian which time being pass'd he drinks three or four and twenty more of the said glasses and thereupon spouts forth of his mouth with violence a red water which seems to be wine but hath only the colour of it This water appears red as it comes out of his mouth and yet when it is spouted into two of his glasses it becomes of a deep red in one and of a pale red in the other and changing the situation of his glasses on the left side of his mouth to the right and of those on the right to the left these colours always appear different in the same glass namely the one of a deep red and the other yellow or Citron-color Some of the water is of the color of pall'd wine and the more he vomits the clearer and less colour'd the water is He hath often promis'd to bring up Oyl and Milk but I never saw nor heard that he did it This done he sets his glasses to the number of fifteen or sixteen upon a form or bench to be seen by every one After which he drinks more water in other glasses and brings it up again either clear water or Orenge flower water or Rose-water and lastly Aqua Vitae which are manifest by the smell and by the burning of the Aqua Vitae having been observ'd to keep this order always in the ejection of his liquors that red water comes up first and Aqua Vitae last He performs this Trick with thirty or forty half glasses of water which cannot amount to above four quarts at most then having signifi'd to the people that his Stomack although no Muscle which is the instrument of voluntary motion obeys him he casts the same water up into the Air with its natural colour so impetuously that it imitates the Casts of water in Gardens to the great admiration of the Spectators who for six weâ—ks together were seldom fewer than three hundred daily For my part I find much to admire in this action For though men's Stomacks be of different capacities and some one person can eat and drink as much as four others yet I see not possibly where this fellow should lodge so much water And again he seems rather to powr water into a Tun than to swallow it though the conformation of the Gullet doth not consist with such deglutition Besides vomiting is a violent action and yet most facile in this Drinker And as to the order of this Evacuation 't is certain that all things put into the Stomack are confounded together therein so that Concoction begins by Mixtion and yet this fellow brings up what-ever he pleases as 't were out of several vessels so that he undertakes to eat a Sallad of several sorts of Herbs and Flowers and to bring them up all again in order Moreover what can be more prodigious than this mutation of Colours Smells and Substances And indeed they say he hath sometimes fear'd to be question'd for Sorcery But the greatest wonder is that smartness and violence wherewith he spouts out water from his Stomack not laterally which is the ordinary manner of vomiting but upwards which is a motion contrary to heavie bodies as water is Some speculative person that had read in Saint Augustin that a Man's being turn'd into a Horse by the power of Imagination might refer the cause of all these wonders to that faculty which daily producing new shapes upon the Bodies of Children in their Mothers womb may with less strangeness produce in this Man the above-mention'd alteration of one colour into another And as for his facility of bringing up what-ever he hath swallow'd I can find no better Reason for it than Custom which in him is turn'd into Nature The Second said That Ignorance being the Mother of Admiration we begin less to admire as we proceed to more Knowledg Now if this Maltese were a Magician he would do more marvellous things and of more than one sort whereas all his power is confin'd only to the vomiting up of liquors which he drunk before and the faculty of his Stomack being determin'd to this single kind of action the same must be natural because that is the definition of natural powers Moreover no action ought to be accus'd of Magick till good Reasons have evinc'd it to surpass all the powers of Nature
which is very hard to prove because we know not how far they may reach And should we accuse of Magick every thing when we understand not the Causes almost all Natural Philosophy would be turn'd into superstition Again a Man that promises more than he can perform drinking but the twentieth part of what he boasts of and who can make but one sort of colour issue out of his mouth though he exposes several others to the Spectator's Eyes cannot pass for a great Sorcerer or refin'd Magician As for the easiness and violence where-with he casts water out of his Stomack at pleasure it cannot be either from Artifice or Custom alone which cannot put free and voluntary motions into parts wherein there is none nor procure new Organs necessary to this action and no Man being able to accustom himself to move his Ears at his pleasure unless the same be naturally dispos'd thereunto as Manfrede's Stomack is Now natural dispositions are only of two sorts some depend upon the Temperament which is incapable of this effect others belong to the Stomack as it is an Organical part namely a particular Conformation which may be easily conjectur'd from the example of ruminating Animals who when they list bring up their food out of their Stomack into their mouth An action not impossible to Men since Nature oftentimes by error gives one Species such a Conformation in some parts as is of right peculiar to another and accordingly the faculty of ruminating is found in divers Men. Aquapendens saw two to whom this action was more voluntary than that whereby we void our excrements when they importunately solicite us observing expresly that they were not constrain'd to it but by the pleasure which they took in it And the same Author likewise records that opening the Body of one that ruminated he found one Membrane of his Stomack more fibrous and strong than ordinary And the same is probably so in that of this Maltese since this voluntary motion can proceed only from such a Conformation In like manner these persons that have been able to move their Ears have been observ'd to have the Muscles behind them more fleshy than other Men. And our Conjecture is further confirm'd by the Instance of the Bladder whose Excretion is perform'd by the Pyramidal Muscles which oftentimes are deficient and in that case their office is supply'd by the carnous Membrane of the Bladder which is valid and performs the motions of a Muscle according to the opinion of the greatest Anatomists of this Age. So that what is so ordinary in the Bladder is not to be admir'd in the Stomack Besides that Custom may have much increas'd the strength and dexterity of this faculty and although it have not otherwise conduc'd in the least to the effect but only as founded upon a natural Disposition That all ruminating have not been able to do the like is because they neglected to increase the natural Disposition by use and practise and as to the diversity of colour and smells there is nothing therein but artifice and fallacy The Third said That what is here thought most admirable the drinking of a great quantity of Water is seen every day at Pougues and Forges where you shall have one Person drink sixty glasses and those that have seen the Stomach that hangs up in the Anatomical Theater of Leyden and is capable of seven quarts will not think it strange that this Maltese drinks much less As for the diversity of Liquors which he brings up discern'd by their several colours smells and the inflammability of the Aqua vitae I attribute it to the perfection of the reasonable soul which as well as all other forms imprints Dispositions in the matter this being universal that besides the Properties common to the whole Species there is a particular one in every Individual which distinguishes the same from others and comes from the last Character of the form That of the Maltese is to turn common Water into Wine Orenge-flower-water Rose-water and Aqua vitae For the diversity of matter and its dispositions signifies nothing as to the mutations introduc'd therein by the Forms though one may say that in common Water especially that of the Well all the Elements and the three Principles of Chymistry are found having its Salt from the Earth its Sulphur from the Bitumen and Naphtha wherewith the Caverns of the Earth and especially Wells abound and as for Mercury 't is nothing but water it self No wonder then if since every thing may be made of every thing by the Maxim of the most ancient Philosophers our Maltese fetches what he pleases out of his Stomack The Fourth wonder'd if this Maxim were true That every thing is made of every thing in the Maltese's Belly even without any distinction or preparation of the matter why this Water-drinker fetcht so great a circuit to get money since 't would be a shorter way for him to make it and even Gold it self by the same reason or at least he would make sale of his sweet Waters and not suffer the Perfumers to be at such charge in fetching them from far If he make it his excuse that he would not get vent for such an abundance why if there be no cheat in the thing hath he not taken occasion of the dearness of Wine in France this year to sell the Wine he makes in Paris But Experience renders it manifest that the Wine he promises is nothing but water and consequently he is less able to make Aqua vitae into which water cannot be turn'd but by first taking the nature of Wine and indeed there needs more wine to yield the quantity of Aqua vitae he pretends to bring up then he drinks water before he ejects it Besides Chymistry manifests that Aqua vitae is not made but only separated Nor can this change be a Property in the Malteses Stomack because all Properties are specifical and belong to all the Individuals of the same Species there being nothing peculiar in any man but a certain degree of indivisible temperament call'd Idio-syncrasie And if his temper be so hot as to turn common water in an instant into Aqua vitae 't is impossible to be cold enough to make Rose-water at the same time if it have any transmuting vertue it ought to turn all into one sort of Liquor because the same Agent never makes but the same Effect unless the Subject be diversifi'd by diversity of matter whereas here 't is all water from the same Spring Neither could this Drinker drink Well-water without intoxication because being turn'd into Aqua vitae the vapors thereof would mount up into his brain and so to prescribe him water in a Feaver would be no more refreshment to him then if one gave him Aqua vitae The fifth said That the diversity of colours and odors of the Liquor he ejects proceeds from the tincture of some mass of Essence extracted from the same materials which those