Usefulness from those of the foregoing Discourse We instantly suppose a Man to have made some Reflections upon two Idea's which he finds in his Soul one that represents the Body and the other which represents the Mind and that he is able easily to distinguish them by the positive Attributes they contain In a word that he is very well satisfi'd that Extension is a different thing from Thought Or we will suppose he has read and meditated on some places of St. Austin as the 10th Chapter of the 10th Book Concerning the Trinity the 4th and 14th Chapters of his Book concerning The Quantity of the Soul at least Mr. Des-Cartes's Meditations especially that Part which treats of the Distinction of the Soul and Body or lastly Mr. Cordemoy's sixth Dissertation concerning the Difference of the Soul and Body We suppose farther that he is acquainted with the Anatomy of the Organs of the Senses and knows that they consist of little Threads or Fibres which derive their Origine from the middle of the Brain that they are dispers'd through all the Members wherein there is Sensation and being continued without any Interruption are terminated upon the External parts of the Body that whilst a Man is awake and in health one of the Extremities cannot be mov'd but the other will be mov'd in the same time because they are always somewhat Intense and upon the stretch the same thing which happens to a Cord that is intense one part whereof cannot be mov'd but the other must receive some Vibration 'T is farther necessary to know that these little Threads or Fibres may be mov'd by two several ways either by that end that is external to the Brain or by the end which terminates in the Brain If these Fibres are externally agitated by Objects acting on them and this Agitation be not communicated so far as the Brain as it happens in Sleep the Soul receives no fresh Sensation from them at that time But if these Fibres are moved in the Brain by the course of the Animal Spirits or by any other cause the Soul has a Perception of something though the Parts of these Fibres which are without the Brain and are dispers'd throughout all the Parts of the Body are quiet and undisturb'd as it happens when a Man 's asleep It will not be amiss to observe here by the way that Experience certifies us it is not impossible to feel Pain in those parts of our Body which have been intirely cut off Because the Fibres of the Brain which correspond to them being Vibrated in the same manner as if those Parts were actually wounded the Soul feels in those Imaginary Parts a most real Pain For all these things are a palpable Demonstration that the Soul immediately resides in that Part of the Brain in which all the Organs of the Senses terminate and centre I mean that in this Part she receives the Sensation of all the Changes that there occur in reference to the Objects that have caus'd them or have us'd to cause them and she has no Perception of any thing happening in any other Part but by the Intervention of the Fibres which terminate therein This being laid down and well understood it will be no hard thing to discover how Sensation is effected which is necessary to be explain'd by some particular Instance When a Man thrusts the Point of a Needle into his hand this Point moves and separates the Fibres of the Flesh. These Fibres are extended from that Place to the Brain and whilst he is awake they are so Intense that they can receive no Concussion or Vibration but it is Communicated to those in the Brain It follows then that the Extremities of the Fibres in the Brain must be in like manner mov'd If the motion of the Fibres of the Hand is Moderate that of the Fibres of the Brain will be so too and if this Motion is violent enough to break something in the Hand it will be more forcible and violent in the Brain Thus if a Man holds his Hand to the Fire the little parts of the Wood whereof it continually throws out innumerable quantities with great violence as Reason upon the defect of our Sight demonstrates beat against the Fibres and communicate a Part of their Agitation to them If that Agitation be but moderate that of the Extremities of the Fibres in the Brain which answer to the Hand will be moderate also And if this Motion be violent enough in the Hand to separate some Parts of it as it happens when it is Burnt the Motion of the Internal Fibres of the Brain will be proportionably stronger and more violent This then is what occurs in our Body when Objects strike upon us we must now see what happens to our Soul She is principally Resident if we may be permitted so to speak in that Part of the Brain where all the Fibres of our Nerves are centred She is seated there in order to cherish and preserve all the Parts of our Body and consequently it is necessary she should have notice of all the Changes that occur therein and that she be able to distinguish those which are adapted and agreeable to the Constitution of her Body from the contrary since it would be to no use or purpose for her to know them absolutely and without Relation to the Body Thus though all the Changes of our Fibres do in true speaking consist merely in the Motions of them which are generally no farther different than according to the Degrees of more or less yet it is necessary for the Soul to look upon these Changes as Essentially different For though they differ very little in themselves they ought however to be consider'd as Essentially different in reference to the Preservation of the Body The Motion for instance that produces Pain has rarely any considerable difference from that which causes Titillation There is no necessity there should be any Essential Difference betwixt these two Motions but it is necessary there should be an Essential Difference betwixt the Titillation and the Pain which these two Motions cause in the Soul For the Vibration of the Fibres which accompanies Titillation certifies the Soul of the good Constitution of her Body and assures her it has Strength enough to resist the Impression of the Object and that she need not be under any Apprehensions of its being injur'd by it But the Motion which accompanies Pain being somewhat more violent is capable of breaking some Fibre of the Body and the Soul ought to be advis'd of it by some Disagreeable Sensation so as to be aware of it for the future Thus though the Motions which are occasion'd in the Body are no farther different in themselves than according to the Degrees of more or less yet being consider'd with Relation to the Welfare and Preservation of our Life they may be said to differ Essentially 'T is upon this account our Soul has no Perception
Foundation of his System from which may ever be deduc'd all the profit that could be expected from the true to make all necessary advances in the knowledge of Man Since then the Imagination consists only in the Power the Soul has of Forming the Images of Objects by imprinting them as I may so say in the Fibres of the Brain the greater and more distinct the Impresses of the Animal Spirits are which are the strokes of these Images the more strongly and distinctly the Soul will imagine Objects Now as the Largeness and Depth and Cleaverness of the strokes of any Sculpture depend upon the Forcible Acting of the Graving Instrument and the plyable yielding of the Plate so the Depth and the Distinctness of the Impresses of the Imagination depend on the Force of the Animal Spirits and the Constitution of the Fibres of the Brain And 't is the Variety that is found in these two things which is almost the universal Cause of that great Diversity we observe in the Minds of different Men. For 't is no hard thing to account for all the different Characters to be met with in the Minds of Men On the one hand by the Abundance and Scarcity by the Rapidness and Slowness by the Grossness and the Littleness of the Animal Spirits and on the other hand by the Fineness and Courseness by the Moisture and Driness by the Facility and Difficulty of the yielding of the Fibres of the Brain and lastly by the Relation the Animal Spirits may possibly have with these Fibres And it would be very expedient for every one forthwith to try to Imagine to himself all the different Combinations of these things and to apply himself seriously to the Consideration of all the Differences we have observ'd between the Minds of Men. Because it is ever more Useful and also more Pleasant for a Man to employ his own Mind and to accustom it to the finding out Truth by its own Industry than to suffer it to gather Rust by a careless Laziness in applying it only to things wholly digested and explain'd to his hands Besides that there are some things so delicately nice and fine in the different Character of Minds that a Man may easily sometimes discover them and be sensible of them himself but is unable to represent them or make them sensible to others But that we may explain as far as possibly we can all the Differences that are found in different Minds and that every Man may more easily observe in his own the Cause of all the Changes he sensibly perceives in it at different times it seems convenient to make a general Enquiry into the Causes of the Changes which happen in the Animal Spirits and in the Fibres of the Brain Since this will make way for the Discovery of all those which happen in the Imagination Man never continues long like himself all Mankind have sufficient Internal Convictions of their own Inconstancy A Man judges one while in one manner and another while in another concerning the same Subject In a word the Life of a Man consists only in the Circulation of the Blood and in another Circulation of Thoughts and Desires And I am of Opinion a Man can't employ his Time much better than in Searching for the Causes of these Changes we are subject to and entring into the Knowledge of our Selves CHAP. II. I. Of the Animal Spirits and the Changes they are subject to in general II. That the Chyle entering the Heart occasions a Change in the Spirits III. That Wine does the same thing 'T IS confess'd by all the World that the Animal Spirits are nothing but the more subtil and agitated parts of the Blood which Subtilty and Agitation is principally owing to the Fermentation it receives in the Heart and the violent Motion of the Muscles which constitute that part That these Spirits together with the rest of the Blood are conducted through the Arteries to the Brain And that there they are separated from it by some parts appropriated to that purpose but which they are it has not been yet agreed upon From whence we ought to conclude that in case the Blood be very subtil it will have abundance of Animal Spirits but if it be gross the Animal Spirits will be few That if the Blood be compos'd of parts easie to be inflam'd in the Heart or very fit for Motion the Spirits in the Brain will be extreamly heated and agitated And on the contrary if the Blood admits little Fermentation in the Heart the Animal Spirits will be languid unactive and without force And lastly according to the Solidity which is found in the parts of the Blood the Animal Spirits will have more or less solidity and consequently greater or lesser force in their Motion But these things ought to be explain'd more at large and the Truth of them made more sensibly apparent by Examples and uncontroverted Experiments that prove them The Authority of the Ancients has not only blinded some Mens Understandings but we may say has seal'd up their Eyes For there are still a sort of Men that pay so submissive a deference to Ancient Opinions or possibly are so stiff and obstinate that they will not see those things which they could not contradict would they but please to open once their Eyes We daily see Men in good Reputation and Esteem for their Study Write and Dispute publickly against the Visible and Sensible Experiments of the Circulation of the Blood against that of the Gravitation and Elastick force of the Air and others of the like Nature The Discovery Mr. Pacquet has made in our Time and which we have here occasion for is of the number of those that are mis-fortunate meerly for want of being Born Old and as a Man may say with a Venerable Beard I shall not however omit to make use of it and am under no Apprehension of being blam'd by Judicious Men for doing so According to that Discovery it is manifest that the Chyle does not immediately pass from the Viscera to the Liver through the Mesaraick Veins as was believ'd by the Ancients but that it passes out of the Bowels into the Lacteal Veins and from thence into several Receptacles where these Veins coterminate That from thence it ascends through the Ductus Thoracicus along the Vertebrae of the Back and proceeds to mix with the Blood in the Axillary Vein which enters into the Superiour Trunck of Vena Cava and thus being mingled with the Blood it discharges it self into the Heart It ought to be concluded from this Experiment that the Blood thus mingled with the Chyle being very different from that which has already circulated several times through the Heart the Animal Spirits that are only the more fine and subtil parts of it ought to be very different in Persons that are fasting and others after they have eaten Again because in the Meats and Drinks that are us'd there is an infinite Variety
gross and difficult to be put in Motion As for those Nerves which environ the Arteries and Veins their Use is to put a stop to the current of the Blood and by their Pressure and Constriction of the Veins and Arteries oblige it to flow into those places where it meets with a passage more free and open Thus that part of the great Artery which furnishes all the parts of the Body below the Heart with Blood being bound and straitned by these Nerves the Blood must necessarily enter the Head in greater quantities and so produce a Change in the Animal Spirits and consequently in the Imagination But it ought to be well observ'd that all this is perform'd by mere Mechanism I mean that all the different Movements of these Nerves in all the different Passions are not affected by the Command of the Will but on the contrary are perform'd without its orders and even in contradiction to them Insomuch that a Body without a Soul dispos'd like that of a â—ound Man would be capable of all the Movements which accompany our Passions And thus Beasts themselves might have such as nearly resembled them though they were only pure Machines This is the thing for which we ought to admire the Incomprehensible Wisdom of Him who has so regularly rang'd and contriv'd all these Natural Wheels and Movements as to make it sufficient for an Object to move the Optick Nerve in such and such a manner to produce so many diverse Motions in the Heart in the other inward parts of the Body and on the Face it self For it has lately been discover'd that the same Nerve which shoots some of its Branches into the Heart and into other Internal parts communicates also some of its Branches into the Eye the Mouth and other parts of the Face so that no Passion can rise or mutiny within but it must betray presently it self without because there can be no Motion in the Branches extended to the Heart but there must another happen in those which are spread o'er the Face The Correspondence and Sympathy which is found between the Nerves of the Face and some others answering to other places of the Body not to be nam'd is still much more Remarkable and that which occasions this great Sympathy is as in the other Passions because these little Nerves which climb into the Face are only Branches of that which descends lower When a Man is overtaken with some violent Passion if he is careful to make a Reflection upon what he feels in his Entrails and in other parts of his Body where the Nerves insinuate themselves as also upon the Changes of Countenance which accompany it and if he considers that all these divers Agitations of the Nerves are altogether involuntary and that they happen in spite of all the Resistance that our Will can make to them he will find it no hard matter to suffer himself to embrace this simple Exposition that hath been given of all these Relations and Correspondencies betwixt the Nerves But if a Man examines the Reasons and the End of all these things so much Order and Wisdom will be found in them that a little Soberness of Thought and Attention will be able to convince the most devoted Admirers of Epicurus and Lucretius that there is a Providence that governs the World When I see a Watch I have reason to conclude that there is some Intelligent Being since it is Impossible for Chance and Hap-hazard to produce to range and posture all its Wheels How then could it be possible that Chance and a confus'd Jumble of Atoms should be capable of ranging in all Men and Animals such abundance of different secret Springs and Engines with that Exactness and Proportion I have just Explain'd and that Men and Animals should thereby procreate others exactly like themselves So ridiculous it is to think or to say with Lucretius That all the parts which go to the Composition of Man were pack't together by Chance that his Eyes were not made with any design of Seeing but that he afterwards thought of Seeing because he found he had Eyes And thus with the other parts of the Body These are his Words Lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata Prospicere ut possimus ut proferre vidi Proceros passus ideo fastigia posse Surarum ac foeminum pedibus fundata plicari Brachia tum poro validis ex apta lacertis Esse manúsque datas utraque à parte ministras Vt facere ad vitam possimus quae foret usus Caetera de genere hoc inter quaecunque pretantur Omnia perversa praepostera sunt ratione Nil adeo quoniam natum ' st in corpore ut uti Possemus sed quod natum ' st id procreat usum Must not he needs have a strange Aversion to a Providence who would thus voluntarily put out his Eyes for fear of seeing it and endeavour to render himself insensible to Arguments so strong and convincing as those Nature furnishes us withal I confess when once Men affect to be thought bold or rather Atheistical Wits as did the Epicureans they presently find themselves benighted in darkness and see only false glimmerings for the future they peremptorily deny the most clear and Self-evident Truths and as haughtily and Magisterially affirm the falsest and obscurest Things in the World The Poet I have just cited may serve as a Proof of that Blindness of these venturous Wits he confidently pronounces and against all appearance of Truth about the most difficult and obscurest Questions when at the same time it may well be thought he has no Preception of Idea's that are most clear and evident If I should stand to transcribe passages of that Author to justifie what I say I should make too long and tedious a Digression for though it may be permitted me to make some Reflections which stay and fasten the Mind for a Moment upon essential Truths yet I should never attone for making Digressions which throw off the Mind a considerable time from its Attention to its principal Subject to apply it to things of little or no Importance CHAP. V. I. Of the Memory II. Of the Habits WE have been explaining the general Causes as well External as Internal which effect a Change in the Animal Spirits and consequently in the Imaginative Faculty We have shewn that the External are the Meats we feed upon and the Air we take in for Respiration And that the Internal consist in the Involuntary Agitation of certain Nerves We know no other general Causes and we are confident there are none In so much that the Faculty of Imagining as to the Body depends only on two things namely the Animal Spirits and the Disposition of the Brain whereon they act There nothing more remains at present to to give us a perfect Knowledge of the Imagination than the manifestation of the different Changes that may happen in the Substance of the Brain They shall be examined by us as
instruct at least the Body in some measure and prevent their tasting Vice and consequently their becoming Slaves to it But that which is more especially observable is That Pains fill not the Capacities of the Mind as Pleasures do We easily cease to think of them when we no longer suffer them and are out of the danger and fear of them For then they importune not the Imagination they excite not the Passions nor provoke Concupiscence In fine they leave the Mind at liberty to think of what it pleases and thus we may discipline Children with them to keep them in their Duty or in the Appearance of it But though it be sometimes useful to affright and punish Children with sensible Corrections it ought not to be concluded that they should be allured by sensible Rewards There should no means be made use of that any whit forcibly affect the Senses but in a case of extreme necessity Now there can be none of bestowing Sensible Rewards upon them and representing these Rewards as the End of their Employment This on the contrary would be the means of vitiating their best Actions and inclining them rather to Sensuality than Vertue The Traces of Pleasures which they have once tasted remain strongly imprinted in their Imagination They continually quicken and awaken the Ideas of Sensible Goods they constantly excite importunate Desires which disturb the peace of the Mind Lastly They provoke Concupiscence on all occasions which is the Leaven that corrupts the whole mass But this is not the place of explaining these things according to their Desert The SECOND PART Concerning The IMAGINATION CHAP. I. I. Of the Imagination of Women II. Of the Imagination of Men. III. Of the Imagination of Old Men. WE have in the First Part in some measure explain'd the Physical Causes of the Disorders of Man's Imagination We shall endeavour in this to make some Application of these Causes to the more general Errors of Imagination and shall treat likewise of the Causes of these Errors which may be call'd Moral It may be understood from what has been said in the fore-going Chapter that the Delicacy of the Fibres of the Brain is one of the principal Causes that disables us from bringing an Application sufficient for the Discovery of Truths that lye any whit deep or conceal'd This Delicacy of the Fibres is more usually incident to Women and this is the Principle of their so exact acquaintance with all things that strike upon their Senses 'T is the Woman's Province to determine concerning the Fashions to judge of Language to distinguish the genteel Mein and the fine and courtly Behaviour They far out-do Men in the Science Skill and Dexterity about these things All that depends upon the Tast falls under their Jurisdiction but generally they are incapable of Penetrating into Truths that have any Difficulty in the Discovery All things of an abstracted Nature are Incomprehensible to them They cannot imploy their Imagination in disentangling compound and perplex'd Questions Their Consideration terminates on the surface and out-side of things and their Imagination has neither strength nor reach enough to pierce to the bottom of them and to make a Comparison of their parts without Distraction A Trifle or a Feather shall call them off the smallest out-cry dismay them and any little Motion gives them Imployment In short the Mode and not the Reality of things is enough to take up the whole Capacity of their Mind because the least Objects producing great Motions in the delicate Fibres of their Brain by a necessary consequence excite such lively and great Sensations in their Souls as wholly possess and take them up But though it be certain that this Delicacy of the Fibres of the Brain is the principal Cause of all these Effects yet it is not equally certain that it is universally to be found in all Women Or if it be to be found yet their Animal Spirits are sometimes so exactly proportion'd to the Fibres of their Brain that there are Women to be met with who have a greater solidity of Mind than some Men. 'T is in a certain Temperature of the Largeness and Agitation of the Animal Spirits and Conformity with the Fibres of the Brain that the strength of parts consists And Women have sometimes that just Temperature There are Women Strong and Constant and there are Men that are Weak and Fickle There are Women that are Learned Couragious and capable of every thing And on the contrary there are Men that are Soft Effeminate incapable of any Penetration or dispatch of any Business In fine when we attribute any Failures to a certain Sex Age or Condition they are only to be understood of the generality it being ever suppos'd there is no general Rule without Exception For it ought not to be imagin'd that all Men or all Women of the same Age Country or Family have their Brain of the same Constitution It is more pertinent to believe that as there are not two Faces in the World in every thing resembling one another so there are not two Imaginations exactly alike And that all Men Women and Children differ from one another only more or less in the Delicacy of the Fibres of their Brain For as we ought not too hastily to suppose an Essential Identity in those things between which we see no Difference so we ought not to make Essential Differences where we cannot find perfect Identity For these are the common Faults Men usually fall into That which may be said of the Fibres of the Brain is That in Children they are very soft and extreamly tender that with Age they harden and corroborate Yet notwithstanding the generality of Women and some Men have them extreamly delicate all their Lives To determine any thing farther we dare not But this is enough to be said of Women and Children That as they are not concern'd with searching after Truth and the Instruction of others so their Errors do not occasion much Prejudice since little credit is given to things by them advanc'd Let us speak of Men grown up of such as have their Mind in its Strength and Vigour such as may be thought capable of finding out Truth and teaching it to others The ordinary Season for the greatest Perfection of the Mind is from the Age of Thirty to that of Fifty Years The Fibres of the Brain in that Age have usually attain'd a tolerable consistence the Pleasures and Pains of the Senses make hardly any more Impression on them So that a Man has no more to do than to ward off violent Passions which rarely happen and from which a Man may screen himself if he diligently avoid all manner of occasion And thus the Soul meeting with no more Diversion from things sensible may with greater ease and leisure give her self to the Contemplation of Truth A Man in this capacity who had not his Mind fill'd with the Prejudices of Childhood who from his Youth upwards had
to their Passions which proceed from the Commotion of the Animal Spirits I shall not explain these things more at large because it is easie to judge of this Age by the others before treated of and to conclude that Old Men have more difficulty than others at conceiving what is said to them that they are more zealously devoted to their Prejudices and Ancient Opinions and consequently are more confirmed and strengthened in their Errors in their corrupt Habits and other things of like Nature 'T is only to be advertis'd That the state of Old Age is not precisely determined to Sixty or Seventy Years that all Old Men are not Dotards and that those who have pass'd the Sixtieth Year are not always delivered from the Passions of Youth and that we ought not to draw too general Consequences from the Principles establish'd CHAP. II. That the Animal Spirits generally run in the Tracks of Idea's that are most familiar to us which is the Reason of our preposterous Judgments I Have I think explain'd in the fore-going Chapters the various Changes happening in the Animal Spirits and in the Constitution of the Fibres of the Brain according to different Ages Wherefore supposing a Man to have meditated a little upon what has been said upon that Subject he must necessarily have a distinct Knowledge enough of the Imagination and of the most common Natural Causes of the differences observable between the Minds of Men since all the Changes happening in the Imagination and the Mind are only the Consequences of those which are to be found in the Animal Spirits and the Fibres that compose the Brain But there are many particular and such as we may call Moral Causes of the Changes which happen in the Imagination of Men namely Their different Conditions their various Employments and in a word their several ways of Living which deserve to be attentively consider'd because these sorts of Changes are the Causes of a numberless multitude of Errors every Man judging of things with reference to his own Condition We think it not so much our Business to stand to explain the Effects of some less customary Causes such as great Diseases surprizing Misfortunes and other unexpected Accidents which make very violent Impressions in the Brain and which sometimes totally subvert it because these things are of very rare occurrence and besides the Error such sort of Persons fall into are too gross to be contagious since they are palpable and discernible to all Mankind But that we may perfectly comprehend all the Changes the different conditions and states of Life produce in the Imagination 't is absolutely necessary to be call'd to mind that our Imagining Objects is only the framing Images thereof to our Selves and that these Images are nothing but the Traces delineated by the Animal Spirits in the Brain that we Imagine things so much stronglier as these Traces are more deep and better cut and as the Animal Spirits more frequently and violently pass through them that these Spirits by their frequent course so plain and open the Passage as to enter the same Tracks with greater readiness than any other neighbouring parts through which they either have not pass'd or not so frequently This is the most ordinary Cause of the Confusion and Falsity of our Idea's For the Animal Spirits which were directed by the Action of External Objects or even by the orders of the Soul to the production of certain Traces frequently produce others which indeed have some resemblance with them but are not altogether the Traces of these same Objects nor those the Soul desir'd to represent because the Animal Spirits finding some Resistance in the parts of the Brain through which they ought to pass are easily diverted to throng into the deep Traces of Idea's which are most familiar to us Here are some very gross and sensible Instances of these things When those who are not extraordinary short-sighted behold the Moon they see in her two Eyes a Nose and a Mouth in a word it looks to them as if they saw a Face tho there be nothing in her of what they fancy they perceive Many Persons see in her quite another thing And those who believe the Moon to be such as she appears would quickly be undeceived did they but behold her with Telescopes though of a moderate size or did they only consult the Descriptions Hevelius Riccioli and others have made Publick Now the Reason why a Man usually sees a Face in the Moon and not those irregular Blotches that are in her is because the Traces of a Face which are imprinted in the Brain are very deep for that we frequently look on Faces and with great Attention So that the Animal Spirits meeting with opposition in the other parts of the Brain easily swerve from the Direction the Light of the Moon impresses on them when a Man beholds her to accomodate themselves to the Traces whereunto Nature has affix'd the Idea's of a Face Besides that the apparent Magnitude of the Moon differing not much from a common head at a certain Distance She by her Impression forms such Traces as have Connection with those which represent a Nose a Mouth and Eyes and so she determines the Spirits to take their course in the Traces of a Face There are some who discern in the Moon a Man on Horse-back or something else than a Face because their Imagination having been briskly smitten with some particular Objects the Traces of these Objects open at any thing that bears the least Analogy to them 'T is upon the same grounds we Imagine we see Chariots Men Lions and other Animals in the Clouds when there is any little resemblance between their Figures and these Animals and all Men especially those who are used to Designing see sometimes Heads of Men on Walls whereon there are many irregular stains 'T is for the same Reason still that the Spirits of Wine entering without any Direction of the Will into the most familiar Traces make Men betray their Secrets of the greatest concernment and that when a Man sleeps he usually dreams of Objects he has seen in the Day-time which have form'd very great Traces in the Brain because the Soul is ever representing those things whereof she has the greatest and deepest Traces But see other Examples of a more complex kind A Distemper is new and it makes such havock and destruction as amazes all Men. This imprints Traces so deep in the Brain that this Disease is never absent from the Mind If this Disease be call'd for instance the Scurvy all Diseases must presently be call'd Scurvy the Scurvy is new therefore all new Distempers is the Scurvy The Scurvy is accompany'd with a dozen Symptoms whereof many are common to other Distempers that matters not If a sick Person fortunes to have any one of the Symptoms he must needs be sick of the Scurvy and other Distempers are never suspected or thought of that have the same Symptoms 'T is
expected that all the Accidents which befal those that have been sick of the Scurvy must befal him too The same Medicines therefore are prescrib'd him and 't is matter of amazement to find they have not the same Effect as they have been known to have had in others An Author applies himself to one kind of Study The Traces of the Subject he 's imploy'd about are so deeply imprinted and make such lively Radiations through the Brain as to confound and efface sometimes the Traces of things of a quite different kind There has been a Man for instance that has wrote many bulky Volumes on the Cross this made him discover a Cross in every thing he look'd upon and 't is with Reason that Father Morinus handsomly rallies him for thinking a Medal represented a Cross though it represented quite another thing 'T was by such another unlucky turn of Imagination Gilbertus and many others after having studied the Load-stone and admir'd its properties must needs reduce to these Magnetick Qualities abundance of Natural Effects that had no Relation to them in the World The Instances I have here alledg'd suffice to prove that the great facility of the Imagination's representing Objects that are familiar to it and the difficulty it finds in Imagining those that are Novel is the Reason of Mens forming almost ever such Idea's as may be styl'd mix'd and impure and of the Mind 's judging of things only with Relation to it self and its former Thoughts And thus the different Passions of Men their Inclinations Conditions Imployments Qualities Studies finally all their different Ways and Scopes of Life putting very considerable Differences in their Idea's occasion them to fall into innumerable Errors which we shall explain in the following Discourse Which was the reason of My Lord Bacon's speaking this most judicious Sentence Omnes perceptiones tam sensûs quam mentis sunt ex analogiâ hominis non ex analogiâ universi Estque Intellectus humanus instar speculi inaequalis ad radios rerum qui suam Naturam naturae rerum immiscet eamque distorquet inficit CHAP. III. Of the Mutual Connection between the Idea's and the Traces of the Brain and of the Mutual Connection there is between Traces and Traces Idea's and Idea's AMONG the whole Mass of Material Beings there is nothing more worthy of the Contemplation of Men than the Contexture of their own Body and the Correspondence found between the Parts that compose it And among all things Spiritual there is nothing the Knowledge whereof is more necessary than that of their Soul and of all the Relations she is indispensably under to GOD and Naturally to the Body 'T is not enough to have a confus'd Knowledge or Sensation that the Traces of the Brain are mutually connected to each other and that they are pursued by the Motion of the Animal Spirits that the Traces when excited in the Brain excite the Idea's in the Understanding and that the Motions that arise in the Animal Spirits raise the Passions in the Will We ought as far as is possible to have a distinct Knowledge of the Cause of all these different Connections but especially of the Effects they are capable of producing We ought to know the Cause thereof in as much as it is necessary to know our Guide and Conductor who alone is capable of acting in us and of rendring us happy or miserable and we ought to know the Effect of them it being necessary to know our selves as much as possible and other Men with whom we are oblig'd to live So should we know the means both of conducting our selves to and preserving our selves in the most happy and perfect state we are capable of attaining by the order of Nature and the Precepts of the Gospel and so should we be able to frame our Lives sociably with Men by exactly knowing the means of making use of them in our Exigencies and assisting them in their Miseries I pretend not to Explain in this Chapter a Subject so vast and Comprehensive nor have I that Opinion of my self as to think I should throughly do it in this whole Work There are many things I am still ignorant of and despair of ever knowing well and there are others which I presume I know but am unable to explicate For there is no mind so little and so narrow but may by Meditation discover more Truths than can be deduc'd at length by the most Eloquent Man in the World We are not to imagine with a great part of the Philosophers that the Mind becomes Body when united to the Body and that the Body becomes Mind when united to the Mind The Soul is not expanded through all the parts of the Body in order to give Life and Motion to it as the Imagination represents nor does the Body become capable of Sensation by its Union with the Mind as our treacherous and abusive Senses would seem to perswade us Either Substance preserves its own particular Being and as the Soul is incapable of Extension and Motions so the Body is incapable of Thought and Inclinations All the Affinity that we know between the Body and Mind consists in the Natural and Mutual correspondence of the Thoughts of the Soul with the Traces of the Brain and of the Emotions of the Soul with the Motions of the Animal Spirits When the Soul receives some new Idea's some new Traces are imprinted on the Brain and when Objects produce new Traces the Soul receives new Idea's Which is not said as if the Soul consider'd these Traces since she has no knowledge of them or as if these Traces included these Idea's since there is no Analogy betwixt them or lastly as if she receiv'd her Idea's from these Traces for 't is inconceivable as shall be explain'd hereafter how the Mind should receive any thing from the Body and become more enlightned than she is by turning towards it as the Philosophers pretend who would have the Souls Perception of all things to be caus'd Per conversionem ad phantasmata by the Conversion to the Phantasms or Traces of the Brain Thus when the Soul wills the moving of her Arm the Arm is mov'd though she not so much as knows what ought to be done to the moving it and when the Animal Spirits are agitated the Soul finds a Commotion in her self though she is ignorant whether there be any such thing as Animal Spirits in her Body When I come to treat of the Passions I shall speak of the Connection there is between the Traces of the Brain and the Motions of the Spirits and of that which is between the Idea's and the Emotions of the Soul for all the Passions have their Dependance thereon I am to Discourse at present only of the Connection between Traces and Idea's and the Connection Traces have with one another There are three very considerable Causes of the Connection of Idea's with the Traces of the Brain The first and most general
instance who enter upon the Study of Algebra or Analyticks are incapable of taking Algebraick Demonstrations without a great deal of pains and when they have once master'd them they retain them but a short time because Squares for example Parallelograms Cubes Solids and the like being exprest by aa ab a 3 abc c. the Traces whereof have no Natural Connection with their Idea's the Mind finds no hold to fasten the Idea's to and to examine the Relations of them by But those who begin to Study Common Geography most clearly and readily conceive the little Demonstrations that are explain'd to them provided they distinctly understand the Terms made use of Because the Idea's of a Square a Circle or the like are Naturally Connected with the Traces of the figures they see describ'd before their Eyes And it often happens that the meer shewing of the figure used in the Demonstration makes them sooner comprehend it than the Discourses made to explain it Because words being Connected to Idea's by an arbitrary institution only excite not these Idea's readily and distinctly enough to make us easily understand their Relations For 't is chiefly upon that account there is so much difficulty found in learning the Sciences By the way it may be discover'd from what I have been saying that those Writers who coin abundance of new Words and Figures to explain their Notions by spend much pains to very little purpose They think to make themselves intelligible when indeed they take the way of becoming incomprehensible We define say they all our Terms and all our Characters and others ought to agree to them It is true others agree to them with their Will but their Nature is repugnant They cannot fasten their Idea's to these Novel Terms because to that is required custom and long practice The Authors perhaps have attain'd that custom but the Readers have not And when a Man endeavours to instruct the Mind 't is necessary he first know it since he ought to conform to Nature and offer her nothing provoking or offensive Yet we ought not to condemn the Industry and Care Mathematicians take in defining their Terms for Definition is evidently necessary to take away Equivocation But the ordinary and receiv'd Terms ought to be imploy'd as far as possibly they can or such whose common signification is not very remote from that which they pretend to introduce which is a thing not constantly observ'd among the Mathematicians Nor do we pretend by what has been said to condemn Algebra especially such as Mr. Des-Cartes has restor'd and left it to us For though the Novelty of some Expressions in that Science give the Mind some trouble at first yet there is so little variety and confusion in these Expressions and the Assistances the Mind receives from them so much out-weigh the Difficulty found in them that I am of Opinion 't is impossible for a Man to invent a way of Reasoning and Expressing his Reasonings more suited or better accomodated to the Nature of the Mind or that can carry it farther in the Discovery of unknown Truths The Expressions of that Science do not distract the Capacity of the Mind they burden not the Memory they contract and abridge in a wonderful manner all our Idea's and our Reasonings and even render them in some measure sensible by Practice In fine their usefulness is much greater than the Natural Expressions of the delineated Figures of Triangles Squares and others of like Nature which are inserviceable to the Disquisition and Unfolding of Truths any whit intricate and obscure But so much for the Connection of Idea's with the Traces of the Brain 'T is seasonable to say something of the Connection of Traces with one another and consequently of the Connection between the Idea's corresponding to these Traces This Connection consists in this that the Traces of the Brain are so firmly connected to one another as 't is impossible to excite them again without the whole retinue which were imprinted at the same time If a Man for instance happens to be in some publick Solemnity in case he observes all the Circumstances and all the Principle Persons that assisted at the time the place the day and all other Particularities the remembrance only of the Place or some other less observable Circumstance of the Ceremony will be sufficient to bring the Representation of all the other to his Mind 'T is upon this account that when we can't recollect the Principal Name of a thing we sufficiently specifie it by making use of a Name which signifies some Circumstance of that thing as not being able to call to Mind the proper Name of a Church we can make use of another Name signifying a thing that has some Relation to it We can say 'T is that Church where there was such a Throng where Mr. such a one Preach'd where we went on Sunday And thus not having the proper Name of a Person ready at hand or when it is more convenient to denote him in another manner we can do it by saying He whose Face was disfigured by the Small-pox the Portly and well-made Gentleman the little crooked Man according as we stand affected towards him though to express a Man in terms of contempt is neither a sign of good Nature nor good Manners Now the mutual Connection of these Traces and consequently of their Idea's one with another is not only the foundation of all the Figures of Rhetorick but also of infinite other things of greatest concernment in Morality and Politicks and in all Sciences in general which are any ways related to Man and consequently of many things we shall treat of in the sequel of our Discourse The cause of the Connection of many Traces together is the Identity of time wherein they were imprinted on the Brain For 't is enough for many Traces to have been produc'd at the same time to cause that they should never afterwards be excited but in company of one another because the Animal Spirits finding the Channel of these Co-temporary Traces gaping and half open continue their courses in them by reason of their meeting with a more free passage through them than through the other parts of the Brain This is the cause of Memory and the Corporeal Habits which are common to us with Beasts The Connections of the Traces are not always conjoyn'd with the Emotions of the Spirits because all the things we see do not always appear either Good or Evil These Connections too may change or break because being not of perpetual necessity for the preservation of Life there is no need they should always be the same But there are certain Traces in our Brain which have a Natural Connection with one another as also with certain Commotions of the Spirits that being necessary to the Preservation of Life And this Connection can't be broken at least not easily because 't is convenient it should always be the same For instance the trace of a
them to conform and adapt themselves to the Manners of those they live with Which Disposition has two more principal means to cherish and augment it one whereof is in the Soul and the other in the Body The former primarily consists in the Inclination all Men have for Eminency and Greatness Which Inclination is a secret Spur and Incitement to our Talking Walking Dressing and Deporting our selves like Men of Rank and Quality This is the Origine of the New Modes of the Inconstancy and Flux of the present Languages and of certain general Corruptions of Manners In short this is the principal Source of all those strange and extravagant Novelties which have no Foundation in the Reason but only in the Humour of Men. The other means that augment this our Imitative Disposition and which is the Matter chiefly to be spoke to in this place consists in a certain Impression which Men of a strong Imagination make upon weak Minds and delicate and tender Brains By the strong and vigorous Imagination I mean that Constitution of Brain which makes it capable of very deep Impressions which so take up the Capacity of the Soul as not to suffer her to attend to other things besides those represented by these Images Now there are two sorts of Persons who have a strong Imagination in this Sense explain'd The one receive these deep Traces by a disorderly and involuntary Impression of the Animal Spirits and the other which I design more particularly to treat of receive them through the Disposition incident to the Substance of their Brain 'T is plain that the former are absolutely Fools since they are oblig'd by the Natural Union between their Traces and Idea's to think of things that others they converse with do not think of which incapacitates them from speaking pertinently to the thing in hand and making a sutable Answer to the Questions that are ask'd them Of these there are infinite forts that differ only in degree amongst which may be reckon'd all such as are acted without any violent Passion since in the time of their Perturbation the Animal Spirits so forcibly imprint the Traces and Images of their Passion that they are unable to think of any thing else But 't is to be observ'd that the Imagination of the weakest Minds and the most soft and tender Brains that be are not in danger of being corrupted by this sort of People for two very good Reasons The first is that being unable to conform their Answers to the Idea's of others they are as unable to perswade them to any thing and the second is that their Discourse is always heard with contempt upon the account of so visible a Disorder in their Brain 'T is true however that Men in a Passion infect the Spectators with the same and strike their Imagination with Impressions like to those they feel themselves But because the outrage is so visible the Impressions it makes are resisted and a little time will quite discard them They wear off of themselves when no longer fed and supply'd by the Cause that produc'd them that is when the transported Person is out of sight and the sensible View of the Features the Passion drew upon the Face produces no more alterations in the Fibres of our Brain nor Agitations in our Animal Spirits My Design is only to examine that sort of strong and vigoâ—ous Imagination which consists in a Disposition of Brain fit and proper to receive very deep Impressions from the weakest and least-active Objects 'T is no Imperfection to have a Brain dispos'd for the Imagining things strongly and receiving most distinct and lively Images of the most inconâ—iderable Objects provided the Soul still superintends the Imagination and these Traces be imprinted by her Orders and expung'd by her Commands 'T is on the contrary the Original of Subtilty and Strength of Wit But when the Imagination lords it over the Soul and these Traces without staying for the Orders of the Will are stamp'd by the Disposition of the Brain by the Action of Objects and the Animal Spirits 't is manifestly a base and mischievous Quality and a kind of Madness Let us try to discover their Character whose Imagination is wrought in this manner And in order to this it ought to be re-minded that the Capacity of the Mind is very narrow and that there is nothing so cumbersom as I may say or so soon takes it up as the Sensations of the Soul and in general all the Perceptions of Objects that vehemently affect us and that the deep Traces of the Brain are ever attended with Sensations or other Perceptions which challenge a great Application of Mind In remembring this 't will be easie to lay open the Minds of Men of strong Imagination and to discover their real Characters The first whereof is their Incapacity to judge prudently of things any whit difficult and intricate because the extent of their Minds being fill'd with Idea's naturally annex'd to these deep Traces they are not at liberty of thinking on many things at the same time When as in Compound Questions the Mind by a quick and desultory Motion must run over the Idea's of a great many things and survey at one View all the Relations and Dependencies that necessarily go to the Resolution of the Questions Every one is conscious from his own Experience how impossible it is to contemplate any abstract Truth when he is under the Sense of Pain that is any thing violent the reason whereof is that the deep Traces then printed on the Brain possess the Capacity of the Mind Thus those we are speaking of having as his suppos'd deeper Traces of the same Objects than others must have a Mind of narrower Bounds and incapable of embracing so many things The first Defect therefore of these Men is their having a little Mind and so much the less as their Brain receives deeper Traces from such Objects as are less considerable The second is their being Visionists but in so subtile and delicate a way as his hard to be discover'd and which makes the common sort of Men not think them so And 't is only the accurate and clear-sighted Minds that are apprehensive of their Visions and the ramblings of their Fancy For the understanding the Original of this Defect we must farther call to Mind what has been said at the beginning of the Second Book that in regard of what happens in the Brain the Senses and Imagination differ only in degree of more or less and that 't is the largeness and depth of the Traces that makes the Soul sensible of Objects makes her judge them as present and in capacity to affect her and lastly near enough to her to make her feel Pleasure and Pain For when the Traces are little the Soul only imagines the Objects of them she judges it not as present nor looks upon it as very great and considerable But in proportion as these Traces grow larger and deeper
is not strange that our Sensations should agitate us and quicken our love for sensible things whereas our Light dissipates and vanishes without producing any zeal and ardency for Truth 'T is true that several Men are persuaded that God is their real Good love him as their All and earnestly desire to strengthen and increase their Union with him But few evidently know that by meditating on the Truth we unite our selves to God as far as natural strength can attain that it is a sort of Enjoyment of him to contemplate the true Ideas of things and that that abstracted view of some general and immutable Truths on which all the particulars depend are flights of a Mind that sequesters it self from the Body to unite it self to God Metaphysicks speculative Mathematicks and all those universal Sciences which regulate and contain the particular as the Universal Being comprehends all particular Beings seem to be Chimerical to most Men as well to the pious as to those that do not love God So that I dare hardly make bold to say that the study of those Sciences is the most pure and perfect Application to God that the Mind may be naturally capable of and that it is by the sight of the Intellectual World which is their Object that God has produced and still knows this sensible World from which Bodies receive their Life as Spirits live from the other Those that purely follow the Impressions of their Senses and motions of their Passions are not capable of relishing the Truth because it flatters them not And even the Vertuous who constantly oppose their Passions when they proffer them false Goods do not always resist them when they conceal from them the Truth and make it despicable because one may be pious without being a Man of parts To please God we need not exactly know that our Senses Imagination and Passions always represent things otherwise than they are since it appears not that our Lord and his Apostles ever intended to undeceive us of several Errours upon this matter which Descartes has discover'd to us There is a great difference betwixt Faith and Understanding the Gospel and Philosophy the greatest Clowns are capable of Faith but few can attain to the pure Knowledge of Evident Truth Faith represents to vulgar Men God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth which is a sufficient motive of Love and Duty towards him whereas Reason knowing that God was God before he was Creator not only considers him in his Works but also endeavours to contemplate him in himself or in that immense Idea of the infinitely perfect Being which is included in him The Son of God who is the Wisdom of his Father or the Eternal Truth made himself Man and became sensible that he might be known by Men of Flesh and Blood by gross material Men that he might instruct them by that which was the Cause of their Blindness and draw them to the love of him and disengage them from sensible goods by the same things that had enslav'd them for having to doe with Fools he thought fit to take upon him a sort of Folly whereby to make them wise So that the most pious Men and truest Believers have not always the greatest Understanding They may know God by Faith and love him by the help of his Grace without understanding that he is their All in the sense Philosophers understand him and without thinking that the abstracted Knowledge of Truth is a sort of a Union with him We ought not therefore to be surprized if so few Persons labour to strengthen their natural Union with God by the Knowledge of Truth since to this there is required a continual opposition of the Impressions of the Senses and Passions in a very different way from that which is usual with the Vertuous who are not always persuaded that the Senses and Passions abuse them in the manner that has been explain'd in the foregoing Books The Sensations and Thoughts in which the Body has a share are the sole and immediate Cause of the Passions as proceeding from the Concussion of the Fibres of the Brain raising some particular Commotion in the Animal Spirits And therefore Sensations are the only sensible proofs of our dependence on some things which they excite us to love but we feel not our Natural Union with God when we know the Truth and do not so much as think upon him because he is and operates in us so privately and insensibly as to be imperceptible to our selves And this is the Reason that our natural Union with God raises not our Love for him But it goes quite otherwise with our Union to sensible things All our Sensations prove it and Bodies appear before our Eyes when they act in us Their Action is visible and manifest Our Body is even more present to us than our Mind and we consider the former as the best part of our Selves So that our Union to our Body and by it to sensible Objects excites in us a violent Love which increases that Union and makes us depend on things that are infinitely below us CHAP. VI. Of the more general Errours of the Passions with some particular Instances 'T IS the part of Moral Philosophy to discover the particular Errours concerning Good in which our Passions engage us to oppose irregular affections to restore the Integrity of the Heart and to rule the Course of our Life But here we chiefly aim at giving Rules to the Mind and finding out the Causes of our Errours in reference to Truth so that we shall not proceed farther in those Matters that relate to the Love of true Good We are tending to the Instruction of the Mind and only take the Heart in the way in as much as the Heart is its Master We search into Truth it self without a special Respect to our selves and we consider its Relation with us only because that Relation is the Spring of Self-love's disguising and concealing it from us for we judge of all things by our Passions whence it is that we mistake in all things the Judgments of Passions never agreeing with the Judgments of Truth 'T is what we learn in these excellent Words of St. Bernard Neither Love nor Hatred know how to make a Judgment according to Truth Will you hear a true Judgment As I hear I judge says our Lord he says not as I hate as I love or as I fear Here you have a Judgment of Hatred We have a Law say the Jews and by that Law he ought to die Here a Judgment of Fear If we let him alone say the Pharisees the Romans shall come and take away our Place and Nation Here another of Love as that of David speaking of his Parricide Son Spare the young Man Absalom Our Love Hatred and Fear cause us to make false Judgments only Nothing but the pure Light of Truth can illuminate our Mind nothing but the distinct Voice of our common Master can cause us to make
on a sudden design'd the destroying of the whole Nation that his Revenge might be the more splendid Two Men sue each other about a Piece of Land they ought only to produce in Court their Titles to it and to say nothing but what relates to the Case or to set it off fair However they seldom fail to slander one another to contradict each other in every thing to raise trifling Contestations and Accusations and to intricate the Suit with an infinity of Accessary Circumstances which confound the Principal In short the Passions reach as far as the sight of the Mind does in those that are affected by them I would say there is nothing to which we may suppose their Object to be related but their Motion will extend to it which is done after the following manner The Tracks of the Objects are so connected to each other in the Brain that it is impossible the Course of the Spirits should violently move any one of them without raising several others at the same time The principal Idea of the Thing perceiv'd is therefore necessarily accompanied with a vast number of accessary Ideas which increase more and more as the Impression of the Animal Spirits is more violent Now that Impression cannot but be very violent in the Passions because they continually hurry into the Brain abundance of such Spirits as are fit to preserve the Traces of the Ideas which represent their Object So that the Motion of Love or Hatred extends not only to the Chief Object of either Passion but also to all the Things that are found any ways relating to it because the Motion of the Soul in the Passion follows the Perception of the Mind as the Motion of the Animal Spirits in the Brain follows the Traces of the Brain as well those that excite the principal Idea of the Passion 's Object as those that are related to it And therefore we must not be surprized if Men carry their Hatred or Love to such a heighth and commit such strange and capricious Actions Every one of those Effects has its proper Cause though unknown to us because their accessary Ideas being not always like to ours we cannot rightly judge of them So that Men act always by some particular Reason even in those Actions that appear most extravagant to us CHAP. VII Of the Passions in particular And first Of Admiration and its ill Effects WHatever I have said hitherto of the Passions is general yet 't is no hard matter to draw particular Inferences from it If one do but reflect upon what occurs in his own Breast and upon the Actions of others he will discover at one View a greater number of those Truths than can be explain'd in a considerable time However there are so few who think of retiring into themselves and make any Attempt to that purpose that to quicken them and raise their Attention it will not be amiss somewhat to descend into Particulars It seems when we handle or strike our selves that we are almost insensible whereas if we be but never so little touched by others we receive such lively Sensations as awaken our Attention In a word as it never comes into our Mind to tickle our selves and if it did perhaps the Attempt would be unsuccessful So almost for the same Reason the Soul cares not to feel and sound her self is presently disgusted at that sort of Exercise and commonly is incapable of feeling or knowing all the Parts that belong to her till touch'd and made sensible to her by others So that it will be necessary for the facilitating some People in acquiring the Knowledge of themselves to mention some of the particular Effects of the Passions to â—each them by touching them of what Make and Constitution their Soul is of In the mean while those that shall read the following Thoughts must be forewarn'd that they will not always be touched to the Quick nor be aware that they are subject to the Passions and Errours of which I shall speak because particular Passions are not always the same in all Men. All Men indeed have the same natural Inclinations which referr not to the Body and likewise all those that relate to it when 't is in a very good Constitution But its various Tempers and frequent Alterations produce an infinite Variety in particular Passions To which diversity of Constitutions if that variety of Objects be added which cause very different Impressions upon those who follow not the same Employments and manner of Life it will plainly appear that such a Person who is lively touched by some Things in one Place of his Soul may be absolutely insensible as to many others so that we should commonly mistake should we always judge of the Commotions of others by what we feel in our selves I am not afraid of being deceiv'd when I assert That all Men would be happy for I fully and certainly know that Chinese and Tartars Angels and Devils in a word all Spirits whatsoever have an Inclination for Felicity Nay I know that God shall never produce any Spirit without that Desire I never saw either Chinese or Tartar so that I never learn'd it from Experience nor yet from my inward Consciousness which only teaches me that I would my self be happy God alone can inwardly convince me that all other Men Angels and Devils desire Happiness and he only can assure me that he will never create a Spirit that shall not care for Felicity For who else can positively assure me of what he does and even thinks And as he cannot deceive me so I may safely relie on what I learn from him And therefore I am certain that all Men would be happy because that Inclination is natural and independent on the Body It goes quite otherwise with particular Passions For because I love Musick Dancing Hunting Sweet-meats high-season'd Dishes c. I cannot certainly conclude that other Men have the same Passions Pleasure is doubtless sweet and grateful to Men but all find it not in the same Things The Love of Pleasure is a Natural Inclination not depending upon the Body and therefore general to all Men But the Love of Musick Hunting or Dancing is not general because the Disposition of the Body from which it proceeds being different in several Persons the Passions they produce are not always the same General Passions as Desire Joy and Sorrow are the Mean betwixt natural Inclinations and particular Passions They are general as well as Inclinations but they are not always of the same strength because the Cause which produces and feeds them is not always equally active There is an infinite Variety in the Degrees of Agitation of the Animal Spirits in their Plenty and Scarcity in their Solidity and Fineness and in the Relation betwixt the Fibres of the Brain and those Spirits And therefore it often happens that we touch not Men in any part of their Soul when we treat of particular Passions but if they chance to
for instance to be humble and timorous and even outwardly to testifie that Disposition of the Mind by a modest Look and respectful or timorous Deportment when we are in the Presence of a Person of Quality or one that is proud and powerful It being almost ever profitable for the Good of the Body that the Imagination should stoop before sensible Grandeur and give it outward Marks of its inward Submission and Veneration But this is done naturally and machinally without the Consent of the Will and sometimes notwithstanding its Opposition Even such Beasts as Dogs which stand in need of prevailing upon those with whom they live have ordinarily their Bodies so disposed that it machinally takes the Posture that is most suitable in reference to those that are about them For that is absolutely necessary to their Preservation And if Birds and some other Creatures want such a Disposition 't is because they need not asswage the Fury of those whom they can escape by Flight or whose Help is not necessary for the Preservation of their Life It can never be too much observ'd that all the Passions which are raised in us at the sight of something external machinally spread on the Face those Looks that are fit and suited to our present State that is those that are apt by their Impression machinally to dispose the Spectators to such Passions and Motions as are useful for the Good of Civil Society Admiration it self when produced in us by the Perception of something external which others can consider as well as we puts the Face in such a Shape as is fit to strike others with a machinal Impression of Admiration and which acts so regularly on the Brain that the Spirits contain'd in it are driven to the Muscles of the Face to fashion it into a Look altogether like our own This Communication of the Passions of the Soul and the Animal Spirits to unite Men together in reference to Good and Evil and to make them altogether like not only by the Disposition of their Mind but also by the Posture of their Body is so much the greater and more observable as the Passions are more violent by reason that the Animal Spirits are then agitated with more strength And this must needs be so because the Good and Evil being then greater or more present requires a greater Application and a stricter Association of Men to seek or avoid them But when the Passions are moderate as Admiration usually is their Communication is insensible and they do not alter the Countenance by which the Communication uses to be wrought For there being no urgent Occasion it would be needless to put a Force on the Imagination of others or to take them off from their Business to which their Application is perhaps more requisite than to the looking on the Causes of those Passions There is nothing more wonderful than that Oeconomy of the Passions and Dispositions of the Body in reference to the surrounding Objects All our machinal Actions are most becoming the Wisdom of our Maker God has made us susceptible of all those Passions chiefly to unite us with all sensible Things for the Preservation of Society and of our corporeal Being and his Design is so exactly perform'd by the Construction of his Work that we cannot but admire his Wisdom in the Contrivance of the Springs and Texture of it However our Passions and all those imperceptible Bands which tie us to the surrounding Objects often prove by our own Fault fruitful Causes of Errours and Disorders For we make not of our Passions the Use we ought to do we allow them every thing and know not so much as the Bounds we ought to prescribe to their Power so that the weakest and least moving Passions as Admiration for instance have strength enough to draw us into Errour Some Examples whereof are these When Men and especially those that are endu'd with a lively Imagination contemplate the best side of themselves they find for the most part a great deal of Self-complacency and Satisfaction and their internal Satisfaction is increased by the Comparison they make betwixt themselves and others that are not so airy and spirituous Besides that they have many Admirers and that few of their Opposers gain Success and Applause for Reason is seldom or never applauded in opposition to a strong and lively Imagination In short the Face of their Hearers takes on such submissive and dutiful Looks and expresses at every new Word they say such lively Strokes of Admiration that they admire themselves too and that their Imagination pufft up with their pretended Advantages fills them with an extraordinary Satisfaction of themselves And since we cannot see Men in the heighth of a Passion without receiving some impression from it and adopting as I may say their Sentiments how should it be possible that those who are surrounded with a Throng of Admirers should give no access to a Passion that is so flattering and so grateful to Self-love Now that high Esteem which Persons of a strong and lively Imagination have of themselves and their good Qualities puffs them up with Pride and gives them a Magisterial and Decisive Comportment they listen to others but with Contempt they answer but with Jeering they think but with reference to themselves and as they look on the Attention of the Mind that is so requisite for the discovery of Truth as a Slavery so they are altogether indocible Pride Ignorance and Blindness go hand in hand The bold or rather vain-glorious Wits will not be the Disciples of Truth and never retire into themselves unless it be to contemplate and admire their supposed Perfections so that he who resists the Proud shines in the middle of their Darkness without dissipating it There is on the contrary a certain Disposition of the Blood and Animal Spirits that occasions too mean Thoughts of our selves The Scarcity the Dulness and Fineness of the Animal Spirits join'd to the Coursness of the Fibres of the Brain cause the Imagination to be weak and languishing And the Contemplation or rather the confused Sense of that Faintness of Imagination is what breeds in us a vicious Humility which we may call Meanness of Spirit All Men are susceptible of the Truth but all apply not themselves to him who alone is able to teach it The Proud make their Address and listen but to themselves and the Dis-spirited make their Application to the Proud and submit themselves to their Determinations Both the one and the other give ear to bare Men. Proud Minds follow the Fermentation of their own Blood that is their own Imagination and the Low-spirited are over-sway'd by the over-ruling Countenance of the Proud and so are both subjected to Vanity and Lies The Proud is like a rich and powerful Man who has a great Retinue who measures his own Greatness by the number of his Attendants and his Strength by that of the Horses of his Coach whereas the Low-spirited is like
a poor weak and languishing Wretch who though he have the same Spirit and Principles yet because he is Master of Nothing imagines he is almost Nothing himself However our Retinue is not our self and so far is the plenty of the Blood and Animal Spirits the vigour and impetuousness of the Imagination from leading us to the Truth that on the contrary nothing carries us so far from it whereas 't is the Dull if I may so call them that is the cool and sedate Minds that are the fittest for the Discovery of solid and hidden Truths Their Passions being silent and quiet they may listen in the Recess of their Reason to the Truth that teaches them but most unhappily they mind not its Words because it speaks low without a forcible sound and that nothing wakens them but a mighty Noise Nothing convinces them but what glitters to appearance and is judg'd great and magnificent by the Senses they love to be dazled with Brightness and rather chuse to hear those Philosophers who tell them their Stories and Dreams and assert as the false Prophets of former times that the Truth has spoken to them though it has not than to listen to Truth it self For they have already suffer'd four thousand Years and that without opposition humane Pride to entertain them with Lies which they reverence and keep to as to Holy and Divine Traditions It seems the God of Truth is wholly gone from them they think on him and consult him no more they meditate no more and cover their neglect and laziness with the delusive pretences of a sacred Humility 'T is true that we cannot of our selves discover the Truth but we can doe it at all times with the assistance of him that enlightens us and can never doe it with that of all the Men in the World Those that know it best cannot shew it to us unless we ask it of him to whom they have made their Application and unless he be pleased to answer our Questions that is our Attention as he has done theirs We are not therefore to believe because Men say this or that for every Man is a Liar but because he that cannot deceive speaks to us and we must perpetually interrogate him for the solution of our Difficuties We ought not to trust to them that speak only to the Ears instruct but the Body or at the utmost move but the Imagination But we ought attentively to listen unto and faithfully believe him who speaks to the Mind informs the Reason and piercing into the most abstruse Recesses of the inward Man is able to enlighten and strengthen him against the outward and sensible Man that continually labours to seduce and corrupt him I often repeat these things because I believe them most worthy of a serious Consideration God alone is to be honour'd because he only can endue us with Knowledge as 't is he alone that can fill us with Pleasure There is sometimes in the animal Spirits and the rest of the Body a Disposition that provokes to Hunting Dancing Running and other Corporeal Exercises wherein the Force and Activity of the Body are most conspicuous Which Disposition is very ordinary to young Men especially before their Body be in a State of Consistency Children cannot stay in one place and will always be moving if they follow their humour For whereas all their Muscles are not yet strengthened nor perfectly finisht therefore God who as the Author of Nature regulates the Pleasures of the Soul with reference to the Good of the Body causes them to be delighted with such Exercises as may invigorate it Thus whilst the Flesh and Fibres of their Nerves are yet soft the Channels through which the animal Spirits must necessarily flow to produce all sorts of Motion are wore and kept open Humours have no time to settle and all Obstructions and Causes of Corruption are removed The confused Sensation that young Men have of that Disposition of their Body makes them pleased with the thoughts of their Strength and Dexterity They admire themselves when they know how to measure their Motions and to make extraordinary ones and are ambitious of being in the presence of Spectators and Admirers Thus they strengthen by degrees their Inclination to Corporeal Exercises which is one of the principal Causes of Ignorance and Brutishness For besides the time that is by that meanes lavisht away the little use they make of their Understanding causes the chief part of the Brain in whose tractableness the force and quickness of the Mind especially consists to become altogether inflexible and the animal Spirits through disuse are difficultly dispers'd in the Brain in a manner requisite to think of what they please This incapacitates most part of the Nobility and Gentry especially such as follow the War to apply themselves to any thing They answer with a Word and a Blow as the Proverb says for if you speak any thing that they don't willingly hear instead of thinking upon a suitable Reply their Animal Spirits insensibly flow into the Muscles that raise the Arm and make them answer without Consideration with a Blow or a Threatning Gesture because their Spirits agitated by the Words they hear are conveyed to such Places as are most open through Habit and Exercise The sense of their Corporeal Strength confirms them in those insulting Manners and the submissive Aspect of their Hearers puffs 'em up with such an absurd Confidence as makes them believe they have said very fine things when they have but haughtily and brutishly uttered Impertinencies being flater'd by the Fear and Caution of the Standers by It is not possible to have applied our selves to any Study or to make actual profession of any Science to be either Author or Doctor without being conscious of it But that very Consciousness naturally produces in some Men such a vast Number of Imperfections that it would be better with them if they wanted those Honourable Qualities As they look upon them as their most considerable Perfections so they are extreamly pleased with that Contemplation they set them before the Eyes of others with all the possible Dexterity and conceive they have thereby right to judge of every thing without Examination If any be so couragious as to contradict them they at first endeavour skillfully and with a sweet and obliging Countenance to insinuate what they are and what right they have to determine of such Matters And if any still presume to oppose them and that they be at a loss for an Answer they do not stick openly to declare what they think of themselves and of their Adversaries Every inward Sense of any Qualification we enjoy naturally swells up the Courage A Trooper well mounted and accoutred who neither wants Blood nor Spirits is ready to undertake any thing that Disposition inspiring him with an undaunted Boldness So it goes with a Man of Letters when he fansies himself to be Learned and that the Haughtiness of his Heart has
and likewise those that use them have Bodies diversly dispos'd Two Persons after Dinner though rising from the same Table must sensibly perceive in their Faculty of Imagining so great a Variety of Alterations as is impossible to be describ'd I confess those who are in a perfect state of Health perform Digestion so easily that the Chyle flowing into the Heart neither augments nor diminishes the Heat of it and is scarce any Obstruction to the Blood 's fermenting in the very same manner as if it enter'd all alone So that their Animal Spirits and consequently their Imaginative Faculty admit hardly any Change thereby But as for Old and Infirm People they find in themselves very sensible Alterations after a Repast They generally grow dull and sleepy at least their Imagination flags and languishes and has no longer any Briskness or Alacrity They can conceive nothing distinctly and are unable to apply themselves to any thing In a word they are quite different and other sort of People from what they were before But that those of a more sound and robust Complection may likewise have sensible proofs of what I have said they need only make reflection on what happens to them in Drinking Wine somewhat more freely than ordinary or on what would fall out upon their drinking Wine at one Meal and Water at another For it is certain that unless they be extreamly stupid or that their Body be of a make very extraordinary they will suddainly feel in themselves some Briskness or little Drousiness or some such other accidental thing Wine is so spirituous that it is Animal Spirits almost ready made But Spirits a little too libertine and unruly that not easily submit to the orders of the Will by reason of their Solidity and excessive Agitation Thus it produces even in Men that are of a most strong and vigorous Constitution greater Changes in the Imagination and in all the parts of the Body than Meats and other Liquors It gives a Man a Foil in Plautus's Expression and produces many Effects in the Mind less advantagious than those describ'd by Horace in these Lines Quid non Ebrietas designat operta recludit Spes jubet esse ratas in praelia trudit inermem Sollicitis animis onus eximit addocet artes Foecundi calices quem non fecere disertum Contractâ quem non in paupertate solutum It would be no hard matter to give a Reason for all the Principal Effects produc'd in the Animal Spirits and thereupon in the Brain and in the Soul it self by this Commixture of the Chyle and Blood as to explain how Wine exhilarates and gives a Man a certain Sprightliness of Mind when taken with Moderation why it Brutifies a Man in process of time by being drunk to excess why a Man is drousie after a good Meal and a great many others of like Nature for which very ridiculous Accounts are usually given But besides that I am not writing a Tract of Physicks I must have been necessitated to have given some Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain or have made some Supposition as Monsieur Des-Cartes has done before me in his Treatise concerning Man without which it were impossible to explain ones self But finally if a Man shall read with Attention that Discourse of Monsieur Des-Cartes he will possibly be satisfy'd as to all these particular Inquiries because that Author explains all these things at least he furnishes us with sufficient Knowledge of them to be able of our selves to discover them by Meditation provided we are any whit acquainted with his Principles CHAP. III. That the Air imploy'd in Respiration causes some Change in the Animal Spirits THE second general Cause of the Changes which happen in the Animal Spirits is the Air we breath For though it does not forthwith make such sensible Impressions as the Chyle yet it causes at long run what the Juices of Meats do in a much shorter time This Air passes out of the Branches of the Trachea into those of the Arteria Venosa Hence it mingles and ferments with the rest of the Blood in the Heart and according to its own particular Disposition and that of the Blood it produces very great Changes in the Animal Spirits and consequently in the Imaginative Faculty I know there are some Persons who will not be persuaded that the Air mixes with the Blood in the Lungs and Heart because they cannot discover with their Eyes the Passages in the Branches of the Trachea and in those of the Arteria Venosa through which the Air is communicated But the Action of the Intellect ought not to stop when that of the Senses can go no farther It can penetrate that which to them is impenetrable and lay hold on things which have no handle for the Senses 'T is not to be question'd but some parts of the Blood continually pass through the Branches of the Vena Arteriosa into those of the Trachea The Smell and Moisture of the Breath sufficiently prove it and yet the Passages of that Communication are imperceptible Why then may not the subtil parts of Air be allow'd to pass through the Branches of the Trachea into the Arteria Venosa though the Passages of this Communication be undiscernible In fine a much greater quantity of Humours transpire through the imperceptible Pores of the Arteries and the Skin than escape through the other Avenues of the Body and even the Pores of the most solid Metals are not so close but there are found Bodies in Nature little enough to find a free passage through them since otherwise these Pores would quickly be entirely stopt It is true that the course and ragged parts of the Air cannot penetrate through the ordinary Pores of Bodies and that Water it self though extreamly gross can glide through those crannies which will not give admittance to them But we speak not here of the course or branch'd and ragged Parts of Air they seem to be of little use to Fermentation We only speak of the little stiff and pungent Parts and such as have none or very few Branches to impede their passage because these are the fittest for the Fermentation of the Blood I might notwithstanding affirm upon the Testimony of Silvius that even the coursest Air passes from the Trachea to the Heart who testifies he has seen it pass thither by the Art and Ingenuity of Mr. de Swammerdam For 't is more reasonable to believe a Man who says he has seen it than a thousand others who talk at random It is certain then that the most refin'd and subtil Parts of Air which we breath enter into the Heart and there together with the Blood and Chyle keep up the Fire which gives Life and Motion to our Body and that according to their different Qualities they introduce great Changes in the Fermentation of the Blood and in the Animal Spirits We daily discover the Truth of this by the various Humours and the different Characters of
the Minds of Men of different Countries The Gascons for instance have a more brisk and lively Imagination than the Normans Those of Rhoan and Dieppe and Picardie differ all from one another And yet farther from the Low-Normans though at no great distance from each other But if we consider Men that live in Countries more remote we shall find much stranger Differences between them For instance an Italian a Flemming and a Dutch-Man To conclude there are places celebrated in all Ages for the Wisdom of their Inhabitants as Theman and Athens and others as notorious for their Stupidity as Thebes and Abdera and some others Athenis tenue coelum ex quo acutiores etiam putantur Attici crassum Thebis Cic. de Fato Abderitanae pectora plebis habes Mart. Boeotum in crasso jurares aëre natum Hor. CHAP. IV. I. Of the Change of the Spirits caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Heart and Lungs II. Of that which is caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Liver to the Spleen and Viscera III. That all that is perform'd without the concurrence of our Will but yet it cannot be done without a Providence THE third cause of the Changes which happen to the Animal Spirits is the most ordinary and most active of them all because it is this which produces maintains and corroborates all the Passions For our better understanding this we must know that the Nerves of the fifth sixth and eighth Conjugation shoot out the greatest part of their Branches into the Breast and Belly where they are most advantagiously imploy'd for the Preservation of the Body but most dangerously in regard to the Soul Because these Nerves in their Action depend not on the Will of Men as do these us'd in moving the Legs and Arms and other External Parts of the Body And they have a greater influence upon the Soul than the Soul has upon them We must know then that many of the Branches of the Nerves of the eighth Conjugation fall in among the Fibres of the Principal of all the Muscles the Heart that they encircle its Orifices its Auricles and its Arteries That they expatiate also into the Substance of the Lungs and thus by their different Motions produce very considerable Changes in the Blood For the Nerves which are dispers'd among the Fibres of the Heart causing it to Dilate and Contract it self in too hasty and violent a manner throw with an unusual force abundance of Blood towards the Head and all other External Parts of the Body Though sometimes these same Nerves have a quite contrary Effect As for the Nerves which surround the Orifices of the Heart it s Auricles and Arteries their use is much the same with that of the Registers wherewith the Chymists moderate the Heat of their Furnaces or of Cocks which are instrumental in Fountains to regulate the Course of their Waters For the use of these Nerves is to contract and dilate diversly the Orifices of the Heart and by that manner to hasten and retard the Entrance and the Exit of the Blood and so to augment and diminish the Heat of it Lastly The Nerves which are dispers'd over the Lungs have the same employment For the Lungs being made up only of the Branches of the Trachea of the Vena Arteriosa and the Arteria Venosa interwoven one among another it is plain that the Nerves which are dispers'd through their Substance by their Contraction must obstruct the Air from passing so freely out of the Branches of the Trachea and the Blood out of those of the Vena Arteriosa into the Arteria Venosa to discharge it self into the Heart Thus these Nerves according to their different agitation augment and diminish still the Heat and Motion of the Blood All the Passions furnish us with very sensible Experiments of these different Degrees of Heat of our Heart we manifestly feel its Diminution and Augmentation sometimes on a sudden And as we falsly judge our Sensations to be in the Parts of our Body and by occasion of them to be Excited in our Soul as has been explain'd in the foregoing Book So the generality of Philosophers imagine the Heart to be the Principal Seat of the Passions of the Soul and 't is even at this day the most common and receiv'd Opinion Now because the Imaginative Faculty receives considerable Changes by the Changes which happen in the Animal Spirits and because the Animal Spirits are very different according to the different Fermentation of the Blood perform'd in the Heart it is easie to discover the Reason of Passionate People's imagining things quite otherwise than those who consider'd the same sedately and in cold Blood The other Cause which exceedingly contributes to the Diminution and Augmentation of these Extraordinary Fermentations of the Blood in the Heart consists in the Action of many other Branches of the Nerves whereof we have been speaking These Branches are dispers'd throughout the Liver which contains the more subtil part of the Blood or that which is commonly call'd the Bile through the Spleen which contains the grosser part or the Melancholy through the Pancreas which contains an acid Juice most proper for Fermentation through the Stomach the Guts and the other parts which contain the Chyle Finally They are dispers'd and spread about all the parts that can any ways contribute to the varying the Fermentation of the Blood in the Heart There is moreover nothing even to the Arteries and Veins which has not a Connection with these Nerves as Dr. Willis has discover'd of the Inferiour Trunck of the Great Artery which is connected to them near the Heart of the Axillary Artery on the right side of the Emulgent Vein and several others Thus the use of the Nerves being to agitate the parts to which they are fastened diverse ways it is easie to conceive how for instance the Nerve which surrounds the Liver may by constringing it drive a great quantity of Bile into the Veins and the Canalis Cysticus which mingling with the Blood in the Veins and with the Chyle through the Canalis Cysticus enters the Heart and produces a Heat therein much more fervent than ordinary Thus when a Man is mov'd with some kind of Passions the Blood boyls in the Arteries and in the Veins and the Heat is diffus'd throughout the Body the Fire flies up into the Head which is presently fill'd with such a prodigious quantity of over-brisk and rapid Animal Spirits as by their impetuous Current hinder the Imagination from representing other things than those whose Images they form in the Brain that is from thinking on other Objects than those of the Predominant Passion 'T is so again with the little Nerves which run into the Spleen or into other parts which contain a Matter more gross and course and less capable of Heat and Motion they render the Imagination wholly Languid Drousy and Unactive by pouring into the Chanels of the Blood a Matter that is
that might still be brought that the fore-knowledge of these inconveniences ought not to have prevented GOD from executing his Design It may be affirm'd in one Sense that GOD had never a Design of making Monsters for it seems evident to me that supposing he should make but one Animal he would never make it Monstrous But his Design being to produce an admirably contriv'd Work by the most simple means and to unite all his Creatures to one another he fore-saw certain Effects that would necessarily follow from that Order and Nature of Things and that was not sufficient to make him change his Purpose and Design For though in conclusion a Monster consider'd disjunctively be an imperfect Work yet when conjoyn'd with the rest of the Creation it renders not the World imperfect We have sufficiently explain'd what the Imagination of a Mother is capable of working upon the Body of her Child Let us now examine the influence she has upon his Mind and let us try to discover the first and topmost irregularities of the Vnderstanding and Will of Men in their Original For this is our main and principal Design 'T is certain that the Traces of the Brain are accompany'd with Sensations and Idea's of the Soul and that the Motions of the Animal Spirits are never excited in the Body but there are Motions in the Soul correspondent to them In a word it is certain that all the Corporeal Passions and Sensations are attended with real Sensations and Passions of the Soul Now according to our first Supposition Mothers communicate to their Children the Traces of their Brain and consequently the Motions of their Animal Spirits Therefore they breed in the Mind of their Infants the same Sensations and Passions themselves are affected with and consequently corrupt their Moral and Intellectual Capacity several ways If it be so common for Children to bear imprinted in their Faces the Marks or Traces of the Idea that made an impression on their Mother though the Cutaneous Fibres make a stronger resistance to the current of the Spirits than the soft and tender parts of the Brain and the Spirits are in a greater Agitation in the Brain than towards the Surface of the Body it can't be reasonably doubted but the Animal Spirits of the Mother produce in the Brain of their Children many Tracks and Footsteps of their disorderly Motions Now the great Traces of the Brain and the Emotions of the Spirits answering to them being a long time preserv'd and sometimes for the whole course of a Man's Life it is plain that as there are few Women but have their Weaknesses and Failings and are disturb'd with some Passion or other during the Season of their Breeding there must needs be but few Children but what bring into the World with them a Mind some way or other preposterously fram'd and are born Slaves to some domineering Passion We have but too frequent Experience of these things and all Men know well enough that there are whole Families subject to great Weaknesses of Imagination which have been hereditarily transmitted from their Ancestors But it would be unnecessary here to give particular instances On the contrary it is more expedient for the Consolation of some Persons to affirm that these Infirmities of their Fore-fathers being not Natural or essential to the Nature of Man the Traces and Impresses of the Brain which were the cause of them may by degrees wear out and in time be quite effac'd Yet it will not be amiss to relate here an Instance of James I. King of England which is mention'd by Sir Kenelm Digby in his Book that he publish'd concerning Sympathetick Powder He asserts in that Book that Mary Stuart being big with King James some Scotch Lords rush'd into her Chamber and kill'd her Secretary who was an Italian before her Face though she interpos'd her self between them to prevent the Assassination that this Princess receiv'd some slight hurts and that the Fright she was put into made such deep impressions in her Imagination as were communicated to the Infant she bore in her Womb insomuch that King James her Son was unable all his Life to behold a naked Sword He says he experimentally knew it at the time he was Knighted For the King when he should have laid the Sword upon his Shoulder run it directly against his Face and had wounded him with it if some one had not guided it to the proper place There are so many Examples of this kind that it would be needless to turn over Authors for them And I believe there is no body will dispute the truth of these things For in short we see very many Persons that can't endure the sight of a Rat a Mouse a Cat or a Frog and especially creeping Creatures as Snakes and Serpents and who know no other Reason of these their extraordinary Aversions than the Fears their Mothers were put in by these several Creatures at the time of their going with Child But that which I would above all have observ'd upon this subject is That there are all appearances imaginable of Men's preserving to this day in their Brain the Traces and Impressions of their first Parents For as Animals produce others that are like them and with the like impresses in their Brain which are the Cause that Animals of the same Species have the same Sympathies and Antipathies and perform the same Actions at the same junctures and the like occasions So our First Parents after their Sin receiv'd such great Prints and deep Traces in their Brain through the impression of sensible Objects as might easily have been communicated to their Children Insomuch that the great Adheâ—ion which is found in us from our Mother's Womb to sensible Objects and the great distance betwixt us and GOD in this our imperfect state may in some measure be accounted for by what we have been saying For since there is a necessity from the establish'd Order of Nature that the Thoughts of the Soul should be conformable to the Traces of the Brain we may affirm that from the time of our Formation in our Mother's Belly we are under Sin and stain'd with the Corruption of our Parents since we Date from thence our vehement Application to sensible Pleasures Having in our Brain the like Characters and Impresses with those Persons who gave us Being we must necessarily have the same Thoughts and the same Inclinations with respect to Sensible Objects And thus we must come into the World with Concupiscence about us and infected with Original Sin We must be born with Concupiscence if Concupiscence be nothing but a Natural Effort made by the Traces of the Brain upon the Mind to unite it to things sensible And we must be born with Original Sin if Original Sin be nothing but the Reign of Concupiscence and that Effort grown as it were victorious and Master of the Infant 's Heart and Mind Now there is great probability that this Reign or Victory of
It daily happens that an unexpected Event that has any thing terrible in its circumstances deprives of their Senses Men of a Mature Age whose Brain is not so susceptible of new Impressions who are experienc'd in the World who can make a Defence or at least are capable of taking up some Resolution Children at their first Arrival in the World suffer something from every Object that strikes upon their Senses wherewith they are not yet acquainted All the Animals they see are Creatures of a new Species on their Regard since nothing of what they see at present was ever seen by them before They are destitute of Strength and void of Experience the Fibres of their Brain are of a most fine and flexible temper How then is it possible their Imagination should continue whole when expos'd to the Impressions of so many different Objects 'T is true the Mothers have somewhat pre-accustomed their Children to the Impressions of Objects by having already imprinted them in the Fibres of their Brain before they left the Womb and this is the reason they receive much less damage when they behold with their own Eyes what they in some manner have perceived already with their Mother's 'T is farther true that these adulterate Traces and wounds their Imagination receives upon the sight of so many Objects to them frightful and terrible close up and heal again in time for as much as being unnatural the whole Body is against them and all the parts conspire to their Destruction as has been seen in the preceding Chapter And this is the cause that all Men in general are not Fools from their Cradles But this hinders not but that there may be ever some Traces so strong and deep impress'd as can never be effac'd but will remain as long as Life it self If Men would make serious Reflections upon what happens in their own Breast and contemplate their own Thoughts they would not want an Experimental Proof of what I have said They would generally discover in themselves some secret Inclinations and Aversions which are not in others whereof there seems no other Reason to be given than these Traces of our Infancy For since the causes of these Inclinations and Aversions are peculiar to us they have no foundation in the Nature of Men and since they are unknown to us they must needs have acted on us at a time when our Memory was not yet capable of registring the circumstances of things which might have assisted us in calling them again to Mind and that time could be only that of our tenderest Age. Monsieur Des-Cartes has acquainted us in one of his Epistles that he had always a particular fancy for all Squint-ey'd People and having diligently search'd into the Cause of it at length understood this Defect was incident to a young Maid he lov'd when he was a Child the Affection he retained for her diffusing it self to all others that any way resembled her But 't is not these little irregularities of our Inclinations which subject us most to Error 'T is our having universally or almost universally our Mind adulterate in something or other and our being generally subject to some kind of Folly though perhaps we are not aware of it Let a Man but examine carefully the Temper of those People he converses with and he will easily be perswaded into this Opinion and though himself be an Original for others to Copy after and be look'd upon as such yet he will find all others to be Originals too and all the difference to consist in the Degree of more or less Now one of the Causes of the different Characters of Mens Minds is doubtless the difference of Impressions received by them in their Mother's Womb as has been manifested touching peculiar and unusual Inclinations because these being Species of Folly that are settled and permanent for the most part they cannot have their Dependence on the Constitution of the Animal Spirits which is of a flux and alterable Nature And consequently they must needs proceed from the Base and Spurious Impressions made in the Fibres of the Brain at such time as our Memory was incapable of preserving the Remembrance of them that is in the beginning of our Lives Here then is one of the commonest Causes of the Errors of Mankind I mean that Subversion of their Brain caused by the Impression of External Objects in making their Entrance into the World and this Cause does not so suddenly cease as may be possibly imagined The ordinary Commerce Children are oblig'd to have with their Nurses or even with their Mothers that frequently have had no Education puts the last hand and gives the finishing stroke to the corruption of their Mind These silly Women entertain them with nothing but Fooleries with ridiculous Tales and frightful Stories Their whole Discourse to them is about things sensible and they deliver it in a way most proper to confirm them in the false Judgments of their Senses In a word they sow in their Minds the Seeds of all the Follies and Weaknesses themselves are subject to as of their extravagant Fears and Apprehensions their ridiculous Superstitions and other the like Feeblesses of Mind Which is the Reason that not being accustomed to search for Truth nor to taste and relish it they at last become incapable of discerning it and of making any use of their Reason Hence they become timerous and low-spirited which Temper for a long time sticks by them For there are many to be seen who when fifteen or twenty Years old retain the Character and Spirit of their Nurse 'T is true Children seem not to be greatly qualified for the Contemplation of Truth and for abstract and sublime Sciences because the Fibres of their Brain being extreamly fine are most easily agitated by Objects even the most weak and least sensible that can be and their Soul necessarily admitting Sensations proportioned to the Agitation of these Fibres leaves Metaphysical Nations and pure Intellection to apply her self wholly to her Sensations And thus Children seem improper for and incapable of an attentive Application to the pure Idea's of Truth being so frequently and so easily drawn off by the confus'd Idea's of their Senses Yet in Answer to this it may be said First that 't is easier for a Child of seven Years old to be freed from the Errors his Senses lead him to than for a Man at sixty who all his Life long has been mis-guided by the prejudices of Childhood Secondly that a Child though incapable of the clear and distinct Idea's of Truth is at least capable of being admonish'd that his Senses deceive him upon all occasions and if he cannot be taught the Truth he should not however be encouraged and fortified in his Errors Lastly the youngest Children though never so taken up with Pleasant and Painful Sensations yet learn in little time what Persons more advanc'd in Years cannot in much longer as the Knowledge of the Order and Relations
the Will of man as a Will it essentially depends on the Love that God bears to himself on the Eternal Law and in short on the Will of God It is only because God loves himself that we love any thing for if God did not love himself or did not continually influence the Soul of man with a Love like his own that is with the Motion of Love which a Man feels in himself for Good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently should be destitute of Will since Will is nothing else but that Impression of Nature that carries us towards Good in general as hath been said several times But the Will considered as the Will of Man essentially depends upon the Body since it is by reason of the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits that it feels its self affected with all its sensible Commotions And therefore I have called Natural Inclinations all the Motions which the Soul has common with pure Intelligences together with some in which the Body hath a great Share but of which it is only the indirect Cause and End and I have explained them in the foregoing Book Here I understand by Passions All the Motions which naturally affect the Soul on occasion of the extraordinary Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits And so shall these sensible Commotions be the Subject of this Book Though the Passions be inseparable from the Inclinations and Men be only susceptible of a sensible Love and Hatred because they are capable of a Spiritual Love and Hatred however it was though fit to treat of them separately in order to prevent Confusion For if it be considered That the Passions are far stronger and livelyer than the Natural Inclinations that they have for the most part other Objects and are always produced by different Causes it will be granted That we do not distinguish without Reason things that are inseparable in their own Nature Men are capable of Sensations and Imaginations only because they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind and yet none finds fault with those that distinctly treat of those Faculties of the Soul which are naturally inseparable Last of all the Senses and Imagination differ not more from the pure Understanding than the Passions from the Inclinations And therefore as the three first Faculties use to be distinguished so ought also the two last that we may the better distinguish what the Soul receives from its Author with Relation to its Body from that which it also has from him but without that Relation The only Inconveniency that may grow out of the distinction of two things so naturally united is the necessity of repeating some things that had been said before as is usual in the like occasions Man is one though he be Compounded of several parts and the union of those parts is so intimate that one of them cannot be affected without a Commotion of the whole All his Faculties are linked together and so subordinated that it is impossible to explain some of them without touching upon the others So that when we labour to find out a Method to prevent Confusion we necessarily fall into Repetitions but 't is better to repeat than not to be Methodical because we ought above all to be plain and intelligible and therefore whatever we can doe in this occasion is to repeat if possible without wearying the Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love our Body and whatever is useful for its preservation As the natural Inclinations are Impressions of the same Author that principally move us to love him as the Sovereign Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the Motion of the Animal Spirits which disperse through the Body to produce and maintain in it a disposition suitable to the Object perceiv'd that the Mind and Body may in that conjuncture mutually help each other For 't is the Institution of God that our Willings be attended with such Motions of our Body as are fit to put them in execution and that the Motions of our Body which Machinally rise in us at the perception of some Object be follow'd with a Passion of the Soul that inclines us to will what seems at that time profitable to the Body It is the continual Impression of the Will of God upon us that keeps us so strictly united to a portion of matter for if that Impression of his Will should cease but a moment we should instantly be rid of the Dependency upon our Body and all the Changes it undergoes For I cannot understand what some people imagine that there is a necessary Connection betwixt the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits and the Commotions of the Soul Some small Particles of Choler violently move in the Brain must therefore the Soul be agitated with some Passion and must that Passion be Anger rather than Love What Relation can there be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemy's Imperfections the Passion of Contempt or Hatred and the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of the Blood that beat against some parts of the Brain How they can imagine that the one depend upon the other and that the Union or Connection of two things so distant and so incompatible as the Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved any otherwise than by the continual and Almighty Will of the Author of Nature is to me unconceivable Those that suppose that Bodies necessarily and by themselves communicate their Motion to each other in the instant of their concourse make but a probable supposition neither is their prejudice altogether groundless since Bodies seem to have an Essential Relation to Bodies But the Mind and Body are two sorts of Beings so opposite that those who think that the Commotions of the Soul necessarily follow upon the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits do it without the least probability For nothing but our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and the Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures can make us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body than the Will of God It is hard to determine whether that Union or Connection of the thoughts of the Mind of Man with the Motions of his Body is a punishment of Sin or a Gift of Nature And some persons believe it a rash and imprudent Attempt to chuse one of these Opinions rather than the other It is well known that Man before his Sin was not a Slave but absolute Master of his Passions and that he could merely by his Will stop at his pleasure the Agitation of the Blood that caused them But we can hardly persuade our selves that the Body did not importune the Soul of the first Man to find out such things as were fit for the preservation of his Life We can scarce believe but Adam before his
a great Number but also differ by the different Perceptions and Judgments that cause or accompany them Those different Judgments of the Soul concerning Good or Evil produce different Motions in the Animal Spirits to dispose the Body in relation to the Object and consequently cause in the Soul Sensations that are not altogether like Whence it proceeds that some Passions are observ'd to differ from each other though their Commotions be not different In the mean while the Commotion of the Soul being the chief Thing observable in every Passion 't is better to refer them to the Three original Passions in which those Commotions are very different than to treat confusedly and disorderly of them in reference to the different Perceptions we may have of the Good and Evil that raises them For we may have so many different Perceptions of Objects in reference to Time to our selves to what belongs to us to the Persons or Things to which we are united either by Nature or Choice that it is wholly impossible to make an accurate Enumeration of them When the Soul perceives any Good which she cannot enjoy it may perhaps be said that she hopes for it though she desires it not However 't is plain that this her Hope is not a Passion but a simple Judgment And therefore 't is the Commotion that attends the Idea of any Good of which we take the Enjoyment to be possible that adopts Hope into a true Passion It is the same when Hope grows into Security For the latter is a Passion only because of the Commotion of Joy that mixes with that of Desire since the Judgment of the Soul that considers any Good as certain is a Passion but as much as it is a foregoing Taste of the Good that affects us Last of all When Hope diminishes and is succeeded by Despair 't is visible again that the latter is a Passion but because of the Commotion of Sorrow that mixes with that of Desire for the Judgment of the Soul that considers any Good as unattainable would not be a Passion should we not be actuated by that Judgment But because the Soul never looks upon Good or Evil without any Commotion and even without any Alteration in the Body we often give the Name of Passion to the Judgment that produces it confounding together whatever happens both to the Soul and Body at the sight of any Good or Evil For the Words Hope Fear Boldness Shame Impudence Anger Pity Derision Grief and the Names of all other Passions in common use are short Expressions made up of several Terms by which can be explain'd in particular whatever Passions contain We understand by the Word Passion the View of the Relation any thing has to us the Commotion and Sensation of the Soul the Concussion of the Brain and the Motion of the Spirits a new Commotion and Sensation of the Soul and lastly a Sensation of Pleasure that always attends the Passions and makes them grateful All these we commonly understand by the Name of Passions but sometimes it only signifies either the Judgment that raises it or only the Commotion of the Soul or the bare Motion of the Spirits and Blood or lastly something else that accompanies the Commotion of the Soul It is very useful for the Knowledge of Truth to abridge Ideas and Expressions but that often causes some considerable Errour especially when those Ideas are abridg'd by popular Use For we ought never to abridge them but when we have made them very clear and distinct by a great Application of Mind and not as 't is ordinarily done as to Passions and sensible Things when we have made them familiar to us by their Sensations and the mere Action of the Imagination which easily imposes on the Mind There is a great difference betwixt the pure Ideas of the Mind and the Sensations or Commotions of the Soul Pure Ideas are clear and distinct but 't is a hard Task to make them familiar whereas Sensations and Commotions are intimate with us but can never plainly and distinctly be known Numbers Extension and their Properties may be clearly known but unless we make them sensible by some expressive Characters 't is very difficult to represent them to our Mind because whatever is abstracted moves us not On the contrary the Commotions and Sensations of the Soul may easily be represented to the Mind though the Knowledge we have of them be but confused and imperfect for all the Words that raise them lively strike the Soul and make it attentive Thence it proceeds that we often imagine we rightly understand some Discourses that are altogether incomprehensible and that reading some Descriptions of the Sensations and Passions of the Soul we persuade our selves that we perfectly comprehend them because they strongly move us and that all the Words that reverberate upon our Eyes agitate our Soul The hearing of the very Names of Shame Despair Impudence c. straightway excite in our Mind a confused Idea and obscure Sensation that powerfully influences us and because this Sensation is very familiar to us and presents it self without any Trouble or Endeavour of the Mind we fancy it to be clear and distinct These Words however are the Names of compounded Passions and by consequence abridg'd Expressions which popular Use has made up of many confused and obscure Ideas Seeing we are oblig'd to employ such Terms as common Use has approv'd of the Reader should not be surpriz'd to meet with Obscurity and sometimes with a sort of Contradiction in our Words And if it were but consider'd that the Sensations and Commotions of the Soul that answer to the Terms us'd in such Discourses are not wholly the same in all Men because of their different Dispositions of Mind they would not so easily condemn us when they could not enter into our Opinions This I say not so much to prevent Objections against my self as that we may understand the Nature of the Passions and what we are to think of Books treating of such Matters After so many Cautions I shall not stick to say that all the Passions may be referr'd to the three Primitive namely Desire Joy and Sorrow and that it is specially by the different Judgments the Soul makes of Goods and Evils that such as relate to the same Primitive Passion differ from each other For Instance I may say that Hope Fear and Irresolution that is the Mean betwixt them both are Species of Desire That Boldness Courage and Emulation c. have a greater Relation to Hope than to all others and that Timidity Cowardise Jealousie c. are Species of Fear I may say that Alacrity and Glory Kindness and Gratefulness are Species of Joy caused by the Sight of the Good that we know to be in us or in those to whom we are united as Derision or Jeering is a sort of Joy commonly arising at the Sight of the Evil that befalls those from whom we are separated Lastly That Distaste
indeed whenever we will it and we may be call'd in that sense the natural cause of the Motion of our Arm yet natural Causes are not true but only occasional as acting by the mere force and efficacy of the Will of God as we have already explain'd For how is it possible for us to move our Arm To perform this 't is requir'd we should have Animal Spirits and send them through certain Nerves towards certain Muscles to swell up and contract them for so that Motion is perform'd as some pretend though others deny it and assert that the Mystery is not yet discover'd However it be most Men know not so much as that they have Spirits Nerves and Muscles and yet move their Arms with as much and more dexterity than the most skilful Anatomists Men therefore will the moving their Arm but 't is God that is able and knows how to doe it If a Man cannot overthrow a Tower yet he knows what must be done to effect it but not one amongst them knows what the Animal Spirits must doe to move one of his Fingers How should they then move the whole Arm of themselves These things appear very evident to me and I suppose to all thinking Persons though they may be incomprehensible to others such as are only used to the confused voice of the Senses But Men are so far from being the true Causes of the Motions produc'd in their Body that it seems to imply a Contradiction they should be so For a true Cause is that betwixt which and its Effect the Mind percieves a necessary connexion for so I understand it But there is none besides the infinitely perfect Being betwixt whose Will and the Effects the Mind can perceive a necessary Connexion and therefore none but God is the true Cause or has a real Power of moving Bodies Nay it seems unconceivable that God should communicate this Power either to Angels or Men And those that pretend that the Power we have of moving our Arm is a true Power must by Consequence grant that God can give Spirits the Power of creating annihilating and doing all possible things in short that he can make them Almighty as I am going to pove God needs not Instruments to act 't is enough he should Will the Existence of a thing in order to its Existing because it is contradictory that he should will a thing and his Will should not be fulfilled And therefore his Power is his Will and to communicate his Power is to communicate his Will so that to communicate his Will to a Man or an Angel can signifie nothing else but to will that whenever that Man or Angel shall desire that such or such a Body be moved it may actually be moved In which Case I see two Wills concurring together that of God and that of the Angel and to know which of them is the true Cause of the Motion of that Body I enquire which is the Efficacious I see a necessary Connexion betwixt the Will of God and the thing willed in this Case God wills that whenever the Angel shall desire that such a Body be moved it be really so There is then a necessary Connexion betwixt the Will of God and the Motion of that Body and consequently God is the true Cause of that Motion and the Will of the Angel is only occasional Again to make it more evidently manifest let us suppose God wills it should happen quite contrary to the Desire of some Spirits as may be thought of the Devils or some other wicked Spirits in Punishment of their Sins In that Case it cannot be said God communicates his Power to them since nothing happens of what they wish However the Will of those Spirits shall be the natural Cause of the produced Effects as such a Body shall be removed to the Right because they wish it were moved to the Left and the Desires of those Spirits shall determine the Will of God to act as the Will of moving the Parts of our Body determine the first Cause to move them and therefore the Desires of all finite Spirits are but occasional Causes If after all these Reasons it be still asserted that the Will of an Angel moving a Body is a true and not a bare occasional Cause 't is evident that the self-same Angel might be the true Cause of the Creation and Annihilation of all things since God might as well communicate to him his Power of Creating and annihilating Bodies as that of moving them if He should will that they should be created and annihilated in a word if he will'd that all things should be performed according to the Angel's Desires as he wills that Bodies be moved as the Angel pleases if therefore it may be said that an Angel or Man are true Movers because God moves Bodies as they desire that Man or Angel might likewise be call'd true Creatours since God might create Beings on occasion of their Will Nay perhaps it might be said that the vilest of Animals or even mere Matter is the real Cause of the Creation of some Substance if it be supposed with some Philosophers that God produces substantial Forms whenever the Disposition of Matter requires it And lastly since God has resolved from all Eternity to create some certain things at some certain times those Times might also be called the Causes of the Creation of such Beings with as much right as 't is pretended that a Ball meeting with another is the true Cause of the Motion that is communicated to it because God by his general Will that constitutes the Order of Nature has decreed that such or such Communication of Motions should follow upon the Concourse of two Bodies There is then but one true Cause as there is one true God Neither must we imagine that what precedes an Effect does really produce it God himself cannot communicate his Power to Creatures according to the Light of Reason He cannot make them true Causes and change them into Gods But though he might doe it we conceive not why he should will it Bodies Spirits pure Intelligences all can doe nothing 'T is he who has made Spirits that enlightens and moves them 't is he who has created Heaven and Earth that regulates all their Motions In fine 't is the Authour of our Being that performs our Desires Semel jussit semper paret He moves even our Arms when we use them against his Orders for he complains by his Prophets That we make him subservient to our unjust and criminal Desires All those little Divinities of the Heathens all those particular Causes of Philosophers are Chimeras which the wicked Spirit endeavours to set up that he may destroy the Worship of the true God The Philosophy we have received from Adam teaches us no such things but that which has been propagated by the Serpent for ever since the Fall the Mind of Man is turned Heathen That Philosophy join'd to the Errours of the Senses has made
a Muscle it must needs swell up and produce in that part a Convulsive Motion If that Motion may easily be resisted 't is a sign that the Nerves are not yet obstructed by any Humour since we may empty the Muscle of the Spirits that have enter'd into it and determine them to swell up the opposite Muscle But if we cannot do it we must conclude that pungent and piercing Humours have some part at least in that Motion Even it may often happen that those Humours are the only Cause of Convulsions since they may determine the Course of the Spirits to some certain Muscles by opening some Passages that convey them and shutting others Besides that they may contract the Tendons and Fibres by penetrating their Pores When a very ponderous Weight hangs at the end of a Rope it may considerably be rais'd by only wetting that Cord because the Particles of Water penetrating as so many little Wedges betwixt the Threads of the Rope shorten it by dilating it So the piercing and pungent Humours insinuating into the Pores of the Nerves contract them stretch the Parts to which they are tied and produce in the Body Convulsive Motions that are extremely slow violent and painful and and often leave the Part sadly distorted for a long time As to the Convulsive Motions that are very swift they are caus'd by the Spirits but it is not necessary that those Spirits should receive any Fermentation 't is enough that the Conduits through which they pass be more open at one side than at the other When all the Parts of the Body are in their natural Situation the Animal Spirits diffuse themselves equally and readily through them according to the Necessities of the Machine and faithfully perform the Orders of the Will But when Humours disturb the Disposition of the Brain alter or variously move the Apertures of the Nerves or penetrate into the Muscles they agitate their Springs and the Spirits diffusing into those Parts after a new and unusual manner produce extraordinary Motions without the Consent of the Will However we may often by a strong Resistance hinder some of those Motions and insensibly diminish the Traces that produce them even when the Habit is wholly form'd Those that look carefully to themselves find little Difficulty in preventing Grimaces unbecoming Gestures and a sourish Countenance though their Body have a Disposition to them and may even conquer them when strengthen'd by Habit but with a great deal more Difficulty for such Dispositions should always be oppos'd in their Birth and before the Spirits have traced out a Way not easie to be stopp'd up The Cause of those Motions is often in the agitated Muscle and proceeds from some pungent Humour or fermenting Spirits but we must judge that it is in the Brain especially when the Convulsions agitate not one or two parts of the Body but most or all and withall in several Diseases which alter the natural Constitution of the Blood and Spirits 'T is true that one Nerve often having different Branches which disperse through Parts of the Body very remote as into the Face and Bowels it sometimes happens that a Convulsion the Cause of which lies in a Part to which some one of those Branches resorts may have Communication with those to which other Branches reach without proceeding from the Brain and without a Corruption of the Spirits But when the Convulsive Motions are common to most Parts of the Body we must needs say either that the Spirits ferment in a very extraordinary manner or that the Order and Disposition of the Parts of the Brain is disturb'd or that it proceeds from both Causes together I shall not insist any longer upon this Question because it grows so compound and depending on so many things when we enter into Particulars that it cannot easily be made serviceable to a clear Explication of the Rules we have given There is no Science which may supply us with more Examples to shew the Usefulness of those Rules than Geometry and especially Algebra since these two Sciences make a perpetual Use of them Geometry plainly discovers the Necessity always to begin with the most simple Things and which include the least Number of Relations It always examines those Relations by Measures that are clearly known it takes off whatever is unserviceable to discover them it divides into Parts Compound Questions disposes those Parts and examines them in order In short The only Fault to be found in this Science is as I have observ'd elsewhere that it affords no convenient Means to abridge Ideas and discover'd Relations So that though it regulates the Imagination and makes the Mind exact yet it increases not its Extent very much neither does it give a Capacity to discover very compound Truths But Algebra continually teaching to abridge and in the shortest Way imaginable Ideas and their Relations extremely improves the Capacity of the Mind for nothing so compound can be conceâ—v'd in the Relations of Magnitudes but the Mind may discover it in time by the Means it affords when we know the Way that ought to be taken The fifth Rule and the following which speak of the Method of abridging Ideas concern only that Science for none else has a convenient Way of abridging them so that I shall not insist upon their Explication Those who have a great Inclination for Mathematicks and desire to give their Mind all the Force and Extent it is capable of and to put themselves into a State of discovering without a Tutor an infinite Number of new Truths will perceive if they earnestly apply themselves to Algebra that the Usefulness of that Science as to the Enquiry after Truth proceeds from its observing the Rules we have prescrib'd But I must advertise that by Algebra I especially understand that which des Cartes and some others have made use of Before the Conclusion of this Book I shall set down an Example somewhat at large to shew the Usefulness of the whole Treatise I shall represent by it the Advances of a Man who in the Discussion of an important Question endeavours to free himself from Prejudices I shall at first make him fall into some Faults that they may excite the Remembrance of what has been said elsewhere But at last his Attention leading him to the Truth enquir'd after I induce him speaking positively and as one who pretends to have solv'd the Question he examin'd CHAP. IX The last Instance to shew the Vsefulness of this Treatise wherein the Cause of the Vnion of Parts in Bodies and withall the Rules of the Communication of Motion are examin'd BOdies are united together three different Ways by Continuity Contiguity and in a third manner that has no particular Name because it seldom happens I shall call it by the general Term of Union By Continuity or by the Causes of it I understand somewhat or other which causes the Parts of a Body to hold so strongly together that we must use violence
includes two Faculties an Active and a Passive 3. A general Cause of the Changes which happen in the Imagination of Men and the Foundation of the Second Book 45 CHAP. II. 1 Of the Animal Spirits and the Changes they are sâ—â—ject to in general 2. That the Chyle entring the Heart occasions a Change in the Spirits 3. That Wine does the same thing 47 CHAP. III. That the Air imploy'd in Respiration causes some change in the Animal Spirits 48 CHAP. IV. 1. Of the Change of the Spirits caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Heart and Lungs 2. Of that which is caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Liver to the Spleen and Viscera 3. That all that is perform'd without the Concurrence of our Will but yet it cannot be done without a Providence 49 CHAP. V. 1. Of Memory 2. Of Habits 51 CHAP. VI. 1. That the Fibres of the Brain are not subject to so sudden Changes as the Spirits 2. Three different Changes incident to the three different Ages 53 CHAP. VII 1. Of the Communication there is between the Brain of a Mother and that of her Infant 2. Of the Communication that is between our Brain and the other Parts of our Body which inclines us to Imitation and to Compassion 3. An Explication of the Generation of Monstrous Children and the Propagation of the Species 4. An Explication of some Irregularities of the Understanding and of some Inclinations of the Will 5. Concerning Concupiscence and Original Sin 6. Objections and Answers 54 CHAP. VIII 1. The Changes which happen in the Imagination of an Infant after his Birth by his accompanying with his Mother his Nurse and other Persons 2. Some Instructions for their good Education 61 The Second Part. CHAP. I. 1. Of the Imagination of Women 2. Of the Imagination of Men. 3. Of the Imagination of old Men 64 CHAP. II. That the Animal Spirits generally run in the Tracks of Ideas that are most familiar to us which is the Reason of our preposterous Judgments 66 CHAP. III. Of the mutual Connexion between the Ideas and the Traces of the Brain and of the mutual Connexion there is between Traces and Traces Ideas and Ideas 68 CHAP. IV. 1. That Men of Learning are the most subject to Error 2. The Causes why Men had rather be guided by Authority than make use of their own Reason 71 CHAP. V. Two pernicious Effects Reading has upon the Imagination 72 CHAP. VI. That Men of Learning generally are so opinionated with an Author that their principal Drift is the knowing what he held without caring to know what ought to be held 74 CHAP. VII Of the Prepossession of Commentators 76 CHAP. VIII 1. Of the Inventors of new Systems 2. The last Error of Men of Learning 79 CHAP. IX 1. Of Effeminate Minds 2. Of Superficial Minds 3. Of Men of Authority 4. Of the Experimental Philosophers 81 The Third Part. CHAP I. Of the Disposition we have to imitate others in all things which is the Original of the Communication of those Errors that depend on the Power of Imagination 2. Two things that more especially increase this Disposition 3. What that strong Imagination is 4. That there are several kinds of it Of Fools and of those that have a strong Imagination in the Sense 't is here taken 5. Two considerable Imperfections of Men of a strong Imagination 6. Of the Power they have to persuade and impose on others 84 CHAP. II. General Instances of the Strength of Imagination 87 CHAP. III. 1. Of the Force of some Authors Imagination 2. Of Tertullian 90 CHAP. IV. Of the Imagination of Seneca 91 CHAP. V. Of Montagne's Book 95 CHAP. VI. 1. Of Witches in Imagination and of Wolf-men 2. The Conclusion of the two First Books 99 Book the Third CHAP. I. 1. Thought is only essential to the Mind Sensation and Imagination are only the Modifications of it 2. We know not all the Modifications our Soul is capable of 3. They are different from our Knowledge and our Love nor are they always Consequences of them 101 CHAP. II. 1. The Mind being limited cannot comprehend any thing of an Infinite Nature 2. It s Limitation is the Origine of a great many Errors 3. And especially of Heresies 4. The Mind must be submitted unto Faith 105 CHAP. III. 1. The Philosophers dissipate or dissolve the Force of the Mind by applying it to the Subjects including too many Relations and depending on too many things and by observing no Method in their Studies 2. An Instance taken from Aristotle 3. That Geometricians on the contrary take a good Method in the Search of Truth Especially those who make use of Algebra and Analyticks 4. That their Method increases the Strength of the Mind and that Aristotle's Logick lessens it 5. Another Fault of Learned Men 107 CHAP. IV. 1. The Mind cannot dwell long upon Objects that have no relation to it or that include not something of Infinity in them 2. The Inconstancy of the Will is the Cause of that want of Application and consequently of Error 3. Our Sensations take us up more than the pure Ideas of the Mind 4. Which is the Source of the Corruption of our Morals 5. And of the Ignorance of the Vulgar sort of Men 109 Second Part concerning pure Understanding CHAP. I. 1. What is meant by Ideas That they really exist and are necessary to our perceiving all material Objects 2. A Particularization of all the ways possible for us to perceive external Objects 112 CHAP. II. That material Objects emit not Species which resemble them 114 CHAP. III. That the Soul has no power to produce Ideas The cause of the Error Men are guilty of upon this Subject 115 CHAP. IV. That we perceive not Objects by means of Ideas created with us That God does not produce them in us every moment we have need of them 117 CHAP. V. That the Mind perceives neither the Essence nor the Existence of Objects by considering its own Perfections That none but God sees them in that manner 118 CHAP. VI. That we see all things in God 119 CHAP. VII 1. Four different manners of Perception 2. How it is that we know God 3. How we know Bodies 4. How we know our own Souls 5. How we know the Souls of other Men and pure Spirits 122 CHAP. VIII 1. The intimate Presence of the indefinite Idea of Being in general is the cause of all the disorderly abstractions of the Mind and the most part of the Chimeras of the vulgar Philosophy which hinder many Philosophers from acknowledging the solidity of true Principles of Physicks 2. An Instance concerning the Essence of Matter 124 CHAP. IX 1. The last general Cause of our Errors 2. That the Ideas of things are not always present to the Mind when we would have them 3. That every finite Mind is subject to Error and why 4. That we ought not to judge that there is nothing but Body and Spirit nor that God is a
Custom Why Men by use of Speaking obtain so great a Dexterity at it as to pronounce their Words with an incredible swiftness and even without considering them as is but too often customary with those who say the Prayers which they have been us'd to several Years together And yet many things go to the Pronunciation of one Word many Muscles must be mov'd at once in a certain time and a definite Order as those of the Tongue the Lips the Throat and Diaphragm But a Man may with a little Meditation give himself satisfaction upon these Questions as upon many others very curious and no less useful and it is not necessary to dwell any longer upon them It is manifest from what has been said that there is a great affinity between the Memory and Habits and that in one sense the Memory may pass for a Species of Habit. For as the Corporeal Habits consist in the Facility the Spirits have acquir'd of passing into certain places of our Body So the Memory consists in the Traces the same Spirits have imprinted in the Brain which are the cause of that Facility we have of Recollecting and Remembring things In so much that were there no Perceptions affix'd to the courses of the Animal Spirits and the Traces they leave behind them there would be no difference between the Memory and the other Habits Nor is there greater difficulty to conceive how Beasts though void of Soul and incapable of any Perception may remember after their way the things that have made an Impression in their Brain than to conceive how they are capable of acquiring different Habits and after what I have explain'd concerning the Habits I see no greater difficulty to represent to a Man's self how the Members of their Body procure different Habits by degrees than how an Engine newly made cannot so easily be play'd as after it has been some time made use of CHAP. VI. I. That the Fibres of the Brain are not subject to so sudden Changes as the Spirits II. Three different Changes incident to the three different Ages ALL the Parts of Animate Bodies are in a continual Motion whether they be Solid or Fluid the Flesh no less than the Blood There is only this difference between the Motion of one and the other that the Motion of the parts of the Blood is sensible and visible and that the Particles of the Fibres of our Flesh are altogether Imperceptible There is then this difference between the Animal Spirits and the Substance of the Brain That the Animal Spirits are very rapidly mov'd and very fluid but the Substance of the Brain has some Solidity and Consistence So that the Spirits divide themselves into little Parts and are dispers'd in a few Hours by transpiring through the Pores of the Vessels that contain them and others often succeed in their Place not altogether like the former But the Fibres of the Brain are not so easie to be dissipated there seldom happen any considerable Alterations in them and their whole Substance can't be chang'd but by the successive tract of many Years The most considerable Differences that are found in the Brain of one and the same Person during his whole Life are in his Infancy in his Maturity and in his Old Age. The Fibres in the Brain in a Man's Child-hood are soft flexible and delicate A Riper and more consummate Age dries hardens and corroborates them but in Old Age they grow altogether inflexible gross and intermix'd with superfluous Humours wich the faint and languishing Heat of that Age is no longer able to disperse For as we see that the Fibres which compose the Flesh harden by Time and that the Flesh of a young Partridge is without dispute more tender than that of an old one so the Fibres of the Brain of a Child or a young Person must be much more soft and delicate than those of Persons more advanc'd in Years We shall understand the Ground and the Reason of these Changes if we consider that the Fibres are continually agitated by the Animal Spirits which whirl about them in many different manners For as the Winds parch and dry the Earth by their blowing upon it so the Animal Spirits by their perpetual Agitation render by degrees the greatest part of the Fibres of Man's Brain more dry more close and solid so that Persons more stricken in Age must necessarily have them almost always more inflexible than those of a lesser standing And as for those who are of the same Age your Drunkards which for many Years together have drank to excess either Wine or such Intoxicating Liquors must needs have them more solid and more inflexible than those who have abstain'd from the use of such kind of Liquors all their Lives Now the different Constitutions of the Brain in Children in Adult Persons and in Old People are very considerable Causes of the Difference observable in the Imaginative Faculty of these Three Ages which we are going to speak of in the following Chapters CHAP. VII I. Of the Communication there is between the Brain of a Mother and that of her Infant II. Of the Communication that is between our Brain and the other Parts of our Body which inclines us to Imitation and to Compassion III. An Explication of the Generation of Monstrous Children and the Propagation of the Species IV. An Explication of some Irregularities of the Vnderstanding and of some Inclinations of the Will V. Concerning Concupiscence and Original Sin VI. Objections and Answers IT is I think sufficiently manifest that there is some kind of Tye and Connection between us and all the rest of the World and that we have some Natural Relations to or Correspondencies with all things that encompass us which Relations are very advantagious both as to the Preservation and welfare of our Lives But all these Relations are not equally binding There is a closer Connection betwixt us and our Native Country than China we have a nearer Relation to the Sun than to any of the Stars to our own Houses than that of our Neighbours There are invisible Ties that fasten us with a stricter Union unto Men than Beasts to our Relations and Friends than Strangers to those on whom we have our Dependence for the Preservation of our Being than to such as can neither be the Objects of our Hopes or Fears That which is more especially remarkable in this Natural Union betwixt us and other Men is That it is so much greater by how much we stand more in need of their Kindness or Assistance Relations and Friends are intimately united to one another We may say that their Pains and Miseries are common as well as their Pleasures and Happiness For all the Passions and Sentiments of our Friends are communicated to us by the Impression their Mein and Manner and the Air of their Countenance make upon us But because we may absolutely live without them the Natural Union betwixt them and us is
necessary for them to know we allow them to omit them and likewise to despise them but 't is not fair to judge of them out of a fanciful dislike and ill-grounded suspicions For they ought to consider that the Serious Air and Gravity wherewith they speak the Authority they have obtain'd over the Minds of others and that customary way of confirming their Discourse with a Text of Scripture must unavoidably engage in Error their respectful Auditors who being incapable of Examining things to the bottom are caught with Modes and external Appearances When Error comes cloath'd in the Dress of Truth it frequently has more respect than Truth it self And this illegitimate Respect has very dangerous Consequences Pessima res est Errorum Apotheosis pro peste intellectûs habenda est si vanis accedat veneratio Thus when some Men out of a false Zeal or a Fondness for their own Thoughts bring the Holy Scripture to countenance or support false Principles of Physicks or other of like Nature they are often attended to as Oracles by the admiring Crowd who credit them upon their word because of the Reverence they ascribe to Divine Authority When at the same time some Men of a worse Complection have taken occasion hereby to contemn Religion So that by strangely perverting its Nature Holy Scripture has been the Cause of some Men's Errors and Truth has been the Motive and Original to other's Impiety We should then be cautious says the fore-cited Author of searching after Dead things among the Living and of presuming by our own Sagacity of Mind to discover in the Holy Scriptures what the Holy Spirit has not thought fit to declare in it Ex Divinorum Humanorum malesanâ admixtionâ— continues he non solum educitur Philosophia phantastica sed etiam Religio haeretica Itaque salutare admodum est si mente sobriâ fidei tantum dentur quae fidei sunt All Men who have any Authority over others ought never to determine till they have so much the more seriously consider'd as their Determinations are more obstinately adher'd to and Divines should be more especially regardful lest they give scandal and contempt to Religion through a false Zeal by an ambitious desire of their own Fame and of giving Vogue to their Opinions But it being not my Business to prescribe to them their Duty let them hearken to St. Thomas Aquinas their Master who being consulted by his General for his Opinion touching some Points answers him in these words of St. Austin Multùm autem nocet talia quae ad pietatis doctrinam non spectant vel asserere vel negare quasi pertinentia ad Sacram doctrinam Dicit enim Augustinus in 5. Confess Cùm audio Christianum aliquem fratrem ista quae Philosophi de coelo aut stellis de Solis Lunae motibus dixerâ—nt nescientem aliud pro alio sentienâ—em patienter intueor opinantem hominem nec illi obesse video cum de te Domine Creator omnium nostrûm non credat indigna si fortè situs habitus creaturae corporalis ignoret Obest autem si haec ad ipsam dâ—ctrinam pietatis pertinere arbitretur pertinacius affirmare audeat quod ignorat Quod autem obsit manifestat Augustinus in 1. super Genes Ad literam Turpe est inquit nimis perniciosum ac maximê cavendum ut Christianum de his rebus quasi secundum Christianas literas loquentem ita delirare quilibet infidelis audiat ut quemadmodum dicitur toto coelo errare conspiciens risum tenere vix possit Et non tamen molestum est quod errans homo videatur sed quod Authores nostri ab eis qui foris sunt talia sensisse creduntur cum magno eorum exitio de quorum salute satagimus tanquam indocti reprehenduntur atque respuuntur Vnde mihi videtur tutius esse ut hâ—â—c quae Philosophi communes senserunt nostrae fidei non repugnant neque esse sic asserenda ut dogmata fidei licet aliquandò sub nomine Philosophorum introducantur neque sic â—sse neganda tanquam fidei contraria ne sapientibus hujus mundi contemnendi doctrinam fidei occasio praebeatur 'T is a dangerous thing positively to determine concerning matters that are not of Faith as if they were St. Austin is our Author for it in the fifth Book of his Confessions When I see says he a Christian who is un-instructed in the Opinions of Philosophers about the Heavens the Stars and the Motion of the Sun and Moon and who mistakes one thing for another I I leave him to his Opinions and Uncertainties Nor do I see what injury it can do him provided he has right Notions of Thee our LORD and CREATOR to be ignorant of the Site and Position of Bodies and the different Regulations of Material Beings But he does himself wrong in that he fancies these things concern Religion and takes upon him obstinately to affirm what he does not understand The same Holy Man explains his Thoughts more clearly yet in his first Book of the literal Exposition of Genesis in these Words A Christian should be extreamly cautious of speaking of these things as if they were the Doctrine of the Sacred Writings since an Heathen who should hear him utter his Absurdities that had no appearance of Truth would Ridicule him for it Thus the Christian would be put in confusion and the Heathen but ill-edify'd Yet that which on these occasions is matter of greatest trouble is not that a Man is found in an Error but that the Heathens whom we labour to convert falsely and to their unavoidable destruction imagining that our Authors abound with these ridiculous Notions condemn them and spurn them as Ignorant and Unlearned which makes me think it much the safer way not to affirm as the Maxims of Faith the common receiv'd Opinions of Philosophers though not inconsistent with them though the Authority of Philosophers may sometimes be us'd to make way for their reception nor to reject their Opinions as contrary to Faith lest occasion be given to the Wise Men of the World to contemn the Sacred Truths of the Christian Religion The generality of Men are so careless or unreasonable as to make no distinction between the Word of GOD and that of Men when joyn'd together So that they fall into Error by approving them both alike or into Irreligion by the contempt of both indifferently 'T is easie to see what is the Cause of these last Errors and how they depend upon the Connection of Idea's explain'd in the XI Chapter and I need not stand more largely to explain them It seems seasonable to say something here of the Chymists and of all those in general that imploy their time in making Experiments These are the Men that are in Search after Truth Their Opinions are usually embrac'd without Scruple and Examination And thus their Errors are so much the more dangerous as
obligation to believe to serve for a Rule and Principle for the guiding our Reasonings in Philosophy where nothing but Evidence ought to perswade us We are not to change the clear and distinct Idea's of Extension Figure and Local Motion for the general and confus'd Idea's of Principle or of subject of Extension of Form of Quiddities and Real Qualities and of all those Motions of Generation Corruption and Alteration and others which differ from Local Motion Real Idea's will produce real Science but from general and Logical Idea's can proceed nothing but a random superficial and a barren Science Wherefore we ought with serious Reflection to attend to the distinct and particular Idea's of things for the discovering the Properties they contain and thereby study Nature instead of losing our selves in these Chimera's which are only the litter or off-spring of some Philosopher's Brains CHAP. IX I. The last general Cause of our Errors II. That the Idea's of things are not always present to the Mind when we would have them III. That every finite Mind is subject to Error and why IV. That we ought not to judge that there is nothing but Body and Spirit Nor that GOD is a Spirit according to our conception of Spirits WE have hitherto treated of such Errors as may have some occasional Cause assigned in the Nature of the pure Intellect or of the Mind consider'd as acting by it self and in the nature of Idea's that is to say in the manner of the Mind 's perceiving external Objects There remains only one Cause now to be explain'd which may be term'd the universal and general Cause of our Errors because we can conceive no Error that has not some sort of dependance on it The Cause is this That Nothing having no Idea to represent it the Mind is carried to believe that the things whereof it has no Idea have no Existence 'T is certain that the general Source of our Errors as we have often said is our Judgment 's having greater extent and latitude than our Perceptions For when we consider any Object we commonly take the prospect but on one side of it but we are not content to judge only of that side we have consider'd but we pronounce of it all entire And so it often fortunes that we are deceiv'd for though the thing be true on the part we have Examin'd it is commonly false on the other we have not and what we believe true is no more than probable Now 't is manifest that we should not judge thus absolutely on things as we do did we not think we had consider'd all the parts of them or suppose them all like that which we have examin'd So the general Cause of our Errors lies in this that having no Idea of the other Faces of the Object or of their difference with that which is present to our Thoughts we believe those other Faces don't exist or at least we suppose they have no particular difference This manner of acting we think reasonable enough For since Nothing cannot form any Idea in the Mind we have some pretence to believe that the things that form no Idea in the Mind at the time of our Examining them resemble Nothing And that which confirms us in this Opinion is our being perswaded by a sort of Instinct that the Idea's of things are due to our Nature and are in such wise subjected to the Mind that they are oblig'd to pay their attendance when the Mind commands them However if we would make a little Reflection upon the present state of our Nature we should hardly be so strongly bent upon believing all the Idea's of things so much at our beck and command Man as I may say is only Flesh and Blood since Adam's Transgression The least impression of his Senses and his Passions interrupts the strongest Application of his Mind and the current of the Spirits and Blood hurry it along with them and drive it continually upon sensible Objects In vain it strives to withstand the Torrent it is carried by and rarely it is that it thinks of resisting it so pleasant it finds it to follow and so troublesome to struggle against the stream The Mind therefore is discourag'd and dejected as soon as it has made an attempt to hold and fix it self upon a Truth and 't is absolutely false in the state we are in that the Idea's of things are present to the Mind as often as we would consider them And therefore we ought not to judge that things are not in being upon the only score of our having no Idea's of them But though we should suppose Man absolute Master of his Mind and its Idea's yet he would still be subject to Error by the necessity of his Nature For the Mind of Man is limited and every limited Mind is by Nature liable to Error The reason whereof is this that the least things have Infinite Relations betwixt them and require an Infinite Mind to comprehend them And therefore a limited Mind being unable to embrace and comprehend all these Relations after all that ever it can do a Man 's inclin'd to believe that those which he does not perceive don't exist especially when he does not consider the Weakness and Limitation of his Mind as 't is customary for him not to do And thus the Finiteness of the Mind alone brings along with it the Capacity of falling into Error Notwithstanding if Men even in this their state of Infirmity and Corruption made always good use of their Liberty they would never be deceiv'd And for this reason every one that falls into Error is justly blameable and deservedly obnoxious to punishment For no more is requisite for the avoiding Error than to judge only of what a Man sees and not to form compleat judgments on things before he is assur'd he has examin'd them in all their parts and this is possible for Men to do But they had rather subjugate themselves to Error than conform to the Rule of Truth and love to arbitrate without the trouble of Enquiry And so we need not wonder if they are guilty of infinite Errors and frequently stand chargeable with uncertain and unwarrantable Judgments All the Idea's for instance that Men have of Substance are those of Spirit and of Body that is of a thinking and extended Substance and thereupon they take upon them to determine that whatever exists is either of Body or Spirit This is not said as if I presum'd to affirm there were any Substance neither Body nor Spirit it being too hazardous to maintain those things exist whereof we have no Idea since 't is suppos'd that GOD who conceals not his Works from us would have given us some Idea of them Yet I think we ought to determine nothing concerning the number of the kinds of Beings which GOD has created from the Idea's we have of them Since absolutely speaking there may be Reasons why GOD should conceal them from us if
Idea of Six Or whether lastly it be between Idea's and Things when the Idea's represent what the Things are For when I say There is a Sun my Proposition is true because the Idea's I have of Existence and of the Sun represent that the Sun exists and that it truly exists Every Action of the Mind about and every Attention to Objects is only then to try to discover their Relations since we apply our selves to the consideration of things only for the finding out the Truth or Goodness of them But as we have said before in the preceding Chapter Attention tires and dispirits the Mind so that it speedily desists to oppugn and bear against the Impression of the Senses that throws it off its Object and hurries it towards others which the love it has to its Body render grateful and agreeable It has but a straitned Capacity and so the differences which are between the Subjects it examines being infinite or almost so it is incapable of distinguishing them Wherefore the Mind supposes imaginary Resemblances where it observes no Positive and Real Differences the Idea's of Resemblance being more present to it more familiar and more simple than the other For 't is manifest that Similitude includes only one Relation and there is need only of one Idea to judge that a thousand things are like whereas to judge without fear of being mistaken that a thousand Objects differ with one another there is an absolute Necessity of having a thousand different Idea's present to the Mind Men therefore imagine things of a different Nature to be of the same and that all things of the same Species hardly differ from one another They judge that unequal things are equal that those which are inconstant are constant that such as are without Order or Proportion are best order'd and most proportionate In a word they believe often that things different in Nature in Quality Extension Duration and Proportion are alike in all these particulars But this deserves to be explain'd more at large by some Examples as being the the Cause of an infinite number of Errors Spirit and Body a Substance that Thinks and a Substance that 's Extended are two kinds of Being altogether different and intirely opposite what belongs to one can't appertain to the other Yet Men for the most part but little heeding the Idea they have of Thought and being continually mov'd and affected with Bodies have look'd upon the Soul and Body as only one and the same thing have imagin'd a Similitude between things so unlike in every respect They would have the Soul to be material that is to say extended over all the Body and figur'd as the Body And thus have attributed to the Mind what can belong to nothing but the Body Again Men having the Sensation of Pleasure Pain Smells Tasts c. and their Body being more present to them than their Soul that is they easily imagine their Body but are not able to imagine the Soul they attribute to it the Faculties of Sensation Imagination and sometimes give it that of Conception too which can belong to nothing but the Soul But the following Examples will be more sensible and manifest T is certain that all Natural Bodies even those that are rank'd under the same Species differ from one another that one piece of Gold is not altogether like another piece that one drop of Water is different from another drop 'T is with all Bodies of the same Species as 't is with Faces All Faces have two Eyes a Nose a Mouth c. they are all Faces and Humane Faces yet it may be affirm'd there never were two perfectly similar So one piece of Gold has parts extreamly like another piece and one drop of Water has undoubtedly a near resemblance to another yet we may be certify'd that two drops of Water cannot be given though taken from the same River in an exact resemblance Nevertheless the Philosophers inconsiderately suppose Essential Likenesses between Bodies of the same Species or Likenesses that consist in Indivisibili For the Essences of things center in an indivisible Point according to their false Opinion The Reason of their lapsing into so gross and palpable an Error is because they will not with any care consider those very things on wich thy compose huge and mighty Volumes For as we don't fancy a perfect Similitude in Faces because we scrupulously behold them and survey them closely and the custom we have taken of distinguishing them makes us observe the least differences So if the Philosophers consider'd Nature with attention they would acknowledge sufficient causes of diversities even in those things which produce the same Sensations and which for that Reason we ascribe to the same Species and would not so credulously suppose Essential Resemblances Blind Men would be to blame to suppose Essential Similitudes consisting in Indivisibili between Faces because they did not sensibly perceive the differences And Philosophers have no more reason to suppose such Similitudes in Bodies of the same Species because they discover no differences in them by the Sensations they have of them The Inclination we have for supposing a Likeness in things inclines us farther to believe there is a set and determinate number of Differences and Forms and that these Forms are fix'd to a Point and incapable of Latitude more or less We think that all Bodies differ from each other as in Degrees and that these Degrees also retain certain Proportions together In a word we judge of Material things as of Numbers T is ' clearly manifest that this proceeds from the Mind 's losing it self in the Relations of things incommensurable as are the infinite Differences to be met with in Natural Bodies and its solacing it self with the Imagination of any Resemblance or Proportion it can find between them because then it can represent many things at once with much readiness and ease For as I have already said there needs no more than one Idea to judge that many things are like but there must be many to judge they are unlike each other If a Man knew for instance the number of Angels and that for each Angel there were ten Arch-Angels and for every Arch-Angel ten Thrones and so on observing the same Proportion in the progression up to the highest Order of Intelligences the Mind might know when it pleas'd the number of all these Blessed Spirits and even by a good strong reflection determine of them almost at a single view which is infinitely delightful to it And this is what may have induc'd some Persons to judge thus of Celestial Spirits as some Philosophers have done in another case of the Gravitation and Levitation of the Elements making a Decuple Proportion between them supposing Fire ten times lighter than Air and so of the rest When the Mind finds a necessity of admitting Differences between Bodies by the different Sensations it has of them and for some other particular Reasons it is sure to allow
Well-being depend in truth on GOD alone and not on Men and that real Greatness which shall make them everlastingly happy consists not in the Rank they bear in the imagination of others as impotent and miserable as themselves but in an humble Submission to the Will of GOD who being just will not fail to reward such as persevere in the Order he has prescrib'd them But Men not only desire actually to possess Science and Vertue Dignities and Riches but lay out their whole Endeavours that they may at least be thought really to possess them And if it may be said of them That they are more sollicitous to be Truly Rich than to be thought so we may say too they are less careful to be Truly Vertuous than to appear so for as was handsomly said by the Author of the Moral Reflexions Vertue would not go far unless Vanity bore her Company The Reputation of being Rich Learned Vertuous produces in the Imagination of those about us or that are of nearest Concernment to us very advantageous Dispositions on our behalf it lays them prostrate at our feet actuates them on our account and inspires them with all the Motions that tend to the preservation of our Being and the augmentation of our Greatness which makes Men careful to preserve their Reputation as a Good they have need of to live conveniently in the World All Men then have an Inclination for Vertue Science Honours and Riches and for the Reputation of possessing these Advantages We will now make it appear by some Instances how these Inclinations may engage us in Errour and will begin with the Inclination for Vertue or for the Appearance of it Those who seriously labour to become Vertuous employ most of their Thoughts and Time in the learning Religion and the exercise of Good Works They desire with St. Paul to know only CHRIST Crucify'd the Remedy of the Disease and Corruption of their Nature They wish for no more Light than is requisite to their living as becomes Christians and to discover their Duties And next they study only to grow fervent and punctual in Devotion and so trouble not themselves with those Sciences which seem barren and insignificant to their Salvation Which Conduct is not to be blam'd but highly esteem'd Happy should we think our selves exactly to have serv'd it as we repent the not having sufficiently persu'd it But what is reprovable is That there being undoubtedly Sciences purely Humane of greatest Certainty as well as Use which take off the Mind from sensible things and accustom or prepare it insensibly to relish the Truths of the Gospel Some pious Persons too liberally condemn them without Examination as either unprofitable or uncertain True it is that most of the Sciences are very uncertain and useless 'T is no Mistake to think they contain only very insignificant Truths No body 's oblig'd to study them and 't is better to despise them altogether than to be charm'd and dazl'd with them However we may affirm That the Knowledge of some Metaphysical Truths is most necessary The Knowledge of an Universal Cause or of the Existence of a GOD is of indispensible necessity since even the Certainty of Faith depends on the Knowledge which Reason affords of the Existence of a GOD We ought to know that 't is His Will that constitutes and governs Nature that the Strength and Power of Natural Causes is merely his Will in a word that all things depend on GOD all manner of ways Again 't is necessary to know what is Truth the means to distinguish it from Errour The Distinction betwixt Bodies and Spirits and the Consequences that may be drawn from it as the Immortality of the Soul and many others of like nature which may be infallibly known The Knowledge of Man or of one's Self is a Science that cannot reasonably be despis'd It is stor'd with infinite things absolutely necessary to be known in order to an Accuracy and Penetration of Mind And if it may be said that a gross and stupid Man is infinitely superiour to Matter because he knows that he exists which Matter does not know Those who are acquainted with the Nature of Man are certainly much above the Ignorant and Stupid because they know what they are which the others don't But the Science of Man does not only merit our Esteem because it exalts us above others but much more for abasing us and humbling us before GOD. This Science throughly acquaints us with the Dependence we have on him in all things even in our most customary Actions It manifestly discovers the Corruption of our Nature disposes us to have recourse to him who alone can cure us to fasten upon him to distrust our selves and quit our Self-adherencies and Engagements and furnishes us with several other very requisite Dispositions of Mind to fit us for the Grace of the Gospel Nor can a superficial Tincture and a general Knowledge at least of Mathematicks and Nature be dispens'd with Those Sciences should be learn'd when we are young as disengaging the Mind from things sensible and preventing its growing soft and effeminate they are very useful to the Conduct of Life and even bring us to GOD the Knowledge of Nature doing it directly of it self and that of Mathematicks collaterally by the Disgust it infuses for the false Impressions of the Senses The Vertuous and Religious would do well not to dis-esteem these Sciences nor look on them as uncertain or useless till they are certain they have study'd them so throughly that they can pass a sound Judgment on them There are others enough which they are at liberty to despise as peremptorily as they please They may sentence to the Flames the Heathen Poets and Philosophers the Rabbins with some Historians and a multitude of Authors on whose Stock many set up for Fame and Learning and we shall easily forgive them But let them not condemn the Knowledge of Nature as contrary to Religion since Nature being rul'd by the Will of GOD the True Knowledge of it gives us to understand and admire the Divine Power Greatness and Wisdom For last of all it is probable that GOD has form'd the Universe that Spirits might be employ'd in studying it and by that study be brought to know and reverence its Author So that those who condemn the study of Nature seem to be Opposers of the Will of GOD but that they would have it thought that since the Fall the Humane Mind is incapacitated for that study Nor let it be said that the Knowledge concerning Man puffs up the Mind and renders it vain and arrogant because those who are suppos'd to understand Humane Nature best though frequently they understand it very little are intolerably proud and presumptuous For 't is plain that no Man can be well acquainted with himself but he must be sensible of his Weakness and his Misery So then it is not true and solid Piety that so commonly condemns what it does not
Oriental Tongues gives them a wonderful Lift and Exaltation above others that know nothing of them and what can bear up their Courage under so ungrateful unpleasant painful and useless a Study but the hope of Eminency and the prospect of some vain Greatness And indeed they are look'd upon as extraordinary Men they are complemented upon their profound Learning they are more awfully listned to than others and though we may for the most part pronounce them the most injudicious of all if it were only for wasting their Life on so insignificant a Business which can neither make them wiser nor happier yet they are suppos'd to have greater Sense and Judgment than others Because they are more knowing in the Derivation of Words we think them more learn'd in the Nature of Things 'T is for the same Reason that Astronomers employ their Time and Fortune to get an accurate Knowledge of what 's not only useless but impossible to be known They would find in the Courses of the Planets such an exact Regularity as does not belong to them and erect Astronomical Schemes to foretel Effects the Causes whereof they do not know They have fram'd a Selenography or Geography of the Moon as if Men design'd to travel thither and have already shar'd that World amongst the most famous Astronomers few of them but are awarded some Province in this Country as a Recompence for their Labours And I question whether they think it not a piece of Honour to have been in the good Graces of him who so magnificently distributed these Kingdoms What makes Rational Men so hot in the Study of this Science whilst at the same time they are grosly ignorant as to most useful Truths but that there seems to be something great in the Knowledge of Heavenly Transactions The Knowledge of the least thing happening in the Upper World seems more Noble Sublime and befitting the Greatness of their Mind than the Knowledge of things vile abject and corruptible as they think Sublunary Bodies The Excellency of a Science derives from the Excellency of its Object This is a notable Principle The Knowledge of the Motion of Inchangeable and Incorruptible Bodies is therefore most noble and elevated of all other and as such seems worthy of the Greatness and Excellency of their Mind Thus it is Men suffer themselves to be dazled with a false Idea of Greatness which flatters and excites them The Imagination struck falls down before the Phantom which it reverences to the blinding Reason that should judge of it and turning it upside down Men seem to be in a Dream when they judge of the Objects of their Passions to have their Eyes seal'd up and to be destitute of common Sense For what is there of so great Importance in the Knowledge of the Motions of the Planets Don't we know enough already to regulate our Months and Years Why so much ado to know whether Saturn is incircled with a Ring or a great multitude of Little Moons and why must we make Parties hereupon What Reason is there for a Man to boast himself upon the Prediction of the Greatness of an Eclipse when possibly the Success was owing only to a luckier Guess There are Men appointed and encourag'd by the Royal Order to observe the Stars let us sit down content with their Observations This Employment they follow with Reason because they engage in it by Duty It is their proper Business and therefore their Labours are successful as grounded upon Art and carried on with all imaginable Accuracy and Application and they want nothing to promote their Endeavours Thus we ought to be fully satisfy'd as to a Maâ—ter that concerns us so little whilst they communicate to us their Discoveries 'T is requisite that many Persons study Anatomy since its Knowledge is exceeding useful that Knowledge being most to be desir'd which has most Use and Advantage Whatever contributes any thing to our Happiness or rather to the easing our Infirmities and mitigating our Miseries may and must be studied But to be prying whole Nights at the end of a Telescope to discover in the Heavens some Spot or new Planet or other to ruin a Man's Health and Happiness to neglect all his Business that he may pay constant Visits to the Stars and measure their Magnitudes and Situations is in my mind entirely to forget both what a Man is at present and what he shall be hereafter But you 'll say perhaps that this manifests the Greatness of him who made these mighty Objects To which I say That the least Fly shews forth the Power and Wisdom of GOD to those who attentively consider it without prejudice to its Littleness more than all that the Astronomers know concerning the Heavens Yet Men are not made to consider Flies and we think their pains but ill employ'd who have studied to inform us how the several Lice of every respective Animal are made and how different Worms are transform'd into Flies and Butter-flies They may if they please for their diversion when they have nothing else to do busie themselves about these things but they ought not to spend their whole time upon them unless they are become insensible to their miseries But it lies upon them to be incessantly endeavouring to know GOD and themselves to labour seriously to get rid of their Errours and Prejudices of their Passions and Inclinations to Sin to be importunate in the search of Truths most needful for them for at last those shall be found to be most judicious who are most careful in the Enquiry after the solidest Truths The principal Cause which engages Men in these false Studies is their having conjoin'd the Idea of Learned to these vain and unfruitful Sciences instead of annexing it to the solid and necessary When once a Man has the Thoughts of growing Learned in his Head and the Spirit of Polimathy begins to work he is little concern'd to know what Sciences are most necessary either to guide him by the Rules of Vertue or to perfect his Reason he only fixes his Eye on such as go for the Learned in the World and observes what they have in them that makes them so considerable All the most solid and necessary Sciences being of common and easie access can neither make their Possessors admir'd nor respected for common things however fine and admirable in themselves are carelesly and supinely regarded which makes the Pretenders to Learning dwell but little on Sciences necessary to the Conduct of Life and the Perfection of the Mind For these raise not in them that Idea of the Sciences which they had form'd as not being those they admir'd in others and which they would have others to admire in them The Gospel and Morality are Sciences too common and ordinary for them they love to be skill'd in the Criticisms of some words to be met with in the Ancient Philosophers or Greek Poets The Tongues as Arabick and Rabbinage and all except their genuine native
see not GOD as we see and touch this Fruit nay we do not so much as think on him nor perhaps on our selves And so we judge not that GOD is the true Cause of that Sweetness nor that it is a Modification of our Soul but impute both the Cause and Effect to the Fruit we eat What I have said of Sensations relating to the Body may be understood of those which have no relation to it such are those which are incident to pure Intelligences A Spirit contemplates it self and finds nothing wanting to its Happiness or Perfection or else sees that it is not in possession of what it desires Upon the View of its Happiness it feels Joy upon the sight of its Misery it feels Sorrow It immediately imagines that 't is the sight of its Happiness which produces in it self this Sensation of Joy because this Sensation still accompanies this Perception and fancies likewise that the sight of its Misery is what produces in it the Sensation of Sorrow because the latter is a constant Attendant of the former The true Cause of these Sensations which is GOD alone does not appear to it nor does it it may be think on GOD. For GOD acts in us in an imperceptible manner GOD rewards us with a Sense of Joy when we find our selves in the state we ought to be in to the intent we may continue in it that our Anxiety may cease and that we may fully enjoy our Happiness without suffering the Capacity of our Mind to be taken up with any thing else But he produces in us a Sensation of Sorrow when we know we are not in our convenienâ— state to the end we may not stay in it but restlesly seek out for the Perfection which we want For GOD continually drives us towards Good when we know that we do not possess it but gives us a powerful Check when we see we are fully possess'd of it Wherefore 't is evident to me that the Sensations of Intellectual Joy and Sorrow no less than Sensible are not the voluntary Productions of the Mind Our Reason then should constantly teach us to discover that invisible Hand which fills us with Good and which lies disguis'd to our Mind under Sensible Appearâ—nces This Hand we are to adore and to love and also to fear since though it loads us with Pleasures it can likewise over-whelm us with Pains We ought to love it with a Love of Choice an enlightned Love a Love worthy of GOD and our selves Our Love is worthy of GOD when it proceeds from our Knowledge of his being Amiable and this Love is worthy of our selves for that being Reasonable Creatures we ought to bestow our Love on that which Reason teaches us is worthy of it But we love sensible Things with a Love unworthy our selves and undeserv'd by them whilst being reasonable we love them without any Reason for it as not clearly knowing them to be lovely and on the contrary knowing they are not But we are betray'd by Pleasure to the Love of them the blind and irregular Love of Pleasure being the true Cause of the false Judgments of Men in Subjects of Morality CHAP. XI Of the Love of Pleasure with Reference to Speculative Sciences I. How it disables us from discovering Truth II. Some Instances OUR Inclination for Sensible Pleasures being misgovern'd is not only the Original of those dangerous Errours we are guilty of in Subjects of Morality and the general Cause of the Corruption of our Manners but likewise one of the main Causes of the Depravation of our Reason And it insensibly engages us in most gross but less dangerous Errours in point of Subjects purely Speculative because it disables us from bringing a sufficient Attention to comprehend and judge well of things that do not affect us We have spoken several times already of the Difficulty we find to apply our selves to Subjects somewhat Abstract the Subject of our Discourse requiring it As towards the End of the First Book where we shew'd that Sensible Ideas more affecting the Soul than Ideas purely Intellectual she was more taken up with the out-side manners than the Things themselves So again in the Second where treating of the Tenderness of the Fibres of the Brain we shew'd whence the Softness of certain Effeminate Minds proceeded Lastly in the Third when speaking of the Attention of the Mind it was necessary to shew that it was very careless of things Speculative but very attentive to such as affected her and made her feel Pleasure or Pain Our Errours have most commonly several Causes contributing to their Rise so that it ought not to be thought it is for want of Order that we repeat almost the same things and assign several Causes of the same Errours it is really because they have so many I still speak of Occasional Causes for we have often declar'd they have no other true and real Cause than the wrong use of our Liberty which wrong use consists in our not using it so much as we might as we have explain'd at the beginning of this Treatise We are not therefore to be blam'd if in order to make it fully conceiv'd how for Instance the Sensible Manners Things are involv'd in surprize and lead us into Errour we were oblig'd by way of Anticipation to speak of our Inclination for Pleasures in the other Books which seems fitter to have been reserv'd for this wherein we purposely treat of the Natural Inclinations and the same may be said of other things in other places All the harm that will come of it is this that we may dispense with many things here which we had been oblig'd to explain if it had not been done elsewhere All things in the Humane Nature are so link'd and twin'd to one another that we find our selves often as it were over-whelm'd with the Number of things necessary to be said at the same time to set our Conceptions in an open and clear Light We are sometimes forc'd to let things go unseparated which Nature has join'd together and to proceed against our own prescrib'd Method when this Method throws us in Confusion as it inevitably does on some Occasions And yet after all it is impossible to make others take in all our Conceptions All that can commonly be pretended to is to put others in a Capacity of discovering with Pleasure and Ease what we have discover'd our selves with great Pains and Fatigation And since 't is impossible to make any Discovery without Attention our Studies should be chiefly employ'd on Means of making others Attentive This is what we have essay'd to do though we must acknowledge but weakly perform'd and we are the willinger to confess we have been defective that the Confession may provoke our Readers to supply themselves what is wanting in us to make them attentive in order to penetrate the Bottom of Subjects which deserve to be thorowly consider'd Infinite are the Errours wherein our Inclination for Pleasures and in general
the Christians is quite different from that they deny not but Pain is an Evil and that it is hard to be separated from those things to which Nature has united us or to rid our selves from the Slavery Sin has reduc'd us to They agree that it is a Disorder that the Soul shall depend upon her Body but they own withall that she depends upon it and even so much that she cannot free her self from that Subjection but by the Grace of our Lord. I see saith St. Paul another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord shall do it The Son of God his Apostles and all his true Disciples command us above all to be Patient because they know that Misâ—ry must be the Expectâ—tion and Portion of the Righteous In short true Christians or true Philosophers say nothing but what is agreeable to sound Reason and Experience whereas all Nature continually impugns the proud Opinion and presumption of the Stoicks The Christians know that to free themselves in some manner from the Subjection they are under they must endeavour to deprive themselves of all those things that they cannot enjoy without Pleasure nor want without Pain it being the only means to preserve that Peace and Liberty of Mind which they owe to their Deliverer's Beneficence On the contrary the Stoicks following the false Notions of their Chimerical Philophy imagine that they are wise and happy and that they need but think upon Vertue and Independency to become Vertuous and Independent Sound Reason and Experience assure us that the best way not to feel the smart of stinging is to shun the Nettle but the Stoicks say Sting me never so much I shall by the strength of my Mind and the help of my Philosophy raise my self so high above my Body that all your pricking shall not reach me I can demonstrate that my Happiness depends not upon it and that Pain is not an Evil and you shall see by the Colour of my Face and by the whole deportment of my Body that my Philosophy has made me invulnerable Their Pride bears up their Courage however it hinders not but that they should suffer Pain with Vexation and be really miserable so that their Union with their Body is not destroyed nor their Pain vanished but all this proceeds from their Union with other Men strengthened by the desire of their Esteem which in some manner withstands the Union of their Soul with their Body The sensible view of the Spectators to whom they are united stops the Course of the Animal Spirits that should follow upon the pain and blots out the Impression they would make upon their Face for was there no body to look on them that Phantasm of Constancy and Liberty of Mind would presently vanish So that the Stoicks do only in some degree withstand the Union of their Soul to their Body by making themselves greater Slaves to other Men to whom they are united by a drift of Glory And 't is therefore an undoubted truth that all Men are united to all sensible things both by Nature and their Concupiscence which may sufficiently be known by Experience and of which all the Actions of Mankind are sensible demonstrations though Reason seems to oppose it Though this Union be common to all Men 't is not however of an equal Extent and Strength in all for as it proceeds from the Knowledge of the Mind so it may be said that we are not actually united to unknown Objects A Clown in his Cottage does not concern himself with the Glory of his Prince and Country but only with the honour of his own and the Neighbouring Villages because his Knowledge does not extend farther The Union with such Objects as we have seen is stronger than the Union to those we have only imagin'd or heard relation of because by Sensation we are more strictly united to sensible things as leaving deeper Impressions in our Brain and moving the animal Spirits in a more violent manner than when they are only imagin'd Neither is that Union so strong in those that continually oppose it that they may adhere to the Goods of the Mind as it is in those who suffer themselves to be carried away and inslav'd by their Passions since Concupiscence increases and strengthens that Union Last of all the several Employments and States of this Life together with the various dispositions of divers Persons cause a considerable difference in that sensible Union which Men have with Earthly Goods Great Lords have greater Dependencies than other Men and their Chains as I may call them are longer The General of an Army depends on all his Souldiers because all his Souldiers reverence him This Slavery is often the Cause of his Valour and the desire of being esteem'd by those that are Witnesses of his Actions often drives him to Sacrifice to it more sensible and rational desires The same may be said of all Superiours and those that make a great Figure in the World Vanity being many times the Spur of their Vertue because the love of Glory is ordinarily stronger than the love of Truth I speak here of the love of Glory not as a simple Inclination but a Passion since that love may become sensible and is often attended with very lively and violent Commotions of the Animal Spirits Again the different Ages and Sexes are primary Causes of the difference of Passions Children love not the same things as adult and old Men or at least love them not with that Force and Constancy Women depend only on their Family and Neighbourhood but the dependencies of Men extend to their whole Country because 't is their part to defend it and that they are mightily taken up with those great Offices Honours and Commands that the State may bestow upon them There is such a variety in the Employments and Engagements of Men that it is impossible to explain them all The disposition of Mind in a Married Man is altogether different from that of a single Person for the former is in a manner wholly taken up with the care of his Family A Fryar has a Soul of another make and depends upon fewer things than the Men of the World and even than Secular Ecclesiasticks but he is stronger fastned to those few things One may argue in the same manner concerning the different States of Men in general but the little sensible engagements cannot be explain'd because they differ almost in every private Person it often hapning that men have particular Engagements altogether opposite to those that they ought to have in reference to their condition But though the different Genius and Inclinations of Men Women Old Men Young Men Rich Poor Learned and Ignorant in short of all the different Sexes Ages and
alteration of the Countenance of his Enemy the Animal Spirits of that Enemy receive a new determination of which they were not capable a moment before and this Machinal Motion of Compassion which he yields to inclines the Soul to yield to the Pleas of Charity and Mercy Because a Man taken up with a Passion cannot without a great plenty of Spirits produce or preserve in his Brain an Image of his Misery lively enough nor a Concussion sufficiently strong to give his Body an extraordinary and constrain'd Disposition the corresponding Nerves within the Body receive upon his sight of the Evil the Concussions and Agitations that are necessary to infuse into all the Vessels that communicate with the Heart fit Humours to the producing such Spirits as the Passion requires For the Animal Spirits spreading through the Nerves that go to the Liver Spleen Pancreas and all the other Viscera agitate and shake them and by their Agitation force out such Humours as those parts keep in reserve for the Wants and Exigencies of the Machine But if those Humours always flowed in the same manner into the Heart if they received an equal Fermentation in different times and the Spirits that are made of them regularly ascended into the Brain we should not see such hasty Changes in the Motions of the Passions For instance the sight of a Magistrate would not stop of a sudden the extravagant Transports of an enraged Person persuing his Revenge and his Face all fiery with Blood and Spirits would not in an instant turn pale and wan for fear of Punishment So to hinder those Humours that are mixed with the Blood from entering the Heart constantly in the same manner there are Nerves that surround all the Avenues thereof which being compressed or dilated by the Impression that the sight of the Object and the strength of the Imagination produce in the Spirits shut up or open the way to those Humours And lest the said Humours should undergo the same Agitation and Fermentation in the Heart in divers times there are other Nerves that cause the Beatings of it which being not equally agitated in the different Motions of the Spirits drive not the Blood with the same force into the Arteries Other Nerves spread through the Lungs distribute the Air to the Heart by constringing or relaxing several Branches of the Trachea used in Respiration and order the Fermentation of the Blood proportionably to the Circumstances of the predominant Passion Last of all to regulate with the greatest Accuracy and Readiness the Course of the Spirits there are Nerves surrounding the Arteries as well those that end in the Brain as those that carry the Blood into the other parts of the Body so that the Concussion of the Brain which accompanies the unexpected Sight of some Circumstance for which 't is convenient that the Motions of the Passion should be alter'd suddenly determines the Course of the Spirits to the Nerves thus surrounding the Arteries that by their Contraction they may shut up the Passage to the Blood that ascends into the Brain and by their Dilatation lay it open to that which runs into all the other Parts of the Body When those Arteries that carry the Blood to the Brain are free and open and on the contrary those that disperse it through the rest of the Body are strongly bound up by these Nerves the Head must all be full of Blood and the Face appear all fiery but some Circumstance altering the Commotion of the Brain that caused that Disposition in the Nerves the Arteries that were strait bound are loosened and on the contrary the Arteries of the Brain strongly contracted Then is the Head emptied of Bloud the Face covered with Paleness and the small quantity of Blood which issues from the Heart and which the Nerves before mentioned admit into it as the Fewel to keep in Life descends most or all into the lower parts of the Body the Brain wants Animal Spirits and all the rest of the Body is seized with Weakness and Trembling To explain and prove the Particulars of what we have mentioned it would be necessary to give a general Knowledge of Physicks and a particular of the Humane Body but those two Sciences are still too imperfect to be treated of with as much Accuracy as I could Wish besides that should I proceed farther in this Matter it would carry me too far from my Subject and therefore I only design here to give a gross and general Idea of the Passions and am satisfied provided that this Idea be not false Those Concussions of the Brain and Motions of the Blood and Spirits are the fourth thing to be found in every Passion and produce the fifth namely the sensible Commotions of the Soul At the very Instant that the Animal Sprits are driven from the Brain into the rest of the Body to produce such Motions as are fit to keep up the Passion the Soul is carried towards the good perceived and this more or less strongly according as the Spirits come down from the Brain with more or less vehemence for 't is that Concussion of the Brain which agitates the Soul and the Animal Spirits The Motion of the Soul towards Good is so much stronger as the View of Good is more sensible and apparent and the Motion of the Spirits that proceed from the Brain and flow into the other parts of the Body is the more violent as the Vibration of the Fibres of the Brain caused by the Impression of the Object or of the Imagination is more forcible because that Concussion of the Brain occasioning a more sensible and lively View of Good necessarily makes the Commotion of the Soul in the Passions to increase proportionably to the Motion of the Spirits Those Commotions of the Soul are not different from those that immediately follow the Intellectual View of Good which we have mentioned before only they are stronger and livelyer because of the Union of the Soul and Body and the sensibleness of the View that produces them The sixth thing to be met with is the Sensation of the Passion the Sensation of Love Hatred Desire Joy or Sorrow This Sensation is not at all different from that which has been spoken of only 't is livelyer because the Body has a greater share in it but 't is always attended with confused Sensation of Satisfaction that makes all the Passions grateful which is the last thing to be found in each of them as has been already hinted The Cause of this last Sensation is such At the sight of the Object of a Passion or of any new Circumstance part of the Animal Spirits are driven from the Head to the outward Parts of the Body to put it in the Disposition that the Passion requires together with which some other Spirits make a violent descent into the Heart Lungs and other Viscera to draw from thence the necessary Supplies as has been already sufficiently explained Now the Body is never in
be touched they are violently moved On the contrary the mentioning of general Passions and Inclinations never fail to affect us but so weakly and faintly that we are scarce sensible of it I mention this lest any should judge of what I say by his own Commotions that he either has or shall receive from my Discourse but rather that he should judge of it by considering the Nature of the Passions I speak of Should we purpose to handle all the particular Passions and distinguish them by the Objects that raise them it is plain the Task would be endless and we should only repeat the same thing The former because the Objects of the Passions are infinite the latter because we should be constantly engag'd in the same Subject The particular Passions for Poetry History Mathematicks Hunting Dancing are but one general Passion For for example the Passions of Desire or Joy for whatever pleases are not different Passions though delightful Objects in particular differ much And therefore the Number of Passions must not be multiplied by the Number of Objects which are infinite but only by the principal Relations they may have to us And so it will appear as we shall explain it hereafter that Love and Hatred are the Mother-Passions which produce no other general Passions besides Desire Joy and Sorrow that the particular Passions are made up only of those Three primitive and more or less compounded according to the number of accessary Ideas that attend the principal Idea of the Good or Evil which has rais'd them or as the Good and Evil are more or less circumstantiated with reference to us If we remember what has been said of the Connection of Ideas and that in all great Passions the Animal Spirits being extreamly agitated stir up in the Brain all the Traces any ways related to the moving Object we shall own that there is an infinite Variety of different Passions which have no particular Names and cannot be explain'd but by saying they are inexplicable If the primitive Passions of the Complication of which others are made up were not susceptible of more or less it would not be difficult to determine the Number of all the Passions but that number of complicated Passions must needs be infinite because one and the same Passion having infinite Degrees may by its Conjunction with others be infinitely complicated so that there were perhaps never two Men affected with the same Passion if by that Name be understood an even Mixture and Likeness of all the Motions and Sensations that are occasionally rais'd in us upon the presence of some Object But as more or less do not alter the Species so it may be said that the Number of Passions is not infinite because the Circumstances that attend Good or Evil which excite the Passions are not innumerable But let us explain our Passions in particular When we see any thing the first time or when having seen it several times accompanied with some Circumstances we see it again attended with others we are surprized and admire it Thus a new Idea or a new Connection of old Ideas raises in us an Imperfect Passion which is the first of all and nam'd Admiration I call it imperfect because 't is not excited either by the Idea or Sense of Good The Brain being then struck in some unusual Places or in a new manner the Soul is sensibly moved and therefore must needs strongly apply her self to what is new in that Object for the same Reason that a bare Tickling the Soale of the Feet raises a very lively and moving Sensation in the Soul rather by the Novelty than by the Strength of the Impression There are other Reasons of the Application of the Soul to new Things but I have explain'd them where I speak of the Natural Inclinations Here we consider the Soul only as related to the Body in which respect the Commotion of the Spirits is the natural Cause of her Application to new Things In Admiration strictly taken we consider things only as they are in themselves or as they appear and look not on them as related to us or as good or bad Hence it comes that the Spirits disperse not through the Muscles to give the Body the Disposition that is required for persuing Good or shunning Evil and shake not the Nerves that go to the Heart and other Viscera to hasten or retard the Fermentation or Motion of the Blood as it happens in other Passions All the Spirits go the Brain to print a lively and distinct Image of the surprizing Object that the Soul may consider and know it again whilst the rest of the Body remains in the same posture and as unmovable For as there is no Commotion in the Soul so there is no Motion in the Body When the admired Things appear great Admiration is always follow'd with Esteem and sometimes with Veneration whereas it is always accompanied with Contempt and sometimes with Disdain when they appear little The Idea of Grandeur causes a great Motion of the Spirits in the Brain and the Tracks that represent it are kept very long And likewise a great Motion of the Spirits raises in the Soul an Idea of Greatness and powerfully fixes the Mind on the Consideration of that Idea On the contrary the Idea of Littleness produces but an inconsiderable Motion of Spirits in the Brain and the Traces representing it are soon blotted out And likewise a small Motion of Spirits raises in the Soul an Idea of Meanness and stays the Mind but little on the Consideration of that Idea Those things deserve to be taken notice of When we consider our selves or something united to us our Admiration is always accompanied with some moving Passion which however only agitates the Soul and the Spirits that go to the Heart because there being no Good to seek nor Evil to avoid the Spirits disperse not themselves through the Muscles to dispose the Body to some Action The Contemplation of the Perfection of our Being or of something belonging to it naturally produces Pride or Self-esteem Contempt of others Joy and some other Passions The Contemplation of our own Grandeur causes Haughtiness that of our Strength Valour or Boldness and that of any other Advantage naturally raises some other Passion which is still a kind of Pride On the contrary the Conâ—ideration of some Imperfection of our Being or of something belonging to it naturally produces Humility Contempt of our selves Reverence for others Sorrow and some other Passions The â—ight of our Littleness causes Pusilanimity that of our Weakness Timidity and that of any Disadvantage whatsoever naturally raises some other Passion which is still a kind of Humility But neither that Humility nor that Pride are properly Vertues or Vices being only Passions or involuntary Commotions which yet are very useful to Civil Society and even in some Cases absolutely necessary for the preservation of the Life or Goods of those that are actuated by them 'T is necessary
false Supposition of the Philosophers which we are here endeavouring to destroy that the surrounding Bodies are the true Causes of our Pain and Pleasure Reason seems to justifie a Religion like the Pagan Idolatry and approve the universal Depravation of Morals Reason I grant teaches not to adore Onions and Leeks for instance as the Sovereign Divinity because they can never make us altogether happy when we have them or unhappy when we want them neither did the Heathens worship them with an equal Homage as their great Jupiter whom they fansied to be the God of Gods or as the Sun whom our Senses represent as the universal Cause that gives Life and Motion to all things and which we can hardly forbear to look on as the Sovereign Divinity if we suppose as the Pagan Philosophers that he Comprehends in his Being the true Causes of what he seems to produce as well upon our Soul and Body as upon all the Beings that surround us But if we must not pay a Sovereign Worship to Leeks and Onions they deserve at least some particular Adoration I mean they may be thought upon and loved in some manner if it be true that they can in some sort make us happy and may be honour'd proportionably to the good they doe us Surely Men that listen to the Reports of Sense think Pulse capable of doing them good otherwise the Israelites would not have bewailed the loss of them in the Wilderness or look'd on themselves as unhappy for being deprived thereof had they not fansied to themselves some great Happiness in the Enjoyment of them See what an Abyss of Corruption Reason plunges us into when it goes hand in hand with the Principles of Pagan Philosophy and follows the footsteps of the Senses But that the Falshood of that wretched Phylosophy and the Certainty of our Principles and Distinctness of our Ideas may not be longer doubted it will be necessary plainly to establish the Truths that contradict the Errours of the Ancient Philosophers or to prove in few words that there is but one true Cause since there is but one true God that the Nature and Force of every thing is nothing but the Will of God that all Natural things are not real but only occasional Causes and some other Truths depending on them It is evident that all Bodies great and little have no force to move themselves a Mountain a House a Stone a Grain of Sand the minutest and bulkiest Bodies imaginable are alike as to that We have but two sorts of Ideas viz. of Spirits and Bodies and as we ought not to speak what we conceive not so we must only argue from those two Ideas Since therefore our Idea of Bodies convinces us that they cannot move themselves we must conclude that they are moved by Spirits But considering our Idea of finite Spirits we see no necessary Connexion betwixt their Will and the Motion of any Body whatsoever on the contrary we perceive that there is not nor can be any Whence we must infer if we will follow Light and Reason That as no Body can move it self so no Created Spirit can be the true and principal Cause of its Motion But when we think on the Idea of God or of a Being infinitely perfect and consequently Almighty we are aware that there is such a Connexion betwixt his Will and the Motion of all Bodies that it is impossible to conceive he should will that a Body be moved and it should not be moved And therefore if we would speak according to our Conceptions and not according to our Sensations we must say that nothing but his Will can move Bodies The moving force of Bodies is not then in themselves this force being nothing but the Will of God Bodies then have no proper Action and when a moving Ball meets with another and moves it the former communicates nothing of its own to the latter as not having in it self the Impression it communicates though the former be the Natural Cause of the latter's Motion and therefore a natural Cause is not a true and real Cause but only an occasional which in such or such a Case determines the Author of Nature to act in such or such a manner 'T is certain that all things are produced by the Motion of visible or invisible Bodies for Experience teaches us that those Bodies whose parts are in greater Motion are always the most active and those that Cause the greatest Alterations in the World so that all the Forces of Nature are but the Will of God who Created the World because he will'd it who spake and it was done who moves all things and produces all the Effects we see because he has established some Laws by which Bodies Communicate their Motion to each other when they meet together and because those Laws are efficacious they and not the Bodies act There is then no Force Power nor true Cause in all the Material and sensible World Nor need we admit any Forms Faculties or real Qualities to produce Effects which the Bodies bring not forth or to divide with God his own Essential Force and Power As Bodies cannot be the true Causes of any thing so likewise the most Noble Spirits are subject to the same impotency on that respect They cannot know any thing unless God enlightens them nor have the Sensation of any thing unless he modifies them nor will unless he moves them towards himself They may indeed determine the Impression God has given them to himself towards other Objects but I doubt whether it can be call'd a Power For if to be able to sin is a Power it is such a one as the Almighty wants saith St. Austin somewhere If Men had of themselves the Power of loving Good it might be said that they have some Power but they cannot so much as love but because God Wills it and that his Will is Efficacious They love because God continually drives them towards Good in general that is towards himself for whom alone they are Created and preserved God moves them and not themselves towards Good in general and they only follow that Impression by a free Choice according to the Law of God or determine it towards false and seeming Goods according to the Law of the Flesh But they cannot determine it but by the sight of Good For being able to doe nothing without an Impression from above they are incapable of loving any thing but Good But though it should be supposed which is true in one sense that Spirits have in themselves the Power of knowing Truths and loving Good should their Thoughts and Will produce nothing outwardly it might still be said that they were impotent and unoperative Now it seems undeniable that the Will of Spirits is not able to move the smallest Body in the World it being evident there is no necessary Connexion betwixt the Will we may have of moving our Arm for instance and the Motion of the same Arm. It moves
intend not to treaâ— of The Curious may consult des Cartes's Principles of Philosophy I only observe as an Answer to an Objection which will presently be made against this Hypothesis that is Why those small Particles cannot re-enter through the Pores from whence they came That besides that the Pores of the Load-stones may be suppos'd to be wrought like the Channelling of a Screw which may pruduce the propos'd Effect it may be said likewise that the small Branches of which those Pores are made bend one way to obey and yield to the Motion of the entring Particles whereas they stand on end and shut them out another way So that we must not be surpriz'd at this Difference betwixt the Pores of the Load-stone for it may be explain'd in several manners and the only Difficulty consists in chusing the best If we had endeavour'd to resolve the fore-mention'd Question beginning with the Corpuscles that are suppos'd to stream out of the Magnet C we should have found the same and likewise discover'd that Air is compos'd of an infinite Number of Parts that are in a perpetual Motion without which it would be impossible that the Load-stone c could approach the Magnet C. I insist not on the Explication of this because there is no Difficulty in it Here follows a Question more compound and complicate than the fore-going for the Solution of which 't is necessary to make use of many Rules 'T is ask'd Which may be the Natural and Mechanical Cause of the Motion of our Members The Idea of Natural Cause is clear and distinct when understood as I have explain'd it in the former Question But the Words Motion of our Members are equivocal and confus'd because there are several such Motions some being Voluntary others Natural and others Convulsive There are also different Members in the Humane Body and therefore according to the first Rule I must ask Of which of these Motions the Cause is requir'd from me But if the Question be left undetermin'd and to my Discretion I examine it after this manner I attentively consider the Properties of those Motions and discovering at first that Voluntary Motions are sooner perform'd than Convulsive I infer that their Cause is different and therefore that I may and must examine the Question by Parts for it seems to require a long Discussion I restrain then my self to consider only Voluntary Motions and because several of our Members are employ'd about them I content my self for the present with the Consideration of the Arm. I observe that it is compos'd of several Muscles which are most or all in Action when we raise soâ—ething from the Ground or remove it from one place to the other But I only insist upon one being willing to suppose that the others are very near fashion'd after the same manner I inform my self of its Texture and Shape by some Book of Anatomy or rather by the sensible Sight of its Fibres and Tendons which I cause to be dissected in my presence by some skilful Anatomist to whom I put all the Queries which in the sequel may exhibit to my Mind a Medium to find out what I seek for After such a serious Consideration I cannot doubt but the Principle of the Motion of my Arm depends on the Contraction of its Muscles which compose it I am likewise content lest I should puzzle my self with too many Difficulties to suppose according to the common Opinion that this Contraction is perform'd by the Animal Spirits which filling up the Ventricle of those Muscles may cause their Extremities to come nearer Now the whole Question concerning Voluntary Motion is reduc'd to this Point How the small Quantity of Animal Spirits which are contain'd in our Arm may at the Command of the Will so suddenly swell the Muscles as to afford a sufficient Strength to list up an Hundred Weight or more Upon an attentive Reflexion thereupon the first Means that offers it self to the Imagination is commonly that of a quick and violent Fermentation like to that of Gun-powder or of some Liquors fill'd with Volatile Salt when they are mix'd with others that are Acid or full of a fixed Salt A small quantity of Gun-powder is able when kindled to raise not only an Hundred Weight but even a Tower and a Mountain Earthquakes that overthrow Cities and shake whole Countries proceed from Spirits kindling under the Ground almost as Gun-powder So that supposing in the Arm such a Cause of the Fermentation and Dilatation of the Spirits it may be look'd upon as the Principle of that Force by which Men perform so sudden and violent Motions But as we ought to mistrust those Means that are offer'd to the Mind by the Senses and of which we have no clear and evident Knowledge so we must not easily admit this for it is not sufficient to give an Account of the Strength and Quickness of our Motions by a Comparison For this is both a confus'd and imperfect Account because we are here to explain a voluntary Motion and Fermentation is not so The Blood is exceedingly fermented in Fevers and we cannot hinder it The Spirits are inflam'd and agitated in the Brain but we cannot rule their Agitation nor lessen it by our Desire When a Man moves the Arm several Ways a Thousand Fermentations great and small swift and â—low ought to begin and what is harder to explain to end likewise in a Moment as often and as soon as it is desir'd if this Hypothesis were true Besides Those Fermentations ought not to dissipate all their Matter but need always be ready to take Fire When a Man has walk'd Twenty Miles how many Thousand times must the Muscles employ'd in walking have been fill'd and empty'd and what a vast quantity of Spirits would be requir'd if Fermentation should dissipate and deaden them so often And therefore this Supposition is insufficient to explain such Motions of our Body as entirely depend upon our Will 'T is plain that the present Question may be reduc'd to this Problem of Mechanicks To find â—ut by Pneumatick Engines a Means to overcome such a Force as an Hundred Weight by another Force though never so small as that of an Ounce Weight And that the Application of that small Force may produce the desir'd Effect at the Discretion of the Will The Solution of that Problem is easie and the Demonstration of it clear It may be solv'd by a Vessel which hath two Orifices one of which is a little more than 1600 times larger than the other in which the Pipes of two equal Bellows are inserted and let a Force precisely 1600 times stronger than the other be apply'd to the Bellows of the larger Mouth for then the Force 1600 times weaker shall overcome the stronger The Demonstration of which is clear in Mechanicks since the Forces are not exactly in a reciprocal Proportion with their Mouths and that the Relation of the weaker Force to the smaller Mouth is greater than
the Relation of the stronger Force to the larger Mouth But to solve this Problem by an Engine which sets better before the Eyes the Effect of the Muscles than the Former We must blow a little in a Foot-ball and hinder the Air from going out with a Sucker then put upon that Foot-ball half full of Wind a Stone of 5 or 600 weight or having set it on a Table lay on it a Board and on that Board a huge Stone or cause a heavy Man to sit upon the Board allowing him to hold by something that he may sit the faster upon the rising Foot-ball for if you blow again into it only with the Mouth it will raise the Stone that compresses it or the Man that sits upon it The Reason of this is that the Mouth of the Foot-ball is so small or at least must be suppos'd so in comparison to the Capaciousness of the Foot-ball that withstands the Weight of the Stone that by such means a very small is able to overcome a very great Force If we also consider that Breath alone is capable of violently driving a Leaden Ball through a long and strait Trunk because the Strength of the Breath is not dissipated but continually renew'd it will visibly appear that the necessary Proportion betwixt the Mouth and the largeness of the Foot-ball being suppos'd Breath alone may overcome a very considerable Force If we therefore conceive that the whole Muscles or each of the Fibres of which they are made have as this Foot-ball a competent Capacity to admit Animal Spirits that the Pores through which those Spirits flow are yet proportionably straiter than the Neck of a Bladder or the Aperture of the Foot-ball that the Spirits are detain'd in or driven through the Nerves almost as the Breath through a Trunk that the Spirits are more agitated than the Air of the Lungs and driven with a greater Violence to the Muscles than it is in a Bladder we shall perceive that the Motion of the Spirits which are dispers'd through the Muscles can conquer the Force of the heaviest Weight we carry and that if we cannot move other more ponderous this Want of Strength proceeds not so much from the Spirits as from the Fibres and Membranes of which the Muscles are compos'd which would burst should we make too great an Effort Besides If we observe that by the Laws of the Union betwixt Soul and Body the Motion of those Spirits as to their Determination depends on the Will of Man we shall see that the Motion of the Arm must needs be voluntary 'T is true that we move our Arm so readily that it seems at first sight incredible that the Course of the Spirits into the Muscles should be so swift as to effect that Motion But we ought to consider that those Spirits are extremely agitated always ready to pass from one Muscle into another and that a small quantity of that Spirituous Liquor may sufficiently swell them up so as to move them or to lift up from the Ground something very light For we cannot raise great Weights very readily because that Effort requires a great stretching and swelling of the Muscles which cannot be perform'd by the Spirits that are in the neighbouring or Antagonist Muscles and therefore some Time is requir'd to call in more Spirits to their help and in such a Quantity as that they may be able to withstand the Heaviness of the Weight Thus we see that those that are loaden cannot run and that a ponderous thing is not lifted up from the Ground so readily as a Straw If we consider that those that are of a fiery Temper or heated with Wine are quicker than others that amongst living Creatures those whose Spirits are more agitated as Birds move swifter than those in which Blood is colder as it is in Frogs and that in some of them as the Chamelion the Tortoise and some Insects the Spirits are so little agitated that their Muscles are not sooner fill'd than a Foot-ball would be by the Breath of a Man All these things being well observ'd may probably make our Explication acceptable But though that part of the Question propos'd which concerns Voluntary Motions be sufficiently resolv'd yet we must not assert that it is fully and perfectly or that nothing else in our Body contributes to those Motions besides what has been mention'd for most probably there are a Thousand Springs that facilitate them which will for ever be unknown even to those who give a better Guess upon the Works of God The second Part of the Question to be examin'd concerns the Natural Motions or those that have nothing extraordinary in them as Convulsions have but are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of our Machine and consequently altogether independent on our Will I first consider with all the possible Attention what Motions have those Conditions and whether they are perfectly alike And as I quickly perceive that they are for the most part different from each other lest I should perplex my self with too many things I shall only insist upon the Motion of the Heart which of all the inward Parts is the best known and its Motions the most sensible Whilst I examine its Construction I observe two Things amongst many others First That it is compos'd of Fibres as the other Muscles And Secondly That there are two remarkable Cavities in it And therefore I judge that its Motion may be perform'd by means of the Animal Spirits since it is a Muscle and that the Blood ferments and dilates in it since it has Cavities The first of these Judgments is founded upon what I have said before The second upon the Heart 's being much hotter than any other Parts of the Body and that it diffuses Heat together with Blood into all our Members and that those two Ventricles could neither be form'd nor preserv'd but by the Dilatation of the Blood So that they are subservient to the Cause that has produc'd them I can then give a sufficient Reason of the Motion of the Heart by the Spirits that agitate and the Blood that dilates it during the Fermentation For though the Cause I alledge of its Motion should not be true yet I plainly see that it is sufficient to produce it It may be that the Principle of Fermentation or Dilatation of Liquors is not so well known to all Readers as that I may pretend to have explain'd an Effect by generally shewing that it proceeds from Fermentation But all particular Questions are not to be resolv'd by ascending to the first Cause though that may be done too and a true System on which all particular Effects depend discover'd provided we only insist upon clear Ideas But that Way of Philosophizing is neither the exactest nor yet the shortest To comprehend this it must be observ'd that there are Questions of two sorts in the first it is requir'd to discover the Nature and Properties of some Thing in the others we only
to separate them for which Reason they are look'd upon as a Whole By Contiguity I understand that whatever it is which makes me judge that two Bodies touch one another immediately so as that there is nothing betwixt them though I judge not that they are strictly united because I may easily separate them By the third Word Union I understand something or other which makes two Glasses or two Marble-Stones whose surfaces are well rub'd and polished upon each other to adhere together so as that though they can easily be separated by making them glide over one another yet we find some resistance when we endeavour to do it in another manner Now these two united Glasses or Marble-stones cannot be said to be continuous because they are not conceived as a Whole since they may easily be separated some certain way Neither is this a Contiguity though it be something very like it because those two pieces of Glass or Marble are strictly enough united and even more than the Parts of soft and liquid Bodies as those of Butter and Water These Words being thus explained we must now enquire after the Cause that unites Bodies and the difference betwixt Continuity Contiguity and the Union of Bodies taken in this particular Sense I shall first seek the cause of Continuity or that I don't know what which unites the Parts of a Body and links them so strictly together that violence must be used to separate them and that they are look'd upon as making together but one Whole I hope that this Cause being found out it will prove no hard task to discover the rest It seems now necessary to me that this I don't know what which binds even the smallest Parts of that piece of Iron I hold in my Hands should be something very powerful since I must use a very great Force to break off a small Part of it But am not I extremely mistaken for may not that difficulty I find in breaking the least piece of this Iron come from my Weakness and not from the Resistance of the Iron And indeed I remember I have formerly used a greater violence than I now do to break a piece of Iron like this and if I fell sick it might happen that my utmost endeavours could not perform it I see therefore that I must not judge absolutely of the firmness with which the Parts of Iron are joyned together by the endeavours I make to dis-unite them but only judge that they stick very strictly to each other in relation to my little Strength or that they hang more firmly together than the Parts of my Flesh since the Sense of Pain I feel in using too much Force advertises me I shall sooner disunite the Parts of my Body than those of the Iron Thence I conclude That as I am not absolutely strong nor weak so Iron and other Bodies are not absolutely hard or flexible but only in reference to the Cause that acts upon them And that my Endeavours cannot be a Rule to measure the Degrees of Force that must be used to overcome the Resistance and Hardness of Iron since Rules must be unvariable whereas those Endeavours vary according to the Time the plenty of Animal Spirits and the Hardness of Flesh for after all I cannot always produce the same Effects by the same Endeavours This Consideration frees me from a Prejudice that made me imagine strong Bands to unite the Parts of Bodies which Bands perhaps are not in being and I hope it will not be unprofitable hereafter for I am wonderfully apt to judge of all things with relation to my self and to follow the Impressions of my Senses of which I shall more carefully beware But let us proceed Having thought some Time and search'd with some Application the Cause of this strict Union without being able to discover it I find my self inclin'd by my own natural Laziness to judge as several others do that it is the Form of Bodies that preserves the Union betwixt their Parts or the Friendship and Inclination they have for such as are alike to them And to form other judgements of like nature nothing being more convenient than sometimes to suffer our selves to be seduc'd and to become Learned on a sudden with little Expence But I intend to believe nothing but what I know nor to suffer my self to be cast down by my own Laziness nor to yield to bare Glimpses Let us therefore lay aside those Forms and Inclinations of which we have no distinct and particular but only confused and general Ideas which methinks we only frame with reference to our Nature and the Existence of which several Persons and perhaps whole Nations do not own But methinks I see the Cause of this strict Union of the Parts which make up hard Bodies without admitting any thing in it but what all the World grants or at least what all the World distinctly conceives to be possible For every one distinctly conceives that all Bodies are composed or may be composed of small Parts It may then be that some shall be crooked and branched and be able as many little Fetters strongly to hold others or that they shall be so intricated amongst each others Branches that it will not be easie to disunite them I am so much the apter to yield to this Thought as I see visible Parts of the gross Bodies hold and bind one another this way But I can scarce sufficiently mistrust my Prejudices and Impression of my Senses I must therefore more strictly examine this Matter and enquire after the Reason why even the minutest and last solid Parts of Bodies in short even the Parts of every one of these little Bands hang together For they cannot be united by other smaller Bands since I suppose them to be solid Or if I say they are united in that Manner it will reasonably be ask'd What unites these others together and so in infinitum I am again extremely apt to say that this Column is hard by its Nature or that the small Fetters of which hard Bodies are made up are Attoms the Parts of which cannot be divided as being the Essential and last Parts of Bodies and essentially crooked branched or of a perplex'd Figure But I freely own this is not solving the Difficulty and that laying aside my Prejudices and the Illusions of my Senses I should be in the wrong to have Recourse to an abstracted Form and to embrace a Phantasm of Logick for the Cause I enquire after I mean I should be in the wrong to conceive as something real and distinct the rambling or indefinite Idea of Nature or Essence which expresses nothing but what is known to us and so to take an abstracted universal Form for the Physical Cause of a real Effect for there are Two things which I cannot too much mistrust The first is The Impression of my Senses and the other My Readiness to take abstracted Natures and general Ideas of Logick for real and particular by
done by ways that seem most plain and simple Whereas the second Adam acting on the baptiz'd Infant 's Mind for one moment the contrary to what the first Adam produc'd in it before Regeneration is perform'd by the usual ways of acting which God takes in his sanctifying the Adult For the Infant at that moment being void of Sensations and Passions which divide its Thinking and Willing Capacity has nothing to encumber it and prevent its knowing and loving its true Good This is all I say at present because it is not necessary to know precisely how Regeneration of Infants is perform'd provided we admit in them a true Regeneration or an inward and real Justification caus'd by Acts or at least by Habits of Faith Hope and Charity My offering an Explication so repugnant to Prejudices is design'd for the Satisfaction of those who will not allow of Spiritual Habits and to prove to them the Possibility of the Regeneration of Infants For the Notion of Imputation seems to me to include a manifest Contradiction it being impossible That God should consider his Creatures as Righteous and actually love them whilst they are actually in Disorder and Corruption Though he may for his SON's sake have a Design to re-instate them in ORDER and love them when re-instated OBJECTIONS Against the Proofs and Explications of Original Sin OBJECTION against the first Article GOD wills Order it is true but 't is his Will that makes it it does not suppose it Whatever God wills is in Order purely for this Reason that God wills it If God wills that Minds should be subject to Bodies should love and fear them there is no disorder in all this If God will'd that two times two should not be four we should not speak false in saying two times two were not four For it would be a Truth God is the Principle of all Truth and the Master of all Order he supposes nothing neither Truth nor Order but makes all ANSWER Then all is thrown in Confusion There is no longer any Science nor Morality nor undeniable Proofs of our Religion Which consequence is evident to any Man who clearly comprehends this false Principle That God produces Order and Truth by a Will absolutely Free But this is not to answer it I Answer then that God can neither do nor will any thing without knowledge that therefore his Will supposes something but what it supposes is nothing of a created nature Order Truth Eternal Wisdom is the Exemplar of all the Works of God which Wisdom is not made God who makes all things never made it though he constantly begets it by the necessity of his Being Whatever God wills is in Order for that sole reason that he wills it No body denies it But this is because God cannot act against himself that is his Wisdom and his Knowledge He is at liberty not to produce any External Work but supposing he will act he cannot act otherways than by the immutable order of his Wisdom which he necessarily Loves For Religion and Reason teach me that he works nothing without his SON without his WORD without his WISDOM Therefore I fear not to affirm that God cannot positively will that the mind should be subject to the Body Because that Wisdom whereby God wills whatever he wills makes me clearly understand it is contrary to Order And I see this clearly in that same Wisdom because it is the Soveraign and Universal Reason which is participated by all Spirits for which all Intelligences are created and by which all Men are Reasonable For no Man is his own Reason Light and Wisdom unless it be when his Reason is Particular his Light an Ignis fatuus and his Wisdom Folly As the Generality of Men know not distinctly that it is only Eternal Wisdom which enlightens them and that Intelligible Ideas which are the Immediate object of their Mind are not created so they imagine that Eternal Laws and Immutable Truths receive their Establishment from a free will of God And this is what occasion'd M. des Cartes to say that God was able to effect that twice four should not be eight and that the three Angles of a Triangle should not be equal to two Rights Because there is no Order says he no Law no Reason Goodness or Truth but depends on God and that is he who from all Eternity has ordain'd and establish'd as supreme Legislator Eternal Truths This Learned Man did not observe that there was an Order a Law a Sovereign Reason Coeternal with God and necessarily lov'd by him and accordingly to which he must necessarily act supposing he will act For God is indifferent as to his External Workings but the manner of his working though he be perfectly free is not indifferent to him He always acts in the wisest and perfectest manner possible he constantly follows immutable and necessary Order Thus God is at liberty not to make either Spirits or Bodies but if he creates these two Kinds of Beings he must create them by the simplest ways and situate them in the most perfect Order He may for Example unite Spirits to Bodies but I maintain that he cannot subject them thereunto unless in pursuance of the Order which he always follows the Sin of Spirits obliges him to use them in that manner as I have already explain'd in the seventh Article and in the first Explication towards the end To anticipate some instances that might be urg'd against me I think it necessary to say that Men are to blame to consult themselves when they would know what God can do or will They are not to judge of his wills by the inward sense they have of their own Inclinations For otherwise they would often make him an unjust cruel sinful instead of an Almighty God They ought to lay aside the general Principle of their Prejudices which disposes them to judge of all things with reference to themselves and not to attribute to God what they do not clearly conceive to be included in the Idea of a Being infinitely perfect For they ought not to judge of things save by clear Ideas And then the God they worship will not be like those of Antiquity Cruel Adulterous Voluptious as the Persons who have imagin'd them nor will he resemble the God of some Christians who to make him as powerful as the Sinner wishes him ascribe to him an actual power of acting against all Order of leaving Sin unpunisht and of condemning to eternal Torments Persons never so righteous and Innocent Second OBJECTION against the First Article If God wills Order what is it that makes Monsters I say not amongst Men for they have sinned but amongst Animals and Plants What is the cause of the general corruption of the Air which breeds so many Diseases By what Order is it that the Seasons are so irregular and that the Sun and the Frost burn up and kill the Fruits of the Earth Is it to act with Wisdom and Order
these Terms ought to be explain'd If you 'll say that the Union of my Mind and Body consists in God's willing That upon my Desire to move my Arm the Animal Spirits should betake themselves to the Muscles it is compos'd of to move it in the manner desir'd I clearly understand this Explication and receive it But this is exactly my own Assertion For if my Will determine that of God 't is evident that my Arm is mov'd not by my Will which is impotent of it self but by the Will of God which never fails of its Effect But if it be said The Union of my Mind and Body consists in God's giving me a Force to move my Arm as he has given my Body likewise a Force of making me feel Pleasure and Pain to the end I may be sollicitous for this Body and be concern'd for its Preservation certainly this is to suppose the thing in dispute and to make a Circle No Man has a clear Idea of that Force which the Soul has over the Body or the Body over the Soul nor knows very well what he says when he positively asserts it That Opinion has been embrac'd through Prejudice has been learn'd in Infancy and in the Age of Sense But Understanding Reason and Reflexion have no part in it which is manifest enough from what I have said in the foregoing Treatise But you 'll say I know by my inward Conscience of my Action that I really have this Force and therefore am not mistaken in believing it I answer That when I move my Arm I am conscious to my self of the Actual Volition by which I move it and I err not in believing I have that Volition I have moreover an inward Sense of a certain Effort or Endeavour which accompanies this Volition and it is to believ'd that I make this Endeavour Last of all I grant that I have an inward feeling of the Motion of my Arm at the instant of this Effort which suppos'd I agree to what is said That the Motion of the Arm is perform'd at the instant a Man feels this Effort or has a practical Volition of moving his Arm. But I deny that this Effort which is no more than a Modification or Sensation of the Soul which is given us to make us understand our Weakness and to afford us a confus'd and obscure Sensation of our Strength can be capable of moving and determining the Spirits I deny there is any Analogy or Proportion between our Thoughts and the Motions of Matter I deny that the Soul has the least Knowledge of the Animal Spirits which she imploys to move the Body Animated by her Last of all Though the Soul exactly knew the Animal Spirits and were capable of moving them or determining their Motions yet I deny that with all this she could make choice of these Ductus of the Nerves of which she has no Knowledge so as to drive the Spirits into them and thereby move the Body with that Readiness Exactness and Force as is observable even in those who are the least acquainted with the Structure of their Body For supposing that our Volitions are truly the moving Force of Bodies howbeit that seems inconceivable how can we conceive the Soul moves her Body The Arm for Example is mov'd by means of an inflation or contraction caus'd by the Spirits in some of the Muscles that compose it But to the end the Motion imprinted by the Soul on the Spirits in the Brain may be Communicated to those in the Nerves and from thence to others in the Muscles of the Arm the Volitions of the Soul must needs multiply or change in proportion to those almost infinite shocks or Collisions that are made by the little Bodies that constitute the Spirits But this is inconceivable without admitting in the Soul an infinite number of Volitions upon the least Motion of the Body since the moving it would necessarily demand an innumerable multitude of Communications of Motions For in short the Soul being but a particular Cause and not able to know exactly the degrees of agitation and the dimensions of infinite little Corpuscles which encounter upon the dispersion of the Spirits into the Muscles she could not settle a General Law for the Communication of these Spirits Motion nor follow it exactly if she had establish't it Thus it is evident the Soul could not move her Arm although she had the Power of determining the Motion of the Animal Spirits These things are too clear to be longer insisted on The case is the same with our Thinking Faculty We are inwardly conscious that we Will the Thinking on something that we make an effort to that purpose and that in the Moment of our desire and effort the Idea of the thing presents it self to our Mind but our inward Sensation does not tell us that our Will or Effort produces our Idea Reason does not assure us that it 's possible and only prejudice makes us believe that our desires are the causes of our Ideas whilst we experiment an hundred times a Day that the latter accompany or pursue the former As God and his Operations have nothing sensible in them and as we are not conscious of any thing but our desires that precede the presence of our Ideas so we do not think our Ideas can have any other cause than these desires But view the thing closely and we shall see no force in us to produce them neither Reason nor Conscience giving us any information thereupon I don't think my self oblig'd to transcribe all the other proofs employ'd by the patrons for the Efficacy of Second Causes Because they seem so trifling that I might be thoughts to design to render them Ridiculous And I should make my self so if I gave them a Serious Answer An Author for Example very gravely asserts in behalf of his Opinion Created Beings are true Material Formal Final Causes why must not they likewise be Efficient or Efficacious I fancy I should give the World little satisfaction if to answer this Gentlemans Question I should stand to explain so gross an Ambiguity and show the difference between an Efficacious cause and that which the Philosophers are pleas'd to call material Therefore I leave such arguments as these to come to those which are drawn from Holy-Writ ARGUMENT VII The Defenders of the Efficacay of Second Causes commonly alledge the following Passages to support their Opinion Let the Earth bring forth Grass Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creature that hath Life and Fowl that may fly c. Therefore the Earth and Water by the Word of God receiv'd the Power of producing Plants and Animals Afterwards God Commanded the Fowls and Fishes to multiply Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Waters in the Seas and let Fowl multiply in the Earth Therefore he gave them a Power of begetting their like Our Saviour in the fourth Chapter of St. Mark says the Seed which falls on good Ground brings forth
his Creatures also For hereby we pay Legitimate Honour to their Creatour Merit his good Graces and oblige him to shower new Benefits upon us 'T is manifest he approves of the Honour that is given to his Creatures since they partake of his Power and all Power deserves to be honour'd But because Honour ought to be Proportion'd to Power and that the Power of the Sun and all other sensible Objects is such as derives to us all sorts of Goods 't is reasonable we should Honour them with all our Strength and next to God Consecrate to them all our Being These are the Natural Reasonings a Man would fall into that should ground upon the Prejudice of the Efficacy of Second Causes and probably such was the Arguing of the first Founders of Idolatry Take here his Sense of it who passes for the most Learned of all the Jews He Prefaces a a Treatise he wrote about Idolatry with these Words In the days of Enos Men fell into strange Illusions and the Wise Men of that Age quite lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was one of those deluded Persons whose Errours were these Since God said they has created the Heavens and Stars to govern the World has constituted them on â—igh and invested them with Glory and Lustre and employs them in executing his Commands 't is just that we should honour them and pay them our Deference and Homage 'T is the Will of our God that Honour should be given to those whom he has exalted and enthron'd in Glory as a Prince requires that his Ministers should be â—onour'd in his Presence because the Honour which is given to them redounds to himself When once this Notion had entred their Head they fell to building Temples in Honour of the Stars gave them Sacrifice and Praises and even prostrated themselves before them thereby imagining to purchase the favour of Him that created them And this was the Original of Idolatry It is so Natural and just to have grateful Resentments in Proportion to the Goods we receive that almost all Nations have ador'd the Sun because they all concluded him the Cause of the Blessings they enjoy'd And if the Aegyptians ador'd not only the Sun and Moon and River Nile because its overflowing caus'd the Fertility of their Country but even the vilest of Animals 'T was as Cicero relates from the Emolument they receiv'd from them Therefore as we cannot and indeed ought not to Extirpate from Men's Minds their Natural Inclination for the true Causes of their Happiness 't is evident there is at least some danger in ascribing Efficacy to Second Causes though we conjoyn the necessity of an immediate Concourse which has methinks I know not what of incomprehensible purport and which strikes in as an after-game to justifie our imbib'd Prejudices and Aristotle's Philosophy But there 's no danger in speaking only what we see and of Attributing only to God Efficacy and Power since we see nothing but His Wills which have an absolutely necessary and indispensible connexion with Natural Effects I own that now adays Men are Wise enough to avoid those gross Errors of Heathens and Idolaters but I fear not to say our Mind is still dispos'd or rather our Heart is often bent like that of the Heathens and that there will ever be in the World some kind of Idolatry until the Day in which JESUS CHRIST shall restore up His Kingdom to God his Father having first destroy'd all Empire Dominion and Power that God may be All in all For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of ones Belly as speaks S. Paul Is not he an Idolater to the God of Riches who labours Night and Day to acquire them Is this to render to God the Worship we owe Him Is this to adore Him in Spirit and in Truth to have our Hearts fill'd with some sensible Beauty and our Mind struck and dazled with the Lustre of some imaginary Grandeur Men fancying to themselves that Circumambient Bodies afford the pleasures they enjoy in the use of them Unite to them with all the Powers of their Soul and thus the Principle of their Corruption lies in the sensible Conviction of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is only Reason that assures them none but God Acts in them But besides that this Reason speaks so low that it is scarce Audible and that the Contradicting Senses cry so loud that their Clamour Stunns and Stupefies them they are yet farther confirm'd in their Prejudice by Reasons and Arguments that are so much dangerous as they have more External Characters and sensible marks of Truth The Philosophers but especially the Christian Philosophers ought to wage an uninterrupted War with Prejudices or the Judgements of their Senses and particularly those of so dangerous importance as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet there are Men whom I extremely honour as I have just Reason who from I know not what Principle endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and to make so holy so pure and solid a Doctrine as this which owns no other true Cause than God pass for Superstitious and Extravagant Opinion They will not have us to Love and Fear God in all things but to Love and Fear all things with reference to God We ought say they to Love the Creatures since they are good to Love and respect our Father to give Honour to our Prince and Superiours since God Commands it Nor do I deny it but I deny that we are to Love the Creatures as our Goods though they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters Or to explain my self more clearly I say we must not serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design than to serve and obey God S. Paul who became all things to all Men and was complaisant in all things for the Salvation of those he Preach'd to speaks thus Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your Heart as unto CHRIST not with Eye-Service as Men pleasers but as the Servants of Christ doing the Will of God from the Heart with good Will doing Service AS TO THE LORD AND NOT TO MEN. And in another Epistle Not with Eye-Service as to MEN but in singleness of Heart fearing GOD. And whatever ye do do it Heartily AS TO THE LORD and NOT VNTO MEN. We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and Honour our Superiours AS UNTO GOD AND NOT UNTO MEN. This is manifest and can have no Evil consequences For hereby Superiours would always be more honour'd and better serv'd But I think it may be said That a Master who would be honour'd and serv'd as having in himself another Power than that of God would be a Devil and that those who serv'd him under that apprehension would be
were true that God acted by particular Wills since Miracles are such only from their not happening by General Laws Therefore Miracles suppose these Laws and prove the Opinion I have establish'd But as to ordinary Effects they clearly and directly demonstrate General Laws or Wills If for Instance a Stone be dropp'd upon the Head of Passengers it will continually fall with equal speed not distinguishing the Piety or Quality or Good or Ill Disposition of those that pass If we examine any other Effect we shall see the same Constancy in the Action of the Cause of it But no Effect proves that God acts by particular Wills though Men commonly fancy God is constantly working Miracles in their Favour That way they would have God to act in being consonant to their own and indulgent to Self-love which centers all things on themselves and very proportionate to their Ignorance of the Complication of Occasional Causes which produce extraordinary Effects naturally falls into Mens Thoughts when but greenly studied in Nature and consult not with sufficient Attention the abstract Idea of an Infinite Wisdom of an Universal Cause of a Being Infinitely Perfect CONCERNING Nature and Grace DISCOURSE II. Of the Laws of GRACE in particular and of the Occasional Causes which regulate and determine their Efficacy PART I. Of the Grace of JESVS CHRIST I. SINCE none but GOD can act immediately and by himself on Minds and produce in them all the various Motions they are capable of 'T is he alone who sheds his Light within us and inspires us with certain Sensations which determine our diverse Volitions And therefore none but he can as a True Cause produce Grace in our Souls For Grace or that which is the Principle or Motive of all the Regular Motions of our Love is necessarily either a Light which instructs us or a confus'd Sensation that convinces us that God is our Good since we never begin to love an Object unless we see clearly by the Light of Reason or feel confusedly by the tast of Pleasure that this Object is good I mean capable of making us happier than we are II. But since all Men are involv'd in Original Sin and even by their Nature infinitely beneath the Majesty of God 'T is Jesus Christ alone that can by the Dignity of his Person and the Holiness of his Sacrifice have access to his Father reconcile him to us and merit his Favours for us and consequently be the meritorious Cause of Grace These Truths are certain But we are not seeking the Cause which produces Grace by its own Efficacy nor that which merits it by its Sacrifice and Good Works We enquire for that which regulates and determines the Efficacy of the General Cause and which we may term the Second Particular and Occasional III. For to the end the General Cause may act by General Laws or Wills and that his Action may be regular constant and uniform 't is absolutely necessary there should be some Occasional Cause to determine the Efficacy of these Laws and to help to fix them If the Collision of Bodies or something of like Nature did not determine the Efficacy of the General Laws of the Communication of Motions it would be necessary for God to move Bodies by particular Wills The Laws of Union of the Soul and Body become efficacious only from the Changes befalling one or other of these two Substances For if God made the Soul feel the Pain of pricking tho' the Body were not prick'd or though the same thing did not happen in the Brain as if it were he would not act by the General Laws of Union of the Soul and Body but by a particular Will If Rain fell on the Earth otherwise than by a necessary Consequence of the General Laws of Communication of Motions the Rain and the Fall of every Drop that composes it would be the Effect of a particular Will So that unless Order requir'd it should rain that Will would be absolutely unworthy of God 'T is necessary therefore that in the Order of Grace there should be some Occasional Cause which serves to fix these Laws and to determine their Efficacy And this is the Cause we must endeavour to discover IV. Provided we consult the Idea of intelligible Order or consider the sensible Order which appears in the Works of God we shall easily discover that Occasional Causes which determine the Efficacy of General Laws and are of use in fixing them must necessarily be related to the Design for which God has establish'd them For Example Experience evidences that God has not made and Reason certifies that he ought not to make the Courses of the Planets the Occasional Causes of the Union of our Soul and Body He ought not to will that our Arm should be mov'd in such or such a manner or that our Soul should feel the Tooth-ake when the Moon shall be in conjunction with the Sun if so be this Conjunction acts not on the Body God's Design being to unite our Soul to our Body he cannot in prosecuting that Design give the Soul Sensations of Pain save when there happen some Changes in the Body repugnant to it Wherefore we are not to seek out of our Soul or Body the Occasional Causes of their Union V. Hence it follows that God designing to form his Church by Jesus Christ could not according to that Design seek the Occasional Causes which serve to settle the General Laws of Grace by which the Spirit of Jesus diffus'd through his Members communicates Life and Holiness to them except in Jesus Christ and in the Creatures united to him by Reason Thus the Rain of Grace is not deriv'd to our Hearts by the diverse situations of the Stars nor by the Collision of certain Bodies nor even according to the different Courses of the animal Spirits which give us Motion and Life All that Bodies can do is to excite in us Motions and Sensations purely Natural For whatever arrives to the Soul through the Body is only for the Body VI. Yet as Grace is not given to all that desire it nor as soon as they desire it and is granted to those who do not ask it it thence follows that even our Desires are not the Occasional Causes of Grace For this sort of Causes have constantly and most readily their Effect and without them the Effect is not produc'd For Instance the Collision of Bodies being the Occasional Cause of the Change which happens in their Motion if two Bodies did not meet their Motions would not alter and if they alter'd we may be assur'd they met The general Laws which shed Grace upon our Hearts find nothing therefore in our Wills to determine their Efficacy as the general Laws which regulate the Rains are not founded on the Dispositions of the Places rain'd upon For it indifferently rains upon all Places on hollow and manur'd Grounds even on the Sands and the Sea it self VII We are therefore reduc'd to confess that
Principle In a word Jesus Christ needing Minds of particular Dispositions for the causing particular Effects may in general apply to them and by that Application infuse into them sanctifying Grace As the Mind of a Projector thinks in general of square Stones when these Stones are actually necessary to his Building XVIII But the Soul of Jesus being not a general Cause we have reason to think it has often particular Desires in regard to particular Persons When we intend to speak of God we must not consult our selves and make him act like us but consider the Idea of a Being infinitely perfect and make God act according to that Idea But in speaking of the Action of the Soul of Jesus we may look into our selves and make him act like particular Causes For Example We have reason to believe that the Conversion of St. Paul was owing to the Efficacy of a particular Desire of Jesus Christ. And we are to look upon the Desires of the Soul of Jesus which have a general respect to Minds of a certain Character as particular Desires though they comprehend many Persons because these Desires change daily like those of particular Causes But the general Laws by which God acts are always the same because the Wills of God ought to be firm and constant by reason that his Wisdom is infinite XIX The diverse Desires of the Soul of Jesus distributing Grace we clearly conceive why it is not equally dispers'd to all Men and why bestow'd on some more abundantly at one time than another For his Soul not thinking on all Men at once cannot at the same time have all the Desires whereof it is capable So that he acts not on his Members in a particular manner except by successive Influences as the Soul moves not at once all the Muscles of our Body For the Animal Spirits are unequally and successively distributed into our Members according to the various Impressions of Objects the diverse Motions of our Passions and the several Desires we freely excite within us XX. True it is that all the Righteous constantly receive the Influence of their Head which gives them Life and that when they act by the Spirit of Jesus Christ they merit and receive new Graces though it be not necessary that the Soul of Jesus should have any particular Desires as the occasional Causes of them For Order which requires that every Desert should be rewarded is not an arbitrary but a necessary Law and independent from any occasional Cause But though he who performs a meritorious Action may be rewarded for it whilst the Soul of Jesus has no actual Desires relating to him yet 't is certain that he merited not this Grace but by the Dignity and Sanctity of the Spirit which Christ has communicated to him For Men are not well-pleasing to God nor able to do good but in as much as they are united to his Son by Charity XXI It must be farther acknowledg'd that those who observe the Counsels of Jesus Christ out of an Esteem they have for them and through the Fear of future Punishment sollicite as I may say by their Obedience the Charity of Christ to think on them though they act from a Principle of Self-love But their Actions are not the Occasional Causes either of Grace since it does not infallibly follow them or even of the Motions of the Soul of Jesus in their Favour since these Motions never fail to communicate it Thus only the Desires of Jesus Christ as Occasional Causes have infallibly their Effect because God having constituted him Head of the Church ought by him only to communicate his sanctifying Grace to his Elect. XXII Now we may consider in the Soul of Jesus Christ Desires of two sorts viz. Actual Transitory and Particular that have but a short-liv'd Efficacy and Stable and Permanent which consist in a setled and constant Disposition of the Soul of Jesus Christ with relation to certain Effects which tend to the Execution of his Design in general If our Soul by its various Motions communicated to our Body all that was necessary to its Formation and Growth we might distinguish in her two kinds of Desire For it would be by the actual and transitory Desires that she would drive into the Muscles of the Body the Spirits which gave it a certain Disposition with reference to present Objects or to the actual Thoughts of the Mind But it would be by stable and permanent Desires that she would give to the Heart and Lungs the natural Motions by which Respiration and the Circulation of the Blood were perform'd By these Desires she would digest the Aliments and distribute them to all the Parts that needed them in as much as that sort of Action is at all times necessary to the Preservation of the Body XXIII By the actual transitory and particular Desires of the Soul of Jesus Grace is deriv'd to unprepar'd Persons in a manner somewhat singular and extraordinary But 't is by his permanent Desires that it is given regularly to those who receive the Sacraments with the necessary Dispositions For the Grace we receive by the Sacraments is not given us precisely because of the Merit of our Action though we receive them in Grace but because of the Merits of Jesus Christ which are freely applied to us in consequence of his permanent Desires We receive in the Sacraments much more Grace than our Preparation deserves and it suffices to our receiving some Influence from them that we do not oppose and resist it But 't is abusing what is most Sacred in Religion to receive them unworthily XXIV Amongst the actual and transitory Desires of the Soul of Jesus there are certainly some more durable and frequent than others and the Knowledge of these Desires is of greatest Consequence in Point of Morality Doubtless he thinks oftner on those who observe his Counsels than on other Men. His Motions of Charity for Believers are more frequent and lasting than those for Libertines and Atheists And as all Believers are not equally prepar'd to enter into the Church of the Predestinate the Desires of the Soul of Jesus are not equally lively frequent and durable on the account of them all Man more earnestly desires the Fruits that are fittest for the Nourishment of his Body he 〈◊〉 oftner on Bread and Wine than on Meats of difficult Digestion So Jesus Christ designing the Formation of his Church ought to be more taken up with those who can most easily enter than on others which are extremely remote The Scripture likewise teaches us that the Humble the Poor the Penitent receive greater Graces than other Men because the Despisers of Honours Riches and Pleasures are the fittest for the Kingdom of Heaven Those for Example who have learn'd of Jesus Christ to be meek and humble in Heart shall find Rest to their Souls The Yoke of Christ which is insupportable to the Proud will become easie and light by the Assistances of Grace For God
if God caus'd it to rain on this Meadow by a particular Benevolence to the Owner this Rain would not fall on the River where 't is insignificant since it could not fall there without a Cause or Will in God which has necessarily some End VII But we have still more Reason to think an Effect is produc'd by a general Will when this Effect is contrary or even useless to the Design which we are taught by Faith or Reason the Cause propos'd For Instance The End which God proposes in the various Sensations he affords the Soul in our tasting different Fruits is that we may eat those which are fit for Nourishment and reject the rest I suppose thus Therefore when God gives a grateful Sensation at the Instant of our eating Poisons or empoison'd Fruits he acts not in us by particular Wills So we ought to conclude since that agreeable Sensation is the Cause of our Death whilst the End of God's giving us diverse Sensations is to preserve our Life by a convenient Nourishment for I once more suppose thus For I speak only with reference to the Grace which God gives us doubtless to convert us so that 't is visible God showers it not on Men by particular Wills since it frequently renders them more Culpable and Criminal For God cannot have so Fatal a Design God gives us not therefore agreeable Sensations by particular Wills when we eat poisonous Fruits But because a poisonous Fruit excites in our Brain Motions like those produc'd by wholsome Fruits God gives us the same Sensations by reason of the general Laws which unite the Soul to the Body that she might be wakeful for its Preservation So likewise God gives not those who have lost an Arm Sensations of Pain relating to it but by a general Will For 't is useless to the Body of this Man that his Soul should suffer Pain relating to an Arm that 's lost 'T is the same case with Motions produc'd in the Body of a Man in the Commission of a Crime Finally supposing we are obliged to think that God scatters his Rain upon the Earth witâ— Intent to make it fruitful we cannot believe he distributes it by particular Wills since it falls upon the Sands and in the Sea as well as on plow'd Lands and is often so excessive on seeded Ground as to extirpate the Corn and frustrate the Labours of the Husbandman Thus it is certain that Rains which are useless or noxious to the Fruits of the Earth are necessary Consequences of the general Laws of the Communications of Motions which God has establish'd for the producing better Effects in the World supposing which I again repeat that God cannot will by a particular Volition that Rain should cause the Barrenness of the Earth VIII Lastly When an Effect happens which has something extraordinary 't is reasonable to believe it is not produc'd by a general Will. Nevertheless 't is impossible to be sure of it If for Example in the Procession of the Holy Sacrament it rains on the Assistants save on the Priests and those which carry it we have reason to think this proceeds from a particular Will of the universal Cause yet we cannot be certain because an occasional intelligent Cause may have this particular Design and so determine the Efficacy of the general Law to execute it IX When the preceding Marks are not sufficient for us to judge whether a certain Effect is or is not produc'd by a general Will we are to believe it is if it be certain there is an Occasional Cause establish'd for the like Effects For Example We see it rain to some Purpose in a Field we do not examine whether this Rain falls or not in the great Roads we know not whether it be noxious to the bordering Grounds nay we suppose it only does good and that all the attending Circumstances are perfectly accommodated to the Design for which we are oblig'd to believe that God would have it rain Nevertheless I say that we ought to judge this Rain is produc'd by a general Will if we know that God has setled an Occasional Cause for the like Effects For we must not have recourse to Miracles without Necessity We ought to suppose that God acts herein by the simplest ways and though the Lord of the Field ought to return Thanks to God for the Bounty yet he ought not to imagine it was caus'd in a miraculous manner by a particular Will The Owner of the Field ought to thank God for the Good he receives since God saw and will'd the good Effect of the Rain when he establish'd the general Laws whereof it is a necessary Consequence and that it was for the like Effects they were establish'd On the contrary if the Rains are sometimes hurtful to the Earth as it was not to render them unfruitful that God establish'd the Laws which make it rain since Drought suffices to make them barren 't is plain we ought to thank God and to adore the Wisdom of his Providence even when we do not â—eel the Effects of the Laws establish'd in our Favour X. But to conclude when we cannot be certified by the Circumstances which accompany certain Effects that there is an Occasional Cause establish'd to produce them 't is sufficient to know they are very common and relate to the principal Design of the general Cause in order to judge they are produc'd by a general Will. For Example The Springs which water the Surface of the Earth are subservient to the principal Design of God which is that Mâ—n should not want things necessary to Life I suppose so Besides these Fountains are very common therefore we ought to conclude they are foâ—m'd by some General Laws For as there is much more Wisdom in executing his Designs by Simple and General Means than by Complicated and Particular as I think I have sufficiently prov'd elsewhere We owe that Honour to God as to believe his way of acting is general uniform constant and proportion'd to the Idea we have of an infinite Wisdom These are the Marks by which we are to judge whether an Effect be produc'd by a general Will. I now come to prove that God bestows his Grace on Men by general Laws and that Jesus Christ has been establishâ—d the Occasional Cause to determine their Efficacy I begin by the Proofs of Holy Scripture XI St. Paul teaches us That Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church That he constantly influences it with Spirit and Life That he forms the Members and animates them as the Soul animates the Body or to speak still more clearly the Holy Scripture teaches us two things The first that Jesus Christ prays continually for his Members The second that his Prayers or Desires are always heard Whence I conclude that he was constituted by God the Occasional Cause of Grace and likewise that Grace is never given to Sinners but through his Means The Occasional Causes have constantly and readily
their Effect The Prayers and diverse Desires of Jesus Christ with reference to the Formation of his Body have likewise most constantly and speedily their Accomplishment God denies his Son nothing as we learn from Jesus Christ himself Occasional Causes produce not their Effect by their own Efficacy but by the Efficacy of the General Cause 'T is likewise by the Efficacy of the Power of God that the Soul of Jesus Christ operates in us and not by the Efficacy of Man's Will 'T is for this Reason that St. Paul represents Jesus Christ as praying to his Father without Intermission For he is oblâ—gâ—d to Pray in order to Obtain Occasional Causes have been establish'd by God for the determining the Efficacy of his General Wills and Jesus Christ according to the Scripture has been appointed by God after his Resurrection to govern the Church which he had purchas'd by his Blood For Jesus Christ became the Meritorious Cause of all Graces by his Sacrifice But after his Resurrection he entred 〈◊〉 the Holy of Holies as High Priest of future Goods to appear in the Presence of God and to endue us with the Graces which he has merited for us Therefore he himself applies and distributes his Gifts as Occasional Cause he disposes of all things in the House of God as a well-beloved Son in the House of his Father I think I have demonstrated in the Search after Truth that there is none but God who is the true Cause and who acts by his own Efficacy and that he communicates his Power to Creatures only in establishing them Occasional Causes for the producing some Effects I have proved for Example That Men have no Power to produce any Motion in their Bodies but because God has establish'd their Wills the Occasional Causes of these Motions That Fire has no power to make me feel Pain but because God has establish'd the Collision of Bodies the Occasional Cause of the Communication of Motions and the violent Vibration of the Fibres of my Flesh the Occasional Cause of my Pain I may here suppose a Truth which I have proved at large in the Third Chapter of the Second Part of the Sixth Book and in the Illustration upon the same Chapter and which those for whom it was principally written don't contest Now Faith assures us that all Power is given to Jesus Christ to form his Church All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth Which cannot be understood of Jesus Christ as to his Divinity for as God he has never received any thing And therefore it is certain that Jesus Christ as to his Humanity is the Occasional Cause of Grace supposing I have well proved that God only can act on Minds and that Second Causes have no Efficacy of their own Which those ought first to examine who would understand my Sentiments and give a Judgment of them XII I say farther that no one is sanctified but through the Efficacy of the Power which God has communicated to Jesus Christ in constituting him the Occasional Cause of Grace For if any Sinner were converted by a Grace whereof Jesus Christ was not the Occasional but only the Meritorious Cause that Sinner not receiving his New Life through the Efficacy of Jesus Christ would not be a Member of the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head in that manner explain'd by St. Paul by these Words of the Epistle to the Ephesians That we may grow up into him in all things who is the Head even Christ from whom the whole Body fitly join'd together and compacted by that which every Joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying it self in Love Which Words not only say Jesus Christ is the Meritorious Cause of all Graces but likewise distinctly signifie that Christians are the Members of the Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head that 't is in him we increase and live with an entire new Life that 't is by his inward Operation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his Church is form'd and that thus he has been constituted by God the sole Occasional Cause who by his several Desires and Applications distributes the Graces which God as the True Cause showers down on Men. 'T is on this Account St. Paul says Christians are united to Jesus Christ as their Root Rooted and built up in him 'T is for the same Reason that Jesus Christ compares himself to a Vine and his Disciples to the Branches that derive their Life from him I am the Vine ye are the Branches On the same Grounds St. Paul affirms that Jesus Christ lives in us and that we live in him that we are rais'd up in our Head that our Life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God in a word that we have already Life Eternal in Jesus Christ. All these and many other Expressions of like nature clearly manifest that Jesus Christ is not only the Meritorious but also the Occasional Physical or Natural Cause of Grace and that as the Soul informs animates and consummates the Body so Jesus Christ diffuses through his Members as Occasional Cause the Graces he has merited to his Church by his Sacrifice For my part I cannot see how these Reasons can be call'd in question or upon what Grounds a most edifying Truth and as ancient as the Religion of Jesus Christ can be treated as a dangerous Novelty I grant my Expressions are novel but that 's because they seem to me the fittest of all others distinctly to explain a Truth which can be but confusedly demonstrated by Terms very loose and general These words Occasional Causes and Natural Laws seem necessary to give the Philosophers for whom I wrote this Treatise of Nature and Grace a distinct Understanding of what most Men are content to know confusedly New Expressions being no farther dangerous than involving Ambiguity or breeding in the Mind some Notion contrary to Religion I do not believe that Equitable Persons and conversant in the Theology of St. Paul will blame me for explaining my self in a particular manner when it only tends to make us Adore the Wisdom of God and strictly to unite us with Jesus Christ. First OBJECTION XIII 'T is Objected against what I have establish'd That neither Angels nor Saints of the Old Testament receiv'd Grace pursuant to the Desires of the Soul of Jesus since that Holy Soul was not then in Being and therefore though Jesus Christ be the meritorious Cause of all Graces he is not the Occasional Cause which distributes them to Men. As to Angels I Answer That 't is very probable Grace was given them but once So that if we consider things on that side I grant there is nothing can oblige the Wisdom of God to constitute an Occasional Cause for the Sanctification of Angels But if we consider these blessed Spirits as Members of the Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head or suppose them
unequally supplied there 's all Reason to believe the Diversity of their Graces must proceed from him who is the Chief of Angels as well as Men and who under that Character has merited by his Sacrifice all the Graces which God has given his Creatures but has variously applied them by his different Desires It being undeniable that Jesus Christ long before his Birth or Meriting might be the Meritorious Cause of the Graces given to the Angels and Saints of the Old Testament it ought methinks be granted that by his Prayers he might be the Occasional Cause of the same Graces long before they were demanded For indeed there is no necessary Relation between Occasional Causes and the Time of Production of their Effects and though commonly these sort of Causes are follow'd by their Effects at the Time of their Action yet their Action being not of it self efficacious since its Efficacy depends on the Will of the universal Cause there 's no necessity of their actual Existence for the producing their Effect For Instance Suppose Jesus Christ at this present time should desire of his Father that such a Person might receive such a Supply of Grace at certain Moments of his Life that Prayer of Jesus Christ would infallibly determine the Efficacy of the General Will God has of saving all Men in his Son This Person will receive these Assistances though the Prayer of Jesus Christ be pass'd and his Soul actually think on another thing and never think again on that which he requir'd for him But the past Prayer of Jesus Christ is no more present to his Father than a future For all that must happen in all Times is equally present to God Thus God loving his Son and knowing he shall have such Desires with respect to his Ancestors and those of his own Nation and likewise to the Angels which must enter into the Spiritual Edifice of his Church and constitute the Body whereof he is the Head ought to accomplish the Desires of his Son before they were made that the Elect which preceded his Nativity and which he purchas'd by the Merit of his Sacrifice might as peculiarly belong to him as others and that he might be their Head as really as he is ours I acknowledge it is fit that Meritorious and Occasional Causes should rather precede their Effects than follow them and that Order would have Causes and their Effects exist together For 't is plain that all Merit ought to be instantly recompenc'd and every Occasional Cause actually to produce its Effect provided nothing hinders bâ—t it may or ought be done But Grace being absolutely necessary to Angels and Patriarchs could not be deferr'd But as for the Glory and Reward of the Saints of the Old Testament since that might be deferr'd 't was fit that God should suspend its Accomplishment till Jesus Christ should ascend into Heaven be constituted High Priest over the House of God and begin to exercise the Sovereign Power of Occasional Cause of all Graces merited by his Labours upon Earth Therefore we are to believe that the Patriarchs entred not Heaven till after Jesus Christ their Head Mediator and Fore-runner But though it should be granted that God had not appointed an Occasional Cause for all the Graces afforded the Angels and Patriarchs I see not how it can be thence concluded that Jesus Christ does not at present endue the Church with the Spirit which gives it Increase and Life that he does not pray for it or that his Prayers or Desires are not effectually heard in a word that he is not the Occasional Cause which applies to Men the Graces he has merited I grant if you 'll have it so that God before Jesus Christ gave Grace by particular Wills the Necessity of Order requiring it Whilst by Order the Occasional Cause could not be so soon establish'd and the Elect were very few in Number But now when the Rain of Grace falls not as heretofore on a small Number of Men but is shower'd on all the Earth and Jesus Christ may or ought be constituted the Occasional Cause of the Goods which he has merited for his Church what reason is there to believe God works so many Miracles as he gives us good Thoughts For in short all that is done by particular Wills is certainly a Miracle as not being a Result of the General Laws he has ordain'd whose Efficacy are determin'd by Occasional Causes But how can we imagine that in order to save Men he works so many Miracles useless to their Salvation I would say affords them all these Graces which they resist because not proportion'd to the actual Force of their Concupiscence St. John teaches us That Christians receive from the Fulness of Jesus Christ Graces in abundance For says he the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. For indeed the Graces which preceded him were not comparable to those he distributed after his Triumph If they were Miraculous we are to suppose they were extremely rare Even the Grace of the Apostles before the Holy Spirit was given them could not come in comparison with those they receiv'd when the High Priest of future Goods having entred by his Blood into the Holy of Holies had obtain'd by the Force of his Prayers and sent through the Dignity of his Person the Holy Spirit to animate and sanctifie his Church The unaccountable Blindness of the Jews their gross and carnal Notions their frequent Relapses into Idolatry after so many Miracles sufficiently manifest their disregard for true Goods and the dispiritedness of the Apostles before they had received the Holy Ghost is a sensible Proof of their Weakness So that Grace in those Days was extremely rare because our Nature in Jesus Christ was not yet establish'd the Occasional Cause of Graces Jesus Christ was not yet fully consecrated Priest after the Order of Melchisedech nor had his Father given him that Immortal and Glorious Life which is the particular Character of his Priesthood For 't was necessary that Jesus Christ should enter the Heavens and receive the Glory and Power of Occasional Cause of true Goods before he sent the Holy Spirit according to the Words of St. John The Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified And according to others of Jesus Christ himself It is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you but if I go I will send him unto you Now it cannot be imagin'd that Jesus Christ consider'd as God is the Head of the Church as Man he has obtain'd that Quality The Head and Members of a Body must be of the same nature Jesus Christ as Man intercedes for Men as Man he receiv'd from God a Sovereign Power over his Church For as he is God he intercedes not as God he has not receiv'd a Name which is above every Name but he is equal to the Father
and absolute Lord of all things by right of Generation These Truths are evident as we are assur'd by Jesus Christ himself who says that his Father has given him power to judge Men because he is the Son of Man So we ought not to think that Scripture Expressions which make Jesus Christ the Author of Grace must be understood of him consider'd in his Divine Person For if so I confess I should not have prov'd him the Occasional Cause since he would be the True Cause of it But whereas it is certain that the Three Persons of the Trinity are equally the True Cause of Grace because all the External Operations of God are common to them all my Proofs are undeniable since Holy Scripture says of the Son and not of the Father or the Holy Spirit that he is the Head of the Church and that in this Capacity he communicates Life to the constituent Members of it Second OBJECTION XIV 'T is God who gives the Soul of Jesus Christ all the Thoughts and Motions relating to the Formation of his Mystical Body So that if on one hand the Wills of Jesus Christ as Occasional or Natural Causes determine the Efficacy of the General Wills of God on the other 't is God himself who determines the several Wills of Jesus Christ. And thus it comes to the same thing For in brief the Volitions of Jesus Christ are always conformable to those of his Father I grant that the particular Volitions of the Soul of Jesus Christ are always conformable to the Wills of his Father not as if there were any particular Wills in the Father which answer to those in the Son and determine them but only that the Volitions of the Son are always conform'd to Order in general which is the necessary Rule of the Will of God and of all those who love him For to love Order is to love God 't is to will what he wills 't is to be Just Wise Regular in our Love The Soul of Jesus desires to form to the Glory of his Father the largest most sumptuous and accomplish'd Temple possible Order demands this since nothing can be made too great for God All the several Thoughts of this Soul perpetually intent on the Execution of its Design proceed likewise from God or the Word to which it is united But its various Desires are certainly the Occasional Cause of these various Thoughts for it thinks on what it wills Now these diverse Desires are sometimes entirely free and probably the Thoughts which excite them do not invincibly determine the Soul of Jesus Christ to apply her self to the Means of executing them For in brief 't is equally advantageous to the Design of Jesus Christ whether it be Peter or John that causes the Effect which the Regularity of his Work requires 'T is true the Soul of Jesus is not indifferent in any thing that relates to his Father's Glory or that Order necessarily demands but is entirely free in all the rest there is nothing extraneous to God which invincibly determines his Love Thus we ought not to wonder if Jesus have particular Wills though there be not the like Wills in God to determine them But let it be granted that the Volitions of Jesus Christ are not free and that his Light invincibly carries him to will and to will always in a determinate manner in the Construction of his Church But it is Eternal Wisdom to which his Soul is united that must determine his Volitions We must not for that Effect suppose Particular Wills in God But all the Wills of Jesus Christ are Particular or have no Occasional Cause to determine their Efficacy as have those of God For the Soul of Jesus Christ having not an infinite Capacity of Thinking his Notices and consequently his Volitions are limited Therefore his Wills must needs be Particular since they change according to his diverse Thoughts and Applications For probably the Soul of Jesus Christ otherwise imploy'd in Contemplating and tasting the infinite Satisfactions of the True Good methinks ought not according to Order desire at once to think on all the Ornaments and Beauties he would bestow upon his Church nor on the different Ways of executing each of his Designs For Jesus Christ desiring to render the Church worthy of the infinite Majesty of his Father would gladly perfect it with infinite Beauties by Ways most conformable to Order He must then constantly change his Desires there being but one infinite Wisdom who can fore-see all and prescribe himself General Laws for the executing his Designs But the future World being to subsist eternally and to be infinitely more perfect than the present it was requisite that God should establish an Occasional Cause Intelligent and Enlightned by Eternal Wisdom to remedy the Defects which should unavoidably happen in the Works that were form'd by General Laws The Collision of Bodies which determines the Efficacy of the General Laws of Nature is an Occasional Cause without Understanding and Liberty and therefore 't is impossible but there must be Imperfections in the World and Monsters produc'd which are not of such account as that the Wisdom of God should descend to remedy them by Particular Wills But Jesus Christ being an Intelligent Occasional Cause illuminate with the Wisdom of the Word and susceptible of Particular Wills according to the particular Exigencies of the Work he forms 't is plain that the future World will be infinitely more perfect than the present that the Church will be without Spot or Wrinkle as we are taught by Scripture and that it will be a Work most worthy of the Complacency of God himself 'T is in this manner that Eternal Wisdom renders as I may say to his Father what he had taken from him For not permitting him to act by Particular Wills he seem'd to disable his Almighty Arm But becoming incarnate he so brings it to pass that God acting in a manner worthy of him by most Simple and General Laws produces a Work wherein the most Illuminate Intelligences cannot observe the least Imperfection PROOFS founded on REASON XV. Having demonstrated by the Authority of Scripture that the diverse Motions of the Soul of Jesus Christ are the Occasional Causes which determine the Efficacy of the General Law of Grace by which God would have all Men sav'd in his Son 't is necessary to shew in general by Reason that we are not to believe God acts in the Order of Grace by Particular Wills For though by Reason separate from Faith it cannot be demonstrated that God has constituted the Wills of Man-God the Occasional Causes of his Gifts yet it may without Faith be shewn that he distributes them not to Men by Particular Wills and that in two manners a priori and a posteriori that is by the Idea we have of God and by the Effects of Grace For there is nothing but serves to prove this Truth First then for the Proof of a priori A wise Being
his Sensations See the Illustrations upon the 7. Ch. of the 2 d. Part of the 3 d. Book V. That 't is an Error to think all Men have the same Sensations of the same Objects IV. An Objection and Answer This Pagraâ—h is wanting in some Editions and is obscure in the French and therefore has receiv'd some alteration that it might be perspicuous I. Of the false Judgments that accompany our Sensations and which we confound with them II. The Reason of these false Judgments III. That Error is not in our Sensations but only in these Judgments Brown Paper presently takes fire but the Glass must be larger or more convex to burn white Paper I. That the Errors of our Senses serve us instead of general and very fruitful Principles from whence to draw false Conclusions and these Conclusions again become other Principles in in their turn II. The Original of the Differences attributed to Objects That these Differences are in the Soul III. The Original of Substantial Forms IV. The Origine of all the other more general Errors of the School-Philosophy I. An Instance taken from Morality which shews that our senses offer us nothing but false goods I will explain in the last Book in what sense Objects act upon the Body II. That GOD only is our Good and that all sensible Objects cannot give us any sense of Pleasure III. The Origine of the Errors of the Epicureans and Stoicks I. That our senses make us liable to Error even in things which are not sensible II. An Example taken from the Conversation of Men. III. That Sensible and Agreeable Manners ought not to be regarded I. The Errors concerning the Nature of Bodies II. Errors concerning the Qualities and Perfection of Bodies I. That our Senses are given us only for the Preservation of our Body II. That we ought to doubt of the Reports which our Senses make of Things III. That 't is no little thing to doubt as we ought to do I. A General Idea of the Imagination * By a Natural Judgment whereof I have spoken in several places of the preceding Book II. Two Faculties in the Imagination an Active and a Passive III. A general cause of the Changes which happen in the Imagination and the foundation of the Second Book I. Of the Animal Spirits and the Changes they are subject to in general II. That the Chyle entring the Heart occasions a Change in the Spirits III. That Winâ— effects the same thing Vinum iuctator dolosus est Numquid non ultra est sapientia in Theman Jer. c. 49. v. 7. I. Of the Changes of the Spirits caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Heart and Lungs II. Of the Change of the Spirit caus'd by the Nerves which go to the Liver to the Spleen and other Viscera III. That these things are perform'd by the order of Providence without the concurrence of our Will I. Of the Mewory II. Of the Habits * I explain elsewhere wherein this Power consists See the Illustraâ—ions upon the Intellectual Memory and Habits I. That the Fibres of the Brain are not subject to so sudden Changes as the Spirits II. Three considerable Changes which happen in the Three different Ages of Man I. Of the Communication that is between the Brain of the Mother and that of her Infant II. Of the Communication between our Brain and the other Parts of our Body which incline us to Imitation and Compassion III. An Explication of the Generation of Monstrous Children and the Propagation of the Species * According to the first Supposition * According to the second Suâ—position IV. An Explication of some Irregularities of the Vnderstanding and Inclinations of the Will V. An Explication of Concupiscence and Original Sin Rom. Ch. 6.5.12 14 c. VI. Objections and Answers Se the Illustrations I. The Changes which happen in the Imagination of an Infant after his Birth by his accompanying with his Mother his Nurse and other Persons II. Instructions for the good Education of Children S. August Qui parcit virgae odit filium suum Prov. 13.24 I. Of the Imagination of Women II. Of the Imagination of Men in the Perfection of their Age. III. Concerning the Imagination of Old Men. I. Of the Vnion of the Soul and Body Three Causes of the Connection of Traces with Idea's II. Of the Mutual Connection of the Traces I. Mâ—n of Learning are the most subject to Errâ—r II. The Causes why Men had rather be guided by Authority than make use of their own Reason Clarus ob obscuram linguam Lucretius Veritas filia temporis non auâ—toritatis See the first Article of the preceding Chapter Praelectiones 13 in principium Elementorum Euclidis * In Quaâ—to I. Of the Inventors of new Systems II. A Considerable Error of Studious Men. I. Of Effeminate Minds II. Of Superficial Minds III. Of Men of Authority Opusc. 2. IV. Of such as make Experiments I. Of the Disposition we have to imitate others in all things which is the Original of the Communication of those Errors that depend on the Power of Imagination II. Two things that more especially increase the Disposition we have to imitate others III. What the Strong Imagination is IV. Two kinds of it V. Two considerable Imperfections of Men of a Strong Imagination VI. That Men of a Strong Imagination easily perswade Artic. 37. of the Religion of the Church of England Plutarch Mor. How to distinguish the Flatterer from the Friend Diodor. Sicul. Bibl. Lib. 3. See the Illustrations Chap. 2. 3. De Pallio Multos etiam vidi postquam bene aestuassent ut eum assequerentur nihil praeter sudorem inanem animi fatigationem lucratos ab ejus lectione discessisse Sic qui Scotinus haberi viderique dignus qui hoc cognomentum habere voluit adeo quod voluit a seipso impetravit efficere id quod obtabat valuit ut liquido jurare ausim neminem ad hoc tempus extitisse qui possit jurare hunc libellum a capite ad calcem usque totum a se non minus bene intellectum quam lectum Salm. in Epist. ded Comment in Tert. Epicurus ait Injurias tolerabiles esse Sapienti nos injurias non esse Sapientia hujus mundi stultitia est apud Deum Quod hominibus altum est abominatio est ante Deum Luc. 16. Beaux Esprits Esprits Forts 1. In Philosophia parum diligens 2. Velles eum suo ingenio dixisse alieno judicio 3. Si aliqua contempsisset c. Consensu Eruditorum quam Puerorum amore comprobaretur Quintil. lib 10. cap. 2. Apoc. 2. Conservus tuus sum c. Deum adora L. 3. Câ— 13 L. 2. Ch. 10 L. 1. Ch. 24 L. 2. Ch. 17 L. 12. Ch 17. L. 2. Ch. 12 L. 1. Ch. 22 I. Of Imaginary Witches Of Wolf-men II. The Câ—nclusion of the two first Book I. Thought only is essential to the Soul Sensation and Imagination are only the Modifications of it
* By the Essence of a thing I mean that which is first conceiv'd in it on which depend all the Modifications observ'd in it †Second Part of the Pure Mind Chap. 7. II. We know not all the Modifications our Soul is capable of * S. Aug. lib. 6. de Musica Des Cartes in his Man c. I. The Mind being limited cannot comprehend anything of an infinite Nature II. The limitation of the mind is the Origine of a great many Errors * Art of Thinking III. And especially of Heresies I. That the Philosophers want order in their Studies II. An Instance of the want of order in Aristotle Lib. 5. de generatione Anim. c. 1. III. That Geometricians take a good Method in search of Truth IV. That their Method increases the strength of the Mind and that Aristotle 's Logick diminishes it Book 6 in the 1 st Part concerning Method V. Another Fault of Learned Men. I. The Mind cannot dwell long upon Objects that have no Relation or that include not something of Infinity in them II. The Inconstancy of the Will is the Cause of that want of Application and consequently of Error III. Our Sensations take us up more than the Pure Idea's of the Mind See the 7 th Chap. of the Second Part of this Book IV. Which is the Source of the Corruption of our Morals * Namely a Natural Love for we cannot hate Pleasure by an Elective Hatred †Because Elective Love cannot be long without conforming to Natural Love I. What is meant by Idea's That they really exist and are necessary to our Perceiving all material Objects This Paragraph is in Italick because it may be passed over as being difficult to be understood unless a Man know what I think of the Soul and of the Nature of Idea's II. A Particularization of all the ways possible for us to perceivâ— External Objects If a Man has a mind to know how all the Impressions of Visible Objects tho' oppos'd can be communicated without weakning let him read Mr. Des-Cartes 's Dioptrics Tanto meliora esse judico quae oculis cerno quanto pro sui natura viciniora sunt iis quae animo intelligo Aug. 6.3 de Vera Religione See the 3 d. Ch. of the 2 d. Part concerning Method Dic quia tu tibi lumen non es Serm. 8. de verbis Domini 2 Cor. 3.5 Rom. 1.19 Jac. 1.17 Ps. 94.10 Joh. 1.9 Lib 14. de Trin. cap. 13. See the Illustrations Act. Apost c. 17.28 I. Four different manners of Perception II. How we know GOD Humanis mentibus nulla interposita natura praesidet Aug. lib. de vera Relig. c. 55. III. How we know Bodies IV. How we know the Soul See the Illustrations V. How we know the Souls of other Men. I. The intimate Presence of the indefinite Idea of Being in general is the cause of all the disorderly Abstractions of the Mind and the most part of the Chimaera's of the Vulgar Philosophy which hinder many Philosophers from acknowledging the solidity of true Principles of Physick II. Of the Essence of Matter If this Definition of the word Essence be admitted all the rest is absolutely demonstrated if it be not admitted 't is only a nominal Question wherein consists the Essence of Matter or rather it cannot be the subject of a Question I. The last general Cause of our Errors II. That the Idea's of things are not always present to the Mind when we would have them III. Every finite Mind is subject to Error IV. We ought not to judge that there is no created Being besides Body and Spirit nor that GOD is a Spirit according to the conception of Spirits Riccioli 2. Vol. Nemo est paulo eruditior in Astronomicis qui Coelorum ordinem contemplatus non agnoscat Harmoniam quandam in Planetarum intervallis motibus Journal of the Learned Aug. 9 1666. See the Illustrations I. Inclinations are as necessary to Spirits as Motions to Bodies II. God having no other Principal End of his Actions than himself gives no Motion to Spirits but what tends towards himself III. The Tendency Spirits have to Particular Goods proceeds from their Motion towards Good in general IV. The Original of the chiefest Natural Inclinations which will make up the Division of this Fourth Book I. The Inclination for Good in general is the Principle of the Restlesness of the Will II. And consequently of our Inadvertency and Ignorance III. The first Instance shewing that Morals are but little known by the generality of Men. 〈◊〉 39. de Natali Domini IV. The second Instance shewing that the Immortality of the Soul is controverted by some People V. That we are in extreme ignorance in point of Abstract things and which have but little reference to us I. Curiosity is natural and necessary II. Three Rules to moderate Curiosity III. A particular Explication of the first of these Rules Quis tam stulte curioâ—us est qui filium suum mitâ—at in Scholam ut quid Magister cogitet discat I. The Second Rule concerning Curiosity II. The Third Rule concerning Curiosity 2 Tim. 6.9 I. Of the Sâ—cond natural Inclination or of Self-love II. The Division of Self-love of Being and of Well-being or of Greatness and Pleasure I. Of the Inclination we have for whatever elevates us above others II. Of the false Judgments of some Religious Persons III. Of the false Judgments of the Superstitious and Hypocrites Of Voetius I. Of the Desire of seeming Learn'd II. Of the Conversation of the falsly Learn'd III. Of the Books of the Falsly Learn'd I. Pleasure ought to be shunn'd tho' it makes us happy 1 Cor. 15.16 II. It ought not to carry us to the loving Sensible Goods I. How it disables us from disvering Truth II. Some Instances Oper. Perf. * I speak according to common Opinion which is that the Chicken is form'd from the Egg though perhaps it is no more than nourish'd by it Col. 2.23 * Galilaeus put into the Inquisition for maintaining the Earth mov'd I. Of the Third Natural Inclination viz. The Friendship we have for other Men. * I speak as a Man For the Truest Earthly Grandeur consists only in the Imagination II. This Inclination makes us approve the Thoughts of our Friends and deceive them by undue Praises Chap. 4. E. 1. Page 9 10. Page 1. Page 10. Page 1. Page 20. Page 21. * Book 1. Ch. 9. B. 3. in several places Page 22. Page 9. Page 9. Page 6. Page 44. Page 47. Page 56 57. Page 62. Page 64. Page 80. Page 98. * Pref. Page 4. Page 12. (a) Page 1 The Animadverter's Answer * Book 1. Chap. 1. and elsewhere * Tunc beatum esse te judica cum tibi ex te gaudium omne nascetur cum in his quae homines eripiunt optant custodiunt nihil inveneris non dico quod malis sed quod velis Sen. Epist. 124. Rom. 7 23 24 * Before Sin that Sensation was not a pain but