in part the other defect Hope on the other side is in such sort defective from joy that nevertheless it hath a kind of constancy and moderate quantity and regularity in its motion and therefore is accounted to be the least hurtful of all the passions and that which more prolongs mans life And thus you see how those motions which we call passions are engender'd in the heart and what they are Let us then in the next place consider what will follow in the rest of the body out of these varieties of Passions once rais'd in the heart and sent into the brain 'T is evident that according to the nature and quality of these motions the heart must needs in every one of them void out of it self into the arteries a greater or lesser quantity of blood and that in divers fashions and the arteries which lie fittest to receive these sudden egestions of blood are those which go into the brain which course being directly upwards we cannot doubt but that it is the hottest and subtilest part of the blood and the fullest of spirits that flies that way These spirits then running a long and perplexed journey up and down in the brain by various meanders and anfractuosities are there mingled with the humid steam of the brain it self and therwith cooled and come at last to smoak at liberty in the hollow ventricles of the brain by reeking out of the little arterial branches that weave the plexus choroides or net we spoke of erewhile and they being now grown heavy fall by their natural course into that part or process of the brain which is called medulla spinalis or the marrow of the back-bone which being beset by the nervs that run through the body it cannot happen otherwise but that these thick'ned and descending spirits must either fall themselvs into those nervs or else press into them other spirits which are before them that without such new force to drive them violently forwards would have slided down more leisurely Now this motion being downwards and meeting with no obstacle till it arrive to its utmost period that way the lowest nervs are those which naturally feel the communication of these spirits first But 't is true if the flowing tide of them be great and plentiful all the other nerves will also be so suddenly fill'd upon the filling of the lowermost that the succession of their swellings will hardly be perceptible as a sudden and violent inundation of water seems to rise on the sides of the channel as it doth at at the Mill-dam though reason assures us it must begin there because there it is first stop't On the contrary side if the spirits be few they may be in such a proportion as to fill only the lower nervs and to communicate little of themselvs to any of the others And this is the case in the passion of fear which being stored with fewer spirits than any other passion that causes a motion in the body it moves the leggs most and so carries the animal that is afraid with violence from the object that affrights him Although in truth it is a faint hope of escaping mingled with fear which begets this motion for when fear is single and at its height it stops all motion by contracting the spirits and thence is called Stupor as well as grief for the same reason And accordingly we see extreme cowards in the extremity of their fear have not the courage to run away no more than to defend or help themselvs by any other motions But if there be more abundance of spirits then the upper parts are also moved as well as the leggs whose motion contributes to defence but the brain it self and the senses which are in the head being the first in the course of this floud of spirits that is sent from the heart to the head 't is impossible but that some part of them should be press'd into the nervs of those senses and so will make the animal vigilant and attentive to the cause of its fear or grief But if the fear be so great that it contracts all the spirits and quite hinders their motion as in the case we touch'd above then it leaves also the nervs of the senses destitute of spirits and so by too strong apprehension of a danger the animal neither sees nor apprehends it but as easily precipitates it self into it as it happens to avoid it being meerly govern'd by chance and may peradventure seem valiant through extremity of fear And thus you see in common how all the natural operations of the body follow by natural consequence out of the passions of the mind without needing to attribute discourse or reason either to men or beasts to perform them Although at first sight some of them may appear to those that look not into their principles and true causes to flow from a source of intelligence wheras 't is evident by what we have laid open they all proceed from the due ranging and ordering of quantitative parts so or so proportioned by rarity and density And there is no doubt but who would follow this search deeply might certainly retrive the reasons of all those external motions which we see use to accompany the several passions in Men and Beasts But for our intent we have said enough to shew by what kind of order and course of nature they may be effected without confining our selves over scrupulously to every cincumstance that we have touch'd and to give a hint wherby others that will make this inquiry their task may compile an intire and well grounded and intelligible doctrine of this matter Only we will add one advertisment more which is that these external motions caused by passion are of two kinds for some of them are as it were the beginnings of the actions which nature intends to have follow out of the passions that cause them but others are only bare signs of passions that produce them and are made by the connexion of parts unnecessary for the main action that is to follow out of the passion with other parts that by the passion are necessarily moved As for example when an hungry mans mouth waters at the sight of good meat it is a kind of beginning of eating or of preparation for eating for when we eat nature draws a moisture into our mouth to humectate our meat and convey the tast of it into the nervs of the tongue which are to make report of it to the brain but when we laugh the motion of our face aims at no further end and follows only by the connexion of those muscles which draw the face in such a sort to some inward parts that are moved by the passion out of which laughing proceeds But we must not leave this subject without some mention of the Diaphragma into which the other branch of those nervs that are called of the sixth conjugation comes for the first branch we have said goes into the heart and carries
outward cast of its body as we have above described somtimes happen to fill certain places of the childs body with the infection and tincture of this object and that according to the impression with which they were in the mothers fantasy for so we have said that things which come together into the fantasy naturally stick together in the animal spirits The hairiness therfore will be occasioned in those parts where the Mother fansied it to be the colour likewise and such extancies or defects as may any way proceed from such a cause will happen to be in those parts in which they were fansied And this is as far as is fit to wade into this point for so general a discourse as ours is and more than was necessary for our turn to the serving wherof the verity of the fact only and not the knowledg of the cause was required for we were to shew no more but that the apprehensions of the parents may descend to the children Out of this discourse the reason appears why beasts have an aversion from those who use to do them harm and why this aversion descends from the old ones to their brood though it should never have hapned that they had formerly encountred with what at the first sight they fly from and avoid But yet the reason appears not why for example a Sheep in England where there are no Wolves bred nor have been these many ages should be afraid and tremble at sight of a Wolf since neither he nor his dam or sire nor theis in multitudes of generations ever saw a Wolf or receiv'd hurt by any In like manner how should a tame Weasell brought into England from Ireland where there are no poisonous creatures be afraid of a Toad as soon as he sees one Neither he nor any of his race ever had any impressions of following harm made upon their fantasies and as little can a Lion receive hurt from a houshold Cock therfore we must seek the reasons of these and such like Antipathies a little further and we shall find them hanging upon the same string with Sympathies proportionable to them Let us go by degrees We daily see that Dogs will have an aversion from Glovers that make their ware of Dogs skins they will bark at and be churlish to them and not endure to come near them though they never saw them before The like hatred they will express to the Dog-killers in the time of the Plague and to those that flea Dogs I have known of a man that used to be imploid in such affairs who passing somtimes over the grounds near my Mothers house for he dwellt at a Village not far off the Dogs would wind him at a very great distance and all run furiously out the way he was and fiercely fall upon him which made him go always well provided for them and yet he has been somtimes hard put to it by the fierce Mastiffs there had it not been for some of the Servants coming in to his rescue who by the frequent hapning of such accidents were warned to look out when they observ'd so great commotion and fury in the dogs and yet perceiv'd no present cause for it Warreners observe that vermin will hardly come into a trap wherin another of their kind hath been lately kill'd and the like happens in Mouse-traps into which no Mouse will come to take the bait if a Mouse or two have already been kill'd in 't unless it be made very clean so that no scent of them remain upon the Trap which can hardly be done on the sudden otherwise than by fire 'T is evident that these effects are to be refer'd to an activity of the object upon the sense for some smell of the skins or of the dead dogs or of the vermine or of the Mice cannot choose but remain upon the Men and Traps which being alter'd from their due nature and temper must needs offend them Their conformity on the one side for somthing of the canine nature remains makes them have easy ingression into them and so they presently make a deep impression but on the other side their distemper from what they should be makes the impression repugnant to their nature and be disliked by them and to affect them worse than if they were of other creatures that had no conformity with them As we may observe that stinks offend us more when they are accompanied with some weak perfume than if they set upon us single for the perfume gets the stink easier admittance into our sense and in like manner 't is said that poisons are more dangerous when they are mingled with a cordial that is not able to resist them for it serves to convey them to the heart though it be not able to overcome their malignity From hence then it follows that if any beast or bird prey upon some of another kind there will be some smell about them exceedingly noisom to all others of that kind and not only to beasts of that same kind but for the same reason even to others likewise that have a correspondence and agreement of temper and constitution with that kind of beast whose hurt is the original cause of this aversion Which being assented to the same reason holds to make those creatures whose constitutions and tempers consist of things repugnant and odious to one another be at perpetual enmity and fly from one another at the first sight or at least the sufferer from the more active creature as we see among those men whose unhappy trade and continual exercise it is to empty Jakeses such horrid stinks are by time grown so conformable to their nature as a strong perfume will as much offend them and make them as sick as such stinks would do another man bred up among perfumes and a Cordial to their spirits is some noysome smell that would almost poison another man And thus if in the breach of the Wolf or the steam coming from his body any quality be offensive to the Lamb as it may very well be where there is so great a contrariety of natures it is not strange that at the first sight and approach of him he should be distemper'd and flie from him as one fighting Cock will do from another that hath eaten Garlike and the same happens between the Weasel and the Toad the Lion and the Cock the Toad and the Spider and several other creatures of whom like enmities are reported All which are caus'd in them not by secret instincts and Antipathies and Sympathies wherof we can give no account with the bare sound of which words most men pay themselvs without examining what they mean but by downright material qualities that are of contrary natures as fire and water are and are either begotten in them in their original constitution or implanted afterwards by their continual food which nourishing them changes their constitution to its complexion And I am perswaded this would go so far that if one
of these streams at the Equator divers Rivolets of Atomes of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atomes incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanatitions joyn'd with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6. A Method for making experiences upon any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by Atomes flowing from both Poles is confirmed by experiments observed in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streams CHAP. XXI Positions drawn out of the former doctrine and confirm'd by experimental proofs 1. The operations of the Loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbu'd with his vertue from another body 4. The vertue of the loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The vertue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the Poles of it than in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kinds and each kind is strongest in that hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree with every part of the other loadstone 8. Concerning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 9. The vertue of the loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the axis 10. The virtue of a loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and the attracted bodies 12. The main Globe of the earth not a loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or climates of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things CHAP. XXII A solution of certain Problems concerning the Loadstone and a short summ of the whole doctrine touching it 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth doth get a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the North or towards the South in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilbert's reason refuted touching a capped loadstone that takes up more iron than one not capped and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly than the stone it self 6. Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authours solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Load stone draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may at one time vary more from the North and at another time lesse 11. The whole doctrine of the load stone summ'd up in short CHAP. XXIII A description of two sorts of Living creatures Plants and Animals and how they are framed in common to perform vital motion 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent 2. Concerning several compositions of mix'd bodies 3. Two sorts of living creatures 4. An engin to express the first sort of living creatures 5. An other engin by which may be express'd the second sort of living creatures 6. The two former enginâ— and some other compâ—risons upplyed express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of living creatures 7. How plants are fram'd 8. How Sensitive creatures are form'd CHAP. XXIV A more particular survey of the generation of Animals in which is discover'd what part of the animal is first generated 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authours opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd 6. That one substance is chang'd into another 7. Concerning the â—atching of Chickens and the generation of other animals 8. From whence it â—ppens that the defi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—scences of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authours opinion and the former 10. That the heart is iâ—ued with the generalâ— spâ—ific virtues of the whole body 〈◊〉 confirm'd the doctrine of the two former paragraphs 11. That the heart is the first part generated in a living creature CHAP. XXV How a Plant or Animal comes to that Figure it hath 1. That the Figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of the three dimensions caused by the concurrence of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmed by several instances 4. The same doctrine apply'd to Plants 5. The same doctrine declared in leafs of trees 6. The same apply'd to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Authour admits of Vis formatrix CHAP. XXVI How motion begins in Living creatures And of the Motion of the Heart Circulation of the Blood Nutrition Augmentation and corruption or death 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion and growth in Plants 2. Monsieur des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authours opinion concerning the motion of the heart 5. The motion of the heart depends originally of its fibers irrigated by bloud 6. An objection answer'd against the former doctrine 7. The circulation of the bloud and other effects that follow the motion of the heart 8. Of Nutrition 9. Of Augmentation 10. Of death and sickness CHAP. XXVII Of the motions of Sense and of the Sensible Qualities in gegeral in particular of those which belong to Touch Tast and Smelling 1. The connexion of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. Of the senses and sensible qualities in general And of the end for which they serve 3. Of the sense of touching and that both it and its qualities are bodies 4. Of the tast and its qualities that they are bodies 5. That the smell and its qualities are real bodies 6. Of the conformity betwixt the two senses of smelling and tasting 7. The reason why the sense of smelling is not so perfect in man as in beasts with a wonderful history of a man who could wind sent as well as any beast CHAP. XXVIII Of the sense of Hearing and of the sensible quality Sound 1. Of the sense of hearing and that sound is purely motion 2. Of divers arts belonging to the sense of hearing all which confirm that sound is nothing but motion 3. The same is confirmed by the effects caused
Of the great effects of Rarefaction 4. The first manner of condensation by heat 5. The second manner of condensation by cold 3. That Ice is not water rarifiâ—d but condensed 7. How wind snow and hail are made and wind by rain allayed 8. How parts of the same or divers bodies are joyned more strongly together by condensation 9. Vacuities cannot be the reason why water impregnated to the full with one kind of salt will notwithstanding receive more of another 10. The true reason of the former effect 11. The reason why bodies of the same nature jâ—yn more easily together then others 1. What attraction is and from whence it proceeds 1. The true sense of the Maxime that Nature abhors from vacuity 3. The true rea son of attraction 4. Water may be brought by the force of attraction to what height soever 5. The doctrine touching the attraction of water in Syphons 6. That the Syphon doth not prove water to weigh in its own orb 7. Concerning attraction caused by fire 8. Concerning attraction made by virtue of hot bodies amulets c. 9. The natural reason given for divers operations esteemed by some to be magical 1. What is Filtration and how it is effected 2. What causes the water in filtration to ascend 3. Why the filter will not drop unless the label hang lower then the water 4. Of the motion of Râ—stitution and why some bodies stand bent others not 5. Why some bo dies return only in part to their natural figure others entirely 6. Concerning the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch 7. How great wonderful effects proceed from smal plain and simple principles 8. Concerning Electrical at action and the causes of it 6. Cabeus his opinion reâ—uted concerning the cause of Electrical motions 1. The extreme heat of the Sun under the Zodiack draws a stream of air from each pole into the Torrid Zone * Chap. 18. Sect. 7. 2. The Atoms of these two streams coming together are apt to incorporate with one another 3. By the meeting and mingling together of these streams at the Equator divers rivolets of Atoms of each Pole are continuated from one Pole to the other 4. Of these Atoms incorporated with some fit matter in the bowels of the earth is made a stone 5. This stone works by emanations joyned with agreeing streams that meet them in the air and in fine it is a Loadstone 6 A methode for making experiences on any subject 7. The Loadstones generation by atoms flowing from both Poles is confirmd by experiments observ'd in the stone it self 8. Experiments to prove that the Loadstone works by emanations meeting with agreeing streames 1. The operations of the loadstone are wrought by bodies and not by qualities 2. Objections against the former position answer'd 3. The Loadstone is imbued with his virtue from another body 4 The virtue of the Loadstone is a double and not one simple virtue 5. The virtue of the Loadstone works more strongly in the poles of it then in any other part 6. The loadstone sends forth its emanations spherically Which are of two kindâ— and each kind is strongest in that Hemisphere through whose polary parts they issue out 7. Putting two loadstones within the sphere of one another every part of one loadstone doth not agree wâ—th every part of the other loadstone 8. Concetning the declination and other respects of a needle towards the loadstone it touches 8. The virtue of the Loadstone goes from end to end in lines almost parallel to the Axis 10. The virtue of the Loadstone is not perfectly spherical though the stone be such 11. The intention of nature in all the operations of the loadstone is to make an union betwixt the attractive and attracted bodies 12. The main globe of the earth is not a Loadstone 13. The loadstone is generated in all parts or Climâ—t's of the earth 14. The conformity betwixt the two motions of magnetick things and of heavy things 1. Which is the North and which the South Pole of a Loadstone 2. Whether any bodies besides magnetick ones be attractive 3. Whether an iron placed perpendicularly towards the earth gets a magnetical virtue of pointing towards the north or towards the south in that end that lies downwards 4. Why loadstones affect iron better than one another 5. Gilberts reason refuted touching a cap'd Loadstone that takes up more iron then one not cap'd and an iron impregnated that in some case draws more strongly then the stone it self Galileus his opinion touching the former effects refuted 7. The Authors solution to the former questions 8. The reason why in the former case a lesser Loadstones draws the interjacent iron from the greater 9. Why the variation of a touched needle from the North is greater the nearer you go to the Pole 10. Whether in the same part of the world a touched needle may it one time vary more fâ—om the North and at another time less 11. The whâ—le doctrine of the loâ—dstone sum'd up in short 1. The connexion of the following Chapters with the precedent ones 2. Concerning several compositions of mixed bodies 3. Two sorts of Living Creatures 4. An engine to express the first sort of living creatures 5. Another Engine by which may be expressed the second sort of living creatures 4. The two former engines and some other comparisons applied to express the two several sorts of living creatures 7. How plants are framed 8. How Sensitive Creatures are formed 1. The opinion that the seed contains formally every part of the parent 2. The former opinion rejected 3. The Authours opinion of this question 4. Their opinion refuted who hold that every thing contains formally all things 5. The Authors opinion concerning the generation of Animals declared and confirm'd That one substance is changed into another 7. Concerning the hatching of Chickens and the generation of the other Animals 8. From whence it happens that the deficiences or excresences of the parents body are often seen in their children 9. The difference between the Authors opinion anâ—â—he former 〈◊〉 10 That the heart is imbued with the general specifike vertues of the whole body wherby is confirm'd the doctrine of the two former Paragraphes 11 That the heart is the first part generated in a living creatures 1. That the figure of an Animal is produced by ordinary second causes as well as any other corporeal effect 2. That the several figures of bodies proceed from a defect in one of three dimensions caused by the circumference of accidental causes 3. The former doctrine is confirmd by several instances 4. The same doctrine applyed to plants 4. The same doctrine declared in leaves of trees 16. The same applied to the bodies of Animals 7. In what sense the Author admits of vis formatrix 1. From whence proceeds the primary motion growth in Plants 2. Mr. des Cartes his opinion touching the motion of the heart 3. The former opinion rejected 4. The Authors opinion
if the soul were mortal CHAP. X. Declaring what the Soul of a man separated from his body is and of her knowledg and manner of working 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance 2. That a separated Soul is in no place and yet is not absent from any place 3. That a separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A description of the Soul 6. That a separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her body 7. That the least knowledge which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a complete knowledge of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the body 9. The former Peripateticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a separated soul compared to her operations in her body 11. That a separated soul is in a state of pure being and consequently immortal CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in ths world do cause in a soul after she is separated from her body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledge 2. That the knowledge which a soul gets in this life will make her knowledge in the next life more perfect and firm 3. That the soul of men addicted to science whilest they lived here are more perfect in the next world than the souls of unlearned men 4. That those souls which embrace virtue in this world will be most perfect in the next and those which imbrace vice most miserable 5. The state of a vitious soul in the next life 6. The fundamenatl reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why mans soul requires to be in a body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality and not out of the falsity of her judgments CHAP. XII Of the perseverance of a soul in the state she finds her self in at her first separation from her body 1. The explication and proof of that maxime that If the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are complete in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure spirits work instantaneously 4. That a soul separated from her body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5. That temporal sins are justly punished with eternal pains The Conclusion Preface THis Writing was design'd to have seen the light under the name of One Treatise But afer it was drawn in Paper as I cast a view over it I found the Proaemial part which Treats of Bodies so ample in respect of the other which was the End of it and for whose sake I medled with it that I readily apprehended my Reader would think I had gone much astray from my Text when proposing to speak of the Immortality of Mans Soul three parts of four of the whole Discourse should not so much as in one word mention that Soul whose nature and proprieties I aim'd at the discovery of To avoid this incongruity occasioned me to change the Name and Unity of the Work and to make the survay of Bodies a body by it self though subordinate to the Treatise of the Soul Which notwithstanding it be less in bulk than the other yet I dare promise my Reader that if he bestow the painsr equisite to perfect himself in it he will find as much time well spent in the due reading of it as in the reading of the former Treatise though far more large But I discern an Objection obvious to be made or rather a Question Why I should spend so much time in the consideration of Bodies wheras none that has formerly written of this Subject has in any measure done the like I might answer that they had on other occasions first written of the nature of Bodies as I may instance in Aristotle and sundry others who either have themselvs professedly treated the Science of Bodies or have supposed that part sufficiently perform'd by other pens But truly I was by an unavoidable necessity hereto obliged which is a current of doctrin that at this day much reigns in the Christian Schools where Bodies and their overations are explicated after the manner of spiritual things For we having very slender knowledge of Spiritual Substances can reach no further into their nature than to know that they have certain Powers or Qualities but can seldom penetrate so deep as to descend to the particulars of such Qualities or Powers Now our Modern Philosophers have introduced such a course of learning into the Schools that to all questions concerning the proper natures of Bodies and their operations 't is held sufficient to answer they have a Quality or a Power to do such a thing And afterwards they dispute whether this Quality or Power be an Entity distinct from its subject or no and how it is separable or unseparable from it and the like Consormable to this who will look into the Books which are in vogue in these Schools shall find such Answers and such controversies every where and few others As of the Sensible Qalities ask what it is to be white or red what to be sweet or sowr what to be odoriferous or stinking what to be cold or hot And you are presently paid with that it is a Sensible Quality which has the power to make a Wall white or red to make a Meat agreeable or disagreeable to the tast to make a grateful or ungrateful Smell to the nose c. Likewise they make the same Questions and Resolutions of Gravity and Levity as whether they be qualities that is Entities distinct from their subjects and whether they be active or passive which when they have disputed slightly and in common with Logical arguments they rest there without any further searching into the Physical causes or effects of them The like you shall find of all strange Effects of them The Loadstone and Electrical bodies are produced for miraculous and not understandable things and which must be acknowledg'd to work by hidden Qualities that mans wit cannot reach to And ascending to Living Bodies they give it for a Maxim that Life is the action of the same Entity upon it self that Sense is likewise a work of an intrinsecal power in the part we call Sense upon it self Which our predecessors held the greatest absurdities that could be spoken in Philosophy Even some Physicians that take upon them to teach the curing of our Bodies often pay us with such terms among them you have long discourses of a retentive of an expulsive of a purging of a consolidating Faculty
in some countries where some one wind has a main predominance and reigns most continually as near the Seashore upon the western coast of England where the South-West wind blows constantly the greatest part of the year may be observed but this effect proceeding from a particular and extraordinary cause concerns not our matter in hand We are to examine the reason of the motion of Restitution which we generally see in young trees and branches of others as we said before In such we see that the earthy part which makes them stiff or rather stark abounds more then in the others that stand as they were bent at least in proportion to their natures but I conceive this is not the cause of the effect we enquire about but that 't is a subtile spirit which hath a great proportion of fire in it For as in rarefaction we found that fire which was either within or without the body to be rarified did cause the rarefaction either by entring into it or by working within it so seeing here the question is for a body to go out of a lesser superficies into a greater which is the progress of rarefaction and hapen's in the motion of restitution the work must needs be done by the force of heat And because this effect proceeds evidently out of the nature of the thing in which it is wrought and not from any outward cause we may conclude it has its origine from a heat within the thing it self or else that was in it and may be press'd to the outward parts of it and would sink into it again As for example when a young tree is bended both every mans conceit is and the nature of the thing makes us believe that the force which brings the tree back again to its figure comes from the inner side that is bent which is compress'd together as being shrunk into a circular figure from a straight one for when solid bodies that were plain on both sides are bent so as on each side to make a portion of a Circle the convex superficies will be longer then it was before when it was plain but the concave will be shorter And therfore we may conceive that the spirits which are in the contracted part being there squeez'd into less room then their nature well brooks work themselvs into a greater space or else that the spirits which are crush'd out of the convex side by the extension of it remain besieging it and strive to get in again in such manner as we have declared when we spoke of attraction wherin we shew'd how the emited spirits of any body will move to their own source and settle again in it if they be within a convenient compass and accordingly bring back the extended parts to their former situation or rather that both these causes in their kinds concur to drive the tree into its natural figure But as we see when a stick is broken 't is very hard to replace all the splinters every one in its proper situation so it must of necessity fall out in this bending that certain insensible parts both inward and outward are therby displaced and can hardly be perfectly rejoynted Whence it follows that as you see the splinters of a half broken stick meeting with one another hold the stick somwhat crooked so these invisible parts do the like in such bodies as after bending stand a little that way but because they are very little ones the tree or branch that has been never so much bended may so nothing be broken in it be set strait again by pains without any notable detriment of its strength And thus you see the reason of some bodies returning in part to their natural figures after the force leaves them that bent them Out of which you may proceed to those bodies that restore themselvs entirely whereof steel is the most eminent And of it we know that there is a fiery spirit in it which may be extracted out of it not only by the long operations of calcining digesting and distilling it but even by gross heating and then extinguishing it in wine and other convenient Liquors as Physicians use to do Which is also confirm'd by the burning of steel-dust in the flame of a candle before it has been thus wrought upon which after-wards it will not do wherby we are taught that originally there are store of spirits in steel till they are sucked out Being then assured that in steel there is such abundance of spirits and knowing that it is the nature of spirits to give a quick motion and seeing that duller spirits in trees make this motion of Restitution we need seek no further what it is that doth it in steel or in any other things that have the like nature which through the multitude of spirits that abound in them especially steel returns back with so strong a jerk that their whole body will tremble a great while after by the force of its own motion By what is said the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch may easily be understood for they are generally composed of stringy parts to which if humidity happen to arrive they grow therby thicker and shorter As we see that drops of water getting into a new rope of a well or into a new cable will swell it much thicker and by consequence make it shorter Galileus notes such wetting to be of so great efficacy that it will shrink a new cable and shorten it notably notwithstanding the violence of a tempest the weight and jerks of a loaden ship strain it what is possible for them to stretch it Of this nature leather seems to be and parchment and divers other things which if they be proportionably moistned and no exteriour force apply'd to extend them will shrink up but if they be overweted they will become flaccide Again if they be suddenly dryed they 'l shrivel up but if they be fairly dried after moderate weting they will extend themselvs again to their first length The way having been open'd by what we have discoursed before we came to the motion of Restitution towards the discovery of the manner how heavy bodies may be forced upward contrary to their natural motion by very smal means in outward appearance let us now examine upon the same grounds if like motions to this of water may not be done in some other bodies in a subtiler manner In which more or less needs not trouble us since we know that neither quantitâ—â—or the operations of it consist in an indivisible or are limited or determin'd by periods they may not pass 'T is enough for us to find a ground for the possibility of the operation and then the perfecting and reducing of it to such a height as at first might seem impossible incredible we may leave to the Oeconomy of wise nature He that learns to read write or play on the Lute is in the beginning ready to lose heart at every step
not impossible for us to do by reason that Authors have not left us the circumstances upon which we might groūd our judgment concerning them so particularly described as were necessary nor our selves have met with the commodity of making such experiences and of searching so into their beds as were requisite to determine solidly the reasons of them And indeed I conceive that oftentimes the relations which others have recorded of their generation would rather mislead then assist us since it is very familiar in many men to magnifie the exactness of Nature in framing effects by phansie to themselvs when to make their Wonder appear more just they will not fail to set off their story with all advantageous circumstances and help out what wants a little or comes but near the mark But to come closer to our purpose that is to the figures of living things We see that the roots in the earth are all of them figured almost in the same fashion for the heat residing in the midd'st of them pushes every way and therupon some of them become round but others more long then round according to the temper of the ground or the season of the year or the weather that happens and this not onely in divers kinds of Roots but even in several of the same kind That part of the plant which mounts upwards for the most part round and long the cause wherof is evident For the juice which is in the middle of it working upwards because the hardness of the bark will not let it out at the sides and coming in more and more abundance for the reasons we have above deliver'd encreases that part equally every way but upwards and therfore it must be equally thick and broad and consequently round but the length will exceed either of the other dimensions because the juice is driven up with a greater force and in more quantity then it is to the sides Yet the broadness and thickness are not so exactly uniform but that they exceed a little more at the bottom then at the top which is occasion'd partly by the contracting of juice into a narrower circuit the further it is from the source and partly by reason of the Branches which shooting forth convey away a great part of the Juice from the main stock Now if we consider the matter well we shall find that what is done in the whole tree the very same is likewise done in every little leaf of it For a leaf consists of little branches shooting out from one greater branch which is in the middle and again other less branches are derived from those second branches and so still lesser and lesser till they weave themselvs into a close work as thick as that which we see women use to fill up with Silk or Crewel when in Tentwork they embroyder leafs or flowers upon Canvas And this again is cover'd and as it were glew'd over by the humour which sticking to these little thrids stops up every little vacuity and by the air is hardened into such a skin as we see a leaf consists of And thus it appears how an account may be given of the figure of the leafs as well as of the figure of the main body of the whole tree the little branches of the leaf being proportionate in figure to the branches of the tree itself so that each leaf seems to be the Tree in little and the figure of the leaf depending of the course of these little branches so that if the greatest branch of the Tree be much longer then the others the leaf will be a long one but if the lesser branches spread broad-ways the leaf will likewise be a broad one so far as even to be notch'd at the outsides round about it in great or little notches according to the proportion of the Trees Branches These Leafs when they first break out are foulded inwards in such sort as the smalness and roundness of the passage in the wood through which they issue constrains them to be where nevertheless the driness of their parts keep them asunder as that one leaf doth not incorporate it self with another But so soon as they feel the heat of the Sun after they are broken out into liberty their tender branches by little and little grow more straight the concave parts of them drawing more towards the Sun because he extracts and sucks their moysture from their hinder parts into their former that are more exposed to his beams and thereby the hinder parts are contracted and grow shorter and those before grow longer Which if it be in excess makes the leaf become crooked the contrary way as we see in divers flowers and in sundry leaves during the Summers heat witness the Ivie Roses full blown Tulips and all flowers in form of Bells and indeed all kinds of flowers whatever when the Sun hath wrought upon them to that degree we speak of and that their joyning to their stalk and the next parts thereto allow them scope to obey the impulse of those outward causes And when any do vary from this rule we shall as plainly see other manifest causes producing those different effects as now we do those working in this manner As for Fruits though we see that when they grow at liberty upon the Tree they seem to have a particular figure allotted them by nature yet in truth it is the order'd series of natural causes and not an intrinsecal formative virtue which breeds this effect as is evident by the great power which art hath to change their figures at pleasure wherof you may see examples enough in Campanella and every curious Gardener can furnish you with store Out of these and such like principles a man that would make it his study with less trouble of tediousness then that patient contemplator of one of natures little works the Bees whom we mention'd a while agone might without all doubt trace the causes in the growing of an Embryon till he discover'd the reason of every bones figure of every notable hole or passage in them of the Ligaments by which they are tied together of the membranes that cover them and of all the other parts of the body How out of a first Masse that was soft and had no such parts distinguishable in it every one of them came to be formed by contracting that Masse in one place by dilating it in another by moistning it in a third by drying it here hard'ning it there Ut his exordia primis Omnia ipse tener hominis concreverit orbis till in the end this admirable machine and frame of mans body was composed and fashioned up by such little and almost insensible steps and degres Which when it is look'd upon in bulk and entirely-formed seems impossible to have been made and sprung merely out of these principles without an Intelligence immediately working and moulding it at every turn from the beginning to the end But withall we cannot chuse but break
that when it is full it compresses itself by a quick and strong motion to expel that which is in it and that when it is empty it returns to its natural dilatation figure and situation by the ceasing of that agents working which caused its motion Wherby it appears to be of such a fibrous substance as hath a proper motion of its own Thirdly I see not how this motion can be proportional For the heart must needs open and be dilated much faster then it can be shut and shrunk together there being no cause put to shut and bring it to its utmost period of shrinking other then the going out of the vapour wherby it becomes empty which vapour not being forced by any thing but its own inclination may peradventure at first when there is abundance of it swell and stretch the heart forcibly out but after the first impulse and breach of some part of it out of the Cavern that enclosed it there is nothing to drive out the rest which must therfore steam very leasurely out Fourthly what should hinder the blood from coming in before the heart be quite-empty and shrunk to its lowest pitch For as soon as the vapour yeelds within new blood may fall in from without and so keep the heart continually dilated without ever suffering it to be perfectly and compleatly shut Fifthly the heart of a Viper layd upon a plate in a warm place will beat four and twenty houres and much longer if it be carefully taken out of its body and the weather warm and moyst and it is clear that this is without succession of blood to cause the pulses of it Likewise the several members of living creatures will stir for sometime after they are parted from their bodies and in them we can suspect no such cause of motion Sixthly Mounsir des Cartes his opinion the heart should be hardest when it is fullest and the eruption of the steam out of it should be strongest at the beginning wheras experience shews that it is softest when it is at the point of being full and hardest when it is at the point of being empty and the motion strongest towards the end Seventhly in Mounsir des Cartes his way there is no agent or force strong enough to make blood gush out of the heart For if it be the steam only that opens the doors nothing but it will go out and the blood will still remain behind since it lies lower then the steam and further from the issue that lets it out but Dr. Harvey findes by experience and teaches how to make this experience that when a wound is made in the heart blood will gush out by spurts at every shooting of the heart And lastly if Mounsir des Cartes his supposition were true the arteries would receive nothing but steams wheras it is evident that the chief filler of them is blood Therfore we must enquire after another cause of this primary motion of a sensitive creature in the beatings of its heart Wherin we shall not be obliged to look far for seeing we find this motion and these pulsations in the heart when it is separated from the body we may boldly and safely conclude that it must of necessity be caused by somthing that is within the heart it self And what can that be else but heat or spirits imprison'd in a tough viscous bloud which it cannot so presently break through to get out and yet can stir within it and lift it up The like of which motion may be observ'd in the heaving up and sinking down again of lose mould thrown into a pit intoe which much ordure hath been emptied The same cause of h at in the earth makes mountains and sands to be cast up in the very sea So in frying when the pan is full of meat the bubbles rise and fall at the edges Treacle and such strong compounded substances whiles they ferment lift themselvs up and sink down again after the same manner as the Vipers heart doth as also do the bubbles of Barm and most of Wine And short ends of Lute strings baked in a juicy pie will at the opening of it move in such sort as they who are ignorant of the feat will think there are Magots in it and a hot loaf in which quick-silver is enclosed will not only move thus but will also leap about and skip from one place to another like the head or limb of an Animal very full of spirits newly cut off from its whole body And that this is the true cause of the hearts motion appears evidently First because this virtue of moving is in every part of the heart as you will plainly see if you cut out into several pieces a heart that conservs its motion long after it is out of the Animals belly for every piece will move as Dr. Harvey assures us by experience and I my self have often seen upon occasion of making the great antidote in which Vipers hearts is a principal ingredient Secondly the same is seen in the auricles and the rest of the heart whose motions are several though so near together that they can hardly be distinguished Thirdly Dr. Harvey seems to affirm that the blood which is in the ears of the heart hath such a motion of it self precedent to the motion of the ears it is in and that this virtue remains in it for a little space after the ears are dead Fourthly in touching a heart which had newly left moving with his finger weted with warm spittle it began to move again as testifying that heat and moisture made this motion Fifthly if you touch the Vipers heart over with vineger with spirit of wine with sharp white-wine or with any piercing liquor it presently dyes for the acuteness of such substances pierces through the viscous bloud and makes way for the heat to get out But this first mover of an Animal must have somthing from without to stir it up else the heat would lie in it as if it were dead and in time would become absolutely so In Eggs you see this exteriour mover in the warmth of the Hens hatching them And in Embryons it is the warmth of the mothers womb But when in either of them the heart is completely form'd and enclosed in the breast much heat is likewise enclosed there in all the parts near about the heart partly made by the heart it self and partly caused by the outward heat which helped also to make that in the heart and then although the warmth of the hen or of the mothers womb forsake the heart yet this stirs up the native heat within the heart and keeps it in motion and makes it feed still upon new fewel as fast as that which it works upon decayes But to express more particularly how this motion is effected We are to note that the heart hath in its ventrickles three sorts of fibers The first go long ways or are straight ones on the sides of the ventricles
For what can be the reason of this but that the brain employing the greatest part of his store of Spirits about that one object which so powerfully entertains him the other finde very few free for them to imbue with their Tincture And therefore they have not strength enough to give the brain a sufficient taste of themselvs to make it be observ'd nor to bring themselvs into a place where they may be distinctly discern'd but striving to get to it they lose themselvs in the throng of the others who for that time besiege the brain closely Wheras in Monsir des Cartes his way in which no spirits are required the apprehension must of necessity be carried precisely according to the force of the motion of the extern object This argument I confess is not so convincing against his opinion but that the necessity of the consequence may be avoided and another reason be given for this effect in Monsir des Cartes his doctrime For he may say that the affection being vehemently bent upon some one object may cause the motion to be so violent by the addition of inward percussions that the other coming from the outward sense being weaker may be drown'd by it as lesser sounds are by greater which forcibly carry our ears that way and fill them so entirely that the others cannot get in to be heard or as the drawing of one man that pulls backwards is not felt when a hundred draw forwards Yet this is hard to conceive considering the great eminency which the present object hath over an absent one to make it self be felt whence it follws that multiplication of motion must be extremely encreased wthin to overtop and bear down the motion caused by a present object actually working without But that which indeed convinces me to believe I go not wrong in this course which I have set down for extern bodies working upon our sense and knowledge is first the convenience and agreeablness to nature both in the objects and in us that it should be done in that manner and next a difficulty in Monsir des Cartes his way which me thinks makes it impossible that his should be true And then his being absolutely the best of any I have hitherto met withal and mine supplying what his falls short in and being sufficient to perform the effects we see I shall not think I do amiss in believing my own to be true till some body else shew a better Let us examine these considerations one after another 'T is manifest by what we have already establish'd that there is a perpetual flux of little parts or atomes out of all sensible bodies that are composed of the four Elements and are here in the sphere of continual motion by action and passion and such it is that in all probability these little parts cannot chuse but get in at the doors of our bodies and mingle themselvs with the spirits that are in our nervs Which if they do 't is unavoidable but that of necessity they must make some motion in the brain as by the explication we have made of our outward senses is manifest and the brain being the source and origine of all such motion in the Animal as is term'd voluntary this stroke of the object will have the power to cause some variation in its motions that are of that nature and by consequence must be a Sensation for that change which being made in the brain by the object is cause of voluntary motion in the Animal is that we call sensation But we shall have best satisfaction by considering how it fares with every sense in particular 'T is plain that our Touch or feeling is affected by the little bodies of heat or cold or the like which are squees'd or evaporated from the object and get into our flesh and consequently mingle themselvs with our spirits and accordingly our hand is heated with the flood of subtile fire which from a great one without streams into it and is benum'd with multitudes of little bodies of cold that settle in it All which little bodies of heat or of cold or of what kind soever they be when they are once got in must needs mingle themselvs with the spirits they meet with in the nerve and consequently must go along with them up to the brain For the channel of the nerve being so little that the most accurate Inspectors of nature cannot distinguish any little cavity or hole running along the substance of it and the spirits which ebb and flow in those channels being so in infinitely subtile and in so small a quantity as such channels can contain 't is evident that an atome of insensible bigness is sufficient to imbue the whole length and quantity of spirit that is in one nerve and that atome by reason of the subtilty of the liquor it is immers'd in is presently and as it were instantly diffused through the whole substance of it The source therfore of that liquor being in the brain it cannot be doubted but that the force of the extern object must needs affect the brain according to the quality of the said atome that is give a motion or knock conformable to its own nature As for our Tast 't is as plain that the little parts pressed out of the body which affects it mingle themselvs with the liquor that being in the tongue is continuate to the spirits and then by our former argument 't is evident they must reach to the brain And for our Smelling there is nothing can hinder Odors from having immediate passage up to our brain when by our nose they are once gotten into our head In our Hearing there is a little more difficulty for Sound being nothing but a motion of the air which strikes our ear it may seem more then needs to send any corporeal substance into the brain and that it is sufficient that the vibrations of the outward air shaking the drum of the Ear do give a like motion to the air within the ear that on the inside touches the Tympane and so this air thus moved shakes and beats upon the brain But this I conceive will not serve the turn for if there were no more but an actual motion in the making of Hearing I do not see how sounds could be conserved in the Memory since of necessity motion must always reside in some body which argument we shall press anon against Monsir des Cartes his Opinion for the rest of the Senses Out of this difficulty the very inspection of the parts within the ear seems to lead us For had there been nothing necessary besides motion the very striking of the outward air against the Tympanum would have been sufficient without any other particular and extraordinary organization to have produced Sounds and to have carried their motions up to the brain as we see the head of a Drum brings the motions of the Earth to our Ear when we lay it therto as we
in the utmost extremity without sending any due proportion of spirits to the brain till they settle a little and grow more moderate Now when these motions are moderate they immediately send up some abundance of spirits to the brain which if they be in a convenient proportion are by the brain thrust into such nervs as are fit to receive them and swelling them they give motion to the muscles and tendons that are fastned to them and they move the whole body or what part of it is under command of those nervs that are thus fill'd and swell'd with spirits by the brain If the object was conformable to the living creature then the brain sends spirits into such nervs as carry the body to it but if otherwise it causes a motion of aversion or flight from it To the cause of this latter we give the name of Fear and the other that carries one to the pursuit of the object we call Hope Anger or Audacity is mixt of both these for it seeks to avoid an evil by embracing and overcoming it and proceeds out of abundance of spirits Now if the proportion of spirits sent from the heart be too great for the brain it hinders or perverts the due operation both in man and beast All which it will not be amiss to open a little more particularly and first why painful or displeasing objects contract the spirits and grateful ones contrariwise dilate them It is because the good of the heart consists in use that is in heat and moisture and 't is the nature of heat to dilate it self in moisture whereas cold and dry things contract the bodies they work on and such are enemies to the nature of men and beasts And accordingly experience as well as reason teaches us that all objects which be naturally good are hot and moist in due proportion to the creature that is affected and pleas'd with them Now the living creature being composed of the same principles as the world round about him is and the heart being an abridgment of the whole sensible creature and besides full of blood and that very hot it comes to pass that if any of these little extracts of the outward world arrive to the hot blood about the heart it works in this blood such like an effect as we see a drop of water falling into a glass of wine which is presently dispersed into a competent compass of the wine so that any little object must needs make a notable motion in the blood about the heart This motion according to the nature of the object will be either conformable or contrary unless it be so little a one as no effect will follow of it and then 't is of that kind which above we call'd indifferent If the ensuing effect be connatural to the heart there rises a motion of a certain fume about the heart which motion we call Pleasure and it never fails of accompanying all those motions which are good as Joy Love Hope and the like but if the motion be displeasing there is likewise a common sense of a heaviness about the heart which we call Grief and it is common to Sorrow Fear Hate and the like Now 't is manifest by experience that these motions are all different ones and strike against divers of those parts of of our body which encompass the heart out of which striking follows that the spirits sent from the heart affect the brain diversly and are by it convey'd into divers nerves and so set divers members in action Whence follows that certain Members are generally moved upon the motion of such a passion in the heart especially in beasts who have a more determinate course of working than man hath and if somtimes we see variety even in beasts upon knowledge of the circumstances we may easily guess at the causes of that variety The particularities of all which motions we remit Physicians and Anatomists advertising only that the fume of pleasure and the heaviness of grief plainly shew that the first motions participate of Dilatation and the latter of Compression Thus you see how by the senses a living creature becomes judg of what is good what bad for him which operation is perform'd more perfectly in Beasts and especially in those that live in the free air remote from humane conversation for their senses are fresh and untainted as nature made them than in Men. Yet without doubt nature has been as favourable in this particular to men as them were it not that with disorder and excess we corrupt and oppress our senses as appears evidently by the Story we have recorded of John of Leige as also by the ordinary practice of some Hermites in the Deserts who by their taste or smell would presently be inform'd whether the herbs and roots and fruits they met with were good or hurtful for them though they never before had had trial of them Of which excellency of the Senses there remains in us only some dim sparks in those qualities which we call sympathies and antipathies wherof the reasonss are plain out of our late discourse and are nothing else but a conformity or opposition of a living creature by some individual property of it to some body without it in such sort as its conformity or opposition to things by its specifical qualities is term'd natubal or against nature But of this we shall discourse more at large hereafter Thus it appears how the senses are seated in us principally for the end of moving us to or from objects that are good for or hurtful to us But though our Reader be content to allow this intent of nature in our three inferiour senses yet he may peradventure not be satisfied how the two more noble ones the Hearing and the Seeing cause such motions to or from objects as are requisite to be in living creatures for the preservation of them for may he say how can a man by only seeing an object or by hearing the sound of it tell what qualities it is imbued with or what motion of liking or disliking can be caus'd in his heart by his meer receiving the visible species of an object at his eyes or by his ears hearing some noise it makes And if there be no such motion there what should occasion him to prosecute or avoid that object When he tasts or smells or touches a thing he finds it sweet or bitter or stinking or hot or cold and is therwith either pleased or displeased but when he only sees or hears it what liking or disliking can he have of it in order to the preservation of his nature The solution of this difficulty may in part appear out of what we have already said But for the most part the objects of these two nobler senses move us by being joyn'd in the Memory with some other thing that either pleas'd or displeas'd some of the other three senses And from thence it is that the motion of going to imbrace the object or
that the effect which we call pain is nothing else but a compression For although this solution of continuity may seem to be a dilatation yet in truth it is a compression in the part where the evil is which happens to it in the same manner as we shew'd when we spoke of the motion of Restitution it doth to stiff bodies that by violence are compress'd and drawn into a lesse capacious figure than their nature affects and return into their own state as soon as the mastring violence leaves them at liberty Pleasure therfore must be contrary to this and consist in a moderate dilatation for an immoderate one would cause a compression in some adherent parts and there would become pain And conformable to this we experience that generally they are hard things which breed pain to us and those which breed pleasure are oily and soft as meats and odours which are sweet to the taste and smell and soft substances which are grateful to the touch the excess of all which proves offensive and painful so that from the extremity of pleasure one enters presently upon the confines of pain Now then let us consider how the little similitudes of bodies which from without come into the fantasy must of necessity work there according to their little power effects proportionable to what they wrought first in the outward senses from whence they were convey'd to the brain For the senses that is the nervs and the Septum lucidum having both of them their origin from the very substance of the brain and differing only in degrees of purity and refinement the same object must needs work like effects in both compressing or dilating them proportionaby to one another Which compression or dilatation is not pain or pleasure as it is in the outward sense but as it is reported to the heart and that being the seat of all pains or pleasures wrought in other parts and that as it were dies them into those qualities is not capable of feeling either it self so that the strokes of any little similitudes upon the fantasie make only compressions or dilatations there not pains or pleasures Now these bodies or similitudes if they be reverberated from the fantasie or Septum Lucidum upon the little roots of the nervs of the fixt couple which go to the heart must needs work there a proportionable impression to what they wrought upon the fansie either compressing or dilating it and the heart being extremely passive by reason of its exceeding tenderness and heat cannot choose but change its motion at least in part if not in whole and this with relation to two causes one the disposition of the heart it self the other the vehemency of the stroke This change of motion and different beating of the heat is that which properly is called Passion and is ever accompanied with pleasure or with grief according to the nature of the impression that either contracts or dilates the heart and the spirits about it and is discovered by the beating of the arteries and of the pulse Conformable wherunto Physicians tell us that every passion hath a distinct pulse The pulses are divided in common by abundance or by want of spirits yet it both kinds they may have common disferences for in abundance the pulse may be quick or slow regular or irregular equal or unequal and the like may happen in defect of spirits according to the motions of the heart which are their causes Again the object by being present or further off makes the stroke greater or lesser and accordingly varies the motion of the heart Let us then call to mind how we have formerly declared that life consists in heat and humidity and that these two join'd together make a thing great and we may conclude that of necessity the motion which is most lively must have a great full and large stroke like the even rolling waves of a wide and smooth sea and not too quick or smart like the breaches of a narrow Fretum agitated by tempestuous winds From this other motions may vary either by excess or by deficiency the first makes the stroke become smart violent and thick the other slackens it and makes it grow little slow weak and thin or seldom And if we look into the motions of our heart we shall see these three differences of them follow three several chief passions The first follows the passion of Joy the second the passion of Anger and the third the passion of Grief Nor need we look any further into the causes of the several motions for we see that Joy and Grief following the stroke of sense the one of them must consist in an oily dilatation that is the spirits about the heart must be dilated by a gentle large great and sweet motion in a moderation between velocity and slowness the other contrariwise following the stroke of sense in pain as the first did in pleasure must contract the spirits and consequently make their motion or stroke become little and deficient from all the properties we have above set down As for Anger the motion following that passion is when the abundance of spirits in the heart is a little check'd by the contrary stroke of sense but presently overcomes that opposition and then as we see a hinder'd water or a man that suddainly or forcibly brake through what withstood their motion go on with a greater violence than they did and as it were precipitately so the heart having overcome the contraction which the sense made in it dilates it self with a fury and makes its motion smart and vehement Whence also it follows that the spirits grow hotter than they were and accordingly it is often seen that in the scoulding of a woman and in the irritation of a dog if ever now and then one thwart them and interpose a little opposition their fury will be so sharpned and heightned that the woman will be transported beyond all limits of reason and the dog will be made mad with nothing else done to him but angring him at convenient times and some men likewise have by slight oppositions iterated speedily upon them before their spirits could relent their vehement motion and therfore must still encrease it been angred into feavors This passion of Anger seems almost to be solitary on the side of excess beyond joy which is as it were the standard and perfection of all passions as light or whiteness is of all colours but on the other side of deficiency there are several middle passions which participate more or less of joy and grief As particularly those two famous ones which govern mans life Hope and Fear Concerning which Physicians tell us that the pulse or beating of Fear is quick hard and unequal to which I conceive we may safely add that it must also be small and feeble the perfection of joy decreasing in it on one side to wit from greatness and largeness but not intirely so that a kind of quickness supplies
thither the objects that come into the brain and this we shall find carries back to the brain the passion or motion which by the object is rais'd in the heart Concerning this part of our body you are to note that it is a musculous membrane which in the middle of it hath a sinewy circle wherto is fastned the case of the heart call'd the Pericardium This Diaphragma is very sensible receiving its vertue of feeling from the above mention'd branch of the sixth couple of nervs and being of a trembling nature is by our respiration kept in continual moon and flaps upon all occasions as a drum head would do if it were slack and moist or as a sail would do that were brought into the wind Out of this description of it 't is obvious to conceive that all the changes of motion in the heart must needs be express'd in the Diaphragma For the heart beating upon the Pericardium and the Pericardium being join'd to the Diaphragma such jogs and vibrations must needs be imprinted and ecchoed there as are formed in the heart which from thence cannot chuse but be carried to the brain by the sixth couple of nervs And thus it comes about that we feel and have sensation of all the passions that are moved in our heart Which peradventure is the reason why the Greeks call this part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from it derive the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in Latine signifies Sapere with Us to Savour or to like for by this part of our body we have a liking of any object or a motion of inclination towards it from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived by composition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a prudent man is he that likes and is moved to compass wholsom and good things Which Etymology of the word seems to me more natural than from the phrensy from whence some derive it because a great distemper or inflammation in the Diaphragma often causes that disease Now because the object is covey'd from the brain to the heart some part of its way by the same passage as the motion of the heart is re-convey'd back to the brain it must of necessity follow that who is more attentive to outward sense less considers or reflects on his passion and who is more attentive to observe and be govern'd by what passes in his heart is less wrought upon by external things For if his fantasy draws strongly to it the emanations from outward agents upon the senses the stream of those emanations will descend so strongly from the overfill'd fantasy into the heart that it will hinder the ascent of any fewer and weaker spirits by the same pipe But if the current set strongest upwards from the heart by the Diaphragma to the brain then it will so fill the pipe by which it ascends that little of a weaker tide can make a contrary eddy water in the same channel And by this means nature effects a second pleasure or pain in a living creature which moves it oftentimes very powerfully in absence of the primary object as we may observe when thinking of any pleasing or displeasing action we find about our heart a motion which entices us to it or averts us from it For as the first pleasure was occasioned by the stroke which the object apply'd to the outward sense made upon the fantasy which can judg of nothing without being strucken by it so the second pleasure springs from the spirits moved in the heart by messengers from the brain which by the Diaphragma rebound a stroke back again upon the fantasy And from hence it proceeds that Memory delights or afflicts us and that we think of past things with sweetness or with remorse and therby assuefaction is wrought in beasts as far as the appetitive part contributes therto to perfect what was begun in their cognoscitive part by the ingression of corporeal specieses into their fantasy in order to the same effect as we have touch'd before But now let us examine how so small a quantity of a body as comes from an object into our sense can be the cause of so great a motion about our heart To which purpose we are to remember that this motion is perform'd in the most subtile and thin substance that can be imagin'd They are the vital spirits that do all this work which are so subtile so agil and so hot that they may in some sort be termed fire Now if we reflect how violent fire is we need not wonder at the suddain and great motion of these passions But we must further take notice that they are not in the greatest excess but where the living creature hath been long inured and exercised to them either directly or indirectly so that they arrive not to that pitch so much out of the power of the agent as out of the preparation and disposition of the patient As when cold water hath been often heated by extinguishing red hot irons in it after some repetitions a few quenchings will reduce it from cold to boiling that at the first would scarce have made it lukewarm and accordingly we see a heart that for a long time hath loved and vehemently desired enjoying is transported in a high degree at the least sight and renuance of strokes from its beloved object and is as much dejected upon any the least deprivation of it For to such an object the living creature is hurried away by a force much resembling the gravity or celerity of a dense body that is set on runing down a steep hill to which the only taking away of a weak let or the least stop gives a precipitate course not out of the force of what is done to it but out of the force which was formerly in the thing though for the present it lay there undiscovered and so likewise in these cases the object rather gives the occasion of the violent motion than the force or power to it These things being thus determined some peradventure may ask how it comes to pass that the spirits which cause motion being sent on their errand by the brain alwayes hit the right way and light duly into those very sinews which move the living creature according as is requisite for its nature Since all the passages are open what is it that governs them so as they never mistake and the animal is never driven towards harm in stead of flying from it Who is their guide in these obscure paths But it were to impute ignorance to the Maker to think that he framed all the passages alike and so every one of them promiscuously apt to receive into them all sorts of spirits however they be moved And therfore we may assure our selvs that since in these diversities of occasions there are likewise divers kinds of motions from the heart either there is proportionable to them divers kinds of passages fit to receive and entertain
the spirits according to the condition they are in so as the passages which are ajusted to one kind of spirits will not admit any of another nature orelse the first motions of liking or disliking in the heart which as we have said cause a swelling or a contradiction of it against this or that part stops and hinders the entrance of the spirits into some sinews and opens others and drives the spirits into them so as in the end by a result of a chain of swellings and contractions of several parts successively one against another the due motions of prosecution or aversion are brought about As for example an object that affects the heart with liking by dilating the spirits about the heart sends some into the optick nervs and makes the living creature turn his eye towards it and keep it steady upon what he desires as contrariwise if he dislike and fear it he naturally turns his eye and head from it Now of this motion of the eye and head may depend the running to the thing in one case and the running from it in the other for the turning of the neck one way may open a passage for the spirits into those sinews which carry the rest of the body towards the object and the turning of it to the other side may open other sinews which shall work a contrary effect and carry the animal from the object And the moving of those sinews which at first turn the neck proceeds from the quality and number of the spirits that ascend from the heart and from the region of the heart whence they are sent according to the variety wherof there are divers sinews fitted to receive them To make up which discourse we call to mind what we have said a little above concerning the motions caused in the external parts of the body by passion moving within as when Fear mingled with hope gives a motion to the legs Anger to the arms and hands and all the rest of the body as wel as to the legs all of them an attention in the outward senses which neverthelessperverts every one of their functions if the passion be in extremity And then surely we may satisfie our selves that either this or some way like it which I leave to the curious in Anatomy to settle with exactness for 't is enough for my intent to shew in gross how these operations may be done without calling in some incomprehensible qualities to our aid is the course of nature in motions where no other cause intervenes besides the object working upon the sense which all the while it doth it is the office of the eye of fantasie or common sense to lie ever open still watching to observe what warnings the outward senses send to him that accordingly he may direct and chang the motions of the heart and whole body But if the object make violent impressions upon the sense and the heart being then vehemently moved therupon send abundance of spirits up to the brain this multitude of spirits thronging upon the common sense oppresses it as we have already said in such sort that the notice which the sense gives of particular circumstances cannot prevail to any effect in the brain and thus by the misguidance of the heart the work of nature is disordered Which when it happens we express in short by saying that Passion blinds the creature in whom such violent and disorderly motions have course for Passion is nothing else but a Motion of the Bloud and Spirits about the Heart and is the preparation or beginning of the Animals working as we have above particularly displai'd And thus you see in common how the circuit is made from the Object to the Sense and from it by the Common sense and Fantasie to the Heart and from the heart back again to the brain which then sets on work those Organs or parts the animal is to make use of in that occasion and they either bring him to or carry him from the object that at the first caused all this motion and in the end becomes the period of it CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing IN the last Chapter the foundations are laid and the way is opened for discovering how all operations which proceed from nature and passion are perform'd among living creatures and therfore I conceive I have therby sufficiently compli'd with the obligation of my intention which is but to express and shew in common how all the actions of sensible bodies may be reduced to local motion and material application of one body to another in a like manner though in a different degree as those motions which we see in lifeless bodies Yet because among such animals as pass for irrational there happen some operations of so admirable a strain as resemble very much the higest effects which proceed from a man I think it not a miss to give some further light by extending my discourse to some more particulars than hitherto I have done wherby the course and way how they are performed may be more clearly and easily look'd into And the rather because I have met with some men who either wanting patience to bestow on thoughts of this kind so much time as is necessary for the due scanning of them or else through a promptitude of nature passing swiftly from the effect they look upon in gross to the most obvious seeming cause suddenly and strongly resolve that beasts use discourse upon occasions and are endued with reason Yet I intend not here to run through all the several species of their operations for that were to write the history of every particular animal but will content my self with touching the causes in common yet in such sort that the indifferent Reader may be satisfied of a possibility that these effects may proceed from material causes and that I have pointed out the way to those who are more curious and have the patience and leasure to observe diligently what passes among beasts how they may trace these effects from step to step till at length they discover their true causes To begin then I concieve we may reduce all those actions of Beasts which seem admirable and above the reach of an irrational animal to three or four several heads The first may be of such as seem to be the very practice of reason as doubting resolving inventing and the like The next shall be of such as by docility or practice beasts oftentimes arrive to In the third place we will consider certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly perform'd by them as that discourse and rational knowledge seem clearly to shine through them And lastly we will cast our eye upon some others which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself as the knowing of things which the sense never had impression of before a prescience of future events providences and the like As for
oore in which she suffers by reason of that oore she presently becomes impassible as being purely of her own nature a fixed substance that is a pure Being Both which states of the Soul may in some sort be adumbrated by what we see passes in the coppelling of a fixed metal For as long as any lead or dross or allay remains with it it continues melted flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without any mixture and singly it self it contracts it self to a narrower room and at that very instant ceases from all motion grows hard permanent resistent to all operations of fire and suffers no change or diminution in its substance by any outward violence we can use to it CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in this world cause in a Soul after she is separated from her Body ONe thing may peradventure seem of hard digestion in our past discourse and it is that out of the grounds we have laid it seems to follow that all Souls will have an equality since we have concluded that the greatest shall see or know no more than the least And indeed there appears no cause why this great and noble creature should ly imprison'd in the obscure dungeon of noisom flesh if in the first instant in which it hath its first knowledg it hath then already gain'd whatever it is capable of gaining in the whole progress of a long life afterwards Truly the Platonick Philosophers who are perswaded that a humane Soul doth not profit in this life nor acquired any knowledg here as being of her self compleatly perfect and that all our discoursings are but her remembrings of what she had forgotten will find themselvs ill bestead to render a Philosophical and sufficient cause of her being lock'd into a Body For to put forgetfulness in a pure Spirit so palpable an effect of corporeity and so great a corruption in respect of a creature whose nature is to know of it self is an unsufferable error Besides when they tell us she cannot be changed because all change would prejudice the spiritual nature which they attribute to her but that well she may be warned and excited by being in a Body they meerly trifle For either there is some true mutation made in her by that which they call a warning or there is not If there be not how becomes it a warning to her or what is it more to her than if a straw were wag'd at the Antipodes But if there be some mutation be it never so little made in her by a corporeal motion what should hinder why she may not by means of her Body attain to Science she never had as well as by it receive any the least intrinsecal mutation whatever For if once we admit any mutability in her from any corporeal motion 't is far more conformable to reason to suppose it in regard of that which is her natural perfection and of that which by her operation we see she hath immediately after such corporeal motions and wherof before them there appear'd in her no marks at all than to suppose it in regard of a dark intimation of which we neither know it is nor how it is performed Surely no Rational Philosopher seeing a thing whose nature is to know have a Being wheras formerly it existed not and observing how that thing by little and little gives sign of more and more knowledg can doubt but that as she could be changed from not Being to Being so may she likewise be changed from less knowing to more knowing This then being irrefragably setled that in the Body she encreases in knowledg let us come to our difficulty and examine what this encrease in the Body avails her Since as soon as she parts from it she shall of her own nature enjoy and be replenish'd with the knowledg of all things why should she laboriously strive to anticipate the geting of a few drops which but encrease her thirst and anxiety when having but a little patience she shall at one full and everlasting draught drink up the whole sea of it We know that the Soul is a thing made proportionably to the making of its Body seeing it is the Bodies compartner and we have concluded that while it is in the Body it acquires perfection in that way which the nature of it is capable of that is in knowledg as the Body acquires perfection in its way which is in strength and agility Now then let us compare the proceedings of the one with those of the other substance and peradventure we may gain some light to discern what advantage it may prove to a Soul to remain long in its Body if it make right use of its dwelling there Let us consider the Body of a Man well and exactly shaped in all his members yet if he never use care nor pains to exercise those well framed limbs of his he will want much of those corporeal perfections which others will have who employ them sedulouslâ— Though his leggs arms and hands be of an exact symmetry yet he will not be able to run to wrestle or to throw a dart with those who labour to perfect themselvs in such exercises Though his fingers be never so neatly moulded or composed to all advantages of quick and smart motion yet if he never learn'd and practis'd on the Lute he will not be able with them to make any musick upon that instrument even after he sees plainly and comprehends fully all that the cunning Lutenist doth neither will he be able to play as he doth with his fingers which of themselvs are peradventure less apt to those voluble motions than his are That which makes a man dexterous in any of these Arts or in any other operations proper to any of the parts or limbs of his body is the often repetitions of the same Acts which amend and perfect those limbs in their motions and make them fit and ready for the actions they are design'd to In the same manner it fares with the Soul whose essence is that which she knows her several knowledges may be compared to arms hands fingers leggs thighs c. in a Body and all her knowledges taken together compose as I may say and make her up what she is Now those limbs of hers though they be when they are at the worst entire and well shaped in bulk to use the comparison of Bodies yet they are susceptible of further perfection as our corporeal limbs are by often and orderly usage of them When we iterate our acts of understanding any object the second act is of the same nature as the first the third as the second and so of the rest every one of which perfects the understanding of that thing and of all that depends on the knowledg of it and makes it become more vigorous and strong Even the often throwing of a Boul at the same
effects in their issue 4. Of antipathies 5. Of Sympathies 6. That the Antipathy of Beasts towards one another may be taken away by assuefaction 7. Of Longing marks seen in children Why divers men hate some certain meats and particularly Cheese 9. Concerning the providence of Arts in laying up store for winter 10. Concerning the Foreknowing of Beasts 1. What is a right apprehension of a thing 2. The very thing it self is truly in his understanding who rightly apprehends it 3. The apprehension of things coming to us by our senses are resolvable into other more simple apprehensions 4. The apprehension of a being is the most simple and basis of all the rest 5. The apprehension of a thing is in next degree to that of Being and it is the Basis of all the subsequent ones 6. The apprehension of things known to us by our senses consists in certain respects betwixt two things 7. Respect or relation hath not really any formal being but only in the apprehension of man 8. That Existence or being is the proper affection of man and that mans Soul is a comparing power 9. A thing by coming into the understanding of man looseth nothing of its own peculiar nature 10. A multitude of things may be united in mans understanding without being mingled or counfounded together 11. Of Abstracted and Concrete terms 12. Of Universal nâ—tions 13. Of apprehending a multitude under one notion 14. The power of the understanding reaches as far as the extent of being 1. How a Judgment is made by the Understanding 3. How the notions of a Substantive and an Adjective are united in the Soul by the common stock of Being 4. That a setled judgment becomes a part of our Soul 5. How the Soul comes to deem or settle a Judgment 6. Hâ—w Opinion is begotten in the Understanding 7. How Faith is begotten in the understanding 8. Why Truth is the perfection of a Reasonable Soul and why it is not found in Simple Apprehensions as well as in Enuntiations 9. What is a solid Judgment â—nd what a slight one 10. What is an acute judgment and what a dull one 11. In what consists quickness and clearness of judgment and their opposite vices 1. How discourse is made 2. Of the Figures and Moâ—ds of Syllogisms 3. That the life of man as man consists in Discourse and of the vast extent of it Dial. de Mundo 3. Of humane actions and of those that concern our selvs 5. Of humane actions as they concern our neighbours 6. Of Logick 7. Of Grammar 8. Of Rhetorick Horat. de Art Poet. 9. Of Poetry 10. Of the power of speaking 11. Of arts that concern dumb and insensible creatures 12. Of Arithmetick 13. Of Prudence 14. Observations upon what hath been said in this Chapter 1. That humane actions proceed from two several principles Understanding and Sense 2. How our general and inbred maximes concur to humane action 3. That the rules and maximes of Arts work positively in us though we think not of them 4. How the Understanding casts about when it wants sufficient grounds for action 5. How Reason rules over Sense and Passion 6. How we recal our thoughts from distractions 7. How Reason is somtimes overcome by Sense and Passion 1. The connection of the subsequent Chapters with the precedent 2. The inexistence of corporeal things in the Soul by the power of apprehension proves her to be immaterial 3. The notion of Being which is innate in the Soul proves the same 4. The same is proved by the notion of respects 5. That corporeal things are spiritualiz'd in the understanding by means of the Souls working in and by respects 6. That the abstracting of notions from all particular individual accidents proves the immateriality of the Soul 7 Th◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same 9. The operations of the Soul drawing always from multitude to unity prove the same 10. The difference betwixt the notion of a thing in our Understanding and the imptession that corresponds to the same thing in our Fansie proves the same 11. The apprehension of negations and privations prove the same 1. The manner of judging or deeming by apprehending two things to be identified proves the Soul to be immaterial 2. The same is proved by the manner of apprehending Opposition in a negative judgment 3. That things in themselvs opposite to one another having no opposition in the Soul doth prove the same 4 That the First Truths are Identified to the Soul 5. That the Soul hath an infinite capacity and consequently is immaterial 6. That the opposition of contradictory Propositions in the Soul proves her immaterial 7. How Propositions of eternal Truth prove the immateriality of the Soul 〈◊〉 That in Discoursing the Soul contains more in it at the same time than is in the fantasie which proves her to be immaterial 2. That the nature of Discourse proves the Soul to be order'd to infinite knowledg and consequently to be immaterial 3. That the most natural objects of the Soul are immaterial and consequently the Soul her self is such 1. That the Souls being a power to order things proves it to be immaterial 2. That the Soul 's being able to move without being moved proves her to be immaterial 5. That the Soul 's proceeding to action with an Universality indifferency proves the same 4. That the quiet proceeding of reason proves the same 5. A Conclusion of what hath been said hitherto in this Second Treatise 1. That mans Soul is a Substance 2. That man is compounded of some other Substance besides his Body 3. That the Soul subsists of it self independently of the Body 4. Two other Arguments to prove the same on sitive the ther negt 5. The same is proved because the Soul cannot be obnoxious to the cause of immortality 6. The same is proved because the Soul hath no contrary 7. The same is proved from the end for which the Soul was created 8. The same is proved because she can move without being moved 9. The same is proved from her 〈◊〉 of operation which is grounded in being 10. Lastly it is proved from the Science of Morality the principles wherof would be destroy'd if the Soul were mortal 1. That the Soul is one simple knowing Act which is a pure substance and nothing but substance Thâ—t 〈◊〉 rated is in nâ— and ye absent any pâ— Bâ—eÌ„tius 3. That a Separated Soul is not in time nor subject to it 4. That the Soul is an active substance and all in it is activity 5. A Description of the Soâ—l 6. That a Separated Soul knows all that which she knew whilst she was in her Body 5. That the least knowledg which the Soul acquires in her body of any one thing causes in her when she is separated from her body a compleat knowledg of all things whatever 8. An answer to the objections of some Peripateticks who maintain the Soul to perish with the Body 9. The former Peripapeticks refuted out of Aristotle 10. The operations of a Separated Soul compared to her operations in her Body 1. That a Soul in this life is subject to mutation and may be perfected in knowledg 2. That the knowledges which a Soul gets in this life will make her knowledg in the next life more perfect and firm 3 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 aâ— mâ—e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 next woâ—d thâ— tâ—e Soâ—s of unlearned men 4. That those 〈◊〉 which embrace Vâ—rtue in 〈◊〉 world will be most perfect in the next and thâ—se which embrace Viâ—e â—st miserable 5. The 〈◊〉 of a 〈◊〉 Soul in the next life 6. The funda mental reason why as well happiness as misery is so excessive in the next life 7. The reason why Man's Soul requires to be in a Body and to live for some space of time joyn'd with it 8. That the misery of the Soul in the next world proceeds out of the inequality not falsity of her judgments 1. The explication proof of that maxime that if the cause be in act the effect must also be 2. The effects of all such agents as work instantaneously are compleat in the first instant that the agents are put 3. All pure Spirits work instantaneously 4. That a Soul separated from her Body cannot suffer any change after the first instant of her separation 5 That temporal sins are justly punish'd with eternal pains
our Sensual part and its antagonist which maintains the resolution set by reason and observe how exceedingly their courses and proceedings differ from one another we shall more plainly discern the nature and power and efficacy of both of them We may perceive that the motions against Reason rise up turbulently as it were in billows and like a hill of boiling water as truly Passion is a conglobation of spirits put us into an unquiet and distemper'd heat and confusion On the other side Reason endeavours to keep us in our due temper by somtimes commanding down this growing sea otherwhile contenting in some measure the desires of it and so diverting another way its unruly force somtimes she terrifies it by the proposal of offensive things joyn'd to those 't is so earnest to enjoy again somtimes she prevents it by cuting off all the causes and helps that promote on its impotent desires and by engaging before hand the power of it in other things and the like All which evidently convince that as Reason hath a great strength and power in opposition of Sense so it must be a quite different thing and of a contrary nature to it We may add that the work of Reason can never be well perform'd but in a great quiet and tranquillity wheras the motions of Passion are always accompanied with disorder and perturbation So as it appears manifestly that the force of Reason is not purely the force of its Instruments but the force of its instruments as they are guided and as the quantities of them are proportioned by it And this force of Reason is different from the force of its instruments of themselvs as the force of a Song is different from the force of the same sounds wherof it is composed taken without that Order which the Musitian puts in them for otherwise the more spirits that are rais'd by any thought which Spirits are the Instruments whereby Reason performs all her operations in us the more strongly reason should work the contrary of which is evident for we see that too great abundance of Spirits confounds Reason This is as much as at present I intend to insist upon for proof that our Understanding hath its proper and distinct operations and works in a peculiar manner and in a quite different strain from all that is done by our Senses Peradventure some may conceive that the watchfulness and recalling of our thoughts back to their enjoyn'd work when they break loose and run astray and our not letting them range abroad at random doth also convince this assertion but I confess ingenuously the testimony of it seems not clear to me and therfore I rank it not with those that I would have if it may be solidly weighty and undeniable to one who shall consider maturely the bottom and full efficaciousness of them Of such a few or any one is enough to settle ones mind in the belief of a truth and I hope that this which I have labour'd for in this Chapter is so sufficiently proved as we need not make up our evidence with number of Testimonies But to shew the exceptions I take against this argument let us examine how this act within us which we call watchfulness is perform'd Truly me-thinks it appears to be nothing else but the promptitude and recourse of some spirits that are proper for this effect which by a mans earnestness in his resolution take a strong impression and so are still ready to knock frequently at the door of our understanding and therby enable it with power to recal our stray'd thoughts Nay the very reflection itself which we make upon our thoughts seems to me only this that the object beating upon the fansie carries back with it at its retiring from thence some little particle or atome of the brain or Septum Lucidum against which it beats sticking upon it in like manner as upon another occasion we instanced in a Ball rebounding from a green Mud-wall to which some of the matter of the wall must needs adhere Now this object together with the addition it gets by its stroak upon the fansie rebounding thence and having no more to do there at present betakes it self to rest quietly in some Cell it is disposed into in the brain as we have deliver'd at large in our former Treatise where we discoursed of Memory but whenever it is called for again by the fansie or upon any other occasion returns thither it comes as it were capped with this additional piece it acquir'd formerly in the fansie and so makes a representation of its own having been formerly there Yet be these actions perform'd how they will it cannot be deny'd but both of them are such as are not fit nor would be any ways useful to creatures that have not the power of ordering their own thoughts and fansies but are govern'd throughout meerly by an uniform course of nature Which ordering of thoughts being an operation feasible only by rational creatures and none others these two actions which would be in vain where such ordering is not used seem to be specially ordain'd by nature for the service of Reason and of the Understanding although peradventure a precise proper working of the understanding do not clearly shine in it Much less can we by experience find among all the actions we have hither to spoken of that our Reason or Understanding works singly and alone by it self without the assistance and consortship of the fansie and as little can I tell how to go about to seek any experience of it But what Reason may do in this particular we shall hereafter enquire and end this Chapter with collecting out of what is said how it fares with us when we do any thing against Reason or against our own knowledge If this happen by surprise 't is plain that the watch of Reason was not so strong as it should have been to prevent the admittance or continuance of those thoughts which work that transgression Again if it be occasion'd by Passion 't is evident that in this case the multitude and violence of those spirits which Passion sends boyling up to the fansie is so great as the other spirits which are in the jurisdiction and government of Reason are not able for the present to ballence them and stay their impetuosity whiles she makes truth appear Somtimes we may observe that Reason hath warning enough to mustet together all her forces to encounter as it were in battail the assault of some concupiscence that sends his unruly bands to take possession of the fansie and constrain it to serve their desires and by it to bring Reason to their bent Now if in this pitch'd field she lose the bridle and be carried away against her own resolutions and forced like a captive to obey the others laws 't is clear that her strength was not so great as the contrary factions The cause of which is evident for we know she can do nothing but by the
assistance of the spirits which inhabit the brain now then it follows that if she have not the command of those spirits which flock thither she must of necessity be carried along by the stream of the greater and stronger multitude which in our case is the throng of those that are sent up into the brain by the desired object and they come thither so thick and so forcibly that they displace the others which fought under Reasons Standard Which if they do totally and excluding Reasons party entirely possess the fansie with their troops as in madness and extremity of sudden passion it happens then must Reason wholly follow their sway without any strugling at all against it for whatever beats on the fansie occasions her to work and therfore when nothing beats there but the messengers of some sensual object she can make no resistance to what they impose But if it happen that these tumultuary ones be not the only spirits which beat there but Reason hath likewise some under her jurisdiction which keep possession for her though they be too weak to turn the others out of doors then 't is true she can still direct fairly how in that case a man should govern himself but when he comes to execute he finds his sinews already possess'd and swel'd with the contrary spirits and they keeping out the smaller and weaker number which reason has rank'd in order and would furnish those parts with he is drawn even against his judgment and reason to obey their appetites and move himself in prosecution of what they propose experimenting in himself what the Poet expresses in Medea when she complain'd and bemoan'd her self in these words Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor And in this case a man foresees his misery all the way he rouls towards it and leaps into the precipice with his eyes open Which shews that the Army of thoughts on Reason's side should be increas'd in number to have her strong enough to wage battle with the rebellious adversary or else that her adversary should be so much weakned that she though not grown stronger in her self yet might through the others enfeebling beable to make her party good and hence is the use of corporeal Mortifications to subject our Passions to the command of Reason Even as when we see that when we are in health our arms and legs and all our limbs obey our will reaching what we command them and carrying us whither we desire because the spirits which are sent into them from our brain are strong enough to raise and move them as they are directed but if our sinews be so steep'd in some cold and watry humour that the spirits coming down find not means to swell and harden them well we may wish and strive but all in vain for we shall not be able to make them perform their due functions In like manner if Reason send her emissaries into the arm or leg or other member and no other spirits there strive against them then that limb is moved and govern'd absolutely according to her directions but if at the same time a greater multitude of others hinder Reasons servants from coming thither or flocking into other sinews carry that limb a contrary way in vain Reason strives to move them to her byas for those obeying parts must observe the rules which the violent conqueror prescribes CHAP. V. Containing proofs out of our Single Apprehensions that our Soul is Incorporeal AS in our First Treatise we dissected Nature and shew'd how out of the notion and first division of Quantity arises that vast multiplicity of things which filling this world falls under the consideration of our senses so in the begining of this Second Treatise we have search'd into those operations of a Man attributed to his Soul by which he is conceiv'd to excel all other living creatures and there discover'd that the admirable and unlimited variety of works which is seen in mens writings and actions doth all flow from the source of Single Apprehensions and even from one bare notion of Being which is the root and principle from whence all others derive their origine and into which all may be resolved Works proceeding from Resolutions they from Discourses these being composed of Judgments and Judgments of Single Apprehensions This part we must now review and enquire what we can find in mans operation arguing the Quality of his Soul whether it be corporeal or no. For if these Single Apprehensions and the processes compounded of them may be perform'd by the Ordering of Rare and Dense parts as the other works of nature are then they will be corporeal and of the same kind with those which we opened in the first Treatise but if we shall prove that they cannot possibly be deduced from Multiplicity and Order of Quantitative parts then we may confidently resolve of our selvs that in the cause from which they flow there is a nature wholly discrepant from that which resides among bodies and corporeal things This we shall here labour to do and to that end we will begin our work with reflecting on what we have deliver'd of a Single Apprehension in the First Chapter of this Second Treatise whose nature we there first explicated in common and thence proceeded to some particular apprehensions and lastly shew'd the extent they comprehended These then must be the subject of our present speculation As for their nature we may remember how we resolv'd three things first that by apprehension the very thing apprehended is by it self in our Soul next that the notion of Being is the first of all notions and resumed in all others and thirdly that what is added to the notion of Being is but respects to other things Now then let us consider what kind of Engines they must be that may have the power to make things themselvs to be in our Soul if they were to be there materially How shall the place or the time pass'd be removed and put in another place and in another time How shall the quantity of the Heavens of the whole World nay of Bigness exceeding all that by millions of proportional encreases be shut up in the little circuit of Mans Brain And if we examine our selves strictly we shall find nothing wanting all is there How shall the same thing be corporeally in two nay in two thousand places at the same time And yet in so many is the Sun when two thousand men think of it at once We must then allow that things are there immaterially and consequently that what receives them is immaterial since every thing is received according to the measure and nature of what receives it But I easily conceive that the strangeness and incredibility of our position may counterballance the force of it for who can perswade himself that the very thing he apprehends is in his mind I acknowledg that if its being there were to be understood corporeally it were impossible but on the other