God makes him will and continually inclines him towards Good and gives him all the Ideas and Sensations which determine him I also acknowledge that Man of himself commits sin But I deny that in that he does any thing for Sin Error and even Concupiscence are nothing Which Point I have sufficiently cleared in the First Explanation Man wills but his Determinations are weak in themselves they produce nothing nor hinder God from doing all Things for it is even he who causes our Wills in us by the impression he gives us towards God Man of himself is only capable of Errour and Sin which are nothing There is a great deal of difference between our Minds and the Bodies which are about us Our Mind in one sense wills Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium peccatum Conc. Araus 2. Can. 22. acts and determines I grant it Of which we are convinced by the inward sensation we have of our selves To deny our Liberty would be to take from us future rewards and punishments for without Liberty there is neither good nor bad Actions So that then Religion would be an Illusion and a Fancy But that Bodies have any power to Act is what we do not clearly see but appears incomprehensible and is also what we deny when we reject Second Causes Even the Mind does not act so much as we imagine I know that I Will and Will freely I have no reason to doubt of it which is stronger than that inward sensation I have of my self I likewise don't deny this But I deny that my Will is the True Cause of the Motion of my Arm the Ideas of my Mind and other Things which attend my Determinations for I see no relation between Things which differ so much On the contrary I clearly discover that there can be no relation between the Will I have to move my Arm According to the sense discussed in the Chapter upon which this Explanation is made and between the Agitation of some little Bodies of which I neither know the Motion nor Figure which make choice of certain Nervous passages amongst a Million of others I know not to cause that Motion in me which I wish by an infinite Number of Motions I wish not I deny that my Will produces my Ideas in me for I do not so much as see how it could produce them For since my Will cannot Act or Will without knowing it supposes my Ideas but does not make them Nay I do not so much as precisely know what an Idea is I cannot tell whether they are produced out of nothing or become nothing again as soon as we cease to behold them I speak according to the Opinion of some persons I produce they will tell me my Ideas by the Faculty God hath given me of Thinking And move my Arm because of the Union God has placed between my Mind and Body But Faculty and Vnion are Logical Terms rambling and indeterminate Words There is no Being whatever nor Manner of Being which is either a Faculty or an Vnion Therefore these Terms must be explained If they will say That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods Willing that when I wish my Arm should be moved the Animal Spirits are then dispersed into the Muscles of it to move it according to my desire I clearly understand this Explanation and receive it But it is the same Thing which I maintain For if my Will determine that of God it is evident my Arm will be moved not by my Will which is impotent in it self but by that of Gods which can never fail of its effect I always mean a true and efficacious power But if it be said That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods having given me the power to move my Arm as he has given my Body the power of feeling pleasure and pain that I might be assiduous about my Body and interest my self in its preservation Certainly by this we should suppose the Matter in dispute and make a Circle on 't We have no clear Idea of this power that the Soul has over the Body nor of that the Body has over the Soul Nor very well know what we say when we positively affirm it Prejudice first gave rise to this Opinion we believed it from Infants as soon as we were capable of sensation But the Understanding Reason and Reflection have no share in it as sufficiently appears by what I have said in the Search after Truth But they will say I know by the inward sensation of my Action that I truly have this power So that I shall not be deceived in believing it To which I Answer When we move our Arm we have an inward sensation of the Actual Will whereby we move it and are not mistaken when we believe we have this Will And further We have an inward sensation of a certain Effort which accompanies this Will and we ought likewise to believe that we make this Effort In short I mean that we have an inward sensation that the Arm is moved in the very instant of the Effort Which supposed I consent to what is said That the Motion of the Arm is performed in the same instant we feel this Endeavour or that we have a practical Will to move it It appears evident to me that the mind does not so much as know by inward sensation or Conscience the Motion of the Arm which it animates It knowes by Conscience only what it feels or thinks We know the sense we have of the Motion of our Arm by inward Sensation or Conscience But Conscience does not inform us of the Motion of our Arm or the pain we suffer in it any more than the Colours we see upon Objects Or if this will not be granted I say that inward sensation is not infallible for Errour is often found in Complex Sensation as has been shewed in the First Booke of the Search after Truth But I deny that this Effort which is only a Modification or Sensation of the Soul given us to make us apprehend our Weakness and which affords us but an obscure and weak discovery of our power should be capable of moving or determining the Animal Spirits I deny that there is any relation between our Thoughts and the Motions of Matter or that the Soul has the least knowledge of the Animal Spirits it makes use of to move the Body it Animates In fine although the Soul should exactly know the Animal Spirits and should be capable of Moving them or determining their Motion I deny that with all this advantage it could be capable of making choice of those Nervous Canals of which she is wholly ignorant so as to impel the Spirits into them that thereby the Body might be moved with that quickness exactness and strength as we observe in those who are least acquainted with the Structure of their Bodies For even supposing our Wills were truly the Moving power of
But when we come to consider attentively the Idea we have of Cause or Power of acting we cannot doubt but that it represents something Divine For the Idea of a Sovereign Power is the Idea of Sovereign Divinity and the Idea of a Subordinate Power is the Idea of an inferiour but a true Divinity at least according to the Opinion of the Heathens if it be the Idea of a Power or true Cause We admit therefore something Divine in all Bodies which encompass us when we admit Forms Faculties Qualities Vertues and real Beings capable of producing certain Effects by the Power of their own Nature And thus they insensibly enter into the Opinions of the Heathens by the Respect they have for their Philosophy Faith indeed works it but it may perhaps be said that if we are Christians in our Hearts we are Heathens in our Minds Moreover it is difficult to perswade our selves that we ought neither to love or fear true Powers and Beings who can act upon us punish us with Pain or recompense us with Pleasure And as Love and Fear are a true Adoration 't is also difficult to perswade our selves that we ought not to adore them For whatever can act upon us as a real and true Cause is necessarily above us according to St. Austin and right Reason The same Father and the same Reason tells us 't is an immutable Law that Inferiour things should submit to superiour And from hence Ego enim ab animâ hoc corpus animari non puto nifi intentione facientis Nec ab isto quicquam illam pati Arbitror sed facere de illo in illo tanquam subjecto divinitus dominationi suae l. 6. mus c. 5. * this great Father concludes that the Body cannot act upon the Soul and that nothing can be above the Soul but God In the Holy Scriptures when God proves to the Israelites that they ought to adore him that is that they ought to fear and love him the chief Reasons he brings are taken from his Power to recompence and punish them He represents to them the Benefits they have received from him the Evils wherewith he hath chastised them and that he has still the same Power He forbids them to adore the Gods of the Heathens because they have no Power over them and can do them neither Good nor Hurt He requires them to honour him only because he only is the true Cause of Good and Evil and that there happens none in their City according to the Prophet which he has not done for Natural Causes are not the true Causes of the Evil that appears to be done to us 'T is God alone that acts in them and 't is he only that we must fear and love Soli Deo Honor Gloria In short this Opinion that we ought to fear and love whatsoever is the true Cause of Good and Evil appears so natural and just that it is impossible to destroy it so that if we suppose this false Opinion of the Philosophers which we endeavour here to confute that Bodies which encompass us are the true Causes of the Pleasures and Evils which we feel Reason seems to justifie a Religion like to that of the Heathens and approves of the universal Irregularity of Manners It is true that Reason does not tell us that we must adore Onyons and Leeks as the Sovereign Divinity because they cannot make us intirely happy when we have of them or intirely unhappy when we want them Nor have the Heathens ever done to them so much Honour as to the great Jupiter upon whom all their Divinities depend or as to the Sun which our Senses represent to us as the universal Cause which gives Life and Motion to all things and which we cannot hinder our selves from regarding as a Sovereign Divinity if with the Heathen Philosophers we suppose it includes in its being the true Causes of whatever it seems to produce not only in our Bodies and Minds but likewise in all Beings which encompass us But if we must not pay a Sovereign Honour to Leeks and Onyons yet we may always render them some particular Adoration I mean we may think of and love them in some manner if it is true that in some sort they can make us happy we must honour them in Proportion to the Good they can do us And certainly Men who give Ear to the Reports of their Senses think that Pulse is capable of doing them good for else the Israelites for instance would not have regretted their Absence in the Defect nor considered it as a Misfortune to be deprived of them if they did not in some manner look upon themselves happy in the Enjoyment of them These are the Irregularities which our Reason engages us in when it is joyned to the Principles of the Heathen Philosophy and follows the Impressons of the Senses That we may longer doubt of the Falseness of this Miserable Philosphy and the Certainty of our Principles and Clearness of the Idea's we make use of It is necessary clearly to establish those Truths which are opposite to the Errors of the ancient Philosophy and to prove in short that there is only one true Cause because there is only one true God That Nature or the Power of every thing proceeds only from the Will of God That all Natural things are not true Causes but only occasional ones and some other Truths which will be the Consequences of these It is evident that all Bodies both great and small have no power of removing themselves A Mountain an House a Stone a grain of Sand and in short the least or biggest Bodies we can conceive have no power of removing themselves We have only two sorts of Idea's that of Bodies and that of Spirits whereas we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive we should reason according to these two Idea's Since therefore the Idea we have of all Bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves it must be concluded that they are moved by Spirits only But when we examine the Idea we have of all finite Minds we do not see the necessary Connexion between their Wills and the Motion of any Body whatsoever it be On the contrary we see that there is none nor can be any whence we ought to conclude if we will argue according to our Knowledge that as no body can be able to move it self so there is no created Spirit can be the true or principal cause of the Motion of any body whatever But when we think of the Idea of God viz. of a Being infinitely Perfect and consequently Almighty we know that there is such a Connexion between his Will and the Motion of all Bodies that 't is impossible to conceive he should Will the Motion of a Body that should not be moved We must then say that his Will only can move Bodies if we will speak things as we conceive them and not as we feel them The moving
God only because they freely and falsly judge that he is Evil For they cannot hate Good considered as such So that 't is by the same motion of love that God imprints on them to Good that they Hate him Now they judge that God is not Good because they make not that use as they ought of their liberty Not being convinced by an undoubted evidence that God is not Good they ought not to believe him Evil nor consequently Hate him We must distinguish two things in Hatred the Sensation of the Soul and motion of the Will The Sensation cannot be bad For 't is a modification of the Soul which Morally speaking has neither Good nor Ill in it For the motion it is not ill neither since it is not distinct from that of Love For external Evil being only a privation of Good it is evident that to fly Evil is to fly the privation of Good that is to incline towards Good So that whatever there is of real and positive in the Hatred even of God hath nothing bad in it And the Sinner cannot hate God but by making an abominable abuse of the action that God continually gives him to induce him to love himself God causes whatever we have that is real in the Sensations of Concupiscence This Explanation relates to the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and yet he is not the Author of our Concupiscence As the difficulties that are raised about Concupiscence have much relation to those things I have explained it will be proper for me here to show that God is not the Author of Concupiscence altho' he performs all things in us and 't is only he who produces even sensible Pleasures in us It seems undoubted to me that we ought to grant for the Reasons I have given in the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and elsewhere that following the Natural Laws of the union of the Soul and Body Man even before Sin was carried by a foresight of Pleasure to the use of sensible Goods and that every time that certain traces were formed in the chief part of his Brain certain thoughts were produced in his Mind Now these Laws were very just for the Reasons brought in the same Chapter This supposed as before the Fall all things were perfectly well regulated so Man had necessarily a power over his Body that he cou'd hinder the formation of these traces when he wou'd for order requires that the Mind shou'd govern the Body Now this power of Mans Mind over his Body consisted strictly in that according to his desires and different applicacations he could stop the communication of the Motions which were produced in his Body by those Objects that were about him over which his Will had not an immediate and direct power as it had over his own Body I dont see how we can conceive that after any other manner he coud hinder the traces from being formed in his Brain Thus the Will of God or general Law of Nature which is the true cause of the communication of Motion wou'd on certain occasions depend upon Adams Will for God had this respect for him that he produced not new Motions in his Body if he consented not to them or at least in the chief part of it to which the Soul is immediately united Such was the Institution of Nature before Sin Order requires it so and consequently he whose Will is ever conformable to Order Now this Will continuing always the same the Sin of the first Man has overturn'd the Order of Nature because the first Man having Sinned Order woud not permit him absolutely to rule over any thing In the Objection of the 7th Article of the Explanation of the 7th Cap. of the 2d l. I explain what I speak here in general of the loss that Man sustain'd as to the power he had over his Body It is not just that the Sinner shoud suspend the communication of Motions that the Will of God shou'd be accommodated to his and that in favour of him there shoud be exceptions in the Law of Nature So that Man is subject to Concupiscence his Mind depends upon his Body he feels in himself indeliberate Pleasures and involuntary and rebellious Motions in consequence of his most Just Law who united both parts of which he is composed Thus formal Concupiscence as well as formal Sin is nothing real It is in Man only the loss of that power he had of suspending the communication of Motions on certain occasions We must not admit in God a positive Will of producing it This loss that Man has sustained is not a Natural consequence of the Will of God which is ever conformable to order and always the same 't is a consequence of Sin which has made Man unworthy of an advantage due only to his Innocence and Justice So that we must say that God is not the cause of Concupiscence but only Sin Yet whatever is real and positive in the Sensations and Motions of Concupiscence is performed by God Aug. against the two Epistles of the Pel. l. 1. cap. 15 c. for God effects whatever is done but that is no Evil 'T is by the General Law of Nature 't is by the Will of God that sensible Objects produce certain Motions in the Body of Man and that these Motions excite certain Sensations in the Soul useful for the preservation of the Body or propagation of the Species who dares then say that these things are not good in themselves I know very well that we say Sin is the cause of certain Pleasures we say it but do we know it Can we think that Sin which is nothing shou'd actually produce something Can we conceive nothing to be a Cause However we say it but it may be the reason is because we will not take pains enough to think seriously upon what we say or else it is because we will begin an Explication which is contrary to what we have heard persons say who it may be spoke with more Gravity and Assurance than Reflexion and Understanding Sin is the cause of Concupiscence but it is not the cause of Pleasure as Free-will is the cause of Sin without being the cause of the Natural Motion of the Soul The pleasure of the Soul is good as well as its motion or love and there is nothing good that God does not The rebellion of the Body and malignity of Pleasure proceeds from Sin as the inclination of the Soul to or its acquiescence in a particular good comes from the Sinner But these are only privations and nothings that the Creature is capable of All Pleasure is good and even in some manner makes him happy that enjoys it at least whilest he enjoys it But we may say that Pleasure is Evil because instead of raising the Mind to him that causes it it happens through the errour of our Mind and corruption of our Heart that it
to fight against himself but because he designed to make use of this shocking of Bodies as an occasion to establish the general Law of the communication of Motions by which he foresaw he might produce an infinite number of admirable Effects For I am perswaded that these two Natural Laws which are the most simple of all Viz. That all Motion inclines to put it self in a right Line And That in the time of concurrence Motions are communicated in proportion to the magnitude of the Bodies which are shockt are sufficient to produce the World as we see it at this day I mean the Heavens the Stars the Planets Comets Earth and Water Air and Fire In a word the Elements and all inorganized or inanimate Bodies For organized Bodies depend upon many other Natural Laws which are wholly unknown to us It may be also that animate Bodies are not formed like others by a certain number of Natural Laws For 't is very probable they were all formed at the Creation of the World and that by time they only received that growth which was necessary to make them visible to our eyes Let it be how it will 't is certain they receive this growth from the general Laws of Nature according to which all other Bodies are formed upon which account their growth is not alwayes regular I say then that God by the first Natural Law positively will'd and consequently produced the Collision of Bodies and that he afterwards made use of it as an occasion to establish the second Natural Law which regulates the communication of Motions and that thus the actual shock is a Natural or Occasional Cause of the actual communication of Motions If we consider this well it will be visibly discovered that nothing could be better ordered But supposing God had not ordained it thus and that he had diverted Bodies when ready to hit each other as if there were a void to receive them First Bodies would not then have been subject to this continual vicissitude which causes the Beauty of the Universe for the generation of certain Bodies is only produced by the corruption of some others and 't is the contrariety of their Motions which produces their variety Nor Secondly Would God then act by the most simple wayes For that Bodies ready to shock each other might continue their Motion without striking it would be necessary that they should variously describe an infinite number of Curve-Lines and consequently we must admit different Wills in God to determine their Motions Lastly If there was no uniformity in the action of Natural Bodies and if their Motion was not performed in a right Line there would be no certain Principle for us to Reason upon in Natural Philosophy nor to guide us in many Actions of our Lives 'T is no disorder for Lyons to eat Wolves Wolves Sheep and Sheep the Grass which God has taken so much care of that he has given it all things necessary for its own preservation and also a Seed to preserve its Kind Yet this proves Second Causes no more than the Plurality of Causes or contrary Principles of Good and Evil which the Manichees invented to give a Reason for these Effects But 't is a certain Mark of the Wisdom Greatness and Magnificence of God for he does nothing unbecoming an Infinite Wisdom and performs all things with such a Munificence as sufficiently shows his Power and Greatness Whatever is destroy'd is again repair'd by the same Law which destroy'd it so great is the Wisdom Power and Fruitfulness of this Law God does not prevent the destruction of Beings by a New Will not only because the first is sufficient to repair them but chiefly because his Wills are much more valuable than the reparation of these Beings They are of much more value than all they produce And if God made this visible World although in it self unworthy of the action whereby it was produced 't was for ends unknown to Philosophers and to Honour himself in JESVS CHRIST with such an Honour as the Creatures are uncapable of giving him When a House by its fall crushes a good Man to death a greater Evil happens than when one Beast devours another or when one Body is forced to give way by the shock it receives at the meeting of another But God multiplies not his Wills to redress such disorders real or apparent as are necessary consequences of Natural Laws He ought neither to correct nor change these Laws although they should sometimes produce Monsters He must not confound the order and simplicity of his wayes He ought to neglect inconsiderable things I mean he should not have particular Wills to produce Effects of no value or unworthy the action of him who produces them God works Miracles only when the Order he always follows requires it and this Order wills that he should act by the most simple wayes and that there should be no exceptions in his Wills but when 't is absolutely necessary to his designs or on certain occasions which are wholly unknown to us For although we are all united to the Order or Wisdom of God we know not all the Rules of it We see in it what we ought to do but comprehend not by it what God ought to Will nor must we be too solicitous about it We have a great instance of what I have been saying in the damnation of an infinite number of persons that God has permitted to perish in times of Ignorance God is infinitely good loves all his works would have all Men be saved and come to this knowledge of the Truth for he has Created them to injoy him And yet the greatest number are damn'd They live and dye in blindness and will continue in it to all Eternity And does not this proceed from Gods acting by the most simple wayes and from his following Order We have shown that according to Order God ought not by preingaging Pleasures to have prevented the Will of the First Man although his Fall caused the disorder of Nature See the Explanation of the fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method It was requisite that all Men should descend from one not only because this is the most simple way but for Reasons too Theological and abstracted to be here explained See also the First Explanation of the Fifth Chapter In fine We ought to believe that this is conformable to the Order which God follows and the Wisdom he alwayes consults in the intention and execution of his designs The Sin of the first Man has produced an infinite number of Evils 't is true but certainly Order required that God should permit it and that he should place Man in an estate wherein he was capable of sinning God is willing to repair his work but rarely gives those victorious Graces which conquers the Malice of the greatest Sinners He often gives Graces that are useless to the Conversion of those who receive them although in respect to them he foresees
necessity of sending Dragoons into the Monasteries and Societies and to an infinite number of honest Men to cause them to abjure the Errours of the Cartesian Philosophy So true is it that Devotees do not always see the fatal Consequences of an Advice which impetuous Zeal dictates to those that are in Authority Monsieur Regis well known by the Philosophy he has Published having undertaken to oppose some Sentiments of F. Malebranch this Father neglected at first to Answer his new Adversary but when Monsieur Regis would have drawn an advantage from the silence of a Man who plainly perceived himself unfairly attack'd Father Malbranche published the last Year a short Answer to Monsieur Regis The name of Monsieur Arnaud was made use of in this Contestation which occasioned him to appear again upon the stage In the Journal des Scavans at Paris he Printed two Letters addrest to F. Malebranch who soon answered him and gave two Letters to the Journalist that were also Printed Monsieur Cousin left off his Correspondence with Monsieur Arnaud and refused to put in his Journal other Letters which M. Arnaud had written a little before his Death we shall doubtless see them in his Posthumous works for it is not probable that they will rob the Publick of the Remains of so great a man We shall be gainers thereby two wayes F. Malbranche will break that silence which he seems to have condemned himself to and we shall have new Explanations upon some important Difficult ties which M. Arnaud may have found in the VVorks of so hard an Adversary I have but one thing more to say of F. Malebranch It is that his Heart agrees perfectly with his Vnderstanding There is as much Vprightness in the one as Justness in the other He is a Christian Philosopher who acts as he thinks Never did any Man more perfectly regulate his Manners and Actions upon the Principles of his Philosophy Being perswaded that God is the only cause which acts truly upon our Body and in our Soul F. Malebranch accustoms himself upon every Sensation upon every Perception to elevate himself always towards the Supreme Being to humble himself in his Presence and to praise him continually VVith what assurance does not he as often as it 's possible approach to the Throne of Grace of the Eternal High Priest who continually intercedes for us VVith what fervour does he not beg to be admitted as a Living Stone in the Structure of the Mysterious Temple which this Divine Architect builds up to the Glory of his Father He is in a continual watchfulness and attention over himself to divert the Impressions which sensible Objects may make upon his Body and to stop whatever is capable of exciting the Passions He is the most sober and temperate Man in the World And if F. Malebranch so exactly observes his Duties towards God and himself he is not less regular in those which respect his Neighbour He is tender and compassionate to the unhappy courteous and affable to all the VVorld preventing and sincere in respect of his Friends good and indulgent to all those who injure him Being perswaded that the Love of his Neighbour ought to have for its principal end that Eternal Society to which we are called by the Gospel He endeavours to inspire all those who come near him with Sentiments of Piety and Religion to procure as much as he can their Eternal Happiness which he earnestly desires day and night In a word F. Malebranch has drawn his own Pourtraiture in his Treatise of Morality To compose the greatest part of which he had no need of long and new Reflexions upon the Duties of Man He hath told us without thinking of it what he exactly practiced after he had applied himself to the regulation of his Manners upon the Truths he had so attentively Meditated and so happily Explained A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH BOOK V. of the Passions CHAP. I. Of the Nature and Original of the Passions in general THE Mind of Man has two essential or necessary relations which are very different the one to God and the other to its Body as it is a pure Spirit it is essentially united to the Word of God to the Eternal Wisdom and Truth for 't is only by this Union that it is capable of thinking as has been shewn in the 3d Book as an humane Spirit it has an essential relation to its Body and because of this union it is sensible and imagines as has been explained in the First and Second Books I call that sense or imagination of the Mind when the Body is the natural or occasional cause of its thoughts and that understanding when it acts of it self or rather when God acts in it or when his light enlightens it after many different manners independantly of any thing whatever that passes in its Body 'T is the same in respect of the humane Will as a Will it essentially depends upon the Love which God bears to himself upon the Eternal Law in a word upon the Will of God 'T is only because God loves himself that we love any thing and if God did not love himself or if he did not continually imprint upon the Soul of Man a Love like to his I mean that motion of Love which we receive for good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently we should be without any will since the will is nothing else but the impression of Nature which carries towards good in general as we have often said before Book I. Ch. I. and elsewhere But the Will as it is an humane Will essentially depends upon the Body for 't is only from the motions of the Blood and Spirits that it perceives it self agitated with all sensible Emotions I therefore give the name of Natural Inclinations to all the motions of the Soul which are common to us with pure Intelligences and some of those in which the Body has a great share but whereof it is only indirectly the Cause and the End as I have explained in the preceding Book and here I design by the word Passions all the Emotions which the Soul naturally feels by means of the extraordinary Motions of the Animal Spirits and Blood These are the sensible Emotions which shall be the Subject of this Book Although the Passions are inseparable from the Inclinations and Men were no farther capable of sensible love or hatred than as they are capable of the mental yet I thought it would not be amiss to treat distinctly of 'em to avoid confusion Those that consider the Passions are much more strong and lively than the Natural Inclinations for other Objects and which are always produced from other Causes will acknowledge that 't is not without reason that I have separated things that are inseparable in their nature Men are only capable of Sensations and Imaginations as they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind however
Prophets of Old affirm the Truth has spoken to them tho' it has not than to give Ear to the Truth it self For above this four thousand years the Pride of Man has without opposition put off lies and falshoods which have been respectfully received and even preserved as Holy and Divine Traditions It seems as if the God of Truth was no longer with them they neither consult nor meditate on him any longer but cover their idleness and neglect with the deceitful appearance of an holy Humility Indeed of our selves we cannot discover the Truth but we may all times do it by the assistance of him who enlightens us altho' we never can do it by the help of all the Men in the World Those even who are best acquainted with it cannot discover it to us if we do not our selves inquire of him who has inform'd them and if he answer not our attention as he has answered theirs We must not therefore receive any thing upon the credit of Man for they are all Liers but because he who cannot deceive us has spoken to us we ought continually to beg his Instruction We must not believe those who speaking to the Ear instruct only the Body or at most act upon the Imagination but we must attentively hearken and faithfully believe him who speaks to the Mind instructs the Reason and who penetrating into the most secret recesses of the inward Man is capable of enlightening and fortifying it against the outward and sensible Man which continually endeavours to seduce and abuse us I so often repeat these things because I think them most worthy of a serious reflexion 'T is God alone that we must Honour since there is none but ha who is able to give us knowledge or make us capable of Pleasure There is sometimes to be observed in the Animal Spirits and the rest of the Body a certain disposition which inclines us to Hunting Dancing Running and to all Exercises in general wherein the strength and agility of the Body are most conspicuous This disposition is commonly in Young men and chiefly in those whose Bodies are not perfectly form'd Children cannot stay long in one place but are always in action when they follow their humour For as their Muscles are not yet strong nor perfectly finish'd God the Author of Nature regulates the pleasures of the Soul in relation to the good of the Body so as to make them find pleasure in these Exercises which help to fortify and confirm the strength of their Bodies Thus whilst the Flesh and Fibres of the Nerves are still soft the little passages through which the Animal Spirits must necessarily flow to produce all sorts of motions are kept open and preserv'd the humours have no time to settle and all Obstructions and causes of Putrefaction are prevented The confused Sensation which Young men have of the disposition of their Bodies make them please themselves in the thoughts of their strength and activity They admire themselves when they know how to measure their motions or are able to make any uncommon ones and even wish to be in company of such persons as may behold and admire them Thus by little and little they strengthen their inclination for all bodily Exercises which is one of the chief causes of the Ignorance and Brutality of Men For besides the time that is lost in these Exercises the little use Men make of their Minds is the cause that the chief part of the Brain whose flexibility produces a strength and vivacity of Mind becomes wholly untractable and the Animal Spirits are not easily dispersed through the Brain after such a manner as to make them capable of thinking of whatever they please This is the reason that most part of the Nobility and such as are trained up to the War are incapable of applying themselves to any thing they argue upon things according to the Proverb A Word and a Blow And if we say any thing to them they have not a mind to hear instead of thinking what answer ought to be made their Animal Spirits insensibly flow into the Muscles by whose assistance they lift up their Arms and answer without any reflexion by a blow or some threatning gesture because their Spirits being agitated by the words they hear they are carried to those places which are most open through habit and exercise and the knowledge they have of the strength of their Bodies confirms them in these insolent behaviours And observing the respectful Air of those who hear them they are puft up with a foolish confidence which makes them utter many fierce and brutish impertinencies believing at the same time that they have spoke many fine things because the fear and prudence of others was favourable to them It is not possible to apply our selves to any Study or actually to make a profession of any Science without it we can be neither Authors nor Doctors without remembring what we are But this alone often naturally produces in the Mind of good men so many Defects that 't would be very advantageous for them if they were without those honourable Titles As they imagine them to be their chief Perfections they always think on them with Pleasure discover them to others with all possible Artifice and even pretend they have given them a right to judge of all things without examination If any Person has Courage enough to oppose them they soon Craftily and with a sweet and obliging Air insinuate what they are and the right they have to decide all things But if afterwards any is so bold as to resist them and they want an answer they will then openly say what they think of themselves and those who oppose them All inward Sensation of any advantage that we possess naturally encreases our Courage A Soldier well Armed and Mounted who wants neither Blood nor Spirits is ready to undertake any thing The disposition he finds himself in makes him bold and daring It is the same with a Learned Man when he believes himself so and when the vanity of his Heart has corrupted his Mind he becomes if we may say so bold and confident against the Truth Sometimes he rashly opposes it without knowing it and sometimes betrays it after he has discovered it and confiding in his false Learning he is always ready to maintain the Negative or Affirmative according as the Spirit of Contradiction possesses him It is very different with those who boast not of their Learning they are not decisive It is rare that they speak if they have not something to say Nay it often happens that they are silent when they ought to speak they have not that reputation nor those external marks of Learning which perswade them to speak they know not what These may safely hold their Tongues but Pretenders to Sciences are affraid to continue silent for they know well they shall be despised if they hold their Tongues although they have nothing material to say and on the contrary they
any thing when we don't admire it the Animal Spirits are not then easily carried to those places which are necessary to represent it 't would be in vain to sollicit our attention we could not animadvert or at least not very long although we might otherwise be perswaded after an abstracted manner and which agitated not the Spirits that the thing very well deserved our application It is requisite we should deceive our Imagination to stir up our Spirits and that we should after a new manner represent the Subject we would meditate on that we might excite in our selves some motion of Admiration We every day see such Persons as have no inclination for Study nothing appears more painful to them than application of Mind yet are they convinced they ought to study certain things and to that end they use their utmost endeavours but they are unsuccessful and they advance not much but immediately leave them It is true the Animal Spirits obey the orders of the Will and make it attentive whenever we desire it But when the Will which commands is purely reasonable and depends not upon any Passion it is performed after so weak and languishing a manner that our Ideas then resemble Phantoms which are but just seen and disappear in a moment Our Animal Spirits receive so many secret orders from our Passions and both by Nature and habit have so great a facility to execute them as that they are very easily diverted from the new and difficult ways where the Will would engage them to go so that 't is chiefly in these Occurrences that we have need of particular Grace to assist us in the discovery of the Truth because we cannot by our own power long resist the influences of the Body which conquer and suppress the Mind or if we have this ability we never make use of it But when we are excited by any motion of Admiration the Animal Spirits naturally disperse themselves towards the Traces of the Object which caused it They clearly represent it to the Mind and produce in the Brain what is necessary to create knowledge and evidence without troubling the Will to fatigue it self by forcing these unwilling Spirits Thus those who are capable of Admiration are much fitter for Study than such as are not susceptible of it The first are quick and ingenious the last dull and stupid Yet when Admiration becomes excessive and proceeds either to astonish or affright us or does not incline us to Rational Curiosity it commonly produces ill Effects For then the Animal Spirits are all employed to represent the Object we admire on one side only we don't even think whether we may consider it farther or not nor do the Animal Spirits disperse themselves so much as into the common parts of the Body to perform their functions there but imprint such deep footsteps of the Object they represent and break so great a number of the Fibres of the Brain that the Idea they create can never after be effaced from the Mind It is not enough for Admiration to render us attentive it must also make us curious Nor is it sufficient for us to consider one side of any Object to discover it fully we must examine it throughly or else we cannot judge truly of it So that when Admiration does not induce us to examine things with the utmost exactness or when it hinders us from it it is very useless in the discovery of Truth Then it only fills the Mind with probabilities and appearances and inclines it to judge rashly of every thing To Admire for Admiration sake is not sufficient we must Admire that we may afterwards examine with the more facility the Animal Spirits which naturally stir up Admiration in us freely offer their assistance to the Soul that it may use them to represent the Object more distinctly and that it may better discover it This is the institution of Nature for Admiration must lead us to Curiosity and Curiosity guide us to the discovery of Truth But the Soul does not know how to make use of its power it prefers a certain Sensation of Complacency which it receives from this abundance of Spirits that affect it before the knowledge of the Object which excites them It chooses rather to enjoy plenty of Spirits than to dissipate them by use in which it resembles certain Covetous Persons who prefer the possession of their Silver before the benefits they might in their Necessities receive from it Men generally please themselves with whatever affects them in any Passion They don't only give their Money to make themselves affected with Sorrow at the representation of a Tragedy but likewise throw it away upon Leigerdemain that may raise their Admiration for we cannot say they give it to be deceived The Sensation of Internal Pleasure which the Soul feels in Admiration is then the chief cause why we dwell upon it without making that use of it that Reason and Nature prescribes us For 't is this Sensation of Complacency which keeps the Admirers so strictly united to the Subjects of their Admiration that they will fall into a Passion if we shew them the vanity of it When an Afflicted Person tastes the sweetness of Sorrow we anger him if we try to divert him from it It is the same with those who admire any thing it seems to 'em as if we would injure them when we endeavour to shew them their Admiration is without any Reason because they feel that secret Pleasure they received from the Passion diminish proportionally as the Idea which caused it is effaced out of their Mind The Passions always endeavour to justifie themselves and insensibly perswade us that 't is reasonable to follow them The Complacency and Pleasure they make the Mind feel which ought to be their Judge corrupts it in their favour and inspires it with such like Reasoning I ought to judge of things only according to the Ideas I have of 'em And of all my Ideas the most sensible are the most real since they act the most powerfully upon me It is therefore by them I ought the rather to judge Now the Subject I admire includes a sensible Idea of greatness then I must judge according to this Idea for I ought to have an esteem and love for greatness So that I have reason to stop at this Object and employ my self upon it Indeed the pleasure I feel at the sight of the Idea which represents it is a Natural proof that 't is my good to think upon it for it seems to me that I grow great my self whilst I consider it and that my Mind has more extension when it embraces so great an Idea The Mind ceasing to be when it thinks of nothing if this Idea shou'd vanish it seems to me that my Mind would vanish with it or that it would become less and more contracted if it applied it self to an Idea that was less The preservation of this great Idea is then the preservation of
the greatness and perfection of my Being and therefore I have reason to admire it Others also ought to admire me if they would do me justice since I am something great through the relation I have to great things I in some measure possess them by the admiration I have for them and I feel the good by a foretaste that a kind of hope makes me enjoy Other Men would be happy as well as I if knowing my greatness they like me applied themselves to the Cause which produced it but they are blind and have no knowledge of either great or fine things and know not how either to raise or make themselves become consider able We may say the Mind naturally reasons after this manner without making any reflexion when it permits it self to be guided by the deceitful lights of its Passions These Arguments have some probability bus 'tis plain they have no solidity in them And this appearance or rather confused Sensation of it which attends these Natural Reasonings made without reflexion have so much power that if we don't take great care they will never fail of seducing us For instance when Poetry History Chimistry or any other Humane Science has struck the Imagination of a young Man with any Motions of Admiration if he don't carefully watch the efforts these Motions make upon his Mind If he does not throughly examine what the advantages of these Sciences are and compare the troubles he shall have in the learning with the profit he shall afterwards receive from them and in short if he is not as curious as is requisite to judge well there is a great deal of danger that his Admiration will not only shew him these Sciences with the fairest side outwards but seduce him also It is likewise very much to be feared that it will corrupt his Heart after such a manner that he shall not be able to destroy the illusion tho' he afterwards come to know it to be such because 't is impossible to efface such deep Traces out of his Brain as a continual Admiration shall have wrought there For that reason he must continually stir up the purity of his Imagination he must hinder these dangerous Traces from being formed which will corrupt the Mind and Heart I shall here prescribe a very useful way to prevent not only the excess of Admiration but also of all other Passions in general When the Motion of the Animal Spirits is violent enough to make such deep Traces in the Brain as corrupt the Imagination it is always attended with some emotion of the Soul Thus the Soul cannot be moved without being sensible of it it is sufficiently advertised to take care or it self and to examine whether it is advantageous that these Traces should be strengthned and made compleat But in the time of the emotion the Mind not being free enough to judge of the usefulness of these Traces because this emotion deceives and inclines it to favour them it must make its utmost endeavour to stop this emotion or else divert the motion of the Spirits which cause it and in the mean time it is absolutely necessary for it to suspend its Judgment Now it must not be imagined that the Soul can always barely by its own Will stop this course of Spirits which hinder it from making use of its Reason It s common powers are not sufficient to make such Motions cease which it has not excited So that it must make use of artifices to endeavour to deceive an Enemy that attacks it only by surprize As the motion of the Spirits stir up certain thoughts in the Soul so these Thoughts also excite certain motions in our Brain Thus when we would stop any motion of the Spirits which is stirred up in us it is not sufficient to will that it should cease for that is not always capable of stoping it We must make use of some Artifices and represent things contrary to those which excite and maintain this motion and this would cause a Revulsion But if we would only determine a motion of Spirits already excited to some other place we must not think of contrary things but only on such things as differ from those which produce it and this will undoubtedly divert them But because a Diversion and Revulsion will be great or little in proportion as our new thoughts shall be attended with a great or less motion of Spirits we must be very careful in observing well what those Thoughts are which agitate as most that in pressing occasions we may be able to represent them to our Imagination which seduces us and we must endeavour to form so strong an habit of resistance by this method that the motion which surprizes us may be no more excited in our Souls If we take care to make an intent application of the Idea of Eternity or any other serious Thoughts to these extraordinary motions which are excited in us those violent and great motions will never happen again without stirring up in us at the same time this Idea and which will consequently furnish us with the means to resist them Those things are proved both by Experience and the Reasons brought in the Chapter Of the Connection of Idea's So that we ought not to think it absolutely impossible by any Artifice to conquer the efforts of our Passions when our Wills are firmly determined to do it However we must not pretend that we can become Impeccable or shun all error by this manner of Resistance For first 't is difficult to acquire and preserve such an habit as that our extraordinary Motions shall stir up in us such Ideas as are proper to oppose them Secondly supposing we have acquired it these motions of the Spirits would directly excite those Ideas which we must oppose and but indirectly those which we must oppose to them So that the ill Idea's being the principal they will always have more power than those which are only accessary and it will be always necessary for the Will to assist the latter In the third place these motions of the Spirits may be so violent that they may fill the whole capacity of the Soul so that there remains no more room if we may be permitted so to speak to receive the accessary Idea that is fit to make a Revulsion in the Spirits or to receive it after such a manner as we may consider it with any attention In fine there are so many particulas circumstances which may make this remedy useless that we must not too much confide in it although on the other side we ought not to neglect it We must continually have recourse to Prayer that we may receive from Heaven those assistances as are necessary in the time of Temptations and also endeavour to present to the Mind some Truth that is so solid and strong that by this means we may conquer the most violent Passions For I must needs advertize by the way that several pious Persons often fall again
Spirits desire as we may think of Devils or some other Spirits who merit this Punishment we cannot say in this case that God communicates his Power to them since they can do nothing that they would do Yet the Wills of these Spirits would be the Natural Causes of whatever Effects should be produced as such Bodies should be moved to the Right Hand because these Spirits would have them moved to the Left and the desire of these Spirits would determine the Will of God to act as our Wills to move the parts of our Bodies determine the first Cause to move them So that the Wills of Spirits are only occasional Causes Yet if after all these Reasons we will still maintain that the Will of an Angel which moves any body should be a true Cause and not an occasional one it is plain that this same Angel might be the true Cause of the Creation and Annihilation of all things For God could as well communicate to him his Prower of Creating and Destroying Bodies as that of moving them if he will'd that things should be created and annihilated In a word If he will'd that all things should happen as the Angel wishes them even as he Wills Bodies should move as the Angel pleases If it be said that an Angel or a Man would be the true movers because God moves Bodies when they wish it it may also be said that a Man and an Angel may be true Creators since God can create Beings when they will it Nay perhaps it might be said that the molt Vile Animals or Matter of it self should be the effective Cause of the Creation of any Substance if we supposed as the Philosophers do that God produces substantial Forms whenever the Disposition of Matter requires it In fine Because God has resolved from all Eternity in certain times to create such or such things we might also say that these times should be the Causes of the Creation of these Beings as reasonably as to pretend that a Bowl which meets another is the true cause of the motion it communicates to it Because God has determined by his general Will which constituted the Order of Nature that when two Bodies should meet there should be such and such a Communication of Motion There is then but one only true God and he the one only true Cause And we must not imagine that which precedes an Effect to be the true Cause of it God cannot even communicate his Power to the Creatures if we follow the Light of Reason he cannot make them true Causes because he cannot make them Gods Bodies Spirits pure Intelligences can all do nothing 'T is he who hath made these Spirits that illuminates and acts them 'T is he who has created the Heavens and the Earth which regulates the Motions thereof In short 't is the Author of our Being that executes our Wills semel jussit semper paret He even moves our Arms when we make use of them against his Orders for he complains by his Prophets that we make him serve our unjust and criminal Desires All these little Heathen Divinities and all these particular Causes of the Philosophers are only Chymera's that the wicked Spirit endeavours to establish to ruin the Worship of the true God It is not the Philosophy they have received from Adam which teaches these things 't is that they have received from the Serpent for since the Fall the Mind of Man is perfectly Heathenish 'T is this Philosophy which joyned to the Errors of the Senses has made them adore the Sun and which is fall at this Day the universal Cause of the Irregularity of the Mind and Corruption of the Heart of Man By their Actions and sometimes by their Words why say they should we not love the Body since the Body is capable of affording us all Pleasures And why do we laugh at the Israelites which regretted the Loss of the Garlick and Onyons of Egypt since in Effect they were unhappy by being deprived of what in some Measure could make them happy But the new Philosophy which they represent as a dismal thing to affrighten weak Minds that is despised and condemned without being understood The new Philosophy I say since they are pleased to call it so destroys all the Arguments of the Libertines by the Establishment of the chiefest of its Principles which perfectly agrees with the * Haec est Religio Christiana fratres mei quae praedicatur per universum mundum horrentibus inimieis ubi vincuntur murmurantibus ubi praevalent saevientibus haec est Religie Christiana ut Colatur unus Deus non Dii qui facit Animam Beatum nisi unus Deus Aug. tr 23. in Joan. first Principle of the Christian Religion that we must love and fear but one God since there is only one God who can make us happy For if Religion teaches us that there is but one true God this Philosophy shews us there is but one true Cause If Religion informs us that all the Divinities of the Heathens are only Stones and Metals without Life and Motion This Philosophy discovers to us also that all second Causes or all the Divinities of their Philosophy are only Matter and inefficacious Wills In short if Religion teaches us that we must not bow our Knees to false Gods This Philosophy also tells us that our Imaginations and Minds ought not to be prostituted to the Imaginary Greatness and Power of Causes which are not true Causes That we must neither love nor fear them nor busie our selves about them but think upon God only see him adore him fear and love him in all things But this agrees not with the Inclination of some Philosophers They will neither see nor think upon God For since the Fall there is a secret Opposition between God and Man Men take Pleasure in erecting Gods after their own Fancy they voluntarily love and fear the Fictions of their own Imagination as they Heathens did the Works of their own Hands They are like Children who tremble at their Companions after they have daubed their Faces Or if they will have a more Noble Comparison although perhaps it be not so just they resemble those famous Romans who had some Fear and Respect for the Fictions of their own Minds and foolishly adored their Emperors after they had let loose the Eagle when they deified them CHAP. IV. An Explanation of the Second Part of the general Rule That Philosophers neglect it but Mr. Descartes has very exactly observed it WE have already shewed unto what Errors we are subject when we reason upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses and upon the rambling and indeterminate Idea's of pure Logick We have sufficiently discovered that to preserve Evidence in our Perceptions it is absolutely necessary exactly to observe the Rule that we have prescribed if our Idea's are clear and distinct and then to reason according to these Idea's In this same general Rule which respects the Subject
things of the same kind and is not easily contained in its own Limits but in that of others Water is a cold and moist Element which gathers things together both of the same and of a different Nature which is hot easily contained within its own Bounds but in that of others And in fine the Earth cold and dry and therefore collects things of the same and of a different Nature which is not easily contained in its own Bounds and very difficultly in that of others Here the Elements are explained according to the Sentiment of Aristotle or according to the Definitions he has given of their chief Qualities and because if we will believe him the Elements are simple Bodies whereof all others are compounded the Knowledge of these Element and their Qualities must be most clear and distinct since all Physicks or the Knowledge of Sensible Bodies which are composed of them ought to be deduced from thence Let us see then what is defective in these Principles First Aristotle joyns no distinct Idea to the Word Quality We know not whether by Quality he means a real Being distinct from Matter or only the Modification of Matter It seems sometimes as if he meant it in one Sense and sometimes in another It is true in the Eighth Chapter of Categories he defines Quality to be that which causes a thing to have such or such a Name but that will not satisfie our Demands Secondly the Definitions he gives of his four first Qualities Heat Cold Moist and Dry are all false or useless This is his Definition of Heat Heat is that which assembles things of a like Nature First we do not see that this Definition perfectly explains the Nature of Heat although it should be true that Heat collects all things of the same Nature But secondly it is false for Heat does not collect all things of the same Nature Heat does not assemble the Parts of Water it rather dissipates them into a Vapour Nor does it assemble the Particles of Wine or those of all other Liquors or fluid Bodies whatever Nor even those of Quicksilver On the contrary it resolves and separates all solid Bodies and even Fluids although of a different Nature And if there are any whose Parts Fire cannot dissipate 't is not because they are of the same Nature but because some are too gross and too solid to be raised by the Motion of the Parts of Fire In the third place Heat indeed can neither assemble nor dissipate the Parts of any Body whether Homogeneous or Heterogeneous For to assemble to separate or dissipate the Parts of any Body it must move them Now Heat can move nothing or at least 't is not evident that Heat can move Bodies For although we consider Heat with all the Attention possible we can only discover that it may communicate to Bodies a Motion which it has not in it self Yet we see that Fire moves and separates the Parts of Bodies that are exposed to it It is true but it may be it is not from its Heat for even it is not evident that it has any at all 'T is rather by the Action of its Parts which are visibly in a continual Motion It is plain that the Parts of Fire which strike against any Body must communicate a Part of their Motion to it whether there is Heat in Fire or not If the Parts of this Body are but a little solid and gross the Fire cannot move them and make them slip one upon another In short if they are a Mixture of subtle and gross ones the Fire can only dissipate those that it can push strong enough to separate intirely from the rest Thus Fire can only separate them and if it assembles them 't is merely by Accident But Aristotle pretends quite the contrary Separation says he which some attribute to Fire is only a resembling of things of the same kind De gen corr l. 2. c. 2. for 't is only by Accident that Fire dissipates things of a different kind If Aristotle had at first distinguished the Sentiment of Heat from the Motion of the Particles whereof the Bodies we call Heat are composed and had afterwards defined Heat taken for the Motion of the Parts by saying Heat is that which agitates and separates the invisible Parts whereof visible Bodies are composed he would have given a tollerable Definition of Heat Nevertheless it would not perfectly have contented us because it would not precisely have discovered to us the Nature of the Motion of hot Bodies Aristotle defines Coldness to be that which assembles Bodies of the same or of a different Nature This Definition is good for nothing For 't is false that Cold assembles Bodies To assemble them it must move them but if we consult Reason 't is evident Cold can move nothing In Effect by Cold he means either what we feel when we are cold or that which causes the Sensation of Cold. Now it is plain that the Sensation of Cold can move nothing since it can push nothing What it is that causes Sensation we cannot doubt when we examine things by our Reason for 't is only Rest or a Cessation from Motion So Cold in Bodies being only a Cessation from this Sort of Motion which accompanies Heat it is evident that if Heat separates yet Cold does not Thus Cold assembles neither things that are of a like or different Nature for what can push nothing can assemble nothing In a Word as it does nothing it collects nothing Aristotle judging of things by the Senses imagines Cold is also positive as well as Heat because the Sensations of Heat and Cold are both real and positive And he also thinks that these two Qualities are active And indeed if we follow the Impression of our Senses we have Reason to believe that Cold is a very active Quality since cold Water congeals reassembles and in a Moment hardens melted Gold or Lead after a little is poured upon them although the Heat of these Metals is great enough to separate the Parts of any Body they touch It is evident by what we have said of the Errors of the Senses in the first Book that if we rely only upon the Senses to judge of the Qualities of Sensible Bodies it is impossible to discover any certain and undoubted Truth which can serve as a Principle to assist us in the Knowledge of Nature For by this Method only we cannot discover what things are hot and what cold For of many Persons who should touch Water that is luke-warm some of them would think it hot and others cold Those that are of a hot Constitution would think it cold and those that are of a cold would think it hot And if we supposed Fish capable of Sensation 't is very probable they would think it hot when all Men think it cold It is the same with the Air it seems hot or cold according to the different Dispositions of the Bodies that are exposed
only try to know a Relation which is sufficiently rambling and indetermined It is plain 1. That to resolve Questions of the first Kind and perfectly to know all the exact Relations of Magnitude and Quality that is between two or many things we must have distinct Idea's which perfectly represent them and compare these things all possible ways We may for instance resolve all Questions which tend to discover the exact Relations which are between 2 and 8 because 2 and 8 being exactly known we may compare them together in all necessary manners to discover their exact Relations of Magnitude or Quality We may know that 8 is Quadruple of 2 that 8 and 2 are even Numbers and that 8 and 2 are not Squares It is clear in the second place That to resolve Questions of the second Kind and exactly to discover any Relation of Magnitude or Quality which is between two or many things it is necessary and it will be sufficient to know very distinctly the Superficies of them according to which we must compare them to discover the Relation we seek For instance To resolve any Question which tends to the discovering some exact Relation between 4 and 16 as that 4 and 16 are even Numbers and Squares it is sufficient to know exactly that 4 and 16 may be divided into half without a Fraction and that both are the Product of a Number multiplied by it self and it is useless to examine what their true Magnitude is For 't is evident To know the exact Relation of Quality which is between things it is sufficient to have a very distinct Idea of their Quality without thinking any thing of their Magnitude and that to know their exact Relations of Magnitude it sufficies to know exactly their Magnitude without enquiring after their true Quality It is plain in the third place That to resolve Questions of the third Kind and to know any Relation that is almost exact between two or more things it is sufficient to know pretty near the Superficies or sides thereof according to which we must compare them to discover the approaching Relation that we seek whether it be of Magnitude or Quality For instance I can evidently know that √ 8 is greater than 2 because I can know very near the true Magnitude of the √ 8. But I cannot know how much the √ 8 exceeds 2 because I cannot exactly know the true Magnitude of √ 8. Lastly It is plain That to resolve Questions of the fourth kind and discover their trifling and undetermined Relations it suffices to know things after a manner proportionate to the need we have of comparing them to discover the Relations we seek So that to resolve all sorts of Questions 't is not always necessary to have very distinct Idea's of their Terms or to know perfectly the things their Terms signifie But it is requisire to know them so much the more exactly as the Relations we endeavour to discover are more exact and in greater Number For as we have already shewed in imperfect Questions it is enough to have imperfect Idea's of the things that we consider to resolve these Questions perfectly or according to what they contain And we likewise resolve Questions very well although we have no distinct Idea of the Terms which express them for when it is demanded if Fire is capable of melting Salt hardening Dirt and evaporating Lead and a thousand other like things we understand these Questions perfectly and can very well resolve them although we have no distinct Idea of Fire Salt Dirt c. because those who make these demands would only know if we have had any sensible Experience that Fire has produced these Effects Wherefore according to the Discoveries we have made by our Senses we can answer them in such a manner as may be capable of satisfying them CHAP. VIII An Application of the other Rules to particular Questions THere are Questions of two sorts Simple and Compound The Resolution of the first depends alone upon the Attention of the Mind to the clear Idea's of the Terms which express them The others cannot be resolved but by the Comparison of a third or many other Idea's we cannot discover the unknown Relations which are expressed by the Terms of the Question by immediately comparing the Idea's of these Terms for they cannot be joyned or compared We must therefore have one or many mean Idea's to be able to make necessary Comparisons to discover these Relations and exactly observe that these mean Idea's are clear and distinct in proportion as the Relations we endeavour to discover are more exact and in greater Number This Rule is only a Consequence of the first and is of equal Importance For if it is necessary to know exactly the Relations we compare to have clear and distinctly Idea's of them For the same reason it is necessary to know well the mean Idea's by which we pretend to make these Comparisons since we must distinctly know the Relation of Measure with each of the things that we measure to discover the Relations of them For instance When we suffer a little light Vessel to swim freely with a Loadstone in it if we turn towards the North Pole of this Loadstone another Loadstone that we hold in our Hands we shall immediately see the first Loadstone retire as if it were compelled by some violent Wind. And if we desire to know the Cause of this Effect It is plain That to give a Reason for the Motion of this Loadstone it is not enough to know the Relations it has with the other for although we should even perfectly know all we could not comprehend how these two Bodies could thrust one another without meeting We must therefore examine what things we know distinctly to be capable according to the Order of Nature of moving Bodies since the Question is to discover the Natural Cause of the Motion of the Loadstone which is certainly a Body To that end we must not have recourse to any Quality Form or Entity or even of any Intelligence that we do not clearly know to be capable of moving Bodies For we cannot certainly know that Intelligences are the common Causes of the Natural Motions of Bodies nor even whether or no they can produce Motion We know evidently That 't is a Law of Nature that Bodies should move each other when they meet We must then endeavour to explain the Motion of the Loadstone by the means of any body which meets it It is true that it may be something else besides a Body which moves it but if we have no distinct Idea of this thing we must not make use of it as a fit Mean to discover what we seek nor to explain it to others For 't is not giving a Reason of an Effect to ascribe something as a Cause of it which no body conceives clearly We must not then trouble our selves too much whether there is any other Natural Cause of the Motion of Bodies than their
in which let there be inserted the Tubes of two equal Bellows and only apply a Force 1600 Times greater than the other to the Mouth of the greater Bellows for then the Force of 1600 Times the less shall overcome the greater The Demonstration of it is clear from Mechanicks since the Powers are not exactly in Reciprocal Proportion with the Orifices and the Relation of the least Force to the least Orifice is greater than the Relation of greater Force to the greater Orifice But to resolve this Problem by a Machine which represents the Effect of the Muscles better than this Instance already mentioned Blow up a Foot-ball and let there be a great Stone of 5 or 6 Hundred Weight laid upon it when half filled with Wind or place the Ball upon a Table with a Board over it and a Stone over that or let some heavy Man sit upon it holding himself by something that he may be able to resist the swelling of the Foot-ball For if one blow in the Foot-ball once only with his Mouth it will raise up the Stone which presses it down or the Man who sits upon it provide a the Orifice by which the Wind enters the Foot-ball have a Sucker to hinder it from going out whilst the Person takes Breath The Reason of this is that the Orifice in the Ball is so small or ought to be supposed so small in Relation to the whole Ball which is compressed by the Stone that a small Force is capable to overpower a great one by this method If we consider also that ones Breath is capable of pushing a Ball of Lead very violently by the means of a long Tube because the Force of the Breath dissipates not but continually renews we may visibly discover that the necessary Proportion between the Orifice and Capacity of the Ball being supposed ones Breath only may easily overcome a very great Force If then we conceive that all the Muscles or each of the Fibres which compose them have like this Foot-ball a Capacity fit to receive the Animal Spirits that the Pores by which the Spirits insinuate themselves are still smaller in Proportion than the Neck of a Bladder or Orifice of a Ball that the Spirits are kept in and pushed forward in the Nerves like Air in Tubes and that the Spirits are more agitated than the Breath of the Lungs and pushed with more Force in the Muscles than in Balls We shall discover that the Motion of the Spirits which are dispersed through the Muscles can overcome the Force of the most weighty Burthens we can bear and that if we cannot carry the heaviest the Defect of the Power proceeds not so much from the Spirits as that of the Fibres and Membranes that compose the Muscles which would break if we made too great an Effort Besides if we observed that by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body the Motions of these Spirits as to their Determinations depend upon the Will of Man we should plainly see that the Motions of the Arms must be voluntary It is true we remove our Arms with so much Quickness that at first it seems incredible that the Effusion of the Spirits in the Muscles which compose them should be quick enough to produce such a Motion But we must consider that these Spirits are extreamly agitated always ready to go from one Muscle to another and that there is not need of many to swell them up so little as is necessary to move them only or when we lift any thing that 's very light from the Ground for when we have any thing heavy to lift we cannot do it so speedily Burthens being heavy will much swell and stretch the Muscles To swell them up after this manner requires more Spirits than there is in the adjoyning or opposite Muscles There must therefore be some little Time to collect these Spirits in a Quantity sufficient to resist this Weight So that those which are laden cannot run and those that take any weighty thing from the Ground cannot do it with so much Haste as those who take up a Straw If we further reflect that those that have more Heat or a little Wine in their Heads are much quicker than others as amongst Animals those whose Spirits are more agitated as Birds move more swiftly than they that have their Blood cold like Frogs And that even amongst them there are some as the Camelion the Tortoise and other Infects whose Spirits are so little agitated that their Muscles fill not faster than a little Foot-ball which we should blow up If we well consider all these things it may be we might think the Explanation already given fit to be received But although this Part of the proposed Question which regards Voluntary Motions is sufficiently resolved We must not however affirm that it is wholly so and that there is nothing more in our Bodies which contributes to these Motions than what we have attributed to it for there is probably in our Muscles a thousand Springs which facilitate these Motions and will be eternally unknown to those even who make the strictest Scrutinies into the Works of God The second Part of the Question which must be examined respects Natural Motions or those sort of Motions which have nothing extraordinary as the Convulsive have but that are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of our Machine which consequently depend not entirely upon our Wills I consider then first with all the Attention I am capable what the Motions are which have these Conditions and if they are wholly alike but because I immediately discover that almost all of them differ one from another not to perplex my self with too many things I only insist upon the Motion of the Heart This Part is the most known and its Motions most sensible I then examine its Structure and amongst many others observe two things The first that 't is composed of Fibres like other Muscles the second that there is two very considerable Cavities in it I therefore judge that its Motions may be performed by the Animal Spirits because it is a Muscle and that the Blood there ferments and dilates its self since there are Cavities there The first of these Determinations is founded upon what I have already said and the second because the Heart is much hotter than all the other Parts of the Body as it is that which disperses Heat with the Blood into all our Members that these two Cavities could neither have been formed nor preferved but only by the Dilatation of the Blood and that thus they are serviceable to the Cause which produced them I can then give a sufficient Reason for the Motion of the Heart by the Spirits which agitate it and the Blood which dilates it when this Blood is fermented For although the Cause I bring for its Motion should not perhaps be true yet it appears certain to me that it is sufficient to produce it It 's true that the Principle of the
Agitation of this Matter by what I have said of Gunpowder It will not be difficult to see that 't is absotutely necessary that the Matters acting infinitely more upon the Surface of hard Bodies that it encompasses and compresses than within the same Bodies it must be the Cause of their Inflexibility or the Resistance we feel when we endeavour to break them Now as there is always many Particles of this Invisible Matter which passes through the Pores of hard Bodies they make them not only hard as we have already explained but further are the Cause that some are Springy and Elastick others stand bent and that others are fluid and liquid and in fine that they are not only the Cause of the Force that hard Bodies have to continue united together but also that fluid Bodies have to separate that is are the Cause that some Bodies are hard and others fluid But because 't is absolutely necessary to know distinctly the Physicks of Descartes the Figure of his Elements and Parts which compose particular Bodies to give a Reason why certain Bodies are stiff and some others pliable I shall not stay here to explain it Those who have read the Works of this Philosopher will easily enough imagine what may be the Cause thereof which I could not explain without great Difficulty and those who are unacquainted with this Author would but confusedly understand the Reason that I might bring for it Nor shall I also stop here to resolve a great Number of Difficulties that I foresee may be brought against what I have established Because if those that raise them have no Knowledge of true Physicks I should only tire and displease them instead of satisfying them But if they are learned Persons their Objections being stronger I could not answer them but by a great Number of Figures and long Discourses so that I believe I ought to desire those that find any Difficulty in what I have advanced very carefully to read this Chapter over again for I hope if they do so and meditate on it as much as is necessary all their Objections will vanish But if they find my Request incommodious they may omit it for there is no great Danger in being ignorant of the Cause of Bodies inflexibility I speak not here of Contiguity For 't is plain Contiguous things touch so little that there is always much Subtle Matter which passes between them and which endeavours to continue its Motion in a right Line to prevent their uniting For the Union that is observed between Marbles which have been polished one upon another I have explained it and 't is easie to see that although this Subtle Matter always passes between these two Parts how united soever they may be the Air cannot pass it and therefore 't is that which compresses and binds those two Pieces of Marble together and causes some Trouble to disunite them if we do not make them slide off one another It is plain from all this that the Continuity Contiguity and Union of two Marbles will only be the same thing in a Void neither have we different Idea's of them so that 't is as much as to say we do not understand them if we make them absolutely differ without any Relation to the Bodies which surround them Here now follows some Reflexions upon Descartes's Sentiment and the Original of his error I call his Opinion an Error because I find no Expedient to defend what he says of the Rules of Motion and Cause of the Hardness of Bodies in many Places at the End of the Second Part of his Principles and it seems to me that I have sufficiently proved the Truth of the contrary Opinion This great Man very distinctly conceived that Matter could not move of it self and that the Natural moving Power of all Bodies was nothing else but the general Will of the Author of Nature and that the Communications of the Motions of Bodies at their mutual Meeting could only proceed from this same Will If we take this for granted we can give no Rules for the different Communication of Motions but by the Proportion that is found between the different Magnitude of Bodies which beat against them since it is impossible to penetrate the Designs of God's Will And because he judges that every thing had Power to continue in the State it was in whether in Motion or Rest because that God by his Will determined this Power always to act after the same manner he concludes that Rest has as much Power to act as Motion So he measures the Effects of the Power of Rest by the Magnitude of Bodies which possessed it as those of the Power of Motion and hence he gave the Rules for the Communication of Motion that are in his Principles and the Cause of the Hardness of Bodies which I have endeavoured to refute It is difficult enough not to be of Descartes's Opinion when we look upon it as he did for once more since the Communication of Motions proceed only from the Will of the Author of Nature and that we see all Bodies continue in the State they are once placed in whether it be Motion or Rest It seems we ought to seek the Rules of the different Communication of Motions at the meeting of Bodies not in the Will of God which is unknown to us but in the Proportion there is between the Magnitudes of these Bodies I do not therefore wonder that Descartes had this Thought but I only wonder that he did not correct it when he had made a farther Advance in his Discoveries and found both Existence and the Effects of the Subtle Matter which environs all Bodies I am surprized that in the 132 Article of the 4th Part he attributes the Elastick Force that certain Bodies have to this subtle Matter and that in Articles 55 and 43 of the Second Part and in other Places he does not attribute it to their Hardness or the Resistance they make when we endeavour to bend or break them but to the rest of their Parts It appears evident to me that the Cause of the Elasticity and Stiffness of certain Bodies is the same with that which gives them the Power of Resistance when we would break them for indeed the Force that we use to break Steel differs but insensibly from that by which we bend it I will not here bring all the Reasons that might be urged to prove these things nor answer to any Difficulties that we might form from hard Bodies making no Sensible Resistance and yet we have some Trouble to bend them For it will be enough to make these Difficulties vanish to consider that the Subtle Matter cannot easily take a new course in Bodies which break when we bend them as in Glass and in tempered Steel and that it cannot more easily do it in Bodies that are composed of branchy Parts which are not brittle as in Gold and Lead And indeed there is no hard bodies which make not some
little Resistance It is difficult enough to perswade our selves that Descartes positively believed the Cause of Hardness was different from that of Elasticity And what appears most probable is that he has not sufficiently reflected upon the Matter When we meditate long upon any Subject and are satisfied in things we would know we often think no more of them We believe that the Thoughts that we have had are undoubted Truths and 't is useless to examine farther But in Men there are many things which disgust them against Application incine them to a rash Assent and make them subject to Error and although the Mind continues apparently satisfied it is not always because it is well informed of the Truth Descartes was a Man like us I confess we never saw more Solidity Exactness Extension and more Penetration of Mind than what appears in his Works yet he was not infallible So that it is probable he was so very strongly perswaded of his Opinion from not sufficiently reflecting that he asserted something elsewhere in nis Principles contrary to it He maintained it upon very specious and probable Reasons but such however as were not of sufficient Force to make us submit and therefore he might and ought to have suspended his Judgment It is not enough to examine in a hard Body what might be the Cause that made it so We ought also to think of the invisible bodies which might render them hard as he has done at the End of his Philosophical Principles when he attributes the Cause of Resistance to them He ought to have made an exact Division which comprised whatsoever might contribute to the Inflexibility of bodies It is not sufficient still to seek the Cause in God's Will he ought also to have thought of the Subtle Matter which environed them For although the Existence of this extreamly agitated Matter was not yet proved in that Place of his Principles where he speaks of Hardness it was not then rejected He ought then to have suspended his Judgment and to have remembered that what he had writ of the Cause of Hardness and Rules of Motion ought to have been reviewed anew which I believe he did not do carefully enough Or else he did not sufficiently consider the true Reason of a thing that is very easie to discover and which yet is of the utmost Consequence in Physicks I will explain it Descartes well knew that to maintain his System of the Truth which he could not reasonably doubt It was absolutely necessary that great bodies should always communicate their Motion to the lesser bodies they should meet and the less reflect at their meeting with the greater without a like Loss on their Side For without that the First Element would not have all the Motion that it is necessary it should have above the Second nor the Second above the Third and his whole System would be absolutely false as is sufficiently known to those that have but thought a little upon it But in supposing that Rest had Force enough to resist Motion and that a great Body in Rest could not be moved by another that is less than it although it strike it with a furious Agitation It is plain that great Bodies must have much less Motion than a like Mass of little Bodies since according to this Supposition they can always communicate what they have and cannot always receive from the lesser Thus this Supposition not being contrary to whatsoever Descartes has said in his Principles from the Beginning unto the Establishment of his Rules of Motion and agreeing very well with the Sequel of his Principles he believed that the Rules of Motions which he thought he had demonstrated in their Cause were also sufficiently confirmed by their Effects I agree with Descartes that great Bodies communicate their Motion much more easily than little Bodies do and therefore his First Element is much more agitated than the Second and the Second than the Third But the Cause of it is clear without having any Regard to his Supposition Little and fluid Bodies as Water Air c. can only communicate to great Bodies an uniform Motion which is common to all their Parts The Water in a River can only communicate to a Boat the Motion of Descent which is common to all the little Parts of which the Water is composed and every one of these Parts besides this common Motion has also an infinite Number of other Particulars Thus by this Reason 't is plain that a Boat for instance can never have so much Motion as an equal Bulk of Water since the Boat can only receive from the Water that Motion which is direct and common to all the Parts that compose it If Twenty Particles of a fluid Body push any other Body on the one Side and as many on the other it will continue immoveable and all the little Particles of the fluid Body in which it swims rebound up without losing any thing of their Motion Thus great Bodies whose Parts are united can only receive the Circular and Uniform Motion of the Vortex of the Subtle Matter which environs them This Reason seems sufficient to them to make it comprehended how great Bodies are not so much agitated as the lesser and that there is a Necessity for an Explanation of these things to suppose any Force in Rest to resist Motion The Certainty of Descartes's Principles cannot be a sufficient Proof to defend his Rules of Motion and we may believe that if Descartes himself had again without Prejudice examined his Principles and compared them with such Reasons as I have brought he would not have believed that the Effects of Nature had confirmed his Rules nor have fallen into a Contradiction by attributing the Hardness of Bodies only to the rest of their Parts and their Elasticity to the Force of a Subtle Matter Here follows now the Rules of the Communication of Motions in a Void which are only the Consequences of what I have established about the Nature of Rest Bodies not being hard in a Void since they are only hard by the Pressure of the Subtle Matter which surrounds them if Two Bodies meet they would flatten without rebounding we must therefore give these Rules Suppose them hard of themselves and not by the Pressure of this Subtle Matter Rest having no Power to resist Motion and many Bodies before being considered as one only in the moment of their meeting it is plain they ought not to rebound when they are equal in Magnitude and Velocity or that their Velocity supplies the Desect of their Magnitude or their Magnitude the Defect of their Velocity And it is easie from thence to conclude that in all other Cases they must always communicate their Motion A general Rule for the Communication of Motion so that they may afterwards proceed with an equal Swiftness So that to know what must happen in all the different Suppositions of Magnitude and Swiftness of Bodies which meet one another we need
Good And when we Sin what do we Nothing for we love a false Good that God enclines us not to love by an invincible Impression We cease to seek the true Good and make useless the motion which God imprints on us Now when we love any particular Good only or against Order we receive from God as great an impression of Love as if we stopt not at this Good Moreover this particular determination which is neither necessitated nor invincible is also given us of God Therefore when we Sin we produce no new modification in our selves However I confess when we do not Sin but resist Temptation we may say in one Sense that we give our selves a new modification because we would think of other things than on the false Goods which tempt us But what we then do is produced by the action which God impresses on us that is by our motion towards Good in general or by our Will assisted by Grace or illuminated by a light or impelled by a preingaged Pleasure For in short if 't is pretended that to Will different things is to give our selves different Modifications I grant that in this Sense the Mind can diversly modifie it self by the action it receives from God But it must always be observed that that action that God performs in us depends upon us and is not invincible in respect to particular Goods For when a particular Good is presented to us we have an internal Sensation of our liberty in respect to it as we have of our Pleasure and Pain when we feel it We are even convinced of our Freedom by the same reason that we are convinced of our Existence for 't is the internal Sensation we have of our Thoughts which teaches us that we are And if in the time that we are conscious of our liberty in respect to a particular Good we ought to doubt whether or no we are free because we have no clear Idea of our liberty We must also doubt of our Pain and Existence at the time even when we are very unhappy since we have no clear Idea either of our Souls or of our Pain It is not the same with internal Sensation as with our external Senses These always deceive us in something when we follow their information but our internal Sensation never deceives us 'T is by my external Senses that I see Colours upon the surface of Bodies that I hear sounds in the Air and feel pain in my Hand c. and I am deceiv'd if I judge of these things upon the relation of my Senses But 't is by internal Sensation that I see Colours hear Sounds suffer Pain and I deceive not my self to think I see when I see hear when I hear or suffer when I suffer provided I stay there I explain not these things more at large because they are evident of ' emselves Thus having an internal Sensation of our liberty at the same time that a particular Good presents it self to our Mind we ought not to doubt whether we are free in respect to this Good Yet as we have not always this internal Sensation and sometimes only consult what remains of it in our memory after a very confused manner We may think of the abstracted Reasons which hinder us from feeling our selves persuaded that it is not possible for Man to be free Like a Stoic that wants nothing and who can Philosophise at his ease can imagine that Pain is not an Evil because the internal Sensation he has of it does not actually convince him of the contrary He may prove as Seneca has done by Reasons that in one Sense are true that 't is even a contradiction that a wise Man can be unhappy Yet when the internal Sensation we have of our selves will not suffice to convince us that we are free we may perswade our selves of it by Reason For being convinced by Reason that God only acts for himself and that he cannot give us any motion which tends not towards him the impression towards good in general may be invincible but it is plain the impression he gives us towards particular Goods must necessarily be free For if this impression was invincible we should not have any motion to go to God altho' he gives us motion only for himself and we should be necessitated to stop at particular Goods although God Order and Reason forbid it So that we should not Sin through our own default and God would be truly the cause of our Irregularities since they would not be free but purely natural and absolutely necessary Thus although we should not be convinced of our liberty by the internal Sensation we have of our selves we might by Reason discover that its necessary that Man should be created free supposing that he be capable of desiring particular Goods and that he can desire these Goods only by the impression or motion that God continually gives him for himself which may likewise be proved by Reason But 't is not the same of the capacity we have of suffering any Pain To discover that we have this capacity there is no other way but internal Sensation and yet no one doubts but Man is subject to Pain As we know not our Soul by a clear Idea as I have elsewhere explained 't would be in vain for us to try to discover what it is in us which terminates the action that God imprints on us or what it is in us which is overcome by a determination that is not invincible and that may be changed by our Will or impression towards whatever is good and by its union with him who includes the Ideas of all Beings For as we have no clear Idea of any modification of our Soul there is only an internal Sensation which teaches us that we exist and what we are 'T is this Sensation therefore that we must consult to convince our selves that we are free It answers us clearly enough when we actually propose any particular good to our selves For there is no Man who can doubt that he is not invincibly carried to Eat a Fruit or to shun some inconsiderable Pain But if instead of hearkning to our internal Sensation we give attention to abstracted Reasons which divert us from thinking of our selves it may be we might even lose the sight of our selves and forget what we are and that endeavouring to reconcile the knowledge of God and the absolute power he has over us with our liberty we should fall into an Error which would overthrow all the Principles of Religion and Morality Here is an Objection that is used to be made against what I have said and although it be very trivial it nevertheless is a difficulty to some Men. The hatred of God say they is an action wherein there is no Good Therefore it is perfectly the Sinners and God has no part in it Consequently Man acts and gives himself a new modification by an action which proceeds not from God I Answer That Sinners hate
merited for us and in another place I call it absolutely the Grace of Jesus Christ it is not that there is no other Grace but that or that there is any which Christ has not purchased for us But I call it the Grace of Jesus Christ to distinguish it from the Grace that God gave to the first Man when he Created him which is commonly call'd the Creator's Grace For the Grace by which Adam might have preserved his Innocence was chiefly a Grace of Light as I have explained in the preceding Remark because that Adam having no concupiscence he stood in need of no Pre-ingaging Pleasures to oppose it But the Grace which we now stand in need of to keep us within the bounds of our Duty and to produce and maintain Charity in us is Pre-ingaging Delectation For as Pleasure produces and maintains the Love of those things which occasion it or seem to occasion it the Pre-ingaging Pleasures we receive in relation to our Bodies produce and maintain Cupidity in us So that being directly contrary to Charity unless God were pleased to produce and maintain Charity in us by Pre-ingaging Delectations it is plain that the Pre-ingaging Pleasures of Concupiscence would weaken it proportionably as Cupidity should be strengthned What I say here supposes that God permits our Concupiscence to Act in us and that he does not weaken it by inspiring us with horror against all sensible Objects which as a result of Sin must needs tempt us I speak of things as they commonly happen But supposing that God diminishes Concupiscence instead of increasing the Delectation of Grace that may produce the same Effects We are sensible that there are two ways of putting Scales in Equilibrio when one of them is over-charged not only in adding Weights to the other side to even it but also in removing some of the other weights which bear it down Neither do I pretend that Men can do no good Actions without Pre-ingaging Delectation I have sufficiently explained my self upon that subject in the 4th Chapter of the 3d Book And it appears so evident to me that a Man who has the Love of God in his Heart may by the force of his Love and without Pre-ingaging Delectation give for Example a Penny to the Poor or bear some small injury with patience that I can not apprehend how any body can question it In my opinion Delectation is only necessary when the Temptation is Strong or Love Weak If however it may be said that it is absolutely necessary to a righteous Man whose Faith I think may be firm enough and his Hopes strong enough to overcome great Temptations The joy or fore-tast of Eternal Happiness being capable to resist the sensible Charms of Transitory Pleasures It is true that Delectation or Actual Grace is necessary for all good Actions if by the Word Delectation or Grace is understood Charity as St. Austin commonly takes it for it is evident that what ever is not done for God is no wise good But removing the Equivocation and taking the Word Delectation in my sense I do not think any body can question what I have said But this is the Case It is supposed that Pleasure and Love are one and the same thing because the one seldom goes without the other and St. Augustin does not always distinguish them And this being supposed Men are in the right in saying what they say We may conclude with St. Austin Quod amplius nos delectat secundum id operemur necesse est for Men certainly Will that which they Love and we may also say that we can do nothing good or meritorious without Delectation or without Charity But I hope to shew in an Explanation I shall give upon the Treatise of the Passions that there is as much difference betwixt Pleasure and Deliberate or Indeliberate Love as there is betwixt our Knowledge and our Love or to express that difference sensibly as there is between the Figure of a Body and its Motion AN EXPLANATION OF What I have said at the beginning of the 10th Chapter of the First Book and in the 6th of the Second Book of Method That it is very difficult to prove that there are Bodies Which must be understood of the the Proofs that are alledged of their Existence IT is very usual among Men to be perfectly ignorant of what they think they understand best and to understand certain things pretty well which they fancy they have not so much as Ideas of When their Senses have some share in their Judgments they yield to what they do not apprehend or to things they have but a very imperfect knowledge of and when their Ideas are purely Intellectual I desire the like Expressions may be allowed me they unwilling receive Indisputable Demonstrations For Example What can the generality of Men think when the major part of Metaphysical Truths are proved to them When the Existence of God is demonstrated to them the Power of his Will the Immutability of his Decrees That there is but one God or one real Cause which does all in all things That there is but one soveraign Reason of which all Intelligences participate That there is but one necessary Love which is the Principle of all Created Wills They think Men speak Words absolutely void of Sense that they have no Ideas of the things they advance and that they would do well to hold their Tongues Metaphysical Truths and Proofs having nothing that is sensible in them Men are not moved and consequently not convinced by them Nevertheless it is most certain that abstracted things are the most distinct and Metaphysical Truths are the clearest and the most evident Men say sometimes that they have no Ideas of God and that they have no knowledge of his Will and moreover think often as they say but 't is only because they fancy they do not know that which perhaps they know best For where is the Man who hesitates to answer when he is ask'd Whether God is Wise Just Powerful whether he is or is not Triangular Divisible Moveable Lyable to any Alteration Nevertheless it is impossible to answer without fear of being deceived whether certain qualifications agree not to a subject if one has no Ideas of that subject So likewise Where is the Man who dares say that God does not Act by the Plainest Means That he is Irregular in his Designs That he makes Monsters by a positive direct and particular Will and not by a kind of necessity In a Word That his Will is or may be contrary to the Order of which there is no Man but has some knowledge But if we had no Idea of the Will of God we might at least question whether he acts according to certain Laws which we clearly conceive he must follow supposing he will Act. Therefore Men have Ideas of things that are purely Intelligible and these Ideas are much clearer than those of sensible Objects Men are more certain of the Existence of
credit to the testimony of our Senses or of some Men who dare speak to us as our Masters Experience whatever Men may say does not countenance Prejudices For our Senses as well as our Masters according to the Flesh are only occasional causes of the instruction which the Eternal Wisdom gives us in the most secret part of our Reason But whereas that Wisdom teaches us by an operation which is no wise sensible we fancy that it is our Eyes or the Worlds of those who strike the Air at our Ears which produce that Light or pronounce that intelligible Voice which instructs us 'T is for that Reason as I have said elsewhere that Jesus Christ was not only satisfied with instructing us after an intelligible manner by his Divinity he thought fit also to instruct us after a sensible one by his Humanity He would show us that he was our Master in all things And because we cannot easily look within our selves to consult him as Eternal Truth Immutable Order and Intelligible Light he has made Truth sensible by his Words Order lovely by his Example Light visible by a Body which diminishes the splendour of it and yet we are still so ingrateful so injust so stupid and sensless as to look not only upon other Men as our Masters contrary to his express prohibition but perhaps even upon the most despicable and vile Bodies SECOND OBJECTION The Soul being more perfect than Bodies why should it not contain that in it self which represents them Why should not the Idea of Extension be one of its Modifications God only acts in it and modifies it We grant it But why should it see Bodies in God if it can see them in its own substance It is not material it is true But God though a pure Spirit sees Bodies in himself Why then should not the Soul see them in beholding it self though it be Spiritual ANSWER Do we not see that there is this difference between God and the Soul of Man that God is an Unlimited Universal and Infinite Being and that the Soul is a particular Species of Being 'T is one of the Properties of Infinity to be at once one and all things composed as it were of an Infinity of Perfections and so simple that every Perfection it possesses includes all others without any real distinction for as every Divine Perfection is Infinite it constitutes the whole Divine Being But the Soul being a Limited Being it cannot have Extension in it self without becoming Material Therefore God includes in himself all Bodies after an intelligible manner He sees their Essences or Ideas in his Wisdom and their Existence in his Love or in his Will It is necessary to say so since God made Bodies and knows what he has made even before any thing was made But the Soul cannot see that within it self which it does not include Moreover it cannot clearly see that which it does include it can only feel it confusedly But to explain this The Soul does not include intelligible Extension as one of its manners of Being because Extension is not a manner of Being it is really a Being We conceive Extension alone or without thinking on any thing else but we cannot conceive manners of Being without perceiving the Subject or Being whereof they are the manners We perceive that Extension without thinking on our Mind besides we cannot conceive Extension can be a Modification of ones Mind Extension being limited makes some figure and the limits of the Mind cannot be figured Extension having parts may be divided at least in some sense and we see nothing in the Soul that is divisible Therefore Extension which we see is not a manner pf the Minds Being and therefore cannot see it in it self How is it possible to see in one kind of Being all sorts of Beings and in one particular and finite Being a Triangle in general and an infinite number of Triangles For in fine the Soul perceives a Triangle or a Circle in general though it implyes a contradiction that the Soul could have a Modification in general The Sensations of Colour which the Soul ascribes to Figures make them particular because none of the Modifications of a particular Being can be general Certainly we may affirm what we conceive clearly We clearly conceive that Extension which we see is a thing distinct from us Therefore we may say that Extension is no Modification of our Being and it is really something that is distinct from us For we must observe that the Sun for instance which we see is not that which we behold The Sun and whatever is in the material World is not visible in it self I have proved it elsewhere The Soul cannot see the Sun to which it is immediately united Now we clearly see and plainly feel that the Sun is something distinct from us Therefore we speak against our Knowledge and our Conscience when we say that the Soul sees all Bodies which surround it in its own Modifications Pleasure Pain Taste Heat Colour all our Sensations and Passions are Modifications of our Soul But though they are so do we know them clearly Can we compare Heat with Taste Odour with Colour Can we distinguish the affinity there is between Red and Green and even between Green and Green It is not so with Figures we compare them one with another we exactly know their proportions we precisely perceive that the Square of the Diagonal of a Square is double to that Square What affinity can there be between those intelligible Figures which are very clear Ideas and the Modifications of our Soul which are only confused Sensations And why should we pretend that those intelligible Figures cannot be perceived by the Soul unless they are Modifications of it since the Soul knows nothing of what happens to it by clear Ideas but only by Conscience or Internal Sensation as I have proved elsewhere and shall prove it again in the following Explanation If we could only see the Figure of Bodies in our selves they would on the contrary be unintelligible to us for we know not our selves We are only darkness to our selves and must look out of our selves to see our selves and we shall never know what we are until we consider our selves in him who is our Light and in whom all things become Light For it is only in God that the most material Beings are perfectly intelligible but out of him the most Spiritual Substances become absolutely invisible The Idea of Extension which we see in God is very clear But as we do not see the Idea of our Soul in God we feel indeed that we are and what we actually have But it is impossible for us to discover what we are or any of the Modifications whereof we are capable THIRD OBJECTION There is nothing in God that is moveable there is nothing in him that is Figured if there be a Sun in the intelligible World that Sun is always equal to it self and the visible Sun appears
his Physician and though the Physician should prescribe bitter Medicines and which indeed are kinds of Poyson yet they must be taken for 't is experienced that these Poysons stay not in the Body but drive out with them those ill Humours that are the Cause of the Distemper Here it is that Reason or rather Experience must command the Senses provided the horrour of the presented Medicine is not new for if this horrour was as old as the Disease 't is a sign the Medicine is of the same Nature as the ill Humours that caused the Distemper and then perhaps it would only exasperate it However I believe that before we take strong Medicines to which we are averse we ought to begin with such as are more gentle and natural as by drinking much Water or taking an easie Vomit if the Appetite is lost and if we have much difficulty to vomit Water may attenuate the over-thick Humours and facilitate the Circulation of the Blood in all the parts of the Body Vomits cleanse the Blood and hinder the received Nourishment from any longer corrupting and feeding the intermitting Feavers But I must no further insist upon these things I believe that we ought to follow the Counsel of Wise Physicians who are not over-hasty nor rely too much upon their Medicines nor too quick in prescribing Remedies for when one is sick for one Medicine that does good there are always many that do hurt The Sick are impatient and as 't is not for the Honour of Physicians or the Profit of Apothecaries to visit the Sick without prescribing to them so also Physicians visit too seldom and prescribe too often therefore when one is sick he should pray his Phisician to hazard nothing but to follow Nature and fortifie it as much as he can he should acquaint him that he has more Reason and Patience than to take it ill that he is often visited without Relief for on these Occasions he sometimes does a great deal who does no hurt I believe then we should consult Physicians and not refuse to obey them if we would be well for though they cannot assure us a Recovery yet they may sometimes contribute much to it by reason of the repeated Experiments they make upon different Distempers They know little of any thing certainly yet they know more than we and if they take the pains to know our Constitutions carefully observe all the Accidents of the Distemper and have much regard to our own Sensations we may expect from them all the Assistance that we can reasonably hope from Men. What we have said of Phisicians may be also said of Divines it is absolutely necessary to consult them on some occasions and it is commonly profitable But it often happens that it is very unprofitable and sometimes very dangerous to consult them For Instance 'T is commonly said That Humane Reason is subject to Errour but there is something equivocal in this which we are not sufficiently aware of for we must not imagine that the Reason which Man consults is depraved or that it ever deceives when faithfully consulted I have said and still repeat it That it is sovereign Reason alone which makes us reasonable it is sovereign Truth which enlightens us and it is God only who speaks clearly to us and knows how to instruct us We have only one True Master Jesus Christ our Lord the Eternal Wisdom and the Word of the Father in whom are all the Treasures of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God and it is Impiety to say that this Eternal Reason of which all Men participate and through which they are only reasonable should be subject to Errour and capable of deceiving us For it is not the Reason of Man but his Heart that deceives him it is not his Light which hinders him from seeing his Darkness it is not the Union he has with God that deceives him it is not even in one Sense that he has with his Body It is his dependance upon his Body or rather it is because he will deceive himself because he will injoy the Pleasure of Judging before he has been at the Trouble of Examining because he will rest before he is come to the Place of Truth I have more exactly explained the Cause of our Errour in many places of the Search after Truth and here I suppose what I have there said And now I affirm it needless to consult Divines when we are assured that Truth speaks to us and it is certain that Truth speaks to us when we meet with Evidence in the Answers that are made to our Demands or the Attention of our Mind Therefore when we return into our selves and in the silence of our Senses and Passions hear a Voice so clear and intelligible that it is impossible to doubt of it let Men think what they please we must not consider Custom and secret Inclinations or have too great a respect for their Answers who are called Learned We must not suffer our selves to be seduced with an appearance of false Piety nor be dejected through their Oppositions who know not the Spirit that animates them but we must patiently suffer their Insults without condemning their Intentions or despising their Persons We must with simplicity of Heart rejoice at the Light of Truth which enlightens us and although its Answers condemn us we must prefer them before all the Subtle Distinctions which the Imagination invents for the Justification of the Passions Every Man for Instance who knows how to examine himself and to still the Noise of his Senses and Passions clearly discovers that all the Motion which God puts into us should be terminated upon himself and that even God cannot dispense with the Obligation we have of loving him in all things It is evident that God cannot but act for himself that he cannot create or preserve our Will to will any thing but him or to will any thing besides what he himself wills for I cannot see how it 's conceivable that God should will a Creature to have more love for what is less lovely or love chiefly or as its end what is not most lovely I know well that Men who consult their Passions instead of Order can easily imagine that God has no other Rule of his Wills than the same Wills and that if God follows Order 't is surely from this that he has willed it by a Will that is absolutely free and indifferent There are some who think there is no Order that is immutable and necessary by its nature and that the Order or Wisdom of God according to which he made all Things although the first of Creatures is it self a Creature made by a Free-will of God and not begotten of his Substance by the necessity of his Being But this Opinion which shakes all the Foundations of Morality by taking away from Order and the Eternal Laws which depend upon it their Immutability and which overturns all the Superstructure of the Christian Religion by despoyling
advance what they do not clearly conceive For if the Heathen Philosophers had a clear conception that Second Causes have a true Power to act and produce their like being a Man as well as they and with them partaking of the soveraign Reason I might probably discover the Idea which represented the Power to them but what efforts soever I make I can find no Strength Efficacy or Power but in the Will of the infinitely perfect Being Moreover when I think of the different Opinions of Philosophers upon this Subject I cannot doubt of what I advance For if they clearly saw what this Power of the Creatures is or what there is in them that is really powerful they would not differ in their Opinion about it When persons cannot agree and having no interested Reason which hinders them from it 't is a certain mark they have no clear Idea of what they say and that they understand not one another chiefly if they dispute upon such Subjects as are not complext or difficult to be discust like this Question before us For we should find no hard matter to resolve it if persons had but a clear Idea of a Created Power These are therefore some of their Opinions whereby we may see how little they agree amongst themselves For the most extraordinary of these Opinions see Suarez Metaph Disp 18. Sect. 2. Assert 2 3. Scot. in 4. sent dist 12.1 D. 37.2 D. 17. Paludan in 4. sent D. 12. Q. 1. Art 1. Peter 8. Phys Ch. 3. Conimb upon Aristotles Phys and many others which Suarez cites Some Philosophers here affirmed that Second Causes act by their Matter Figure and Motion and these in one Sense are in the right Others by a substantial Form Many by Accidents or Qualities Some by Matter and Form Others by Form and Accidents And some again by certain Vertues or distinct Faculties from all this There are others amongst them who maintain that Substantial Forms produce Forms and Accidental Forms Accidents Others that Forms produce both Forms and Accidents And some again that Accidents alone are capable of producing Accidents and Forms too See the Metaph. of Fonseca qu. 13. sect 3. That of Socin and Javell upon the same Question But we must not imagine that those for instance who say that Accidents can produce Forms by vertue of what they have received from the Form they are joyn'd to mean the same thing Some of them will have it that these Accidents themselves are only the Power or Vertue of the Substantial Form Others that they receive into themselves the influence of the Form and so act only by vertue of it And in fine some of them will only have them to be Instrumental Causes But these last are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves either what must be understood by Instrumental Cause or what is the vertue they receive from the Principal Cause The Philosophers don't so much as agree upon the action whereby Second Causes produce their Effects Some amongst them pretend that Causality ought not to be produced since that produces it self Others will have it that they act truly by their own action but find great difficulties in explaining precisely what this action is and there are about this so many different Opinions that I shall omit the reciting them Here is a great variety of different Sentiments although I have not related those of the Antient Philosophers or of such as were born in very remote Countries But we have reason enough to judge that they are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves upon the Subject of Second Causes no more than those we have already mentioned Avicen for instance thought Corporeal Substances could produce nothing but Accidents And this is his Hypothesis as Ruvio relates it He supposed that God immediately produced a most perfect Spiritual Substance and that this produced another less perfect and that a third and so on to the last which produced all Corporeal Substances and these Corporeal Substances Accidents But Avicembrom who could not apprehend how Corporeal Substances Ruvio l. 2. ph tract 4. qu. 2. which cannot penetrate one another should be capable of Alteration would have it that there were Spirits which were capable of acting on Bodies because they only could penetrate them For these Gentlemen not admitting a Void nor the Atoms of Democritus and the Subtil Matter of D' Cartes was unknown to them they could not think with Gassendus and the Cartesians That there were Bodies small enough to enter into the Pores of those which appear'd the most Hard and Solid It seems to me that this diversity of Opinions gives us a Right to judge That Men often spoke such Things as they did not understand and that the Power of the Creatures being a pure Fiction of the Mind of which we have no Natural Idea each Person imagined it what he pleased It is true in all Ages this Power was acknowledged as Real and True by most Men But it is as certain it was without any Proof I do not say Demonstration but even without such a Proof as was able to make any impression upon an Attentive Mind For the Confused Arguments which are maintained only upon the deceitful Testimony of the Senses and Imagination ought not to be received by those who make use of their Reason Aristotle speaking of what they call Nature sayes It is ridiculous to endeavour to prove That Natural Bodies have an Inward Principle of their own Motion and Rest Because sayes he it is self-evident He doubts not also but a Bowl which hits another has power to put it in motion It appears so to the Eyes and that 's enough for him for he commonly follows the Testimony of the Senses and rarely that of Reason never troubling himself whether it be intelligible or not Those who oppose the Opinion of some Divines that have writ against Second Causes say with Aristotle That the Senses convince us of their Efficacy This is their First and Principal Proof It is evident say they See Fonseca Ruvio Suarez and the rest already cited that Fire burns the Sun shines Water cools and he must be a Fool that doubts it The Authours of the contrary Opinion says the Great Averrors had their Brains disturbed We must say almost all the Peripatetics use Sensible Proofs to convince those who deny this Efficacy and so oblige them to confess They may be moved and hurt by Second Causes It is the Judgment which Aristotle has already pronounced against them and it ought to be executed But this pretended Demonstration cannot but produce pitty L. of his Topi. ch 1. since it discovers the Weakness of the Humane Mind and that even Philosophers themselves are infinitely more Sensible than Rational It discovers that those who glory in the Enquiry after Truth do not themselves know who they ought to consult to learn any thing of it Whether 't is the Soveraign Reason which never deceives them but always speaks Things as they
are in themselves or the Body which speaks only out of interest and in relation either to the preservation or conveniency of Life For in fine What Prejudices will not be justified if we take the Senses for Judges to whom almost all Prejudices owe their birth As I have already shewn in the Search after Truth When I see one Bowle hit another my Eyes tell me or seem to tell me that it is truly the Cause of the Motion it impresses For the true Cause which moves Bodies does not appear to my Eyes Bur when I ask my Reason I see evidently that Bodies cannot move themselves and their Moving power depending only upon the Will of God which successively preserves them in different places they cannot communicate a power which they have not nor could communicate if they had it For 't is plain there is a Wisdom requisite and one that is infinite too to regulate the Communication of Motions with the exactness proportion and uniformity that we see A Body moved cannot know the infinite number of Bodies it meets at every moment It is farther clear That although we should even suppose knowledge in it it could not have enough to regulate in the instant of the Shock the distribution of the Moving power it self is carried with If I open but my Eyes it appears plain to me that the Sun is very gloriously bright and seems not only to be visible it self but makes all the World so too 'T is that which covers the Earth with Flowers and Fruits which gives Life to Animals and which by its Heat penetrates into the very Bowels of the Earth and produces Stones Marbles and Metals there But when I consult Reason I see nothing of all this and if I consult it faithfully I clearly discover that my Senses seduce me and that it is God who performs all in all Things For knowing that whatever changes happen in the Body they have no other principle but the different communication of Motion which occur in visible or invisible Bodies I see that it is God who does all Things since it is his Will which Causes and his Wisdom which Regulates all these Communications I suppose that Local Motion is the principle of Generations Corruptions Alterations and generally of all the Changes which happen in the Body which is an Opinion that is now sufficiently received amongst the Learned But whatever Opinion they have about it signifies little for it seems much more easie to conceive that a Body drives another when it meets it than to apprehend how Fire produces Heat and Light and draw from the power of Matter a Substance which was not there before And if it be necessary to acknowledge That God is the True Cause of the different Communications of Motions by a much stronger Reason we ought to conclude That none but he can Create and Annihilate Real Qualities and Substantial Forms I say Create and Annihilate because at least it seems as difficult to me to draw from Matter a Substance which was not in it or to cause it to re-enter again as to Create or Annihilate it But I shall not stand upon Terms I only make use of them because there is no other which I know of that clearly and without Equivocation express the Changes which the Philosophers suppose every Moment to happen through the power of Second Causes I had some difficulty here to relate the other Proofs which they commonly give for the Power and Efficacy of Natural Causes for they appear so weak to those who are able to resist Prejudices and prefer their Reason to their Senses that it does not seem likely that reasonable Men should be perswaded by them Yet I will produce and Answer them since there are many Philosophers who make use of them The first Proof If Second Causes do effect nothing we could not says Suarez In his Metaph. Disp 18. Sect. 1. Assert 1. In Metaph. Arist qu. 7. Sect. 2. Fonseca and some others distinguish Animate from Inanimate Things for neither of them would have an inward principle of their Actions ANSWER I Answer That Men would have the same Sensible Proofs that have convinced them of the distinction they put between Animate and Inanimate Things They would alwayes see Animals perform Certain Actions as Eating Growing Crying Running Leaping c. Nor would they observe any thing like this in Stones And it is this only which makes the common Philosophers believe that Beasts live and Stones do not for it must not be imagined that they know by a clear and distinct View of the Mind what the Life of a Dog is It is their Senses which regulate their Decisions upon this Question If it were necessary I could here prove That the Principal of a Dog's Life differs very little if at all from that of the Motion of a Watch. For the Life of Bodies whatever they be can only consist in the motion of their parts and it is not difficult to judge that the same Subtil Matter which in a Dog causes the Fermentation of the Blood and Animal Spirits and is the principle of his Life is not more perfect than that which gives Motion to the Springs of a Watch or causes Gravitation in the Weights of a Clock which is the principle of their Life or to speak as others do of their Motion The Peripatetics ought to give to those whom they stile Cartesians a clear Idea of what they call The Life of Beasts Corporeal Soul Body which perceives desires sees feels wills and afterwards we will clearly resolve their difficulties if they continue to propose them The Second Proof We could not discover the Differences nor Powers of the Elements So that Fire might cool as Water does and the Nature of nothing would be settled and fixed ANSWER I Answer That Nature continuing as it is that is whilst the Laws of the communication of Motions remain constantly the same it is a contradiction that Fire should not burn or not separate the parts of certain Bodies Fire cannot cool like Water except it becomes Water For Fire being only fewel whose parts have been agitated with a violent Motion by an invisible Matter which incompasses them as is easie to be demonstrated it is impossible these parts should not communicate some of their Motion to the Bodies which they meet Now as these Laws are constant the Nature of Fire its vertues and qualities cannot change But this Nature and these Vertues are only consequences of the general and efficacious Will of God who does all in all things as we learn from the Scripture So that the study of Nature is false and vain in every respect when we seek for any other true Causes than the Will of the ALMIGHTY I own we must not have recourse to God or the Universal Cause when we inquire into the reason of particular Effects For we should make our selves ridiculous if for instance we said that 't was God who dryes the wayes or
freezes the Water in Rivers We must say that the Air dryes the Earth because it agitates and sucks up the Water which is tempered with it And that the Air or subtle Matter freezes Rivers in Winter because it does not then communicate motion enough to the parts of which the Water is composed In a word we must if we can give the Natural and Particular Cause of the Effects produced But as the action of these Causes consist only in the Moving Power which acts them and that this Moving Power is nothing else but the Will of God who creates them or successively preserves them in different places we must not say that they have in themselves a Strength or Power to produce any Effects And when in Reasoning we are at last come to a general Effect whose Cause we seek 't would be a very ill way of Philosophizing to imagine any other besides the general one And to feign a Certain Nature a First Moveable an Vniversal Soul or some such like Chimera of which we have no clear and distinct Idea would be to argue like the Heathen Philosophers For instance When we are ask't whence it comes that some Bodies are in Motion or how the Air when agitated communicates its Motion to the Water or rather from whence it proceeds that Bodies impell one another As Motion and its communication is a general Effect whereupon all others depend it is necessary I dont say to be a good Christian but to be a Philosopher to recur to God who is the Universal Cause since 't is his Will which is the Moving Power of Bodies and which also regulates the communication of their Motions If he had Will'd there should be no new production in the World he would not have put the parts of it in Motion And if he should hereafter Will the incorruptibility of any of the Beings he has Created he would cease to Will certain communications of Motions in respect to these Beings The Third Proof All Labour would be useless 't would be un necessary to water and to give certain preparatory dispositions to Bodies to fit them for what we desire of them For God has no need of preparing the subjects upon which he acts ANSWER Suarez in the same place To which I Reply That God can absolutely do what he pleases without finding any dispositions in the subjects he works upon But he cannot do it without a Miracle or by Natural wayes that is according to the general Laws of the communication of the Motions he has established and according to which he generally acts God never multiplies his Wills without Reason but alwayes acts by the most simple wayes and therefore he makes use of the meeting of Bodies in giving them Motion not as their shock is absolutely necessary to move them as our Senses tell us but because that being the occasion of the communication of Motion there needs only a few Natural Laws to produce all the admirable Effects that we see For by this means we can reduce all the Laws of the communication of Motion to one only which is That Bodies which shock each other being look'd upon but as one in the moment of their contact or shock the Moving Power is at their separation divided between them according to the proportion of their magnitude But as concuring Bodies are incompassed with an infinite number of other Bodies which act upon them by vertue and efficacy of this Law how constant and uniform soever it may be it produces an infinite number of different communications because it acts upon infinite Bodies which all relate to one another See the last Chap. of the Search after Truth It is necessary to water a Plant to make it grow because according to the Laws of the communication of Motions there is scarce any other but watery Particles which by their Motion and Figure can insinuate themselves and enter the Fibres of the Plants and by various uniting themselves together take the Figure necessary for their Nourishment The subtle matter which the Sun continually diffuses may by agitating the Water draw it up into the Plants but it has not Motion enough to raise gross Particles of Earth However the Earth and even the Air are necessary to the growth of Plants The Earth to preserve the Water at their Root and the Air to excite a moderate fermentation in the same Water But the action of the Sun Air and Water consist only in the Motion of their parts and to speak properly none but God can act For as I have just said there is only he who by the efficacy of his Will and infinite extent of his Knowledge can produce and regulate the infinite communications or Motions which are made every moment and according to an infinite exact and regular proportion The Fourth Proof Can God oppose or resist himself Bodies meet shock and resist one another therefore God acts not in them except by his concurrence For if he only produced and preserved Motion in Bodies he would divert them before their meeting since he knows very well that they are impenetrable Why should Bodies be impelled to be thrown back again or made to advance that they may recoil Or wherefore are useless Motions produced and preserved Is it not extravagant to say that God fights against himself and destroys his own works when a Bull opposes a Lion or a Wolf devours a Sheep and a Sheep eats the Grass which he gave growth to Therefore there are Second Causes ANSWER Then Second Causes do every thing and God does nothing at all For God cannot act against himself and to concur is to act Concurring to contrary actions is giving contrary concourses and consequently a performing contrary actions To concur with the action of the Creatures which resist one another is to act against himself and to concur to useless Motions is to act unusefully Now God does nothing in vain he performs no actions contrary to one another Therefore he concurs not in the action of the Creatures who often destroy one another and make useless actions and motions Hither 't is that this Proof of Second Causes conducts us but let us examine what Reason teaches us about it God does all in every thing and nothing resists him He performs all things since 't is by his Wills that all Motions are produced and regulated and nothing resists him because whatever he wills is effected And thus it ought to be conceived He having resolved to produce by the most simple wayes as the most conformable to order this infinite variety of Creatures that we admire he determined Bodies to move in a right line because this line is the most simple But Bodies being impenetrable and their Motions inclining to opposite lines or such as intersect they must necessarily meet one another and consequently cease to move in the same manner God foresaw this and nevertheless positively willed the meeting or opposition of Bodies not because he was pleased
Bodies although it appears incomprehensible how could we conceive that the Soul could move the Body The Arm for Instance is only moved by means of the dilatation or contraction of some of the Muscles which compose it And that the Motion which the Soul impresses on the Spirits that are in the Brain may be communicated to those in the Nerves and these to others which are in the Muscles of the Arms it 's requisite that the Determinations of the Soul should be multiplied or changed in proportion to the almost infinite Occurrences or Shocks which would be made by the little Bodies which constitute the Spirits But this cannot be conceived without admitting in the Soul an infinite number of Wills at the least Motion of the Body since to move it an infinite number of communications of Motions are necessary For the Soul being but a particular Cause and which cannot exactly know either the greatness or number of an infinite Variety of little Bodies which mutually strike each other when the Spirits are dispersed into the Muscles it could neither establish a general Law for the communication of the Motions of these Spirits nor exactly follow it if it were established So that it is plain the Soul could not move its Arm although it had the power of determining the Motion of the Animal Spirits These Things are too clear for us to stand any longer upon them It is the same thing with our Faculty of Thinking By inward sensation we know that we would think on something and make some effort to that end and that in the instant of our Desire and Endeavour the Idea of this Thing presents it self to the Mind But we do not discover by inward sensation that our Will or Endeavour produces our Idea nor does Reason tell us it can do it It is through Prejudice that we are perswaded that our Desires cause our Ideas whilst we prove an hundred times a day that the latter follows or attends the former As God and his Operations have nothing sensible in them and as we do not feel any thing else but our Desires which precede the presence of our Ideas we think there can be no other Cause of them But if we observe the Matter more closely we shall discover we have no power in our selves to produce them For neither Reason nor the inward sensation we have of our selves give us any information of it I do not think I am obliged to relate all the other Proofs that are made use of by these Defenders of the Efficacy of Second Causes because they appear so weak that it might be imagined I only intended to render them ridiculous and if I should answer them seriously I should become ridiculous my self An Author for Instance asserts very seriously in favour of his Opinion That Created Beings are True Material Formal Final Causes and why then should they not also be Efficient or Efficacious Causes I believe I should not very well satisfie the World if in Answer to the Demand of this Author I should stay to explain so gross an Equivocation and show the difference between an Efficacious Cause and that which some Philosophers have been pleased to call a Material one So that I shall omit some of the like Proofs to come to those they have taken from the Holy Scripture The Seventh Proof Those who maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes commonly bring the following passages to support their Opinion Let the Earth bring forth Grass Gen. 1. Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creatures that hath life and Fowl that may fly c. Therefore the Earth and the Water have from the Word of God received Power to produce Plants and Animals After which God commands the Fowls and the Fish to multiply Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Waters in the Seas and let Fowl multiply in the Earth Therefore he has given them Power to beget their like JESVS CHRIST in the Fourth Chapter of St. Mark sayes That the Seed which falls on good ground shall bring forth an hundred fold and that the Earth bringeth forth fruits of her self first the blade then the ear and afterwards the full corn Lastly it is also written in the Book of Wisdom That the Fire had as it were forgotten the Power it had of burning in favour of the People of God 'T is therefore confirmed by the Old and New Testament that Second Causes have a Power to act ANSWER I Answer That in the Holy Scripture there is also many passages which attribute to God the pretended Efficacy of Second Causes of which these are some Ego sum Dominus faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram NVLLVS mecum Isa 44.24 Manus tuae fecerunt me plasmaverunt me TOTVM in circuitu Job 10.8 Nescio qualiter in utero meo apparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI sed enim Mundi Creator qui hominis formavit nativitatem c. Mac. l. 2. c. 7.22 23. Cum ipse DEVS dat omnibus vitam inspirationem omnia Acts 17.25 Producens foenum jumentis herbam servituti hominum ut educas panem de terrâ Psal 103. 48. There is an infinite number of the like passages but these may suffice When an Author seems to contradict himself and Natural Equity or some stronger Reason obliges us to reconcile him to himself It seems to me that we have an infallible Rule to discover his true Opinion since we need but observe when he speaks according to his own Understanding and when in compliance with the common Opinion When a Man speaks like the rest of the World it is not alwayes a certain sign he is of their Opinion But when he speaks positively contrary to what we are accustomed to say although he should say it but once we have a great deal of Reason to believe 't is what he thinks provided we know he speaks seriously and having first well considered it For instance An Author speaking of the Properties of Animals if he should in an hundred places say that Beasts feel that Dogs know their Master love and fear him and should only in two or three places say Beasts are insensible and Dogs uncapable of knowing loving or fearing any thing How shall we reconcile this Author who appears to contradict himself Must we not collect all the passages for and against it and judge of his Opinion by the greatest number If so I don't believe there is any Man to whom for example we may attribute this Opinion that Animals have no Souls For the Cartesians themselves often say that a Dog feels when he is beaten and 't is very rarely that they deny him feeling And although I have incountered an infinite number of prejudices in this Book we may draw many passages from thence whereby if this Rule I have explained be received we may prove that I have established them all and even that I hold the Opinion of the Efficacy of
Second Causes which I have just now Refuted Or perhaps it might be concluded That The Search after Truth is a Book full of visible and gross Contradictions as some Persons do who it may be have not equity or penetration enough to make them fit Judges of the Works of others The Holy Scripture the Fathers and most good Men oftener speak of sensible Goods Riches and Honours according to the common Opinion than according to the true Ideas they have of them JESVS CHRIST introduces Abraham speaking to the wicked Rich Man Fili recepisti BONA in vita tua Thou hast received thy good things in thy life time that is Riches Honours What we through prejudice call good our good that is our Gold or our Silver is in an hundred places in the Scripture called our Maintenance or our Substance and even our Honesty or that which honours us Pawpertas honestas á Deo sunt But must this manner of speaking used by the Holy Scripture Eccl. 11.14 and most Pious Persons make us think they contradict themselves or that they look upon Riches and Honours as real goods and that therefore we ought to love and seek after them No without doubt because these wayes of speaking complying with prejudices signifie nothing And we see in other places JESVS CHRIST has compared Riches to Thorns has told us we must renounce them because they are deceitful and that whatsoever is great and alluring in this World is an abomination before God We must not therefore collect the passages of Scripture or of the Fathers to judge of their Opinion by the greatest number of them except we would continually attribute the most unreasonable prejudices to them This once supposed Matth. 6.28 29 30. we see that the Holy Scripture positively sayes That 't is God who has Created every thing even the grass of the field That 't is he who cloaths the Lillies with such ornaments as our SAVIOVR prefers before the Glory of Solomon There is not only two or three but an infinite number of passages which ascribe to God the pretended Efficacy of Second Causes and which destroy the Nature of the Peripatetics Besides we are carried by a kind of Natural Prejudice not to think on God in common Effects and to attribute Power and Efficacy to Natural Causes and seldom any thing but Miracles induce us to think on him as the Author of them And the sensible impression ingages us in favour of Second Causes Philosophers hold this Opinion because say they the Senses convince us of it and this is their strongest Proof Lastly This Opinion is received by all those who follow the Judgments of the Senses Our common Language is formed from this prejudice and we as generally say that Fire has a power to burn as we call Gold and Silver our good Therefore the passages drawn from the Holy Scriptures or the Fathers for the Efficacy of Second Causes prove no more than those that an Ambitious or Covetous Man shall choose to justifie his own Conduct But 't is quite different with those passages we may bring to prove that God does all things For this Opinion being contrary to Prejudice these passages must be understood in their utmost rigour for the same Reason that we ought to believe that 't is the Sentiments of the Cartesians that Beasts are insensible although they have said it but two or three times and continually say to the contrary in all familiar Discourses affirming they feel see and understand In the First Chapter of Genesis God commands the Earth to produce Plants and Animals and likewise the Waters to bring forth Fish And consequently sayes the Peripatetics Water and Earth have received a Power capable of producing these Effects I don't see the certainty of this Conclusion And although we were even obliged to explain this Chapter by it self without having any recourse to other passages of Scripture there would be no necessity to receive this consequence This way of explaining the Creation is accommodated to our conception of things therefore 't is not necessary to take it literally nor ought we to make use of it to maintain Prejudices As Animals and Plants are upon the Earth Fowls live in the Air and Fish in the Water so God to make us apprehend 't is by his Order they are in these places has produced them there 'T is from the Earth that he formed Animals and Plants not that the Earth was capable of generating them or that God to that end gave it a Power or Vertue which it still keeps for we all agree that the Earth does not produce Horses or Oxen but because from the Earth the Bodies of these Animals were formed as is declared in the following Chapter Formatis igitur Dominus Deus de humo cunctis animantibus Terrae Ver. 19. universis volatilibus Coeli Animals were formed out of the Earth formatis de humo and not produced by the Earth Also after Moses has related how Beasts and Fish were produced by vertue of the Command which God gave the Earth and Water to produce them he adds that 't was God himself who made them that we might not attribute their production to the Earth and Water CREAVIT quae DEVS cete grandia omnem animam viventem atque notabilem quam PRODVXERVNT aquae in species suas omne volatile secundùm genus suum And a little lower after having spoken of the formation of Animals he adds Et FECIT DEVS bestias terrae juxta species suas jumenta omne reptile terrae in genere suo We may observe by the by that where the Vulgar reads it Producant aquae reptile animae viventis volatile super terram the Hebrew has it Volatile VOLITET For as it clearly appears by the passage I related from the Second Chapter this word omitted shows that Fowls were not produced from the Water and that the design of Moses is not here to prove that the Waters had received a true Power to bring forth Fish and Fowl but only to denote the place design'd for each by the Order of God whether to live or be produced in And volatile VOLITET super terram For commonly when we say that the Earth produces Trees and Plants we only design to show that it supplyed them with the Water and Salt which is necessary for their Germination and Growth But I will stay no longer to explain the other passages of Scripture which literally taken favour Second Causes for we are not obliged Besides 't would be very dangerous to understand such expressions literally as are maintained upon common Opinions agreeably to which the Language is formed the Vulgar speaking every thing according to the impression of the Senses and prejudices of Infancy The same Reason which obliges us to take such passages of the Scripture in the Letter as are directly opposite to Prejudices still gives us just cause to believe that the Fathers never
designed either to maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes or the Nature of Aristotle For although they often spoke after such a manner as favoured Prejudices and the Judgments of the Senses Omnia quippe portenta contra Naturam dicimus esse sed non sunt quomodo enim est contra Naturam quod Dei fit voluntate Cum volantes tanti utique conditorio conditae rei cujusque Natura sit Portentum ergo fit non contra Naturam sed contra quam est nota Natura St. Aug. de Civitate Dei l. 21. c. 8. they sometimes so explained themselves as sufficiently discovered the disposition of their Mind and Heart St. Austin for instance believed the Will of God to be the Power or Nature of every thing as he declares when he speaks thus We are wont to say that Prodigies are against Nature but 't is not true For the Will of the Creator being the Nature of all Creatures how can what is performed by the Will of God be contrary to Nature Miracles or Prodigies therefore are not against Nature but only against what we know of Nature 'T is true St. Austin speaks in many places according to Prejudices But I affirm that proves nothing since we ought to explain literally only such passages as are opposite to Prejudices for the Reasons I have already given If St. Austin in all his Works had never said any thing against the Efficacy of Second Causes but had alwayes favoured this Opinion we might perhaps make use of his Authority to establish it Yet if it does not appear that he ever seriously examined this Question we should alwayes have had Reason to think that his Judgment was not determined upon this Subject and that 't was not impossible but he might be drawn by the impression of his Senses without Reflection to have believed a thing which appeared undoubted until it was carefully examined It is certain for instance that St. Austin alwayes spoke of Beasts as if they had a Soul I don't say a Corporeal one for that Holy Father too well knew the distinction between the Soul and Body to believe there were Corporeal Souls I say a Spiritual Soul for Matter is incapable of Sensation Yet I believe it more reasonable to make use of his Authority to prove that Beasts have no Souls than to prove they have any For from the Principles he has carefully examined and strongly establish'd it manifestly follows they have none Some of St. Austins Principles are these That what has not sinned can never suffer evil Now according to him Pain is the greatest evil and Beasts suffer it That the most noble cannot have the least noble for its end But with him the Soul of Beasts is Spiritual and more noble than the Body and yet has no other end than the Body That what is Spiritual is Immortal and the Soul of Beasts that 's Spiritual is subject to Death There are many such like Principles in the Works of St. Austin from whence it may be concluded that Beasts have no such Spiritual Soul as he admits in them See c. 22 23. de Anima ejus origine as is shown by Ambrose Victor in his Sixth Volume of Christian Philosophy But the Sentiment that Beasts have a Soul or feel Pain when they are beaten being agreeable to Prejudices for there 's no Child who does not believe it we have alwayes reason to think that St. Austin speaks upon this matter according to the general Opinion and never seriously examined the Question and that if he had but begun to doubt and make any reflection upon it he would not have said a thing which is so contrary to his Principles Thus although the Fathers should alwayes have favoured the Efficacy of Second Causes perhaps we should not have been obliged to have had any regard to their Opinion if it had appeared that they had not carefully examined the matter And that what they should have said had been only a Consequence of the Language which is formed and established upon Prejudice But 't is certainly the contrary For the Fathers the most Pious Persons and those who have been best instructed in Religion have commonly snown by some places of their Works what was the disposition of theis Mind and Heart in respect to this matter The most Learned and also the greatest number of Divines seeing on one side that the Holy Scripture was contrary to the Efficacy of Second Causes and on the other that the impression of the Causes publick Laws and chiefly the Philosophy of Aristotle established it For Aristotle thought that God did not concern himself in Sublunary Affairs because it was unworthy his grandeur And that Nature which he supposed in all Bodies was sufficient to produce what happened here below The Divines I say have found this Medium to reconcile Faith with the Heathen Philosophy and Reason with the Senses that Second Causes do nothing except God concurs with them But because this immediate concourse whereby God acts with Second Causes includes great difficulties some Philosophers have rejected it pretending that in order to their acting 't was enough if God preserved them with the same vertue he at first created them And because this Opinion is absolutely conformable to Prejudice and because the operation of God in Second Causes is not sensible it is therefore commonly received by the Vulgar and by those who apply themselves more to the Physicks of the Antients than to Divinity and the Meditation of the Truth The generality of the World believe that God at first Created all things and gave them all the necessary qualities or faculties for their preservation That he has for instance given the first Motions to Matter and afterwards left it to it self to produce by the Communication of its Motions this variety of admirable forms We commonly suppose that Bodies can move one another and even attribute this Opinion to Des Cartes although he expresly speaks against it in the 36th and 37th Articles of the Second Part of his Philosophical Principles Though Man cannot hinder himself from acknowledging that the Creatures depend upon God yet he lessens this dependence as much as possible either through a secret aversion to God or a wretched stupidity and insensibility in respect to his operation But as this Sentiment is chiefly received by those who have not much studied Religion and who often rather follow their Senses and the Authority of Aristotle than their Reason and that of the Holy Scriptures we have not so much reason to fear its establishment in the Minds of those who have any love for Truth and Religion For a little Application in the Examination of this Opinion will easily discover its falsity But that Notion of the immediate concourse of God to each action of Second Causes seems to agree with those passages of Scripture which often attribute the same effect both to God and the Creatures We must consider then that there are
and gives us Motion and Life nor is it that which covers the Earth with Fruits and Flowers and which supplies us with Food and Nourishment This Philosophy teaches us with the Scripture that it is God only who gives Rain and regulates the Seasons who gives Nourishment to the Body and fills the Heart with Joy Acts 14.15 16. Ergo nihil agis ingratissimè Mortalium qui te negas Deo debere sed naturae quia nec natura sine Deo est nec Deus sine natura sed idem est utrumque nec distat Officium si quod à Seneca accipisses Annoeo te diceres debere vel Lucio Non creditorem mutares sed nomen Seneca l. 4. Of Benefits c. 8. Ego Dominus non est alter formans lucem creans tenebras faciens pacem creans malum Ego Dominus ficiens omnia haec Isa 45.7 Amos 3.6 That he only is capable of doing us good and thereby has given us a perpetual Testimony of what he is although in Ages passed he has permitted all Nations to walk in their own ways According to the Language of this Philosophy we must not say That it is Nature that fills us with Good nor that it is God and Nature together But that it is God alone speaking thus without Equivocation that we may not deceive the Simple For we must distinctly acknowledge him the onely Cause of our Happiness if we would make him the onely Object of our Love 'T is likewise an undoubted Truth That we ought to fear such Things as are able to hurt us and fear them in proportion to the Evil they can do us But this Philosophy tells us That it is God alone that can do us Evil that it is he as Isaiah says who creates Darkness as well as Light who makes peace and creates Evil and even that no Evil happens but from him according to the Prophet So that it is him alone we ought to fear We must not fear either Plague or War Famine our Enemies nor even Devils themselves but God alone We ought to fly a Sword when ready to wound us shun Fire and avoid a House that is likely to fall upon us yet must not fear these Things We may fly such Bodies as are Occasional or Natural Causes of Evil but we must fear only God as the True Cause of all Evils and Misfortunes and only hate Sin which necessarily provokes the Cause of all our Happiness to become the Cause of all our Evils And in short all the Motions of our Minds ought to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to it and the Motions of our Body may relate to those about it This is what we learn from that Philosophy which admits not the Efficacy of Second Causes But this Efficacy being supposed I cannot see but we have some reason to fear and love Bodies And that to regulate our Love according to Reason it is enough to prefer God above every Thing else the First and Universal to Second and Particular Causes Then it is not necessary to love God with all our strength Ex totâ mente ex toto corde ex tota anima ex totis viribus at the Scripture says Yet when we content our selves with preferring God to all other Beings and adore him with a Love of Esteem and Preference without continually endeavouring to honour and love him in all Things it often happens that we deceive our selves that our Charity is dissipated and lost and that we are more taken up with Sensible than the Soveraign Good For if the greatest Sinners and it may be even Idolaters were asked If they preferred not the universal to particular Causes They would not perhaps be afraid in the midst of their Debauches and Extravagancies to Answer That they failed not in so Essential a Duty and knew very well what they owed to God I confess they would deceive themselves but take away the Efficacy of Second Causes and they will have no probable pretext to Justifie their Conduct And if it be supposed they may say this for themselves when their passions blind them and they listen to the Testimony of their Senses Since I am made to be happy I neither can nor ought to forbear loving and respecting whaterver may be the Cause of my Happiness Why therefore should I not love and respect Sensible Objects since they are the True Causes of the Happiness I receive in their Enjoyment I acknowledge the Supream Being is alone worthy of our highest Adoration and I prefer him to every Thing but not seeing that he requires any Thing of me I enjoy the Goods he has given me by the means of Second Causes to which he has subjected me and I pay no Acknowledgments to him which perhaps would dishonour him As he does me no good immediately and by himself or at least without the Assistance of the Creatures it is a sign he does not require my Mind and Heart should be immediately applied to himself or at least he is willing that the Creatures should divide with him the Acknowledgments of my Heart and Mind Since he has communicated a part of his Power and Glory to the Sun has surrounded him with Brightness and Majesty Established him Supream over all his Works and 't is by the Influence of this Great Luminary that we receive all the Necessary Goods of Life Why should we not then employ a part of this Life in enjoying his Light and testifying the sense we have of his Greatness and Benefits Would it not be the utmost Ingratitude to receive the Abundance of all Things from this Excellent Creature and have no Sentiment of Gratitude for it And would it not likewise be an unaccountable blindness and stupidity to have no Motion of respect and fear for him whose absence freezes us to death and who by approaching too near us may burn up and destroy us I say it again that God is preferable to all Things that we must esteem and love him infinitely more than the Creatures but that we must also love and fear them For thereby we honour Him who made them merit his Favours and oblige him to bestow New Benefits upon us It is plain he approves of the Honour we pay his Creatures since he has communicated his Power to them and all Power merits Honour But as Honour ought to be proportioned to Power and that the Power of the Sun and all Sensible Objects is such that from them we receive all sorts of Goods it is just we should honour them with all our strength and next to God consecrate our whole Being to them Thus we naturally reason when we follow the Prejudice we have received from the Efficacy of Second Causes 't is probably after this manner that the first Authors of Idolatry reasoned Here is what he thought of it who is esteemed the most Learned of the Jews He thus begins a Treatise he
wrote about Idolatry In the Days of Enos Men fell into strange Delusions R. Moses Maimonides and the Wise Men of that Time perfectly lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was in the Number of those deceived Persons These were their Errours Since God said they has created the Stars and the Heavens to govern the World has placed them on high surrounded them with brightness and glory and employes them to exexecute his Orders it is just that we should honour them and pay reverence and homage to them 'T is the Will of our God that we should honour those whom he has raised and exalted in Glory even as a Prince requires we should honour his Ministers in his presence because the Honour we give to them redounds to himself After they had once received this Notion they began to build Temples in honour of the Stars to offer Sacrifices and Praises to them and even prostrate themselves before them thinking thereby to gain the favour of him who created them And this was the original of Idolatry It is so Natural and Just to have Sentiments of Acknowledgment in proportion to the Benefits we receive See Vossius l. 2. de Idolatria that almost all the World have adored the Sun Ipsi qui irridentur Aegyptii nullam belluam nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent consecraverant Cic. l. 1. de Natura Deorum because they all thought he was the cause of the Happiness they injoyed And if the Egyptians have adored not only the Sun the Moon and the River Nilus because its overflowings caused the fruitfulness of their Country but also the vilest Animals 't was as Cicero relates because of some benefit they received from them So that as we cannot and indeed ought not to banish out of Mens Minds the inclination they Naturally have for the true Causes of their Happiness it is evident that there is at least some danger in maintaining the Efficacy of Second Causes although we joyn thereto the necessity of an immediate concourse which has I know not what of incomprehensible in it and which comes in as an after-game to justifie our Prejudices and Aristotles Philosophy But there is no danger in speaking only what we know and atributing Power and Efficacy to God alone since we see nothing but his Wills which have an absolute necessary and indispensable connection with Natural Effects I confess that Men are now knowing enough to avoid the gross Errors of the Heathens and Idolaters But I am not afraid to say that our Mind is disposed or rather that our Heart is often inclined like that of the Heathens and that there will alwayes be some kind of Idolatry in the World until the day that Jesus Christ shall again deliver up his Kingdom to God his Father having first destroyed all Empire Power and Dominion that God may be all in all Quorum Deus venter est Phil. 13.9 Omnis fornicator aut immundus aut avarus quod est idolorum servitus Eph. 5.5 In spiritu veritate oportet adorare John 4.24 For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of our Belly as St. Paul speaks Is it not to idolize the God of Riches continually to labour after Worldly Possessions Is this to render to God the Worship due to him to adore him in Spirit and Truth to have our Hearts filled with some sensible Beauty and our Minds dazled with the brightness of some imaginary Grandeur Men believing they receive from the Bodies which are about them the Pleasures they injoy by their use they unite themselves to them with all the Powers of their Soul And thus the principal of their disorder proceeds from the sensible conviction they have of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is Reason only that tells them there is none but God acts in them But besides that Reason speaks so low that they can scarcely hear it and the Senses which oppose it cry so loud that it stupifies them they are still confirmed in their Prejudices by Arguments which are so much the more dangerous as they bear external Characters and sensible Marks of Truth The Philosophers and chiefly the Christian Philophers ought continually to oppose Prejudices or the Judgments of the Senses and especially such dangerous ones as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet I know not from what Principle there are some Persons whom I extreamly honour and that with reason who endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and even to make this Doctrine pass for superstitious and extravagant which is so holy pure and solid and maintains that God alone is the true cause of every thing They will not have us love and fear God in all things but love and fear all things in relation to God We ought say they to love the Creatures because they are good to love and respect our Father render honour to our Prince and Superiour since God commands it I don't deny it but I deny that we must love the Creatures as our goods although they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters For we must neither serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design but to serve God and obey him This is what St. Paul sayes who became all things to all Men and complyed in all things for the Salvation of those to whom he Preached Servi obedite Dominis carnalibus cum timore tremore in simplicitate cordis vestri SICVT CHRISTO Non ad oculum servientes quasi omnibus placentes sed ut servi Christi facientes voluntatem Dei ex animo cum bona voluntate servientes SICVT DOMINI ET NON HOMINIBVS And in another Epistle Non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes sed in simplicitate cordis DEVM TIMENTES Quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini SICVT DOMINO ET NON HOMINIBVS We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and render honour to our Superiours AS VNTO GOD AND NOT VNTO MAN Sicut Domini non Hominibus This is clear and can never have any bad consequences Superiours would alwayes be more honoured and better served But I believe I may say that a Master who would be honoured and served as having in himself another Power than that of God must be a Devil and that those who served him under that Notion would be Idolaters for I can't but believe that all Honour and Love that tend not towards God are kinds of Idolatry SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA AN EXPLANATION Of what I have said in the Fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method and elsewhere That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most Simple Wayes IT seems to some Persons to be too rash a Conjecture or an abusing of indeterminate and general Terms to say That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most simple wayes in
alledged on either side about certain Opinions 't will perhaps be useful to show here by some particular instance that much use may be made of the Principle that we have established viz. That God alwayes acts by the most simple means Let us suppose for instance that I am desirous to know whether I ought every day to take certain stated times to examine my self to represent to my self my weakness and miseries to consider my Duty in the Presence of God and to beseech him to assist me in conquering my Passions Or else whether I ought to stay till the Spirit of God who blows where and when it pleases should take me from my self and from my ordinary imployments to unite me to himself for very probable Reasons may be given both for and against these Opinions and Men are very often satisfied with Probabilities in such like cases And this even makes some Pious Persons to follow different wayes which are not alwayes very sure I consider therefore that if I stay for the particular Motions of the Spirit of God I shall never pray to him if to that end I don't receive either particular Revelations Illuminations or preventing Delectations Now these Illuminations or Delectations being produced by God by more particular Wills than are those general Wills which constitute the Order of Nature they are kind of Miracles so that this is to pretend that God impells Men to Prayer through means that are not the most simple Nay to expect those Graces which are not alwayes necessary is in some measure to tempt God But if I accustom my self to appear or endeavour to present my self before God at certain Hours the sound of a Clock will be enough to remember me of my Duty without its being necessary that God should have a particular Will of inspiring me with the thought of Praying The general Laws only of the Union of the Soul with the Body will make me think of my Duty when the time that I have chosen shall present it self by some sensible mark But as Self-Examination and Prayer is necessary and as we can't pray without having some thoughts of it nor have these thoughts unless God gives them 'T is some step towards Salvation to have these thoughts without obliging God to give them us by particular Wills which are kinds of Miracles or rather in consequence of the general Laws of the Order of Grace whereby God would save all Men through his Son Perhaps the want of the first thought of Prayer and of considering our obligations before God is the cause of the blindness of many Men consequently of their Eternal Damnation For God acting alwayes by the most simple wayes ought not by particular Wills to give those thoughts which might be obtained by vertue of his general Wills if once persons were accustomed to pray regularly at particular hours Therefore as God would save Men by the most simple wayes it is evident that as much as possible we ought to make the Order of Nature subservient to that of Grace and as I may say to reconcile Gods Wills together by regulating a time which may at least supply us with the thoughts of Prayer 'T was for these Reasons probably that God formerly commanded the Jews to write his Commandments upon the Doors of their Houses and alwayes to have some sensible Mark which might put them in mind of them This spar'd God if I may so say thoughts For Miracles of Grace were very rare amongst the Jews the time being not yet come wherein God design'd to ingrave his Law and infuse his Spirit and Charity into the Heart of Man I confess that whatever we do by a mere Natural Power cannot of it self meritoriously dispose us for Grace and yet without it all external Religion can only serve to maintain our Pride and Self-love The Pharisees grew vain from their bearing the sensible Signs and Memorials of the Law of God as our Saviour reproached them And Christians often make use of Crucifixes and Images out of Curiosity Hypocrisie or some other motive of Self-love Yet since these things may put us in mind of God it is requisite to make use of them for we must as much as possible make Nature subservient to Grace that God may save us by the most simple wayes For although we cannot Naturally fit our selves for Grace we may often contribute to the rendering it efficacious because we can lessen the eagerness of a Passion by removing those Objects from us which cause it or by presenting to our selves contrary Reasons to those which inspire it Those who most carefully watch the purity of their imagination and suffer it not to be so much corrupted by the continual use of sensible Pleasures and Commerce with the World make Grace efficacious by removing that resistance it finds in others In this sense even a Disease a shower of Rain or any other accident that keeps us at home may render Grace efficacious for such a degree of Grace as would be too weak to make us resist the sensible impression of the presence of an agreeable Object is strong enough to make us with horrour reject the impure thought or imagination of this same Object This is enough to show clearly that the Counsels of the Gospel are necessary that God may save us by the most simple wayes For 't is advantageous to follow them not only because when we follow them by the Motion of Gods Spirit they determine it by vertue of immutable Order or of the general Laws of the Order of Grace to increase in us our love to him but also because the practising these Counsels may often render Grace efficacious though we are induced to it only by Self-love as it may happen on many occasions FINIS A DEFENCE OF THE AUTHOR OF THE Search after Truth AGAINST The Accusation OF Monsieur de la Ville Wherein is shown That if every one was permitted to call in Question the Faith of others upon a good or bad deduction of Consequences from their Principles none could be secure from the Imputation of Heresie LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV A DEFENCE OF THE AUTHOR OF THE Search after Truth Against the ACCUSATION OF Monsieur de la Ville SOmetimes since there was Published a Treatise whose Title surprized many Persons and stir'd up their Passions Several wished I would interest my self in the Quarrel which the Author had with the Cartesians for as on one hand Monsieur de la Ville for that was his Name had done me the honour to list me among those Philosophers but with what design I know not and on the other hand diverted himself by Travestying me in Ridicule They assured me that if I was willing to pass for a Rash Ignorant and Extravagant Person for a Visionary nay even an Heritick yet I could not in Conscience desert the Cause of Truth and leave the Enemies of the Faith the Advantages he granted to them I must be Just to
these Gentlemen and confess their Reasons were very solid but I would desire them to believe that if I did not comply with them 't was because others were of a much different Opinion which to me appeared also very reasonable and for which indeed I had a greater inclination for I am not willing to decide about the solidity of their Reasons Moreover as Monsieur de la Ville is not very tender in matters of Faith I very well foresaw that his Treatise would make more Noise than it would do Injury to the Truth and as for my self I believe he did me no Injustice in despising me I can assure him I contemn my self more than he desires 'T is true my self-contempt is not grounded upon the same Ideas that inclined him to treat me so disdainfully as he did but I could indeed wish that the Reasons I have for despising my self were not true and I would freely consent that all my ill Qualities were changed into those which he has been pleased to bestow upon me provided he would except that of Heretick or of a Person of a suspicious Faith Since I know there 's nothing so dangerous as to stir up Mens Passions especially on certain Subjects which defend the most violent and unreasonable from the Reproofs of Reason I believed I ought to be silent lest I should increase the Passion I saw in some Minds but since the Heat is abated and little Mischief is to be feared I think I ought to satisfie my Friends and please my self I would not affect a disdainful Silence in respect of Monsieur de la Ville I confess sincerely that he has sensibly offended me for I am neither a Stoic nor Stupid I feel when I am hurt and am not ashamed to confess it Publick Accusation of Heresie is not easie to be born especially by Ecclesiasticks which however unjust it may be yet it fails not to make the Faith of the Accused suspected in this Age more than any other and no one can be prodigal of this kind of disreputation unless Charity oblige him to it which seldom or never happens I shall not therefore Answer any thing to the Calumnies wherewith this Author endeavours to blacken me I shall not cite him before the Common Magistrate for Publick Reparation nor will I make use of any other Methods permitted by the Law of Nature for the restitution of that which I can in Conscience give up I am whatever he pleases Ignorant a Visionary but I am no Heretick I am not suspected of Heresie at least by those who know me I confess I cannot avoid having my Faith suspected if a Stranger be permitted to treat me as a Heretick upon such Consequences as he pleases to draw from my Principles for its impossible but the Treatise of Monsieur de la Ville should have deceived somebody If at present I am suspected of Heresie it is an unhappiness which I cannot help But if it be a Crime 't is not I that have committed it t is he rather who has drawn such Consequences from a Principle as are not in it As for me I disown them believe them false and Heretical and if I saw clearly that they were directly drawn from any one of my Principles I would abandon it for this Principle would be false Truths being not contrary to one another But supposing that Monsieur de la Ville had reasoned justly and fairly deduced Heretical Consequences from my Principle neither I nor many others whom he treats unhandsomely saw not before he had wrote his Book that these Consequences were contained in the Principle so that his Conduct is unjustifiable which way soever it be examined For in fine the Articles of Faith depend not upon the Penetration and Extension of the Mind of one particular Divine as I am going to show And though we should be certain that some Principles included impious Consequences yet no one has thereby a right to treat those as Hereticks who maintain these Principles I confess I have seen in the Fathers and especially in St. Angustine the Ep. 3. Ch. 2.28 Ch. 2.57 contra Epist Manich. Chap. 16. de Trin. L. 10. c. Principle I have Advanced but I never found there that of Monsieur de la Ville It appeared to me that this was a Common Notion That if God should Annihilate all Extension in the World all the Matter whereof the World is composed would be Annihilated I consulted several Persons upon this to see if they had the same Idea as I had upon the Matter and their Answers confirmed me in my Opinion I judged by Reasons which I shall soon declare That we could no longer have any direct and natural Demonstration that the Soul is distinct from the Body or that she is Immortal if this Principle be given up I have said in the Search after Truth that I believed that no Consequence contrary to Faith could be drawn from this Principle which before me was Maintained in Sorbonne in the Public Theses I had almost said that if it were proper I could explain how this Opinion might be reconciled with what the Fathers and Councils have left us as Matter of Faith upon the Mystery of Transubstantiation In sine I disavowed all Heretical Consequences and even the Principle it self if it included them which I did not nor yet do believe What should I say more to clear my Faith from the Suspicion of Heresie even to the most Malicious Could I imagine that any one would be bold enough to place St. Austin and other Fathers among the Calvinists by condemning in the Persons of the Cartesians and Gassendists the Opinion of this Holy Doctor as contrary to Transubstantiation No doubtless nor durst Monsieur de la Ville himself do it but after an indirect manner St. Austin advances the present Question in an hundred places as an incontestable Principle he never goes to prove it since it appears not that any Man doubted of it in his Time For indeed it is a Principle which ought to pass for a Common Notion with all such whose Minds are not prepossest with False Studies From thence this Holy Doctor concludes That the Soul is Immortal that it is more Noble than the Body that it is distinct from it and many other Truths of the greatest consequence Part 2. Chap. 3. Art 6. And Monsieur de la Ville advances under Equivocal Terms That this Principle is not to be found in St. Augustine He Answers one place only in the Works of this Father and to explain him makes this Learned Man reason after an extravagant manner In fine he opposes to the Constant Doctrine of St. Austin the only Book of Categories as if he knew not that this Work was none of this Fathers and that it belonged rather to Logic than Phisics I will not stand to prove this in particular for I see no necessity of Answering Monsieur de la Ville's Book I design to preserve inviolable