what Calling he cheefly desired and upon what grounds If he observed his affection to any Art proceeded not so much from appetite as reason not because he observed such a man of that Calling to live in splendor and wealth but that he was moved to it by the peculiar bent and inclination of his mind then he esteemed his answer as prophetical assuredly concluding that an earnest affection and impetuous inclination to any Art seldome proves unsuccessful If he judged him fit for any learned Profession then 2. he propounded some material questions in several Sciences in such plain and familiar termes as fitted a Childs capacity observing wherein he gave the best account or else he represented the nature of them in short axioms and propositions to which if he gave a ready assent seemed to be taken with them and could out of his own notions somewhat inlarge upon them It was not to be doubted but that he might attain that Science which he could so readily apprehend Truth is of a marvellous winning nature and invites one to correspond with it though he never heard it before and therefore the fundamental principles of Arts win belief with most men but now when a very youth not only grants such a thing to be true which is not much to be regarded in this matter but is marvellously affected and taken with it supplies and makes up more than the words import by his own ingenuity â—nd gives some reason of his so doing this turns our conjecture into a certainty at least such a certainty as can be attained concerning future things And because this is a material point to know the grounds upon which the cheif Sciences at least depend before we can arrive at a perfect discovery how and by what faculty of the soul they are attainable See a very breef account of some of them and first concerning the knowledge of God If we attentively and with deliberation consult our own thoughts we shal meet with this primary and original truth that 1. There is a God a proposition naturally imprinted in the mindes of men as it appears even by the universal consent of all Nations not excepting those who are remote from the civiliz'd part of the world If we recollect the thoughts that attended us in our Infancy when our minds were not tincted with any corrupt opinion we may remember that the bended Knees and earnest invocations we observed others to use suggested some apprehensions of a Divine power some invisible Agent whose help wâ— stood in need of and if one should goe about to raze out this thought to bribe and corrupt his mind into a contrary perswasion he would find his conscience very tenacious and resolute in bearing witnesse to the truth I ever thought that the testimony of mens consciences was the most substantial argument to evince the truth of this first maxim and am since confirmed in this opinion because I find it to be the only argument used by a most acute Philosopher of this Age though obscurely as one may say illustrated by him with Metaphysical terms the sum of whose discourse amounts to thus much that reflecting earnestly upon his own mind he finds an idea or notion of a being intirely-perfect now of whatsoever we have such a notion it is necessarily consequent that the same must exist not that our Idea or notion causes its existence but its existence is the foundation of our notion of it and that not in posibility but reality To exist in posibility only agrees not with the nature of that which is most perfect because to such an existence there 's somewhat wanting viz. real existence so that in the very notion Idea of a nature wholy-perfect a rea existence is necessarily included If this proposition seems latent in some mens minds as it happens to such as seldom or never converse with their own thoughts it may be excited in them and confirmed in others 1. By observing the wonderful frame and Fabrick of the World in general and the curious contrivance of every particular body It 's granted by all men that lay any claim to reason that the particular bodies of the universe considering them in the state they do enjoy were made of some prae-existent matter which certainly could not digest its self into the shape of a Plant Mineral or living creature no more than a heap of stones and mortar can erect themselves into the shape of an House or a multitude of Letters by any fortuitous concussion digest themselves into a complete Sentence therefore we must acknowledge that this first matter was regulaâ—â—d and put into motion by a supreme and primary Agent 2. Some again are confirmed in this truth by considering the erection and conservation of Empires and on the other side the strange methods of subverting them in despite of all the counter-contrivances of men The fierce Assyrian once did keep in awe The vanquish'd Nations with his glittering law But the stout Mede when he began to fall Erects his Banner on the Earth's vast Ball. Then acts the Persian with majestick strength On the World's Theatre but stoops at length To that brave Macedonian Youth whose mind In one poor World disdains to be confin'd Next did the Roman Eagle snatch away The Diadem and made the World his prey Now Mahomet rules whose turn the next shall be Mortals may guess but God alone decree Or 3. by a retrogradation and tracing of succession to some first consistency and the revolution of causes wherein the dependance of one cause upon another will lead us to some first cause whereon to rest 4. By observing that natural bodies being restrained limited to uniformity in their motions and actions sometimes make an excursion beyond their ordinary bounds and act beyond themselves whereby it appears that they are subdued to yield obedience to a supreme Agent If the Opinion that there is no God hath committed a Rape upon some mens judgements those persons are so few that it is no prejudice to this first proposition 1. Some perverse men out of a bravery of spirit or a fond desire to become the talk of the World after their deaths have wrangled about it and made it a disputable point 2. Others to acquire a full complacency and freedom in their beloved pleasures or the resolute satisfying of their mindes in some violent passion have peradventure attempted to deceive themselves as much as they could and to imagine there was no God lest the fear of him should abate the eagerness of their desires which they laboured to sharpen to the end they might securely attempt that to which their affections prompted them 3. An interrupted fruition of all things desired may choak the natural notions concerning God in some men and superinduce a forgetfulness of him 4. Perpetual and sordid Poverty without any vicissitude and return of competency and content starves the thoughts of God in many abject and low spirits which crave the taste
Musick or singing The intent of Musick is to improve the sound or quality of words by some sweet notes of voice or instrument with a due regard had to measure time and prolation Sound proceeds from motion therfore according to the celerity or tardity of the motion it is either sharp or flat according to the concord or discord of the Notes it is harmonious or disharmonious according to the speedy returnes or distances of time which prepare and dispose the eare to receive the subsequent notes it is said to consist of short or long time We may observe that men to expresse several passions emit their breath by various degrees making divers manners of eruption and tune their voice to several keyes in imitation whereof Musick may seem to have been invented and the kinds of it in old time distinguished according to mens several passions and as a silent eloquence was used to raise or allay them in the hearers Anciently the Dorick Musick which had a grave and solemn strain was thought to excite men to prudent and Heroick actions and to restrain them from loosnesse and effeminate wantonnesse the Jonick measures were contrived to promote mirth and jollity and the Lydean accommodated to sadness and mourning for we must know the Ayr smitten and modulated by voice or instrument moves and affects the contiguous Ayr this the next till by a continued succession it arrives at the organ of hearing insinuates and mingles its self with the spirits of the Nerves and so is trajected to the heart where entring calmly and gently it sedates and allaies the stirring Spirits or briskly and with vehemence it exsuscitates them There are some not only men but Children which expresse a particular kind of acutenesse in imitating the speeches and gestures of others These whosoever will take the paines to observe it will be found generally apt to learn Musick for that being as was said but a kind of imitation carries an alliance with their Genius Poetry illustrates the matter about which it is conversant by words duly measured and aptly joyned together the original of it was only the casting of a company of words into a kind of form and proportion as indeed all Arts at first were but mean trivial things Painting no more at the first but the circumscribing the exterior limites of a body with single lines as the shadow thereof was projected on a Wall The skil of illustrating one part or making it more clear by the thinnesse of the lines another more darke by casting a deep shadow on it the dexterity of causing some parts to appear at a distance by depressing and extenuating the lines others at hand above the ground of the table by making the lines eminent and bearing out these knacks were added aftewards And its probable Poetry at its nativity only pratled out some harsh incomposed verses in a rude method and plaine measure with some kind of consonancy to please the eare And we see that many illiterate persons and ordinary country clowns by studying of consonancies and cadencies of words accomplish thus much you may imagine some jolly poeticall swaine in the spring-time dedicating this morning Carol to his Amaryllis Now that the sable curtains of the night Are drawn aside and Titan's welcome Light Renewes the day come Amaryllis see The Queen of Earth in all her Bravery Flora with chaplets and rich garlands crown'd The bounteous Off-spring of the fruitfull ground Adornes her waving tresses viewes her face At Titan's bright and radiant Looking-glass Whiles every Wood and Landskip opes his store To deck their Queen and make her glory more The chrystall streames in yonder valley seene Each flowry laune and far-extended greene Those rising Mounts where Tityrus doth sing His Past'r all sonnets at the bubling spring All pay their tribute to her ev'ry bower Offers at least the homage of a flower Such radiant beauty Sol himselfe admires And jealous of those lesser Puny fires Dispells his rivall Phosphorus and all Those twinkling lights below the spacious ball The spring is come and winter for a time Must suffer exile in a forreigne clime From watery Pisces Titan lately came To take his lodging at the golden Ram. By whose indulgent heat the flowers do creep With the chill Dormouse from their winter sleep The chirping Choristers Heavens quire do sing In their green chappells anthems to the spring The Hyblean chymists ranging from their bowers Extract pure Nectar from the new-born flowers The nimble Hindes do play the frisking lambs With gratefull gestures court their tender dams A Poem they say is a vocal picture the meer designe of it is to represent to the Readers fancy a lively Idea or picture of the thing in cleare expressions flowrishing elegancies a copious and luxuriant stile adventurous and lofty language to present every person in his proper colours with such speeches passions humors and carriages as becomes his age state condition and temper The Art of Poetry so far depends upon the strength of a quick naturall wit that according to the true maxime a Poet is born not made he that is born a Poet may be much mended and improved by study he that is not born with a genius fitted for it wil never be made one To deliver in few words a peculiar and distinguishing character of a poeticall wit He must enioy a quick and ranging fancy which contrives antique fictions imaginary Chimera's perplexed fables unexpected encounters leads the reader into inchanted groves and gardens builds imaginary castles palaces and a thousand such devices he is usually sublimed up with a confident selfe-admiring imagination A Poet is first highly inamored of his owne ingenious conceits and that gives him the confidence to publish them presuming that others will be as much taken with them as himself which if it happen as in all probability some that are of the same humor and Genius will extoll and applaud them then he thinks himself a happy man and this applause if it be not the onely reward he aimes at yet it is commonly the richest he can catch The axioms which are generally admitted in naturall Philosophy are chiefly these 1. That all bodies substances and motions are produced by some efficient cause or primary agent whereupon the common people who have more truth in their notions than every one observes but want skill to discover it compendiously resolve themselves concerning all the effects in nature by saying that such a thing happens according to the providence and appointment of God which is true and as much as need be expected from them and a kind of arguing more allowable than if they should attribute things to fortune chance or such kind of nothings but a Philosopher who thinks himselfe obliged to give a more immediate reason of things grants this to be right as being assured that he which layes not such a foundation in his method of Philosophy will find himself miserably puzled about many apparances Yet makes not this
a subterfuge for ignorance or laziness but proceeds further that 2. All natural bodies as to the state they now enjoy were formed of some prae-existent matter which to discover plainly hath posed all both ancient and modern enquiries and produced various Opinions no marvel for the first production of things being a matter so far out of our discovery all the knowledge we can arrive at concerning it is but conjectural and various too according to the several methods which men have used to search it out It hath passed a long time as a certain truth that Earth Water Fire and Air were first formed and contrived out of a confused shapeless lump and of these being variously tempered together all mixt bodies resulted Others diving more scrutinously and curiously into the originall of things tell us that the first matter consisted of minute parts and several configurations which fortuitously meeting together produced all solid bodies their tenuity making them fit for mixtion whereas crassitude hinders their coalescence Latter times have still contrived more refined notions and perswade us that the first and originall matter consisted of particles some very subtile fluid and capable of penetrability some spherical or globulous which by their various motions mutual collision and attrition dasht themselves into several Schematismes For they take it for granted that the original and prae-existent matter being by the Creator made up of small parts and those of various shapes and put into motion these parts must necessarily wear off their extancies and corners that which was so worn off would become a subtil tenuious and agile matter the rest minute globes or spherical particles the smaltenuious subtil particles being somwhere environed and pressed together assumed such figures as the next or contiguous bodies were apt to imprint upon them So that figures seem not to have been wrought in bodies by any foreconceived design or intelligent aime but only by the concurrence of accidental causes and are nothing else but the bodies themselves limited by the circum-obsession of other bodies from being extended beyond those dimensions they enjoy For example A Cube seems to receive its figure by being equally environed on all sides A Lamine or thin plate by being dasht powerfully on two sides only and enjoying the liberty of extention on the edges A Spherical body either by rolling every way by which motion all the extencies or little corners are grated off as it will happen in processe of time although it move in an Orb or Sphere where every contigious body seemes to be lesse hard or else by winding of many filaments into such a form as in a botome of yarn and the like It is certain 3. Earth Water and Ayr are the Wombes and receptacles to comprehend nourish and preserve mixt bodies And that 4. all bodies have effluvia's or atomes darted from them whereby they act at a distance and make a pression upon any other body that is within their Orb of emanation and fit to imbibe them and so the atomes or minute particles which are wafted over to us from hot bodies heat us those of cold bodies benum us the Nervous parts of our bodies being capable of receiving a pression by them 5. That all or most bodies are Radious more or lesse and that array expands its self in the forme of a Pyramid whose base is in the object and its vertical point in the eye It is generally granted that 6. there is so strict a connexion and combination in the Fabrick of the World that no vacuity or divulsion can be in the continuity of Nature And yet 7. every compounded body hath many Cavities or pores apt to re-receive smal and subtil particles which are trajected through them mixion is but a composure or juxtaposition of parts whose superficies's though they touch one another yet their coalescence is not so close but that these Atomes or subtil parts of matter find convenient pores through which they passe and by vertue of these it is that 8. All bodies rescue themselves into their native dimension and figure if they be by any overmastering violence compressed out of or distracted beyond it As it is seen in a Bow wherein if the pores be for example round before the bending by the tensure they are crampt and pressed into a conical figure but when the bow is again unbent these active particles inlarge the diameter of their pores restore them to their former round figure by pressing the adjacent parts reduce the bow to its wonted figure 9. All Natural bodies are subject to dissolution and corruption yet so as that bodies of a different nature arise from them Insomuch that if we respect the whole frame of nature dissolution and corruption of bodies imports no more than the assuming of a new shape no annihilation succeeds but a kind of circulation in the works of Nature For after many changes and revolutions a body may re-assume the same figure and Nature it had before as appeares by that common instance of an Oxe that feeds upon grasse which is converted into flesh this flesh after it hath undergone some changes turnes to the Earth and in processe of time is sublimed up into grasse again To find out the qualifications requisite to a Natural Philosopher we may observe that for him that aimes at no more but onely to understand what reasons other men give of things how they state the matter concerning natural effects and so gives up himself to be guided by their dictates there 's no more required but a good memory But he that wil in good earnest examine the truth of other mens reasons or search out reasons of himself should enjoy a peircing judgement In health there is an exact composure of all the exterior and inward parts of the body but in every disease some disorder or dislocation not of the exterior and superficial alwaies but of some inward part as Spirits Blood or humors as appeares by that strugling which men use to rescue themselves into a posture of rest which if they cannot accomplish by that agitation then they have recourse to such meanes as by experience have been found conducible For although reason in general instructs men that a healthfull body must have nourishments agreeable to its Nature and that a diseased body ought to be reduced to its natural and healthful temper by medicaments that enjoy a contrary nature and quality to the prae-dominant humor thereby to qualifie and moderate it that nature may expel it with more ease yet the distinct knowledge of what things are agreeable and what noxious wherein the speculative part of Physick chiefly consists and to assigne peculiar remedies to every particular disease about which the practical part is conversant these are but the products of experience so that practical Physick took its first rise from a bold adventuring upon remedies which as they were observed to be successfull or unlucky were accordingly either recommended to posterity or rejected Now it is very certain that to gain the rules and method of curing as they are already collected and delivered by Authors the history of Plants Minerals and other particulars used in Physick and the history of parts or Anatomy of mans body are accomplished by the memory But the practical part whereby one is obliged to judge of signes and Symptomes and thence to judge or prognosticate of danger or safty continuance or speedy recovery and from the indications of a disease to know what remedies are suitable is a work of a ready imagination There is a vast difference between the Theory of any Art and the practice of it the first belongs either to memory or judgement the last commonly to the imagination And it is observed that the learnedest men in any faculty who are immerst in contemplation and busy themselves to be very knowing in all the intricacies of their Art seldome prove so plausible in the practice as those who contenting themselves with the common and ordinary rules which are easy and soon learnt apply themselves wholely to the professory and lucrative part This is seen in nothing so evidently as in the practice of Physick although it be true in other Arts wherein many adventurous empiricks and prating Mountebancks by help of a few astonishing words and some experimented remedies soon raise themselves a great fame especially if assisted by the credulity of the vulgar and lesse intelligent sort of people But one usual engin whereby they screw up their fame among these is their cheapnesse the surest device to catch the common people who are generally hidebound and sordidly parcimonious Sometimes I confess it fals out that a man whom Nature meant and intended for a Physitian by the iniquity of fortune unskilfulnesse of Parents and Tutors or some other ill luck is thrust upon a meaner profession which being irksome and unpleasant to him as it commonly happens when the natural bent and inclination of the mind is thwarted afterwards following the conduct of his Genius applies himselfe to the Study of Physick and proves more lucky at it than many which by a tedious and chargeable education have been trained up to it In the second part is intended a continuation of the former discourse and an account of the life Acts and Death of ERIANDER FINIS Cato apud Mart. lib. 1. Epig. 3. Senec. Ep. 97. Juven Sat. 11. Sap. 17.12 Juxta CI. V. Guil. Harvaeum Juven Sat. 14. Jo. Huartes Anton. Zara. De repub Dialog 8. Jo. Bapt. Portae Phisiognom human lib. 1. Ren. Des Cartes medit 3. de prima Philosoph Claudian in land Stiliconis paneg 3. Jo. Huar exam ingen cap. 11. Ant. Zara anatom ingen sec 2. mem 16. Plat. in Cratyl