names from their known meaning to Senses most alien and to darken speech by words without knowledge are none of the most inconsiderable faults of this Philosophy To reckon them in their particular instances would puzzle Archimedes Now hence the genuine Idea's of the Mind are adulterate and the Things themselves lost in a crowd of Names and Intentional nothings Thus these Verbosities do emasculate the Understanding and render it slight and frivolous as its objects Me thinks the late Voluminous Iesuites those Laplanders of Peripateticism do but subtilly trifle and their Philosophick undertakings are much like his who spent his time in darting Cumming-seeds through the Eye of a Needle One would think they were impregnated as are the Mares in Cappadocia they are big of words their tedious Volumes have the Tympany and bring forth the wind To me a cursus Philosophicus is but an Impertinency in Folio and the studying of them a laborious idleness 'T is here that things are crumbled into notional Atomes and the substance evaporated into an imaginary Aether The Intellect that can feed on this air is a Chamaelion and a meer inflated skin From this stock grew School-divinity which is but Peripateticism in a Theological Livery A School-man is the Ghost of the Stagirite in a Body of condensed Air and Thomas but Aristotle sainted But to make good our charge against the Philosophy of the Schools by a more close surveying it That its Principles are steril unsatisfying Verbosities cannot escape the notice of the most shallow Inquirer To begin at the bottom their Materia prima is a meer chimaera If we can fix a determinate conceit of nothing that 's the Idea on 't And Nec quid nec quale nec quantum is as as apposite a definition of nothing as can be If we would conceive this Imaginary Matter we must deny all things of it that we can conceive and what remains is the thing we look for And should we allow it all which its Assertors assign it viz. Quantity interminate 't is still but an empty extended capacity and therefore at the best but like that Space which we imagine was before the beginning of Time and will be after the Universal Flames 'T is easie to draw a Parallelism between that Ancient and this more Modern Nothing and in all things to make good its resemblance to that Commentitious Inanity The Peripatetick matter is a pure unactuated Power and this conceited Vacuum a meer Receptibility Matter is suppos'd indeterminate and Space is so The pretended first matter is capable of all forms And the imaginary space is receptive of any body The matter can be actuated at once but by a single Informant and Space is replenisht by one Corporal Inexistence Matter cannot naturally subsist uninform'd And Nature avoids vacuity in space The matter is ingenerate and beyond corruption And the space was before and will be after either The matter in all things is but one and the space most uniform Thus the Foundation-Principle of Peripateticism runs but parallel to an acknowledg'd nothing and their agreement in essential characters makes rather an Identity then a Parity but that Imaginary space hath more to plead for its reality then the matter hath and herein only are they dissimilar For that hath no dependence on the bodies which possess it but was before them and will survive them whereas this essentially relies on the form and cannot subsist without it Which yet me thinks is little better then an absurdity that the cause should be an Eleemosynary for its subsistence to its effect and a nature posterior to and dependent on it self This dependentia a posteriori though in a diverse way of causality my reason could never away with Yea one of their own Oviedo a Spanish Jesuite hath effectually impugn'd it So then there 's nothing real answering this Imaginary Proteus and Materia prima hath as much of being as Mons aureus But to take a step further their Form is as obnoxious and as dry a word as the formention'd Nominal I 'le not spend time in an industrious confutation The subject is dry and I long to be out on 't with a note on its imaginary Origine I 'le leave it It 's source is as obscure as Nile's and Potentia materiae is a pitiful figment Did it suppose any thing of the form to pre-exist in the matter as the seminal of its being 't were tolerable sense to say it were educed from it But by educing the affirmers only mean a producing in it with a subjective dependence on its Recipient a very fine signification of Eduction which answers not the question whence 't is derived but into what it is received The question is of the terminus à quo and the answer of the subject So that all that can be made of this power of the matter is meerly a receptive capacity and we may as well affirm that the world was educ'd out of the power of the imaginary space and give that as a sufficient account of its Original And in this language to grow rich were to educe money out of the power of the Pocket To make a full discovery of the jejune emptiness of these Philosophick Principles were a task as easie for an ordinary undertaker as it would be tedious to an Ingenious Reader Gassendus hath excellently perform'd it and I am confident to the conviction of those whom nobler Principles have not yet emancipated from that degenerous slavery I shall not attempt a work that hath been finished by such an Apelles Only to give an hint more of this verbal emptiness a short view of a definition or two will be current evidence which though in Greek or Latine they amuse us yet a vernacular translation unmasks them and if we make them speak English the cheat is transparent Light is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith that Philosophy In English the Act of a perspicuous body Sure Aristotle here transgrest his Topicks and if this definition be clearer and more known then the thing defin'd midnight may vye for conspicuity with noon Is not light more known then this insignificant Energie And what 's a diaphanous body but the Lights medium the Air so that light is the act of the Air which definition spoils the Riddle and makes it no wonder a man should see by night as well as by day Thus is light darkned by an illustration and the Sun it self is wrap'd up in obscuring clouds As if light were best seen by darkness as light inaccessible is known by Ignorance If Lux be Umbra Dei this definition is Umbra lucis The Infant that was last enlarged from its maternal cels knows more what light is then this definition teacheth Again that motion is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. is as insignificant as the former By the most favourable interpretation of that unintelligible Entelechy It is but an act of a being in power as it is in power The construing of which to
the causes and manner of their rotations as also the reasons of all the Planetary Phaenomena and of the Comets their nature and the causes of all their irregular appearings To these the knowledge of the intricate doctrine of motion the powers proportions and laws thereof is requisite And thus we are engaged in the objects of Geometry and Arithmetick yea the whole Mathematicks must be contributary and to them all Nature payes a subsidy Besides plants are partly material'd of water with which they are furnisht either from subterranean Fountains or the Clouds Now to have the true Theory of the former we must trace the nature of the Sea its origen and hereto its remarkable motions of flux and reflux This again directs us to the Moon and the rest of the Celestial faces The moisture that comes from the Clouds is drawn up in vapours To the Scientifical discernment of which we must know the nature and manner of that action their suspense in the middle region the qualities of that place and the causes and manner of their precipitating thence again and so the reason of the Sphaerical figure of the drops the causes of Windes Hail Snow Thunder Lightning with all other igneous appearances with the whole Physiology of Meteors must be enquired into And again 3 in our disquisition into the formal Causes the knowledge of the nature of colours is necessary to compleat the Science To be inform'd of this we must know what light is and light being effected by a motion on the Organs of sense 't will be a necessary requisite to understand the nature of our sensitive faculties and to them the essence of the soul and other spiritual subsistences The manner how it is materially united and how it is aware of corporeal motion The seat of sense and the place where 't is principally affected which cannot be known but by the Anatomy of our parts and the knowledge of their Mechanical structure And if further 4 we contemplate the end of this minute effect its principal final Cause being the glory of its Maker leads us into Divinity and for its subordinate as 't is design'd for alimental sustenance to living creatures and medicinal uses to man we are conducted into Zoography and the whole body of Physick Thus then to the knowledge of the most contemptible effect in nature 't is necessary to know the whole Syntax of Causes and their particular circumstances and modes of action Nay we know nothing till we know our selves which are the summary of all the world without us and the Index of the Creation Nor can we know our selves without the Physiology of corporeal Nature and the Metaphysicks of Souls and Angels So then every Science borrows from all the rest and we cannot attain any single one without the Encyclopaedy 5 The knowledge we have comes from our Senses and the Dogmatist can go no higher for the original of his certainty Now let the Sciolist tell me why things must needs be so as his individual senses represent them Is he sure that objects are not otherwise sensed by others then they are by him and why must his sense be the infallible Criterion It may be what is white to us is black to Negroes and our Angels to them are Fiends Diversity of constitution or other circumstances varies the sensation and to them of Iava Pepper is cold And though we agree in a common name yet it may be I have the same representation from yellow that another hath from green Thus two look upon an Alabaster Statue he call's it white and I assent to the appellation but how can I discover that his inward sense on 't is the same that mine is It may be Alabaster is represented to him as jet is to me and yet it is white to us both We accord in the name but it 's beyond our knowledge whether we do so in the conception answering it Yea the contrary is not without its probability For though the Images Motions or whatever else is the cause of sense may be alike as from the object yet may the representations be varyed according to the nature and quality of the Recipient That 's one thing to us looking through a tube which is another to our naked eyes The same things seem otherwise through a green glass then they do through a red Thus objects have a different appearance when the eye is violently any way distorted from that they have when our Organs are in their proper site and figure and some extraordinary alterations in the Brain duplicate that which is but a single object to our undistemper'd Sentient Thus that 's of one colour to us standing in one place which hath a contrary aspect in another as in those versatile representations in the neck of a Dove and folds of Scarlet And as great diversity might have been exemplified in the other senses but for brevity I omit them Now then since so many various circumstances concurre to every individual constitution and every mans senses differing as much from others in its figure colour site and infinite other particularities in the Organization as any one mans can from it self through diverse accidental variations it cannot well be suppos'd otherwise but that the conceptions convey'd by them must be as diverse Thus one mans eyes are more protuberant and swelling out anothers more sunk and depressed One mans bright and sparkling and as it were swimming in a subtile lucid moisture anothers more dull and heavy and destitute of that spirituous humidity The colour of mens eyes is various nor is there less diversity in their quantitative proportions And if we look further into the more inward constitution there 's more variety in the internal configurations than in the visible out-side For let us consider the different qualities of the Optick nerves humors tunicles and spirits the divers figurings of the brain the strings or filaments thereof their difference in tenuity and aptness for motion and as many other circumstances as there are individuals in humane nature all these are diversified according to the difference of each Crasis and are as unlike as our faces From these diversities in all likelyhood will arise as much difference in the manner of the reception of the Images and consequently as various sensations So then how objects are represented to my self I cannot be ignorant being conscious to mine own cogitations but in what manner they are received and what impresses they make upon the so differing organs of another he only knows that feels them There is an obvious an easie objection which I have sufficiently caveated against and with the considerate it will signifie no more then the inadvertency of the Objectors 'T will be thought by slight discerners a ridiculous Paradox that all men should not conceive of the objects of sense alike since their agreement in the appellation seems so strong an argument of the identity of the sentiment All for instance say that Snow is white and
the respective parts and how are they kept to their specifick uniformities If we attempt Mechanical solutions we shall never give an account why the Wood-cock doth not sometimes borrow colours of the Mag-pye why the Lilly doth not exchange with the Daysie or why it is not sometime painted with a blush of the Rose Can unguided matter keep it self to such exact conformities as not in the least spot to vary from the species That divers Limners at a distance without either copy or designe should draw the same Picture to an undistinguishable exactness both in form colour and features this is more conceivable then that matter which is so diversified both in quantity quality motion site and infinite other circumstances should frame it self so absolutely according to the Idea of its kind And though the fury of that Apelles who threw his Pencil in a desperate rage upon the Picture he had essayed to draw once casually effected those lively representations which his Art could not describe yet 't is not likely that one of a thousand such praecipitancies should be crowned with so an unexpected an issue For though blind matter might reach some elegancies in individual effects yet specifick conformities can be no unadvised productions but in greatest likelyhood are regulated by the immediate efficiency of some knowing agent which whether it be seminal Forms according to the Platonical Principles or what ever else we please to suppose the manner of its working is to us unknown or if these effects are meerly Mechanical yet to learn the method of such operations may be and hath indeed been ingeniously attempted but I think cannot be performed to the satisfaction of severer examination That all bodies both Animal Vegetable and Inanimate are form'd out of such particles of matter which by reason of their figures will not cohaere or lie together but in such an order as is necessary to such a specifical formation and that therein they naturally of themselves concurre and reside is a pretty conceit and there are experiments that credit it If after a decoction of hearbs in a Winter-night we expose the liquor to the frigid air we may observe in the morning under a crust of Ice the perfect appearance both in figure and colour of the Plants that were taken from it But if we break the aqueous Crystal those pretty images dis-appear and are presently dissolved Now these airy Vegetables are presumed to have been made by the reliques of these plantal emissions whose avolation was prevented by the condensed inclosure And therefore playing up and down for a while within their liquid prison they at last settle together in their natural order and the Atomes of each part finding out their proper place at length rest in their methodical Situation till by breaking the Ice they are disturbed and those counterfeit compositions are scatter'd into their first Indivisibles This Hypothesis may yet seem to receive further confirmation from the artificial resurrection of Plants from their ashes which Chymists are so well acquainted with And besides that Salt dissolved upon fixation returns to its affected cubes the regular figures of Minerals as the Hexagonal of Crystal the Hemi-sphaerical of the Fairy-stone the stellar figure of the stone Asteria and such like seem to look with probability upon this way of formation And I must needs say 't is handsomly conjectur'd But yet what those figures are that should be thus mechanically adapted to fall so unerringly into regular compositions is beyond our faculties to conceive or determine And how those heterogeneous atomes for such their figures are supposed should by themselves hit so exactly into their proper residence in the midst of such tumultuary motions cross thwartings and arietations of other particles especially when for one way of hitting right there are thousands of missing there 's no Hypothesis yet extant can resolve us And yet had heaven afforded that miracle of men the Illustrious Des-Cartes a longer day on earth we might have expected the utmost of what ingenuity could perform herein but his immature Fate hath unhappily disappointed us and prevented the most desirable Complement of his not to be equall'd Philosophy § 2. 2. It 's no less difficult to give an account how the Parts of the Matter of our Bodies are united For though superficial Enquirers may easily satisfie themselves by answering that it is done by muscles nerves and other like strings and ligaments which Nature hath destin'd to that office yet if we seek for an account how the parts of these do cohere we shall find the cause to be as latent as the effect of easie discovery Nothing with any shew of success hath yet appeared on the Philosophick Stage but the opinion of Des-Cartes that the Parts of Matter are united by Rest. Neither can I conceive how any thing can be substituted in its room more congruous to reason since Rest is most opposite to Motion the immediate cause of disunion But yet I cannot see how this can satisfie touching the almost indissolvible coherence of some bodies and the fragility and solubility of others For if the Union of the Parts consist only in Rest it would seem that a bagg of dust would be of as firm a consistence as that of Marble or Adamant a Bar of Iron will be as easily broken as a Tobacco-pipe and Bajazets Cage had been but a sorry Prison The Aegyptian Pyramids would have been sooner lost then the Names of them that built them and as easily blown away as those inverst ones of smoke If it be pretended for a difference that the parts of solid bodies are held together by hooks and angulous involutions I say this comes not home For the coherence of the parts of these hooks as hath been noted will be of as difficult a conception as the former And we must either suppose an infinite of them holding together on one another or at last come to parts that are united by a meer juxta-position Yea could we suppose the former yet the coherence of these would be like the hanging together of an infinite such of Dust which Hypothesis would spoil the Proverb and a rope of sand should be no more a phrase for Labour in vain For unless there be something upon which all the rest may depend for their cohesion the hanging of one by another will signifie no more then the mutual dependence of causes and effects in an infinite Series without a First the admission of which Atheism would applaud But yet to do the Master of Mechanicks right somewhat of more validity in the behalf of this Hypothesis may be assign'd Which is that the closeness and compactness of the Parts resting together doth much confer to the strength of the union For every thing continues in the condition wherein it is except something more powerful alter it And therefore the parts that rest close together must continue in the same relation to each other till some other body by motion disjoyn them
A display of the Perfections of Innocence with a conjecture at the manner of Adams knowledge viz. that it was by the large extent of his Senses founded upon the supposition of the perfection of his Faculties and induc'd from two Philosophick principles OUr misery is not of yesterday but as antient as the first Criminal and the ignorance we are involved in almost coaeval with the humane nature not that we were made so by our God but our selves we were his creatures sin and misery were ours To make way for what follows we will go to the root of our antient happiness and now ruines that we may discover both what the Man was and what the Sinner is The Eternal Wisdome having made that Creature whose crown it was to be like his Maker enrich't him with those ennoblements which were worthy him that gave them and made no less for the benefit of their receiver then the glory of their Author And as the Primogenial light which at first was difused over the face of the unfashion'd Chaos was afterwards by Divine appointment gathered into the Sun and Stars and other lucid bodies which shine with an underived lustre so those scatter'd perfections which are divided among the several cantons of created beings were as it were constellated and summ'd up in this Epitome of the greater World MAN His then blisful injoyments anticipated the aspires to be like GODS being in a condition not to be added to as much as in desire and the unlikeness of it to our now miserable because Apostate state makes it almost as impossible to be conceiv'd as to be regain'd A condition which was envied by creatures that nature had plac't a sphaere above us and such as differ'd not much from glory and blessed immortality but in perpetuity and duration For since the most despicable and disregarded pieces of decay'd nature are so curiously wrought and adorned with such eminent signatures of Divine wisdome as speak it their Author and that after a curse brought upon a disorder'd Universe what think we was done unto him whom the King delighted to honour and what was the portion of Heâ—â—ens Favorite when Omniscience it self sat in Councel to furnish him with all those accomplishments which his specifick capacity could contain which questionless were as much above the Hyperbolies that fond Poetry bestowes upon its admired objects as their flatter'd beauties are really below them The most refined glories of subcoelestial excellencies are but more faint resemblances of these For all the powers and faculties of this copy of the Divinity this meddal of God were as perfect as beauty and harmony in Idea The soul was not clogg'd by the inactivity of its masse as ours nor hindered in its actings by the distemperature of indisposed organs Passions kept their place as servants of the higher powers and durst not arrogate the Throne as now no countermands came hence to repeal the decretals of the Regal faculties that Batrachomyomachia of one passion against an other and both against reason was yet unborn Man was never at odds with himself till he was at odds with the commands of his Maker There was no jarring or disharmony in the faculties till sin untun'd them He could no sooner say to one power go but it went nor to another do this but it did it Even the senses the Souls windows were without any spot or opacity to liken them to the purest Crystal were to debase them by the comparison for their acumen and strength depending on the delicacy and apt disposure of the organs and spirits by which outward motions are conveyed to the judgement-seat of the Soul those of Innocence must needs infinitely more transcend ours then the senses of sprightful youth doth them of frozen decrepit age Adam needed no Spectacles The acuteness of his natural Opticks if conjecture may have credit shew'd him much of the Coelestial magnificence and bravery without a Galilaeo's tube And 't is most probable that his naked eyes could reach near as much of the upper World as we with all the advantages of art It may be 't was as absurd even in the judgement of his senses that the Sun and Stars should be so very much less then this Globe as the contrary seems in ours and 't is not unlikely that he had as clear a perception of the earths motion as we think we have of its quiescence Thus the accuracy of his knowledge of natural effects might probably arise from his sensible perception of their causes What the experiences of many ages will scarce afford us at this distance from perfection his quicker senses could teach in a moment And whereas we patch up a piece of Philosophy from a few industriously gather'd and yet scarce well observ'd or digested experiments his knowledge was compleatly built upon the certain extemporary notice of his comprehensive unerring faculties His sight could inform him whether the Loadstone doth attract by Atomical Effluviums which may gain the more credit by the consideration of what some affirm that by the help of Microscopes they have beheld the subtile streams issuing from the beloved Minerall It may be he saw the motion of the bloud and spirits through the transparent skin as we do the workings of those little industrious Animals through a hive of glasse The Mysterious influence of the Moon and its causality on the seas motion was no question in his Philosophy no more then a Clocks motion is in ours where our senses may inform us of its cause Sympathies and Antipathies were to him no occult qualities Causes are hid in night and obscurity from us which were all Sun to him Now to shew the reasonableness of this Hypothesis I 'le suppose what I think few will deny That God adorn'd that creature which was a transcript of himself with all the perfections its capacity could bear And that this great extent of the senses Horizon was a perfection easily competible to sinless humanity will appear by the improvement of the two following principles First as far as the operation of nature reacheth it works by corporeal instruments If the Coelestial lights influence our Earth and advance the Production of Minerals in their hidden beds it is done by material communications And if there be any virtue proceeding from the Pole to direct the motion of the enamour'd steel however unobserv'd those secret influences may be they work not but by corporal Application Secondly Sense is made by motion caus'd by bodily impression on the organ and continued to the brain and centre of perception Hence it is manifest that all bodies are in themselves sensible in as much as they can impress this motion which is the immediate cause of sensation And therefore as in the former Principle the most distant efficients working by a corporeal causality if it be not perceiv'd the non-perception must arise from the dulness and imperfection of the faculty and not any defect in the object So then is it probable that
in equal time with those other that trace so great a round If they move but in the same degree of Velocity here is then an equality in time and motion and yet a vast inequality in the acquired space A thing which seems flatly impossible For is it conceivable that of two bodies setting forth together and continuing their motion in the same swiftness the one should so far out-go its fellow as to move ten mile an hour while the other moves but a furlong If so 't will be no wonder that the race is not to the swift and the furthest way about may well be the nearest way home There is but one way that can be attempted to untie this knot which is by saying that the remoter and more out-side parts move more swiftly then the central ones But this likewise is as unconceivable as what it would avoid For suppose a right line drawn from the centre to the circumference and it cannot be apprehended but that the line should be inflected if some parts of it move faster then others I say if we do abstractedly from experience contemplate it in the theory it is hard to conceive but that one part moving while the other rests or at least moves slower which is as rest to a swifter motion should change its distance from it and the respect which it had to it which one would think should cause an incurvation in the line § 3. I 'le add only this one which is an experiment that may for ever silence the most daring confidence Let there be two wheels fixt on the same Axel in Diameter ten inches a piece Between them let there be a little wheel of two inches Diameter fixed on the same Axel Let them be moved together on a plane the great ones on the ground suppose and the little one on a Table for because of its parvitude it cannot reach to the same floor with them And you 'l find that the little wheel will move over the same space in equal time with equal circulations with the great ones and describe as long a line Now this seems bigg of repugnancies though Sense it self suffragate to its truth For since every part of the greater wheels makes a proportionable part of the line as do the parts of the little one and the parts of those so much exceeding in multitude the parts of this It will seem necessary that the line made by the greater wheels should have as many parts more then the line made by the less as the wheels themselves have in circumference and so the line would be as much longer as the wheels are bigger so that one of these absurdities is unavoidable either that more parts of the greater wheels go to the making one part of their lines which will inferr a quantitative penetration or that the little wheel hath as many parts as the great ones though five times in Diameter exceeded by them since the lines they describe are of equal length or the less wheel's line will have fewer parts then the others though of equal extent with them since it can have no more parts then the less circle nor they fewer then the greater But these are all such repugnancies as that Melancholy it self would scarse own them And therefore we may well enter this among the unconceivables Should I have enlarged on this Subject to the taking in of all things that claim a share in 't it may be few things would have been left unspoken to but the Creed Philosophy would not have engross'd our Pen but we must have been forced to anger the Intelligences of higher Orbs. But intending only a glance at this rugged Theam I shall forbear to insist more on it though the consideration of the Mysteries of Motion Gravity Light Colours Vision Sound and infinite such like things obvious yet unknown might have been plentiful subject I come now to trace some of the causes of our Ignorance and Intellectual weakness and among so many it 's almost as great a wonder as any of the former that we can say we know CHAP. VII Mens backwardness to acknowledge their own Ignorance and Error though ready to find them in others The i cause of the Shortness of our Knowledge viz. the depth of Verity discours't of as of its admixtion in mens Opinions with falsehood and the connexion of truths and their mutual dependence A second Reason of the shortness of our Knowledge viz. because we can perceive nothing but by proportion to our Senses THe Disease of our Intellectuals is too great not to be its own Diagnostick And they that feel it not are not less sick but stupidly so The weakness of humane understanding all will confess yet the confidence of most in their own reasonings practically disowns it And 't is easier to perswade them it from others lapses then their own so that while all complain of our Ignorance and Error every one exempts himself It is acknowledged by all while every one denies it If the foregoing part of this Discourse have not universally concluded our weakness I have one Item more of my own If Knowledge can be found in the Particulars mention'd I must lose that which I thought I had That there is none But however though some should pick a quarrel with the instances I alleadged yet the conclusion must be owned in others And therefore beside the general reason I gave of our intellectual disabilities The Fall it will be worth our labour to descend to a more particular account since it is a good degree of Knowledge to be acquainted with the causes of our Ignorance And what we have to say under this head will be comprehensive both of the causes of that and which are the effects thereof of our misapprehensions and Errours § 1. And first one cause of the little we know may be that Knowledge lies deep and is therefore difficult and so not the acquist of every careless Inquirer Democritus his Well hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Truth floats not The useless froth swims on the surface but the Pearl lies cover'd with a mass of Waters Verisimilitude and Opinion are an easie purchase and these counterfeits are all the Vulgars treasure But true Knowledge is as dear in acquisition as rare in possession Truth like a point or line requires an acuteness and intention to its discovery while verisimility like the expanded superficies is an obvious sensible on either hand and affords a large and easie field for loose enquiry And 't is the more difficult to find out Verity because it is in such inconsiderable proportions scattered in a mass of opinionative uncertainty like the Silver in Hiero's Crown of Gold And it is no easie piece of Chymistry to reduce them to their unmixed selves The Elements are no where pure in these lower Regions and if there is any free from the admixtion of another sure 't is above the concave of the Moon Neither can any boast of a knowledge which
till engaged to it by iterated impressions except the first impulse be very strong and violent Thus in the clearest night we cannot see some of the smaller Stars upon the first cast of the Eye to their Celestial Residence yet a more intent view discovers them though very likely their Motion reach't the Brain assoon as the more noted impress of their Fellows Thus upon a slight turn of our sight we omit many particularities in nearer objects which a more fixed look presents us with And thus the swiftest motions though they knock at the dore yet they are gone before the soul can come to take an account of their Errand 2. If Regularity and steddiness accompany Velocity the motion then leaves not the least track in the sensitive Thus a French Top the common recreation of School-boys thrown from a cord which was wound about it will stand as it were fixt on the floor it lighted and yet continue in its repeated Gyrations while the sense discovers not the least footsteps of that praecipitate Rotation The reason is much what the same with the former For that meeting no joggs or counter-motions to interrupt it the return of the parts is so quick that the mind cannot take notice of their succession to each other For before it can fix to the observation of any one its object is gone whereas were there any considerable thwart in the Motion it would be a kind of stop or arrest by the benefit of which the Soul might have a glance of the fugitive Transient But I pass these they concern not our present enquiry 3. If the Motion be very slow we perceive it not Thus Vegetables spring up from their Mother Earth and we can no more discern their accretive Motion then we can their most hidden cause Thus the sly shadow steals away on Times Account-Book the Dyal and the quickest Eye can tell no more but that it 's gone If a reason of this be demanded I conceive it may be to some satisfaction return'd That 't is because Motion cannot be perceived without the perception of its Terms viz. The parts of space which it immediately left and those which it next acquires Now the space left and acquir'd in every sensible moment in such slow progressions is so inconsiderable that it cannot possibly move the sense which by reason either of its constitutional dulness or the importunity of stronger impressions cannot take notice of such parvitudes and therefore neither can the Motion depending thereon be aâ—y more observable then it is 4. If the sentient be carryed passibus aequis with the body whose motion it would observe supposing the former condition that it be regular and steddy In this case especially the remove is insensible at least in its proper subject Thus while in a Ship we perceive it not to move but our sense transfers its motion to the neighbouring shores as the Poet Littus campique recedunt And I question not but if any were born and bred under Deck and had no other information but what his sense affords he would without the least doubt or scruple opinion that the house he dwelt in was as stable and fixt as ours To express the reason according to the Philosophy of Des-Cartes I suppose it thus Motion is not perceived but by the successive strikings of the object upon divers filaments of the Brain which diversifie the representation of its site and distance But now when the motion of the object is common with it to our selves it retains the same relation to our sense as if we both rested For striking still on the same strings of the Brain it varies not its site or distance from us and therefore we cannot possibly sense its motion nor yet upon the same account our own least of all when we are carryed without any conamen and endeavour of ours which in our particular progressions betrayes them to our notice Now then the Earths motion if we suppose it to have any having the joynt concurrence of the two last to render it insensible I think we shall need no more proof to conclude the necessity of its being so For though the Third seems not to belong to the present case since the supposed motion will be near a thousand miles an hour under the Equinoctial line yet it will seem to have no Velocity to the sense any more then the received motion of the Sun and for the same reason Because the distant points in the Celestial expanse from a various and successive respect to which the length and consequently the swiftness of this motion must be calculated appear to the Eye in so small a degree of elongation from one another as bears no proportion to what is real For since the Margin of the Visible Horizon in the Heavenly Globe is Parallel with that in the Earthly accounted but 120 miles diameter Sense must needs measure the Azimuths or Vertical Circles by triplication of the same diameter of 120. So that there will be no more proportion betwixt the sensible and real celerity of the Terrestrial Motion then there is between the visible and rational dimension of the celestial Hemisphear which is none at all But if sensitive prejudice will yet confidently maintain the Impossibility of the Hypothesis from the supposed unwieldiness of its massy bulk grounded on our experience of the ineptitude of great and heavy bodies to Motion I say this is a meer Imposture of our Senses the fallacy of which we may avoid by considering that the Earth may as easily move notwithstanding this pretended indisposition of its magnitude as those much vaster Orbs of Sun and Stars He that made it could as well give motion to the whole as to the parts the constant agitation of which is discover'd in natural productions and to both as well as Rest to either Neither will it need the assistance of an Intelligence to perpetuate the begun Rotation Since according to the Indispensable Law of Nature That every thing should continue in the state wherein it is except something more powerful hinder it it must persevere in Motion unless obstructed by a Miracle Neither can Gravity which makes great bodies hard of Remove be any hinderance to the Earths motion since even the Peripatetick Maxime Nihil gravitat in suo loco will exempt it from this indisposing quality which is nothing but the tendency of its parts which are ravish't from it to their desired Centre And the French Philosophy will inform us that the Earth as well as other bodies is indifferent in it self to Rest or its contrary I have done with this instance and my Brevity in the following shall make some amends for my prolixity in this He that would be inform'd in this subject of the Earths Mobility may find it largely and ingeniously discuss'd in Galilaeo's systema Cosmicum CHAP. X. Another instance of the deceptions of our Senses which is of translating the Idea of our Passions to things without us Properly and
formally heat is not in the fire but is an expression of our sentiment Yet in propriety of speech the Senses themselves are never deceived but only administer an occasion of deceit to the understanding prov'd by reason and the Authority of St. Austin SEcondly the best Philosophy the deserved Title of the Cartesian derives all sensitive perception from Motion and corporal impress some account of which we have above given Not that the Formality of it consists in material Reaction as Master Hobbs affirms totally excluding any immaterial concurrence But that the representations of Objects to the Soul the only animadversive principle are conveyed by motions made upon the immediate Instruments of Sense So that the diversity of our Sensations ariseth from the diversity of the motion or figure of the object which in a different manner affect the Brain whence the Soul hath its immediate intelligence of the quality of what is presented Thus the different effects which fire and water have on us which we call heat and cold result from the so differing configuration and agitation of their Particles and not from I know not what Chimerical beings supposed to inhere in the objects their cause and thence to be propagated by many petty imaginary productions to the seat of Sense So that what we term heat and cold and other qualities are not properly according to Philosophical rigour in the Bodies their Efficients but are rather Names expressing our passions and therefore not strictly attributable to any thing without us but by extrinsick denomination as Vision to the Wall This I conceive to be an Hypothesis well worthy a rational belief and yet is it so abhorrent from the Vulgar that they would assoon believe Anaxagoras that snow is black as him that should affirm it is not white and if any should in earnest assert that the fire is not formally hot it would be thought that the heat of his brain had fitted him for Anticyra and that his head were so to madness For it is conceiv'd to be as certain as our faculties can make it that the same qualities which we resent within us are in the object their Source And yet this confidence is grounded on no better foundation then a delusory prejudice and the vote of misapplyed sensations which have no warrant to determine either one or other I may indeed conclude that I am formally hot or cold I feel it But whether these qualities are formally or only eminently in their producent is beyond the knowledge of the sensitive Even the Peripatetick Philosophy will teach us that heat is not in the Body of the Sun but only vertually and as in its cause though it be the Fountain and great Distributour of warmth to the neather Creation and yet none urge the evidence of sense to disprove it Neither can it with any more Justice be alledged against this Hypothesis For if it be so as Des-Cartes would have it yet sense would constantly present it to us as Now. We should finde heat as infallible an attendant upon fire and the increase thereof by the same degrees in our approach to the Fountain calefacient and the same excess within the Visible substance as Now which yet I think to be the chief inducements to the adverse belief For Fire I retain the instance which yet may be applyed to other cases being constant in its specifical motions in those smaller derivations of it which are its instruments of action and therefore in the same manner striking the sentient though gradually varying according to the proportions of more or less quantity or agitation c. will not fail to produce the same effect in us which we call heat when ever we are within the Orb of its activity And the heat must needs be augmented by proximity and most of all within the Flame because of the more violent motion of the particles there which therefore begets in us a stronger sense Now if this motive Energie the Instrument of this active Element must be called Heat let it be so I contend not I know not how otherwise to call it To impose names is part of the Peoples Charter and I fight not with Words Only I would not that the Idea of our Passions should be apply'd to any thing without us when it hath its subject no where but in our selves This is the grand deceit which my design is to detect and if possible to rectifie Thus we have seen two notorious instances of sensitive deception which justifie the charge of Petron. Arbiter Fallunt nos oculi vagique sensus Oppressâ ratione mentiuntur And yet to speak properly and to do our senses right simply they are not deceived but only administer an occasion to our forward understandings to deceive themselves and so though they are some way accessory to our delusion yet the more principal faculties are the Capital offenders Thus if the Senses represent the Earth as fixt and immoveable they give us the truth of their Sentiments To sense it is so and it would be deceit to present it otherwise For as we have shewn though it do move in it self it rests to us who are carry'd with it And it must needs be to sense unalterably quiescent in that our Rotation with it prevents the variety of successive Impress which only renders motion sensible And so if we erroneously attribute our particular incommunicable sensations to things which do no more resemble them then the effect doth its aequivocal cause our senses are not in fault but our precipitate judgements We feel such or such a sentiment within us and herein is no cheat or misprison 't is truly so and our sense concludes nothing of its Rise or Origine But if hence our Understandings falsly deduct that there is the same quality in the external Impressor 't is it is criminal our sense is innocent When the Ear tingles we really hear a sound If we judge it without us it 's the fallacy of our Iudgments The apparitions of our frighted Phancies are real sensibles But if we translate them without the compass of our Brains and apprehend them as external objects it 's the unwary rashness of our Understanding deludes us And if our disaffected Palates resent nought but bitterness from our choicest viands we truly tast the unpleasing quality though falsly conceive it in that which is no more then the occasion of its production If any find fault with the novelty of the notion the learned St. Austin stands ready to confute the charge and they who revere Antiquity will derive satisfaction from so venerable a suffrage He tells us Si quis remum frangi in aquâ opinatur cùm aufertur integrari non malum habet internuncium sed malus est Iudex And onward to this purpose The sense could not otherwise perceive it in the water neither ought it For since the Water is one thing and the Air another 't is requisite and necessary that the sense should be as
if to be and to be in a place be not reciprocal I know not why spirits may not be exempted having as much to plead from the purity of their nature as any thing but one within the circle of being And yet Imagination stands so strongly against the notion that it cannot look for the favour of a very diffusive entertainment But we are more dangerously deceiv'd when judging the Infinite Essence by our narrow selves we ascribe Intellections Volitions Decrees Purposes and such like Immanent actions to that nature which hath nothing in common with us as being infinitely above us Now to use these as Hypotheseis as himself in his Word is pleas'd to low himself to our capacities is allowable But a strict and rigorous imputation is derogatory to him and arrogant in us To say that God doth eminently contain all those effects in his glorious simple Essence that the creature can produce or act by such a faculty power or affection is to affirm him to be ◠what he is Infinite Thus to conceive that he can do all those things in the most perfect manner which we do upon understanding willing and decreeing is an apprehension suteable to his Idea But to fix on him the formality of faculties or affections is the Imposture of our Phancies and contradictory to his Divinity 'T is this deception misleads the contending world and is the Author of most of that darkness and confusion that is upon the face of the Quinquarticular debates Now then we being thus obnoxious to fallacy in our apprehensions and judgements and so often imposed upon by these deceptions our Inferences and Deductions must needs be as unwarrantable as our simple and compound thoughts are deceitful Thus the reason of the far greatest part of mankind is but an aggregate of mistaken phantasms and in things not sensible a constant delusion Yea the highest and most improved parts of Rationality are frequently caught in the entanglements of a tenacious Imagination and submit to its obstinate but delusory Dictamens Thus we are involv'd in inextricable perplexities about the Divine Nature and Attributes and in our reasonings about those sublimities are puzled with contradictions which are but the toyings of our Phancies no absurdities to our more defaecate faculties What work do our Imaginations make with Eternity and Immensity and how are we gravell'd by their cutting Dilemma's I 'm confident many have thus imagin'd themselves out of their Religion and run a ground on that more desperate absurdity Atheism To say Reason opposeth Faith is to scandalize both 'T is Imagination is the Rebel Reason contradicts its impious suggestions Nor is our Reason any more accountable for the Errours of our Opinions then our holiness for the vitiosity of our Lives And we may as well say that the Sun is the cause of the shadow which is the effect of the intercepting opacity as either Reason and Faith are at perfect Unisons The disharmony is in the Phancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a saying of Plato's and well worthy a Christian subscription Reason being the Image of the Creators Wisdom copyed out in the Creature Though indeed as 't is now in the subject 't is but an amassment of imaginary conceptions praejudices ungrounded opinions and infinite Impostures and 't is no wonder if these are at odds with the Principles of our belief But all this is but apish Sophistry and to give it a Name so Divine and excellent is abusive and unjust There is yet another as deplorable a deceit of our Imaginations as any which is its impressing a strong perswasion of the Truth of an Opinion where there is no evidence to support it And if it be such as we never heard question'd or contradicted 't is then held as indubitate as first principles Thus the most of mankind is led by opinionative impulse and Imagination is praedominant Hence we have an ungrounded credulity cry'd up for faith and the more vigorous impressions of Phancy for the Spirits motions These are the grand delusions of our Age and the highest evidence of the Imaginations deceptions This is the spirit that works in the children of Phancy and we need not seek to remoter resolutions But the excellent Dr. H. More hath follow'd Enthusiastick effects to their proper Origine and prevented our endeavours of attempting it His Discourse of Enthusiasm compleatly makes good the Title and 't is as well a Victory as a Triumph CHAP. XII A fifth Reason the praecipitancy of our Understandings the reason of it The most close ingagement of our minds requisite to the finding of truth the difficulties of the performance of it Two instances of our praecipitating as the concluding thing impossible which to Nature are not so and the joyning Causes with irrelative Effects § 5. AGain another account of the shortness of our Reasons and easiness of deception is the forwardness of our Understandings assent to slightly examin'd conclusions contracting many times a firm and obstinate belief from weak inducements and that not only in such things as immediately concern the sense but in almost every thing that falls within the scope of our enquiry For the declarement of this we are to observe That every being uncessantly aspires to its own perfection and is restless till it obtain it as is the trembling Needle till it find it s beloved North. Now the perfection of a Faculty is Union with its Object to which its respective actions are directed as the scope and term of its endeavours Thus our Understanding being perfected by Truth with all the impatience which accompanies strong desire breaths after its enjoyment But now the good and perfection of being which every thing reacheth at must be known and that in the particular instances thereof or else 't is not attain'd and if it be mistaken that being courts deceit and its own delusion Now this Knowledge of their Good was at first as natural to all things as the desire on 't otherwise this innate propension would have been as much a torment and misery to those things that are capable of it as a needless impertinency to all others But Nature shoots not at Rovers Even inanimates though they know not their perfection themselves yet are they not carryed on by a blind unguided impetus But that which directs them knows it The next orders of being have some sight of it themselves And man most perfectly had it before the touch of the Apple So then beside this general propensity to Truth the Understanding must know what is so before it can entertain it with assent The former we possess it may be as entirely as when Nature gave it us but of the latter little but the capacity And herein have we made our selves of all creatures the most miserable And now such a multitude such an Infinite of uncertain opinions bare probabilities specious falshoods spreading themselves before us and solliciting our belief and we being thus greedy of Truth and yet so unable to
among a croud of Saylors in a storm Nor do the eager clamors of contending Disputants yeeld any more relief to eclipsed Truth then did the sounding Brass of old to the labouring Moon When it 's under question 't were as good flip cross and pile as to dispute for 't and to play a game at Chess for an opinion in Philosophy as my self and an ingenious Friend have sometime sported is as likely a way to determine Thus the Peripatetick procedure is inept for Philosophical solutions The Lot were as equitable a decision as their empty Loquacities 'T is these nugacious Disputations that have been the great hinderance to the more improveable parts of Learning and the modern Retainers to the Stagirite have spent their sweat and pains upon the most litigious parts of his Philosophy while those that find less play for the contending Genius are incultivate Thus Logick Physicks Metaphysicks are the burden of Volumes and the dayly entertainment of the Disputing Schools while the more profitable doctrines of the Heavens Meteors Minerals Animals as also the more practical ones of Politicks and Oeconomicks are scarce so much as glanc'd at And the indisputable Mathematicks the only Science Heaven hath yet vouchsaf't Humanity have but few Votaries among the slaves of the Stagirite What the late promoters of the Aristotelian Philosophy have writ on all these so fertile subjects can scarce compare with the single disputes about Materia prima Nor hath Humane Science monopoliz'd the damage that hath sprung from this Root of Evils Theology hath been as deep a sharer The Volumes of the Schoolmen are deplorable evidence of Peripatetick depravations And Luther's censure of that Divinity Quam primum apparuit Theologia Scholastica evanuit Theologia Crucis is neither uncharitable nor unjust This hath mudded the Fountain of Certainty with notional and Ethnick admixtions and platted the head of Evangelical truth as the Iews did its Author's with a Crown of thorns Here the most obvious Verity is subtiliz'd into niceties and spun into a thread indiscernible by common Opticks but through the spectacles of the adored Heathen This hath robb'd the Christian world of its unity and peace and made the Church the Stage of everlasting contentions And while Aristotle is made the Centre of Truth and Unity what hope of reconciling And yet most of these Scholastick controversies are ultimately resolv'd into the subtilties of his Philosophy And me thinks an Athenian should not be the best guide to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor an Idolater to that God he neither knew nor owned When I read the eager contests of these Notional Theologues about things that are not I cannot but think of the pair of wise ones that fought for the middle And me thinks many of their Controversies are such as if we and our Antipodes should strive who were uppermost their title to Truth is equal He that divided his Text into one part did but imitate the Schoolmen in their coincident distinctions And the best of their curiosities are but like paint on Glass which intercepts and dyes the light the more desirable splendor I cannot look upon their elaborate trifles but with a sad reflexion on the degenerate state of our lapsed Intellects and as deep a resentment of the mischiefs of this School-Philosophy CHAP. XVIII 3. It gives no account of the Phaenomena those that are remoter it attempts not It speaks nothing pertinent in the most ordinary It s circular and general way of Solution It resolves all things into occult qualities The absurdity of the Aristotelian Hypothesis of the Heavens The Gallaxy is no meteor the Heavens are corruptible Comets are above the Moon The Sphear of fire derided Aristotle convicted of several other false assertions 3. THe Aristotelian Hypotheses give a very dry and jejune account of Nature's Phaenomena For as to its more mysterious reserves Peripatetick enquiry hath left them unattempted and the most forward notional Dictators sit down here in a contented ignorance and as if nothing more were knowable then is already discover'd they put stop to all endeavours of their Solution Qualities that were Occult to Aristotle must be so to us and we must not Philosophize beyond Sympathy and Antipathy whereas indeed the Rarities of Nature are in these Recesses and its most excellent operations Cryptick to common discernment Modern Ingenuity expects Wonders from Magnetick discoveries And while we know but its more sensible ways of working we are but vulgar Philosophers and not likely to help the World to any considerable Theories Till the Fountains of the great deeps are broken up Knowledge is not likely to cover the Earth as the waters the Sea Nor is the Aristotelian Philosophy guilty of this sloth and Philosophick penury only in remoter abstrusities but in solving the most ordinary causalities it is as defective and unsatisfying Even the most common productions are here resolv'd into Celestial influences Elemental combinations active and passive principles and such generalities while the particular manner of them is as hidden as sympathies And if we follow manifest qualities beyond the empty signification of their Names we shall find them as occult as those which are professedly so That heavy Bodies descend by gravity is no better an account then we might expect from a Rustick and again that Gravity is a quality whereby an heavy body descends is an impertinent Circle and teacheth nothing The feigned Central alliciency is but a word and the manner of it still occult That the fire burns by a quality called heat is an empty dry return to the Question and leaves us still ignorant of the immediate way of igneous solutions The accounts that this Philosophy gives by other Qualities are of the same Gender with these So that to say the Loadstone draws Iron by magnetick attraction and that the Sea moves by flux and reflux were as satisfying as these Hypotheses and the solution were as pertinent In the Qualities this Philosophy calls manifest nothing is so but the effects For the heat we feel is but the effect of the fire and the pressure we are sensible of but the effect of the descending body And effects whose causes are confessedly occult are as much within the sphear of our Senses and our Eyes will inform us of the motion of the Steel to its attrahent Thus Peripatetick Philosophy resolves all things into Occult qualities and the Dogmatists are the only Scepticks Even to them that pretend so much to Science the world is circumscrib'd with a Gyges his Ring and is intellectually invisible And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will best become the mouth of a Peripatetick For by their way of disquisition there can no more be truly comprehended then what 's known by every common Ignorant But ingenious inquiry will not be contented with such vulgar frigidities But further if we look into the Aristotelian Comments on the largest Volumes of the Universe The works of the fourth day are there as confused and disorderly as
their conveyance and their regular direction is handsomly explicated by that learned Knight and recommended to the Ingenious by most witty and becoming illustrations It is out of my way here to enquire whether the Anima Mundi be not a better account then any Mechanical Solutions The former is more desperate the later hath more of ingenuity then solid satisfaction It is enough for me that de facto there is such an entercourse between the Magnetick unguent and the vulnerated body and I need not be solicitous of the Cause These theories I presume will not be importunate to the ingenious and therefore I have taken the liberty which the quality of an Essay will well enough allow of to touch upon them though seemingly collateral to my scope And yet I think they are but seemingly so since they do pertinently illustrate my design viz. That what seems impossible to us may not be so in Nature and therefore the Dogmatist wants this to compleat his demonstration that 't is impossible to be otherwise Now I intend not by any thing here to invalidate the certainty of truths either Mathematical or Divine These are superstructed on principles that cannot fail us except our faculties do constantly abuse us Our religious foundations are fastned at the pillars of the intellectual world and the grand Articles of our Belief as demonstrable as Geometry Nor will ever either the subtile attempts of the resolved Atheist or the passionate Hurricanoes of the phrentick Enthusiast any more be able to prevail against the reason our Faith is built on than the blustring windes to blow out the Sun And for Mathematical Sciences he that doubts their certainty hath need of a dose of Hellebore Nor yet can the Dogmatist make much of these concessions in favour of his pretended Science for our discourse comes not within the circle of the former and for the later the knowledge we have of the Mathematicks hath no reason to elate us since by them we know but numbers and figures creatures of our own and are yet ignorant of our Maker's 3. We cannot know any thing of Nature but by an Analysis of it to its true initial causes and till we know the first springs of natural motions we are still but ignorants These are the Alphabet of Science and Nature cannot be read without them Now who dares pretend to have seen the prime motive causes or to have had a view of Nature while she lay in her simple Originals we know nothing but effects and those but by our Senses Nor can we judge of their Causes but by proportion to palpable causalities conceiving them like those within the sensible Horizon Now 't is no doubt with the considerate but that the rudiments of Nature are very unlike the grosser appearances Thus in things obvious there 's but little resemblance between the Mucous sperm and the compleated Animal The Egge is not like the oviparous production nor the corrupted muck like the creature that creeps from it There 's but little similitude betwixt a terreous humidity and plantal germinations nor do vegetable derivations ordinarily resemble their simple scminalities So then since there 's so much dissimilitude between Cause and Effect in the more palpable Phaenomena we can expect no less between them and their invisible efficients Now had our Senses never presented us with those obvious seminal principles of apparent generations we should never have suspected that a plant or animal could have proceeded from such unlikely materials much less can we conceive or determine the uncompounded initials of natural productions in the total silence of our Senses And though the Grand Secretary of Nature the miraculous Des-Cartes have here infinitely out-done all the Philosophers went before him in giving a particular and Analytical account of the Universal Fabrick yet he intends his Principles but for Hypotheses and never pretends that things are really or necessarily as he hath supposed them but that they may be admitted pertinently to solve the Phaenomena and are convenient supposals for the use of life Nor can any further account be expected from humanity but how things possibly may have been made consonantly to sensible nature but infallibly to determine how they truly were effected is proper to him only that saw them in the Chaos and fashion'd them out of that confused mass For to say the principles of Nature must needs be such as our Philosophy makes them is to set bounds to Omnipotence and to confine infinite power and wisdom to our shallow models CHAP. XXII 4 Because of the mutual dependence and concatenation of Causes we cannot know any one without knowing all Particularly declared by instances 5 All our Science comes in at our Senses their infallibility inquir'd into The Authors design in this last particular 4 ACcording to the notion of the Dogmatist we know nothing except we knew all things and he that pretends to Science affects an Omniscience For all things being linkt together by an uninterrupted chain of Causes and every single motion owning a dependence on such a Syndrome of prae-required motors we can have no true knowledge of any except we comprehended all and could distinctly pry into the whole method of Causal Concatenations Thus we cannot know the cause of any one motion in a watch unless we were acquainted with all its motive dependences and had a distinctive comprehension of the whole Mechanical frame And would we know but the most contemptible plant that grows almost all things that have a being must contribute to our knowledge for that to the perfect Science of any thing it 's necessary to know all its causes is both reasonable in its self and the sense of the Dogmatist So that to the knowledge of the poorest simple we must first know its efficient the manner and method of its efformation and the nature of the Plastick To the comprehending of which we must have a full prospect into the whole Archidoxis of Nature's secrets and the immense profundities of occult Philosophy in which we know nothing till we compleatly ken all Magnetick and Sympathetick energies and their most hidden causes And 2 if we contemplate a vegetable in its material principle and look on it as made of earth we must have the true Theory of the nature of that Element or we miserably fail of our Scientifical aspirings and while we can only say 't is cold and dry we are pitiful knowers But now to profound into the Physicks of this heterogeneous masse to discern the principles of its constitution and to discover the reason of its diversities are absolute requisites of the Science we aim at Nor can we tolerably pretend to have those without the knowledge of Minerals the causes and manner of their Concretions and among the rest the Magnet with its amazing properties This directs us to the pole and thence our disquisition is led to the whole systeme of the Heavens to the knowledge of which we must know their motions and
as sinners and 't is no fault in the spectacles that the blind man sees not Shall we like sullen children because we have not what we would contemn what the benignity of Heaven offers us Do what we can we shall be imperfect in all our attainments and shall we scornfully neglect what we may reach because some things to mortality are denyed 'T is madness to refuse the Largesses of divine bounty on Earth because there is not an Heaven in them Shall we not rejoyce at the gladsome approach of day because it 's over-cast with a cloud and follow'd by the obscurity of night All sublunary vouchsafements have their allay of a contrary and uncertainty in another kind is the annex of all things this side the Sun Even Crowns and Diadems the most splendid parts of terrene attains are akin to that which to day is in the field and to morrow is cut down and wither'd He that enjoy'd them and knew their worth excepted them not out of the charge of Universal Vanity And yet the Politician thinks they deserve his pains and is not discourag'd at the inconstancy of humane affairs and the lubricity of his subject He that looks perfection must seek it above the Empyreum it is reserv'd for Glory It 's that alone which needs not the advantage of a foyl Defects seem as necessary to our now-happiness as their Opposites The most refulgent colours are the result of light and shadows Venus was never the less beautiful for her Mole And 't is for the Majesty of Nature like the Persian Kings sometimes to cover and not alway to prostrate her beauties to the naked view yea they contract a kind of splendour from the seemingly obscuring veil which adds to the enravishments of her transported admirers He alone sees all things with an unshadowed comprehensive Vision who eminently is All Only the God of Nature perfectly knows her and light without darkness is the incommunicable claim of him that dwells in Light inaccessible 'T is no disparagement to Philosophy that it cannot Deifie us or make good the impossible promise of the Primitive Deceiver It is that which she owns above her that must perfectly remake us after the Image of our Maker And yet those raised contemplations of God and Nature wherewith Philosophy doth acquaint us enlarge and ennoble the spirit and infinitely advance it above an ordinary level The soul is alway like the objects of its delight and converse A Prince is as much above a Peasant in spirit as condition And man as far transcends the Beasts in largeness of desire as dignity of Nature and employment While we only converse with Earth we are like it that is unlike our selves But when engag'd in more refin'd and intellectual entertainments we are somewhat more then this narrow circumference of flesh speaks us And me thinks those generous Vertuoso's who dwell in an higher Region then other Mortals should make a middle species between the Platonical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and common Humanity Even our Age in variety of glorious examples can confute the conceit that souls are equal And the sole Instances of those illustrious Heroes Cartes Gassendus Galilaeo Tycho Harvey More Digby will strike dead the opinion of the worlds decay and conclude it in its Prime And upon the review of these great Sages me-thinks I could easily opinion that men may differ from men as much as Angels from unbodyed Souls And it may be more can be pleaded for such a Metaphysical innovation then can for a specifical diversity among our Predicamental Opposites Such as these being in a great part freed from the entanglements of a drossie Vehicle are imploy'd like the Spirits above in taking a survey of Natures Riches and beginning those Anthems to their Maker which Eternity must consummate This is one part of the life of Souls While we indulge to the Sensitive or Plantal Life our delights are common to us with the creatures below us and 't is likely they exceed us as much as in them as in the senses their subjects and that 's a poor happiness for man to aim at in which Beasts are his Superiours But those Mercurial souls which were only lent the Earth to shew the world their folly in admiring it possess delights which as it were antedate Immortality and though at an humble distance resemble the joys above The Sun and Stars are not the worlds Eyes but these The Celestial Argus cannot glory in such an universal view These out-travel theirs and their Monarchs beams skipping into Vortexes beyond their Light and Influence and with an easie twinkle of an Intellectual Eye look into the Centre which is obscur'd from the upper Luminaries This is somewhat like the Image of Omnipresence And what the Hermetical Philosophy saith of God is in a sense verifiable of the thus ennobled soul That its Centre is every where but it 's circumference no where This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what Plotinus calls so the divine life is somewhat more Those that live but to the lower concupiscible and relish no delights but sensual it 's by the favour of a Metaphor that we call them Men. As Aristotle saith of Brutes they have but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only some shews and Apish imitations of Humane and have little more to justifie their Title to Rationality then those Mimick Animals the supposed Posterity of Cham who had they retain'd the priviledge of Speech which some of the Fathers say they they own'd before the Fall it may be they would plead their cause with them and have laid strong claim to a Parity Such as these are Philosophies Maligners who computing the usefulness of all things by what they bring to their Barns and Treasures stick not to pronounce the most generous contemplations needless unprofitable subtilties and they might with as good reason say that the light of their Eyes was a superfluous provision of Nature because it fills not their Bellies Thus the greatest part of miserable Humanity is lost in Earth and if Man be an inversed Plant these are inversed Men who forgetting that Sursum which Nature writ in their Foreheads take their Roots in this sordid Element But the Philosophical soul is an inverted Pyramid Earth hath but a point of this Aethereal Cone Aquila non captat muscas The Royal Eagle flyes not but at noble Game and a young Alexander will not play but with Monarchs He that hath been cradled in Majesty and used to Crowns and Scepters will not leave the Throne to play with Beggars at Put-pin or be fond of Tops and Cherry-stones neither will a Soul that dwells with Stars dabble in this impurer Mud or stoop to be a Play-fellow and Copartner in delights with the Creatures that have nought but Animal And though it be necessitated by its relation to flesh to a Terrestrial converse yet 't is like the Sun without contaminating its Beams For though the body by a kind of Magnetism be
I doubt not but will bear it down to Posterity with a Glory that shall know no term but the Universal ruines Neither can the Pedantry or prejudice of the present Age any more obstruct its motion in that supreme sphear wherein its desert hath plac'd it then can the howling Wolves pluck Cynthia from her Orb who regardless of their noise securely glides through the undisturbed Aether Censure here will disparage it self not it He that accuseth the Sun of darkness shames his own blind eyes not its light The barking of Cynicks at that Hero 's Chariot-wheels will not sully the glory of his Triumphs But I shall supersede this endless attempt Sun-beams best commend themselves FINIS The Contents CHAP. I. A Display of the Perfections of Innocence with a conjecture at the manner of Adams Knowledge page 1. CHAP. II. Our decay and ruines by the fall descanted on of the now scantness of our knowledge 10. CHAP. III. Instances of our Ignorance 1 of things within our selves The nature of the Soul and its origine glanc't at and past by 1 It 's union with the body is unconceiveable So 2 is its moving the body consider'd either in the way of Sir K. Digby Des-Cartes or Dr. H. More and the Platonists 3 The manner of direction of the Spirits as unexplicable 17. CHAP. IV. 4 We can give no account of the manner of Sensation Nor 5 of the Nature of the Memory It is consider'd according to the Philosophy of Des-Cartes Sir K. Digby Aristotle and Mr. Hobbs and all in-effectual Some other unexplicables mention'd 27. CHAP. V. 6 How our bodies are form'd unexplicable The plastick signifies nothing The formation of Plants and Animals unknown in their principle Mechanism solves it not A new way propounded which also fails of satisfaction 2 No account is yet given how the parts of matter are united Some considerations on Des-Cartes his Hypothesis it fails of solution 3 The question is unanswerable whether matter be compounded of divisibles or indivisibles 41. CHAP. VI. Difficulties about the motion of a wheel which admit of no Solution 54. CHAP. VII Mens backwardness to acknowledge their own Ignorance and Errour though ready to find them in others The first cause of the shortness of our knowledge viz. the depth of Verity discourst of as of its admixtion in mens opinions with falshood the connexion of truths And their mutual dependence A second reason of the shortness of our knowledge viz. because we can perceive nothing but by proportion to our senses 62. CHAP. VIII A third reason of our Ignorance and Errour viz. the impostures and deceits of our Senses The way to rectifie these mis-informations propounded Des-Cartes his method the only way to Science The difficulty of the exact performance 69. CHAP. IX Two Instances of Sensitive deception 1 Of the Quiescence of the Earth Four cases in which motion is insensible applyed to the Earth's motion 75. CHAP. X. Another instance of the deceptions of our Senses which is of translating the Idea of our passions to things without us In propriety of speech our Senses themselves are never deceived prov'd by reason and the authority of St. Austin 87. CHAP. XI A fourth reason of our Ignorance and Errour viz. the fallacy of our Imaginations An account of the nature of that faculty instances of its deceptions Spirits are not in a place Intellection Volition Decrees c. cannot properly be ascrib'd to God It is not Reason that opposeth Faith but Phancy The Interest which Imagination hath in many of our Opinions in that it impresses a perswasion without Evidence 95. CHAP. XII A fifth reason the precipitancy of our understandings the reason of it The most close ingagements of our minds requisite to the finding of truth the difficulties of the performance of it Two instances of our precipitating 106. CHAP. XIII The sixth reason discourst of viz. the interest which our affections have in our Dijudications The cause why our affections mislead us Several branches of this mention'd and the first viz. constitutional Inclination largely insisted on 113. CHAP. XIV A second thing whereby our affections ingage us in Errour is the prejudice of Custom and Education A third interest 4 Love to our own productions 125. CHAP. XV. 5. Our affections are ingag'd by our reverence to Antiquity and Authority our mistake of Antiquity the unreasonableness of that kind of Pedantick Adoration Hence the vanity of affecting impertinent quotations the Pedantry on 't is derided The little improvement of Science through its successive derivations and whence it hath hapned 136. CHAP. XVI Reflexions on the Peripatetick Philosophy The Generality of its reception no argument of its deserts the first charge against that Philosophy 148. CHAP. XVII 2. Peripatetick Philosophy is litigious it hath no setled constant signification of words the inconveniences hereof Aristotle intended the cherishing controversies prov'd by his own double testimony Some of his impertinent arguings derided Disputes retard and are injurious to knowledge Peripateticks are most exercised in the controversal parts of Philosophy and know little of the practical and experimental A touch at School-Divinity 159. CHAP. XVIII 3. It gives no account of the Phaenomena Those that are remoter it attempts not it speaks nothing pertinent in the most ordinary its circular and general way of solution it resolves all things into occult qualities The absurdity of Aristotelian Hypothesis of the Heavens The Galaxy is no meteor The Heavens are corruptible Comets are above the Moon The sphear of fire derided Aristotle convicted of several other false assertions 169. Aristotle's Philosophy inept for new discoveries It hath been the Author of no one invention It 's founded on vulgarities and therefore makes nothing known beyond them The knowledge of Natures out-side conferrs not to practical improvements better hopes from the New Philosophy A fifth charge against Aristotle's Philosophy it is in many things impious and self-contradicting instances of both propounded The directing all this to the design of the discourse A caution viz. that nothing is here intended in favour of novelty in Divinity The reason why we may imbrace what is new in Philosophy while we reject Novelties in Theologie 177 178. CHAP. XX. It 's quaeried whether there be any Science in the sense of the Dogmatist 1 We cannot know any thing to be the cause of another but from its attending it and this way is not infallible declared by instances especially from the Philosophy of Des-Cartes 2 There 's no demonstration but where the contrary is impossible We can scarce conclude so of any thing Instances of supposed impossibles which are none A story of a Scholar that turn'd Gipsy and of the power of Imagination Of one mans binding anothers thought and a conjecture at the manner of its performance 188 189. CHAP. XXI Another instance of a supposed impossibility which may not be so Of conference at distance by impregnated Needles Away of secret conveyance by sympathized hands a relation to this purpose Of the magnetick cure of wounds 3 We cannot know any thing in Nature without the knowledge of the first springs of natural motion and these we are ignorant of Des-Cartes his Philosophy commendâ—d 202 CHAP. XXII 4 Because of the mutual dependence and concatenation of Causes we cannot know any one without knowing all Particularly declared by instances 5 All our Science câ—mes in at our senses their infallibility inquired into 213 CHAP. XXIII Considerations against Dogmatizing 1 'T is the effect of Ignorance 2 It argues untamed passions 3 It disturbs the world 4 It is ill manners and immodesty 5 It holds men captive in Errour 6 It betrayes a narrowness of Spirit 224. CHAP. XXIV An Apology for Philosophy 235. FINIS