Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	nature_n	soul_n	2,893	5	5.2542	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37105	The morall philosophy of the stoicks written originally in French by that ingenious gentleman Monsieur du Vaix, first president of the Parliament of Provence ; Englished by Charles Cotton ...; Philosophie morale des stoïques. English	Du Vair, Guillaume, 1556-1621.; Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.	1663 (1663)	Wing D2915; ESTC R3984	38,326	126

difficult to tame by how much they are doubly conjoyned to the former implicating and corroborating one another by a mutual consent for the first Passions that are formed to the object of a seeming Good falling into consideration of the means to atchieve it either stir up in us Hope or Despair and such as are formed to the object of Ill give birth to Fear and Anger which four Passions are strangely strong and violent and wholly subvert that Reason they find already shaken These in my opinion are the winds that create the tempests of the Soul and the Cave whence they issue as I have already told you is an erring opinion that things presented to us are Good or Evil for attributing to them the quality they have not we fly or pursue them with violence and thence spring our Passions The way then to stop this Cave is to secure the Peace of the Soul and that she be not swayed otherwise than she should let us call to mind what hath been proved in the beginning of this discourse to wit That the Good of man and the perfection of Nature consist in a right disposition of his Will to make use of things presented to him according to Reason and on the contrary his Ill in a vitious and unbridled disposition to their abuse for with the first he shall create his advantage receive satisfaction from whatever can happen to him and establish for himself a peace of mind firm and unmoved as a rock in the fury of the waves and with the second every accident shall be distastful to him and turn to his loss and affliction When therefore any object shall present it self unto us that we may not trouble our selves as with a Good or Ill that pursues us let us examine whether it be in our power or no if it be in our power it may be to us either good or ill But in this case we ought by no means to be transported for in retaining the will perfect we render it good and preserve it so if out of our power 't is to us neither Good nor Ill and consequently we neither ought to seek nor avoid it To approve attempt desire and shun and in word all our actions are in our own Power for the will hath power and authority to govern and steer them by Reason to the place where they ought to arrive for our good and to dispose our opinions to consent only to what they ought and to that which stands examined by Sence and Reason to adhere to things evidently true to suspend in what is doubtful to reject what is false and so to govern the desire that it only pursue what is natural and only fly the contrary Out of our power are our Bodyes Estates Reputations and in a word all that depend not on the Will and these after what manner so ever they arrive are never contrary to Nature because happening either by the universal and continual order of things and ordinary succession of Causes we ought not to think them strange or if they happen by a particular Providence that compels them we ought to know that Nature hath subjected us to it Moreover that she hath given us a power in the Soul to comply with and make good use of whatever may happen to us from without shews that she hath not only made us fit for any thing but for all insomuch as we ought not to covet or eschew any thing as well because it is a foolish and vain affection to will what a man cannot do as because in what manner soever it can happen to us it may turn to our good and may be the subject of worthy and honourable actions Now if we can prevail with our selves not to desire or fly what is out of our reach but with a temperate affection entertain what accidents shall happen we shall be clear of all perturbation free and happy never frustrate in any design never resisted in any enterprize we shall hate no man complain of no man fear no man be angry with no man for no man can do us harm If on the contrary we avoid or pursue what is beyond our reach we often stray from what we hope and wish precipitate our selves into what we abhor and fall into trouble and affliction There is no man so ill advised as not to confess that it is better to have than be deprived of what he desires to be free from passion than to be afflicted with it who then shall deny this Rule to be sound and natural by which we obtain whatever we desire desiring nothing but what we can and by which we afflict not our selves but placing Good or Ill in our own power give our selves the One and repell the other at our own choice In all things then that are presented to us that we be not afflicted or transported we must immediately consider whether they be in our power or no if they be let us preserve a moderate will to guide and conduct them to their true and natural use and in so doing we shall obtain our good If they be not let us not disturb our selves but have this necessary caution about us This thing concerns me not that is to say t is neither my good nor ill and consequently I ought not to seek or shun it but however it shall happen fit my self to it and apply it to the best use I can If we find our selves transported beyond this and that some of the above named Passions mutiny within us by the object of things out of our Power let us weigh the Nature of the thing presented and to what end t is given us Then examine what effects can derive from the passion to which we begin to encline and in the next place seek out the opposite Vertue and that power Nature hath given us to rule over it For as Passion enters into us from without and there enters with the Image of the offered Subject so hath Nature man'd us within against this assault with a power to resist it if we will use it to our defence To fortifie which power let us have some fair precepts and short sentences concerning every Passion by which we may sheild our Reason and stop as with a Trench the first precipitate motions of the Soul that would storm it To render which Precepts more strong and hard to undermine let us Garrison them with the beautiful Examples of such as have generously behaved themselves in the like Occasions for the example of Vertue in others engages our own and their Glory provokes us to Imitation If any subject then for the delight of the Body present it self as luxuriant and delicate meats as soon as we perceive our selves moved let us call to mind that they are not of the things in our Power and consequently neither our Good nor Ill but things indifferent that Nature hath given for our nourishment and of which the moderate use supports and renders the

Passions and to behave himself upon all occasions with moderate Reason We must as necessary to our happiness purge the Mind from Passions and learn how to animate our selves against whatever may happen to us Now that which can best instruct us in this way and teach us the inclinations of a right spirit and a will governed by reason is Prudence which is the beginning and end of all Vertue For that making us exactly and truly to know the condition and quality of things objected to us renders us sit to distinguish what is according to Nature what is not what we ought to pursue and what we ought to fly She removes the erroneous opinions that afflict us restores our natural affections and in her Train follow all other Vertues of which she is at once the Mother Nurse and Guardian Oh! the life of Man were happy if alwaies conducted by this excellent guide But alas by how much this Vertue is excellent by so much is it rare and is in our minds like the veins of Gold in the earth found in few places It is in my judgement that great magnificent and impenetrable Buckler sorged by Vulcan for Achilles in which he carried the Heavens the Earth the Ocean Clouds Stars Thunder Cities Armies Assemblies and Battels and to be short what in this world is to be seen thereby intimating to us that knowledge renders the Soul of Man more invulnerable than a large seven-sold sheild can do the body But as Achilles went to the School of Chiron to make himself sit to bear this massy sheild so must you come to that of Philosophy to learn the use of Prudence which will teach you that Prudence is to be exercised two waies one to advance us to good the other to repell evil But as we bring not our minds pure to Philosophy our Physitian but rather prepossessed and contaminated with froward popular humours we must like a skilful Chirurgion who before he make any application to the wounded part draws forth malignant humours begin by purging our mind of all such rebellious Passions as by their smoak obnubilate the eye of Reason otherwise the Precept of good manners and sound affections is of no more advantage to the Soul than abundance of of food to a corrupt body which the more you endeavour to nourish you offend We call that Passion which is a violent motion of the Soul in her sensitive part and makes her either apply her self to what she thinks is good or recede from what she takes to be ill For though we have but one Soul cause of life and action which is all in all and all in every part yet hath that one Soul very different agitations even contrary to one another according to the diversity of Vessels where she is retained and the variety of objects presented to her In one she hath her Encrease in another her Motion in a third her Sence in a fourth her Memory in a sift her Discourse as the Sun who from one essence distributing his raies in diverse places warms one and illuminates another melts wax and dries the earth dissipates clouds and exhausts lakes and marshes When the Parts where she is inclosed only keep and imploy her to the proportion of their capacity and the necessity of their right use her effects are sweet benigne and well governed but on the contrary when they usurp more motion and heat than they should they change and become more dangerous like the raies of the Sun that wandering at their natural liberty warm gently and faintly but contracted and united in the Concave of a glass burn and consume what they were wont to give life to and nourish Now Nature hath given this force and power borrowed from the Soul to the Senses to apply themselves to things to extract their forms and as they are fit or unfit harmonious or dissonant to Nature to embrace or reject them and that for these two Reasons One that they should be as Centinels to the Body for its preservation the other and the chiefest to the end they should be as Messengers and Carriers of the understanding and soveraign part of the Soul and to serve as Ministers and Instruments of discourse and Reason But in giving them this power she hath also prescribed her Law and Command which is to be satisfied with a careful observation and intelligence of what shall pass without attempting to usurp the more high and eminent power and so to put all things into alarm and confusion For as in an Army the Centinels oftentimes not knowing the design of their Commander may be deceived and take an enemy disguised for a friend or for enemies such as come to their relief so the Sences not comprehending the whole sum of Reason are oft abused by apparence and take for advantageous what is wholly against us When upon this judgement and without expecting the command of Reason they come to disturb the Irascible and Concupiscible powers they raise a sedition and tumult in the Soul during which Reason is no more heard nor the understanding obeyed than is the Law or Magistrate in a troubled estate of civil discord Now in this Commotion the Passions which disturb the peace of the mind and mutiny against the Soul make their first insurrection in the Concupiscible part that is to say in the place where the Soul exerciseth this faculty of desiring or rejecting things offered to her as they are proper or contrary to her delight or conservation They move then according to the apparence of a Good or Ill. If it be a present good and of which they enter into a present fruition we call that Motion Pleasure or Delight If it be of a good to come from which we are far distant we call it desire if of a present Ill of which we already resent the incommodity and distast and which we lament in other men we call it Hate or Horrour if of any Ill we bewail in our selves vexation if this vexation be occasioned by what concerns us nearly we call it Grief if by mischance in another Pitty if occasioned by an apparent Good in which we pretend to share Jealousie if by good we have no part in Envy if occasioned by an Ill to come we call it Fear This is the first body of Mutineers that disturb the peace of the Soul whose effects though very dangerous are nevertheless much inferiour in violence to them that sollow For those first motions formed in that part by the presented object immediately shift thence into the irascible part that is to say into that part where the Soul seeks the means she hath to obtain or shun what appears good or evil to her and there as a wheel already moving by a new access of force falls into a prompter speed so the Soul already stirred with the first apprehension and adding a second effort to the first is hurried with more violence than before and raises up Passions more powerful and more