these things are done not for his sake but our own and the First Fruits which we consecrate to him are designed for no other than decent Acknowledgments of his Liberality and a small return out of what he hath been pleased to give us Thus have I trod in the Steps of this excellent Man and done him what Right I could in the Paraphrase and Explanation of the Chapter before us But now because in the beginning he touches upon three Points concerning the divine Nature and these so fundamentally necessary that all Positive Laws and all Moral Institutions do presuppose the Belief and Acknowledgment of them And since some perverse and refractary Men have nevertheless the Confidence to oppose them we will so far comply with their Obstinacy though must unreasonable as to prove the Truth of these Three Points viz. That there is a divine Nature and Power That the World is governed by it and That the Providence by which it is so governed is Just and Good in all its Dispensations The Importunity of these Men is so much the greater and our trouble of refuting it will be the less because not Mankind only but Brutes and Plants and every Creature in the World do according to their Capacity all declare their Relation to God Men indeed do so the most of any because they are early instructed by their Parents Religion grows up with them from their Cradle and the Ideas common to their whole Species take root in and carry a great Sway with them For the Barbarous as well as the Civilized Countries and that in all Ages of the World too though they have differ'd exceedingly in other Opinions yet have ever agreed universally in this That there is a God I know of no Exception to this Rule except those Acrotheites of whom Theophrastus gives an Account that they owned no Deity but as a punishment of their Atheism the Earth opened and swallowed them up Besides them we meet with no People and but very few single Persons that ever pretended to disown this not above Two or Three from the beginning of the World to this Day But yet so it is that a great many People do not duly attend to these universally received Notions partly because they take them upon Trust without considering or understanding the Arguments upon which they are grounded And partly from some Difficulties in Providence such as the Misfortunes and Afflictions of some very good and the Prosperity of some exceedingly wicked Men which are apt to raise in them the same Scruple with that in the Tragaedian Pardon ye Powers if yet such Powers there be For sure that Doubt is modest when we see Triumphant Vice and injur'd Piety Now such Persons as these would soon be convinced if they did but follow Epictetus his Method and not imagine that either the Happiness or Misery of a Man can depend upon external Accidents or indeed upon any thing else but the Freedom and Use of his own Will For at this rate it will not be possible for any good Man to be wretched or any vicious one happy And now if you please we will consider those Propositions which are barely laid down by Epictetus and try to prove the Truth of them by such Arguments as are proper and occur to my present Thoughts The first step I shall make in this Argument â—â— to consider the Name by which we call this â—eing and what the Word GOD signifies And here we must observe That the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was applyed to the Stars and other Celestial Bodies which therefore were so called from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to Run and had that Appellation given them for the swiftness of their Motion But this Title was afterwards extended to Incorporeal Causes and Intellectual Beings and more peculiarly to the First Cause and Being of all Things So that by this Name we understand the Original of this Universe the First and Principal and Intellectual Cause of every Thing For whatever hath any existence must either be derived from some Determinate Cause or it must subsist by Chance and Mechanical Necessity But whatever subsists after this manner hath neither any particular efficient Cause nor is it self the Final Cause of its own Production For both these Qualifications are absolutely inconsistent with the nature of Fortuitous Beings and indeed no less so is the following any constant Rule and regular Method in the Production of them Now it is obvious to any considering Person that the Works of Nature and of Choice are a final Cause to the Doer and the existence of them is proposed as that which answers his Design Thus the Husbandman plants and sows his Ground in prospect of the Corn and the Trees that will grow upon it Thus the Coition of all Animals proposes to it self the continuation of the Species And in all the Progress of these Productions there is a constant Order and fix'd Course observed and some Operations which are proper to the Beginning others to the Promoting and others to the Perfecting this Work each perform'd constantly in their proper place The Seeds of Plants are first cast into the Ground then moistned and impregnated there then they take root and sprout they shoot up in Straw or Branches and so on till at last they blossom and bud and bring Fruit to maturity So likewise that of Animals is cherished and enlarged and formed into an Embryo which receiving vital Nourishment and convenient Growth is at a stated time brought to a just Perfection and then comes to the Birth But still in these and in all other Cases of the like nature there is the same Chain of Causes and these generally keep their fix'd Times and Measures So then if all the Productions of Nature and the Effects of Choice have some particular Cause to which they owe their Being if the Existence of these things be the final Cause of their Production and if the same Order and a regular Method be constantly and duly observed in the producing them the natural and necessary Result of this Argument is That all the Works of Nature and of Choice that is all Things in this whole World that have no real Existence are not the Effects of Chance or Mechanism but are owing to some particular positive Causes and since these Causes must needs be antecedent to their Effects if They be such as had a Beginning themselves they must be owing to some others who had a Being antecedent to Theirs and so we may trace them up till at last we come to Causes which had no Beginning at all And these being eternal are most truly and properly said to Exist as having never been nor owing their Subsistence to any External Cause but solely to the Inherent Perfections of their own Nature So that the first and Eternal Causes of Things must needs be Self-existent or something more noble and excellent than Self-existent as the following Discourse will convince
the Motions that measâ—re it are taken and derive their Being there we may contemplate the Primitive Causes of much greater Antiquity than those we observed in the Self-moving Agent and there we shall see them lie in all their Perfections Immovable Eternal Entire United to each other so as that each should be all by Virtue of this intimate Conjunction and yet the intelâ—ectual Differences between them should remain distinct and unconfused For what account can be given of so many different Forms in the World but only that the Great God and Creator of the World produces these as he thinks fit to separate and distinguish the Causes of them in his own Mind which yet we must not suppose to make such actual and incommunicable differences between the Originals as we observe between the Copies of them here Nor are the Distinctions of the differing sorts of Souls the same with those of Bodies Each of the Eight Heavens we see and the Constellations peculiar to them are a part of the whole Heaven taken together a full and integral Part and yet each hath its Essence and Influences and Operations proper to it self And so likewise the Forms of Sublunary as well as Celestial Bodies that are always the same as that of a Man a Horse a Vine a Fig-tree each of these are perfect and full though not in Individuals as the Heavenly Bodies are yet according to the various Species with which they fill the World and the Essential Differences which distinguish them from one another Just thus it is with those more simple and Intellectual Considerations of which these Forms are compounded such as Essence Motion Repose Identity Beauty Truth Proportion and all those other Metaphysical Qualities belonging to the Composition of Bodies each of which is perfect in its own kind and hath a distinct Form of its own and many Differences peculiar to it self only And if this be the Case in so many Inferiour Beings how much more perfect and entire shall every thing subsist in the great Soul of the World These are the spontaneous Causes of the Bodies here below and all their differences lie united there According to this Pattern all things here are formed but that Pattern abundantly more perfect and pure and exact than any of its Resemblances Much more persect still then are these Divine and Intellectual Forms than any Corporeal ones of which they are the great Originals For these are united not by any mutual Contact or Continuity of Matter or bodily Mixture but by the Coalition of indivisible Forms And this Union being such as still presents the Distinctions between them clear and unconsus'd makes each of them perfect in it self and qualifies it to be the common Principle and Root of all the Forms of its own likeness and kind from the highest to the lowest Now the several distinct Principles of things derive their Causal Power and Dignity from some One Superiour Principle For it is plain that many could not exist without an antecedent Cause For which Reason each of Many is One but not such a One as was before those Many For the One of Many is a part of that Number and is distinguished from the rest by some particular Qualifications which give him a Being a part to himself But the One before Many was the Cause of those Many he comprehended them all within himself existed before them is the Cause of Causes the first Principle of all Principles and the God of Gods for thus all the World by the meer Dictates of Nature have agreed to call and to adore him He is likewise the Supreme and Original Goodness For all Effects have a natural desire and tendency to the respective Properties of their first Cause Now that which all things desire is Good and consequently the first Cause must be the Original and the Supreme Good So likewise he must be the Original and Supreme Power For every Cause hath the highest Power in its own kind and consequently the first Cause of all must needs exceed them all in Power and have all of every kind He must needs be endued with perfect Knowledge too for how can we imagine him ignorant of any thing which himself hath made It is no less evident too from hence that the World and all things were produced by him without any difficulty at all Thus by considering of particulars we are at last arrived to a general Demonstration and from the parts have learnt the whole for indeed we had no other way of coming to the Knowledge of it but by its parts the whole it self is too vast for our Comprehension and our Understandings are so feeble as often to mistake a very small part for the whole And the result of the Argument is this That as all Things and Causes are derived at last from one Cause so they ought to pay all manner of Honour and Adoration to that Cause for this is the Stem and Root of them all and therefore it is not an empty Name only but Similitude in Nature too by which every Cause is allied to this Universal One. For the very Power and Privilege of being Causes and the Honour that is due to them when compared with their Effects is the free Gift of this Supreme Cause to all the inferiour and particular ones Now if any man think it too great an Honour for these lower and limited ones to be called Causes or Principles as well as that original and general one it must be owned in the first place That there is some Colour for this Scruple because this seems to argue an equality of Causal Power But then this may easily be remedied by calling These barely Causes and That the First and Universal Cause And though it be true that each particular Principle is a first and general one with respect to others of less extent and power contained under it as there is one Principle of Gracefulness with regard to the Body another with regard to that of the Mind and a third of Gracefulness in general that comprehends them both yet in Truth and strict Propriety of Speech none is the First Principle but that which hath no other before or above it and so likewise we may and do say by way of Eminence the First and Supreme Cause the First and Supreme God and the First and Supreme Good Moreover we must take notice that this First Cause which is above and before all things cannot possibly have any proper Name and such as may give us an adequate Idea of his Nature For every Name is given for distinction's sake and to express something peculiar but since all distinguishing Properties whatever flow from and are in Him all we can do is to sum up the most valuable Perfections of his Creatures and then ascribe them to Him For this Reason as I hinted at the beginning of this Discourse the Greeks made choice of a name for God derived from the Heavenly Bodies and the swiftness of their
are Masters of all these things This is the very Reason why the Laws of God and Man and the Judgment of all Wise Men make our own Freedom and Choice the Standard to measure our Actions by They look upon the Intention as a thing absolutely in our own power and pronounce of our Vices and our Vertues according to this and not according to the quality of our Actions themselves For they are not absolutely ours but are specified and distinguished become formally good or evil by our own Will and our own Choice The action of Killing is always the same considered strictly in it self but when this action is involuntary it is excused and pardoned because in such cases it is not properly ours nor in our own power Nay when done in a just Cause or in a legal way it is not only excused but applauded and highly commendable So that the formal Good or Evil of our Actions does not depend upon the Actions themselves but upon the Intention the Choice the Freedom and Power that we have in them and which give them their moral Qualities accordingly By all this it appears that Epictetus took the right Method when he began his Instructions with this consideration of things within our own power and advised us to make it the general rule of all our Conduct since all the Excellency and all the Dishonesty of our Actions all the Happiness and Misery of our Lives depends upon it But when he says in general Terms That all things may be distinguished into Two sorts some that are and some that are not in our own power we must not so understand him as if all things whatsoever were meant by it but only such as are within us or any way concern us For at that rate there would be no proportion at all betwixt the Two Opposite Parts which ought to be observed and is necessary to make a just Division And this Proportion I say would be quite lost if all things whatsoever both those that are contained in the World and those that are above and out of the World were set in opposition to the few in comparison that are within our own power But now in regard some People quarrel with this Distinction even when limited in the most cautious manner that can be and will allow us to have nothing at all in our own power And among these some assert that all our Actions Appetites and Passions proceed from Necessity and not from Choice and others make us like Stones put into motion that act mechanically by chance and without any purpose or design at all though what hath been said already upon our natural Power and the Place which our Choice and Free-Will hath and the Necessity that so it must be might suffice yet perhaps it may not be amiss to consider the Objections of those Men who would rob us of this Liberty and Power and to refute them particularly Now if by this mechanical and forced sort of Action without purpose and by pure chance they intend to say that we propose to our selves no end at all in what we do it is by no means true or if it would hold in some cases yet it is evident there are very many instances in which it will not For all Arts and Sciences nay all Natures and Beings have constantly some particular aim and end fixed to them to which they direct their Endeavours perpetually and make every action in some degree subservient And it may be said in general That there is no one Act no one Motion of any Living Creature in the whole World but is performed out of a prospect of some real or at least some seeming Good Even where the Object is Evil this Observation holds for the avoiding of that Evil is for the attaining some Good and the advantagâ— we may find in escaping from it But if this acting by Chance and without any Purpose be so understood that what we desire may prove impossible to be compassed or incapable of answering our end or hurtful when we have attained it as we say sometimes that a Man took a Medicine without any thought or to no purpose which did him no good or perhaps did him harm Neither does this Sense destroy our Free-Will for we maintain that those Desires and Aversions are in our Power which concern not only things that may be attained and turn to our Benefit when they are so but those too which cannot and which are prejudicial to us when we have them And for this Reason we affirm that our Errors and our Vices are as truly the effects of this Liberty and Choice as our greatest Vertues themselves are Those who pretend that our Opinions and Desires and in general speaking all our Choices and Intentions are necessary and not at our own Disposals as proceeding from Motives without us and not beginning of our own accord within us argue for their Opinion several ways Some of them make the Wants of Humane Nature the ground of this Necessity for we all know that a Man in extremity of Hunger or Thirst or Cold desires Meat and Drink and Warmth whether he will or no and a Person upon a Sick Bed cannot help desiring Health and Ease Some lay all upon the nature of the thing it self which is the Object of our Opinion or Desire or Aversion and contend that this excites our Passions and affects our Minds by its own Power and Evidence whether we are consenting to it or not Who is there for instance that hath attained to the least knowledge in Arithmetick and does not readily allow and firmly believe that twice Two make Four And which way shall we call such an Opinion as this the effect of Freedom and Choice and not rather of absolute Constraint arising from the evidence of the thing assented to and the impossibility of its being otherwise So again when a Man hath entertain'd a Notion of any Goodness or Excellence when he apprehends a thing to be Lovely or Prositable or the direct contrary does he not presently naturally desire the one sort and decline the other For the best Philosophers are agreed that the Object of our Desire and the final cause are the first Motives and that which sets all the rest on work And if this be true how shall we challenge that as our own Act and Deed which is so absolutely the effect of Constraint and Necessity imposed by the nature and quality of things without us that stir our Affections accordingly without any Disposal or Consent of ours Others rather think that the Disposition of the Person designing is the cause of all this necessity for this say they must needs be wrought upon according as it stands inclined nor is it in ones own Choice whether he will desire those things or not which his own Nature and Temper and Custom strongly determine him to Thus the Temperate Person finds in himself â—n habitual desire of such Actions and such Conversation as are
you The same Argument holds as strong with regard to Motion too for if we trace this up to its beginning we shall find that those Bodies which made the first Impressions were either such as moved by an Internal Power and Principle of their own or such as were fixed themselves and had no share in the Motion they impressed upon others For whatever is moved Mechanically is moved by something else and that again by some other thing and so on for ever But such an account as this of Motion in Infinitum is neither possible to be nor to be conceived For at this rate if there were no Beginning of Motion the only Consequence from hence must needs be That there would be no Mover nor no Moved Bodies at all And if we will allow any Beginning as allow it we must that First Mover must be either endued with a principle of Self-motion or it must have no motion at all But the latter of these it cannot be neither for this is evident in all motion that fix'd Bodies are so far from communicating motion to those Bodies that have it not that on the contrary they check and stop it in those that have and dispose them always to continue in the same State and Posture without any manner of alteration So that free motion must at last be resolved to be the first Cause of Mechanical Now the Things that are concerned in mechanical motion are such as are subject to Generation and Corruption to Augmentation and Diminution and to any sort of Alteration whether that refer to the Qualities of the Things themselves or whether to their Local Distances and Situations For whatever is produced could never produce it self because then it must have had a Being before it was produced and so begin to be both before and after it self And whatever receives increase is not augmented by it self for Augmentation is nothing else but the addition of something which it had not before So again whatever is altered is altered by some other thing and not from it self for alteration is properly the introducing of a contrary Quality So likewise Local motion cannot be from the Body moving for since all motions are subject to the Rules I have here laid down and Generation Corruption Augmentation and Alteration are all but so many Effects of motion it is plain this must be derived from something else and could not set it self on going Those things therefore which are in the Course of Nature superiour to these Productions and the Causes of necessary motion must needs be capable of moving themselves For if we should suppose but one minute in perfect Repose nothing would ever move again except some Free Self-moving Agent began the Dance For whatever is once six'd is disposed to continue so to all Eternity and whatever moves mechanically must wait for the leisure of some other Body and cannot stir till it receive the impression and is put into action Now whatever the first Principles of Things are 't is necessary that they should be of a simple Nature For all mix'd Bodies are compounded of Simples and consequently the Ingredients must have a Priority in Nature before the Composition that is made up of them And now let us consider some of the grossest and most obvious Bodies and so by degrees ascend higher to try at last whether it be possible for us to conceive Body to be such a Principle as Reason will tell us the first Principles of all things must needs have been or whether it will not be impossible to conceive that these Bodies which we see move and subsist should ever have had that Motion and that Existence from themselves For whatever moves it self is called Self-moving either because one part of it is active and the other passive in this motion or else because the whole is active and the whole passive Now if we imagine one part to communicate and the other only to receive the Impression still the same Question will return for that part which begins the motion whether this be done from a Principle of its own or from any external Impulse and so up till at last you must be forced to stop at something which must be acknowledged an entire moving and entire moved The same is to be said of Self-existence too for whatever is originally and properly must be an entire Existence and the sole and entire Cause of its own Existence And whatever is so must be indivisible and without Parts For whatever consists of Parts and is capable of being divided could never unite its whole self to its whole self so as to be entirely moving and entirely moved entirely subsisting and yet the entire Cause of so subsisting at the same time Again It is no less impossible that any Bodies should be of a simple Nature for they must of necessity consist of Matter and Form and several other Properties that must go to the compleating of their Nature such as Magnitude and Figure and Colour and sundry other Qualities which are not original and causal Species themselves but only participations of these produced in some Matter without Form that partakes of them For where these Original Forms lie there every thing is in its true Essence and Perfection and there is no need of any Matter unform'd to receive them But when those Originals are communicated then there must of necessity be some Matter to receive them which till it hath done is it self void of Form Since then the First Principles of Things are incorporeal and indivisible since their Nature must be simple and that they are properly Efficient Causes since their Existence and their Motion must be entirely from themselves and since it hath been shewed that Bodies are not in any degree capable of these Qualifications it must needs I think be concluded that Body could not be the First Principle nor the Universe owing to any such Original Where then shall we find such a self-moving Agent as infuses Motion into the necessary ones and may be considered as a Cause with respect to them This sure must be something that moves from an internal Principle But still if this Motion from within were derived from something else and not from it self we should not call this an Internal Motion but an External Impulse as we do in Bodies For if I by a Staff that is in my Hand move a Stone though both my Staff and my Hand contribute to that Motion more immediately yet I my self am the true and proper Cause of it What shall we say then moves Bodies from within What indeed but the Soul For animated Bodies are moved from an internal Principle and all Bodies so moved are Animates If then it be the Soul which gives an internal motion to Bodies and if this internal Mover be self-moving it remains that the Soul is a free and spontaneous Mover the cause of Productions and beginning of Motions containing in her self the several Patterns and Measures and
Forms according to which those Productions and Motions are modelled and proportioned For if the constituent Forms are not in Bodies originally but derived immediately from some free Agent then certainly the Soul is the efficient Cause and assigns to each Body its particular Form Now these Forms in the Soul are exceeding pure and untainted As for example Beauty in the Body of an Animal consists in the Flesh and Skin and Vessels and Blood that make and fill up this Mass Now it does indeed to the best of its power temper and adorn these things but at the same time it is sullied and changed by them and sinks into their Deformity But now this Beauty in the Soul is free from all these Allays and is not only the Image and Representation of Beauty but pure substantial unblemished original Beauty not graceful in one place and not in another but perfectly and all over so From whence it comes to pass that when the Soul contemplates its own or another Soul's Beauty all bodily Graces lose their Charms and appear despicable and deformed in comparison And this instance hints to us the purity of all other original Forms as they are in the Soul Now it is very plain that as there are different Bodies moved by these Souls so there are likewise different sorts of Souls that move them and some of these are celestial and others sublunary For it were an intolerable absurdity to suppose that Bodies less refined and inferiour in Dignity and Duration should have Life and Souls and that those above should want both It is therefore in this case with Souls as with Bodies the heavenly ones are the Causes of the sublunary ones And indeed the Soul is a noble and most excellent Being especially the heavenly one advanced by Nature to the Prerogative of being a Principle though not the First and Highest in the Order of Causes For though the self-moving and self-existent Being is superiour to those whose Motion and Existence is derived from something else yet still even this is capable of being considered in a double Capacity as Active and Passive as a Cause and as an Effect and it is plain that Simples must have been before Compounds and One before Two Again Though this self-moving Agent depend upon no other for its Motion yet Motion it hath and Motion inferrs Mutation not an essential Change indeed but such as respects its Operations And neither are these Motions Local and Corporeal for in that respect it is immovable but Spiritual and peculiar to the Soul such as we call Consideration and Debate and Disâ—erning and Opinion and according as â—he is moved by these motions she impresses corporeal ones upon the Body Now whatever this Change be yet that which is mutable in any kind or proportion must have something besore it absolutely immutable that so those things that are mutable may still be preserved so For all motion and mutation â—oth above and in our lower Regions proceeds from the impression made by the First Cause But since all things undergo such various Changes and great motions are violent How come the heavenly Bodies to continue so much the same in their Constitution their manner of moving the Centre about which they roul their mutual Order and Position And whence is it that though the sublunary ones undergo more visible and frequent Alterations yet still there is a perpetual restitution and constant return to their first Form Thus we observe it plainly in Elements and Seasons and Plants and Animals For though these do not continue to be numerically the same as Celestial Bodies do yet they go round in a Circle till at last they return to the point from whence they set out at first Thus 〈◊〉 is convertâ—d into Air Air condensed into Water Water into Earth and then Earth 〈◊〉 into Fire again So the Year brings us first into Spring then to Summer after that Autuâ—n and at last Winter thaws into Spring again So again Wheat is turned into the Stem then the Blade after that the Ear and so ripe Wheat again So from Man proceeds first the Seminal Principle after that the Formation and Vital Nourishment and this at last comes to be Man again Now I would ask any one since motion is of it self always violent and always tending to Change how it comes to pass that the same Species and the same Course and Constitution of Nature is so exactly preserved Certainly this must needs be the Effect of some Superiour Cause which is it self Immoveable and Immutable and remains for ever in all Points exactly the same For even in mental Motions that Agent which is uncertain in his Motions and acts sometimes with ease and freedom and speed and sometimes slowly and with difficulty must needs have some other mind antecedent to it one whose Essence and whose Operations are always the same that brings all thingsto pass in an instant and at pleasure And no Man need be told how much such a Being as this which is fix'd and unchangeable not only as to his own Nature and Essence but as to his Influence too is more excellent than that which is still in motion and liable to Change though that Motion be from it self alone and Reason will convince us that those Beings which are most Noble and Excellent must needs have had an Existence before those that are indigent and depending Now we shall do well according to this Rule to ascend the whole Scale of Causes in our Thoughts and try whether we are able to find any Principle more Excellent than what is already fix'd upon and if we can do so then to drive that still higher till we come to rest at last in the loftiest and most majestick Notions that we are capable of entertaining and this is a Course we may boldly take nor is there any fear of going too far or overshooting the Mark by conceiving any Ideas too great and above the Dignity of this First Cause For alas the boldest Flights our Minds can aspire to are too low and feeble so far from surmounting that they fall infinitely short of his Divine Perfections This Contemplation upon God as it is the most Excellent so it is the only One in which we are sure not to be guilty of any Excess or an over-valuing the Object And when we have taken all imaginable pains to collect all the Ideas that are Great and Venerable and Holy and Independant and Productive of Good all these Names and all these Persections put together do yet give us but a very poor and impersect Notion of him only he is graciously pleased to pardon and accept these because it is not in the power of humane Nature to admit any higher and better When therefore our Consideration hath carried us from Self-moving Beings up to that which is Immovable and absolutely Immutable always the same in Essence its Power and its Operations fix'd for ever in a vast Eternity out of which Time and all
motion And thus we style him Holy and Just and Merciful and Good and Lord and Omnipotent and sometimes take the Confidence to use such Appellations as we think applicable to some of the Sons of men And thus much shall suffice at present for the First of the Three Points before us which pretends to shew That there are First Causes of Things and that GOD is the truly First and Original of them all And though I have pass'd over several Steps that might have been taken in running from Effects to their Causes and would perhaps have made the Demonstration more gradual and compleat yet I must be content to enlarge no farther as being duly sensible that some Persons will think what is already done a great deal too much and that these Excursions are by no means agreeable to my first Design which was to give as compendious an Illustration as I could to this Manual of Epictetus The next Assertion to be proved was That this God governs and disposes all Things by his Providence which though it be I presume largely demonstrated upon several Occasions in the foregoing Chapters shall yet be allowed a particular Consideration in this place For some People are ready enough to acknowledge the Being and the Perfections of God they acquiesce in his Power and Goodness and Wisdom but as for the Affairs of the World these they do not suppose him to regard at all nor be in the least concerned for them as being too little and low and in no degree deserving his Care And indeed the greatest Temptation to this Opinion they frankly own to be ministred by the very unequal Distribution of Things here below and the monstrous Irregularities that the Government of the World seems chargeable withal They observe some exceedingly wicked Men high in Power and Preferments their Estates plentiful and growing their Health sound and uninterrupted and thus they continue a prosperous and pleasant Life to extream old Age go down to their Graves gently and peaceably and frequently leave their Posterity Heirs of their good Fortune and transmit their ill-gotten Wealth to succeeding Generations In the mean while many Persons eminently vertuous and good are miserably oppress'd by the Insolence and Barbarity of those wicked Great Ones and yet for all this Injustice there is no Vengeance that we can observe overtakes the Oppressor nor any Comfort or Reward to support the Sufferer These as was hinted before are the Speculations that give Men the Confidence to dispute against GOD. Some have been so far emboldened by them as to deny his very Being but others in compliance with the universal Consent of Mankind and the natural Intimations we have of Him are content to allow his Nature and Perfections but can by no means allow his Providence and especially when it happens to be their own case and their particular Misfortunes have given an edge to the Objection and made it enter deeper and more sensibly For then they can by no means be persuaded that so great an Inequality can be consistent with Providence or that GOD can interest Himself in the Management of the World and yet do a thing so unworthy his Justice and so contrary to his Nature as to suffer insulting Wickedness to pass unpunished and injured Vertue to perish unredressed Now the first Return I shall make to this Objection shall be in more general terms by desiring the Person who proposes it to answer me to the several Parts of this dis-junctive Argument If there be a God and not a Providence then the Reason must be either want of Knowledge and a due Sense that these Things ought to be his Care or if he knows that they ought and yet does not make them so then this must proceed either from want of Power or want of Will For the want of Power there may be two Causes assigned either that the Burden and Difficulty of Governing the World is so great that GOD is not able punctually to discharge it or else That these are Matters so very mean and inconsiderable that they escape his Notice and are not worth his Care and Observation If the Sufficiency of his Power be granted and the Want of Will be insisted upon this may likewise be imputed to two Reasons Either That he indulges his own Ease and will not take the pains or else as was argued before That these Matters are of so mean Consideration that tho' he could attend to the most minute Circumstances of them if he so pleased yet he does not do it as thinking it more becoming the Greatness of his Majesty to sleight and overlook them This dis-junctive Argument being thus proposed in the general the several Branches of it may be replied to as follows That admitting God to be such a Being as hath been here described perfect in Wisdom and Knowledge absolute and uncontroulable in Power and of Goodness incomprehensible and withal the Original Cause and Author of all Things produced from and by Himself and being so many parcels as it were of his own Divinity it is not possible first he should be ignorant that the Products of his own Nature and the Works of his own Hands require his Care For this were to represent him more insensible than the wildest and most stupid of all brute Beasts since even these express a very tender regard for the Creatures to whom they give Birth and Being It is as absurd every whit to say in the next place That this is a Care too weighty and above his Power and Comprehension For how is it possible to conceive an Effect greater and stronger than the Cause to which it entirely owes its Production And no less so thirdly to alledge That these Matters are neglected because too little and low to fall within his Observation For sure had they been so despicable he would never have created them at all The want of Will is no more occasion of such a Neglect than the want of Power To suppose this Care omitted only for the indulging his own Ease and to avoid the Interruption of his Pleasures would be to six upon him the Infirmities and Passions of Men nay and such as are peculiar to the worst and most profligate of Men too For not only humane Reason but natural instinct infuses an anxious Tenderness into Brutes such as suffers them to decline no pains for the Provision and Support of their Off-spring Nor can we in any reason imagine such want of Will from a Consideration of the Vileness of these Things since nothing certainly is contemptible in His Eyes who created it and whatever he thought worthy the Honour of receiving its Existence from him he cannot think unworthy that of his Protection and Care So that when you have made the most of this Argument that it can possibly bear still every part meets you with some intolerable absurdity and no one of these Considerations nor all of them put together can ever induce a Man who believes that
the Soul be affected with it or move towards it and the Evil must be disapproved before she flee from it Though indeed the Stoicks have advanced a contrary Method and represented the Affections by which the Soul is carried to or from its Object as if they were antecedent to Desire and Aversion thus considering these Affections as the beginnings and immediate Causes of those Desires and Aversions in the Soul But after all the brutish Inclinations such particularly as Anger and Sensual Appetite are so much of a piece with the Body so closely and manifestly interwoven with the Blood and Animal Spirits that they seem to grow from the particular Complexions and Constitutions of Men. So that these must of necessity derive their Motion from an External Cause in great measure and cannot be perfectly at their own disposal nor under the absolute mastery of the Persons thus desiring c. though they are begun too and proceed Originally from within And not only so but the Rational Soul itself when subdued by the Body and the brutish impulses of Sense does in a great degree degenerate into Machine is violently agitated drawn and managed at pleasure and loses much of its native liberty and power But when it acts in agreement with Nature and Reason it maintains an absolute freedom and moves only by an Internal Principle of its own In a Mind thus regularly disposed it is very easie to discern how much we have in our own Power though in the former instance of a disorderly Mind the case be somewhat intricate and perplexed But however in order to a more exact understanding of the whole Matter both what this Liberty and Power is and what Objects it extends to as also to shew that all the Happiness and Misery of a Man's Life depends upon the use or the abuse of this Liberty I will trace the thing up to its first Cause and examine the whole matter particularly The Sourse and Original of all things is Good for indeed that must needs be both the Cause and Beginning and the End and Consummate Perfection of all in which all Desires Center and to which all things naturally tend Now this Good forms and produces all things out of its own fullness both the most excellent the middle sorâ— and the last and lowest rank of Beings The First and most excellent bear the closest affinity to it self are of a piece with it as it were and express Images of it Thus one Good Being produces many Good Beings one simple and uncompounded Being Independent and Supream produces many other simple Beings like it self one Principle produces many Principles And this One this Simple Being this Principle and this Good are but so many several Names for God who is before all things and the cause of all things Now whatever is First must of necessity be the Purest and most Simple Being for all compounded Things and Numbers are after the Simple and unite in order of Nature and inferior to them in Dignity And all Compounds and Things not Good do desire the Good as something above and better than themselves And whatever is not Self-existent must have received its Being from something else So that the First Principle and Original Cause must have all Absolute and Infinite Power the Excellence of which consists and its Exuberance is seen in the Production of all things from it self and giving to those that resemble its own Perfections the Precedence before others that bear no such Resemblance to it And hence it is that one common Principle produces many Principles many Simple Beings many Goodnesses immediately from it self and its own fulness Thus all Beings which are distinguished from one another by their own peculiar Differences and multiplied into several Species according to the particular Forms and Circumstances in which they differ are yet each of them reducible to one Principle more properly their own All things Beautiful and Lovely for instance of what kind soever that Loveliness and Beauty be or what Object soever it belong to whether Bodies or Souls are yet derived from one common Sourse of Beauty and Gracefulness The case is the same with all manner of Congruities and all Truths and all Principles for these so far forth as they are Principles and Originals to other things do exactly agree and are of the same Nature with that primary Goodness and original Truth and first Principle of all allowing only for some Abatements and taking that Agreement in such Proportions as the capacity of these derived and secondary Causes will admit For the same relation that that first Universal Principle bears to all Beings in general the same does each of these Subordinate Principles bear to the several Species and Individuals contained under it and partaking of the Property peculiar to it For every Species which is distinguished from the rest by a peculiar difference of its own must needs have a tendency to and terminate in its proper Principle from whence one and the same Form is reflected down upon all the particular Kinds and Creatures comprehended under it Thus an Unit is the Foundation of all Numbers and a single Cause is the Original of all Properties in this vast Variety of Beings So that all partial and subordinate Causes do really subsist and are contained in the first and universal one and this not locally or numerically but essentially and virtually as the Parts in the Whole as Generals in a Singular and as Numbers in an Unit. For this indeed is it self All Above and Before All and out of one Principle many Principles grow and in one Common Good many Goodnesses subsist and dwell Nor is this Principle a limited or particular one as for instance a Principle of Beauty or Gracefulness or Goodness or Truth as each of the rest are but simply and universally a Principle or Cause a Principle not only of Species and Beings but even of all other Principles too For the Property of a Principle cannot take its Rise from Particulars and from many but must center at last in an Unit and that One is the great Original of All the first Beginning and Cause of Causes Now the first and immediate Productions of this first Original Good are of the same Kind and Nature with it self They retain their Native Goodness and like that from whence they spring are fixed and unchangeable rooted and confirmed in the same Happiness they stand in need of no additional Good from abroad but are themselves naturally and essentially Good and Happy Now all other Beings whose Descent from that one original Good is more remote and who derive themselves from that First and these Secondary Causes in Conjunction lose that Perfection of being Essentially Good and enjoy what they have by participation only Fixed indeed they are in God's Essential Goodness and therefore he continually communicates it to them But the last and lowest sort which have no power of acting or moving themselves as Bodies for
far dispose of her self as to fix upon either the one or the other of these sorts which yet is done with this Difference that by pursuing the worse her Faculties are enfeebled and debased and by following the better they are exalted and confirmed for the Choice of these is indeed truly and properly Choice And hence we see it often happens that when the Body finds it self low and empty and requires Meat or some other Sustenance the Mind steps in and countermands this Desire with another over-ruling one of Fasting or Abstemiousness and this too taken up possibly upon some Religious Account or in Obedience to some Law or possibly merely in point of Prudence as thinking it better upon its own Account or more conducing to the Health of the Body Now I think no body can say but the Mind in such a Case might if it had so pleased have complied with those first Desires as indeed we sind the Generality of People do upon these Occasions but you see it exerted another opposite Desire and prosecuted that as the greater Good and so more eligible of the two So that Epictetus looking upon the Soul as endued with Reason might upon this Account very justly say that she had it in her Power to qualifie her Desires and to place them upon such or such Objects as she saw Cause The next Objection that tells us The Object of Desire necessarily excites the Soul to a Desire of it must be acknowledg'd to have a great deal of Truth in it but yet not so much as the Persons who urge it imagine For the Object does not move the Soul to Desire forcibly and mechanically but by proposing it self as something fit to be embraced and thus calling forth those Powers of the Soul into Action which Nature hath qualified to meet and to receive it Just as the sensible Object does not infuse the Faculty of Sensation into the Person who receives its Impressions nor draws him by violence to it self but only presents it self to the Eye in such Proportions as are proper for uniting with that Organ of Sense which was ordained by Nature and fitted for that Union And so the Object of Desire presents its Convenience and Fitness to the Soul and this invites such Motions as Nature hath provided proper for this Purpose Thus it must needs be because we see that when desirable Objects offer themselves some People are and others are not affected with them whereas if the Object were enduced with such Efficacy and Power as perfectly to constrain the Person desiring and the Motion of the Mind were necessarily impressed by it it must needs follow that upon such Occasions every one must be affected with it though perhaps not every one in the same Degree And in truth such an Operation upon the Mind would not be Desire but a violent Impulse or forcible Attraction such as we see when one Body is thrust forward or dragged along by another For Desire is a kind of Expansion in the Mind a moving forwards toward the Thing desired without any local Motion in the Person desiring such as we may resemble to a Man's stretching out his Hands to meet or embrace one while the rest of his Body is in no Motion So that Desire is a Motion begun originally and proceeding from within as are also our Opinions and the other Things mentioned here by Epictetus This Motion indeed is sometimes what it ought to be and is duely proportioned to the Nature of the Thing which we desire or conceive of And sometimes it is mistaken and very different from it when we are inclined to something which to us appears very desirable but is really what should rather provoke our Aversion When it shews us a gaudy Out-side to invite our Desire and hath a great deal of hidden Evil within which all the while lies concealed under some Advantage which the Idea of this Object flatters us with Thus the Thief is carried away with an Idea of Gain and Riches as a desirable Thing and this keeps him from considering or having any dread at all of that horrible Evil which lies sheltered under this Gain that defiles his Soul and taints it with Injustice And then as for any Apprehensions of Discovery and Imprisonment and Punishment which are the only Calamities so wicked a Wretch fears the excessive Eagerness of his Desire utterly overlooks and stifles all these for he presently represents to himself what a World of Men do such Things and yet are never found out Now thus much is plainly in our Power to examine this Object of our Desire more nicely and to inform our selves well whether it be a real Good and worth our pursuing or whether it only cheat us with a fair Out-side and counterfeit Appearance of Good as particularly in the Instance of Gain just now mentioned Nay we may go something farther yet for we may correct and regulate our Desires may bring them to fix upon such Objects only as are truly desirable and teach them not to be imposed upon with false Appearances We are told again That our Desires and our Opinions are carried to their proper Object with as invincible a Necessity as a Stone or Clod of Earth is carried downwards and consequently that Nature hath left us nothing in our own Power Nor have we any more reason to conclude that we are free to think or to desire after this or that manner when we see our Assent and Appetite always moved by the Credibility or the Desirableness of their Objects than we have to suppose that a Stone can ascend when we never see it do so Now to this it may be replied that there is a twofold Necessity the one absolutely destructive of Free-Will the other very consistent with it That kind of Necessity which proceeds from any Things without us does indeed take away all Liberty and Choice for no Man can be said to act freely when he is compelled by any other external Cause to do a Thing or to leave it undone But then there is another sort of Necessity from within our Selves which keeps every thing within its due Bounds and obliges each Faculty and Part to act agreeably to its own Nature and original Constitution And this is so far from destroying Free-Will that it rather preserves and supports it For by this means it comes to pass that a Free-Agent can be wrought upon by no other ways but such as are consistent with the Nature of a Free-Agent which is from a Principle of Motion within its self And this Necessity is by no means a Mechanical Necessity because it is not imposed by any Thing from without us but is what the Nature of such an Agent admits and requires what is necessary for its Preservation and for exerting the Operations proper to a Creature endued with such a Faculty as Self-Motion Besides if the Soul can bring it self to such Habits and Dispositions as are Vertuous or Vicious can grow better by
Wisdom and Sobriety and worse by Perverseness and a Dissolute Behaviour and can confirm it self in each of these Courses by the frequent Repetition of Acts suitable to them then the Soul is the true Cause of all this Though in truth it must not be admitted for a general Rule neither That the Liberty and Power of the Will is to be judged of by Mens being able to do Things contrary to one another For those Souls that are immediately united to the Original Good prefer that constantly and yet the Freedom of their Choice is still the same for that Preference is no more constrained and necessary than if they took Evil instead of it But it is their Excellence and Perfection that they continue stedfast in their own Good and never suffer themselves to be drawn off to the contrary But as for our Souls which are more remotely descended from that great Original their Desires are according to their Tempers and Dispositions those of them that are well disposed have good Desires and those that are ill have evil ones But still these Souls of ours are capable of great Alterations they frequently recover themselves from Vice to Virtue by Reformation and better Care they decline too and sink down from Virtue to Vice by Supineness and a foolish Neglect and both these Changes are wrought in them by their own voluntary Choice and not by any Force or Necessity that compels them to it So that there can be no manner of Pretence for charging any part of our Wickedness upon God He created the Soul after such a manner indeed as to leave it capable of being corrupted because its Essence is not of the first and best sort of Natures but hath a Mixture of the middle and the lowest and this Mixture was fit that so all might remain in its Perfection and the first and best continue still such without degenerating into Barrenness and Imperfection and Matter God therefore who is infinitely good himself made the Soul in a Condition that might be perverted and it is an Argument of his Mercy and the exceeding Riches of his Goodness that he did so For he hath set it above the reach of all external Violence and Necessity and made it impossible for it to be corrupted without its own Consent There is one Argument more still behind which pretends That a fatal Revolution of the Heavens hath so strong and absolute a Power upon us as not only to influence our Actions but even to determine our Choice and all our Inclinationss and leave us no Liberty at all to dispose of our selves but only the empty Name of such a Liberty Now to these we may answer That if the Rational Soul be Eternal and Immortal which I shall not go about to prove that being foreign to this Subject but desire at present to take for granted though it must be confest not in all Points agreeable to the Doctrin of the Stoicks in this particular but If the Soul I say be Eternal and Immortal it cannot be allowed to receive its Being or to have its Dependance upon Matter and Motion It s Instrument indeed that is the Animal taken in the gross by which I mean the Body animated by the Soul may owe its Nature and its Changes to such Causes For material Causes produce material Effects and these may differ according as those Causes are differently disposed with regard to Things here below And the Instrument is formed so as to be proper and serviceable to the Soul whose Business it is to make use of it now as the difference of Tools teaches us to distinguish the several Professions that use them so as to say These belong to the Carpenter's those to the Mason's and others to the Smith's Trade and not only to distinguish the Trades themselves but the Skill and Capacity of the Artificers themselves to judge of their Designs and Intentions and the Perfection of the Work it self for those who are Masters of their Trade have better Tools and use them with greater Dexterity than others In like manner they who have attained to the Knowledge of Astrology find out the Nature and Temper of the Instrument the Body from the different Constitution of Material Causes and from hence make their Conjectures of the Disposition of the Soul and this is the Reason why they often guess aright For indeed the Generality of Souls when falling under ill Management and the Conversation of naughty Men a sort of Degradation inflicted upon them by way of Punishment for the loss of their primitive Purity addict themselves too much to the Body and are govern'd and subdu'd by it so as to use it no longer as their Instrument of Action but to look upon it as a part and piece of their own Essence and conform their Desires to its brutish Appetites and Inclinations Besides this Position and fatal Revolution of the Heavens carries some sort of Agreement to the Production of the Souls united to Bodies under it yet not so as to impose any absolute Necessity upon their Appetites and Inclinations but only to infer a Resemblance of their Temper For as in Cities there are some particular solemn Seasons and Places that give us good Grounds to distinguish the Persons assembled in them as the Days and Places of Publick Worship commonly call those that are wise and religious and well-disposed together and those that are set apart for Pomp and publick Sports gather the Rabble and the Idle and the Dissolute so that the observing these Solemnities gives us a clear Knowledge of the People that attend upon them By the same Reason the particular Seasons and Places the Houses and Conjunctions of the Planets may be able to give us some Light into the Temper of the Souls united to Bodies under them as carrying some Affinity to the Conjunctions under which Men are born For when God in his Justice hath ordained such a particular Position and all the Fatalities consequent to it then those Souls which have deserved his Vengeance are brought under that Position For Likeness and Affinity of Tempers hath a strange Power of bringing all that agree in it together This fatal Revolution then does by no means constrain or bind up the Soul nor take away its native Freedom but the Soul only bears some Resemblance to the Temper of this Revolution and is framed agreeably to such a Body as it self hath deserved to be given it for its Use and by this means gives Men an Opportunity of learning its particular Desires and Inclinations from the considering of the Consteilations that People are born under Again the Souls chuse their particular Ways of living according to their former Dignity and Disposition but still the behaving themselves well or ill in each of these Ways is left in their own Power And upon this Account we see many who have chosen a Way of Trade and Business and great Temptation yet continue very honest and good Men in it and
immediate Discoveries of Heaven for the benefit and support of Mankind such as Physick and Architecture and the like we have no more than some faint Shadows and imperfect Images remaining How I say is it possible that these and many other Calamities and monstrous Wickednesses which the present Age is perfectly overrun with should be matter of Pleasure or Contentment And who is there that can take Satisfaction I do not say in seeing or bearing a part in them but so much as to endure the very hearing them named except he be first forsaken of all Humanity and all Goodness Such Doubts as these which give sometimes great Perplexity not only to the Weak and Common Man but to the Thinking and more Accomplished Persons will receive satisfaction if either Epictetus be allowed to have any Authority in what he says or the great Governor of all things be granted to order the World in Wisdom and Justice For our Piety and our Advantage will be sure to terminate in the same Object as Epictetus himself will assure us more fully hereafter In answer therefore to the Objection I say That if all these deplorable Accidents which the Objector hath given so Tragical an Account of be really Evil and such as they are generally esteemed to be it is not possible that either any Good Man should without forfeiting that Character be pleased to have them so nor could the Providence of Almighty God be acquitted from the Imputation of being the cause of Evil to us nor could Men ever prevail with themselves to Honour or Love or pay Adoration to such a Deity For let Men pretend what they will no Arguments in the World are able to produce these Affections for the Author of Misery and Mischief It is a Principle rooted in every Creature as Epictetus will shew you to hate and decline and run away from all things that are prejudicial to it themselves or the cause of other things being so to it But whatever is for its Benefit and productive of its Happiness these things it naturally courts and admires Thus much is certain upon supposition that these Accidents are really Evil but now if notwithstanding our dreadful Apprehensions of them they be in truth no such matter but rather Good as conducing very much to some mighty Benefit and directed to excellent Purposes and that if any Evil do indeed attend these Dispensations this is what the Nature of the things is no way concern'd in but is wholly owing to the Desires and strong Impulses of our own Minds In this case it will by no means follow that he who is well enough pleased all things should be just as they are is either a Vicious or a Barbarous Man nor can we with any colour charge the Evil we find in the World upon these Occasions to Almighty God but must acquit his Providence and acknowledge it to be infinitely Wise and Good Now the Things in which all these seeming Evils are and from whence they spring must be considered in this Condition of Mortality and undergoing the vicissitudes of Generation and Corruption either as Bodies or Souls And of these Souls again some are Irrational of the same Date and Duration with the Body and having none or but very little peculiar Excellence of their own their Office and Power extends no farther than meerly the animating those Bodies to which they belong and therefore all their Motions depend upon and proceed in Conjunction with the Bodies But other Souls are Rational These have an inward principle of Motion and an Essence and Excellence distinct from their Bodies they move by their own Choice and are absolute in the disposing their own Desires and Inclinations Now the Bodies belonging to these being in their own Nature purely Mechanical and deriving their Essence from External Causes are subject to the Motions of Heavenly Bodies which influence their Generation and Corruption and the various Alterations through which they pass But if we come nearer and descend to the Immediate and Material Causes then they are moved and affected by a mutual Operation upon one another For this is agreeable to all the Reason in the World that Temporary and Corruptible things should depend upon the Eternal for their Subsistence and be obedient to their Influences Mechanical Beings upon such as are endued with a Faculty of Self-Motion and those that are contained within others upon the Ambients that contain them This is the constant Method and Rule of Nature that these should follow the others Superiour to them as having no Principle of Motion in themselves no Faculty of Choosing no Power of Determining their Deâ—ires or Affections of their Nature no Merit or Demerit from Choice or Actions but are only Good or Evil in respect and proportion to their Causes Just as the Shadows of Bodies do not choose their Sides or Shapes as they please but are necessarily determined by their Causes and their Circumstances and are never the worse or the better for those Determinations Now as to Bodies whatever Changes they undergo this Variety can be no Ill to them whether they be Compound or Simple Bodies First of all because it is what the Condition of their Nature hath made them liable to They are bound in Laws irrevocable which they may neither controul nor resist and consequently can receive no Harm by whatever they impose as having no Power to do otherwise For Ignorance would be no Evil nor the most brutish and extravagant Conversation nor would the Rational Soul be one whit the worse for either had not Nature endued her with a Faculty of Discerning and Understanding the Truth and given her a Power over the brutish Appetites by which she is enabled to subdue and over-rule them Secondly Because the Compound Bodies which consist of simple Ingredients that are of contrary Qualities such as are perpetually strugling with and usurping upon one another by Diseases and Excess of Humours are sometimes strengthned by throwing off the corrupt Parts and sometimes by Decay and Death are delivered from all that Trouble and Pain and mutual Strife of contrary Qualities in them And in this Case each of the Simples is restored to its primitive Mass and recovers it self from that Weakness which was occasioned by this Opposition of contrary Humours For as each of the Ingredients in Composition made some Impression upon its Opposite so it likewise continually received some from it and suffered by it But now when the Simples are changed according to the Changes of the contrary Qualities they return again to their own primitive Being Thus Water evaporates into the Air from whence it came and Air is turned into Fire from whence it originally was And I cannot suppose any Evil in Things of this kind though Inundations or Fires or any the most violent Changes in Nature should be the Effect of these Inequalities in the Elements that compose the Universe or though Pestilences and Earthquakes should destroy and dash in pieces the
Bodies compounded of those Elements But farther If these Things contribute to some good Effect if by the infinite Revolutions of Matter and Motion the Corruption of one Thing produces the Generation of another how then can the Corruption of any single part be Evil when at the same time it conduces to the Benefit of the whole This is a Rule which Nature it self hath made evident to us and every particular Creature practises it in slighting the Advantage of its Parts in Comparison of the Good of the Whole Thus when any Noxious Humours are redundant in the Body Nature throws them off from the Heart or Bowels or Lungs or Brain and all the parts that are principally concern'd in the functions of Life into the Hands the Feet the Skin or any of the Extream Parts she raises Blisters and causes Putrefactions to remove the Humour and is content to corrupt some parts for the preservation of the whole This is sometimes I say the work of Nature and when it is not so we endeavour to supply it by art For when Physicians and Chyrurgeons draw Sores and Cup and Scarify and Sear and cut off Limbs to save our Lives they only imitate Nature and do that by Medicines which she was able to do without them And yet there is no Wise Man that blames these Methods nor thinks those Pains Evil which he suffers upon such good Accounts From hence it appears that if Bodies subsisted by themselves alone and whatever they endured had no relation at all to the Souls of Men none of the different Changes they undergo would be esteemed Evil So that if there be any real Cause for this Complaint it must be upon the account of the Souls in those Bodies Now some of these are Irrational perfectly of a piece with the Bodies and no more than the animating part of them Their Essence their Power and their Operations subsist in and depend entirely upon and are in inseparable Conjunction with the Body But others are Rational of a Nature superiour to the Body and distinct from it acting upon a free Principle of Motion and Choice a Principle of their own by which they dispose their own Inclinations and Desires as they see fit themselves all which hath been abundantly proved already Now the Irrational Souls have not the least Sign or Footstep of Free-Agency no manner of Tendency or Appetite from within but are only the principle of Life and Activity to the Body and Consequently their Being was ordained by the same Fate and is subject to the same Casualties with the Body They have no Dignity no Merit or Demerit of their own but are more or less valuable according to the Dignity of their respective Bodies and are as irresistibly disposed to their Motions as Shadows are to their Substances It is true indeed This is more peculiarly the Condition of Plants which have only a Vegetative Soul and want the Sensitive one and are not exercised with those Motions that accompany the Desires and vehement Impulses of the Soul But Beasts are in a higher Form and are endued with this also And therefore the Souls of Brutes being considered in a middle State in a Capacity Superiour to Vegetables and yet inferiour to such as Nature hath made free Agents must in all Reason have some Resemblance some Footsteps at least of Appetites and Affections arising from within and such as shall be moved sometimes in Agreement to the Nature of its particular Species and sometimes contrary to it As when a Lion hath that Courage and Fury agreeable to its kind and this is sometimes more and sometimes less than it ought to be And in this respect the Dignities and Degrees of such Souls are different and their Lives are so too according to the Disposition which Fate and Nature hath given them which is such that they are still moved mechanically and by external Impressions For it is necessary that whatever is placed between two Extremes should in some measure partake of each of these Extremes But now the Rational Soul which is a Free Agent and hath an absolute Dominion over her own Desires and Propensions derives its Dignity from Choice she uses the Body indeed but hath all its Appetites and Passions at her Devotion This Soul therefore when she makes use of the Body only as an Instrument of Action and maintains her own Superiority over it is obstructed in all those Operations in which the Body bears a part by the Sufferings and Diseases of the Body but is not it self at all affected with those Pains From whence it was that the great Socrates used to say the Anguish was in the Leg but not in the Mind But if the Soul contract too intimate a Familiarity with the Body and grow fond of it as if it were no longer its Instrument but a part of its self or rather its very self then it communicates in all its Afflictions degenerates into Brute and esteems all the Extravagancies of Anger and Desire its own is enslaved to them descends to little Trickings and is eternally contriving how to compass those Objects and being thus corrupted and diseased in such manner as a Soul is capable of being so stands in need of Physick and strong Remedies to cure these Distempers For it is a Rule in Application that one Contrary is cured by another And thus when the Desire is depraved by Lusciousness and Pleasure and hath conformed it self to the Body too much by the Love of Sensual Enjoyments and Riches and Honours and Preserments and Posts of Authority and the like there is a necessity of meeting with Crosses and Disappointments that so the subsequent Pain in the very same Instances may correct and chastise the Excess of Pleasure we formerly took in them And this is no where more requisite than in Bodily Pains and Pleasures For this is nearest to the Soul and its Torments are received with a quicker and more tender Sense than any other When therefore the Soul hath revolted from her Supreme Commander and forsakes her own Reason abandoning her self to the Body and the World and thinking their Enjoyments and their Happiness her own and by this means grows vitiated and distempered there seems no other way to be left of putting her out of Conceit with these Things and poising the Byass that carried her to them that so she may despise them and condemn her self and return to God and right Reason again and expect all her Happiness from an Obedience to these but by making her sensible both of the Evil of her former Courses and of the Smart that follows them This only can take off the Propensity to that Pleasure which she hath felt in and by them For so long as she continues to find this she continues fond of and fastened down to these Enjoyments And no Nail takes faster hold or fixes Things closer than Pleasure and the Allurements it brings do the Soul to the Objects that occasion it And this
in that all Things that happen are so ordained of God as that Nature and Choice have both their due and as is most beneficial to Mankind every Wise Man certainly will think himself obliged to be well content Things should be just as they are unless you will suppose him to envy the Giving every Thing its Due and the Recovering such as are Distempered and need sharp Remedies he will most sincerely love and honour and adore this Excellent Physician and look upon him as the World 's great and only Benefactor Now that Calamitous Circumstances are a sort of Remedies and that the Administration of proper Physick where the case requires it is good both to the Body and Soul no Body I presume will take upon them to dispute But what course shall we take to perswade Men that this very Distemper it self of Soul or Body this miserable Condition that renders such painsul Applications necessary is Good and not Evil and that the Author of it is not the Cause of Evil to us To this purpose I shall briefly recollect what was observed before That Diseases are not Evil to the Body it self as being by Nature made subject to them and tending to a dissolution of the Compound Resolving each of its Parts and Restoring the Simple Elements to their proper Masses the Releasing them from a strange place where they were kept in Bondage and putting an end to the perpetual Combat of opposite Qualities among them Neither can the Disease of the Body be Evil to the Soul for it hath been already shewn to be its Physick and its Cure And thus Experience often shews it to be But granted that Sickness and Corruption were injurious to one particular Body yet still it appears to be for the advantage of the Soul that owns that Body and to the Constitution of the Universe in general of the Elements of which it is formed and the infinite Râ—volutions of Matter and Motion which are therefore Infinite because the Destroying of one thing becomes the Production of another Well therefore may the wise Governour of all things not value a Creature which was by Nature corruptible and a particular inconsiderable Corruption confined to a single instance when the whole Creation is benefited and the Better Ends are served and the Eternal Revolution of Things are continued and kept up by this means But perhaps you will say though all this should be admitted with regard to the Body yet what shall we account for the Diseases of the Soul The frail and distempered State she is in can neither be for the good of her self that languishes under it nor does it contribute any Advantage to the Creation in common So that the Author and Ordainer of this state must needs be the Cause of Evil to her and he that is content she should be thus deprived and seâ—s and suffers her Sicknesses must needs be an Ill-natur'd Being and therefore as to this particular the Difficulty remains still the same Now in answer to this Scruple I beg leave to refresh your Memory with what was discoursed before concerning the Cause of Evil and Vice to the Soul while we were explaining Epictetus's Distinction between what is and what is not in our own power viz. That the Good and Happiness of the Soul consists in Prudent Regular Desires and Aversions and that the Evil and Misery of it proceeds from such as are Vicious and Exorbitant Now I hope the Desires and Aversions have been sufficiently proved to be in our own Disposal and if so then we our selves are the Cause of our own Vices and Virtues This is the true ground of all that Commendation which is thought due to Good Men that their Happiness and Excellence is the Effect of their own free Choice for which reason the Greeks call Virtue by a Name which bears some Affinity to that which imports Choosing And for the same Reason Wicked Men are Condemned and Reproached because they are such through their own Sloath and Baseness of Soul when it was in their own power to be otherwise But now if these Matters proceeded from any External Causes this Virtue or Vice would be no longer Choice but blind Chance or fatal Necessity And consequently our Evil and Misery can with no colouâ— of Reason and Justice be charged upon Almighty God May we not indeed drive this Argument a great deal farther and urge that even Vice which is properly the Disease of the Soul is not positively and in all respects Evil but is it self in some degree necessary to the very Being of Virtue among Men For as our Bodies if Nature had not made them capable of Sickness and Infirmities could not properly be said at any time to enjoy a state of Health because in truth this would not be Health but a simple and fix'd Disposition above the power of Frailties and Diseases such as the Celestial Beings enjoy So the Virtues proper to Humane Souls such as Temperance and Justice and Prudence and all the rest of that Glorious Catalogue would be no such thing unless the Soul were of such a Nature as is liable to be depraved For at this rate she would be graced not with the Virtues of a Man but with the Perfections of an Angel or a God whose peculiar Excellence it is that they can never be seduced or deviate into Vice But is rooted in the very Nature of Men and Humane Virtues that they may degenerate and be corrupted If then Human Virtues in the Soul and if the Health of the Body though neither of them absolutely Uniform and Inflexible be yet Good and if the Order of Nature required that beside the First Simple and Fix'd Beings others of a Middle and of Inferior Nature should derive themselves from the great Original and common Source of all Good then there was likewise a necessity that there should be Depravations of such good things as are subject to be Depraved which have not any positive and absolute Existence of their own but only a sort of additional one cast in to those that have And in this the exceeding Goodness of God is very remarkable that he hath ordained the Dissolution of the Body which as I said does as necessarily follow upon Matter and Motion as the Shadow attends upon its Substance this Dissolution he hath made even a good thing both with regard to the Bodies so Diseased and Dissolved as they are restored back again to their Primitive Elements and so the Simples out of which they are compounded are renewed and with regard to the Souls that own and use them as they are cured and made better by this Means and also to the Universe in common by reason of that infinite Succession of Changes and Motions which these Dissolutions as I shewed before keep continually on Foot But as for Vice the Evil of the Soul and indeed the only thing which when well considered proves to be Evil of this he utterly acquits himself and hath no
part in it at all First Because he only permits to it an Additional and Accidental Being and that not in the quality of Evil neither but as being it self a necessary Expedient for the promoting of Good And Secondly Because even after all these Limitations it depends wholly upon the Choice and Determination of the Soul and can have no being at all without our own Consent and actual Concurrence For which Reason it is that all the Laws both of God and Man suffer such Actions as are done involuntary to go unpunished And indeed all Evil whatsoever is in some Sense an involuntary Misfortune to the Soul for the Soul never chooses Evil considered as Evil but under the Desire and Pretence of some Good as sometimes Riches sometimes Senfual Enjoyments or Honours or Proferments and Greatness Now in such Cases the Mischiefs attending these are either wholly overlooked or else they are lessened and stifled by that prevalency of Passion which bribes and sways the Soul So that there cannot possibly be any such thing in nature as an Absolute Evil when considered in all the Circumstances of it And that which never had any Being may sooner be than that even this Accidental Being in the Soul should be entirely Evil and chosen as such Some perhaps may imagine that God is the Cause of Evil as having given the Soul this Freedom to Virtue or Vice to the ill Management whereof that Evil is owing Now indeed if the Soul 's being indued with a Faculty of acting freely and absolutely be Evil then he who gave this Faculty must be confessed the Cause of Evils But if such a Power be Good a greater and more valuable Good than all the Advantages of the World besides why then should he who hath given us the Good be for so doing charged with the Evil Since therefore that which is most agreeable to our Nature and Reason is also most eligible and desirable what account can be given why any one that is a Man and understands at all wherein the peculiar Excellence of a Man consists should rather wish to be a Plant or any other Irrational Creature than that which God hath made him Though at the same time we must allow that even Plants and other Irrational Beings are Good in their Kind and Capacity that is in a lower Degree and a qualified Sense and in proportion to the Uses they are designed to serve Now if it be in our own power to be Good and Happy and we have the sole Disposal of this Matter so that nothing can possibly bring our Desires or our Aversions under any Compulsion to act as we would not have them or under any Restraint not to act as we would have them such a Free Nature and Absolute Power as this is in my Opinion a Glorious Priviledge a most Magnificent and Royal Prerogative and the Person in whom it is lodged is thereby made a Great a Happy an Arbitrary Prince But if such a Soul contribute to its own Deviations and can choose whether it will so deviate or no where can any Miscarriage of that kind be laid with any tolerable Justice but to the charge of the Soul it self which is the true Original and Cause both of its own Good and of all the Deflexions from it since in and by it such Deflexions first began For the Great Creator who hath thus made it so as to be the Cause of its own Ruin did not absolutely ruin it but only made it capable of being ruined and yet at the same time too utterly incapable of it without her own Consent If therefore this Volition or Consent be an internal Motion of her own she is the sole Cause of her own Sin and Misery Behold therefore the Goodness and the Wisdom of God! For since the Constitution of the World and Order of Nature made a middle sort of Beings necessary that should stand between those that are always above and those that are always below things that should bear a Resemblance and be conformed sometimes to one and sometimes to the other of these Beings and thus make the whole perfect by partaking of and knitting together the distant Extremes Since also this tendency to things below us is but an accidental and additional thing and this Prudence is the very thing capable of Depravation he hath endued this middle sort of Beings with such a Tendency yet so as that it may still remain Untainted and Undepraved if it will do so and that he himself might be clear upon all Accounts and in no degree the Cause of any manner of Evil. These Arguments I have insisted on the more largely not only because they are proper for the explaining what Epictetus have delivered upon this occasion but also in regard they give us a great light into what he tells us afterwards concerning the Nature of Evil. For we might have made very short work of the Case now before us and needed only have given this Answer to all the Objections that when Epictetus advises Men to be well pleased Things should be just as they are he does not intend it of Vice or that which is Evil to the Soul for he could never have said that Men who are pleased with their own or other People's Vices are easie and happy but that we must restrain it to those Accidents that affect our Bodies or our Fortunes For these are things that a Wise and Good Man will be sure to make an Advantage of however they are ordered and the more Cross and Difficult they are the more still will he profit by them And these are the things he means which foolish and ignorant Men wish may be conformable to their own Wishes and Desires and not the Desires and Aversions themselves in which all our Good and Evil consists For they are in our own power just what we please to make them and consequently it were most absurd and foolish to wish they were as we would have them But he advises that we would forbear wishing thus of Things out of our power because this is what we cannot compass by any strength of our own nor would it always prove for our Advantage to do it if we could For we often are passionately desirous of what is pleasant though at the same time it be prejudicial to us and as often decline what is harsh and unpalatable though Providence intend it for Physick and design our mighty Benefit in the application Sickness is a Hindrance to the Body but it does not enfeeble the Mind nor can it obstruct her Freedom unless she please her self And Lameness is a Confinement to the Foot but it can put no Restraint upon the Will nor make that one jot the less Active And the same Consideration is applicable in proportion to every Accident of Humane Life For you will find that though these may prove Obstructions to something else yet they cannot or need not ever be so to you He had told us immediately
what we are capable of discharging To this purpose he proves that the Great Creator to whom the Soul of Man owes its Being was pleased to give it such a Frame and Temper that it should not be constantly determined to Sublime and Heavenly things nor always dwell above as the Blessed Spirits the Angels and those other of a Divine and still more Excellent Nature do but hath ordered the Matter so that this should sometimes be degraded to a State of Matter and Motion and Mortality be joyned to the Body and converse with Frail and Corruptible things But though he hath subjected the Soul to these Hazards and Tryals yet he hath endued her with particular Faculties and Powers suitable to each occasion by means whereof she may both engage with all the Accidents that can assault her and come off without Loss nay and vanquish and keep them under too Against such as tempt us with an Appearance of Pleasure he proposes Continence and this he rather chose to mention than those higher Degrees of absolute Chastity and Temperance in consideration that the Persons now addrest to are but Imperfect and Young Proficients in Virtue Now these Objects stir the Passions up to Rebellion and beget a Combat between Reason and them but by Discipline and a strict hand over ones self they are subdued and reduced to Obedience again And this is a true Description of that which we properly call a Continent Life as on the contrary that Man is properly said to be Incontinent whose Reason is impotent and tho it may struggle for a while yet yields at last to the stronger Insults of Passion But now in Persons who have attained to the Perfection of Wisdom and Virtue the Passions and Appetites which as I hinted before are the Child to be trained up in every one of our Minds are in absolute Subjection to Reason without any Dispute or Mutiny at all so that they are moved and directed entirely towards such Objects and at such Times and in such Measures as this sees fit to prescribe to them And this is truly Temperance which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being that which secures the Reason and preserves the Government and Prerogative of the intelligent Part in us For when this is brought under and distracted by Passion the Mind is torn in pieces and destroyed But while it maintains its own Superiority over the Affections it continues vigorous and sound So again to Persons that are Masters in Philosophy Fortitude is always a present Security against all Difficulty and Pain it keeps the very Out-guards of the Soul and suffers nothing of this kind to get the least Footing there but perseveres without any Perplexity or Disturbance and looks upon all the Hardships that come in its Way as so many Tryals to exercise it But the Proficients who are less expert must be content with Hardiness and Resolution such as may maintain its Post and make a gallant Resistance and prevent the Sinkings of the Soul by enabling it to continue the Fight and ward against the Blows when Trouble and Pains assault it For a constant and vigorous Opposition and hardening ones self against Difficulties will conquer all our Eâ—â—eminancy and Passion and make Reason and Virtue triumphant and by such Conquests frequently gained and prudently managed our Passions will be used to the Yoke submit to Discipline and obey without Reluctancy And when a Man hath brought himself to this Pass there will be no farther Trouble to exercise his Patience He is now above it all for he neither desires any Thing that is capable of giving him Disappointment nor does he make any Thing his Aversion that can overtake him whether he will or no and consequently can have no Trouble and Pain which always must proceed from one of these Causes Against Scandal and an Ill Tongue he tells us we shall find our best Defence in Meekness For in truth Scandal in its own Nature hath nothing that can afflict us and all that uses to do so is not what is said but the Judgments and Reflections we pass upon it which we ever aggravate to our selves according as we are blown up with Vanity or transported with Anger For all that Scandal can do without this is only to make us condemn the Defamer And for the proceeding regularly in this Condemnation without Heat or Prejudice we shall do well to consider wherein the Defamer is really to blame and that it is upon one of these two Accounts that he slanders and asperses us either falsly or out of Malice Now the Scandal it self may very well be born with because it is not capable of doing us any real Injury and so in truth may the Party that raises or spreads it too when we consider that the Injury is done not to Us but Himself for so it is in reality when his own Mind is the Sufferer by doing an ill and a base Thing Nay if this be too little we may consider farther that Scandal is always capable of being made an Advantage to us It is manifestly so when false and when it is true we gain this by it That it discovers our own Faults and Failings and either shews us something we did not know before or which though we did know yet we were apt to indulge upon a Presumption that no Body knew it but our selves And this very Consideration is of great Importance to restrain young Proficients in Virtue For such tho they are not come up to that noble Principle of practising Virtue for its own sake will yet give check to many exorbitant Passions and abstain from gross Evils out of Shame and Tenderness to their own Reputation And indeed this must be said in behalf of Ambition and a Desire of Praise that though it be a Passion it self yet it is of excellent Use for the moderating and correcting all the rest For this Reason it hath been called by a pertinent Allusion the Shirt of the Passions Because it sits closest to the Soul and when the Mind hath by the help of this put off all other Passions it divests it self of this last of all that so it may come to Virtue naked and stripp'd of all its former Prejudices and Incumbrances For this Reason says Epictetus we must not suffer our selves to be surprised or over-born by any Accident that would engage our Minds and draw them off to any External Advantages or Calamities so as that we should be discomposed with any false Idea's of its being Good or Evil. Nor must we give too great a Scope to our Desires and our Aversions nor let them be too hasty in their Motions but call up the Powers within us to our Assistance and when we have found which are the Succours proper for each Circumstance to rally them together and enter the Lists with Resolution and ward off every Accident accordingly CHAP. XV. Never use your self to say upon any Occasion That you have lost any
any Person advanced to an eminent Station of Honour or Power or any other kind of Prosperity that you be not presently surprised with a false Idea of his Condition and rashly pronounce him Happy For if all the Happiness and Tranquillity of our Minds depend upon things within our own power there can be no room for Envy or Emulation And you your self when you consider do not desire to be a Geral or a Senator or a Consul but to be free and easie Now the only way to be so is to despise the World and every thing that is out of your own power COMMENT THE only Method of insuring a Conquest upon all Encounters the last Chapter told us is never to engage with what is out of our own power But because we are exceeding apt to be drawn into such Conflicts and by nothing more indeed than the Examples of other Persons that seem to be Prosperous and Happy and the Envy and Emulation that usually follows upon such occasions therefore he shews us here very briefly that no body who makes the real Happiness of a Man his serious Study and sincere Endeavour is capable of Envy or Emulation and that it were utterly inconsistent with his Principles to be guilty of either For if the proper Happiness of a Man depend upon the use of his Free-Will and those things that are subjected to it and the Persons who are promoted to Power and Honour and courted with popular Applause and Admiration have not in all this any of those Advantages which Nature hath put in our own power it is manifest that these seemingly Happy Men are not in reality such nor have they by this Advancement attained to any degree of that which is the peculiar and true Happiness of Humane Nature What occasion then can all these flattering Appearances give for Envy or Emulation For Envy is properly the repining at anothers Happiness and Emulation is an impatient Desire of raising our selves up to an Equality with others that exceed us in something which we take for Happiness Now the Original Cause of these Passions is rooted in our Nature and Constitution which determines us to thirst after Honour and Esteem and is uneasie when we come behind any of our Equals Hence it is that Men of mean Souls and Vulgar Attainments and such as despair of advancing themselves by the strength of their own Worth endeavour to undermine and detract from others of better Desert that so they may rise upon their Ruins And to such ungenerous Tempers no consideration is so afflicting as the good Successes of their Neighbours And in this Vile Disposition the very Essence of Envy consists For Envy steals in upon the Prosperous or those that are esteemed so but especially if those Persons are upon the same level with our selves either in respect of their Birth or Fortune or Profession or other Accomplishments For Persons either very much above or very much below our selves are not the Object of our Envy Because these are not a match for us but the one sort excite our Admiration and the other provoke our Contempt But where Nature hath given a greater strength of Parts and a more active and generous Disposition there Men feel a gallant warmth of Soul which exerts it self vigorously and struggles to come up to the perfection of others by virtue of ones own Merit without any invidious Arts of lessening theirs Nay not only to come up with them but to outstrip them in the Race and bear away the Prize From the difference then of these Two Tempers and the Practices consequent to them we may plainly perceive that Envy is a Vicious Passion and no Qualification can render it otherwise But Emulation is sometimes Commendable and nearly related to the Love oâ— Goodness when Virtue is the thing we strive to excel in but it degenerates into Vice and is little better than Envy when the Advantages of Fortune and the World are the Prize we contend for Since therefore Good is the proper Object of Envy and Emulation and reference in Honour or Power or Reputation is only mistaken for such by the Vulgar but can really be no such thing because none of these fall within our own Choice it is plain that in Men who examine Matters nicely there can be no such Passion as Envy or Emulation excited upon any of these Accounts And consequently these are Resentments most unbecoming a Man that makes Wisdom and Virtue his Study because they plainly argue that while he accounts such Persons worthy of his Envy or Emulation he does likewise expect to find his Happiness in these Advantages which they enjoy And this contradicts the very first Principles of Philosophy and is inconsistent with the Character he pretends to For the thing that ought to be first in his Desires is Liberty the breaking those Chains his Passions have bound him in and getting loose from all the Incumbrances of the World And the only way to deliver himself from this Bondage is to slight and disdain the World and assert his Native Freedom from all those External Accidents those Rivals in his Affections that subdued and enslaved his Mind For these only have the power to vanquish and captivate him by disappointing his Hopes and Expectations and oppressing him with the Calamities he fears Upon these it is that our Brutish Inclinations let themselves lose and from hence comes all that remorseless Tyranny which they usurp and so arbitrarily exercise over us The Contempt of the World therefore is the most effectual Method of reducing all into Order again for by a brave and just scorn of these outward Objects we weaken the Desires that lead to them and when once those Succours are intercepted and cut off these cannot stand alone but fall in of course and submit themselves to Reason CHAP. XXVII Remember that when any Man Reviles or Strikes you it is not the Tongue that gives you the Opprobrious Language or the Hand that deals the Blow that injures or affronts you but it is your own Resentment of it as an Injury or Affront that makes it such to you When therefore you are provoked this is owing entirely to your own Apprehensions of the thing and especially guard your self well against the first impressions for if you can but so far subdue your Passion as to gain time for cooler Thoughts you will easily attain to a good Government of your self afterwards CHAP. XXVIII But be sure to keep Death Persecution and Banishment and all those Calamities which Mankind are most afraid of constantly before your Eyes and let them be very familiar to your Minds But above all let Death be ever present there For you will find this a most excellent Remedy against base and mean Thoughts and a powerful restraint to all immoderate Desires COMMENT AFter having again exposed the Vanity of all those imaginary Happinesses which Men depend upon the World for and shewed us that a Gallant and Generous Disdain of
Sun and Moon to the Good Principle but putting all the Stars into the Possession of the Evil and deriving them from a Bad Cause The Light of the Moon they do not agree to be borrowed from the Sun but think it a Collection or Constellation of Souls which she draws up like so many Vapours from the Earth between Change and Full and then translates them by degrees into the Sun from the Full to the next New Moon In short they have a World of extravagant Fancies which do not so much as deserve to be reckoned among Fables and yet they are by no means content to have them look'd upon as Fabulous nor do they use them as Figures or Hieroglyphicks so as to signifie something else of more substantial Goodness but will needs have them believed to be strictly and literally true Thus the Image they give us of Evil is a Monster compounded of five several Creatures a Lion a Fish an Eagle and some other two Things I do not well remember what but all these put together are supposed to make a very ravenous and formidable Composition Such abominable Impiety against God are these Notions and Principles chargeable with and yet which is still more amazing the Persons that advance them profess to take Sanctuary in these Opinions out of a more than common Respect and a profounder Reverence to the Divine Perfections than the rest of the World as they think express They could not bear the imputing any Evil to God and to avoid this Inconvenience they have found out a particular Principle and Cause of all Evil a Principle equal in Honor and Power to the Good or rather indeed Superior and more Potent than He. For in all the Attempts that have been made hitherto to corrupt the World and render it miserable Evil seems plainly to have got the better For they represent Evil upon all Occasions taking Advantage against Good and contriving all manner of Ways not to let it go This is constantly the bold and daring Aggressor while Good in the mean while gives way to and mingles it self with Evil would fain compound the Matter and for any thing that yet appears hath discovered nothing in its whole Management but Fear and Folly and Injustice Thus while they abhor to call God the Cause of Evil they make him nothing but Evil in the most exquisite Degree and according to that vulgar Proverb leap out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire But besides these vile Profanations of the Majesty of God this System of Philosophy does as much as in it lies tear up the very Roots of all Virtue and moral Instruction by destroying and utterly taking away all that Liberty of Choice which God and Nature have given us For besides those Attributes of Eternity and Immortality it does also ascribe to this Principle of Evil a compulsive Power over our Wills and that so very absolute and strong that it is not only out of our own Disposal whether we will commit Wickedness or no but such as even God himself is not able to controul or over-power In the mean while it must be confest that this is a very idle and extravagant Imagination For if our Souls are violently thrust and born down into Murder or Adultery or any other that are reputed the most grievous Crimes and commit these merely by the Impulse of some stronger Power without any Consent or voluntary Concurrence of their own then are they clear of all Guilt And this is a Matter so evident and acknowledged that all Laws both Divine and Humane acquit Persons in Cases of Violence and such a Force as they could not resist and where it is plain they acted against their Will And indeed there is not nor can be any Sin at all in such Actions where Mens own Minds are supposed to have no Concern but to proceed upon Necessity and Constraint and such as could not be resisted by them Now if these wise Philosophers while they were at a loss where to fix the true Cause of these Things considered as Evils bethought themselves of this Remedy and set up such a Principle of Evil as you have heard to resolve the Difficulty they have done their own Business effectually and by a very pleasant Blunder over-turned their whole Scheme at once For if it follows likewise upon the Supposal of such a Constraint put upon the Wills of Men by that Principle that nothing they do is any longer Evil then observe how pleasant a Conclusion they have brought their Matters to for the Consequence lies plainly thus If there be such a Thing as a Principle of Evil then there is no such Thing as Evil in the World and if there be no such Thing as Evil then there cannot possibly be any such Thing as a Principle of Evil and so upon the whole Matter they have left themselves neither a Principle of Evil nor any Evil at all Since therefore this is discovered to be but a rotten Foundation if any conscious of its weakness shall presume to affirm that God is the Author of Evil as well as Good the Falshood and Impiety of this Assertion will ask but little Time and Pains to evince it For how indeed can we suppose it possible that that Opinion should be true which casts such unworthy Aspersions upon him who is the Author and Giver of all Truth And first which way can one conceive that God whose very Essence is perfect and immutable Goodness should produce Evil out of himself For since Evil and Good are contrary to each other as our Adversaries themselves grant How can we imagine one Contrary to be the Production of another Besides He that produces any thing out of himself does it by being the Cause of its existing by having the Cause within himself and having some Likeness to it in his own Nature and so if you respect him as the Cause the Producing and the Produced are in some degree the same So that the Promoters of this Opinion seem not to have attended to the manifest Dishonour they put upon God by making him not only the Cause and Author of Evil but to be the first and original Evil in his own Nature Since therefore there is no such Thing as a Common Principle of Evil and since God is not the Author and Cause of it what Account shall we give of its coming into the World For it is impossible any Thing should have a Beginning without a Cause And the best Course we can take for this will be first to explain what we mean by Evil and then enquire into its Original for the Causes of Things will very hardly be found till their Natures are first known Now as to that Evil which they suppose who profess to believe a Common Principle of Evil and many of those that dispute this Question understand we may be bold to pronounce that there is no such Thing in Nature For they pretend that this Evil hath a positive Subsistence of
who knows and is sensible of the Difference between them when he does it But this Misfortune happens generally from a blind Admiration of some apparent Good which so dazles our Eyes that either we do not at all discover the Evil it is attended with or if we do discern that yet we see the Thing through false Opticks such as magnifie the Good and lessen the Evil to the Eye Now it is a frequent and a reasonable Choice when we are content to take a greater Good with the Incumbrance of a less Evil As for Instance When we suffer an Incision or a Cupping and account the Evil of these Pains much too little to counterballance the Good there is in that Health which they restore to us Once more yet That all Things desire Good is farther plain from hence That supposing Evil to have a real Being and a Power of Acting whatever it did would be for its own Advantage that is in other Words for its own Good And thus much they who ascribe a Being and Operation to it confess for they pretend that it pursues after Good would fain detain it and uses all possible Endeavours not to let it go And if Evil be the Object of no Desire then is it not any primary and designed Nature But since the Condition of it is in all Particulars according to the Description here given of it it is most truly said to be an Accidental and Additional Thing superinducive to something that did subsist before but to have no Subsistence of its own Well says the Objector I allow what you say We will suppose that Evil is only an Accident a Defect and Privation of Good and an additional Disappointment of the first and original Intent of Nature And what of all this How are we advanced in the Question before us For let this be what or after what manner you please still it must have some Cause otherwise How in the Name of Wonder did it ever find the way into the World How then will you get out of this Maze You allow God to be the Cause of all Things you must grant that Evil hath some Cause and yet you tell me that God is infinitely Good and so cannot be that Cause This Objection hath been already considered and spoken to both at the Beginning of the Book where we explained this Author's Distinction of the Things that are or are not in our own Power and also in the Comment upon the XIII Chapter upon Occasion of those words Trouble not your self with wishing that Things may be just as you would have them c. But however I will speak to it once more here too and that briefly as follows God who is the Source and Original Cause of all Goodness did not only produce the highest and most excellent Things such as are good in themselves nor only those that are of a Rank something inferiour to these and of a middle Nature but the Extremes too such as are capable of falling and apt to be perverted from that which is agreeable to Nature to that which we call Evil. Thus As after those incorruptible Bodies which are always regular in their Motions and immutably good others were created subject to Change and Decay so likewise it was with Souls the same Order was observed with these too for after them which were unalterably fixed in Good others were produced liable to be seduced from it And this was done both for the greater illustration of the Wise and Mighty Creator that the Riches of his Goodness might be the more clearly seen in producing good things of all sorts as many as were capable of subsisting and also that the Universe might be full and perfect when Beings of all kinds and all Proportions were contained in it For this is a Perfection to want nothing of any kind And also to vindicate the Highest and the Middle sort which never decline or deviate from their Goodness from that Contempt which always falls upon the Lowest of any sort and such these had been if the Corruptible and Mortal things had not been Created and Supported the others Dignity by their own want of it And Corruptible they must be for it could never be that while the First and the Middle sort of Bodies continued as they are some Immutable both as to their Nature and their Operations others Immutable indeed as to their Substance but Mutable in their Motion it could not be I say that the Lowest and Sublunary Bodies should ever hold out while the violent Revolutions of the Heavenly ones were perpetually changing their Substance and putting them into unnatural Disorders For these Reasons certainly and perhaps for a great many others more important than these which are Secrets too dark and deep for us these Sublunary Bodies were made and this Region of Mortality where the Perverted Good hath its Residence For there was a Necessity that the lowest sort of Good should have a Being too and such is that which is liable to Change and Depravation Hence also there is no such thing as Evil in the Regions above us for the nature of Evil being nothing else but a Corruption of the Meanest and most Feeble Good can only subsist where that Mean and Mutable Good resides For this Reason the Soul which considered by her self is a Generous and Immutable Being is tainted with no Evil while alone in a State of Separation but being so contrived by Nature as to dwell in this lower World and be intimately united to Mortal Bodies for so the good Providence of our great Father and Creator hath ordered it making these Souls a Link to tye the Spiritual and Material World together joyning the Extreams by the common Bonds of Life it seems to bear a part in all those Distempers and Decays which Evil subjects our Bodies to by disturbing their natural Habit and Frame Though indeed I cannot think this to be Evil strictly speaking but rather Good since the Effect of it is so For by this means the simple Elements of which these Bodies are compounded come to be set free from a great Confinement and severed from other parts of Matter of a different Constitution with which they were interwoven and entangled before and so getting loose from the perpetual Combat between contrary Qualities are restored to their proper Places and their primitive Mass again in order to acquiring new Life and Vigour And if this proceeding be the occasion of perpetual Change yet neither is that Evil because every thing is resolved at last into what it was at the beginning For Water though evaporated into Air yet is by degrees congealed into Water again and so even particular Beings lose nothing by those Vicissitudes But that which ought to be a Consideration of greater Moment is that the Dissolution of Compound Bodies and the mutual change of Simple ones into each other contributes to the Advantage of the Universe in general by making the Corruption of one thing to become
the Rise and Birth of another And by this perpetual Round it is that Matter and Motion have been sustained all this while Now it is obvious to any observing Man that both Nature and Art as was urged heretofore do frequently neglect a part when the detriment of that in particular may conduce to the good of the whole The former does it as often as our Rheums and Ulcerous Humours are thrown off from the Vitals and turned into Sores or Swellings in any of the Extream Parts And Art imitates this Method of Nature as oft as a Limb is seared or lopped off for the preservation of the Body So that upon the whole Matter these Shocks and Corruptions of Bodies deserve rather to be esteemed Good than Evil and the Cause of them the Cause of Good and not Evil Events For those Sublunary Bodies that are Simples suffer no Injury because they are subject to no Decay or Destruction And for the Evil that the Parts seems to undergo this hath been shewn to have more Good than Evil in it both in Simples and Compounds even when considered in it self but if taken with respect to the Benefit which other Creatures reap by it then it is manifestly Good So that the Distempers and Decays of Bodies take them which way you will are not Evil but produce great Good But if any one shall be scrupulous upon this occasion and quarrel with that being called Good which is confessed to be no better than a perverting of the course of Nature let not this Nice Caviller take upon him however to call it Evil in the gross Sense and common Acceptation of the Word by which we understand something utterly repugnant and irreconcileable to Good But let him rather call it a Necessity or Hardship as being not desirable for its own sake but having some tendency and contributing to that which is so For were it simply and absolutely Evil it could never be an Instrument of Good to us Now that which I mean by Necessary though it have not Charms enough of its own to recommend it yet does it deserve to be accounted Good for leading us to that which is Good and that which can become a proper Object of our Choice under any Circumstance is so far forth Good Thus we choose Incisions and Burnings and Amputations nay we are content to pay dear for them and acknowledge our selves obliged both by the Prescription and the painful Operation all which were most ridiculous to be done if we thought these things Evil. And yet I own this is but a Qualified and an Inferior Good not strictly and properly so but only in a Second and Subordinate Sense Yet so that the Creator of these things is by no means the Cause of Evil but of a necessary and meaner Good but a Good still for such we ought to esteem it since it is derived from the same Universal Fountain of Goodness though embased with some Allays and Abatements And thus much I hope may be thought sufficient in Vindication of the Nature and Cause of that Evil which Bodies are concern'd in Nothing indeed can so truly be called Evil as the Lapses and Vices of the Soul of Man and of these too much hath been said before but however we will resume the Discourse upon this Occasion and enquire afresh both into the Nature and the Cause of them And here we shall do well to take notice That the Soul is of a more excellent Nature which dwell in the Regions above us are immutably fixed in Goodness and wholly unacquainted with any Evil. There are also the Souls of Brutes of a Baser alloy than ours and standing in the middle as it were between the Vegetative Souls of Plants and our Rational ones These so far forth as they are Corporeal are liable to that Evil to which Bodies are subject but so far as concerns their Appetites and Inclinations they bear some resemblance to the Humane and the Evil they are in this respect obnoxious to is in proportion the same so that one of these will be sufficiently explained by giving an account of the other Now the Humane Soul is in a middle Station between the Souls above and those below it partakes of the Qualities of both of those more Excellent ones in the Sublimity of its Nature and the Excellence of its Understanding Of the Brutal and inferiour ones by its strict affinity to the Body and Animal Life Of both these it is the common Band by its Vital Union with the Body and by its Habitual Freedom assimilates it self sometimes to the one sort and sometimes to the other of these Natures So long as it dwells above and entertains it self with Noble and Divine Speculations it preserves its Innocence and is fixed in Goodness but when it begins to flag and droop when it sinks down from that blissful Life and grovels in the Filth of the World which by Nature it is equally apt to do then it falls into all manner of Evil. So that its own Voluntary Depression of its self into this Region of Corruption and Mortality is the true Beginning and proper Cause of all its Misery and Mischief For though the Soul be of an Amphibious Disposition yet it is not forced either upwards or downwards but acts purely by an internal Principle of its own and is in perfect Liberty Nor ought this to seem incredible in an Agent which Nature hath made Free since even those Brutes that are Amphibious dwell sometimes in the Water and sometimes upon dry Ground without being determined to either any otherwise than by their own Inclination Now when the Soul debases her self to the World and enters into a near Intimacy with the Corruptible Body and esteems this to be the other consistent part of the Humane Nature then it leads the Life of Brutes and exerts it self in such Operations only as they are capable of It s Intellectual part degenerates into Sense and Imagination and its Affections into Anger and Concupiscence By these the wretched Mortal attains to Knowledge just of the same pitch with that of other Animals such as puts him upon seeking fresh Supplies for a Body that is continually wasting and upon continuing the World by Posterity to fill the place of one that must shortly leave it and upon making the best Provision he can for his own Preservation and Defence in the mean while For these Cares are what no Mortal would have were he not endued with Sensual Faculties and Passions For what Man that is any thing Nice and Considering would endure to spend so many Days and Years upon the support of this Body when the Burden of the whole Matter comes to no more than always filling and always emptying if Sensual Inclinations did not whet his Appetite Or who could undergo the tedious fatigue by which Succession is kept up if vehement Desires did not perpetually kindle new Flames and the prospect of Prosperity make us more easie to be warmed by
them These Arguments have been in some measure insisted on before and I take them to be abundantly clear in this point that though our Passions and Appetites be the Cause of Moral Evil yet they are extreamly Beneficial to the Creatures in which Nature hath implanted them as being necessary to their Constitution and giving a Relish to some of the most indispensible Actions of Life Upon all which accounts even these cannot with any Justice be called Evil nor God who infused them the Cause of it But the truth of the Matter is this The Soul is by Nature superior to this Body and Animal Life and hath a commanding power over them put into her Hands this Dignity and Power so long as she preserves keeping her Subjects under and at their due distance while she uses the Body as her Instrument and converts all its Functions to her own Use and Benefit so long all is well and there is no danger of Evil. But when once she forgets that the Divine Image is stampt upon her when she lays by the Ensigns of Government and gives away the Reins out of her own Hands when she sinks down into the Dregs of Flesh and Sense by preferring the Impetuous Temptations of Pleasure before the Mild and gentle Perswasions of Reason and enters into a strict Union with the Brutish part then Reason acts against its own Principles divests it self of its Despotick Power and basely submits to be governed by its Slave and this Confusion in the Soul is the Root of all Evil an Evil not owing to the more Excellent and Rational part while it maintains its own Station nor to the Inferior and Sensual while that keeps within its due Bounds but to the inverting of these the violent Usurpation of the one and the tame Submission of the other that is The perverse Choice of Degenerating into Body and Matter rather than forming ones self after the similitude of the Excellent Spirits above us But still all this as I said is Choice and not Constraint it is still Liberty though Liberty abused And here I would bespeak the Reader 's Attention a little to weigh the Reasons I am about to give why Choice and Volition must needs be the Souls own Act and Deed an Internal Motion of ours and not the Effect of any Compulsion from without I have already urged the Clearness of this Truth at large and that the Soul only is concern'd and acts purely upon the principles of her own Native Freedom in the Choice of the Worse no less than the Better part Thus much I apprehend to have been plainly proved from the Example of Almighty God himself the Determinations of all Wise Laws and well Constituted Governments and the Judgment of Sober and Knowing Men who all agree in this That the Merits of Men are not to be measured by the Fact it self or the Events of things but by the Will and Intention of the Person And accordingly their Rewards and Punishments their Censures and their Commendations are all proportioned to the Intention because this alone is entirely in a Man 's own power and consequently it is the only thing he can be accountable for From hence it comes to pass that whatever is done by Constraint and Irresistible Force though the Crime be never so grievous is yet pardoned or acquitted and the Guilt imputed not to the Party that did it but to the Person that forced him to the doing of it For he that used that Force did it Voluntary but he that was born down by it had no Will of his own concerned in the Fact but became the mere Instrument of effecting it against the Inclination of his own Mind Since then our own Choice is the Cause of Evil and since that Choice is the Souls Voluntary Act owing to no manner of Compulsion but it s own internal mere Motion what can we charge Evil upon so justly as upon the Soul But yet though the Soul be the Cause of Evil it is not the Cause of it considered as Evil for nothing ever is or can be chosen under that Notion But it disguises it self and deludes us with an Appearance of Good and when we choose that seeming Good we take at the same time the real Evil that lay concealed under it And thus much in effect was said before too And now having thus discovered the true Origine of Evil it is fit we proclaim to all the World That God is not chargeable with any Sin because it is not He but the Soul that does Evil and that freely and willingly too For were the Soul under any Constraint to do amiss then indeed there would be a colourable Pretence to lay the Blame on God who had suffered her to lye under so fatal a Necessity and had not left her free to rescue and save her self Though in truth upon this Presumption nothing that the Soul was forced to do could be strictly Evil. But now since the Soul is left to her self and acts purely by her own free Choice she must be content to bear all the Blame If it shall be farther objected That all this does not yet acquit Almighty God for that it is still his Act to allow Men this Liberty and leave them to themselves and that he ought not to permit them in the Choice of Evil then we are to consider that one of these Two Things must have been the Consequence of such a Proceeding Either First That after he had given Man a Rational Soul capable of choosing sometimes Good and sometimes Evil he must have chained up his Will and made it impossible for him to choose any thing but Good Or else that it ought never to have had this Indifference at all but to have been so framed at first that the Choice of Evil should have been naturally impossible One of these Two Things the Objector must say or he says nothing at all to the purpose Now the former of these is manifestly absurd for to what purpose was the Will left Free and Undetermined either way if the Determining it self one way was afterwards to be debarred it This would have been utterly to take away the power of Choosing for Choice and Necessity are things Inconsistent and where the Mind is so tied up that it can choose but one thing there properly speaking it can choose nothing As to the latter It must be remembred in the First Place that no Evil is ever chosen when the Mind apprehends it to be Evil But the Objector seems to think it were very convenient if this Freedom of the Will which is so Absolute in the Determining of it self sometimes to real Good and sometimes to that which deceives it with a false Appearance of being so were quite taken away Imagining it to be no Good to be sure and perhaps some great Evil But alas he does not consider how many things there are in the World that are accounted exceeding Good which yet are not really in any
degree comparable to this Freedom of the Will For in truth there is no Thing no Priviledge in this lower World so desirable And there is no Body so stupid and lost as to wish that he were a Brute or a Plant rather than a Man And therefore since God displayed the Abundance of his Goodness and Power in giving Perfections inferior to this how inconsistent would it have been with that Bounty of his not to have bestowed this most excellent Priviledge upon Mankind Besides as hath been intimated formerly take away this Undetermined Propension of the Soul by which it inclines it self to Good or Evil and you undermine the very Foundations of all Virtue and in effect destroy the Nature of Man For if you suppose it impossible to be perverted to Vice you have no longer any such thing as Justice or Temperance or any other Virtue left the observing of these things may be the Excellence of an Angel or a God but impeccable and indefectable Goodness can never be the Virtue of a Man From whence it is plain that there was a necessity of leaving the Soul in a capacity of being Corrupted and of committing all that Evil consequent to such Depravation because otherwise a Gap had been left in the Creation there could have been no Medium between the Blessed Spirits above and Brutes below no such thing as Humane Nature nor Humane Vertue in the World So then we allow that this Self-determining Power by which Men are depraved is a thing of God's own Creation and appointment and yet consider withal how necessary this is to the Order and Beauty of the Universe and how many good Effects it hath In other respects we can by no means admit that he should be traduced as the Cause and Author of Evil upon this account When a Surgeon lays on a Drawing Plaister to ripen a Swelling or Cuts or Sears any part of our Bodies or lops off a Limb no Man thinks he takes these Methods to make his Patient worse but better because Reason tells us that Men in such Circumstances are never to be cured by less painful Applications Thus the Divine Justice in his deserved Vengeance suffers the Passions of the Soul to rage and swell so high because he knows the condition of our Distemper and that the smarting sometimes under the wild Suggestions of our own furious Appetites is the only way to bring us to a better Sense of our Extravagance and to recover us of our Phrensy 'T is thus that we suffer little Children to burn their Fingers that we may deter them from playing with Fire And for the same Reasons many wise Educators of Youth do not think themselves oblig'd to be always thwarting the Inclinations of those under their Charge but sometimes connive at their Follies and give them a loose there being no way so effectual for the purging of these Passions as to let them sometimes be indulged that so the Persons may be cloyed and nauseate and grow Sick of them And in these Cases it cannot be said that either those Parents and Governors or the Justice of God is the Cause of Evil but rather of Good because all this is done with a Vertuous Intent For whatever tends to the Reformation of Manners or confirming the Habits of Virtue may be as reasonably called Virtuous as those things that are done in order to the Recovery and Continuance of Health may be called wholsome For Actions do principally take their denomination and quality from the End to which they are directed So that although God were in some measure the Cause of this necessity we are in of deviating from Goodness vet cannot Moral Evil be justly laid at his Door But how far he is really the cause of our Deflection from our Duty I shall now think it becomes me to enquire God does not by any Power or immediate Act of his own cause that Aversion from Good which the Soul is guilty of when it Sins but he only gave her such a power that she might turn her self to Evil that so such a Species of free Agents might fill avoid Space in the Universe and many good effects might follow which without such an Aversion could never have been brought about God indeed is truly and properly the Cause of this Liberty of our Wills but then this is a Happiness and a Priviledge infinitely to be preferred above whatever else the World thinks most valuable and the Operation of it consists in receiving Impressions and determining it self thereupon not from any Constraint but by its own mere Pleasure Now that a Nature thus qualified is Good I cannot suppose there needs any proof we have the Confession of our Adversaries themselves to strengthen us in the Belief of it For even they who set up a Principle of Evil declare they do it because they cannot think God the Author of Evil and these very Men do not only acknowledge the Soul to be of his forming but they talk big and pretend that it is a part of his very Essence and yet notwithstanding all this they own it capable of being vitiated but so as to be vitiated by its self only For this is the manifest consequence of their other Tenets that it depends upon our own Choice whether we will overcome Evil or be overcome by it that the Vanquished in this Combat are very justly punished and the Victors largely and deservedly rewarded Now the truth is when they talk at this rate they do not well consider how directly these Notions contradict that irresistible necessity to Sin which they elsewhere make the Soul to lye under But however whether the Soul be depraved by its own Foolish Choice or whether by some fatal Violence upon it from without still the being naturally capable of such depravation is agreed on all Hands for both sides confess it to be actually depraved which it could never be without a natural Capacity of being so Therefore they tell us the First Original Good is never tainted with Evil because his Nature is above it and inconsistent with any such Defect as are also the other Goodnesses in the next degreee of Perfection to him such as in their Cant are called the Mother of Life the Creator and the Aeones So then these Men acknowledge the depravable Condition of the Soul they profess God to be the Maker of it and to have set it in this Condition and yet it is plain they think the nature of the Soul depravable as it is Good and not Evil because at the same time that they ascribe this Freedom of the Will to God they are yet superstitiously fearful of ascribing any Evil to him And this I think may very well suffice for the Nature and Origin of Evil. Let us now apply our selves to consider the Passage before us and observe how artificially Epictetus hath comprised in a very few Words the substance of those Arguments which we have here drawn out to so great a length
Heads concerns his Behaviour First towards Men and in general to all his Equals Then to those Beings that are above him Thirdly those below him And lastly his own self Each of these Heads have distinct Rules and Measures the Principal whereof Epictetus treats of beginning in this Chapter with Men's Duty to one another To this purpose he gives us a convenient Intimation how we may find out what is properly our Duty and that this differs according to the several Posts in which Men stand to one another There is one kind of Deportment due to a Father and another to a Son one to our own Country-man and another to a Stranger one to a Friend or a Benefactor and another to an Enemy that hath injured us And the reason of this is Because the Relation I bear to a Father as the Person to whom next under God I owe my Being and the Comforts of it differs from that which I bear to a Son whom I am to consider not as a Cause but as an Effect of my self and to look upon him as one to whom I have communicated part of my own Substance So that in all these Cases the first thing we have to do is to enquire into the Quality and Relation of the Person and then to suit our Demeanour accordingly Now this Relation generally speaking is the Order of Things or the mutual Regard they have to one another and this may be either the effect of Necessity and Nature or of Choice it may reflect either to Similitude or Dissimilitude either to Proximity or to Distance For this Relation is a sort of Common Band of the Persons concerned in it which links them so together that though they be distinct in other respects yet they cannot be absolutely dis-joined but must continue to have an Interest each in other For which Reason it is that Relatives are said to belong to one another Now the natural Order and Respect which proceeds in Proximity joins sometimes Equals as Brothers and here both the Denominations and the Duty of each Party is the same for both are Brothers And so likewise it is in other like Cases Both are Equals both are Cousins both are Country-men There is also a natural Respect which implies Distance and this regards People of different Birth and Countries and likewise proceeds upon the like Names and the like Duties as of one Stranger or Foreigner to another And this is a Respect inferring Distance because as that which express'd nearress of Blood and Family brought them closer together so this which denies such a nearness does in that very Idea set them farther asunder This however is a general Rule That in all Cases where both Parties are upon the level and go by the same Names there they owe the same Duties too and that whether the Term by which the Relation is express'd imply Proximity or Distance Again there is also a mutual Respect founded in Nature where a Disparity is implied as between Father and Son For here the Expectances are not the same as between Brothers they were said to be nor are the Denominations as there the same This then is a natural Regard which joins People upon unequal Teâ—ms and this Inequality is the same in Proportion as in a Cause and its Effect There is another Relation too of Disparity between Things that seem Contraries as between the Right Side and the Left for these have a mutual Respect to each other and yet that depends upon a kind of local Contrariety There is likewise a disjunctive Relation in Nature which is between Disparates too as Things of last Year and this Year for this shews an Inequality in Time The Relation upon Choice that implies Proximity and lies between Equals is that of Friends and that which implies Distance or the Dis-junctive is that of Enemies For even Enemies are under a voluntary Relation to one another and these Relations lying between Equals have as I observed before the same Names and are obliged to the same Duties This voluntary Relation lies sometimes in Disparity too as between Master and Scholar considered as the Cause and the Effect between the Buyer and Seller as contradistinguished from each other The dis-junctive Relations of this kind that carry a Disparity are the Flier and the Pursuer for these Men are under a voluntary and an unequal Relation to one another though this be such an one as implies Dâ—stance and Disjunction too The Relation between Husband and Wife seems to be something betwixt that by Nature and that by Choice for in truth it is partly one and partly the other and inferrs a Disparity both of Name and Duty But that of Neighbours which is a kind of inâ—ermediate Relation too hath an equality in Duty and the same Title Between the Person in Authority and Him under it there is some kind of natural Relation for Nature intended in all her Productions that the Better should govern the Worse It depends partly upon Choice too as when by some Common Agreement the Wealthy bear Rule and the Meaner People submit to it and it is a mixture of both these when instead of Wealth and Power the Wisest are advanced to the Chair by Consent And now that this rough imperfect Draught hath been laid before us of the several Relations Men bear to one another it will concern us to consider in which we and the Persons we converse with stand and to take our Measures from thence but with this Caution That we still answer our Character whether they make good theirs or no and especially where Nature hath made the Relation and prescribed the Duty For where it is only founded in Choice there the Good Man who discharges his own Part hath it in his power to untie the Knot when he will and let the Relation faâ—l asunder That is he can withdraw his Affection and Acquaintance from an unworthy Friend and he can melt down a spightful Man with good Offices and cease to be an Enemy For the same free Choice that contracted the Relation can as easily dissolve it too But the Relations founded in Nature are Eternal and no Act of our own Will can ever make them cease So that if a Friend use us ill and become an Enemy he hath broke the Bond that linked us together and released us from all that was due to him upon the account of Friendship because he hath ceased to be our Friend and chosen to be our Enemy But if a Father behave himself viciously or unnaturally the â—ase is much otherwise Neither â—is Rigour nor his Vice can make him cease to 〈◊〉 a Father because these are only the Effects oâ— his own Choice but the Relation between us is noâ—â—ounded in Choice but in Nature and the Obligation lies to him as a Father not as a good or a kind Father so that though he be not such yet our Duty continues still the same We are bound then to pay him all manner of
torment themselves to no purpose with other People's Calamities and Epictetus advises they should not but they sacrifice themselves and all their Quiet to Care and Trouble they neglect their own private Affairs and Families and must be content with perpetual Vexations and Interruptions and to lose many precious Opportunities that might be improved to very wise and vertuous Purposes Upon all these accounts and to make them some amends every Man is bound not only to be obedient but so far as in him lies to ease them and bear a part of their Burden to be active and vigorous in their Support and Defence as looking upon their Dangers to affect the State in common and threaten the whole Constitution And if these Governours be such as do by no means answer their Character nor take the care that becomes them though we are not bound to vindicate their Errours or their Wickedness yet even in such cases we are obliged to pay them all that is due to the Dignity of their Post we must shew them all fit Deference and Respect and comply with their Commands as far as with a good Conscience we may But it is very fit I should now apply my self to the following Chapters and not quit my first Design which was to explain Epictetus and not to run out into unnecessary Enlargements upon the several Relations Men stand in to each other for otherwise while I teach my Reader his Duty he will be apt to suspect that I have forgot my own CHAP. XXXVIII Take notice That the principal and most important Duty in Religion is to possess our Minds with just and becoming Notions of the Gods to believe that there are such supreme Beings and that they govern and dispose all the Affairs of the World with a just and good Providence And in agreement to such a Persuasion to dispose your self for a ready and reverend Obedience and a perfect Acquiscence in all their Dispensations and this Submission is to be the effect of Choice and not Constraint as considering that all Events are ordered by a most Wise and Excellent Mind For this is the only Principle that can secure you from a querulous Temper and prevent all the impious Murmurings which Men are used to utter who imagine themselves neglected and their Merits over-look'd by a partial Deity Now for attaining to the good Disposition I have been describing there is but one possible Method viz. To disregard the Things of the World and be fully satisfied that there is no Happiness or Misery in any other thing but what Nature hath put within your own power and choice For so long as you suppose any external Enjoyments capable of making you happy or the want of them miserable you must unavoidably blame the Disposers of them as oft as you meet with any Disappointment in your Hopes or fall into any Calamity you fear This is a Principle fix'd in all Creatures by Nature and nothing can change or remove it to run away from all that seems hurtful and destructive and to have an aversion for the Causes of these Things to us And so likewise to pursue and court the contrary and love and admire the Persons we owe our Good to So that no Man can take pleasure in the supposed Author of his Mischief any more than in the Mischief it self Hence it is that Sons complain of their Fathers and reproach them for not letting them into a greater share of their Estates in which they place their Happiness Hence Polynices and Eteocles engaged in that unnatural War because they placed their Happiness in a Crown Hence the Husbandman cries out against God when the Season is unkindly and the Merchant repines at Storms and Losses at Sea and Masters of Families at the death of their beloved Wife and Children Now no Man can have Religion without mixing some prospect of Advantage with it nor can we heartily serve and adore a Being of whose Justice and Kindness we have not a good Opinion So that by making it our Business to regulate our Desires and our Aversions and direct them to worthy and proper Objects we do at the same time most effectually secure our Piety It is necessary also that you should offer Sacrifices and conform to the Custom of your Country in the Exercise of Religion and that all things of this kind be performed with Sincerity and Devotion not slovenly and carelesly but with a decent Application and Respect and that your Offerings be according to your Ability so temper'd as neither to betray an Vnwillingness or sordid Grudging in one extream nor to run out into the other of Profuseness and Ostentation COMMENT AFter the Duties expected from us to our Equals that is of Men to one another he proceeds now to instruct us what we owe to our Superiours viz. those of a Nature more excellent than our own And in all Disquisitions of this kind it is a very convenient Method to begin with those Things that are nearest and most familiar to us and so by degrees ascend to those above and at a greater distance from us Now these Duties are likewise discovered by taking a just View of the Relation between the Gods and us and that is such an one as Effects bear to their Highest and First Causes If then they are to be considered under this Notion it is evident that they stand not in any need of our Services nor can we add to their Happiness or Perfection Our Duties consequently and the Intent of them are only such as may express our Subjection and procure us a more free access and intercourse with them For this is the only Method of keeping up the Relation to First and Highest Causes The Instances of this Subjection due from us are Honour and Reverence and Adoration a voluntary Submission to all they do and a perfect Acquiescence in all Events order'd by them as being fully satisfied that they are the Appointments of Absolute Wisdom and Infinite Goodness These are such Qualifications as we must attain to by rectifying the Ideas of our Minds and reforming the Errours of our Lives The Ideas of our Minds must be rectified by entertaining no Thoughts of the Gods but what are worthy of them and becoming us as That they are the First Cause of all Things That they dispose of all Events and concern themselves in the Goverment of the World And That all their Government and all their Disposals are Wise and Just and Good For if a Man be of Opinion That there is no God or if he allow his Existence but deny his Providence or if he allow both these but think that God and that Providence defective in his Counsels or unjust in his Distributions such an one can never pay him true Honour and hearty Adoration nor submit with a resigned and contented Spirit to the various Accidents of Humane Life as if all were ordered for the best Again It is likewise necessary that the Life and Conversation
of Men be so disposed as to express this Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence so as not to fly out into peevish Murmurings and Complaints nor think that Almighty God hath done us wrong in any of his Dispensations But this is a Temper we can never attain to so long as we expect Happiness and dread Misery from any thing but our selves The Management of our own Will must be our only Care and all our Desires and Aversions restrained to the Objects of Choice and then we need never be disappointed in our Hopes nor surprized by our Fears But this must needs happen to all that place their Happiness and Misery in the Enjoyment or the Want of any external Advantages and such Disappointments and Surprizes will necessarily carry them to a Detestation of that which they look upon as the cause of such Misfortunes And they will very hardly refrain from speaking ill of that Power which might have prevented their Misery but took no care to do it For every Creature naturally desires Good and abhorrs Evil and therefore not only the Things themselves but the Causes of them are shunned and hated courted and admired in proportion as they really are or as we apprehend them to be Good or Evil. There is no such thing in Nature nor can there be as that a Man should take delight in and bear a true Affection to the Person whom he looks upon to have done him some real Injury or Hurt any more than he can be fond of that Hurt or Injury it self And since all Good naturally attracts our Love and Desire and all Evil provokes our Aversion we must needs be affected alike both to the Things themselves and the Causes of them to us And though we be mistaken in our Notions of Good and Evil yet that we shall proceed according to our apprehensions of these Things as if they were really so and cannot restrain our selves from hating and reviling the Authors of our Calamity or the Deceivers of our Hope he proves from hence That the strictest Ties of Nature and Duty and Affection are generally found too feeble Engagements to keep Men in Temper or moderate their Resentments Thus we see greedy and impatient Children perpetually railing at their Fathers for keeping them out of their Estates which they account their Good or for inflicting some Severities upon them which they think Evil as when they chastise their Follies or deny them their Liberty And thus Oedipus his two Sons Polynices and Eteocles forgetting that they were Brothers quarrell'd and kill'd one another for the Crown in which they were Rivals Thus the Farmer when his Seed-time or his Harvest happens ill if it rain too much or too little or if any other cross accident come to his Crop presently rails and murmurs against the Gods or if he have the modesty to hold his tongue yet he is sure to fret and curse inwardly Thus Mariners when they want a fair Wind and though they are bound to different Ports and must sail with different Winds one perhaps wishes for a Northern another for a Southerly Gale and the same can never serve or please them all yet they swear and rant at Providence as if it were obliged to take care of them only and neglect all those whose Business requires it should blow in the Quarter where it does So likewise Merchants are never content When they are to buy they would have great plenty and a low Market but when it is their turn to sell then they wish for scarcity and a rising Price And if either of these happen otherwise they grow discontented and accuse Providence And in general when Men bury their Wives or Children or have something very dear taken from them or fall into some disaster they feared they grow angry at the Disposer of these Events For we are naturally inclined to honour and respect the Persons that oblige and gratifie us and as nothing excites these Resentments in us so soon or so powerfully as our own advantage so nothing gives such an effectual disgust and so irreconcilable a disrespect as the apprehension that any Person hath contributed to our loss and disadvantage So that a Man in taking care to fix his Desires and his Aversions upon right Objects does at the same time secure his Piety and Reverence for God for this Man's Hopes are always answered his Fears always vanish into nothing for he neither hopes nor fears any thing out of his own power is consequently always pleased and under no Temptations to accuse Providence for any thing that can possibly happen to him But the Man that gives his Desires a Loose and expects his Fate from enternal Accidents is a Slave to all the World He lies at the mercy of every Man's Opinion of Health and Sickness Poverty and Riches Life and Death Victories and Defeats nay even the Wind and the Rain the Haâ—l and the Meteors and in short every Cause and every Effect in Nature is his Master For except every one of these fall out just according to his mind his Desires must be frustrated and his Fears accomplished What a Weather-cock of a Man is this How uneasie and unsetled his Life How tedious and troublesome must he be to himself How dissatisfied in his Breast and how impious in his Reflections upon Providence So that in short there is no one Circumstance wanting that can conduce to the rendring such a one miserable Having thus laid the Foundations of Religion in true Notions of the Divine Nature in a contented Submission to all Events and in a firm Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence that disposes them as we see and having moreover shewn the necessity of despising the World and depending upon our own Will and the Objects of it for all the Happiness and Misery we are capable of he proceeds now to direct us what methods we should take to express our Reverence and Honour for the Gods Some of those that are generally practised and become universal it is highly probable that God himself instituted declaring as some Histories inform us he did what Services would be most acceptable to Him and this with a gracious Design of bringing us better acquainted with Himself and likewise to sanctifie and enlarge our Enjoyments that our Offerings might envite his Blessings and his Bounty and for giving back a little we might receive the more As therefore we hold our selves bound in the first place to set apart that Soul which we received from him to his Service and to consecrate it by refined and holy Thoughts by worthy and reverend Ideas of his Majesty and a regular uncorrupt Life so it should be our next care to purifie and dedicate this Body too which came to us from the same hand and carefully to wash away all the seen or hidden Blemishes and Pollutions which it may have contracted When the Soul and its Instrument are thus clear from all their Stains let us come decently cloathed into
monstrous Impiety that Opinion is guilty of that taxes God with such Infidelity and Baseness to his Charge as not Men only but even brute Beasts disdain and abhor Indeed if we consider the thing only in the general it is most irrational to conceive that the Offerings of wicked Men should ever prevail upon God or encline him to be propitious at all 'T is true he graciously accepts those of the Pious and Upright not for any respect to the Gifts themselves or any occasion he hath for them but for the sake of the Votaries who when they thus apply desire that not only their Minds but their Estates and all they possess may be consecrated to his Use and Service There is likewise no doubt to be made but the matter might be so ordered as even to render the Gifts and Prayers of wicked men acceptable to him that is provided they came with a purpose of growing better and begg'd to be reformed by his Punishments and were ready to submit to the Methods of their Cure But if the secret and true Intent of their Devotions be only to avert his Judgments and confirm themselves in Vice it is most absurd to suppose they can ever be well received upon these Terms for though there were no Guilt to be laid to their Charge yet this alone were sufficient to render them abominable in the Sight of God That they suppose him a Base and a Mercenary Being and hope by Bribery to soften his provoked Justice and buy off their own Punishment And now I expect to have the Question put from whence this Notion of God's pardoning mens Sins came to be so universally received and what Foundation there is for saying and believing as almost every Body does That Oblations and Works of Piety that Prayers and Alms and the like have a power to make God flexible and Propitious For sure the World hath not taken all this upon Trust and yet they are much to blame to lay that stress they do upon it and propagate this Opinion with so much Confidence if it be unsafe and impious to be believed than God forgives wicked Men and passes by their Offences without punishing them as they have deserved In order to the satisfying this Doubt we must observe That where men are duly sensible of their Faults and heartily penitent for them these things contribute very much to their Conversion as being decent and proper Testimonies of a sincere Repentance The Bending of the Knees and Bodily Prostrations express the Sorrows and Submissions of a dejected Soul and the Offering up their Goods or laying them out to Pious and Charitable Purposes such as God peculiarly regards and delights in proclaims how entirely their Minds and Persons and all they have are devoted to him For when we are told That our Sins turn God's Face away from us That he is angry at them and leaves or forsakes us upon the Provocation they give him These Expressions must not be taken in a strict and literal Sence They speak the Passions and Infirmities of Creatures such as carry no Congruity with the Divine Nature and its immutable Happiness and Perfections But the Truth is we deprave and debase our selves by forsaking the Dictates of Nature and Reason we deface the Image of the Divinity in our Souls and by our Wickedness and Folly fall off and withdraw our selves from him Not that we can run away from that watchful Eye to which all things are present but we change the manner of its Influences upon us and expose our selves to a different sort of Treatment for now we have brought a Disease upon our Souls and made Severity and a harsher Providence necessary for our Cure But when we recover the soundness and perfection of our Nature and make nearer Approaches to God by restoring that Image and Character of his Divinity in us which consists in the imitation of his Justice and Holiness and Wisdom we then return and are admitted to a more easie Access we renew our Acquaintance and contract a sort of fresh Affinity with him And this return of ours to God we often express in such Terms as if it were his return to us just as men at Sea who when their Cable is fastned to a Rock while they draw themselves and their Vessel to the Rock are so idle as to imagine that they draw the Rock to them And this is our Case mens Repentance and Devotions and Works of Piety and Charity answer exactly to that Cable For these things are the Instruments of their Conversion and the best Proofs of its being unaffected and real When we cherish and support either the Persons selves who have suffered by our Oppression or our Insolence or our Slanders or if that cannot be make Satisfaction to their Families and those that are in necessity when we hate Injustice when we decline the Conversation of naughty men and become the Companions and Friends of the Wise and Vertuous and when we are full of Indignation against our selves and content to turn our own Punishers And if we would be throughly reformed indeed we must persevere in this method and not suffer our Resolutions to be fickle and uncertain or any Intermissions to cool our Zeal till we have acted a sufficient Revenge upon our selves and perfected the Design of our Amendment And there is not there cannot be any other certain Testimony of a sincere and perfect Repentance but only this One That of forsaking our Sins and doing so no more Nay I must add too The not allowing our selves in any less or lower degrees of Guilt or complying with the Temptations and Tendencies toward them For in this Case we must behave our selves like Sailers who steer their Course beyond the Point they would make and bear down towards one side when they would cross over to the other Now as to the Efficacy of Repentance whether it be of Merit and Power enough to restore the Soul to its primitive Purity this I think can admit of no Dispute when it is considered That Almighty God does in all his Dispensations propose it as his End and always cleanse and reform us by this Means For what other account can be given of all the Punishments and those dire Effects of his Vengeance upon us both in this and the next World but only that they are designed to change the Soul by the Sufferings and Tortures inflicted upon it that a Sense of her own Wretchedness may provoke her to a just Detestation of the Vices that were the wicked Cause of it and inflame her with the more servent Love and impatient Desire of Vertue There is indeed something very instructing in Affliction and a strange Aptness in the rational Soul to hearken to it and be taught by it But a Man is never so well disposed to learn nor makes such quick and sure Progress as when he exercises this Discipline upon himself because then the very Punishment is voluntary and the Improvement is
That what we fear most shall certainly happen to us But the Question is What course we shall take to throw off these Passions and possess our selves with that Indifference To that he replies That the Consideration of those Things we enquire about will be able to effect it For we â—eed only reflect That they are external Accidents and Things out of our Power for no man is so sensless as to consult an Oracle upon the Events of those which his own Choice must determine Who ever enquired at a Shrine Whether he ought to regulate his Inclinations and Aversions to reduce them within just bounds or to fix them upon fit and worthy Objects The Quaries usually put are quite of another strain Whether a Voyage shall be prosperous Whether it be advisable to many Whether the purchasing such a parcel of Land would turn to good account And these being such things as we our selves are not made Masters of by Nature 't is plain our Desires and our Aversions ought not to have any concern in the Divination The only thing we want to be satisfied in is some particular Event this is the Soothsayer's Work and out of the compass of our own Knowledge But the Quality of that Event we know as well as he For Philosophy hath assured us That none of those matters which are out of our own power can be in themselves good or evil and by consequence no proper Object of our Inclination or Aversion Besides They that are skill'd in these Mysteries have a Notion That an extream Passion and Concern in the Person that applies to the Oracle disturbs the whole method of Divination and consounds the Omen So that this Calmness will be of advantage in that respect too and you will escape all immoderate sollicitude when you remember that be the Accident whatever it will you have it still in your power to convert it to your own Benefit and the more disastrous so much the more beneficial still will a prudent management render it to you And therefore come boldly says he and cast aside vain Fears and unnecessary Scruples when you prosess to ask Counsel of the Gods From that Expression he takes occasion to inform Men what is their Duty to the Gods in these Cases namely That when we have asked their Advice we should be sure to take it For he that consults God himself and yet reâ—uses to follow his Advice Whom will that Man be directed by And indeed there is not any more probable nor more frequent ground for our Stiffness and Disobedience than the Prepossessions we lie under and the strong Byass of our own Inclinations and Aversions So that from hence we have discovered one advantage more of approaching the Deity with a dispassionate and unprejudiced Mind For this will not only deliver us from all those Anxieties and Fears so inconvenient and so hazardous upon such occasions but it will also dispose us exceedingly to a ready Compliance and leave us free to resign our selves entirely to be governed by the Will and Directions of God The next Enquiry he goes upon concerns those things which are the proper Objects of Divination and these he declares to be such only Whose End is perfectly dark and unknown so that nothing but the Event it self can give us any light into it things so purely accidental that no humane Prudence no Rules of any particular Art no helps of Experience and long Observation can enable us to pronounce what they shall be Thus much is agreeable to Reason and common Sense for no body consults an Oracle whether it be fit for a Man to eat and Drink or Sleep because Nature teaches us the necessity of these Refreshments and we cannot possibly sâ—bsist without them Nor whether it be advisable for a Man to improve in Wisdom and lead a vertuous Life for every wise and good Man sees and feels the advantage of doing so Nor does he desire the Prophet to resolve him what sort of House he shall build because this is the Business of a Surveyer and his Schemes and Models are drawn by Rule and Art Nor does the Farmer desire to be satisfied whether he â—…ould sow his Corn or not 〈…〉 absolutely necessary to be done But he may perhaps enquire what Season or what parcel of Land or what 〈…〉 Plants will turn to best acc 〈…〉 still I mean that Experienc 〈…〉 natural Causes have not instruc 〈…〉 things before Or a Man may reasonably enough ask if it be proper to undertake such a Voyage especially if the Season of the Year or any other Circumstances contribute to the rendring it hazardous for him Nor would it be proper to enquire whether one should go abroad into the Market or to Westminster-Hall or walk a turn into the Fields For though it be true that even these trivial Undertakings are sometimes attended with very strange and very dismal Consequences yet generally speaking they fall out just as we intend and desire they should And where there is a very high Probability and such as is most commonly answered by the Event there all Divination is needless If it were not so nothing in the World could be exempt from it for the best concluding Reason and the surest Rules of Art do not always succeed right Nature sometimes works out of her common course and Choice does frequently mistake and fall short of what is designed But still there is no difficulty worthy an Oracle in these matters because we ought to rest satisfied in great Probabilities and not be disturbed at the few the very few Exceptions to the contrary otherwise we shall be over-run with idle Whimsies and superstitious Fears such as improve every little Accident into somewhat terrible and ominous and would make us utterly unactive and afraid ever to attempt any thing so long as we live But here arises a Quarie worth a little consideration and that is Whether the consulting of Oracles concerning matters within our own power be wholly disallowed As for instance What Opinion we ought to entertain of the Soul Whether it be mortal or immortal And Whether we should apply our selves to such a particular Master or not And the reason of this doubt is Because several of the Ancients seem to have consulted the Gods about some Difficulties in Nature and yet the making such or such a Judgment of Things is our own proper act and confessed to be one of those Things that come within the compass of our Will Now I must needs say with submission That whatever is attainable by Reason and Logical Demonstration ought to be learn'd that way for this will give us a clear and undoubted perception and the discovery of Effects from their Causes is the true scientifical Knowledge it leaves no Doubt behind it but satisfies our selves and enables us to instruct and convinâ—e others Now an assurance from Divine Testimony that the Soul is immortal may give us a firm belief of the thing and we should do ill
of Children for an affectionate and tender Care of her Husband and for submitting CHAP. LXIV When any Man does you an Injury or reflects upon your Good Name consider with your self that he does this out of a Persuasion that it is no more than what you deserve and what becomes him to say or do And it cannot be expected that your Opinion of things but his own should give Law to his Behaviour Now if that Opinion of his be Erroneous the Misfortune is not yours but his who is thus led into Mistakes concerning you For the Truth of a Proposition is not shaken one whit by a Man's supposing it to be false the Consequence is not the worse but the Person that judges amiss of it is Such Considerations as these may serve to dispose you to Patience and Meekness and by degrees you will be able to bear the most scurrilous Reproaches and think the bitterest and most insolent Traducer worth no other return than this mild Answer That these it seems are his Thoughts of you and it is not strange that Man should vent his own Opinion freely and act according to it COMMENT THis Chapter is plainly intended to persuade us to bearing of Injuries with Meekness and Moderation and the Arguments made use of to this purpose are Two The first proceeds upon a Foundation evident to common Sense and confirmed by the Practice and Experience of all the World which is That every Man acts in agreement with his own particular Notions of things and does what at the instant of doing it appears to him fittest to be done And therefore if his Apprehensions differ from ours as it cannot be any great Matter of Wonder so neither does it minister any just Cause of Resentment because he follows the Dictates of his Breast and I follow mine and so do all the World So that it would be a most extravagant and senseless thing for me to be angry for his acting according to Nature and upon a Principle universally consented to by all Mankind But you will say perhaps That his following his own Opinion is not the thing you quarrel with but the entertaining an ill Opinion of you for which there is no Ground or Colour of Justice Now upon Examination of this Pretence too it will be found that you have not at all mended the Matter but that this is as ridiculous and absurd a Passion as the other For if he have done you no harm where is the Provocation and that it is plain he hath not for no body is the worse for it but himself He that thinks he does well when he really does ill and mistakes Falsehood for Truth is under a dangerous Delusion and suffers extreamly by his Error And therefore the Man that injures your Person or your Reputation does but wound himself all the while And this he does more effectually and to his own greater Prejudice than it is possible for you in the height of all your desired Revenge or for the most Potent and malicious Enemy in the World to do For whatever the world commonly esteems most noxious can reach no farther than the Body or the External Enjoyments and consequently does not in strict speaking hurt the Man himself But Error is a Blemish upon the Soul an Evil that affects his Essence and taints the very distinguishing Character of the Humane Nature Now that the Person who entertains this false Opinion and not he concerning whom it is entertained receives all the Prejudice by it he proves beyond all Contradiction by the Instance of a compleat Proposition For suppose one should say If it be Day then the Sun is above the Horizon and another Person should maintain that this is false his standing out against it does not in any degree weaken the Truth of the Assertion nor invalidate the necessary dependence of the Two Parts of it upon each other It remains in the same Perfection still but the person who judges amiss concerning it does not so Thus the Man that affronts or traduces you contrary to all the Rules of Justice and Honour and Duty injures himself but you continue untouch'd and neither the Edge of his Weapon nor the Venom of his Tongue can enter you Especially if you are as you ought to be fully convinced that there is no such thing as Good or Evil to be had from any thing but what falls within the Compass of our own Choice When therefore you have called up your Reason and have reflected first how natural it is for every Man to be governed by his own Sense of things and then that the Injury does not really reach you but falls back upon the Person who vainly intended it for you this will cool your Passion and fill you with a generous Disdain you will think his impotent Malice deserves to be slighted only and may check both his Folly and your own Resentment with some such scornful return as this That he does but what all the World do for though all are not of the same mind yet in that vast variety of Opinions every man acts according to his own CHAP. LXV Every thing hath two Handles the one soft and manageable the other such as will not endure to be touched If then your Brother do you an Injury do not take it by the hot and the hard handle by representing to your self all the aggravating Circumstances of the Fact but look rather on the soft side and extenuate it as much as is possible by considering the nearness of the Relation and the long Friendship and Familiarity Obligations to Kindness which a single Provocation ought not to dissolve And thus you will take the accident by its manageable handle COMMENT ALL the parts of this material World are composed of different Principles and contrary Qualities From whence it comes to pass that in some respects they agree and can subsist together and in others they are opposite and incompatible and destructive of one another Thus the Fire hath the two Qualities of hot and dry most remarkable in it with regard to its heat it agrees well with the Air and is compatible with it but its drought is repugnant to the moisture of the Air and contends with it and destroys it And this Observation holds in Moral as well as Natural Philosophy For thus an Injury received from a Brother hath two handles and is capable of different Constructions and different Resentments according to that handle we take it by Consider the Man my Brother my Friend my old Play-fellow and Acquaintance and this is the soft and pliable side it disposes me to Patience and Reconciliation and Kindness But if you turn the other side and regard only the Wrong the Indignity the unnatural Usage of so near a Relation this is the untractable part it will not bear the touch and disposes to nothing but Rage and Revenge Now it is plain that what we esteem light and very tolerable is entertained by us with easiness