Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	necessary_a	produce_v	6,956	5	9.5140	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50746	Pleadings in some remarkable cases before the Supreme Courts of Scotland since the year 1661 to which the decisions are subjoyn'd.	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1673 (1673)	Wing M192; ESTC R27547	158,540	250

by Charmes I conceive it is undenyable that there are many diseases whereof the Cures as well as the Causes are unknown to us Nature is very subtile in its operations and we very ignorant in our inquiries from the conjuncti●n of which two arises the many errors and mistakes we commit in our reflections upon the productions of nature to differ then from one another because of these errors is sufferable though to be regrated but to kill one another because we cannot comprehend the reason of what each other do is the effect of a terrible distraction and if this were allow'd the most Learned should still be in greatest danger because they do oftimes find mysteries which astonish the ignorant and this should give occasion to the Learned to forbear deep searches into natural mysteries lest they should loss their life in gaining knowledge and to persecute one another for every Physitian or Mathematician who is emulous of another but cannot comprehend what his rival doth would immediatly make him passe for a Wizard It is natural for men to think that to be above the reach of Nature which is above theirs If this principle had taken place amongst our predecessors who durst have us'd the Adamant For certainly nothing looks liker a Charm or Spell then to see a Stone draw Iron and men are become now so wise as to laugh at these who burnt a Bishop for alledging the World was round so blind and cruel a thing is ignorance And if this principle of believing nothing whereof we do not see a cause were admitted we may come to doubt whether the curing of the Kings Evil by the touch of a Monarch may not be likewise called charming This then being generally premised to curb the over-forwardnesse of m●nkind It is alledged that the Lybel is not relevant in so far as it is founded upon my Clients having threatned to do her neighbour an evil turn that she went in to her house and whispered something into her ear whereupon she immediatly distracted for though threatning when mischief followes hath been too much laid weight upon by us yet the Law hath required that many particulars should concurre ere this be sustained as that the person who threatned did ordinarily use to threaten and that mischief constantly followed her threatnings minae ejus quae Jolita est minas exequi that these threatnings appeared rather to be the product of a settled revenge then of a boiling and airie choller which doth oftimes especially in women occasion very inconsiderat extravagancies 2. It is required that the threatnings were specifick as if she had promised that she should cause her distract and the distraction accordingly followed but it were too lax to ascribe every accident to a general threatning as is clear by Dallrio lib. 5. sect 3. Lawyers likewise consider if the occasion of the quarrel was so great as might have provockt to so a cruel a revenge as that which was taken whereas here the occasion was very mean not exceeding two pence And though all these do concurre yet Farin Quaest. 5. num 37. acknowledges that these are not sufficient to infer the crime of Witchcraft but only to load the person accused with a severe presumption or to infer an arbitrary punishment and in the Process against Katharine Oswald the 11. of November 1629. those threatnings though the effect followed were not found sufficient to infer Witchcraft but only to be punishable tanquam crimen in suo genere that is to say as an unallowable and scandalous kind of railing The second defence against this Article is that it is not relevant to Lybel that the malefice was occasioned by my Client except it were condescended by what means it was occasioned for in Law when I am said to have produced any effect there must be a necessary contingency shewed betwixt what I did and what followed for else the very looking upon her might have been said to have been a cause and when si knesses are alledged to have been occasioned by Witches the ordinar signs given are that the disease be in it self such as cannot be occasioned by nature as the vomiting up of nailes glasses and other extraordinar things that the person maleficiat do go in an instant from one extremity to another as from being extreamly weak to be immediatly extreamly strong or use extraordinar motions which cannot be occasioned by Nature as D. Autum in his discourse of Witchcraft doth most learnedly observe But so it is that neither of those can be observed here for distraction is a very natural disease and has oftimes fallen upon a man in an instant especially upon an excesse of fear and who knows but this Woman who by her Sex and Humour is known to be very fearfull might have been so surprized at my Clients coming into her after the threatning that this excesse of fear might have thrown her into that distraction under which she now labours and yet my Client might have had no influence upon her as the cause but as the occasion only of this her distemper All conclusions in criminal cases should be very clearly inferr'd since the crime is so improbable and the conclusion so severe And therefore Lawyers are of opinion that if the inferences be not demonstrative and undenyable conclusio semper debet sequi debiliorem partem that which but may be may not be and Lawyers do constantly conclude that we must only conclude that ●n crimes to have been done which could not but have been done And who can say that necessarily this was done by her here which could not but occasion this Distaction and therefore Perkins cap. 6. do's assert that no malefice can be a sufficient ground to condemn a Witch except she either confess o● that it be proven by two famous Witnesses that she used means that might have produc'd that effect And though where Charms and other means expressly discharg'd are used these unlawful means are by the Judge repute as if these means might have been effectual in odium illiciti and that the users have only themselves to blame in that case who would use these Charms Spells and Incantations of which the Law is jealous yet where none of these are used but a simple whisper the effect in that case cannot be said to have flow'd from it nor do's any severe presumption lye against a thing that is ordinar And Bodin lib. 4. concludes that in capitali judicio ex praesumpti onibus veneficas non esse condemnandas● ut si sagae deprehendantur egredientes ex ovili cum ossibus bufonibus vel aliis instrumentis magicis instructae licet oves statim moriantur All conclusions must be necessar or presumptive but so it is that this conclusion is not necessar since all these remedies might have been used and yet the user might have been innocent for a necessar conclusion is à qua veritas abesse non p●test and if this inference be only presumptive it is as

at this discourse which would force them to believe that she is dead and I am sure that any country-clown may refute it by presenting the woman as one refuted a wise Philosopher who maintain'd That there was no motion without any other Argument then by walking up and down The question then being whether the condition si sine liberis decesserit is purified by a civil death and if immediatly after she is burnt in effigie she can be said sine liberis decessisse so that the person substitute may immediatly succeed and exclude any Children she shall thereafter bear or if the Substitute must attend her natural death That the Substitute cannot succeed immediatly after her being burnt but that any future children would seclude him so that a natural only and not a civil death purifies the condition is contended by these reasons First the question being Whether this condition si sine liberis decesserit respects natural or civil death we must interpret the word death so as that we follow the more genuine and natural signification and I am sure the ordinary and genuine interpretation of death is a natural and not a civil death 2. If we look to the meaning of the Disponer which is the next rule to be 〈◊〉 in the interpretation of dubious and equivocal words we will find that it is hardly imaginable that the Disponer dream'd of a civil death and it is most certain that any man especially who was not a Lawyer would never have figur'd a civil death nor is it deny'd for fictio is mens Legis non disponentis But how unsuitable were it to natural equity and the principles of Law that the will of the Disponer should not regulat what is dispon'd or why should the Law dispose upon what it did not bestow 3. Words are to be explain'd in a Disponers Will as the Disponer would probably have explain'd them himself if the meaning had been contraverted at the time of making the Disposition But so it is that if it had been proposed to the Disponer whether the Children of the woman institute should be cut off in case their Mother should commit a crime It is probable that he would not have punished poor Infants for a guilt to which they were not accessory and the Law was never more generous then when it said Non competere beneficium inofficiosi testamenti post-humis cum exhaeredationis causam comittere nequeant nec debent alieno odio praegravari l. 33. § 1. C. de inoff test Nor is it imaginable that the Testator would have taken from them what he designed because they sell without their own guilt in a condition which made that which was but liberality to become charity and since he designed this for their Mother and them to supply their wants it is not imaginable he would have taken it from them when their wants were greatest The Children would likewise still continue to be nearer to the Disponer then the Substitute Nam jur a sanguinis nullo jure civili adimi possunt and since the blood-relation gave at first the rise to that nomination it is probable that the effect would not be taken away whilst the cause continued 4. If she can have Children after her being burnt in effigie she cannot be said decessisse sine Liberis upon her being burnt in effigie but I subsume that she may have Children and such too as the Law would acknowledge to be Children for by the 22. Nov. cap. 8. Marriage is declar'd still to subsist notwithstanding of any interveening criminal sentence for though by the old Law condemn'd persons pro nullis habebantur and so the Marriage was dissolved yet by that excellent Constitution this was abrogat Si enim ex decreto judiciali in metallum aliquis aut vir aut mulier dari jussus esset servitus quidem erat ab antiquis Legislatoribus sancita ex supplicio illata separabatur vero matrimonium supplicio possidente damnatum sibique servientem Nos autem hoc remittimus nullum ab initio bene natorum ex supplicio permittimus fieri servum neque enim mutamus nos formam liberam in servilem statum maneat igitur Matrimonium hoc nihil tali decreto laesum Since then her husband continued to be so still and that the Law would acknowledge the Children to be hers would not the Law contradict it self if it should say that she died without Children and yet should acknowledge that these were her Children 5. Post-humus pro jam nato habetur ubi de ejus commodo agitur and therefore by the same reason of justice and equity the Law should be so far from presuming that there can be no Children born after the mother is condemned that if she shall bear any it should rather presume them to be already born to the end they may not be prejudged of the succession which would be otherwise due to them and if posthumus habetur pro jam nato ubi agitur de ejus commodo much more should he be presumed natus ubi agitur de damno vitando for we are much more favourable in damno vitando quam lucro captando 6. By the Roman Law auth bona damnatorum C. de bon prescript the Goods of condemn'd persons were not confiscat in prejudice of the ascendents or descendents to the third degree except only in the case of lese-majestie If then the crime be not able to seclude Children it follows necessarily that Children quo ad their succession are in the same case as if the crime had not been committed and if the Mother had committed no crime here there had been no place either for the Substitute or for this question It is just that delict a s●●s debent 〈◊〉 authores and that since punishment is only justified by the preceeding guilt that the punishment should not exceed the guilt and that the right designed for the Children by the first Disponer should not be taken away from them by the Mothers fault this were also to adde affliction to the afflicted to make poor Infants loose with their Mother their patrimony and to impoverish them most at an occasion when to give them were charity I confesse that Law sometimes doth recede from Nature and invents pretty fictions as in the cases propos'd of jus postliminij adoptionis and Legis Corneliae but it doth so very sparingly nor are these fictions ever allow'd except where they are introduc'd by an expresse Law for the Law thought it not reasonable to allow every Judge or Lawyer a liberty to coin his own caprice into a fiction lest so unreasonable fictions might be introduc'd and lest the people might be ignorant of what they were to follow Since then the pursuer founds his strongest Argument upon this as a priviledged fiction he must instruct that this fiction is founded upon expresse Law and even in these fictions Law neyer inverts Nature but rather seconds it and it makes not Nature bow