fortifie its emotions that the least suspicion frightens and disturbs the Reason False Zealors think they do God service when they submit to their Passions they blindly follow the secret motions of their Hatred as proceeding from the Internal Truth and stopping with satisfaction at such sensible proofs as justifie their excess they confirm themselves in their errors with an unconquerable obstinacy As for Ignorant and Weak Persons they create to themselves ridiculous and imaginary subjects of fear and like Children who walk in the dark without a guide they imagine frightful Bugbears are disturb'd and cry out as if they were undone light re-assures them if they are ignorant but if Men have weak Minds their imagination is always disturbed The least thing which relates to that frightful Object renews the traces and course of the Spirits which causes the symtom of their fear so that 't is absolutely impossible to cure or appease them for ever But when false Zeal meets with Hatred and Fear in a weak Mind it continually produces such unjust and violent Judgments in it that we cannot think on 'em without horror To change the Mind possessed with these Passions requires a greater Miracle than that which converted St. Paul and to cure it would be absolute impossible if we could set bounds to the Mercy and Power of God Those who walk in the dark rejoyce at the appearance of light but this Man cannot endure it since it hurts him because it resists his Passion His fear being in some manner voluntary because 't is produced by his hatred he loves to be affected by it since we love to be agitated by those Passions which have Evil for their Object when the Evil is imaginary or rather when we know as in Tragedies that the Evil can't hurt us The Phantoms that these form to themselves who walk in the dark vanish at the approach of light But this Man's Phantoms cannot be dissipated by the light of the truth for instead of dissipating the darkness of his Mind it only incenses his imagination so that whilst he applies himself to the Object of his Passion the light reflects and it seems to him as if these Phantoms had real Bodies since they reflect some weak rays of light which strike upon them But if we should suppose in these Persons a sufficient docility and reflection to make 'em listen to and apprehend such Reasons as are capable of dissipating their Errors yet their imagination being disordered through fear and their Hearts corrupted through hatred and false zeal these Reasons how solid soever they might be in themselves would not be able long to stop the impetuous motions of these violent Passions nor hinder them from speedily justifying themselves by sensible and convincing proofs For we must observe that there are some Passions which never return again whereas there are others that are constant and durable Those which are not maintained by the sight of the Mind but only produced and fortified by the sensible view of some Object and the fermentation of the Blood continue not but commonly die immediately after they are produced But those which are attended with the contemplation of the Mind are lasting for the Principle which causes them is not subject to change like the Blood and Humours So that Hatred Fear and all the rest of the Passions which are stirr'd up or preserved by the knowledge of the Mind and not by the sensible sight of some Evil must necessarily subsist long These Passions are therefore more durable violent and unjust but not more lively and sensible as has already been shown The perception of Good and Evil which excite the Passions is produced three several ways by the Senses Imagination and the Mind The perception of Good and Evil by the Senses or Sensation of Good and Evil produces the quickest and most sensible Passions Good and Evil perceived by the Imagination only excites them after a much weaker manner and the perception of Good and Evil by the Mind purely never produces true ones because it is always attended with some motion of the Animal Spirits The Passions are given us only for the good of the Body and by that to unite us to all sensible things for although sensible things can be neither good or bad in respect to the Mind they are so however in relation to the Body to which they are united Thus the Senses discovering much better the relation that sensible Objects have to the Body than the Mind it self can They must excite much more lively Passions than a clear and evident knowledge is able to do But because all our discoveries are attended with some motion of the Spirits a clear and evident knowledge of a great Good and great Evil which is not perceived by the Senses always excites some secret Passion Yet all our clear and evident discoveries of Good and Evil are not followed by some sensible Passion which we perceive and so on the other side all our Passions are not attended with some knowledge of the Mind For if we sometimes think of Good and Evil without feeling our selves moved we often find our selves moved with some Passions without knowing what they are nay sometimes without perceiving the cause of ' em One who breaths in a good Air feels a motion of Joy without knowing from whence it proceeds or what good 't is he possesses which causes this Joy And if there is any invisible Body which mingles with the Blood and hinders its fermentation it will produce sorrow and perhaps he will attribute the cause of his sorrow to any visible thing which occurs in that moment of his Passion Of all the Passions none are more sensible or more quick and consequently less attended with the knowledge of the Mind than horrour and antipathy agreeableness and sympathy It sometimes happens that a Man sleeping under a shady Tree would of a suddain and unexpectedly be waked at the sting of a Gnat or tickling of a Leaf even as if he were bitten with a Serpent The confused Sensation of something as terrible as death frights him without perceiving that he is agitated with a most powerful and violent Passion which is an aversion of desire On the contrary a Man in some necessity by chance discovers a small good the satisfaction of which surprizes him and he applies himself to this trifle as to the greatest good imaginable without making the least reflexion upon it The like also happens in the motions of sympathy and antipathy We sometimes see a certain Person whose habit and external appearance has some secret alliance with the present disposition of our Body we are forthwith touched with a vehement inclination for him and without any reflexion are induced to love and wish him well 'T is this I know not what which agitates us since Reason has no share in it And the contrary happens in respect to those whose Air and Manners excite disgust and horrour in us They have I know not
But when we come to consider attentively the Idea we have of Cause or Power of acting we cannot doubt but that it represents something Divine For the Idea of a Sovereign Power is the Idea of Sovereign Divinity and the Idea of a Subordinate Power is the Idea of an inferiour but a true Divinity at least according to the Opinion of the Heathens if it be the Idea of a Power or true Cause We admit therefore something Divine in all Bodies which encompass us when we admit Forms Faculties Qualities Vertues and real Beings capable of producing certain Effects by the Power of their own Nature And thus they insensibly enter into the Opinions of the Heathens by the Respect they have for their Philosophy Faith indeed works it but it may perhaps be said that if we are Christians in our Hearts we are Heathens in our Minds Moreover it is difficult to perswade our selves that we ought neither to love or fear true Powers and Beings who can act upon us punish us with Pain or recompense us with Pleasure And as Love and Fear are a true Adoration 't is also difficult to perswade our selves that we ought not to adore them For whatever can act upon us as a real and true Cause is necessarily above us according to St. Austin and right Reason The same Father and the same Reason tells us 't is an immutable Law that Inferiour things should submit to superiour And from hence Ego enim ab animâ hoc corpus animari non puto nifi intentione facientis Nec ab isto quicquam illam pati Arbitror sed facere de illo in illo tanquam subjecto divinitus dominationi suae l. 6. mus c. 5. * this great Father concludes that the Body cannot act upon the Soul and that nothing can be above the Soul but God In the Holy Scriptures when God proves to the Israelites that they ought to adore him that is that they ought to fear and love him the chief Reasons he brings are taken from his Power to recompence and punish them He represents to them the Benefits they have received from him the Evils wherewith he hath chastised them and that he has still the same Power He forbids them to adore the Gods of the Heathens because they have no Power over them and can do them neither Good nor Hurt He requires them to honour him only because he only is the true Cause of Good and Evil and that there happens none in their City according to the Prophet which he has not done for Natural Causes are not the true Causes of the Evil that appears to be done to us 'T is God alone that acts in them and 't is he only that we must fear and love Soli Deo Honor Gloria In short this Opinion that we ought to fear and love whatsoever is the true Cause of Good and Evil appears so natural and just that it is impossible to destroy it so that if we suppose this false Opinion of the Philosophers which we endeavour here to confute that Bodies which encompass us are the true Causes of the Pleasures and Evils which we feel Reason seems to justifie a Religion like to that of the Heathens and approves of the universal Irregularity of Manners It is true that Reason does not tell us that we must adore Onyons and Leeks as the Sovereign Divinity because they cannot make us intirely happy when we have of them or intirely unhappy when we want them Nor have the Heathens ever done to them so much Honour as to the great Jupiter upon whom all their Divinities depend or as to the Sun which our Senses represent to us as the universal Cause which gives Life and Motion to all things and which we cannot hinder our selves from regarding as a Sovereign Divinity if with the Heathen Philosophers we suppose it includes in its being the true Causes of whatever it seems to produce not only in our Bodies and Minds but likewise in all Beings which encompass us But if we must not pay a Sovereign Honour to Leeks and Onyons yet we may always render them some particular Adoration I mean we may think of and love them in some manner if it is true that in some sort they can make us happy we must honour them in Proportion to the Good they can do us And certainly Men who give Ear to the Reports of their Senses think that Pulse is capable of doing them good for else the Israelites for instance would not have regretted their Absence in the Defect nor considered it as a Misfortune to be deprived of them if they did not in some manner look upon themselves happy in the Enjoyment of them These are the Irregularities which our Reason engages us in when it is joyned to the Principles of the Heathen Philosophy and follows the Impressons of the Senses That we may longer doubt of the Falseness of this Miserable Philosphy and the Certainty of our Principles and Clearness of the Idea's we make use of It is necessary clearly to establish those Truths which are opposite to the Errors of the ancient Philosophy and to prove in short that there is only one true Cause because there is only one true God That Nature or the Power of every thing proceeds only from the Will of God That all Natural things are not true Causes but only occasional ones and some other Truths which will be the Consequences of these It is evident that all Bodies both great and small have no power of removing themselves A Mountain an House a Stone a grain of Sand and in short the least or biggest Bodies we can conceive have no power of removing themselves We have only two sorts of Idea's that of Bodies and that of Spirits whereas we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive we should reason according to these two Idea's Since therefore the Idea we have of all Bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves it must be concluded that they are moved by Spirits only But when we examine the Idea we have of all finite Minds we do not see the necessary Connexion between their Wills and the Motion of any Body whatsoever it be On the contrary we see that there is none nor can be any whence we ought to conclude if we will argue according to our Knowledge that as no body can be able to move it self so there is no created Spirit can be the true or principal cause of the Motion of any body whatever But when we think of the Idea of God viz. of a Being infinitely Perfect and consequently Almighty we know that there is such a Connexion between his Will and the Motion of all Bodies that 't is impossible to conceive he should Will the Motion of a Body that should not be moved We must then say that his Will only can move Bodies if we will speak things as we conceive them and not as we feel them The moving
viz. Joy Desire and Sorrow For we have Joy when a Good is present or an Evil past We feel Sorrow when Good is past and Evil present and are agitated with Desire when Good and Evil are to come The Passions which regard Good are particular determinations of the motion which God gives us towards Good in general and therefore their object is real But others who have not God for the cause of their motion terminate only in nothingness CHAP. X. Of the Passions in particular the manner of explaining them in general and of discovering the Errors of which they are the cause IF we consider how compound the Passions are we shall plainly discover that their number cannot be determined and that there are many more of them than we have terms to express The Passions do not only draw their differences from the various Combinations of the three first for then there wou'd be but a few of them but their difference proceeds likewise from the different Perceptions and different Judgments which cause or accompany them The different Judgments which the Soul makes of Good and Evil cause different Motions in the Animal Spirits to dispose the Body in relation to the Object and consequently create such Sensations in the Soul as are not absolutely alike Thus they are the cause as we have observed of the difference between certain Passions whose emotions resemble each other However the emotion of the Soul being the chief thing which occurs in each of our Passions it is much better to refer them all to the three Original ones in which these emotions are very different than to treat of them confusedly and without order in relation to the different perceptions that we may have of the Good and Evil which causes them for we may have so many different perceptions of Objects in relation to time to our selves to what belongs to us in relation to Persons or Things to which we are united either by Nature or the choice of our Will that it is absolutely impossible to make an exact enumeration of them When the Soul perceives a Good which she may enjoy we may perhaps say she hopes for it altho' she desires it not But it is plain this Hope is not a Passion but a simple Judgment So that 't is the emotion which accompanies the Idea of Good the possession of which we judge to be possible which makes this Hope to be a true Passion When Hope is changed into Security 't is still the same thing it is not a Passion only because of the emotion of Joy which is then mixt with that of Desire for the Judgment of the Soul which considers a Good as not being likely to fail of it is a Passion only because the foresight of Good agitates us In short when Hope diminishes and Despair succeeds it it is also plain that this Despair is a Passion only because of the emotion of Sorrow which is then mixt with this Desire for the Judgment of the Soul which considers a Good as not being able to happen is not a Passion except this Judgment agitates us But because the Soul never considers Good or Evil without some emotion and even without some change happen in the Body we often give the Name of Passion to the Judgment which produces this Passion because we confound whatsoever passes in the Soul and Body at the sight of any Good or Evil for the words Hope Fear Rashness Shame Impudence Anger Pity Derision Regret in short the Names we commonly give to all the other Passions are short expressions whereby we can expalain in particular whatever the Passions include By the word Passion we understand the view of the relation that any thing has with us the emotion and sensation of the Soul the shaking of the Brain and motion of the Spirits a new emotion and new sensation of the Soul and in fine a sensation of Complacency which always attends the Passions and makes them agreeable All these things we mean by it But sometimes by the Name of Passion we only understand either the Judgment that excites it or the emotion of the Soul or the motion of the Spirits and Blood or something else which attends the emotion of the Soul To abridge Idea's and their expressions is a very useful thing in the knowledge of Truth yet it is often the cause of some great Error when these Idea's are abridged through Popular Custom for we must never abridge our Idea's but when we have made them clear and distinct by a great application of Mind and not as we commonly do by the Passions and all sensible Things when once we have made them famillar by Sensations and the meer action of the Imagination which deceives the Mind There is a great deal of difference between the pure Idea's of the Mind and the sensations or emotions of the Soul The pure Idea's of the Mind are clear and distinct but difficultly made familiar whereas on the contrary the sensations and emotions of the Soul are very famillar but impossible to be discern'd clearly and distinctly Numbers extension and their Properties we clearly know but before we have made them sensible by some Characters which express them 't is difficult to present them for whatever is abstracted affects us not Sensations and the emotions of the Soul on the contrary are easily represented to the Mind altho' we only know them after a very confused and imperfect manner and all the terms which excite them strongly agitate the Soul and render it attentive From whence it happens that we often imagine we very well apprehend such Discourses as are absolutely incomprehensible and when we read certain descriptions of the Sensations and Passions of the Soul we perswade our selves that we understand them perfectly because we are livelily touched with them for all the words we read agitate the Soul We have no sooner pronounced the words Shame Despair Impudence but it as soon stirs up in our Minds a certain confused Idea and obscure Sensation which strongly applies us and because this Sensation is very familiar and represented to us without any trouble or effort of the Mind we perswade our selves that it is clear and distinct Yet these words are the Names of compounded Passions and consequently the abridged expressions that vulgar Custom has made of many confused and obscure Idea's As we are obliged to make use of such terms as are approved by Custom so we must not be surprised to find obscurity and sometimes a kind of contradiction in our words And if we reflected that the sensations and emotions of the Soul which answered to the terms we make use of in the like Discourses are not perfectly the same in all Men because of their difference dispositions of Mind we shou'd not so easily condemn others when they are not of our Opinions I don't say this so much to prevent the Objections which may be made against me as to make the Nature of the Passions be
well apprehended and to teach us what we ought to think of Treatises which are written upon this Subject After all these precautions I believe I may say that all the Passions may be referr'd to the three Primitive ones Desire Joy and Sorrow and that 't is chiefly through the different Judgments the Soul makes of Good and Evil that those which relate to one and the same Primitive Passion differ amongst themselves I may say that Hope Fear and Irresolution which keep the Mean between these two are kinds of desire that Boldness Courage Emulation c. relate more to Hope than to the other two and that Fearfulness Cowardise and Jealousie c. are kinds of Fear I may further say that Cheerfulness and Glory Favour and Acknowledgment are kinds of Joy caused by the sight of the good we discover in our selves or in those to whom we are united as Laughing and Rallery is a sort of Joy which is commonly excited in us at the sight of the Evil which happens to our Enemies Lastly disgust tediousness regret pity and indignation are kinds of sorrow caused at the sight of something which displeases us But besides these Passions and many others which I mention not and which particularly relate to some one of the Primitive Passions The number of the Passions is greater than the number of terms we express 'em by there are also many others whose emotion is almost equally compound either of Desire and Joy as Impudence Anger Revenge or of Desire and Sorrow as Shame Regret and Despight or of all three when we meet with Motives of Joy and Sorrow joined together But altho' these last Passions have not as I know of any particular Name they are nevertheless the most common because in this Life we hardly ever enjoy any Good without the mixture of some Evil and that we scarcely ever suffer any Evil without some hopes of being delivered from it and of possessing some Good And altho' Joy be quite contrary to Sorrow it nevertheless admits it and even with his Passion shares the Souls capacity of Willing as he prospect of Good and Evil divides the Souls capacity of perceiving All the Passions therefore are kinds of Desire Joy and Sorrow and the chief difference to be observed between the Passions of the same kind proceeds from the different Perceptions or different Judgments which cause or accompany them so that it is necessary to enquire into the different Judgments that we make of Good and Evil. But as our chief design here is to search after the cause of our Error we ought not so much to stop at the examining the Judgments which follow them and which the Soul makes of Objects when it is agitated by any Passion for 't is these last Judgments which are the most liable to Error Those Judgments which precede and cause the Passions are commonly false in something for they are generally upheld upon the perceptions of the Soul in as much as it considers things in relation to it self and not according as they are in themselves But those Judgments which follow the Passions are false in every respect for the Judgments which form the Passions are upheld only upon the perceptions the Soul has of Objects in relation to it self or rather in relation to its emotion In those Judgments which precede the Passions both the true and the false are joined together but when the Soul is agitated and Judges of every thing according to the inspiration of the Passion the true is dissipated and the false preserved from whence are drawn so many more false conclusions as the Passion is greater Every Passion justifies it self they continually represent to the Soul that Object which affects it after such a manner as is most proper to preserve and encrease its agitation The Judgment or Perception which causes it is fortified in proportion as the Passion encreases and the Passion encreases ini proportion as the Judgment which produces it is in its turn fortified False Judgments and Passions continually contribute to their mutual preservation So that if the Heart ceased not sometimes to supply such Spirits as are proper to maintain the traces of the Brain and the distributions of the same Spirits which are necessary to preserve the sensation and emotion of the Soul which accompanies the Passions they wou'd continually encrease and we shou'd never discover our Errors But as all our Passions depend upon the fermentation and circulation of the Blood and as the Heart cannot always furnish such Spirits as are requisite for their preservation they must necessarily cease when the Spirits diminish and the Blood cools If it is so very easie to discover the common Judgments of the Passions we ought not to neglect it There are few Subjectys more worthy the application of those who enquire into the Truth and endeavor to deliver themselves from the dominion of their Bodies and who wou'd judge of all things according to the true Idea's of them We may instruct our selves upon this Subject two different ways either by reason only or by the internal sensation that we have of our selves when we are agitated with any Passion For instance we know by our own Experience that we are inclined to judge disadvantageously of those we love not and to discover all the malignity of our hatred by that means to the Object of our Passion We may also by pure Reason discover that hating only what is Evil it is necessary for the preservation of hatred that the Mind shou'd represent its Object on the worst side for indeed it is sufficient to suppose all the Passions justify themselves and that they divert the Imagination and afterwards the Mind in such a manner as is fit to preserve their own emotion that we conclude what those Judgments are which all the Passions cause us to make Those who have a strong and lively Imagination are extreamly sensible and very subject to the Motions of the Passions may perfectly instruct themselves in these things by the sensation they have of what passes within them and even speak of them after a more agreeable manner and sometimes more instructive than those who have more Reason than Imagination For we must not think that such as best discover the Springs of Self-love that penetrate farthest and after a more sensible manner unfold the secrets of Man's heart are always the most Learned 'T is indeed often a mark that they are more lively more imaginative and sometimes more malicious than others But those who without consulting their internal Sensation only make use of their Reason to discover the Nature of their Passions and what they are capable of producing if they are not always as penetrating as others they are always more reasonable and less subject to Error for they judge of things as they are in themselves They see very near what the Passions can perform according as they suppose them more or less moved and they do not judge rashly of
and gives us Motion and Life nor is it that which covers the Earth with Fruits and Flowers and which supplies us with Food and Nourishment This Philosophy teaches us with the Scripture that it is God only who gives Rain and regulates the Seasons who gives Nourishment to the Body and fills the Heart with Joy Acts 14.15 16. Ergo nihil agis ingratissimè Mortalium qui te negas Deo debere sed naturae quia nec natura sine Deo est nec Deus sine natura sed idem est utrumque nec distat Officium si quod à Seneca accipisses Annoeo te diceres debere vel Lucio Non creditorem mutares sed nomen Seneca l. 4. Of Benefits c. 8. Ego Dominus non est alter formans lucem creans tenebras faciens pacem creans malum Ego Dominus ficiens omnia haec Isa 45.7 Amos 3.6 That he only is capable of doing us good and thereby has given us a perpetual Testimony of what he is although in Ages passed he has permitted all Nations to walk in their own ways According to the Language of this Philosophy we must not say That it is Nature that fills us with Good nor that it is God and Nature together But that it is God alone speaking thus without Equivocation that we may not deceive the Simple For we must distinctly acknowledge him the onely Cause of our Happiness if we would make him the onely Object of our Love 'T is likewise an undoubted Truth That we ought to fear such Things as are able to hurt us and fear them in proportion to the Evil they can do us But this Philosophy tells us That it is God alone that can do us Evil that it is he as Isaiah says who creates Darkness as well as Light who makes peace and creates Evil and even that no Evil happens but from him according to the Prophet So that it is him alone we ought to fear We must not fear either Plague or War Famine our Enemies nor even Devils themselves but God alone We ought to fly a Sword when ready to wound us shun Fire and avoid a House that is likely to fall upon us yet must not fear these Things We may fly such Bodies as are Occasional or Natural Causes of Evil but we must fear only God as the True Cause of all Evils and Misfortunes and only hate Sin which necessarily provokes the Cause of all our Happiness to become the Cause of all our Evils And in short all the Motions of our Minds ought to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to it and the Motions of our Body may relate to those about it This is what we learn from that Philosophy which admits not the Efficacy of Second Causes But this Efficacy being supposed I cannot see but we have some reason to fear and love Bodies And that to regulate our Love according to Reason it is enough to prefer God above every Thing else the First and Universal to Second and Particular Causes Then it is not necessary to love God with all our strength Ex totâ mente ex toto corde ex tota anima ex totis viribus at the Scripture says Yet when we content our selves with preferring God to all other Beings and adore him with a Love of Esteem and Preference without continually endeavouring to honour and love him in all Things it often happens that we deceive our selves that our Charity is dissipated and lost and that we are more taken up with Sensible than the Soveraign Good For if the greatest Sinners and it may be even Idolaters were asked If they preferred not the universal to particular Causes They would not perhaps be afraid in the midst of their Debauches and Extravagancies to Answer That they failed not in so Essential a Duty and knew very well what they owed to God I confess they would deceive themselves but take away the Efficacy of Second Causes and they will have no probable pretext to Justifie their Conduct And if it be supposed they may say this for themselves when their passions blind them and they listen to the Testimony of their Senses Since I am made to be happy I neither can nor ought to forbear loving and respecting whaterver may be the Cause of my Happiness Why therefore should I not love and respect Sensible Objects since they are the True Causes of the Happiness I receive in their Enjoyment I acknowledge the Supream Being is alone worthy of our highest Adoration and I prefer him to every Thing but not seeing that he requires any Thing of me I enjoy the Goods he has given me by the means of Second Causes to which he has subjected me and I pay no Acknowledgments to him which perhaps would dishonour him As he does me no good immediately and by himself or at least without the Assistance of the Creatures it is a sign he does not require my Mind and Heart should be immediately applied to himself or at least he is willing that the Creatures should divide with him the Acknowledgments of my Heart and Mind Since he has communicated a part of his Power and Glory to the Sun has surrounded him with Brightness and Majesty Established him Supream over all his Works and 't is by the Influence of this Great Luminary that we receive all the Necessary Goods of Life Why should we not then employ a part of this Life in enjoying his Light and testifying the sense we have of his Greatness and Benefits Would it not be the utmost Ingratitude to receive the Abundance of all Things from this Excellent Creature and have no Sentiment of Gratitude for it And would it not likewise be an unaccountable blindness and stupidity to have no Motion of respect and fear for him whose absence freezes us to death and who by approaching too near us may burn up and destroy us I say it again that God is preferable to all Things that we must esteem and love him infinitely more than the Creatures but that we must also love and fear them For thereby we honour Him who made them merit his Favours and oblige him to bestow New Benefits upon us It is plain he approves of the Honour we pay his Creatures since he has communicated his Power to them and all Power merits Honour But as Honour ought to be proportioned to Power and that the Power of the Sun and all Sensible Objects is such that from them we receive all sorts of Goods it is just we should honour them with all our strength and next to God consecrate our whole Being to them Thus we naturally reason when we follow the Prejudice we have received from the Efficacy of Second Causes 't is probably after this manner that the first Authors of Idolatry reasoned Here is what he thought of it who is esteemed the most Learned of the Jews He thus begins a Treatise he
that all the Passions which are excited in us at the sight of some external object does Mechanically imprint upon the face of those that are struck with it a suitable Air that is an Air that Mechanically disposes all those who see it to such Passions and Motions as are useful to the good of Society nay Admiration it self when it is only caused in us by the fight of something External and which others may consider as well as we diffuses through our Face an Air which Mechanically imprints Admiration in others and which even acts upon their Brain after so regulated a manner that the Spirits which are contained in it are impelled into the Muscles of their Face to form there an Air like ours This Communication of the Passions of the Soul and Motions of the Animal Spirits to unite Men together in relation to good and evil and to make 'em resemble each other not only by the disposition of their Minds but also by that of their Body is so much the greater and more observable as the Passions are more violent because then the Animal Spirits are agitated with more force Now this is necessary because the Evils being greater or more present we must apply our selves the more and be strongly united amongst our selves to shun or to discover them But when the Passions are very moderate as Admiration commonly is they don't sensibly communicate themselves nor produce such an Air by which they are accustomed to do it For since there 's no extraordinary occasion 't would be unnecessary to put any force upon the imagination of others or to divert them from their employments on which perhaps 't is more requisite they should be engag'd than in considering the Causes of these Passions There is nothing more surprising than this Oeconomy of our Passions and disposition of our Body in relation to those objects which encompass us Whatsoever is Machinally performed in us is most worthy the Wisdom of him who Created us And as God has made us capable Of all the Passions which act in us chiefly to unite us to all sensible things for the preservation of Society and of our own Bodies and his design is so faithfully executed by the construction of his work so we cannot but admire the Springs and curiosity thereof Yet our Passions and all these imperceptible Bands by which we are united to whatever is about us often prove through our faults very considerable Causes of our Errors and Irregularities For we make not that use we ought of our Passions we permit them every thing and do not so much as know the limits that should be prescribed to their Power Thus even these Passions which like Admiration are but weak and agitate us the least have yet power enough to lead us into Error Of which here follows some instances When Men and chiefly those who have a vigorous Imagination consider themselves on the best side they are commonly very well satisfied with themselves and their inward satisfaction never fails of encreasing when they compare themselves with such as are more dull and heavy than they Besides there is many Persons that admire 'em too and very few who oppose them with any success or applause for Reason is scarcely ever applauded in opposition to a strong and lively imagination and in short such a sensible Air of submission and respect is form'd upon the Face of all their Hearers who have likewise such lively traces of admiration at every new word they speak that they also admire themselves and their Imagination swells them up with all these advantages and makes 'em extreamly satisfied in their own Abilities For if we cannot see a Passionate Man without receiving some impression from his Passion or in some measure engaging our selves in his Sentiments how could it be possible for those who are surrounded with a great number of Admirers to give no reception to a Passion which so agreeably flatters Self-Love Now this high esteem that Persons of a strong and lively Imagination have of themselves and their good Qualities swell 'em up with Pride and makes them assume a Majestic and Decisive Air They hear others with Contempt answer 'em in Raillery and only think in relation to themselves Looking upon the attention of the Mind as a kind of Servitude even where 't is necessary to discover the Truth they become wholly Indocible Pride Ignorance and Blindness are always Companions The Mighty Wits or rather the Proud and Vain-glorious ones will never be Disciples of the Truth They never retire within themselves but to admire and applaud their own Acquirements So that he who resists the Proud shines in the midst of their darkness without dissipating it There is on the contrary a certain disposition in the Blood and Animal Spirits which gives us too mean an opinion of our selves Their scarcity heaviness and fineness joined to the grossness of the Fibres of the Brain make our Imagination weak and languishing And the Sight or rather confused Sensation of this weakness and languor of our Imaginations creates such a vicious humility in us as we may call meanness of Spirit All Men are capable of the Truth but do not apply themselves to him who is only able to teach them The Proud depend upon themselves and hearken to none else And these mistaken humble ones address themselves to the Proud and submit to all their Decisions Thus both listen only to Man The Mind of the Proud obeys the fermentation of their own Blood that is their own Imagination And that of the mean spirited submits to the commanding Air of the Proud so that both are subjected to Vanity and Lyes The Proud are like a rich and powerful Man who having a great Equipage measures his own greatness by the number of his Followers and his strength by that of his Horses which draw his Coach These mistaken humble ones having the same Spirit and same Principles resemble a poor miserable languishing wretch who imagines himself almost nothing because he possesses nothing Yet our Equipage is not our selves and so far is the abundance of the Blood and Spirits vigour and impetuosity of the Imagination from leading us to Truth that on the contrary there is nothing which diverts us more from it It is the dull if I may call them so the cold and sedate Minds which are most capable of discovering the most solid and intricate Troths In the silence of their Passions they may hearken to that Truth which teaches them in the most secret recesses of their Reason but unhappily they think not of applying themselves to its word because it speaks without a sensible lustre and in a low voice and nothing affects them but a noise Nothing convinces them but what seems sparkling great and magnificent to the Judgment of the Senses they are not pleased without they are dazled and choose rather to hearken to those Philosopbers who relate their Visions and Dreams to them and who with the false
Prophets of Old affirm the Truth has spoken to them tho' it has not than to give Ear to the Truth it self For above this four thousand years the Pride of Man has without opposition put off lies and falshoods which have been respectfully received and even preserved as Holy and Divine Traditions It seems as if the God of Truth was no longer with them they neither consult nor meditate on him any longer but cover their idleness and neglect with the deceitful appearance of an holy Humility Indeed of our selves we cannot discover the Truth but we may all times do it by the assistance of him who enlightens us altho' we never can do it by the help of all the Men in the World Those even who are best acquainted with it cannot discover it to us if we do not our selves inquire of him who has inform'd them and if he answer not our attention as he has answered theirs We must not therefore receive any thing upon the credit of Man for they are all Liers but because he who cannot deceive us has spoken to us we ought continually to beg his Instruction We must not believe those who speaking to the Ear instruct only the Body or at most act upon the Imagination but we must attentively hearken and faithfully believe him who speaks to the Mind instructs the Reason and who penetrating into the most secret recesses of the inward Man is capable of enlightening and fortifying it against the outward and sensible Man which continually endeavours to seduce and abuse us I so often repeat these things because I think them most worthy of a serious reflexion 'T is God alone that we must Honour since there is none but ha who is able to give us knowledge or make us capable of Pleasure There is sometimes to be observed in the Animal Spirits and the rest of the Body a certain disposition which inclines us to Hunting Dancing Running and to all Exercises in general wherein the strength and agility of the Body are most conspicuous This disposition is commonly in Young men and chiefly in those whose Bodies are not perfectly form'd Children cannot stay long in one place but are always in action when they follow their humour For as their Muscles are not yet strong nor perfectly finish'd God the Author of Nature regulates the pleasures of the Soul in relation to the good of the Body so as to make them find pleasure in these Exercises which help to fortify and confirm the strength of their Bodies Thus whilst the Flesh and Fibres of the Nerves are still soft the little passages through which the Animal Spirits must necessarily flow to produce all sorts of motions are kept open and preserv'd the humours have no time to settle and all Obstructions and causes of Putrefaction are prevented The confused Sensation which Young men have of the disposition of their Bodies make them please themselves in the thoughts of their strength and activity They admire themselves when they know how to measure their motions or are able to make any uncommon ones and even wish to be in company of such persons as may behold and admire them Thus by little and little they strengthen their inclination for all bodily Exercises which is one of the chief causes of the Ignorance and Brutality of Men For besides the time that is lost in these Exercises the little use Men make of their Minds is the cause that the chief part of the Brain whose flexibility produces a strength and vivacity of Mind becomes wholly untractable and the Animal Spirits are not easily dispersed through the Brain after such a manner as to make them capable of thinking of whatever they please This is the reason that most part of the Nobility and such as are trained up to the War are incapable of applying themselves to any thing they argue upon things according to the Proverb A Word and a Blow And if we say any thing to them they have not a mind to hear instead of thinking what answer ought to be made their Animal Spirits insensibly flow into the Muscles by whose assistance they lift up their Arms and answer without any reflexion by a blow or some threatning gesture because their Spirits being agitated by the words they hear they are carried to those places which are most open through habit and exercise and the knowledge they have of the strength of their Bodies confirms them in these insolent behaviours And observing the respectful Air of those who hear them they are puft up with a foolish confidence which makes them utter many fierce and brutish impertinencies believing at the same time that they have spoke many fine things because the fear and prudence of others was favourable to them It is not possible to apply our selves to any Study or actually to make a profession of any Science without it we can be neither Authors nor Doctors without remembring what we are But this alone often naturally produces in the Mind of good men so many Defects that 't would be very advantageous for them if they were without those honourable Titles As they imagine them to be their chief Perfections they always think on them with Pleasure discover them to others with all possible Artifice and even pretend they have given them a right to judge of all things without examination If any Person has Courage enough to oppose them they soon Craftily and with a sweet and obliging Air insinuate what they are and the right they have to decide all things But if afterwards any is so bold as to resist them and they want an answer they will then openly say what they think of themselves and those who oppose them All inward Sensation of any advantage that we possess naturally encreases our Courage A Soldier well Armed and Mounted who wants neither Blood nor Spirits is ready to undertake any thing The disposition he finds himself in makes him bold and daring It is the same with a Learned Man when he believes himself so and when the vanity of his Heart has corrupted his Mind he becomes if we may say so bold and confident against the Truth Sometimes he rashly opposes it without knowing it and sometimes betrays it after he has discovered it and confiding in his false Learning he is always ready to maintain the Negative or Affirmative according as the Spirit of Contradiction possesses him It is very different with those who boast not of their Learning they are not decisive It is rare that they speak if they have not something to say Nay it often happens that they are silent when they ought to speak they have not that reputation nor those external marks of Learning which perswade them to speak they know not what These may safely hold their Tongues but Pretenders to Sciences are affraid to continue silent for they know well they shall be despised if they hold their Tongues although they have nothing material to say and on the contrary they
the greatness and perfection of my Being and therefore I have reason to admire it Others also ought to admire me if they would do me justice since I am something great through the relation I have to great things I in some measure possess them by the admiration I have for them and I feel the good by a foretaste that a kind of hope makes me enjoy Other Men would be happy as well as I if knowing my greatness they like me applied themselves to the Cause which produced it but they are blind and have no knowledge of either great or fine things and know not how either to raise or make themselves become consider able We may say the Mind naturally reasons after this manner without making any reflexion when it permits it self to be guided by the deceitful lights of its Passions These Arguments have some probability bus 'tis plain they have no solidity in them And this appearance or rather confused Sensation of it which attends these Natural Reasonings made without reflexion have so much power that if we don't take great care they will never fail of seducing us For instance when Poetry History Chimistry or any other Humane Science has struck the Imagination of a young Man with any Motions of Admiration if he don't carefully watch the efforts these Motions make upon his Mind If he does not throughly examine what the advantages of these Sciences are and compare the troubles he shall have in the learning with the profit he shall afterwards receive from them and in short if he is not as curious as is requisite to judge well there is a great deal of danger that his Admiration will not only shew him these Sciences with the fairest side outwards but seduce him also It is likewise very much to be feared that it will corrupt his Heart after such a manner that he shall not be able to destroy the illusion tho' he afterwards come to know it to be such because 't is impossible to efface such deep Traces out of his Brain as a continual Admiration shall have wrought there For that reason he must continually stir up the purity of his Imagination he must hinder these dangerous Traces from being formed which will corrupt the Mind and Heart I shall here prescribe a very useful way to prevent not only the excess of Admiration but also of all other Passions in general When the Motion of the Animal Spirits is violent enough to make such deep Traces in the Brain as corrupt the Imagination it is always attended with some emotion of the Soul Thus the Soul cannot be moved without being sensible of it it is sufficiently advertised to take care or it self and to examine whether it is advantageous that these Traces should be strengthned and made compleat But in the time of the emotion the Mind not being free enough to judge of the usefulness of these Traces because this emotion deceives and inclines it to favour them it must make its utmost endeavour to stop this emotion or else divert the motion of the Spirits which cause it and in the mean time it is absolutely necessary for it to suspend its Judgment Now it must not be imagined that the Soul can always barely by its own Will stop this course of Spirits which hinder it from making use of its Reason It s common powers are not sufficient to make such Motions cease which it has not excited So that it must make use of artifices to endeavour to deceive an Enemy that attacks it only by surprize As the motion of the Spirits stir up certain thoughts in the Soul so these Thoughts also excite certain motions in our Brain Thus when we would stop any motion of the Spirits which is stirred up in us it is not sufficient to will that it should cease for that is not always capable of stoping it We must make use of some Artifices and represent things contrary to those which excite and maintain this motion and this would cause a Revulsion But if we would only determine a motion of Spirits already excited to some other place we must not think of contrary things but only on such things as differ from those which produce it and this will undoubtedly divert them But because a Diversion and Revulsion will be great or little in proportion as our new thoughts shall be attended with a great or less motion of Spirits we must be very careful in observing well what those Thoughts are which agitate as most that in pressing occasions we may be able to represent them to our Imagination which seduces us and we must endeavour to form so strong an habit of resistance by this method that the motion which surprizes us may be no more excited in our Souls If we take care to make an intent application of the Idea of Eternity or any other serious Thoughts to these extraordinary motions which are excited in us those violent and great motions will never happen again without stirring up in us at the same time this Idea and which will consequently furnish us with the means to resist them Those things are proved both by Experience and the Reasons brought in the Chapter Of the Connection of Idea's So that we ought not to think it absolutely impossible by any Artifice to conquer the efforts of our Passions when our Wills are firmly determined to do it However we must not pretend that we can become Impeccable or shun all error by this manner of Resistance For first 't is difficult to acquire and preserve such an habit as that our extraordinary Motions shall stir up in us such Ideas as are proper to oppose them Secondly supposing we have acquired it these motions of the Spirits would directly excite those Ideas which we must oppose and but indirectly those which we must oppose to them So that the ill Idea's being the principal they will always have more power than those which are only accessary and it will be always necessary for the Will to assist the latter In the third place these motions of the Spirits may be so violent that they may fill the whole capacity of the Soul so that there remains no more room if we may be permitted so to speak to receive the accessary Idea that is fit to make a Revulsion in the Spirits or to receive it after such a manner as we may consider it with any attention In fine there are so many particulas circumstances which may make this remedy useless that we must not too much confide in it although on the other side we ought not to neglect it We must continually have recourse to Prayer that we may receive from Heaven those assistances as are necessary in the time of Temptations and also endeavour to present to the Mind some Truth that is so solid and strong that by this means we may conquer the most violent Passions For I must needs advertize by the way that several pious Persons often fall again
into the same Errors because they fill their Minds with a great number of such Truths as have more lustre than power and are fitter to dissipate and divide their Minds than to fortifie it against Temptation whereas unlearned and ignorant Persons are faithful in their Duty because they make some great and serious Truth familiar to them which fortifies and upholds them in all Occurrences CHAP. IX of Love and Aversion and of their principal kinds LOve and Aversion are the first Passions which succeed Admiration We do not long consider an object without discovering the Relations it has to us or to something that we Love The object that we Love and to which consequently we are united by Love being almost always present to us as well as that which we actually admire our Mind without any pain or great reflection makes the necessary Comparisons to discover the Relations they have to each other and to us or else it is naturally advertized of 'em by the preventing Sensations of Pleasure and Complacency And then the motion of Love we have for our selves and the object that we Love extends it self unto that we admire if the relation that it immediately has with us or with any thing we are united to appears advantagious to us either by Knowledge or Sensation Now this new motion of the Soul or rather motion of the Soul newly determined being joined to that of the Animal Spirits and followed with the Sensation which accompanies the new disposition that this new motion of Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion that we here call Love But if we feel by any Pain or discover by a clear and evident Knowledge that the union or relation of the object we admire is disadvantageous to us or to any thing we are united to Then the motion of Love that we have for our selves and for what is united to us is limited in us or carried towards it and follows not the sight of the Mind nor employs it self on the object of our Admiration But as the motion towards good in general which the Author of Nature continually imprints in the Soul carries us towards what we know and feel to be so because what is intelligible and sensible is good in it self We may say that the resistance which the Soul makes against this natural motion that draws it away is a kind of voluntary motion which terminates in Nothingness Now this voluntary motion of the Soul being joyned to that of the Spirits and Blood That we may not be mistaken in respect to what I here call voluntary Motion it is requisite to read the first explanation upon the first Chapter and followed with the Sensation which accompanies the new disposition that this motion of Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion that we here call Aversion This Passion is absolutely contrary to Love yet is never without Love It is wholly contrary because this separates I should only perplex the thought if I spoke whatever related to it to satisfie some difficult Persons and that unites The former has Nothingness for its object and the latter always some Being whereby 't is excited Aversion refists natural Motion and makes it of no effect whereas Love yields to it and makes it victorious But it is never separated from Love for if evil which is its object is taken for a privation of good to fly evil is to fly the privation of good that is to incline towards good and so that to hate the privation of good is to love good it self But if evil is taken for Pain and the aversion of Pain is not an aversion of the privation of Pleasure since Pain is as real a Sensation as Pleasure it is not therefore the privation of it but the aversion of Pain being the aversion to some inward Misery we should not have this aversion if we had not love Indeed evil may be taken for whatever causes Pain in us or deprives us of good and then aversion depends upon the love of our selves or of something to which we wish to be united Love and Hatred are then the two Mother Passions and opposite to each other but Love is the first chief and most Universal Being also since the Fall so far removed and separated from good as we are and looking upon our own being as the chief part of every thing we are united to we may in one Sense say that the motion of Love which we have to all things is only a consequence of Self-Love We love Honours because they raise us above others Riches because they defend and preserve us Our Relations Prince and Country because we are interested in their preservation The motion of love that we have for our selves extends to every thing that relates to us and to whatever we are united For 't is even this motion which unites and diffuses if I may so say our Being into those which encompass us in proportion as we discover by Reason or discern by Sensation that 't is advantageous to be united to them So that we must not think that since the Fall Self-Love is only the cause and rule of all other Loves but that most Loves are only kinds of Self-Love For when we say a Man loves a new object we must not think that a new motion of love is produced in this Man But rather that knowing that this object has some relation or union with him he loves himself in that object and by a motion of Love as old as himself For indeed without Grace there is only Self-Love in the Heart of Man For the love of Truth Justice and even of God himself and every other Love that has been in us from the first Inftitution of Nature is ever since the fall the Sacrifice of self-love We doubt not nevertheless but the most wicked and barbarous Men as Idolaters and even Atheists themselves are united to God by a Natural Love and of which consequently Self Love is not the cause By Love they are united to Truth Justice and Virtue They praise and esteem good Men and 't is not because they are Men that they love them but because they see good qualities in them which they cannot avoid loving since they cannot hinder themselves from admiring and judging them aimable Thus we love something else besides our selves but Self-Love is always predominant over all other loves Men abandon Truth and Justice for triffling Interests and if by their natural Powers they hazard their Lives and Fortunes to defend oppressed innocency or any other occasion They are induced by little else than Vanity and to make themselves considerable by the apparent possession of some Virtue which all the world reverences They love Virtue and Justice but never when 't is against themselves They may love them when they agree but never when they are opposite to their Interest for they can never without Grace gain the least conquest over Self-Love There are also many other natural
what disagreeableness which shocks and terrifies but the Mind perceives it not since the Senses are the only proper Judges of sensible Beauty and Deformity which are the Objects of these sorts of Passions A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH BOOK VI. Of Method CHAP. I. The Design of this Book and the two general Means to preserve Evidence in an Enquiry after Truth which will be the Subject of this Book IN the preceding Books we have seen how subject to Error the Mind of Man is that he is deceived every Moment by the Illusions of his (a) Book 1. Senses the (b) Book 2. Visions of his Imagination and Abstractions (c) Book 3. of his Mind that the Inclinations (d) Book 4. of his Will and his (e) Book 5. Passions are a Means to obscure the Truth and never suffer it to appear except it has a Tincture of those false Colours which flatter Concupiscence In a word we have in part discovered the Errors of the Mind and their Causes It is now Time to show the Way which will conduct us to the Knowledge of the Truth and give the Mind all the Power and Assistance we can to enable it to keep this Way without either straying or vainly fatiguing it self But to avoid giving the Reader any unnecessary Trouble in the Perusal of this last Book I think fit to advertise him that 't is only writ for those that wou'd of themselves seriously enquire into Truth and to this end employ the utmost Power of their own Minds I would have them for a time lay aside all probable Opinions and hot rely on the strongest Conjectures but neglect the Authority of all Philosophers and as much as possible divert themselves of their Prejudices Self-love and Passions Very much distrusting their Senses and Imaginations And in fine that they well remember the greatest Part of those things that have been told them in the preceding Books The Design of this last Book is an Endeavour to help the Mind to all the Perfection it is naturally capable of by furnishing it with whatsoever is necessary to render it more capacious and attentive and in prescribing such Rules as must be observed in an Enquiry after Truth to prevent its being ever deceived and to teach it in some time Time all that can be known If we were to carry this Design to its utmost Perfection which we pretend not to do since this is only an Essay it might be said That we ought to have given an universal Science that those that wou'd have made use of it might have been truly learned since they wou'd have had the Foundation of all particular Sciences and acquired them proportionably to the use they had made of this universal one For we endeavour by this Treatise to make the Mind capable of forming true and certain Judgments upon all Questions which shall be proportioned to it As a Memory that is able to retain all the Demonstrations of Euclid Archimedes Pappus Apollonius and all that have writ of Geometry is not suffic ent to make a Man a good Geometrician so neither is it enough to have read Plato Aristotle and Descartes and perfectly to know their Sentiments about Philosophy to make a Man a learned Philosopher The Knowledge of all the Opinions and Judgments of other Men whether Philosophers or Geometricians cannot so properly be called a Science as an History For true Science which alone can give the Mind of Man that Perfection it is now capable of consists in a certain Ability to judge solidly of all things that are adapted to it But not to lose Time and to prevent the prejudicing any Person by precipitated Judgments we will begin to treat of this important Matter We must first call to mind the Rule that has been proved and established in the beginning of the first Book because it is the Foundation and chief Principle of whatsoever we shall hereafter say therefore I 'll repeat it We ought never to give our intire Assent except to such Propositions as appear so evidently true that we cannot refuse it them without feeling some inward Pain and secret Reproaches of our Reason that is without a clear knowledge that we should make an ill use of our Liberty if we would not give our Assent Every Time we assent to Probabilities we put our selves into a certain Danger of being deceived and are almost always actually deceived and if we are not 't is a mere Effect of Chance and Good Fortune Thus a confused Sight of a great Number of Probabilities upon different Subjects can never add any Perfection to our Reason for 't is only a clear Sight of the Truth that can give either that or any solid Satisfaction The Conclusion therefore is very plain That Evidence only according to our first Rule can secure us from being deceived We ought above all things to be very careful to preserve this Evidence in all our Perceptions that we may be able to make a sound Judgment of whatsoever may be submitted to our Reason and to discover all the Truths we are capable of Such things as can either produce or preserve this Evidence are of two Sorts Some of which are within or in some manner depending on us and others which have no Connection with us For to see Objects distinctly it is necessary to have a good Sight and to give a good Attention to these Objects and both these are within us or in some manner depend upon us A good Understanding is likewise necessary and a strong Application for the penetrating into the Bottom of intelligible Truths which also are either in or in some manner depend upon us But as the Eye has need of Light to see and this Light depends upon external Causes The Mind also has need of Idea's to conceive and these Idea's as has been elsewhere proved depend not upon us but on an external Cause which furnishes us with them If therefore it shou'd happen that some Idea's of things were not presented to our Minds every time that we wished to have them and if he who enlightens the World wou'd conceal them from us 't wou'd be impossible to remedy it and to know any thing even as it is impossible for us to see Objects without Light But we shall never have any reason to fear it for the Presence of Idea's to our Mind being natural and depending on the general Will of God which is always constant and immoveable we can never fail of discovering such things as are naturally subjected to our Reason For the Sun that enlightens the Mind is not like the Sun that enlightens the Body It is never eclipsed and it penetrates every thing without having its Light divided The Idea's of all things being therefore continually present to us even when we do not consider them attentively there is nothing requisite in order to preserve this Evidence in all our Perceptions but to find a means of making our Minds more attentive and capacious
So to be able well to distinguist such visible Objects as are presented to us it is necessary on our Part to have a good Sight and to consider them stedfastly But because the Objects that we consider have often more Relations than we can be able to discover at one View by a simple Effort of the Mind We have yet need of some Rules to assist us in the disentangling all Difficulties so well that being helpt by those Rules which will make our Mind more attentive and capacious we discover with an intire Evidence all the Relations of those things that we examine We shall therefore divide this Book into two Parts In the first we shall treat of the Helps the Mind may make use of to become more attentive and capapacious And in the second give those Rules that ought to be followed in the Enquiry after Truth to form solid Judgments thereof without Fear of deceiving our selves CHAP. II. Attention is necessary to preserve Evidence in all our Perceptions that the Modifications of the Soul make it attentive but do much divide its Capacity of Perception WE have shewed in the Beginning of this Work That the Understanding only perceives and that in respect to the Understanding there is no Difference betwen simple Perceptions Judgments and Reasonings except that Judgments and Reasonings are much more compound than simple Perceptions are because they do not only represent many things but even the Relations that these things have amongst themselves For simple Perceptions only represent things to the Mind but Judgments represent to the Mind the Relations that are betwixt these things and simple Reasonings represent the Relations which are between the Relations of things But compound Reasonings represent the Relations of Relations or the compound Relations which are between the Relations of things and so on ad Infinitum For whilst these Relations are multiplied the Reasonings which represent them to the Mind become more compounded But Judgments simple and compound Reasonings are only pure Perceptions in respect to the Understanding because the Understanding only simply perceives as has been before intimated Thus Judgments and Reasonings as to the Understanding being pure Perceptions It is plain that the Understanding never falls into any Error since there is none in Perceptions neither is Error so much as intelligible For as we have often said already it consists only in a precipitate Consent of the Will which suffers it self to be dazled by some false Light and instead of preserving its Liberty as long as it can negligently relies on the Appearance of Truth Nevertheless since it commonly happens that the Understanding hath only confused and imperfect Perceptions of things we may say it is certainly the occasional Cause of our Errors For as our Eyes often deceives us because they represent external Objects very confused and imperfectly to us Confused when they are too distant from us or for want of a due Light and imperfectly because they only represent to us those Sides which are towards us So the Understanding having often only a confused and imperfect Idea of things because they are not sufficiently represented to it and because it discovers not all their Parts causes the Will to fall into a great Number of Errors in yielding too easily to these obscure and imperfect Perceptions It is therefore necessary to find some means to hinder our Perceptions from being confused and imperfect and because nothing can make them more clear and distinct than Attention which all the World is convinced of our Care must be to find such a Method as will make us become more attentive than we yet are This will be a Way to preserve Evidence in all our Reasonings and make us able at one View to perceive a necessary Connection between all the Parts of our longest Deductions In order to find this means 't is necessary that we shou'd be well convinced of what has already been said elsewhere That the Mind carries not an equal Attention to every thing it perceives for it applies it self infinitely more to those that affect modifie and penetrate it than to those that are present to it but affect it not nor belong to it And in fine it imploys it self much more about its own Modifications than about the simple Idea's of Objects which are something different from it self This is the Reason that with some Uneasiness and without much Application we consider the abstracted Idea's of the pure Understanding and apply our selves much more to such things as fall under our Imagination especially if our Imagination is strong enough to make deep Traces in our Brain And indeed it is the Cause why we entirely employ our selves about sensible Qualities even without being able to apply our selves to the pure Idea's of the Mind whilst we feel any thing that 's either very agreeable or very painful for Pain Pleasure and the rest of the Sensations being only the Modifications of the Mind it is impossible that we shou'd exist and not perceive them and that the Capacity of our Mind shou'd not be employed about them since our Sensations are only simple Perceptions But it is not the same with the pure Idea's of the Mind since they may be intimately united to it without considering them with the least Attention For although God be most intimately united to us and comprehends the Ideas of whatsoever we see Yet these Idea's though present and within our selves are hid from us when the Motions of the Spirits stir up no Traces of them or when our Will applies not our Mind thereto I mean when it forms no Acts to which the Representation of these Idea's are connected by the Author of Nature This is the Foundation of whatsoever we shall propose about such Assistances as may render our Minds more attentive so that these Helps will be founded upon the very Nature of the Mind and there is some Reason to hope they will not be so chimerical and useless as many others which more perplex than assist the Mind But if they are not so useful as might be wished all the Time that is imployed about the reading them will not be lost since by it the Reader will be better acquainted with the Nature of his Mind The Modifications of the Soul have three Causes the Senses Imagination and Passions Every one knows by his own Experience that Pleasures Pains and in general all Sensations strong Imaginations and great Passions so much possess their Mind that it is not capable of Attention when it is too livelily touched by these things because then its Capacity or Faculty of perceiving is wholly filled And although these Modifications shou'd be moderated they wou'd nevertheless in some manner divide the Capacity of the Mind so that it cou'd not wholly imploy it self in considering the Truth of things that are never so little abstracted It will be necessary to draw this important Conclusion That all those that wou'd seriously apply themselves to a Search after
force of Bodies therefore is not in the Bodies which move since this power of Motion is nothing else but the Will of God Thus Bodies have no Action and when a Bowl which is moved by meeting it moves another yet it communicates nothing of its own for in it self it hath not the Impression that it communicates to the other Yet a Bowl is the Natural Cause of the motion which it communicates A Natural Cause then is not a real and true Cause but only an occasional one and which determined the Author of Nature to act after such and such a manner in such and such an Occurrence It is certain that 't is by the Motion of visible or invisible Bodies that all things are produced For Experience teaches us that Bodies whose parts are in greatest Motion always act more than others and produce the greatest Change in the World All the Powers of Nature then proceed from the Will of God He has created the World because he willed it Dixit facta sunt He moves all things and so produces all the Effects that we see happen because he has also willed certain Laws according to which Bodies communicate their Motions in their Rencounter and because these Laws are Efficacious they act and Bodies cannot act There is therefore no Force Power or true Cause in the Material and Sensible World nor must we admit of Forms Facilities and real Qualities to produce Effects that Bodies cannot and to divide with God the Force and Power which is Essential to him Not only Bodies cannot be the true Causes of any thing the most noble Spirits also are under a like Impotence They can know nothing it God does not enlighten them nor can they have any Sensation if he does not modifie them They are capable of willing nothing if God moves them not towards him I confess they can determine the Impression that God gives them towards him to other Objects but I know not whether that can called a Power If the Capability of Sinning is a Power it would be a Power which the Almighty has not St. Austin says in some of his Works It Men had in themselves the Power of loving Good we might say they had some Power But can only Love because God Wills they should Love and because his Will is Efficacious They Love only because God continually inclines them to Good in General that is towards himself For God has created them only for himself he never preserves them without turning them towards and inclining them to himself They have no Motion towards Good in general 't is God who moves them they only follow by an entire free Choice this Impression according to the Law of God or determine it towards a false Good after the Law of the Flesh They can only be determined by a Prospect of Good For being able to do only what God makes them they can love nothing but Good But if we should suppose what is true in one Sense that Spirits have in themselves the Power of knowing Truth and loving Good if their Thoughts and Wills produced nothing External we might always say they were able to do nothing Now it appears most certain to me that the Will of Spirits is not capable of moving the least Body in the World For 't is evident there is no necessary Connexion between the Will we have of moving our Arms and the Motion of them It is true they are moved when we please and by that means we are the Natural Cause of their Motion But Natural Causes are not true Causes they are only Occasional ones which act meerly through the Power and Efficacy of God as I have already explained For how can we move our Arms To move them we must have Animal Spirits and convey them by certain Nerves into such and such Muscles to swell and contract them For by this means the Arms move or according to the Opinion of some we know not yet how 't is performed And we see that Men who do not so much as know they have Spirits Nerves and Muscles to move their Arms yet move them with as much Art and Facility as those that understand Anatomy best 'T is then granted that Men Will the Motion of their Arms but 't is only God that can and knows how to remove them If a Man cannot throw down a Tower at least he knows well what must be done in order to it But there is no Man that knows so much as what he must do to move one of his Fingers by the help of his Animal Spirits How then can Men move their Arms These things appear evident to me and to all those that will think of them though perhaps they may be incomprehensible to such as will not consider them But Men only are not the True Causes of the Motions produced in their Bodies it seems even a Contradiction that they should be so A True Cause is such an one as the Mind perceives a necessary Connexion between it and its Effect 't is that I mean Now there is only the Infinitely Perfect Being whose Mind can perceive a necessary Connexion between his Will and the Effects of it 'T is only God then who is the True Cause and who has really the Power of moving Bodies I say moreover 't is not probable that God should communicate either to Men or Angels this Power he has of moving Bodies and those who pretend the Power we have of moving our Arms is a true Power must confess that God can also give to Spirits the Power of creating annihilating and performing all possible things In a word That he can make them Almighty as I shall further shew God has no need of any Instrument to act it is sufficient if he Wills a thing for it to be because it is a Contradiction to suppose he Wills it and that it should not be His Power then is his Will and the communicating of his Power is a Communication of his Will But to communicate his Will to a Man or an Angel can signifie nothing else but Willing some body for instance should be effectively moved when 't is Will'd by a Man or an Angel Now in this case I see two Wills which concur when an Angel would move a Body that of God and that of the Angel and to know which of the two will be the true Cause of the Motion of this Body we must know which it is that is Efficacious There is a necessary Connexion between the Will of God and what he Wills God Wills in this case that a Body should move when it is willed by an Angel There is a necessary Connexion therefore between the. Will of God and the Motion of this Body and consequently 't is God who is the true cause of the Motion of the Body and the Will of the Angel only an occasional one But to shew it yet more clearly let us suppose that God Wills it should happen quite contrary to what some
those which surround us which is of a Nature so much the more perfect as it is more distant from us Here is Aristotle's Reasons but I desie the most Intelligent of his Interpreters to joyn distinct Idea's to the Terms which he makes use of and to prove that this Philosopher began with the most Simple things before he spoke of the more compounded which is absolutely necessary to reason well as I have before proved If I was not afraid of being tiresome I would yet translate some Chapters of Aristotle But besides our taking little Pleasure to read them in our own Tongue when we clearly understand what he means I have sufficiently shewn by the little I have related that his Manner of Philosophizing is wholly useless for the Discovery of Truth For since he says himself in the Fifth Chapter of this Book that those that deceive themselves in any thing at first deceive themselves a Thousand times more if they advance far It is plain that if he knew not what he said in the two first Chapters of his Book we may reasonably believe that it is not safe to take things upon his Authority without examining his Reasons But to be better perswaded of it I will make it appear that there is not one Chapter in this Book wherein there is not some Absurdity In the third Chapter he says the Heavens are incorruptible and not subject to Alteration he brings many very foolish Arguments to prove this because for Example there is the Habitation of the Immortal Gods and because there was never any Change observed in them This last Reason might be admitted if Aristotle could have proved that any one had come from thence or had lived near enough to these celestial Bodies to make accurate Observations of them But however I don't know who would believe such an Authority since Telescopes do shew us the contrary He pretends in the Fourth Chapter to prove that there are no contrary Circular Motions Yet it is manifest that the Motion from East to West is contrary to that from West to East In the Fifth Chapter he improperly proves that Bodies are not infinite drawing his Proofs from the Motion of simple Bodies For What hinders but that there may be above his Primum Mobile some immoveable Extension In the Sixth he uselesly amuses himself to prove that the Elements are not infinite For who can doubt of it when we suppose with him that they are included in the Heavens which surrounds them But he makes himself ridiculous when he endeavours to prove it by their Weight and Lightness If the Elements were infinite says he they would have an infinite Weight and an infinite Lightness which cannot be Therefore c. those that would see his Arguments at large may read them in his Books I think it Loss of Time to relate them In the Seventh he continues to prove that Bodies are not infinite and his first Proof supposes it necessary for all Bodies to be in Motion which he does not prove nor indeed can it be proved He maintains in the Eighth that there are not many Worlds of the same Kind by this pleasant Argument If there was another Earth like this we inhabit the Earth being heavy by Nature it would fall upon ours because ours is the Center to which all heavy Bodies ought to tend From whence has he learned this but from his Senses In the Ninth he proves that 't is even impossible there should be a Plurality of Worlds because if there was any Body above the Heavens it would be simple or compound in a Natural or Violent State which cannot be from the Reasons he has drawn from his three Kinds of Motion which I have already spoken of He affirms in the Tenth that the World is Eternal because he cannot prove that it had a Beginning and that it will always endure since we see whatsoever is created corrupts in Time This he has likewise learnt from his Senses But who has taught him that the World shall always endure He imploys the Eleventh Chapter in explaining what we mean by incorruptible as if the Equivocation was much to be feared and that a great Use ought to be made of its Explanation Yet this Term Incorruptible is so clear of it self that Aristotle does not give himself the Trouble to explain neither in what Sense it ought to be taken nor how he understood it himself It would have been more to the Purpose if he had defined an infinite Number of Terms he makes use of which stir up only sensible Idea's For we might then it may be have learned something by reading his Works And in the last Chapter of the first Book of the Heavens he essays to prove that the World is incorruptible and will eternally endure because he cannot prove it had a Beginning All things says he subsist for a finite or infinite Time But what is infinite only in one Sense is neither finite nor infinite Therefore nothing can subsist after this manner This is the way of reasoning us'd by the Prince of Philosophers that Genius of Nature who in stead of discovering die true Cause of Natural Effects by clear and distinct Idea's has established a Heathen Philosophy upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses or upon such as are too general to be of any Use in an Enquiry after Truth I do not here find Fault with Aristotle because he did not know that God created the World in Time to make known his Power and the Dependance of his Creatures and that he will never destroy it that we may know also that he is immutable and never repents of his Designs But I believe my self able to confute his weak Proofs of the Worlds Eternity Though he sometimes is excusable in the Opinions he maintains yet he is hardly ever so in the Reasons he brings when he treats on Subjects which include any Difficulty We are it may be already perswaded of it by what I have said although I have not related all the Errors I have met with in the Book I have extracted and I have endeavoured to make him speak more clearly than he was accustomed to do But that we may be fully convinced that the Genius of Nature hath never discovered either the Secrets or Springs of it It will be proper for me to shew that the Principles this Philosopher makes use of to explain Natural Effects have no Reason in them It is plain that we can discover nothing in Physicks if we begin not with the most simple Bodies the Elements For the Elements are the Bodies into which all others resolve because they are contained in them either actually or * I speak according to the Sentiments of the Peripateticks c. 3. l. 3. de Coelo Potentially so Aristotle defines them But we cannot find in the Works of Aristotle that he has by a distinct Idea explained these simple Bodies into which he pretends the others resolve And consequently his
only upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses since this Rule which preserves Light and Evidence in all just and solid Arguments only breeds Confusion in their Discourses It is not possible to expose the Fantasticalness and Extravagances of the Explanations that Aristotle gives of all sorts of Matters when the Subjects he treats of are simple and easie his Errors are simple and very easily discovered but when he pretends to explain compounded things and such as depend upon many Causes his Errors are at least as compounded as the Subjects he treats on and it is impossible to take them in Pieces so as to discover them all to others This great Genius which they pretend has done so well in his Rules for Definitions did not so much as know what things were necessary to be defined Because putting no Distinction between a clear and distinct knowledge and a Sensible one he imagined he was able to know and explain things to others which he had no distinct Idea of himself Definitions must explain both the Nature of Things and the Terms which compose them and stir up in the Mind distinct and clear Idea's of them But 't is impossible after this manner to define the Sensible Qualities of Heat Cold Colour Taste c. when we confound the Cause with the Effect and the Motion of Bodies with the Sensation which accompanies it because Sensations being Modifications of the Soul which we know not by clear Idea's but only by an inward Sensation as I have explained in the third Book it is impossible to affix Words to Idea's we have not As we have clear and distinct Idea's of a Circle a Square a Triangle and so distinctly know the Nature of them we may give good Definitions thereof We can even deduce the Idea's we have of these Figures all their Properties and explain them to others by Terms to which these Idea's are affixed but we cannot define either Heat or Cold being only Sensible Qualities for we know them neither distinctly nor by Idea but only by Conscience or Internal Sensation Nor must we define Heat which is external by any Effects For if we substitute in its Place the Definition that we shall give it we shall soon see that this Definition will only deceive us If for instance we define Heat to be what assembles things of the same kind without saying any thing more we may in following this Definition take such things for Heat as have no Relation to it We may say that the Loadstone assembles the Filings of Iron and separates them from those of Silver because it is hot that a Pigeon eats Hemp-Seed and leaves other Grain because she is hot That a Covetous Man separates his Gold from his Silver because he is hot In fine there is no Extravagancy that this Definition will not engage us in if we were stupid enough to follow it This Definition then does not explain the Nature of Heat nor can we make use of it to deduce all its Properties since if we keep precisely to its Terms we conclude Impertinences and if we put it in the Place of the thing defined we shall have a strange Piece of Nonsence Yet if we carefully distinguish Heat from the Cause of it although we cannot define it since it is a Modification of the Soul whereof we have no Idea we may define the Cause of it since we have a distinct Idea of Motion But Care must be had that Heat taken for such a Motion does not always cause the Sensation of Heat in us For Water for instance is hot since its Parts are fluid and in Motion and 't is apparent that Fish feel it warm at least warmer than Ice whose Parts are more in Rest but it is cold in relation to us because it has less Motion than the Parts of our Bodies For what hath less Motion than another Body is in some manner in rest in respect to that Body So that 't is not in Relation to the Motion of the Fibres of our Bodies that we must define the Cause of Heat or the Motion which excites it We must if we can define this Motion absolutely and in it self and then the Definitions we shall give may serve to discover the Nature and Properties of Heat I do not think my self obliged to examine the Philosophy of Aristotle any further and to unravel the extreamly confused and perplext Errors of this Author It seems to me that I have already shewn that he does not prove his four Elements and that he defines them ill That his Elementary Qualities are not such as he pretends that he knows not the Nature of them and that all second Qualities are not compounded of them And lastly although we should grant him that all Bodies were composed of four Elements as second Qualities of the first his whole System would be useless in a Search after Truth since his Idea's are not clear enough always to preserve Evidence in our Ratiotinations If 't is doubted that I have not related the true Opinions of Aristotle it may easily be seen by examining the Books he has writ of the Heavens of Generation and Corruption for 't is from them that I have taken almost all that I have said I had no Design to relate any thing of his Eight Books of Physicks because there is some learned Men who pretend that 't is only a Discourse of Logick And 't is very probable since we find there many indetermined and trifling Words As Atistotle often contradicts himself and as we may maintain almost any manner of Opinion from some Passages taken out of him I doubt not but we may prove by Aristotle even some Opinions contrary to those I have attributed to him but I am not afraid of it it is sufficient that I have the Book by me I cited him from to prove what I have said Nay I shall not give my self any great Trouble to examine whether these Books are Aristotle's or not I take them as for such and as they are commonly received For we ought not to disquiet our selves to know the true Genealogy of things for which we have no Esteem CHAP. VI. Some general Advices which are necessary to conduct us regularly in a Search after Truth and in a Choice of the Sciences THAT it may not be said I only destroy without establishing any thing certain and indisputable in this Work It will be proper to shew in a few Words the Order we ought to keep in our Studies to avoid being deceived and that I even note some most necessary Truths and Sciences in which we may meet with such Evidence as we cannot hinder our selves from consenting to them without suffering the secret Reproaches of our Reason I shall not explain these Truths and Sciences at large because 't is already done I do not pretend to make a new Impression of other Persons Works but content my self with referring to them I will only shew the Order we ought to
particular Enumeration but these that follow are the chief of them Sometimes we enquire after the unknown Causes of some known Effects and sometimes seek unknown Effects by their known Causes The Fire burns and dissipates the Wood we seek the Cause of it Fire consists in a very great Motion of the Fiery Particles we would know what Effects this Motion is capable of producing if it can harden Dirt and melt Iron c. We seek sometimes the Nature of a thing by its Properties and sometimes knowing the Nature we seek the Properties of things We know or at least suppose that Light is transmitted in an instant that yet it is re-united and reflected by the means of a concave Mirror in such sort that it penetrates the most Solid Bodies and we would make use of these Properties to discover the Nature of it On the contrary We know that all the Spaces which are betwixt Earth and Heaven are full of little Spherical Bodies extreamly agitated and which continually fly from the Sun And we would know if these little Bodies can transmit themselves in an instant or if being reflected by a Concave Mirror can re-unite and dissipate or penetrate the most Solid Bodies Sometimes we seek all the Parts from the whole and sometimes a whole by its Parts We seek all the unknown Parts of a whole that is known when we seek all the Alliquot parts of a Number all the Roots of an Equation all the right Angles which a Figure contains c. And we seek an unknown whole whose Parts are known when we seek the Sum of many Numbers the Area of many Figures the Capacity of different Vessels or we seek a whole which has one of its parts known and the others although unknown include some known Relation with what is unknown As when we enquire what that Number is whereof we have 15 a known part and the other which composes it is the half or third of the unknown Number Or when we seek an unknown Number which is equal to 15 and to twice the Root of the unknown Number In fine We sometimes enquire if certain things are equal or like to others or how far they are unequal or different As when we would know if Saturn is greater than Jupiter or how near their Magnitudes are alike If the Air at Rome is hotter than that at Marseilles or what difference between them What is general in all Questions is that we form them only to know some Truths and because all Truths are but Relations we may say generally that in all Questions we seek only the Knowledge of some Relations whether Relations between things Relations between Idea's or Relations between things and their Idea's There are Relations of many Kinds there are some between the Nature of things between their Magnitudes their Parts their Attributes Qualities Effects Causes c. But we may reduce them all to two viz. the Relations of Magnitude and Relations of Quality by calling all those Relations of Magnitude which are between things considered as capable of More or Less and all others Relations of Qualities Thus we may say that all Questions tend to the Discovery of some Relations of Magnitude or Quality The first and chief of all Rules is to know most distinctly the State of the Question proposed to be resolved and to have very clear Idea's of its Terms to be able to compare and by this means discover the unknown Relations We must therefore first perceive very clearly the unknown Relation that we seek for it is evident that if we had no certain Mark to discover this unknown Relation when we look for it or when we would find it it would be in vain for us to enquire after it Secondly as much as possible we must render those Idea's distinct which answer to the Terms of the Question by taking away all Equivocal Terms and make them clear by considering them with all possible Attention For if these Idea's are so confused or obscure that we cannot make the Comparisons necessary for discovering the Relations we seek we are not yet in a Condition of resolving the Question In the third place we must consider with great Attention the Conditions exprest in a Question if there is any because without that we have only a confused Notion of the State of the Question Besides the Conditons generally shew the Way for resolving it So that having once well conceived the State of the Question and Conditions of it we know what we seek and sometimes the Way that we must take to discover it It is true there is not always some Conditions exprest in Questions but then these Questions are indetermined and we may resolve them many Ways as if a Square Number or Triangle is required c. without specifying any more or else 't is because he that proposes them knows not the means of resolving them or else hides them with a Design to perplex the Question As if it is required to find two mean Proportionals between two Lines without adding by the Intersection of the Circle and Parabola or Circle and Elipsis c. It is therefore absolutely necessary that the Character by which we know what we seek should be very distinct and not Equivocal and specifie only what we seek otherwise we can never be certain of having resolved the Question proposed We must likewise take care to retrench from the Question whatever Conditions may perplex it and without which it is compleat For they unnecessarily divide the Capacity of the Mind Nay we cannot be said to know the State of a Question when the Conditions which accompany it are useless For instance if a Question were proposed in these Terms whether a Man being sprinkled with some Liquors and covered with a Garland of Flowers can be able to rest although he see nothing that can agitate him We must know whether the Word Man is not Metaphorical or the Word Rest Equivocal if it is not taken in Relation to Local Motion or in Relation to the Passions as these Words although he see nothing that is able to agitate him seem to note We must know if the Conditions being sprinkled with some Liquors and crowned with a Garland of Flowers are Essential Afterwards the State of this Ridiculous and Indetermined Question being clearly known we may easily resolve it by saying that we only need put a Man into a Ship according to the Conditions exprest in the Question The Artifice of those that propose such like Questions is to joyn Conditions to them which seem to be necessary although they are not to divert the Mind of those they propose them towards things unuseful to be resolved As in that Question that Servants commonly offer to Children I have seen say they unto them Hunters or Fishers carry away with them what they could not take and cast into the Water what they took The Mind being prejudiced with the Idea of Fishermen angling for Fish it cannot conceive what
only try to know a Relation which is sufficiently rambling and indetermined It is plain 1. That to resolve Questions of the first Kind and perfectly to know all the exact Relations of Magnitude and Quality that is between two or many things we must have distinct Idea's which perfectly represent them and compare these things all possible ways We may for instance resolve all Questions which tend to discover the exact Relations which are between 2 and 8 because 2 and 8 being exactly known we may compare them together in all necessary manners to discover their exact Relations of Magnitude or Quality We may know that 8 is Quadruple of 2 that 8 and 2 are even Numbers and that 8 and 2 are not Squares It is clear in the second place That to resolve Questions of the second Kind and exactly to discover any Relation of Magnitude or Quality which is between two or many things it is necessary and it will be sufficient to know very distinctly the Superficies of them according to which we must compare them to discover the Relation we seek For instance To resolve any Question which tends to the discovering some exact Relation between 4 and 16 as that 4 and 16 are even Numbers and Squares it is sufficient to know exactly that 4 and 16 may be divided into half without a Fraction and that both are the Product of a Number multiplied by it self and it is useless to examine what their true Magnitude is For 't is evident To know the exact Relation of Quality which is between things it is sufficient to have a very distinct Idea of their Quality without thinking any thing of their Magnitude and that to know their exact Relations of Magnitude it sufficies to know exactly their Magnitude without enquiring after their true Quality It is plain in the third place That to resolve Questions of the third Kind and to know any Relation that is almost exact between two or more things it is sufficient to know pretty near the Superficies or sides thereof according to which we must compare them to discover the approaching Relation that we seek whether it be of Magnitude or Quality For instance I can evidently know that √ 8 is greater than 2 because I can know very near the true Magnitude of the √ 8. But I cannot know how much the √ 8 exceeds 2 because I cannot exactly know the true Magnitude of √ 8. Lastly It is plain That to resolve Questions of the fourth kind and discover their trifling and undetermined Relations it suffices to know things after a manner proportionate to the need we have of comparing them to discover the Relations we seek So that to resolve all sorts of Questions 't is not always necessary to have very distinct Idea's of their Terms or to know perfectly the things their Terms signifie But it is requisire to know them so much the more exactly as the Relations we endeavour to discover are more exact and in greater Number For as we have already shewed in imperfect Questions it is enough to have imperfect Idea's of the things that we consider to resolve these Questions perfectly or according to what they contain And we likewise resolve Questions very well although we have no distinct Idea of the Terms which express them for when it is demanded if Fire is capable of melting Salt hardening Dirt and evaporating Lead and a thousand other like things we understand these Questions perfectly and can very well resolve them although we have no distinct Idea of Fire Salt Dirt c. because those who make these demands would only know if we have had any sensible Experience that Fire has produced these Effects Wherefore according to the Discoveries we have made by our Senses we can answer them in such a manner as may be capable of satisfying them CHAP. VIII An Application of the other Rules to particular Questions THere are Questions of two sorts Simple and Compound The Resolution of the first depends alone upon the Attention of the Mind to the clear Idea's of the Terms which express them The others cannot be resolved but by the Comparison of a third or many other Idea's we cannot discover the unknown Relations which are expressed by the Terms of the Question by immediately comparing the Idea's of these Terms for they cannot be joyned or compared We must therefore have one or many mean Idea's to be able to make necessary Comparisons to discover these Relations and exactly observe that these mean Idea's are clear and distinct in proportion as the Relations we endeavour to discover are more exact and in greater Number This Rule is only a Consequence of the first and is of equal Importance For if it is necessary to know exactly the Relations we compare to have clear and distinctly Idea's of them For the same reason it is necessary to know well the mean Idea's by which we pretend to make these Comparisons since we must distinctly know the Relation of Measure with each of the things that we measure to discover the Relations of them For instance When we suffer a little light Vessel to swim freely with a Loadstone in it if we turn towards the North Pole of this Loadstone another Loadstone that we hold in our Hands we shall immediately see the first Loadstone retire as if it were compelled by some violent Wind. And if we desire to know the Cause of this Effect It is plain That to give a Reason for the Motion of this Loadstone it is not enough to know the Relations it has with the other for although we should even perfectly know all we could not comprehend how these two Bodies could thrust one another without meeting We must therefore examine what things we know distinctly to be capable according to the Order of Nature of moving Bodies since the Question is to discover the Natural Cause of the Motion of the Loadstone which is certainly a Body To that end we must not have recourse to any Quality Form or Entity or even of any Intelligence that we do not clearly know to be capable of moving Bodies For we cannot certainly know that Intelligences are the common Causes of the Natural Motions of Bodies nor even whether or no they can produce Motion We know evidently That 't is a Law of Nature that Bodies should move each other when they meet We must then endeavour to explain the Motion of the Loadstone by the means of any body which meets it It is true that it may be something else besides a Body which moves it but if we have no distinct Idea of this thing we must not make use of it as a fit Mean to discover what we seek nor to explain it to others For 't is not giving a Reason of an Effect to ascribe something as a Cause of it which no body conceives clearly We must not then trouble our selves too much whether there is any other Natural Cause of the Motion of Bodies than their
Mutual Concurrence but rather suppose that there is none and attentively consider what Body can meet and move this Loadstone We discover at first sight that 't is not the Loadstone we hold in our Hands since it does not touch that which is moved But because it is only moved at the approach of that which we hold in our Hands and is not moved of it self we ought to conclude That although it is not the Loadstone in our Hands which moves it it must be some little Bodies which proceed from it and which are past by it towards the other Loadstone To discover these little Bodies we must not open our Eyes and look near the Loadstone for the Senses would impose upon Reason and it may be we should judge that nothing proceeds from the Loadstone because we cannot see any thing go out from thence 'T is very probable we should forget that we do not see the most impetuous Winds nor many other Bodies which produce as extraordinary Effects We must keep firm to this clear and most intelligible Mean and carefully examine all the Effects of the Loadstone that we may discover how it can continually emit these little Bodies without being diminished For the Experiments that have been made shew that these little Bodies that go out on one side immediately enter in again at the other and they will serve to explain all Difficulties that can be brought against the manner of resolving this Question But it must be well observed That we ought not to abandon this Mean although even we could not answer some Difficulties proceeding from our Ignorance in several things If we have not a Mind to examine from whence it is that Loadstones are repelled when we oppose the same Poles to each other but rather the Reason why they approach and joyn to each other when we present the North Pole of the one to the South Pole of the other the Question would be more difficult and one way alone would not be sufficient to resolve it It is not enough to know exactly the Relations that are between the Poles of these two Loadstones nor to have recourse to the Means we have taken for the precedent Question for on the contrary this Method seems to hinder the Effect whose Cause we would seek Neither must we have recourse to any thing that we do not clearly know to be the natural and common Causes of Corporeal Motions nor deliver our selves from the Difficulty of the Question by a rambling and undeterminate Idea of an Occult Quality in Loadstones by which they attract each other for the Mind can conceive but one Body as having a sufficient Power to attract another The Impenetrability of Bodies makes us clearly conceive that Motion may be communicated by Impulsion and Experience proves plainly that it is communicated by this means But there is neither Reason nor Experience which clearly demonstrates the Motion of Attraction for in the Experiments which seem most proper to prove this kind of Motion we visibly perceive when we find the true and certain Cause that what appears to be done by Attraction is only perform'd by Impulsion So that we must not keep to any other Communication of Motion but that which is made by Impulsion Since this way is certain and undoubted and there is at least some Obscurity in the others which we cannot imagine But although we could demonstrate that in things purely Corporeal there are other Principles of Motion than the meeting of Bodies we could not reasonably reject this we ought even to keep to it before all others since it is the most clear and evident and appears so undoubted that we are not afraid to affirm it has been received by all People in all Ages Experience shews us that a Loadstone that swims freely upon the Water draws near to one which we hold in our Hands when we present different Poles we must then conclude that it is pushed towards it But as it is not the Loadstone we hold that pushes that which swims since that which swims draws nigh to that which we hold and nevertheless that which swims would not be moved if we did not present that to it which we hold in our Hands It is evident that at least we must recur to both Methods to explain this Questoin if we will resolve it by the received Principle of the Communication of Motion The Loadstone c draws near to the Loadstone C Therefore the Air which encompasses it pushes it since there is no other Body which can push it and that is the first way The Loadstone c approaches only at the presence of the Loadstone C therefore 't is necessary that the Loadstone C should determine the Air to push the Loadstone c and that is the second way It is evident that both these ways are absolutely necessary so that the Difficulty is now reduced to joyn them together which may be done two ways either in beginning with something known in the Air which encompasses the Loadstone c or by beginning with something known in the Loadstone C. If we would know that the parts of Air like those of all fluid bodies are in continual Agitation we cannot doubt but they still strike against the Loadstone c which they surround but because they strike it equally on all sides they do not push it more on one side that another whilst there is an equal quantity of Air on both sides Things being thus it is easie to judge that the Loadstone C prevents there being so much of this Air as we speak of towards a as towards b but that can be done only by dispersing some other bodies in the space which is between C and c. There must then some little bodies go out from the Loadstones to fill this space So these little bodies chasing away the Air near a the Loadstone c is less pushed on that side than the other and consequently must approach to the Loadstone C since all bodies move to the side where they are least pushed But if the Loadstone c had not many Pores about the Pole a fit to receive the little bodies which go out from the Pole B of the other Loadstone and too small to receive those of Air It is plain that these little bodies being more agitated than Air since they are to chase it from between the Loadstones they would push the Loadstone c and remove it from C. Thus since the Loadstone c approaches to or deviates from C when we present its different Poles it is necessary to conclude that the Poles a and b of the Loadstone c are filled with different Pores Otherwise the little bodies which are emitted from the Loadstone C would not freely pass without pushing the Loadstone c by the side a and would not be repulsed by the side b What I say of one of the Loadstones must also be understood of the other It is evident that we always learn something by this way of reasoning upon clear Idea's
Fermentation or Dilatation of the Liquors probably is not enough known to all that shall read this Book to pretend to have shewn an Effect when we have in general discovered that its Cause is Fermentation but we must not resolve all particular Questions by going back unto the first Causes It is not because we cannot by this demonstrate and discover the true System upon which all particular Effects depend provided we stop only at clear Idea's But that this manner of Philosophizing is neither the most exact nor shortest To explain what I mean we must know there are Questions of two Sorts In the first we try to discover the Nature and Properties of something In the others we only desire to know if such a thing hath or hath not such a Propriety or if we know it has such a Propriety we would only know the Cause of it To resolve Questions of the first Kind we must consider things in their Original and always conceive them produced by the most Simple and most Natural Ways To resolve the rest a very different manner must be taken They must be done by Suppositions and we must examine whether these Suppositions make us guilty of any Absurdity or if they conduce to any Truth clearly known For Instance we would discover what are the Properties of the Cycloid or of some of the Conick Sections These Lines must be considered in their Generation and formed according to the most Simple and least perplext Ways for 't is the best and shortest Method to discover the Nature and Properties of them We easily see that the Subtense of the Cycloid is equal to the Circle which forms it and if we do not easily discover many Properties by this means 't is because the Circular Line which serves to form it is not sufficiently known But for these Lines purely Mathematical or such whose Relations we can know more exactly as Conick Sections we may discover a great Number of their Properties by considering them in their Generation We must only observe that as they may be generated by a Regular Motion several Ways so all Sorts of Generations are not equally proper to enlighten the Mind but the most Simple are the best and that it often happens that certain particular Methods are more proper than others to demonstrate some particular Properties But if the Question is not in general to discover the Properties of a thing but to know if a thing has such a Property Then it must be supposed that it hath it effectively and examine attentively what must follow this Supposition whether it leads to a manifest Absurdity or else to some undoubted Truth which may serve as a means to discover what we enquire after And 't is that Method Geometricians make use of to resolve their Problems They suppose as done what they seek for and examine what must happen from thence and attentively consider the Relations which result from their Suppositions They represent all these Relations which include the Condition of the Problem by Equations and afterwards reduce these Equations according to their Rules so that what is unknown they find equal to one or many things perfectly known If the Question then is in general to discover the Nature of Fire and the different Fermentations which are the most universal Causes of Natural Effects I say that the shortest and most secure Way is to examine it in its Original We must consider the Formation of the most agitated Body the Motion of which is dispersed into those that ferment By clear Idea's and the most Simple Way we must examine what Motion is capable of producing in Matter And because Fire and different Fermentations are very general things and which consequently depend upon few Causes it will not be requisite long to consider what Matter is capable of when it is animated by Motion to discover the Nature of Fermentation is its Principle and at the same time we shall learn many other things absolutely necessary to the Knowledge of Physicks Whereas if in this Question we would reason by Suppositions we should go back to the first Causes to the Laws of Nature according to which all things are formed and suppose many false things which would be of no Use We might soon discover that the Cause of Fermentation is the Motion of an Invisible Matter which communicates its self to the Parts of that which acts it for we know plain enought that Fire and the different Fermentation of Bodies consist in their Agitation and that by the Laws of Nature Bodies immediately receive their Motion only by their meeting with some others more agitated Thus we may discover that there is an Invisible Matter whose Agitation is communicated to Visible Bodies But it would be Morally impossible by way of Supposition to discover how it is done And it is not near so difficult to discover when we examine the Formation of the Elements or some Bodies whereof there 's a great Number of the same Nature as is evident by Mr. Descartes's System The third Part of the Question which is of Convulsive Motions will not be very difficult to resolve provided we suppose in Bodies Animal Spirits capable of some Fermentation and of Humours sufficiently penetrating to insinuate themselves into the Pores of the Nerves by which the Spirits disperse themselves through the Muscles provided also we do not pretend to determine what the true Disposition of the Invisible Parts is which contribute to these Convulsive Motions When we have separated a Muscle from the rest of the Body and hold it by the Extremities we Sensibly perceive that it makes all its Effort to contract it self when we prick it in the Middle It is very probable that this depends upon the Construction of the Imperceptible Parts that compose it which like so many Springs are determined to certain Motions by this Pricking But who can affirm they have found the true Disposition of the Parts which serve to produce this Motion or who can give an undoubted Demonstration of it Certainly it would appear impossible although it may be through the Power of Thought we can imagine a Construction of the Muscles fit to perform all the Motions we see them capable of Yet must we not think to determine what is the true Construction of the Muscles But because we cannot reasonably doubt that there are Spirits Susceptible of some Fermentation by the Mixture of some Subtle Matter and that the sharp and pungent Humours may insinuate themselves into the Nerves we may suppose it To resolve the Question proposed we must first examine how many Sorts of Convulsive Motions there are and because the Number of them appears indetermined we may keep to the chief whose Causes seem to be different We must consider the Parts wherein they are performed the Diseases which precede and follow them If they are produced with or without Pain and particularly how quick and violent they are for some of them are performed very quick
Truth enquired after I make it speak positively like one who pretends to have resolved the Question he has examined CHAP. IX The last Example to shew the Vsefulness of this Work in which the Cause of the Vnion of the Parts of Bodies and also the Rules of the Communication of Motion are examined BOdies are united together after three different ways by Continuity Contiguity and a third way which has no particular name because it rarely happens and which I call by the general Term of Vnion By Continuity or the Cause of it I mean that I know not what which links together the Parts of a Body so strongly that they cannot easily be separated and which we look upon as making altogether but one whole By Contiguity I mean that I know not what which makes me suppose two Bodies touching after such a manner so that there is nothing between them but which I judge not strictly united because I can easily separate them By this third Term Vnion I mean that I know not what which is the cause that wo Glasses or two Marbles whose Surfaces having been polished by rubbing one against another are joyned together in such a manner that although we can very easily separate them by making them slip off one another we shall nevertheless have some trouble to do it by any other Method Now this is not Continuity since these two Glasses or Marbles being united after this manner are not conceived as making but one Body because in one Sense we can separate them so easily Nor is it simply Contiguity although it comes very near it because these two pieces of Glass or Marble are strictly enough united and even much more than the Parts of soft and liquid Bodies as those of Butter and Water These Terms thus explained we must afterwards enquire into the Cause which unites Bodies and the Differences between Continuity Contiguity and the Vnion of Bodies according to the Sense I have determined I first seek the Cause of Continuity or that I know not what which keeps the Parts of a Body so strictly united together that some Force must be used to separate them and which we look upon together as making one whole I hope this Cause being found we shall have no great Difficulty to discover the rest It seems now necessary to me that this I know not what that ties even the smallest Parts of a piece of Iron together which I hold in my Hand should be something very powerful since I must use a great Force to break off one little part of it But I deceive my self May not this Difficulty that I find in breaking the least piece of Iron proceed from my Weakness and not the resistance of the Iron For I remember that I have formerly used more Violence than I do now to break a piece of Iron like that I hold in my Hand and if I fall Sick perhaps I could not even do it by the utmost Power I could use I therefore see plainly I must not absolutely judge of Firmness whereby the parts of Iron are knit together by the Endeavours I make to dis-unite them I must only judge that they keep very strongly together in relation to my Weakness or that they keep more strongly together than the parts of my Flesh since the Sensations of Pain that I have whilst I make too great Efforts advertises me that I shall rather dis-unite the parts of my Body than those of Iron I discover then that as I am not absolutely Strong or Weak Iron or other Bodies are not absolutely hard or flexible but only in relation to the Cause which acts upon them and that the Efforts I make cannot serve me as a Rule to measure the greatness of the Force that must be imployed to overcome the Resistance and Hardness of Iron For Rules ought to be invariable and these Efforts change according to time the abundance of actual Spirits and hardness of my Flesh since I cannot always produce the same Effects by using the same Endeavours This Reflection delivers me from a Prejudice that I had which made me imagine the Links were strong which united the parts of Bodies which Links perhaps are nothing at all and I hope it will not be useless to me in the Consequence for I have a strange Inclination to judge of every thing in relation to my self and to follow the Impressions of my Senses which I would more industriously avoid But to proceed After having thought some time and with some application enquired the cause of this strict Union without having discovered any thing of it I find my self carried by my Negligence and Nature to judge with many others that 't is the Form of Bodies which preserves the Union between their Parts or the Amity and Inclination they have for their likeness for there is nothing more commodious than to suffer our selves sometimes to be seduced and so to become Learned at little Cost But since I will not believe any thing I do not know I must not suffer my self to be thus overcome by my own Idleness nor give my self up to bare Appearances Let us quit therefore these Forms and Inclinations whereof we have no distinct and particular Idea's but only confused and general ones that it may be we form only in relation to our Nature and even in the Existence of which many Persons and perhaps whole Nations agree not It seems to me that I see the Cause of this strict Union of Parts which compose hard Bodies without admitting of any other thing than what all the World grants to be in them or at least all that the World conceives distinctly to be there for every one distinctly conceives that all Bodies are or may be composed of little Particles Thus it may be there are some of them which are crooked and branched and like little Links capable of holding others strongly together or else that they intermix all their Branches so that we cannot easily dis-unite them I have a great Mind to permit my self to espouse this Thought and so much the more as that I see the visible Parts of great Bodies hold and unite themselves together after this manner But I cannot too much distrust my Prejudices and the Impression of my Senses I must therefore yet examine the Matter more closely and see the Reason why the smallest and utmost Parts of Solid Bodies in a word even the Parts of each of these Links hold together for they cannot be united by other Links yet smaller since I suppose them solid Or else If I say they are united after this manner they may reasonably demand what shall unite these others together and so on ad infinitum So that now the Difficulty of the Question is to know how the parts of these little Links or branched parts can be so strictly united together as they are A for instance with B which I suppose parts of a little Link Or else which is the same thing Bodies being so
much the harder as they are more solid and have fewer Pores the Question now is to know how the parts of a Column composed of a Matter which has no Pore can be strongly joyned together and compose a very hard Body for we cannot say that the parts of this Column is held by little Links since being without Pores they have no particular Figure I find my self yet extreamly inclined to say that this Column is naturally hard or else that the little Links whereof hard Bodies are composed are Atoms whose parts cannot be divided as being the essential and utmost parts of Bodies which are essentially crooked or branched or of some perplex'd Figure But I freely confess that this is not to explain the Difficulty and that quitting the Prejudices and Illusions of my Senses I should be in the wrong to recur to an abstracted Form and embrace a Logical Phantom for the cause I seek I mean I should be in the wrong to conceive as something real and distinct a rambling Idea of the Nature of Essence which expresses only what we know And thus to take an abstracted and universal Form as a Physical Cause of a real Effect For there are two things which I cannot too much distrust the first is The Impression of my Senses and the other The Facility I have to receive abstracted Natures and general Logical Idea's for those which are Real and Particular I remember I have been many times seduced by these two Principal Errors But to return to the Difficulty It is not possible for me to conceive how these little Links should be indivisible by their Nature and Essence nor consequently how they should be Inflexible since on the contrary I conceive them very Divisible and necessarily divisible by their Nature and Essence For the part A is most certainly a Substance as well as B and consequently it is clear that A can exist without B since Substances can exist one without another because otherwise they would not be Substances We cannot say that A is not a Substance for it is plain it is not a bare Mode and all Beings are either Modes or Substances So since A is not a Mode 't is a Substance then it may exist without B and much more may the part A exist separately from B. So that this Link is divisible in A and in B. Moreover If this Link was Indivisible or crooked by Nature and Essence it would be quite contrary to what we Experience for then we could not break any body Let us suppose as before that a piece of Iron is composed of many Links which is intermix'd one in another whereof A a and B b are two of them I say that we cannot unlink them and consequently that we could not break this Iron For to break it we must bend the Links that compose it which are nevertheless supposed naturally and essentially inflexible And if we do not suppose them inflexible but only indivisible by their Nature the Supposition will be of no use to resolve the Question For then the Difficulty would be to know why these little Links do not obey our Efforts when we try to bend a Bar of Iron Yet if we suppose them not Inflexible we must not suppose them Indivisible for if the parts of these Links can change their Situation one in respect to another it is plain that they may be separated since there is no reason why if one part could remove it self a little from the other it could not be absolutely done Then whether we suppose these Links Inflexible or Indivisible we cannot by this means resolve the Question For if we suppose them only Indivisible we must without trouble break a bit of Iron And if we suppose them Inflexible it will be impossible to break them since the little Links which compose the Iron being embarrassed one in another it will be impossible to unlink them Let us try then to resolve the Difficulty by clear and undoubted Principles and to find the reason why this little Link hath these two parts A and B so firmly united I see evidently that it is necessary to divide the Subject of my Meditation into parts that I may examine it more exactly and with less Intention of Mind since I have not been able immediately with one simple view and all the Attention I am capable of to discover what I would find And 't is what I might have done from the beginning for when the Subjects that we consider are a little intricate 't is alwayes the best way to examine them in parts and not fatigue our selves unusefully upon false Hopes of meeting luckily with the Truth What I enquire after is the cause of the strict Union that is between the little Particles which compose the Link A B. Now there is only three things that I distinctly conceive capable of being the cause which I seek viz. The parts of this little Link the Will of the Author of Nature or lastly the Invisible Bodies which surround these little Links I might yet bring for the Cause of these things the Form of Bodies the Qualities of Hardness or some occult one the Simpathy which would be between the Particles of the same kind c. but because I have not a distinct Idea of these fine things I neither ought nor can maintain my Arguments from them so that if I find not the Cause I seek in things that I have a distinct Idea of I will not uselessy fatigue my self in the Contemplation of these rambling and general Logical Idea's and will cease from speaking of what I understand not But let us examine the first of these things which may be the Cause how the Particles of this little Link are so strictly united viz. the little Parts it is composed of When I consider only the Parts whereof hare Bodies are composed I find my self inclined to believe That we cannot imagine any Cement which unites the Parts of this Link besides themselves and their own Rest For of what Nature could it be It would not be a thing which subsists of it self for all these little Particles being Substances for what Reason should they be united by other Substances than by themselves Neither will it be a different Quality from Rest because there is no Quality more contrary to Motion which might separate these Parts than Rest But besides Substances and their Qualities we know of no other kind of Beings It is very true Defc Prin. 1. Art 55. p 2. the Parts of hard Bodies continue united whilst they are in Rest one with another and when they are once in Rest they continue so of themselves as long as they can But this is not what I seek I know not how I came to mistake the Subject I endeavour here to discover why the Particles of hard Bodies have Power to continue in Rest one by another and how they resist the Efforts we make to move them I might then answer my self Descartes
Agitation of this Matter by what I have said of Gunpowder It will not be difficult to see that 't is absotutely necessary that the Matters acting infinitely more upon the Surface of hard Bodies that it encompasses and compresses than within the same Bodies it must be the Cause of their Inflexibility or the Resistance we feel when we endeavour to break them Now as there is always many Particles of this Invisible Matter which passes through the Pores of hard Bodies they make them not only hard as we have already explained but further are the Cause that some are Springy and Elastick others stand bent and that others are fluid and liquid and in fine that they are not only the Cause of the Force that hard Bodies have to continue united together but also that fluid Bodies have to separate that is are the Cause that some Bodies are hard and others fluid But because 't is absolutely necessary to know distinctly the Physicks of Descartes the Figure of his Elements and Parts which compose particular Bodies to give a Reason why certain Bodies are stiff and some others pliable I shall not stay here to explain it Those who have read the Works of this Philosopher will easily enough imagine what may be the Cause thereof which I could not explain without great Difficulty and those who are unacquainted with this Author would but confusedly understand the Reason that I might bring for it Nor shall I also stop here to resolve a great Number of Difficulties that I foresee may be brought against what I have established Because if those that raise them have no Knowledge of true Physicks I should only tire and displease them instead of satisfying them But if they are learned Persons their Objections being stronger I could not answer them but by a great Number of Figures and long Discourses so that I believe I ought to desire those that find any Difficulty in what I have advanced very carefully to read this Chapter over again for I hope if they do so and meditate on it as much as is necessary all their Objections will vanish But if they find my Request incommodious they may omit it for there is no great Danger in being ignorant of the Cause of Bodies inflexibility I speak not here of Contiguity For 't is plain Contiguous things touch so little that there is always much Subtle Matter which passes between them and which endeavours to continue its Motion in a right Line to prevent their uniting For the Union that is observed between Marbles which have been polished one upon another I have explained it and 't is easie to see that although this Subtle Matter always passes between these two Parts how united soever they may be the Air cannot pass it and therefore 't is that which compresses and binds those two Pieces of Marble together and causes some Trouble to disunite them if we do not make them slide off one another It is plain from all this that the Continuity Contiguity and Union of two Marbles will only be the same thing in a Void neither have we different Idea's of them so that 't is as much as to say we do not understand them if we make them absolutely differ without any Relation to the Bodies which surround them Here now follows some Reflexions upon Descartes's Sentiment and the Original of his error I call his Opinion an Error because I find no Expedient to defend what he says of the Rules of Motion and Cause of the Hardness of Bodies in many Places at the End of the Second Part of his Principles and it seems to me that I have sufficiently proved the Truth of the contrary Opinion This great Man very distinctly conceived that Matter could not move of it self and that the Natural moving Power of all Bodies was nothing else but the general Will of the Author of Nature and that the Communications of the Motions of Bodies at their mutual Meeting could only proceed from this same Will If we take this for granted we can give no Rules for the different Communication of Motions but by the Proportion that is found between the different Magnitude of Bodies which beat against them since it is impossible to penetrate the Designs of God's Will And because he judges that every thing had Power to continue in the State it was in whether in Motion or Rest because that God by his Will determined this Power always to act after the same manner he concludes that Rest has as much Power to act as Motion So he measures the Effects of the Power of Rest by the Magnitude of Bodies which possessed it as those of the Power of Motion and hence he gave the Rules for the Communication of Motion that are in his Principles and the Cause of the Hardness of Bodies which I have endeavoured to refute It is difficult enough not to be of Descartes's Opinion when we look upon it as he did for once more since the Communication of Motions proceed only from the Will of the Author of Nature and that we see all Bodies continue in the State they are once placed in whether it be Motion or Rest It seems we ought to seek the Rules of the different Communication of Motions at the meeting of Bodies not in the Will of God which is unknown to us but in the Proportion there is between the Magnitudes of these Bodies I do not therefore wonder that Descartes had this Thought but I only wonder that he did not correct it when he had made a farther Advance in his Discoveries and found both Existence and the Effects of the Subtle Matter which environs all Bodies I am surprized that in the 132 Article of the 4th Part he attributes the Elastick Force that certain Bodies have to this subtle Matter and that in Articles 55 and 43 of the Second Part and in other Places he does not attribute it to their Hardness or the Resistance they make when we endeavour to bend or break them but to the rest of their Parts It appears evident to me that the Cause of the Elasticity and Stiffness of certain Bodies is the same with that which gives them the Power of Resistance when we would break them for indeed the Force that we use to break Steel differs but insensibly from that by which we bend it I will not here bring all the Reasons that might be urged to prove these things nor answer to any Difficulties that we might form from hard Bodies making no Sensible Resistance and yet we have some Trouble to bend them For it will be enough to make these Difficulties vanish to consider that the Subtle Matter cannot easily take a new course in Bodies which break when we bend them as in Glass and in tempered Steel and that it cannot more easily do it in Bodies that are composed of branchy Parts which are not brittle as in Gold and Lead And indeed there is no hard bodies which make not some
little Resistance It is difficult enough to perswade our selves that Descartes positively believed the Cause of Hardness was different from that of Elasticity And what appears most probable is that he has not sufficiently reflected upon the Matter When we meditate long upon any Subject and are satisfied in things we would know we often think no more of them We believe that the Thoughts that we have had are undoubted Truths and 't is useless to examine farther But in Men there are many things which disgust them against Application incine them to a rash Assent and make them subject to Error and although the Mind continues apparently satisfied it is not always because it is well informed of the Truth Descartes was a Man like us I confess we never saw more Solidity Exactness Extension and more Penetration of Mind than what appears in his Works yet he was not infallible So that it is probable he was so very strongly perswaded of his Opinion from not sufficiently reflecting that he asserted something elsewhere in nis Principles contrary to it He maintained it upon very specious and probable Reasons but such however as were not of sufficient Force to make us submit and therefore he might and ought to have suspended his Judgment It is not enough to examine in a hard Body what might be the Cause that made it so We ought also to think of the invisible bodies which might render them hard as he has done at the End of his Philosophical Principles when he attributes the Cause of Resistance to them He ought to have made an exact Division which comprised whatsoever might contribute to the Inflexibility of bodies It is not sufficient still to seek the Cause in God's Will he ought also to have thought of the Subtle Matter which environed them For although the Existence of this extreamly agitated Matter was not yet proved in that Place of his Principles where he speaks of Hardness it was not then rejected He ought then to have suspended his Judgment and to have remembered that what he had writ of the Cause of Hardness and Rules of Motion ought to have been reviewed anew which I believe he did not do carefully enough Or else he did not sufficiently consider the true Reason of a thing that is very easie to discover and which yet is of the utmost Consequence in Physicks I will explain it Descartes well knew that to maintain his System of the Truth which he could not reasonably doubt It was absolutely necessary that great bodies should always communicate their Motion to the lesser bodies they should meet and the less reflect at their meeting with the greater without a like Loss on their Side For without that the First Element would not have all the Motion that it is necessary it should have above the Second nor the Second above the Third and his whole System would be absolutely false as is sufficiently known to those that have but thought a little upon it But in supposing that Rest had Force enough to resist Motion and that a great Body in Rest could not be moved by another that is less than it although it strike it with a furious Agitation It is plain that great Bodies must have much less Motion than a like Mass of little Bodies since according to this Supposition they can always communicate what they have and cannot always receive from the lesser Thus this Supposition not being contrary to whatsoever Descartes has said in his Principles from the Beginning unto the Establishment of his Rules of Motion and agreeing very well with the Sequel of his Principles he believed that the Rules of Motions which he thought he had demonstrated in their Cause were also sufficiently confirmed by their Effects I agree with Descartes that great Bodies communicate their Motion much more easily than little Bodies do and therefore his First Element is much more agitated than the Second and the Second than the Third But the Cause of it is clear without having any Regard to his Supposition Little and fluid Bodies as Water Air c. can only communicate to great Bodies an uniform Motion which is common to all their Parts The Water in a River can only communicate to a Boat the Motion of Descent which is common to all the little Parts of which the Water is composed and every one of these Parts besides this common Motion has also an infinite Number of other Particulars Thus by this Reason 't is plain that a Boat for instance can never have so much Motion as an equal Bulk of Water since the Boat can only receive from the Water that Motion which is direct and common to all the Parts that compose it If Twenty Particles of a fluid Body push any other Body on the one Side and as many on the other it will continue immoveable and all the little Particles of the fluid Body in which it swims rebound up without losing any thing of their Motion Thus great Bodies whose Parts are united can only receive the Circular and Uniform Motion of the Vortex of the Subtle Matter which environs them This Reason seems sufficient to them to make it comprehended how great Bodies are not so much agitated as the lesser and that there is a Necessity for an Explanation of these things to suppose any Force in Rest to resist Motion The Certainty of Descartes's Principles cannot be a sufficient Proof to defend his Rules of Motion and we may believe that if Descartes himself had again without Prejudice examined his Principles and compared them with such Reasons as I have brought he would not have believed that the Effects of Nature had confirmed his Rules nor have fallen into a Contradiction by attributing the Hardness of Bodies only to the rest of their Parts and their Elasticity to the Force of a Subtle Matter Here follows now the Rules of the Communication of Motions in a Void which are only the Consequences of what I have established about the Nature of Rest Bodies not being hard in a Void since they are only hard by the Pressure of the Subtle Matter which surrounds them if Two Bodies meet they would flatten without rebounding we must therefore give these Rules Suppose them hard of themselves and not by the Pressure of this Subtle Matter Rest having no Power to resist Motion and many Bodies before being considered as one only in the moment of their meeting it is plain they ought not to rebound when they are equal in Magnitude and Velocity or that their Velocity supplies the Desect of their Magnitude or their Magnitude the Defect of their Velocity And it is easie from thence to conclude that in all other Cases they must always communicate their Motion A general Rule for the Communication of Motion so that they may afterwards proceed with an equal Swiftness So that to know what must happen in all the different Suppositions of Magnitude and Swiftness of Bodies which meet one another we need
God only because they freely and falsly judge that he is Evil For they cannot hate Good considered as such So that 't is by the same motion of love that God imprints on them to Good that they Hate him Now they judge that God is not Good because they make not that use as they ought of their liberty Not being convinced by an undoubted evidence that God is not Good they ought not to believe him Evil nor consequently Hate him We must distinguish two things in Hatred the Sensation of the Soul and motion of the Will The Sensation cannot be bad For 't is a modification of the Soul which Morally speaking has neither Good nor Ill in it For the motion it is not ill neither since it is not distinct from that of Love For external Evil being only a privation of Good it is evident that to fly Evil is to fly the privation of Good that is to incline towards Good So that whatever there is of real and positive in the Hatred even of God hath nothing bad in it And the Sinner cannot hate God but by making an abominable abuse of the action that God continually gives him to induce him to love himself God causes whatever we have that is real in the Sensations of Concupiscence This Explanation relates to the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and yet he is not the Author of our Concupiscence As the difficulties that are raised about Concupiscence have much relation to those things I have explained it will be proper for me here to show that God is not the Author of Concupiscence altho' he performs all things in us and 't is only he who produces even sensible Pleasures in us It seems undoubted to me that we ought to grant for the Reasons I have given in the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search after Truth and elsewhere that following the Natural Laws of the union of the Soul and Body Man even before Sin was carried by a foresight of Pleasure to the use of sensible Goods and that every time that certain traces were formed in the chief part of his Brain certain thoughts were produced in his Mind Now these Laws were very just for the Reasons brought in the same Chapter This supposed as before the Fall all things were perfectly well regulated so Man had necessarily a power over his Body that he cou'd hinder the formation of these traces when he wou'd for order requires that the Mind shou'd govern the Body Now this power of Mans Mind over his Body consisted strictly in that according to his desires and different applicacations he could stop the communication of the Motions which were produced in his Body by those Objects that were about him over which his Will had not an immediate and direct power as it had over his own Body I dont see how we can conceive that after any other manner he coud hinder the traces from being formed in his Brain Thus the Will of God or general Law of Nature which is the true cause of the communication of Motion wou'd on certain occasions depend upon Adams Will for God had this respect for him that he produced not new Motions in his Body if he consented not to them or at least in the chief part of it to which the Soul is immediately united Such was the Institution of Nature before Sin Order requires it so and consequently he whose Will is ever conformable to Order Now this Will continuing always the same the Sin of the first Man has overturn'd the Order of Nature because the first Man having Sinned Order woud not permit him absolutely to rule over any thing In the Objection of the 7th Article of the Explanation of the 7th Cap. of the 2d l. I explain what I speak here in general of the loss that Man sustain'd as to the power he had over his Body It is not just that the Sinner shoud suspend the communication of Motions that the Will of God shou'd be accommodated to his and that in favour of him there shoud be exceptions in the Law of Nature So that Man is subject to Concupiscence his Mind depends upon his Body he feels in himself indeliberate Pleasures and involuntary and rebellious Motions in consequence of his most Just Law who united both parts of which he is composed Thus formal Concupiscence as well as formal Sin is nothing real It is in Man only the loss of that power he had of suspending the communication of Motions on certain occasions We must not admit in God a positive Will of producing it This loss that Man has sustained is not a Natural consequence of the Will of God which is ever conformable to order and always the same 't is a consequence of Sin which has made Man unworthy of an advantage due only to his Innocence and Justice So that we must say that God is not the cause of Concupiscence but only Sin Yet whatever is real and positive in the Sensations and Motions of Concupiscence is performed by God Aug. against the two Epistles of the Pel. l. 1. cap. 15 c. for God effects whatever is done but that is no Evil 'T is by the General Law of Nature 't is by the Will of God that sensible Objects produce certain Motions in the Body of Man and that these Motions excite certain Sensations in the Soul useful for the preservation of the Body or propagation of the Species who dares then say that these things are not good in themselves I know very well that we say Sin is the cause of certain Pleasures we say it but do we know it Can we think that Sin which is nothing shou'd actually produce something Can we conceive nothing to be a Cause However we say it but it may be the reason is because we will not take pains enough to think seriously upon what we say or else it is because we will begin an Explication which is contrary to what we have heard persons say who it may be spoke with more Gravity and Assurance than Reflexion and Understanding Sin is the cause of Concupiscence but it is not the cause of Pleasure as Free-will is the cause of Sin without being the cause of the Natural Motion of the Soul The pleasure of the Soul is good as well as its motion or love and there is nothing good that God does not The rebellion of the Body and malignity of Pleasure proceeds from Sin as the inclination of the Soul to or its acquiescence in a particular good comes from the Sinner But these are only privations and nothings that the Creature is capable of All Pleasure is good and even in some manner makes him happy that enjoys it at least whilest he enjoys it But we may say that Pleasure is Evil because instead of raising the Mind to him that causes it it happens through the errour of our Mind and corruption of our Heart that it
steadily to what we see without suffering our selves to be shaken by difficulties which it is impossible to resolve when our Ignorance is the cause of that impossibility If Ignorance be admitted to form Difficulties and if such Difficulties overthrow the best establish'd Sentiments what will be certain among Men who know not all things What! shall not the most radiant Lights be able to dissipate the least Obscurities and shall any little Darkness be able to obscure the most clear and lively Lights But though we might forbear answering such like difficulties without weakening the Principle we have establish'd yet it is fit the World should know they are not altogether unanswerable For the mind of Man is so unjust in its Judgments that it may perhaps prefer the Sentiments which seem to be Subjects of these imaginary Difficulties to real Truths which cannot be questioned unless Men have a mind to do it on purpose and therefore cease to consider them I say then that God wills Order though there are Monsters and also that there are Monsters because God loves Order This is the Reason of it Order requires that the Laws of Nature by which God produces that infinite Variety which we see in the World should be very plain and very few Now it is the Simplicity of those general Laws which in some particular cases and by reason of the disposition of the Subject produces irregular Motions or rather monstrous Dispositions And consequently there are Monsters because God wills Order Thus God wills not positively or directly that there should be Monsters but he positively wills certain Laws of the communication of Motions whereof Monsters are the necessary Consequences And he wills those Laws because thô they are very plain they are nevertheless capable of producing that variety of Forms which we can never sufficiently admire For instance in consequence of the general Laws of the Communication of Motions there are Bodies which are in some measure driven towards the Centre of the Earth The Body of a Man or of an Animal is one of these That which sustains it in the Air sinks under its Feet Is it just and suitable to Order That God should change his general Will for that particular Case Certainly that does not appear likely Therefore that Animal must either break or maim his Body We must argue in the same manner as to the Generation of Monsters Order indeed requires that all Beings should have whatever is necessary for their Preservation and the Propagation of their Kind provided it may be done by simple means and such as are suitable to the Wisdom of God And 't is true we see that Animals and even Plants have general means for their Preservation and the continuation of their Kind and if some Animals are destitute of them on certain particular occasions it is because the general Laws according to which they have been form'd could not permit it because those Laws do not relate to them alone but generally to all Beings and that publick Good must be preferred to private Advantages It is evident that if God made but one Animal it would not be monstrous But Order would require that he should not make that Animal by the same Laws by which he now forms all the rest For the Action of God must be proportion'd to his Design By the Laws of Nature he makes not one Animal but the whole World and he must do it by the simplest means as Order requires it Therefore it is enough that this World is not monstrous or that the general Effects should be worthy the general Laws to hinder any one from finding fault with the Work of God Had God established particular Laws for all particular Alterations or had he plac'd in every thing a particular Nature or Principle of the Motions which happen to it I own it would be difficult to justifie his Wisdom against so many visible Irregularities Perhaps we should be oblig'd to own either that God wills not Order or that he cannot or will not remedy Disorder For in fine it seems to me impossible to reconcile the almost infinite number of Second Causes or of Powers Virtues Qualities and natural Faculties with what we call the sports or irregularities of Nature without engaging the Wisdom and infinite Power of the Author of all things Objection against the Second Article GOD can never act for himself Those that are wise do nothing that is useless and whatever God should do for himself would be useless for he wants nothing God wills nothing for himself if by the necessity of his Being he has all the Good he could will for himself And if God desires nothing he does nothing for himself since he only acts by the Efficacy of his Will The Nature of God is to communicate and be diffusive to be useful to others and not to it self to seek and if possible to create Persons whom it may render happy Therefore God being Essentially and Sovereignly Good it implies a Contradiction that he should act for himself Answer GOD may act for himself two ways either to derive some advantage by what he does or that his Creature may find its happiness and perfection in him I do not examine at present whether God acts for himself according to the first manner and whether to receive some Honours worthy of himself he has made and restor'd all things by his Son in whom according to the Scripture all Creatures do subsist I only assert That God can neither make nor preserve Spirits in order to their knowing and loving the Creatures It is an unalterable eternal and necessary Law that they should know and love God as I have explain'd in the Third Article Therefore this Objection does not impugn my Principle but on the contraey it favours it And if it be certain that it is the Nature of God to Communicate and extend it self for I do not examine this Axiome it is evident that God being Essentially and Sovereignly Good it implies a Contradiction that he should not act for himself in the sense which I pretend to establish Objection against the Fourth Article AS Ignorance is a Consequence of Sin Adam before the Fall had a perfect Knowledge of the Nature of his own Body and of all those which wer about him For instance it was necessary he should perfectly know the Nature of all Animals to give proper Names to them as he did Answer It is a mistake Ignorance is neither an Evil nor a Consequence of Sin It is error or blindness of the mind which is an Evil and a Consequence of Sin There is none but God who knows every thing and is ignorant of nothing Ignorance dwells in the most enlightned Intelligences Whatever is finite cannot comprehend infinity And therefore there is no Mind that can so much as apprehend all the Properties of Triangles Adam in the moment of his Creation knew whatever was fit for him to know and nothing more and it was not fit
act of God as I have already show'd but also because we know those things after a very perfect manner and also we should know them after an infinitely perfect manner were the capacity we have of thinking infinite since nothing is wanting in the Idea which represents them We ought also to conclude that it is in our selves we see whatever we know by Sensation Not that we can produce any new Modification in our selves or that the Sensations or Modifications of our Soul can represent objects by whose means God excites them in us but because our Sensations which are not distinct from us and consequently can never represent any thing that is distinct from us may nevertheless represent the existence of Beings or make us judge that they do exist For God exciting our Sensation in us at the presence of Objects by an action which is no wise sensible we fancy we receive from the Object not only the Idea which represents its Essence but also the Sensation which makes us judge of its Existence for there is alwayes a pure Idea and a confused Sensation in the knowledge we have of the Existence of Beings if we except that of God and our Soul I except the Existence of God for that is known by a pure Idea without Sensation his Existence not depending on a Cause and being included in the Idea of the necessary Being as the equality of Diameters is included in the Idea of the Circle I also except the Existence of our own Soul because we know by an Internal Sensation that we think will and feel and that we have no clear Idea of our Soul as I have sufficiently explained in the Seventh Chapter of the Second Part of the Third Book and elsewhere These are part of the Reasons that may be added to those I had already given to prove that God only inlightens us and that the immediate and direct object of our clear and evident Knowledge is an immutable and necessary Nature Men commonly make some Objections against this Opinion I shall now indeavour to resolve them Against what has been said That God only Inlightens us and that we see all things in Him FIRST OBJECTION Our Soul thinks because it is its Nature God in Creating it has given it the Faculty of Thinking there needs no more Or if there is any thing more required let us rely on what Experience teaches us about our Senses We find enough by Experience that they occasion our Ideas 'T is ill Philosophizing against Experience ANSWER I wonder that the Cartesians who have so much and yet so reasonable an aversion against the general Expressions of Nature and Faculty so freely use them on this occasion They will not allow Men to say that Fire burns by its Nature and that it turns certain Bodies into Glass by a Natural Faculty And yet some of them are not afraid of saying that the Mind of Man produces in it self the Ideas of all things by its Nature and because it has the Faculty of Thinking But yet they must give me liberty to say that these Expressions are no more significant in their Mouths than in those of the Peripatetics I am sensible the Soul is capable of Thinking but I know also that Extension is capable of Figures The Soul is capable of volition as well as Matter is of motion But as it is false that Matter though capable of Figure and Motion has in it self a Power a Faculty a Nature by which it can move it self or assume sometimes a round Figure and sometimes a square one so that the Soul is Naturally and Essentially capable of Knowledge and of Volition yet it is false that it has Faculties by which it can produce its Ideas in its self or its tendency towards good There is a great difference between being Movable and Moving Matter of its Nature is moveable and capable of Figures Besides it cannot subsist without Figure But it moves not it self it gives not it self a Figure it has no Faculty for all that The Mind by its Nature is capable of Motion and Ideas I grant it But it moves not it self it inlightens not it self God does all in Spirits as well as in Bodies Can we say that God makes all the alterations which happen in Matter See the first Illustration and that he makes not those which happen in the Mind Do we give that unto God which belongs to him in abandoning the last of all Beings to his Disposition Is he not equally the Master of all things Is he not the Creator the Preserver the only true Mover of Spirits as well as Bodies Certainly he makes all things Substances Accidents Beings manners of Beings We take away his Knowledge by putting bounds to his Action But if Men will needs have it that Creatures have such Faculties is are commonly conceived that we must say that Natural Bodies have a Nature which is the Author of their Motion and Rest as Aristotle and his followers say This overthrows all my Ideas But yet I would rather allow it than say that the Mind inlightens it self Let Men say the Soul has that power of differently moving the Members of their Body and to communicate Sensation and Life to them Let them say if they please that it gives Heat to the Blood Motion to the Spirits and to the rest of the Body its Magnitude Disposition and Figure But let them never say that the Mind gives it self its Motion and Light If God does not all at least let us allow him to do that which is greatest and most perfect in the World And if Creatures do something let them move their Bodies and let them order them as they please but let them not act upon Minds Let us say that Bodies move one another after having moved themselves Or rather let us not pretend to understand the different dispositions of Matter that little concerns us But we ought not to suffer our Minds to be ignorant from whom they receive the Light which lightens them Let them know from whom they receive that which can make them happier and more perfect Let them know their dependance according to its utmost extent and that whatever they have actually they receive it from God every moment For as a great Saint sayes upon another Subject It is a very criminal Pride to make use of those things which God gives us as if they were Naturally ours Above all things let us not imagine that the Senses instruct our Reason that the Body directs the Mind and that the Soul receives that from the Body which it has not it self It were better to fancy our selves independant than to think we have a real dependance on the Body It is better to be our own Master than to seek out a Master among the Creatures that is less valuable than we But it is much better yet to submit to the Eternal Truth which assures us in the Gospel that he is our only Master than to give
Pain would not differ from Hatred Now it is evident that Pain is different from Hatred since Pain often subsists without Hatred A Man for instance who is hurt without observing it suffers a real and cutting Pain but is free from Hatred for he does not so much as know the Cause of his Pain or Object of his Hatred or rather the Cause of his Pain not being worthy of Hatred it cannot excite it in him Thus he hates not this Cause of his Pain although his Pain inclines him to or disposes him to hate it It is true this Man hates his Pain for Pain deserves Hatred but the hatred of Pain is not Pain but only supposes it The hatred of Pain is not worthy of Hatred as Pain On the contrary 't is very agreeable for we please our selves in hating Pain as we are displeased in suffering it Pain therefore is not Hatred nor is Pleasure which is opposite to Pain Love which is opposite to Hatred Consequently the Pleasure which precedes Reason is not the same thing as Love And I likewise prove that the Joy or Pleasure which follows Reason is also distinct from Love As Joy and Sorrow are directly opposite If Joy was the same thing as Love Sorrow would not differ from Hatred But it is plain that Sorrow is different from Hatred for Sorrow sometimes subsists without Hatred For instance A Man finds himself by chance deprived of such things as he has need of This is enough to cause Sorrow but it cannot excite Hatred in him either because he knows not the Cause which deprived him of these necessaries or else that this Cause not being worthy of his Hatred it could not stir it up in him It is true this Man hates the privation or the good that he loves but it is plain that this kind of Hatred is properly Love For he hates the privation of good only because he loves the good And since to fly the privation of good is to incline towards good it is evident that the motion of this Mans Hatred differs not from that of his Love Thus his Hatred if he 's possest of any not being contrary to his Love and Sorrow being always opposite to Joy it is plain that his Sorrow is not his Hatred consequently Joy differs from Love In fine it is manifest when we are sorrowful 't is because of the presence of something we hate or rather the absence of something we love Thus Sorrow supposes Hatred or rather Love but is very different from both these things I very well know St. Austin affirms that Pain is an a version which the Soul conceives because the Body is not disposed after such a manner as it wishes and that he often confounds Delectation with Charity Pleasure with Joy Pain with Sorrow Pleasure and Joy with Love Pain and Sorrow with Aversion or Hatred But 't is very probable that this Holy Doctor spoke all this according to the general Language amongst the common sort of Men who confound the greatest part of those things which pass within them at the same time Or it may be he had not examined these things after a very exact and Philosophical manner However I believe I may and ought to say that it appear'd requisite to me exactly to distinguish these things if we would clearly and without equivocation explain many Questions which St. Austin has treated on For even those who have contrary Opinions amongst themselves have been accustomed to maintain them from the Authority of this great Man because of the different Sense his Expressions may be taken in which is not alwayes exact enough to reconcile such Persons who perhaps have more mind to dispute than agree A N EXPLANATION OF THE Third Chapter of the Second Part of the Sixth Book Concerning the Efficacy attributed to Second Causes EVer since the Fall the Mind of Man is continually imployed upon External Objects he even forgets himself and him who penetrates and inlightens him and suffers himself after such a manner to be seduced by his own and the Bodies about him that he expects in them to find his Perfection and Happiness He who alone is capable of acting in it now hides himself from our Eyes nor are his Operations performed after a sensible manner and although he produces and preserves all Beings the Mind which eagerly seeks the Cause of all things finds much difficulty to discover him although it meets with him every moment Some Philosophers have chose rather to imagine a Nature and certain Faculties as the Causes of those Effects we call Natural than to give God all the Honour which is due to his Power And although they have no Proof nor so much as a clear Idea of this Nature and these Faculties as I hope I have shown they choose rather to speak without knowing what they say and to respect a Power purely imaginary than to make any endeavour to discover the hand of him who performs whatever is done in all things I cannot forbear believing that one of the most deplorable consequences of Original Sin is our having no more gust nor sensation for God or that we perceive him not or meet him but with a kind of horrour and fright We ought to acknowledge God in all things be sensible of his Strength and Power in all Natural Effects admire his Wisdom in the marvellous Order of the Creatures and in a word adore fear and love only him in all his Works But there is now a secret opposition between Man and God Man finding himself a Sinner hides himself flyes the Light is apprehensive of meeting God and chooses rather to imagine in the Bodies which are about him a Power or blind Nature which he can make familiar to himself than to meet there the terrible Power of a Holy and Just God who knows and performs all things I confess there are many persons who by a different Principle than that of the Heathen Philosophers pursue their Opinion about Nature and Second Causes But I hope we shall discover by the consequence of this Discourse that they are of this Opinion only through a received prejudice which it is almost impossible to deliver themselves from without the assistance that may be drawn from the Principles of a Philosophy which has not alwayes been sufficiently known For it is probably this which has hindered them from declaring in favour of an Opinion which I have thought my Duty to maintain There are many Reasons which keep me from ascribing to Second or Natural Causes a strength power or efficacy to produce any thing whatever but the chief is because I cannot even conceive this Opinion What endeavours soever I make to comprehend it I cannot find in my self an Idea which represents to me what this Strength or Power can be which they attribute to Creatures And I believe that I should not make a rash Judgment if I affirm that those who maintain that Creatures have in themselves this Strength and Power
God makes him will and continually inclines him towards Good and gives him all the Ideas and Sensations which determine him I also acknowledge that Man of himself commits sin But I deny that in that he does any thing for Sin Error and even Concupiscence are nothing Which Point I have sufficiently cleared in the First Explanation Man wills but his Determinations are weak in themselves they produce nothing nor hinder God from doing all Things for it is even he who causes our Wills in us by the impression he gives us towards God Man of himself is only capable of Errour and Sin which are nothing There is a great deal of difference between our Minds and the Bodies which are about us Our Mind in one sense wills Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium peccatum Conc. Araus 2. Can. 22. acts and determines I grant it Of which we are convinced by the inward sensation we have of our selves To deny our Liberty would be to take from us future rewards and punishments for without Liberty there is neither good nor bad Actions So that then Religion would be an Illusion and a Fancy But that Bodies have any power to Act is what we do not clearly see but appears incomprehensible and is also what we deny when we reject Second Causes Even the Mind does not act so much as we imagine I know that I Will and Will freely I have no reason to doubt of it which is stronger than that inward sensation I have of my self I likewise don't deny this But I deny that my Will is the True Cause of the Motion of my Arm the Ideas of my Mind and other Things which attend my Determinations for I see no relation between Things which differ so much On the contrary I clearly discover that there can be no relation between the Will I have to move my Arm According to the sense discussed in the Chapter upon which this Explanation is made and between the Agitation of some little Bodies of which I neither know the Motion nor Figure which make choice of certain Nervous passages amongst a Million of others I know not to cause that Motion in me which I wish by an infinite Number of Motions I wish not I deny that my Will produces my Ideas in me for I do not so much as see how it could produce them For since my Will cannot Act or Will without knowing it supposes my Ideas but does not make them Nay I do not so much as precisely know what an Idea is I cannot tell whether they are produced out of nothing or become nothing again as soon as we cease to behold them I speak according to the Opinion of some persons I produce they will tell me my Ideas by the Faculty God hath given me of Thinking And move my Arm because of the Union God has placed between my Mind and Body But Faculty and Vnion are Logical Terms rambling and indeterminate Words There is no Being whatever nor Manner of Being which is either a Faculty or an Vnion Therefore these Terms must be explained If they will say That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods Willing that when I wish my Arm should be moved the Animal Spirits are then dispersed into the Muscles of it to move it according to my desire I clearly understand this Explanation and receive it But it is the same Thing which I maintain For if my Will determine that of God it is evident my Arm will be moved not by my Will which is impotent in it self but by that of Gods which can never fail of its effect I always mean a true and efficacious power But if it be said That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods having given me the power to move my Arm as he has given my Body the power of feeling pleasure and pain that I might be assiduous about my Body and interest my self in its preservation Certainly by this we should suppose the Matter in dispute and make a Circle on 't We have no clear Idea of this power that the Soul has over the Body nor of that the Body has over the Soul Nor very well know what we say when we positively affirm it Prejudice first gave rise to this Opinion we believed it from Infants as soon as we were capable of sensation But the Understanding Reason and Reflection have no share in it as sufficiently appears by what I have said in the Search after Truth But they will say I know by the inward sensation of my Action that I truly have this power So that I shall not be deceived in believing it To which I Answer When we move our Arm we have an inward sensation of the Actual Will whereby we move it and are not mistaken when we believe we have this Will And further We have an inward sensation of a certain Effort which accompanies this Will and we ought likewise to believe that we make this Effort In short I mean that we have an inward sensation that the Arm is moved in the very instant of the Effort Which supposed I consent to what is said That the Motion of the Arm is performed in the same instant we feel this Endeavour or that we have a practical Will to move it It appears evident to me that the mind does not so much as know by inward sensation or Conscience the Motion of the Arm which it animates It knowes by Conscience only what it feels or thinks We know the sense we have of the Motion of our Arm by inward Sensation or Conscience But Conscience does not inform us of the Motion of our Arm or the pain we suffer in it any more than the Colours we see upon Objects Or if this will not be granted I say that inward sensation is not infallible for Errour is often found in Complex Sensation as has been shewed in the First Booke of the Search after Truth But I deny that this Effort which is only a Modification or Sensation of the Soul given us to make us apprehend our Weakness and which affords us but an obscure and weak discovery of our power should be capable of moving or determining the Animal Spirits I deny that there is any relation between our Thoughts and the Motions of Matter or that the Soul has the least knowledge of the Animal Spirits it makes use of to move the Body it Animates In fine although the Soul should exactly know the Animal Spirits and should be capable of Moving them or determining their Motion I deny that with all this advantage it could be capable of making choice of those Nervous Canals of which she is wholly ignorant so as to impel the Spirits into them that thereby the Body might be moved with that quickness exactness and strength as we observe in those who are least acquainted with the Structure of their Bodies For even supposing our Wills were truly the Moving power of
Bodies although it appears incomprehensible how could we conceive that the Soul could move the Body The Arm for Instance is only moved by means of the dilatation or contraction of some of the Muscles which compose it And that the Motion which the Soul impresses on the Spirits that are in the Brain may be communicated to those in the Nerves and these to others which are in the Muscles of the Arms it 's requisite that the Determinations of the Soul should be multiplied or changed in proportion to the almost infinite Occurrences or Shocks which would be made by the little Bodies which constitute the Spirits But this cannot be conceived without admitting in the Soul an infinite number of Wills at the least Motion of the Body since to move it an infinite number of communications of Motions are necessary For the Soul being but a particular Cause and which cannot exactly know either the greatness or number of an infinite Variety of little Bodies which mutually strike each other when the Spirits are dispersed into the Muscles it could neither establish a general Law for the communication of the Motions of these Spirits nor exactly follow it if it were established So that it is plain the Soul could not move its Arm although it had the power of determining the Motion of the Animal Spirits These Things are too clear for us to stand any longer upon them It is the same thing with our Faculty of Thinking By inward sensation we know that we would think on something and make some effort to that end and that in the instant of our Desire and Endeavour the Idea of this Thing presents it self to the Mind But we do not discover by inward sensation that our Will or Endeavour produces our Idea nor does Reason tell us it can do it It is through Prejudice that we are perswaded that our Desires cause our Ideas whilst we prove an hundred times a day that the latter follows or attends the former As God and his Operations have nothing sensible in them and as we do not feel any thing else but our Desires which precede the presence of our Ideas we think there can be no other Cause of them But if we observe the Matter more closely we shall discover we have no power in our selves to produce them For neither Reason nor the inward sensation we have of our selves give us any information of it I do not think I am obliged to relate all the other Proofs that are made use of by these Defenders of the Efficacy of Second Causes because they appear so weak that it might be imagined I only intended to render them ridiculous and if I should answer them seriously I should become ridiculous my self An Author for Instance asserts very seriously in favour of his Opinion That Created Beings are True Material Formal Final Causes and why then should they not also be Efficient or Efficacious Causes I believe I should not very well satisfie the World if in Answer to the Demand of this Author I should stay to explain so gross an Equivocation and show the difference between an Efficacious Cause and that which some Philosophers have been pleased to call a Material one So that I shall omit some of the like Proofs to come to those they have taken from the Holy Scripture The Seventh Proof Those who maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes commonly bring the following passages to support their Opinion Let the Earth bring forth Grass Gen. 1. Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creatures that hath life and Fowl that may fly c. Therefore the Earth and the Water have from the Word of God received Power to produce Plants and Animals After which God commands the Fowls and the Fish to multiply Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Waters in the Seas and let Fowl multiply in the Earth Therefore he has given them Power to beget their like JESVS CHRIST in the Fourth Chapter of St. Mark sayes That the Seed which falls on good ground shall bring forth an hundred fold and that the Earth bringeth forth fruits of her self first the blade then the ear and afterwards the full corn Lastly it is also written in the Book of Wisdom That the Fire had as it were forgotten the Power it had of burning in favour of the People of God 'T is therefore confirmed by the Old and New Testament that Second Causes have a Power to act ANSWER I Answer That in the Holy Scripture there is also many passages which attribute to God the pretended Efficacy of Second Causes of which these are some Ego sum Dominus faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram NVLLVS mecum Isa 44.24 Manus tuae fecerunt me plasmaverunt me TOTVM in circuitu Job 10.8 Nescio qualiter in utero meo apparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI sed enim Mundi Creator qui hominis formavit nativitatem c. Mac. l. 2. c. 7.22 23. Cum ipse DEVS dat omnibus vitam inspirationem omnia Acts 17.25 Producens foenum jumentis herbam servituti hominum ut educas panem de terrâ Psal 103. 48. There is an infinite number of the like passages but these may suffice When an Author seems to contradict himself and Natural Equity or some stronger Reason obliges us to reconcile him to himself It seems to me that we have an infallible Rule to discover his true Opinion since we need but observe when he speaks according to his own Understanding and when in compliance with the common Opinion When a Man speaks like the rest of the World it is not alwayes a certain sign he is of their Opinion But when he speaks positively contrary to what we are accustomed to say although he should say it but once we have a great deal of Reason to believe 't is what he thinks provided we know he speaks seriously and having first well considered it For instance An Author speaking of the Properties of Animals if he should in an hundred places say that Beasts feel that Dogs know their Master love and fear him and should only in two or three places say Beasts are insensible and Dogs uncapable of knowing loving or fearing any thing How shall we reconcile this Author who appears to contradict himself Must we not collect all the passages for and against it and judge of his Opinion by the greatest number If so I don't believe there is any Man to whom for example we may attribute this Opinion that Animals have no Souls For the Cartesians themselves often say that a Dog feels when he is beaten and 't is very rarely that they deny him feeling And although I have incountered an infinite number of prejudices in this Book we may draw many passages from thence whereby if this Rule I have explained be received we may prove that I have established them all and even that I hold the Opinion of the Efficacy of
places in Scripture where God is only said to act Ego sum Dominus sayes Isaiah faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram chap. 44.24 NVLLVS mecum A Mother animated with the Spirit of God sayes to her Children that it was not she who formed them Nescio qualiter in utero meo aparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI Mac. 7.22 23. sed Mundi Creator c. She does not say with Aristotle and the Peripatetic Schools that 't was she and the Sun who gave them birth but the Creator of the Vniverse Now this Opinion that 't is God only who works and forms Children in the Womb is neither conformable to Prejudices or the common Notions Therefore according to the Principle I have before established these passages must be explain'd literally But on the contrary the Opinion of the Efficacy of Second Causes being conformable to the common Notion and impression of the Senses Sol homo generant hominem Arist Phys ausc l. 2. c. 2. See St. Th. upon this Text. although we should find such passages as expresly tell us that Second Causes act of themselves alone they would be of no force when compared with these Concourse therefore is not sufficient to reconcile the different passages of the Scripture and all Force Power and Efficacy must be ascribed to God But although the immediate concourse of God with Second Causes should be proper to reconcile these different Texts I know not whether it ought to be admitted after all For the Sacred Books were not made for the Divines of these times but for the Jews So that if the Jews were not formerly sufficiently inlightened or subtle enough to imagine such a concourse as is admitted in our School-Divinity and to reconcile a thing that the most able Divines have had much trouble to explain it follows methinks that the Holy Scripture which attributed to God and to him only the production and preservation of all things would have thrown them into Error and that the Holy Penmen of these Books would have spoke to Men not only in an unknown but deceitful Language For by telling them that God does all things they would only have intended that God gives his concourse to all things and 't is probable the Jews never so much as thought of this concourse those amongst them that were not great Philosophers believing that God did all things and not that he concurred to all But that we may make a more certain Judgment about this Concourse it would be very proper carefully to explain the different Hypotheses of the Schools about it For besides the impenetrable obscurities which are common to all Opinions that we can explain or maintain only upon rambling and indeterminate terms there are upon this matter so great a variety of Opinions that it would not be very difficult to discover the cause of them But I will not ingage in a discussion which will be too tiresom both for my self and the greatest part of those who will read this Book I rather choose on the contrary to endeavour to show that my Opinions may in some respect be reconciled to the greatest number of the School Divines although I must not dissemble but confess their Language appears very equivocal and confused to me I will explain my self I believe as I have already said elsewhere that Bodies for instance have no power to move themselves and that their Moving Power is only the action of God Or to avoid a term which signifies nothing distinct their Moving Power is only the Will of God alwayes necessarily efficacious which successively preserves them in different places For I don't believe that God creates certain Beings to make them the Moving Power of Bodies Not only because I have no Idea of this kind of Being nor see how they could move Bodies but also since these Beings would themselves have need of some others to move them and so on ad infinitum For none but God is truly immovable and sole Mover together Which being supposed when a Body strikes and moves another I may say that it acts by the Concourse of God and that this Concourse is not distinct from its own action For a Body moves another which it meets only by its Action or Moving Power which at the bottom is nothing but the Will of God that successively preserves this Body in many places The transferring of a Body not being its Action or Moving Power but the effect of its Moving Power Most Divines likewise say That the Action of Second Causes differs not from the Action whereby God concurs with them For although they understand it variously they suppose that God acts in the Greatures in the same Action with the Creatures And they are it seems obliged to speak thus For if the Creatures acted by an Action which God did not produce in them their Action considered as such would as it appears to me be independant Now they believed as they ought that the Creatures depended immediately upon God not only as to their Being but also as to their Operation So in respect to Free Causes I believe that God continually gave the Mind an impression towards Good in general and that he also determined this impression towards particular Goods by the Ideas or Sensations he has given us as I have shewn in the First Explanation And 't is the same Thing with what the Divines believe when they say That God moves and prevents our Wills So that the power which puts our Minds in motion is the Will of God which animates and inclines us towards Good For God created not Beings to make them the Moving power of Minds for the same Reason that he did not create any to make them the Moving power of Bodies The Wills of God being Efficacious of themselves it is enough for him to Will a Thing to have it done And it is useless unnecessarily to multiply Beings Besides whatever is real in the determinations of our Motions likewise proceeds from the Action of God in us as is clear from the First Explanation Now we neither Act or produce any Thing but by our Wills I mean by the impression of the Will of God which is our Moving power For our Wills are Efficacious no farther than as they proceed from God even as Bodies put in motion impell not others but in as much as they have a Moving power which transfer them and this Moving power is only the Will of God which creates or successively preserves them in different places Then we Act only by the Concourse of God and our Action considered as Efficacious and capable of producing any Effect differs not from that of God's And is as most Divines say the very same Action Eadem numero Actio Now all the Changes which happen in the World See Suarez l. 1. de concursu Dei cum voluntate c. 1. have no other Natural Cause than the Motion of Bodies and
Wills of Spirits For First According to the General Laws of the Communication of Motions the invisible Bodies which surround the visible ones by their divers Motions produce all these various Effects the Cause of which does not appear to us Secondly According to the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body when Bodies which are about us Act upon ours they produce in our Souls an infinite variety of Sensations Ideas and Passions Thirdly Our Mind produces by its Wills a great many different Ideas in it self For it is our Wills which apply and modifie our Minds as Natural Causes whose Efficacy nevertheless proceeds from the Laws which God has Established Lastly When our Mind Acts upon our Body many Changes are therein produced by vertue of the Laws of its Union with it And by the means of our Body it also produces in those about it a great Number of Changes by vertue of the Laws of the Communication of Motions Thus all Natural Effects have no other Natural or Occasional Cause than the Motions of Bodies and Wills of Spirits which will easily be granted by any who will use but a little application supposing he is not already prepossessed by such as know not what they say who instantly imagine Beings which they have no clear Idea of and pretend to explain Things they understand not by what is absolutely incomprehensible So that God executing by his Concourse or rather by his Efficacious Will whatever the Motions of Bodies or Determinations of Spirits perform as Natural or Occasional Causes it 's plain God does every Thing by the same Action of the Creature Not that Creatures of themselves have any Efficacious Action but because the Power of God is in some sort communicated to them by the Natural Laws which God has Established in their favour This is all that I can say to reconcile my Thoughts with the Opinion of those Divines who maintain the necessity of immediate Concourse and that God does All in all Things by the same Action as that of the Creatures For as to the rest of the Divines I believe their Opinions are indesensible every way and chiefly that of Durandus See Durand in 2. Dist 1. Qu. 5. Dist 37. de Genesi ad Litteram l. 5. c. 20. and some Ancients whom St. Austin refutes who absolutely denyed the necessity of Concourse and would have Second Causes do every Thing by a Power which God had given them at the Creation For although this Opinion be less perplexed than that of the other Divines yet it appears to me so opposite to Scripture and conformable to Prejudices to say no more that I believe it cannot be maintained I confess that the Schoolmen In 4. Sent. Dist 1. q. De aliaco ibid. who say the immediate Concourse of God is the same Action as that of the Creatures do not absolutely understand it according to my Explanation And except Biel and Cardinal D' Ailly all those I have read think that the Efficacy which produces Effects proceeds from the Second Cause as well as the First But as I determined with my self not to say any thing but what I conceive clearly and always take that Side which best agrees with Religion I believe it will not be taken amiss if I forsake an Opinion which to many persons appears so much the more intricate as they endeavour more assiduously to apprehend it And since I have established another which agrees perfectly not only with Reason but also with the Holiness of Religion and Christian Morality 'T is a Truth I have already proved in the Chapter upon which I make these Reflection but it will be very proper for me to offer yet something more fully to Justifie what I have already said upon the present Question Reason and Religion convinces us than God would be loved and rever'd by his Creatures Loved as good and Rever'd as powerful Which is a Truth we cannot doubt of without impiety and folly To love God as he requires and deserves to be loved we must according to the First Command both of the Law and Gospel and even of Reason as I have elsewhere shown do it with all our strength or according to the utmost Capacity we have of Loving It is not enough to prefer him to all Things but we must also love him in all Things Else is not our Love so perfect as it ought to be l. 4. ch 1. nor do we give to God all the Love he has impressed upon us and that only for himself since all his Actions center in himself Likewise to render to God all the Reverence due to him it is not enough to adore him as the Soveraign Power and fear him more than any of his Creatures We must also fear and adore him in all his Creatures and all our Actions must tend towards him for Honour and Glory are due only to him Which is what God has commanded us in these Words Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo ex tota anima tua Deut. 6. ex tota fortitudine tua And in these Dominum Deum tuum timebis illi soli servies Thus the Philosophy which teaches us That the Efficacy of Second Causes is a Fiction of the Mind that the Nature of Aristotle and some other Philosophers is a Chimera that God only is strong and powerful enough not only to Act in our Souls but also to give the least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say agrees perfectly with Religion the design of which is to unite us to God after the strictest manner We commonly love such Things only as are capable of doing us some good This Philosophy therefore only Authorises the Love of God and absolutely condemns the Love of every Thing else We ought to fear Nothing but what is able to do us some Evil This Philosophy therefore only permits us to fear God and positively forbids our fearing any Thing else So that it Justifies all the Motions of the Soul which are Just and Reasonable and condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For this Philosophy will never Justifie the Love of Riches the Desire of Greatness nor the Extravagance of Debauchery since the Love of the Body appears mad and ridiculous to the Principles established by this Philosophy 'T is an Undoubted Truth a Natural Opinion and even a common Notion that we ought to love the Cause of our Pleasure and love it in proportion to the Felicity it does or can make us enjoy It is not only Just but it is also very Necessary that the Cause of our Happiness should be the Object of our Love Thus following the Principles of this Philosophy we ought only to love God for it tells us that He alone is the True Cause of our Happiness that the Bodies which are about us cannot Act upon that which we Animate consequently much less upon our Minds 'T is not the Sun which enlightens us
wrote about Idolatry In the Days of Enos Men fell into strange Delusions R. Moses Maimonides and the Wise Men of that Time perfectly lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was in the Number of those deceived Persons These were their Errours Since God said they has created the Stars and the Heavens to govern the World has placed them on high surrounded them with brightness and glory and employes them to exexecute his Orders it is just that we should honour them and pay reverence and homage to them 'T is the Will of our God that we should honour those whom he has raised and exalted in Glory even as a Prince requires we should honour his Ministers in his presence because the Honour we give to them redounds to himself After they had once received this Notion they began to build Temples in honour of the Stars to offer Sacrifices and Praises to them and even prostrate themselves before them thinking thereby to gain the favour of him who created them And this was the original of Idolatry It is so Natural and Just to have Sentiments of Acknowledgment in proportion to the Benefits we receive See Vossius l. 2. de Idolatria that almost all the World have adored the Sun Ipsi qui irridentur Aegyptii nullam belluam nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent consecraverant Cic. l. 1. de Natura Deorum because they all thought he was the cause of the Happiness they injoyed And if the Egyptians have adored not only the Sun the Moon and the River Nilus because its overflowings caused the fruitfulness of their Country but also the vilest Animals 't was as Cicero relates because of some benefit they received from them So that as we cannot and indeed ought not to banish out of Mens Minds the inclination they Naturally have for the true Causes of their Happiness it is evident that there is at least some danger in maintaining the Efficacy of Second Causes although we joyn thereto the necessity of an immediate concourse which has I know not what of incomprehensible in it and which comes in as an after-game to justifie our Prejudices and Aristotles Philosophy But there is no danger in speaking only what we know and atributing Power and Efficacy to God alone since we see nothing but his Wills which have an absolute necessary and indispensable connection with Natural Effects I confess that Men are now knowing enough to avoid the gross Errors of the Heathens and Idolaters But I am not afraid to say that our Mind is disposed or rather that our Heart is often inclined like that of the Heathens and that there will alwayes be some kind of Idolatry in the World until the day that Jesus Christ shall again deliver up his Kingdom to God his Father having first destroyed all Empire Power and Dominion that God may be all in all Quorum Deus venter est Phil. 13.9 Omnis fornicator aut immundus aut avarus quod est idolorum servitus Eph. 5.5 In spiritu veritate oportet adorare John 4.24 For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of our Belly as St. Paul speaks Is it not to idolize the God of Riches continually to labour after Worldly Possessions Is this to render to God the Worship due to him to adore him in Spirit and Truth to have our Hearts filled with some sensible Beauty and our Minds dazled with the brightness of some imaginary Grandeur Men believing they receive from the Bodies which are about them the Pleasures they injoy by their use they unite themselves to them with all the Powers of their Soul And thus the principal of their disorder proceeds from the sensible conviction they have of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is Reason only that tells them there is none but God acts in them But besides that Reason speaks so low that they can scarcely hear it and the Senses which oppose it cry so loud that it stupifies them they are still confirmed in their Prejudices by Arguments which are so much the more dangerous as they bear external Characters and sensible Marks of Truth The Philosophers and chiefly the Christian Philophers ought continually to oppose Prejudices or the Judgments of the Senses and especially such dangerous ones as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet I know not from what Principle there are some Persons whom I extreamly honour and that with reason who endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and even to make this Doctrine pass for superstitious and extravagant which is so holy pure and solid and maintains that God alone is the true cause of every thing They will not have us love and fear God in all things but love and fear all things in relation to God We ought say they to love the Creatures because they are good to love and respect our Father render honour to our Prince and Superiour since God commands it I don't deny it but I deny that we must love the Creatures as our goods although they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters For we must neither serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design but to serve God and obey him This is what St. Paul sayes who became all things to all Men and complyed in all things for the Salvation of those to whom he Preached Servi obedite Dominis carnalibus cum timore tremore in simplicitate cordis vestri SICVT CHRISTO Non ad oculum servientes quasi omnibus placentes sed ut servi Christi facientes voluntatem Dei ex animo cum bona voluntate servientes SICVT DOMINI ET NON HOMINIBVS And in another Epistle Non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes sed in simplicitate cordis DEVM TIMENTES Quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini SICVT DOMINO ET NON HOMINIBVS We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and render honour to our Superiours AS VNTO GOD AND NOT VNTO MAN Sicut Domini non Hominibus This is clear and can never have any bad consequences Superiours would alwayes be more honoured and better served But I believe I may say that a Master who would be honoured and served as having in himself another Power than that of God must be a Devil and that those who served him under that Notion would be Idolaters for I can't but believe that all Honour and Love that tend not towards God are kinds of Idolatry SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA AN EXPLANATION Of what I have said in the Fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method and elsewhere That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most Simple Wayes IT seems to some Persons to be too rash a Conjecture or an abusing of indeterminate and general Terms to say That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most simple wayes in
in which let there be inserted the Tubes of two equal Bellows and only apply a Force 1600 Times greater than the other to the Mouth of the greater Bellows for then the Force of 1600 Times the less shall overcome the greater The Demonstration of it is clear from Mechanicks since the Powers are not exactly in Reciprocal Proportion with the Orifices and the Relation of the least Force to the least Orifice is greater than the Relation of greater Force to the greater Orifice But to resolve this Problem by a Machine which represents the Effect of the Muscles better than this Instance already mentioned Blow up a Foot-ball and let there be a great Stone of 5 or 6 Hundred Weight laid upon it when half filled with Wind or place the Ball upon a Table with a Board over it and a Stone over that or let some heavy Man sit upon it holding himself by something that he may be able to resist the swelling of the Foot-ball For if one blow in the Foot-ball once only with his Mouth it will raise up the Stone which presses it down or the Man who sits upon it provide a the Orifice by which the Wind enters the Foot-ball have a Sucker to hinder it from going out whilst the Person takes Breath The Reason of this is that the Orifice in the Ball is so small or ought to be supposed so small in Relation to the whole Ball which is compressed by the Stone that a small Force is capable to overpower a great one by this method If we consider also that ones Breath is capable of pushing a Ball of Lead very violently by the means of a long Tube because the Force of the Breath dissipates not but continually renews we may visibly discover that the necessary Proportion between the Orifice and Capacity of the Ball being supposed ones Breath only may easily overcome a very great Force If then we conceive that all the Muscles or each of the Fibres which compose them have like this Foot-ball a Capacity fit to receive the Animal Spirits that the Pores by which the Spirits insinuate themselves are still smaller in Proportion than the Neck of a Bladder or Orifice of a Ball that the Spirits are kept in and pushed forward in the Nerves like Air in Tubes and that the Spirits are more agitated than the Breath of the Lungs and pushed with more Force in the Muscles than in Balls We shall discover that the Motion of the Spirits which are dispersed through the Muscles can overcome the Force of the most weighty Burthens we can bear and that if we cannot carry the heaviest the Defect of the Power proceeds not so much from the Spirits as that of the Fibres and Membranes that compose the Muscles which would break if we made too great an Effort Besides if we observed that by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body the Motions of these Spirits as to their Determinations depend upon the Will of Man we should plainly see that the Motions of the Arms must be voluntary It is true we remove our Arms with so much Quickness that at first it seems incredible that the Effusion of the Spirits in the Muscles which compose them should be quick enough to produce such a Motion But we must consider that these Spirits are extreamly agitated always ready to go from one Muscle to another and that there is not need of many to swell them up so little as is necessary to move them only or when we lift any thing that 's very light from the Ground for when we have any thing heavy to lift we cannot do it so speedily Burthens being heavy will much swell and stretch the Muscles To swell them up after this manner requires more Spirits than there is in the adjoyning or opposite Muscles There must therefore be some little Time to collect these Spirits in a Quantity sufficient to resist this Weight So that those which are laden cannot run and those that take any weighty thing from the Ground cannot do it with so much Haste as those who take up a Straw If we further reflect that those that have more Heat or a little Wine in their Heads are much quicker than others as amongst Animals those whose Spirits are more agitated as Birds move more swiftly than they that have their Blood cold like Frogs And that even amongst them there are some as the Camelion the Tortoise and other Infects whose Spirits are so little agitated that their Muscles fill not faster than a little Foot-ball which we should blow up If we well consider all these things it may be we might think the Explanation already given fit to be received But although this Part of the proposed Question which regards Voluntary Motions is sufficiently resolved We must not however affirm that it is wholly so and that there is nothing more in our Bodies which contributes to these Motions than what we have attributed to it for there is probably in our Muscles a thousand Springs which facilitate these Motions and will be eternally unknown to those even who make the strictest Scrutinies into the Works of God The second Part of the Question which must be examined respects Natural Motions or those sort of Motions which have nothing extraordinary as the Convulsive have but that are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of our Machine which consequently depend not entirely upon our Wills I consider then first with all the Attention I am capable what the Motions are which have these Conditions and if they are wholly alike but because I immediately discover that almost all of them differ one from another not to perplex my self with too many things I only insist upon the Motion of the Heart This Part is the most known and its Motions most sensible I then examine its Structure and amongst many others observe two things The first that 't is composed of Fibres like other Muscles the second that there is two very considerable Cavities in it I therefore judge that its Motions may be performed by the Animal Spirits because it is a Muscle and that the Blood there ferments and dilates its self since there are Cavities there The first of these Determinations is founded upon what I have already said and the second because the Heart is much hotter than all the other Parts of the Body as it is that which disperses Heat with the Blood into all our Members that these two Cavities could neither have been formed nor preferved but only by the Dilatation of the Blood and that thus they are serviceable to the Cause which produced them I can then give a sufficient Reason for the Motion of the Heart by the Spirits which agitate it and the Blood which dilates it when this Blood is fermented For although the Cause I bring for its Motion should not perhaps be true yet it appears certain to me that it is sufficient to produce it It 's true that the Principle of the