Tokens by which this Temperament may be discerned are very evident their Complexion is of a dark Green or Olive their Eyes very red for which Reason he is called a Bloody-Eyed-Man the Head Black and Bald Flesh hard and hairy great Veins are very good Company and affable but Lustful Proud Stately Blasphemers Crafty Double Injurious Friends of ill Doing and Revengeful This is to be understood when Melancholy is kindled for if it be cooled forthwith arise in them the contrary Virtues Chastity Humility Fear and Reverence of God Charity Mercy and deep Acknowledgement of their Sins with Sighs and Tears By reason of which they live in perpetual War and Strife without ever enjoying Ease or Rest Now Vice prevails in them and then Virtue but with all these Faults they are the most ingenious and able for the Service of Preaching and for all sorts of things wherein worldly Wisdom is required because they have a great Understanding to find the Truth and a powerful Imagination to perswade In order to this let us see what God did when he would fashion a Child in his Mother's Womb to the end he might be able to discover to the World the coming of his Son and have the Gift to prove and perswade that Jesus Christ was the Messiah promised under the Law and we shall find that making him of a great Understanding and Imagination it fell of course observing the Order of Nature that he form'd him of this adust and burnt Choler This will appear plain if we consider with what Fire and Fury he persecuted the Church and the pain the Synagogues were in when they saw him Converted in having lost a Man of so great Importance to themselves and of such Advantage to the contrary Party This also appears by the Reparties full of rational Choler with which he spoke and answered the Proconsuls and Judges that apprehended him defending his own Person and the Name of Jesus Christ with such Skill and Dexterity as confounded them all Even though he had an Impediment in his Speech and was not ready in Utterance which Property Aristotle says falls to the Melancholic by Adustion The Vices he confessed himself subject to before his Conversion shew him to have possessed this Temperament He was a Blasphemer and Injurious Persecutor which are the effects of a great Heat But the most evident Token importing that he had that adust Choler may be collected from the continual Conflict which he confessed was within him between the Superior and Inferior part saying I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of Sin To which inward Contention we have prov'd according to the Opinion of Aristotle the Melancholic by Adustion are subject True it is as some Gloss and very well this Conflict arises from the disorder Original Sin has raised between the Flesh and Spirit though nevertheless being so fierce and constant I am of Opinion it proceeded also from the inequality of the Black Choler that remained in his Natural Constitution In effect the Royal Prophet David participated equally of Original Sin yet complained not so much of it as St. Paul but on the contrary affirmed he found the Inferior Part in Consent with Reason when he would rejoice in God My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God And as we shall shew in the last Chapter save one David had the best Temperament Nature could give and according to the Opinions of all the Philosophers the same which Ordinarily inclines a Man to be Virtuous without much Contradiction from the Flesh The Wits then that should be made choice of for Preachers in the first place are those that unite a great Understanding with a great Imagination and Memory whose Tokens we shall treat of in the last Chapter save one For want of such there succeed in their room those that are Melancholic by Adustion who unite a great Understanding with a great Imagination but are wanting in Memory and accordingly have no store of Words nor flow with a full stream before the Auditory In the third Rank are Men of a great Understanding without Imagination and Memory these Preach not gracefully but Preach sound Doctrin The last to whom I would not recommend the Preaching Function are those who join a happy Memory to a vast Imagination but want Understanding These draw all the People after them and hold them well pleased and in suspense but when they dream but a little of it are in a fair way to the Inquisition because By good Words and fair Speeches they deceive the Hearts of the Simple CHAP. XIII That the Theory of the Laws pertains to the Memory Pleading Causes and Judging them which is the Practic to the Understanding and Governing of a Commonwealth to the Imagination IT is not without a Mystery that in the Spanish Tongue this Word Letrado Lettered is a common Term denoting all sorts of Lettered Men as well Divines as Lawyers Physicians Logicians Philosophers Orators Mathematicians and Astrologers nevertheless when it is said Fulano es letrado such a one is Letter'd we all understand with one consent the Skill in the Laws is his Profession as if it were his proper and peculiar Style and of no others Altho' to solve this Doubt be easy nevertheless to do it satisfactorily it is requisite to know first what the Law is and what Obligations they are under who apply themselves to the Study of this Profession to be afterwards made use of in the Employment of Judges or Advocates The Law to take it right is nothing but the reasonable Will of the Legislator by which he sets forth and declares in what manner such Cases shall be determined as are ordinarily emergent in the Commonwealth for conserving the Subjects in Peace and directing them how they are to live and what they are to forbear I said a reasonable Will because it is not sufficient that a King or Emperor who are the efficient Cause of the Law declare their Will at any rate that it may be Law for if the same be not Just and Reasonable neither is it nor can it be called a Law no more than he is a Man who wants a Reasonable Soul And therefore it has been agreed that Kings should enact their Laws with the Advice of very Wise and Understanding Men to the end they should be right equal and good and the Subjects should receive them willingly and be the more oblig'd to keep and observe them The material Cause of the Law is what is done in such Cases as ordinarily happen in the Commonwealth after the Order of Nature and not of utter Impossibilities or of rare Contingencies The Final Cause is to order the Life of Man to teach him what to do and what to forbear that so being conformable to Reason the Commonwealth may be preserv'd in Peace For which end the Laws are appointed to be Written
very just and proper because Sleep and Stupidity proceed alike from the same Principles that is to say the great Coldness and exceeding Moisture of the Brain There is another kind of Incapacity in Wit not quite so Stupid as the former because at least they conceive the first Principles and draw Conclusions thence tho' few and not without much pains but the Impression of them remains in their Memories no longer than their Masters are talking to them and making them understand the same by Examples and Methods of Teaching agreeable to their rude and gross Understandings They resemble some Women who being big with Child are delivered but the Child dies as soon as it is born These Mens Brains are full of a Flegmatic Moisture for which cause the Ideas finding nothing Oily or Viscous neither stick nor are pliant so to teach them would be to draw Water with a Sieve A Fool 's Heart and Mind are like a bottomless Vessel pour what Precepts of Wisdom you please in none will remain there There is a third sort of Disability very common among Men of Letters who have some smattering of Wit for they take the first Notions and draw thence their Conclusions with which they overcharge and load their Memory but when they should range every thing in Order commit a Thousand Blunders These may be compar'd to a Woman deliver'd of a Child with the Head in the place of the Feet and the Eyes seated behind the Head There is found so great a Confusion of the Figures in the Memory of this third sort of Insipids that when they would be understood they have no less than an Hundred ways of speaking to Express themselves because they have conceiv'd an Infinity of things altogether undigested and without Order or Connexion of Parts These in the Schools are call'd Confus'd whose Brains are unequal as well in Substance as Temperament in some places compos'd of delicate Parts and in others of gross and ill temper'd and because it is also Various and Ununiform sometimes they speak Witty and Notable things and immediately after fall into a Thousand Impertinences Of these it is said A Fool 's Wisdom in his Brains is like a House in Ruins his Knowledge wants Words to express its self Nay I have observ'd a fourth Defect amongst Men of Letters which is not altogether Incapacity and yet they have not Wit enough for I find they that possess it take Learning retain it firmly in their Memory fix the Forms with the Correspondence they ought to have speaking and acting very well when there is occasion for it but if one sounds them and should ask the Essential Causes of what they know and understand they are easily found they have no bottom and that all their Sufficience was but a Facility to comprehend the Terms and Axioms of the Doctrin they were taught without penetrating why or how it was so Aristotle said of these That there are some Men who Brute-beast-like speak by Natural Instinct and say more than they know or consider after the manner of inanimate Beings who fail not to act very well although they are as insensible of the Effects they produce as the Fire of what it burns and the Cause of this is Nature leads them so that they cannot fail of attaining their End Aristotle might well have compar'd them to some Animals who seem to perform all their Actions with a show of Reason and Design but he supposing these Animals had at least some kind of knowledge of what they did past to Inanimate Agents because in his Opinion these though not wise and wanting Wit yet operated and very well too without being able to distinguish the Effect from the ultimate Cause This difference of Incapacity or if you please of Wit might be fully made out if without offence to any I were permitted to point to them with my Finger for I have both seen and known many such CHAP. III. The Child who has neither Wit nor Ability requisite to the intended Science cannot prove a great Proficient though he have the best Masters many Books and should labour at it all the Days of his Life 'T WAS a happy thought in Cicero in order to accomplish his Son Marcus in that sort of Learning he had made choice of for him that it would be sufficient to send him to an Academy so famous throughout the World as that of Athens to place him under so great a Master as Cratippus one of the most celebrated Philosophers of the Age and in a City which by the vast Concourse of People of all Nations met together must unavoidably furnish him with a multitude of great Examples and novel Accidents that would experimentally instruct him in his designed Studies Yet notwithstanding all the best Methods an indulgent Father could take buying some and Writing other Books for him History informs us that he prov'd a meer Blockhead equally destitute of Eloquence and Philosophy Nature being often even with the Son for her Prodigality to the Father and indeed the great Orator was mistaken in imagining that the Industry of such a Master the best Books the most refin'd Conversation of that famous Town and an unwearied application of Mind together with time sufficient to build his Hopes upon could supply the Defects of a Soul naturally incapable both of Eloquence and Philosophy At length we find he was disappointed which is the less to be wonder'd at being misled by innumerable Instances of the like Rencounters that flatter'd him with the same change in the disposition of his Son Nay he himself acquaints us That Xenocrates had no Genius for the study of Natural and Moral Philosophy for Plato used to call him his Hopeless Scholar yet the indefatigable Diligence of the Tutor and continued Endeavours of the Pupil produc'd an Excellent Philosopher He says also of Cleanthes that he was so dull and stupid that no Master would admit him to his School which shamed and confounded the Youth to such a degree that by an assiduous Application he acquired the Name of a Second Hercules in knowledge Nor were there the least hopes that Demosthenes should ever succeed in Eloquence who as Authors affirm was almost a Man before he could speak yet through his own unwearied Labours and the assistance of good Masters he became the greatest Orator in the World And Tully amongst other things recounts that he had such an Impediment in his Speech that he could not pronounce the Letter R yet by his Address he so happily overcame it that it was impossible to discern his former Defect which gave Birth to the Saying That Humane Capacity for Studies resembles a Game at Tables where if the Dice run cross the Gamester must supply the want of Fortune with his better Play But according to my Principles the Answer is ready to all Cicero's Examples For as I shall prove hereafter a slow Wit in Children promises a happier Progress in their riper Age more than an early
him but the Master that had taught him no better because the Cognizance and Solution of the Motions of Divine Providence as they are Supernatural Acts appertain to the Metaphysicians now a-days called Divines for the Gardener's question was Natural and properly belong'd to the Natural Philosophers those being establish'd and manifest Causes whence such Effects are produc'd For which reason the Philosopher says That the Earth resembled a Mother-in-law that took a particular care of her own Children but starved those of her Husband for we observe hers to be plump and in good liking but the other meager lank and ill coloured The Plants the Earth produces of her self come out of her own Bowels those the Gardener raises are forc'd by Art being the Daughters of another strange Mother void of the Virtue and Nourishment that should make them thrive and what is communicated only to the Plants she her self brings forth Hippocrates confirm'd this in his Visit he made to the great Philosopher Democritus who acquainted him with the false Notions the People had of Physic who as if they were free from all Diseases had nothing in their Mouths but that God had healed them and if it had not pleased him the Physicians Care and Skill had been all employed to no purpose and the like This is the old way of Talking and which has so often been in vain exploded by the Naturalists that it is not worth while to endeavour to silence it Neither is it altogether convenient because the Vulgar who are not acquainted with the particular Causes of any Effect whatever answer better and with more truth from the universal Cause which is God than to run into Impertinences However I have many times consider'd with my self whence it should come that the Vulgar should so readily ascribe all things to God taking no notice at all of Nature and not without some secret Abhorrence of Natural Means I know not well how to divine the true Cause but thus much I find that the Generality of People being ignorant which Effects more immediately to refer to God and which to Nature prate after this manner besides that Men are for the most part impatient and Friends to those that first gratify their Desires And the Process of Nature being slow and requiring length of Time they have not Patience to attend the Event but knowing the Omnipotence of God who in an Instant does what he pleases of which they want not many Instances they either beg at his Hands Health with the Paralitic or Wisdom with Solomon or Riches with Job or Deliverance from their Enemies with David An other Reason is because Men are Opinionative and Conceited most of them wishing in their Hearts that God would distinguish them by some particular Favour not in the common Road and as he makes the Sun to shine upon the Just and the Unjust and the Rain to descend upon all alike Favours being rather the more esteem'd by how much the Rarer they are and more Appropriate to a few Upon which pretence we have seen many Men feign Miraracles in Times and Places of Devotion for which cause People flock about them and pay just Veneration to them as Persons in Favour and Esteem with Heaven and if they are poor they bestow considerable Alms upon them who play the Religious Counterfeits for Interest The third Cause is Men are lovers of their Ease and Natural Causes being in such an Order and Concatenation as requires a great deal of Time and Application to discover their Effects therefore they had rather God should exert his Omnipotence that so they might without the least Pain or Delay obtain their Desires I shall take no notice of the Malice of those who seek for Miracles from God to tempt his Omnipotence to try if he can work them nor of others who to gratify their Revenge call for Fire from Heaven and the like severe Instances of the Divine Vengeance The last Reason is that the Vulgar generally speaking are very Religious and desirous that God should be greatly Honour'd and much Glorified which comes to pass by Miracles rather than Natural Events for the common People are not aware that God is not the Author of all Supernatural and Extraordinary things so much to proclaim his Almighty Power to the Ignorant as to employ them as nobler Arguments to confirm his Doctrin and that unless upon such an Emergency he never works any This is easily understood if we consider that God works not now such Miracles as once in the Old and New Testament and the Reason is because he has already done all that was necessary on his part that Man might not pretend Ignorance but to imagine that he should be ready to employ the same Arguments again and again and work new Miracles to confirm afresh his old Doctrin as in the Instances of raising the Dead giving Sight to the Blind Feet to the Lame and Paralitic is a great mistake for at the same instant as God teaches Men what is convenient he confirms it by Miracles without repeating them every day a-new God spoke once and did not repeat the same a second time The clearest Indication I have to discover a Man that has no Wit propense to Natural Philosophy is when I see him referring all things to Miracles without any distinction As on the other hand there is no need to call in question their Understanding who cannot rest satisfied without discerning the particular Cause of every Effect These are well aware that some Events are to be referred immediately to God as are Miracles and others again to Nature as those that have their immediate Causes from which they ordinarily flow But let us talk at what rate we please God is always understood to be the Author even of the last for when Aristotle said God and Nature make nothing in Vain he never meant that Nature was an Universal Cause having a Power independent upon God but a Name only of that Order and Subordinate Rule appointed by God himself in the Creation of the World to the end that such Effects might duly succeed as were necessary to its Conservation and Continuance in the same state So we say the King and Civil Right can do no Wrong by which manner of speaking no Man takes the Term Right to signifie another Prince of separate Jurisdiction from the King but rather as a Term by its signification importing all the Laws and Ordinances made by the King himself to preserve the State in Peace Like as a King has some peculiar Prerogatives that cannot be Determined by the Law as being Paramount and Extraordinary even so has God reserv'd to himself the Effects of Miracles for the Production of which he has given no Commission or Power to Natural Causes where by the way we may observe that he who takes them for such and can distinguish them from natural Effects must needs be a very acute Natural Philosopher and understand no less
than every Effect as it springs from its immediate Cause tho' this is not enough neither if the Catholic Church hath never declared them for such for like as Advocates engaged in the Study of the Civil Law have it imprinted in their Memory the better to know and understand the Kings Pleasure in the Determination of each particular Case Even so the Natural Philosophers being Advocates in their Faculty place their whole Study in this to know the Order God establish'd at the instant he created the World the better to discern what Causes produce what Effects and why And as it would be ridiculous for a Lawyer to alledge in his Breviate as a strong Proof that the King commanded such an Arrest in such a Case without shewing the Law and the Rule of Court by which it ought to be decided So the Natural Philosophers laugh at them who pronounce this or that is God's Work without running through the Order and inseparable Connexion of all the particular Causes concern'd in its immediate Production And for the same reason as a King denies to hearken to those that press him to Abrogate and Null a just Law or finally to decide a Case contrary to the standing Rules and Orders of his Ministerial Courts so neither will God likely hearken to those that importune him for Miracles and Signs out of the ordinary Course and Ministry of Nature when there is no Occasion for them For should a King every day null and make Laws and alter the Course of Justice be it for the diversity of Occasions or through the changes in his Councils because Right and Justice are not arrived at all at once yet the Natural Order of the Universe by us called Nature from the Creation to this Day has suffer'd no Change or Alteration in the least for he made it with so much Wisdom and Prudence that not to continue constant in that Order would be tacitly to lay a blame upon his Works But to return to that common Saying of the Antient Philosophers Nature makes able it is to be understood that there is a Wit and Ability bestow'd by God on Men out of the ordinary Course of Nature such was the Wisdom of the Apostles who being rude and illiterate were wonderfully enlightned and fill'd with Wisdom and Knowledge Which sort of Parts and Qualifications verify not that Nature makes able for that is a Work to be attributed immediately to God and not to Nature The like is to be understood of the Wisdom of the Prophets and of all others upon whom God has poured any of his Gifts There is another sort of Wit among Men produced by the Order and Dependence of Causes appointed by God to lead to such an end and of this kind it may be truly said Nature makes able For as we shall prove in the last Chapter of this Work there is a certain Order and Dependence of Natural Causes so that if Parents in the Act of Generation would duly observe it all their Children would be Wise and none of them Otherwise However in this Discourse such a signification of Nature is too loose and confus'd nor is the Understanding content to rest here without tracing every particular Effect up to its Ultimate Cause and therefore there is need to find out another meaning of this Word Nature which may be more accommodate to our purpose Aristotle and all other Natural Philosophers were more Particular calling Nature every substantial Form that gives Being to a thing and is the Principle of all its Operations In which sense our Rational Soul with good Reason is call'd Nature for from thence we receive the Form and Being we have of Men and the same is the Principle of all our Actions for all Rational Souls are of equal Perfection as well the Wise Man 's as the Fool 's and so we may not pronounce that it is Nature in this sense makes a Man witty for if that were true all Men would be equal in Wit and Capacity and thereupon the same Aristotle found out another Signification of Nature importing the Reason and Cause of a Man's being capable or incapable saying that the Temperament of the four first Qualities Heat Cold Moisture and Driness were to be call'd Nature inasmuch as from them proceed all the Abilities of Men all the Virtues and Vices and all the great variety of Wit we discover in the World And he proves it clearly by considering the several Parts of the Age of the wisest Man who in his Childhood is no more than a Brute Beast employing no other Powers than the Irascible and Concupiscible when Youth comes he betrays an admirable Wit which we see continues to a certain Period and no longer for old Age drawing on his Wit every day declines till in the End it is wholly lost Assuredly the diversity of Wit proceeds not from the Rational Soul for that in all Ages is the same without suffering any Alteration in its Vigor or Substance except a Man in the several Stages of his Life changes his Constitution or has a different Disposition and from hence is it that the Soul acts one part in the Childhood another in Youth and yet another in old Age whence may be drawn an evident Argument that seeing the same Soul performs contrary Acts in one and the same Body by having in each Division of Age a different Temperament whensoever of two Boys the one is Witty the other a Dunce the same happens by each having a diverse Temperament from the other which being the Principle of all the Operations of the reasonable Soul is by Physicians and Philosophers call'd Nature in which sense this Saying Nature makes able is properly Verified In confirmation of which Doctrin Galen writ a Book proving that the Operations of the Soul were influenc'd by the Temperament of the Body in which it dwelt and that by reason either of the Heat Cold Moisture and Driness of the Climate where they lived or the Qualities of the Meat they eat and of the Waters they drank and of the Air they breathed in some were Fools and others Wise some Stout and others Cowards some Cruel and others Gentle some Reserv'd and others Open some Lyars and others Speakers of Truth some Traytors and others Loyal some Turbulent and others Calm some Crafty and others Sincere some Sordid and others Generous some Modest and others Impudent some Incredulous and others Credulous in Proof of which he quotes many Places out of Hippocrates Plato and Aristotle asserting that the Diversity of Nations as to the Frame of their Bodies and the Turn of their Soul was owing to this Difference of Temperament Which is found true by Experience how much the Greeks differ from the Scythians the French from the Spaniards the Indians from the Germans and the Ethiopians from the English Neither is this only to be observ'd in Parts so remote from each other but if we consider even the Provinces that surround all
deliberate whose Constitution is more cold and dry as the Ants and Bees who may dispute for Wisdom with Men that are Reasonable Creatures Besides there is not a Brute Beast more moist than a Hog and which has less Wit For which cause the Poet Pindar being to tax the Boeotians for Blockheads exprest himself in this manner Dicta fuit Sus gens Boeotia Vecors Stupid Boeotians wore the Name Of Hogs their Nature was the same Galen affirm'd also That the Blood by reason of its too great moisture made Men silly And the same Galen recounts that the Comic Poets accused Hippocrates's Children of it alledging they had too much Natural Heat which is a moist Substance and abounding with Vapours The Children of Wise Men are not without this Defect of which I may hereafter assign the Reason Of the four Humors we have there is not one of them found hot and dry but melancholy And Aristotle affirms That all the Men that ever signaliz'd themselves in the Sciences were Melancholic In fine all agree that Driness makes a Man very Wise but no Man shews which of the Rational Faculties it most favours The Prophet Esay only determined it when he said Vexation gives Vnderstanding because Sorrow and Affliction not only lick up that moisture of the Brain but have also Power to dry up the very Bones by which Quality the Understanding is made more sharp and acute which may be apparently evidenced by considering that many Men reduc'd to Poverty and Misery have happen'd to Speak and Write things worthy of Admiration but being afterwards raised by Fortune according to their Wish to make good Cheer have done nothing more of Importance For a delicate Life Content a stream of Fortune and all things succeeding smoothly to our Wish much relax and moisten the Brain which is what Hippocrates said Content and Chearfulness enlarge and dilate the Heart giving it a sweet and gross Heat Which is again easily proved for if Affliction and Grief dry up and consume the Flesh by which means a Man acquires a better Understanding it is certain that the contrary which is Chearfulness fails not to moisten the Brain and impair the Understanding They who attain the last sort of Wit are more immediately disposed to Sports Feasts Music frequenting merry Company and flying the contrary which at other times were wont to give them Relish and Content Hence may the Vulgar learn how it comes that a Wise and Virtuous Man raised to great Honour who before was Poor and Humble sometimes immediately changes his Manners and his way of Reasoning for this proceeds from his acquiring a new Temperament moist and full of Vapors by which means he effaces the Figures he had before in his Memory rendering his Understanding Dull and Sluggish 'T is very difficult to know what Difference of Wit proceeds from moisture because it so strongly contradicts the Rational Faculty At least according to Galen's Opinion all the Humours of our Body that are moist in Excess render the Man Stupid and Ignorant which occasion'd him to say The Prudence and Nimbleness of the Rational Soul arises from Choler Integrity and Constancy proceed from the Melancholic Humour Simplicity and Stupidity from Blood Phlegm or Water serving for nothing but to feed sleep Insomuch that the Blood so far as it is moist and the Phlegm no less conspire to ruin and destroy the Rational Faculty but this is to be understood of the discursive and active Faculties and not of the passive as the Memory is which depends on moisture even as the Understanding does on driness Now we call the Memory a Rational Faculty because without it the Understanding and Imagination are of no use It affords them matter and furnishes them with Figures to Reason according to that of Aristotle He that understands does no more than reflect on the Images And the proper Office of the Memory is to lay up those Figures for the Understanding when it would reflect on them and therefore if that be lost it is impossible for the other Faculties to perform their Function Galen says the Office of the Memory is no other than to keep the Figures of things without having any Invention of its own The Memory treasures and lays up the things which are transmitted from the Sense and Vnderstanding as in a Coffer or Repository having no Invention of its own This being its Office one may clearly perceive it depends much on moisture which softens and prepares the Brain for the Figures that are imprinted by way of Compression Infancy is an evident Proof of this Doctrin seeing in that Age the Memory is readier than in all the other because the Brain then is moistest Aristotle therefore demands Why the Old have more Wit and a better Vnderstanding and the Young learn readier and with more ease To which he makes Answer That the Memory of Old People is filled with so many Images of things which they have seen and heard during the long course of their Life that there is no room left to receive any thing new but that of Young People as Persons late Born meets with no difficulty therein which makes them receive and retain immediately all that is told and taught them Which may be better understood by compairing the morning and evening Memory and shewing that we learn better in the morning because we then rise with a fresh Memory but in the evening we learn ill because it is stuffed with all the Objects of the Day past And to the end the curious Reader may not be surprized that so great a Philosopher as Aristotle should never light upon a true Answer and which even those of less Wit than himself sometimes find and form better Arguments than his he must know that Plato not at all doubting but the Gravest Philosophers do often as men mistake either through Inadvertence or for want of Weighing and being well enough acquainted with all the Principles contained in the Doctrin they teach advises such as read his Works to consider them with great care and not to rely too much upon him or on the good Opinion they have conceived of them To examin says he and cautiously weigh all his Words and those of the Philosophers and not to receive them before they have made some Proof of them no though they may seem the truest in the World Because in effect it would be a great shame to me that Nature having given me Eyes to See and an Understanding to Distinguish yet I should ask Aristotle and the other Philosophers what are the Figures and Colours of things and what Being and Nature they have Open your Eyes says Plato make use of your own Wit and Ability and fear nothing for the same He that made Aristotle made you also and he who formed so great a Wit may very well also form a greater 'T is nevertheless very Reasonable to have Excellent Authors in great Veneration
Juvenal said Si Natura negat facit Indignatio versum If Nature wanting be to make the Poet Choler alone serves for a Muse to do it Thro' this defect of Tongue Men of great Understanding cannot be good Orators nor good Preachers and particularly inasmuch as the Action requires they should speak sometimes High and sometimes Low and that such as are slow Tongued cannot pronounce without Bawling with open Throat which is one of the Things that tire the Auditors Accordingly Aristotle inquires Why those of slow Speech cannot speak Low To which he Answers very well that the Tongue which is as it were Glued to the Palate by the great Moisture better disengages it self by Force than if one should gently endeavour it even as he that would raise a heavy Launce taking it by the end would raise it better all at once and by a Jerk than in raising it by little and little It seems to me I have well prov'd that the good Natural Qualities a perfect Orator ought to have arise from the Imagination for the most part and some from the Memory and if it be true that the great Preachers of our Times pleased the People because they are furnished with the same qualities we have Spoke of it follows then that he who proves an Eminent Preacher knows very little of School Divinity and he that is a good School-Divine cannot Preach thro' the great contrariety that the Understanding carries with the Imagination Aristotle knew well by experience that tho' the Orator Studies Natural and Moral Philosophy Physic Metaphysics the Laws the Mathematics Astrology and all the other Arts and Sciences yet he knows no more of them than the Flowers and retains only the most received Propositions without fetching from the Root the Reason and Cause of any of them But he believed the not understanding Divinity nor the true and essential reason of Things arose from their not making Search and Enquiry into it Accordingly he Enquires Why and in what we think the Philosopher differs from the Orator since they both Study Philosophy To which Problem he Answers that the Philosopher employs his whole Study to find out the Reason and the Cause of each Effect and the Orator only to know the Effect and no more But indeed there is no other Reason of Difference than this that Natural Philosophy belongs to the Understanding of which Faculty the Orators are in Want and so pierce no deeper in Philosophy than a Superficial Knowledge of the Nature of Things The same difference is found between the School-Divine and the Positive for own knows the Reason of that which concerns his Faculty and the other the most received Propositions and no more The Case standing thus it proves a very dangerous Thing that the Preacher should have the Office and Authority of Teaching the Truth to Christian people and the Auditory be obliged to believe it and yet this Preacher is defective in this Power by which Truths are digged up from their Roots we may with justice apply to him these Words of our Saviour Let them alone they are Blind leaders of the Blind and if the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch 'T is an intolerable thing to see with what Assurance some pretend to Preach tho' they Understand not a tittle of School-Divinity nor have the least Natural disposition to Learn it St. Paul complains heavily of these Men when he says The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure Heart and of a good Conscience and of Faith unfeigned From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain Jangling Desiring to be Teachers of the Law Vnderstanding neither what they say nor what they affirm The idle Talk and Prating of the German English Flemish and French Divines and the rest of the Northern Nations has often hazarded the ruin of the Christian Auditory with all their Skill in Languages and their Graces and Ornaments of Preaching because they had not that Understanding proper to find out the Truth And that they are for the most part unfurnished of Understanding we have already proved from the Opinion of Aristotle and from many Reasons and Experiments produced to that purpose But if the English and German Auditories would have regarded what St. Paul writ to the Romans who were surrounded and circumvented with false Teachers it may be they would not so easily have been deceived Now I beseech ye Brethren mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrin which ye have Learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies and by good Words and fair Speeches deceive the Hearts of the Simple Besides this we have already proved that those who are furnished with a good Imagination are Choleric Subtil Malitious and Cavillers who are ever inclined to Evil and know as well how to compass it with great Dexterity and Craft Aristotle demands of the Orators of his time Why do we call the Orator crafty and not the Minstril nor Actors so And the difficulty would have grown yet greater had Aristotle known that Music and Acting are works of the Imagination To which Problem he answers that the Minstrils and Stage-Players have no other Aim more than to divert the House but that the Orator labours to procure something for himself therefore he has occasion to use Wiles and Fetches to the end the Audience may not discover his Drift and Design Such Properties as these have those false Preachers of whom the Apostle speaks Writing to the Corinthians But I fear lest by any means as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his Subtilty so your Minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in CHRIST For such are false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of CHRIST and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of Light therefore it is no great thing if his Ministers also be transformed as Ministers of Righteousness whose end shall be according to their Works All which Properties are well known to be the Works of the Imagination and that Aristotle said very well that the Orators are Crafty and Cunning because they always pursue their own Interest We have already said above that those who have a strong and powerful Imagination are of Constitution very Hot and from this Heat spring three principal Vices in Man Pride Gluttony and Luxury whereupon said the Apostle For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies And accordingly they Endeavour to Interpret the Holy Scriptures after such a Manner as agrees best with their Natural Inclination giving those to understand who know little that Priests may Marry that there is no occasion for Lent or Fasting Days nor that the Sins we commit against God are to be discovered to a Confessor And tricking them with a wrong Application of Scripture they Colour their Vices and
in clear Words not Equivocal Obscure or of divers Senses without Cyphers or Abbreviations but so Obvious and Manifest that whoever reads them may readily understand and bear them in mind And because none may plead Ignorance of them they are appointed to be openly Proclaim'd that whoever breaks them may be Punished In respect therefore of the Care and Diligence observ'd by good Legislators that their Laws should be just and clear Judges and Advocates had given them in Charge That in Actions or Judgments none of them should abound in their own Sense but be directed by the Authority of the Laws That is to say not to dispute if the Law be Just or Unjust nor to give it any other Sense than it naturally bears according to the Letter From which it follows that the Lawyers are to keep close to the Text of the Law and take the meaning which is drawn from thence and no other This Doctrin being supposed it is easie to understand whence the Lawyer is called Letrado and other Lettered Men not so which is to say he is a letra dado tied to the Letter a Man that is not left at liberty to judge according to his own Understanding but is obliged to follow the very Letter Which having been so construed by those who are the best Practised in this Profession they dare neither Affirm nor Deny any thing concerning the Decision of any Case if they have not before them the Law deciding it in express Terms and if at any time they advance any thing of their own Head interposing their own Authority and Reason without founding it on the Law they do it not without Doubting and Modesty and accordingly we have a common Proverb Erubescimus dum sine lege loquimur importing that we are asham'd to judge and advise where we have not the Law before us that determines the matter The Divines cannot be call'd in this Sense Letrados Learn'd because in Holy Writ The Letter kills but the Spirit gives Life That being full of Mysteries and abounding with Figures dark and not obvious to every Understanding Its Terms and Manner of Speech of a very remote Signification from that given by those skilled in the three Vulgar Tongues Therefore he that interprets it according to the Letter and takes the Sense that is drawn from the Grammatical Construction will fall into many Errors Nor are the Physicians more obliged to submit to the Letter for if Hippocrates and Galen and other Grave Authors of that Science affirm a thing and Experience and Reason shew the contrary they are not bound to follow them and the reason is because in Physic Experience has more place than Reason and Reason more than Authority But in the Laws it happens quite otherwise for there Authority and the Decretals have more Power and Prevalence than all the Reasons to the contrary Which being so we have a way open to assign the Wit proper for the Laws for if the Lawyer is to have his Understanding and Imagination determined to follow blindly whatever the Law says without adding or diminishing it is certain this Faculty relates to the Memory and all they have to do is to know the number of the Laws and the Rules of Right and to bear in mind each in particular by Heart to reduce to Heads every Case and its Determination to the end that as any Case occurs he may know what Law determines it and in what manner Therefore it seems to me that the best Difference of Wit for a Lawyer is to have a great Memory and a small Understanding rather than much Understanding and little Memory for if he is not to make use of his Wit and Ability but must have regard to the great number of Laws as they are so distinguish'd from each other with so many Exceptions Restrictions and Enlargements it is more to the purpose to have by Heart what is determined by the Law in each Case that occurs than to Discourse or Reason after what manner it ought to be determined for one is necessary and the other impertinent no other Opinion being sufficient to carry the Point but the decision of the Law So that it is certain that the Theory of the Law belongs to the Memory and not to the Understanding or Imagination for which reason the Laws are so entirely positive and the Lawyers have their Understandings so determined by the Will of the Ligislator that they cannot interpose their own Opinion but where they are in doubt what the Law has declared when their Clients consult them they are allow'd to say I will look for the Case in my Books which should the Physician say when they come for Cure of any Disease or a Divine in a Case of Conscience they would pass for Men of small Ability in their Professions And the reason of it is that these two last Sciences have their Definitions and Principles Universal under which particular Cases are contain'd but in the Faculty of the Law each Law contains only one Case the following Law not depending on it though they are placed both under one and the same Title Wherefore it is necessary to have notice of all the Laws to Study each in particular and to lay them up all distinctly in the Memory However against this Doctrin Plato observes a thing very considerable which is that in his time that Lawyer was suspected that knew much Law by Heart finding by Experience they never made such good Judges and Pleaders as their Ostentation promised of which without doubt he reached not the Cause since he said nothing of it in so proper a place only he saw by Experience that the Lawyers of great Memory being to defend a Cause or give their Opinion in it applied not the Law so well as became them The Reason or Cause of this Effect is not hard to assign from this Doctrin supposing that the Memory be contrary to the Understanding and that the true Interpretation of the Laws to Amplify to Restrain and to Analyse them with their Contraries and their Contexts is done by distinguishing concluding arguing judging and chusing which Works as we have often said already are Acts of the Understanding and for the Lawyer of a great Memory it is scarce possible he should possess them We have noted elsewhere that the Memory seems to have no other Office in the Head than the Trust to preserve the Figures and Ideas of things and that the Understanding and Imagination are Powers that work with them So as if the Lawyer have his whole Art in his Memory and yet be wanting in Understanding and Imagination he will no more be able to Judge or Plead a Cause than the Code or Digest it self which though they contain all the Laws and Rules of Right yet know not how to Write ever a Letter in the Book Furthermore though it be true that the Law ought to be such as its Definition imports yet is it no less than a
is sufficient But when one Pleader speaks for the Plantiff and another for the Defendant and a third Lawyer fills the Place of a Judge this is like a Fight with drawn Sword and where they cannot speak so at random as when they fight in the Air without an Enemy If the Child advance not much in Grammar it is to be suspected that he has a good Understanding and therefore I say suspected because it does not necessarily follow that he who can't learn Latin hath a great Understanding Seeing we have proved before that Children furnished with a strong Imagination shall never attain any Perfection in that Tongue But that which may best discover this is Logic for this Science bears the same proportion with the Understanding as the Touchstone does with Gold Accordingly it is most certain that if he who makes his Course in Philosophy does not begin in a Month or two to Reason and raise some Objections and if there come not to his mind Arguments and Answers upon the matter treated of he has no Understanding at all but if he prove towardly in this Science it is an infallible sign that he has the right Understanding for the Law so that he may out of Hand apply himself to it without the least scruple Though I should think it better first to run through the Art for Logic is no more to the Understanding as we have already said than the Clogs which are clapt on the Feet of an untrained Mule going with which some time he takes to a more steady and agreeable Pace The same march our Understanding makes in Disputes being bound up by the Rules and Precepts of Logic. But if the Child which we have examined speeds not well in the Latin Tongue nor in Logic as he ought it must be considered if he be not provided with a good Imagination before we take him from the Study of the Laws for herein is found a great Mystery and it is good that the Republic know it it is that there are some Lawyers who being in the Chair work Wonders in Interpreting the Laws and others in Pleading but if you put the Staff of Office in their Hands you shall find them no more able to Govern than if the Laws had never been made for any such thing On the Contrary there are others who with two or three misunderstood-misunderstood-Laws which they learn'd at Salamanca if they should be put into any Command would acquit themselves to Admiration At which effect some Curious Wits are Surprized because they dive not into the Cause from whence it springs For the Reason of it is that to Govern belongs to the Imagination and not to the Understanding or Memory And that this is the Case may be plainly proved considering that the Common-wealth is to be maintained by Order and Consent of Parts every thing being in its due Place so that all joined together falls into a good Figure and Correspondence This we have proved many times before is a Work of the Imagination nor is it much more to the purpose to make a great Lawyer a Magistrate than to make a Deaf Man a Judge of Music This is to be understood ordinarily and not to be taken for a General Rule For we have already proved that Nature may join a great Understanding with a great Imagination so that in such a Case it would not be inconsistent but that the same Person might prove an Excellent Pleader and a famous Governor and we heretofore discovered that Nature being found strong with all the Powers she can have and labouring in a well disposed Matter may produce a Man of great Memory Understanding and Imagination who Studying the Laws may prove a Famous Reader an Accomplished Pleader and no less Admirable a Governor But Nature makes so few such as this cannot well pass for a General Rule CHAP. XIV That the Theory of Physic belongs part to the Memory and part to the Understanding and the Practice to the Imagination AT the time that Arabian Physic flourished there was a Physician highly Celebrated as well for his Reading as Writing Arguing Distinguishing Answering and Concluding of whom it was thought in respect of his great Skill that he was able to Raise the Dead and Cure all kinds of Diseases And yet the contrary came to pass for he never took the Cure of any in Hand but they Miscarried at which being vexed and ashamed he turned Friar complaining of his ill Fortune without being able to understand the true Spring and Cause of it And because the freshest Examples stronglier prove and make most Impression on the Senses it is the Opinion of many Grave Physicians that John Argentier a Modern Physician of our Time has much excelled Galen in reducing the Art of Physic to a better Method and yet notwithstanding 't is reported of him that he was so unsuccessful in his Practice that not one Patient of all his Country or Acquaintance durst venture to take Physic from him so much they apprehended his ill-Success Hereat the People have reason to be surprized being taught by Experience not only in those whom we have just mentioned but in many others also which they see every day that every Physician that is a great Clerk is not the ablest Practitioner Aristotle attemped to give the Reason of it but in my Opinion he has failed He thought the Reason that Physicians of his time were not so Successful in their Practice sprung from their General Notice of Man in common and their Ignorance of the Nature of each Particular Constitution contrary to the Emperics whose Care and Study was to know the Idiosyncracies of particular Men passing over the General Knowledge But he was without Reason for both the one and the other exercised themselves in Particular Cures and laboured what they could to find out the Nature of each Constitution in Particular The Difficulty then is to understand why the most Learned Doctors though they employ all their Lives in the Working of Cures never become Excellent in the Practice whereas others who are but Ignoramus's with three or four Rules of Physic learnt in the Schools can do greater Cures in less time The true Answer to this Doubt is not so easy to be found seeing that Aristotle failed in it though he spoke in a manner something to it But we keeping to the Principles of our Doctrin shall deliver the same more fully You are to know then that the Perfection of a Physician consists in two things which are as necessary to carry him on to the end of his Art as two Legs to go without Halting The first is to know from a right Method the Precepts and Rules of Curing Man in common without descending to Particulars The second is to be long Exercised in the Practice of Physic and to have Visited a great Number of Patients for neither do Men differ so far from one another but that in many things they agree nor are they so like neither
to Temperate Men and that they have the Wit and Wisdom which is required for that Station But there was also another Man made by God's own hand with design that he should be King and Lord of all things Created and he made him also red well-fashioned Virtuous Sound of exceeding long Life and very Wise The Proof of which is no Inconvenience to our Cause Plato held it for a thing impossible for God or Nature to form a Man Temperate in an Intemperate Region and therefore he said that to make the first Man very Wise and Temperate God sought out a place where the Heat of the Air excceeded not the Cold nor the Moist the Dry And Holy Writ whence he drew this Opinion says not that God created Adam in the Terrestrial Paradise which is the most Temperate Place mentioned by Plato but that he plac'd him there after he had made him And the Lord God took the Man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it For as the Power of God is infinite and his Knowledge above measure and his Will inclin'd to give all the Natural Perfection to Man he was capable of in his Kind it is probable that neither the Piece of Earth of which he was fram'd nor the Intemperance of the Country of Damascus where he was created could hinder his coming Temperate out of Gods Hands The Opinion of Plato Aristotle and Galen hath place in the Works of Nature and yet even in Intemperate Regions Nature sometimes chances to produce a Temperate Man Now that Adam had Red Hair and Beard which is the first Mark of a Temperate Man is a thing very clear for in respect of this so notorious a Sign the Name of Adam was given him which is as much as to say as St. Jerom interprets it a red Man Nor can it be deny'd but he was Beautiful and well Fashioned which is the second Mark seeing that after God created him the Text says That he saw every thing which he had made and behold it was very good It is certain then that he issued not out of the Hands of God Foul or ill Shap'd Because all his Works are perfect Insomuch as the Text affirms that the very Trees were fair to Behold What then think you of Adam whom God created for the principal end and to be Lord and Master of the whole World That he was Virtuous Wise and well-Conditioned which are the third and sixth Marks may be collected from these words Let us make Man after our Image and Likeness because according to the Antient Philosophers the foundation of the Resemblance of Man to God was no other than Virtue and Wisdom Which made Plato say that the greatest pleasure God took above in Heaven was to hear a Wise and Virtuous Man praised and admir'd on Earth in as much as such a Man is his most lively Portraiture On the contrary he is displeased when the Foolish and Wicked are in Honour and Esteem because of the Disparity between them and himself That he liv'd Sound and a long while which are the fourth and fifth Marks is not hard to prove seeing that he lived nine hundred and thirty Years compleat So that I may now conclude that he that is Red well-Fashioned of middle Stature Virtuous Sound and of long Life must necessarily be exceeding Wise and have the Wit requisite for the Royal Scepter We have also by the by made out after what manner a great Understanding may be joyn'd with a large Imagination and Memory tho' this may come to pass without the Man's being Temperate But Nature makes so few after this Model that amongst all the Wits I have examined I have not met above two But how a large Understanding a vast Imagination and a good Memory may meet together in a Man not being Temperate is a thing easy to comprehend if we admit the Opinion of some Physitians who affirm that the Imagination lies in the fore-part of the Brain the Memory in the hinder part and the Understanding in the middle which may also be supposed by our Apprehension but it is a work of great labour that the Brain being no bigger than a Pepper-corn at the time Nature begins to form it should have one of the Ventricles of Seed very Hot another of very Moist and that in the middle of very dry tho' after all this is no Impossible Case CHAP. XVII In what manner Parents may beget wise Children and of a Wit fit for Learning 'T IS a thing worthy of great Admiration that Nature being such as we all know Wise Skilful of great Art Knowledge and Power and Man a Work in which she has shew'd so much skill Nevertheless for one person that is Wise and Prudent she produces an infinite Number of half-Witted Of which effect searching into the reason and Natural Causes I have found at length that the fault lay in Parents not applying themselves to the Act of Generation in that Order and with that Concert which Nature has established not knowing the Conditions which are to be observ'd in the begetting Wise and Prudent Children For by the same Reason that in whatever Country it be either Temperate or Intemperate there is born a Man of great Wit with regard to the same Order of Causes there are a thousand begot of a slender Capacity If we can then by Art procure a Remedy for this there will accrue to the Common-Wealth the greatest Benefit it can receive But the Difficulty of this Matter is that we cannot treat of it in Terms so decent and seemly as becomes that Modesty which is so Natural to Men. And if for this reason I should spare the mention of any Part or Action that is necessary it is certain the whole matter will be marred insomuch as it is the Opinion of many grave Philosophers that wise Men ordinarily beget Blockheads because for Modesties sake they abstain in the act of Copulation from some Caresses which are of importance that the Child partake of the Fathers Wit Of the Natural Modesty conceived in the Eyes when the parts of Generation are exposed to view and of the Offence which their Names give to our Ears some antient Philosopers have attempted to find the Reason being surprized to see that Nature had framed these Parts with such Care and Diligence for a Design so important as that of Immortalizing Mankind and yet nevertheless the Wiser and Prudenter a Man is the more he is ashamed to see them or hear them Named Shame and Modesty as Aristotle says is a Passion proper to the Understanding and whosoever is not offended at hearing the Names of the Parts or Actions of Generation it is certain that he is wholly unprovided of this Faculty as we may declare him to be void of the Sense of Feeling that should not feel his Hand burn tho' he held it in the midst of the Fire By this very Token
this not being to be done our Work appearing in Public to all the World it is impossible but I must needs leave you somewhat Surprized for if your's is a common and Vulgar Wit I doubt not but you are perswaded that the Number and Perfection of the Sciences has been by the Antients long since determined guided by a vain Reason that since they could find out nothing more to say 't is a sign that there is nothing new and if you happen to have such Sentiments go no further nor read any longer for it will but vex you to know what a wretched kind of Wit you are Master of but if you are deliberate and discreet I have three very true Conclusions to propose to you which for their Novelty are not a little to be admired The first is That of all the different Wits of Men there is but one as predominant can fall to thy share unless Nature straining hard as it were to form two or three Excellencies more in thee and being unable to effect what she designed has left thee off unwrought in haste as a rude Essay of an unfinish'd Piece The Second that to each different kind of Wit corresponds one Science only transcendently and no more for which reason if thou art not well assured in the Choice of what suits thy Talent thou wilt find thy self very short in the rest with the most assiduous Application The Third that after thou hast found out what Science corresponds best with thy Wit there remains if thou wouldst not err another greater difficulty which is whether the Practic or Theory suits best with thy Genius for these two Parts in all Sciences whatever are so opposite to each other and require Wits so diverse that they may be set one against the other in the place of Contraries A hard saying this I own and yet hard as it is what is yet the hardest of all is there is no Writ of Error or Appeal for who can say that he has received any Wrong for God is the Author of Nature who dispenses to each Man but one kind of Genius as I said but now notwithstanding the Opposition and Difficulty that lies in the uniting them he accommodates himself to her and of the Sciences he distributes Gratis amongst Men in a Miraculous way he gives no more than one in an Eminent Degree There are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit And there are diversities of Administrations but the same Lord And there are diversities of Operations but it is the same God which worketh all in all but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal for to one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit to another Faith by the same Spirit to another the Gift of Healing by the same Spirit to another the Working of Miracles to another Prophecy to another the discerning of Spirits to another divers kinds of Tongues to another the Interpretation of Tongues But all these worketh one and the same Spirit dividing to every Man severally as he will Upon the whole Matter you see that even the Graces Men possess in the Church are very different yet are they all distributed by one and the same Spirit who is the source of all The Ministerial Employments are divers and yet 't is one and the same Lord who calls both the one and the other to his respective Function Neither is the Power of working Miracles equal and alike in all though it is the same God who produceth those Miraculous Acts which are performed by those to whom he has given that Power Nor are you to think that the Distribution of these Gifts which proclaim the Holy Spirit 's dwelling in him who possesses the same is without reason unequal Since in their distribution God has regard to what is of more Use and Advantage either for the farther Confirmation of those who already are Believers or for the Conversion of such as are yet Idolaters Whence it comes that one receives from the Holy Ghost the Gift of Wisdom to uncypher Divine Mysteries and another the Gift of Knowledge from the same Spirit and that also one has Faith by virtue of which he works a vast number of Miracles and heals all incurable Diseases another is armed with a power of Miracles of another kind as of foretelling many things to Come of Penetrating into the Breasts of Men and discerning the several secret Springs of all their outward Motions Hence is it one speaks many Languages unlearned and another is the Interpreter to understand them all because as I told you before it is one and the same Spirit who is Author of all these Gifts and who distributes them according to his good Pleasure I question not in the least but God made that distribution of Sciences with regard to each Man's Wit and Natural Genius seeing the Talents he bestow'd in St. Matthew says the same Evangelist that he distributed them to each according to his own Virtue For 't is a very gross Mistake to fancy that these Supernatural Sciences require not certain previous Dispositions in the Subject before they can be infused For when God Form'd Adam and Eve 't is certain that he first filled them with Wisdom in Organizing their Brain after such a manner as was every way becoming an Instrument appropriated to Reason and Discourse To this purpose speaks Sacred Writ He has filled them with the Spirit of God in Wisdom in Knowledge in Vnderstanding and in all manner of Workmanship And according to the difference of each Man's Wit one Science was rather infused than another and more or less of each of them which may be understood by the same Instance of our first Parents for when God fill'd 'em both with Wisdom 't is agreed on by all hands that he gave less to Eve which was the Cause say the Divines that the Devil undertook to seduce her not daring to tempt Man as being in awe of a Superior Wisdom The reason of this as we shall prove by and by is that the Natural Composition of Woman's Brains is not susceptible either of much Wit or great Wisdom We shall find the same thing in Angelic Substances that God to raise one Angel to greater Degrees of Glory and more elevated Gifts gave him first a more delicate Nature And if one should ask the Divines of what use is that Delicate Nature they answer That an Angel who is of a more Elevated Understanding and refined Nature more readily inclines to the Will of God and more efficaciously employs those Gifts the self same Thing happening even among Men. Whence may manifestly be inferred that seeing there is a difference of Wits for Supernatural Sciences and that all kind of Capacities are not fit Instruments alike for them by far greater reason Humane Learning requires it because what Men learn is purely by force of their Wit The
Conjectures at random Men of Harmonious Constitutions as we shall hereafter prove have in a degree of Mediocrity a Capacity for all Sciences though they will never excell in any but those that are otherwise are fit but for one only which if they happen to hit upon and Study with Care and Application they may be assured to succeed wonderfully in it but if they fail in their Choice and Application they will make but small Advancements in the other Sciences History confirms to us that each Science was discover'd by Men of ill Constitutions If Adam and all his Children had continued in the Terrestrial Paradice they would have had no occasion for Mechanic Arts nor any of the Sciences now taught in the Schools nor would they as yet have been found out or Practised for inasmuch as they went bare-footed and naked they wanted neither Shooe-makers nor Taylors nor Weavers no more than Carpenters or Masons because there was no Rain in this Earthly Garden of Pleasure nor was the Weather too hot or too cold that they needed any Cover or Retreat Nor was there any Scholastic or Positive Divinity much less was it branched out as it is now because Adam not having Sin'd Jesus Christ was not Born of whose Incarnation Life and Death as also of Original Sin and the Remedy thereby obtained this Science consists There had been less of the Knowledge of the Law because the Just have no occasion for Law and Right all things had been in Common there had been no Mine nor Thine which are the cause of Law Suits and Quarrels Physic had likewise been superfluous Man had then been Immortal and free from the Corruptions and Changes attending Diseases all had eat of the Fruit of the Tree of Life which had that Property daily to repair our Radical Moisture Adam no sooner Sin'd but he began to fall upon the Exercising of all the Arts and Sciences as necessary to support his Misery The first Science that appeared in the Earthly Paradice was Skill of the Law by means of which was form'd a Process with the same Order of Justice as at this day observ'd citing the Party and declaring the Crime he was accused of the Accused answering and the Judge pronouncing Arrest of Judgment or Condemnation The second was Divinity for when God said to the Serpent And she shall bruise thy Head Adam understood as he was a Man whose Understanding was full of infus'd Sciences that to repair his Fault the Divine Word was to take Flesh in the Virgin 's Womb who by her happy Delivery should trample under her Feet the Devil and all his Powers by which Faith and Belief he was Saved After Theology soon came the Military-Art because in the way Adam went to eat the Fruit of Life God had placed a Garison and Fort into which he had put an Armed Cherubim to dispute the Passage Next the Art-Military came also Physic because Adam by Sin became Mortal and Corruptible subject to an infinite number of Dolours and Infirmities All these Arts and Sciences were first exercised there receiving afterwards their due Improvement and Perfection each in the temperate Region best adapted to it by means of Men of Wit and Ability every way qualified to invent them Whereupon I conclude Curious Reader frankly confessing my self to be of evil Constitution and Distemper'd and that you may well be so being Born as I was in an intemperate Region and that the same Thing may happen to us as to those Four Men who seeing a Piece of Blue Cloath swore one that it was Scarlet the other White the third Yellow and the fourth Black not one of them speaking true because each had a particular Vitiation in the Organ of Sight A Table of the CHAPTERS and ARTICLES CHAP. I. WHat Wit is and what Differences of it are ordinarily observed among Men. Page 1 Chap. II. The Differences amongst Men unqualified for Sciences Page 22 Chap. III. The Child who has neither Wit nor Ability requisite to the intended Science cannot prove a great Proficient though he have the best Masters many Books and should labour at it all the Days of his Life Page 31 Chap. IV. Nature only qualifies a Man for Learning Page 47 Chap. V. What Power the Temperament has to make a Man Wise and good Natur'd Page 62 Chap. VI. What Part of the Body ought to be well Temper'd that the Child may be Witty Page 91 Chap. VII That the Vegetative Sensitive and Rational Soul are knowing without being directed by Teachers when they meet with a Temperament agreeable to their Operations Page 101 Chap. VIII From these three Qualities alone Heat Moisture and Driness proceed all the Differences of Wit observ'd among Men. Page 129 Chap. IX Some Doubts and Arguments against the Doctrin of the last Chapter with their Answers Page 155 Chap. X. Each Difference of Wit is appropriated to the Science with which it most particularly agrees removing what is Repugnant or Contrary to it Page 112 Chap. XI That Eloquence and Politeness of Speech are not to be found in Men of great Vnderstanding Page 206 Chap. XII That the Theory of Divinity belongs to the Vnderstanding and Preaching which is the Practic to the Imagination Page 214 Chap. XIII That the Theory of the Laws pertains to the Memory Pleading Causes and Judging them which is the Practic to the Vnderstanding and Governing of a Commonwealth to the Imagination Page 244 Chap. XIV That the Theory of Physic belongs part to the Memory and part to the Vnderstanding and the Practic to the Imagination Page 279 Chap. XV. To what Difference of Wit the Art-Military belongs and by what Marks the Man may be known that has it Page 314 Chap. XVI To what Difference of Ability the Office of a King belongs and what Marks he ought to have that has this kind of Wit Page 367 Chap. XVII In what manner Parents may beget Wise Children and of a Wit fit for Learning Page 397 Article I. By what Marks the Degrees of Heat and Driness are to be discover'd in each Man Page 416 Art II. What Women ought to Marry with what Men to have Children Page 422 Art III. What Considerations to be used to get Boys and not Girls Page 426 Art IV. What is to be observ'd that the Children may prove Witty and Wise Page 443 Art V. Rules to be observ'd to preserve Wit in Chidren after they are Born Page 487 Authors made use of in this WORK ABulensis Alex. Aproh Aquinas Aristotle St. Austin Cajetan Celsus Cicero Democritus Demosthenes Donatus Galen Hippocrates Homer Horace Josephus Juvenal Lyra. Nemesius Persius Pindar Plato Pliny Salust Suetonius Tacitus Vegetius Xenocrates ERRATA PAge 14. line 20. read the being p. 26. l. 10. r. Fetters p. 42. l. 17. r. Master p. 93. l. 19. dele is p. 117. l. 4. r. Delirous p. 152. Margin r. Arts p. 158. l. 5. r. Peripatetics p. 174. l. 5. r. which is p. 179. Margin r. XVth p.
means of which some have without Art or Study spoke such subtle and surprizing things and yet true that were never before seen heard or writ no nor ever so much as thought of Plato calls this sort of Wit An excellent Wit with a mixture of Madness 'T is the same which Inspires the Poets with what is impossible for them to conceive says the same Divine Philosopher without Divine Revelation Whereupon he adds Well may a Poet be all in Flames and Raptures his Person being wholly Sacred he can sing nothing but what is full of God who agitates him transporting him beyond himself and above his own Reason But as for those of an unelevated Spirit they can never make moving Verses nor prevail in Prophesy It is not then from any humane Art Poets chaunt such fine things that thou O Homer breathest but rather from Transports Divine This third Difference of Wit adjusted by Plato is actually found among Men of which I am an Eye-witness and could also if need were with a Finger point out those that have it But to assert what they say to be by Divine Revelation and not to proceed from their particular Nature would be an apparent and manifest Abuse and ill-becoming so great a Philosopher as Plato and is to have recourse to Universal Causes without having before-hand made an exact Enquiry into Particulars Aristotle did better who being curious to know the Reason of those wonderful things pronounc'd in his time by the Sibyls said That it came not to pass by Distemper nor by Divine Inspiration but only by a natural Ill-Temperament The Cause whereof is evident in natural Philosophy for all the governing Faculties in Man the Natural the Vital the Animal and even the Rational require each their particular Temperament to perform their Functions as they ought without prejudicing or interfering one with another The Natural Virtue as digestive of the Food in the Stomach must have a due Heat that which gives Appetite Cold the Retentive Driness and the Expulsive of what is Nauseous or Superfluous a due Moisture Whichsoever of these Faculties possesses in a greater degree any of the four Qualities by which it operates will thereby become more powerful in that Point but not without impairing the rest because in effect it seems impossible that all the four Virtues and Faculties should be assembled in one and the same place since if that which requires some Heat becomes more Potent the other that operates by Cold cannot but be found more Weak Which made Galen say That a hot Stomach digested much yet had a bad Appetite that a cold Stomach digested ill but had a good one The same thing happens in the Senses and Motions which are Operations of the Animal Faculty Great Strength of Body shews abundance of Earthiness in the Nerves and Muscles for if those Parts are not sinewy hard and dry they cannot act steadily On the contrary to have a quick and lively Sense is a sign the Nerves are compos'd of more airy fine and delicate Parts and that their Temperament is hot and moist How is it then possible that the same Nerves should have the Temperament and natural Composition which is requir'd for Motion and for Sense at one and the same time seeing that for these two things there must be quite contrary Qualities Which is clear'd from Experience for whereas a Man that is very Robust of Body has infallibly the Sense of Touching rude and gross so when that Sense is very exquisite he is faint and if one may say so ravelled out The Rational Powers Memory Imagination and Understanding are under the same Rules The Memory to be good and tenacious requires some Moisture and that the Brain be of a gross Substance as we shall prove hereafter On the contrary the Understanding must have a dry Brain compos'd of very subtile and delicate Parts The Memory then proceeding to a pitch the Understanding must necessarily be lower'd and diminish'd as much But be it as it will I beg the curious Reader to Reflect upon all the Men he has known endued with an Excellent Memory and I am assur'd he 'll find as to the Operations belonging to the Understanding they are in a manner indiscernible The same happens as to the Imagination when it exerts its self For as to the Operations relating to it it produceth prodigious Conceptions and such as astonished Plato And when a Man endued with such an Imagination comes to concern himself in acting with Understanding one may bind him without doing him any Injury as a Lunatic and void of Reason Whence may be concluded that the Wisdom of Man must be moderate well tempered and not so unequal as Galen esteems those the wisest Men that are well tempered because they are not as it were intoxicate with too much Wisdom Democritus was one of the greatest Natural and Moral Philosophers of his Time though Plato said of him That he was a better Divine than Naturalist who arrived at so great a Perfection of Understanding in his Old Age that he entirely lost his Imagination insomuch that he both said and did things so extraordinary that the whole City of Abdera took him for a Natural and accordingly dispatch'd a Courier to the Isle of Coa where Hippocrates lived to entreat him earnestly with offer of abundance of rich Presents to come immediately to Cure Democritus who had lost all his Senses Which Hippocrates readily complied with as being curious to see and confer with the Man of whose admirable Wisdom he had heard so much noise He departed that very instant and being arrived at the Place of his Abode which was a Desart where he lived on a Plain he fell to discourse him and upon asking him Questions in order to discover the Defects of his Rational Faculty found him the Wisest Man in the World and told them that had brought him thither That they themselves were Fools and void of Sense for having given so rash a Judgment of so Discreet a Person for as good Fortune would have it for Democritus the Matters treated on with Hippocrates at that time appertain'd to the Understanding and not to the Imagination which was disabled CHAP. II. The Differences amongst Men unqualified for Science ONE of the greatest Indignities that can be offer'd in Words to a Man arrived at the Years of Discretion is said Ariristotle to accuse him of want of Wit because all his Honour and Nobility as Cicero observes consists in his being favour'd with and having an Eloquent Tongue As Wit is the Ornament of a Man so Eloquence is the Light and Beauty of Wit In this alone he distinguishes himself from the Brutes and approaches near to God as being the greatest Glory which is possible to be obtained in Nature On the contrary he that is born a Blockhead is incapable of any sort of Literature and where there is no Wisdom there says Plato can neither be true Honour nor good Fortune insomuch as the
read in a short time but by what we understand by little and little and pause upon between whiles Our Wit encreases more and more each day in lighting by length of time upon those things we should not otherwise have known or apprehended Wit like Plant Animal and Man has its several Stages that is to say its Beginning Progression Perfect State and Declension It springs in Childhood grows up in Nonage comes to a Consistence in the Middle-age and declines in Old Age. So that he who would know when his Understanding is at the Pitch of Perfection may be assur'd 't is between Thirty-three and the end of Fifty Years more or less in which compass he may be able to judge of Grave Authors who in the course of their Lives have broached uncommon Opinions And whoever would write Books should do it at that very Age not sooner or later unless he would eat his Words or change his Opinion However the Age of Man holds not in all People the same Measure and Proportion for in some Childhood draws to a Period in the Twelfth in others not till the Fourteenth in some it determines the Sixteenth and in the rest not till the Eighteenth Year These live long because their Youth reaches not to little less than Forty and their Manhood holds on to Sixty Years Besides which they have Twenty Years of Old Age whence their Thread stretches to Eighty which is the limit of the Healthiest The first that finish their Childhood at Twelve Years are very short liv'd begin early to Discourse their Beard comes soon and their Wit lasts but a little time these ordinarily decline at Thirty-five and end their Days at Eight and forty Years There is not one of all the Qualifications already mention'd but what is very necessary useful and convenient to be observed that the young Student may come to something but above all to possess a Genius suitable to the Science he is to Study For with this we have observ'd that many Men who have begun to Study in a far spent Age Nay though they have lighted upon bad Masters an ill Method and studied in their Native Country yet all this notwithstanding have in a short time prov'd very Learned Men. For if Wit be wanting says Hippocrates all other Pains are lost No Man confirms the Truth of this better than honest Tully who full of Grief to see his Son such a Blockhead and that nothing could make him a Scholar express'd himself after this manner To strive against Nature what is it but Giant-like to make War with the Gods As if he would have said What more resembles the Giants War with Heaven than for an Insipid to set up for a Man of Parts For like as the Giants never Conquer'd the Gods but were always baffled by them even so empty Pretenders to Learning that strive against Nature will in the end have the Worst of it Nay Cicero himself advises us not to offer Violence to Nature nor attempt to be Orators in spite of her for it will be but lost Labour CHAP. IV. Nature only qualifies a Man for Learning IT is a common Saying and much used by the Antient Philosophers that Nature qualifies Man for Learning Art with its Rules and Precepts facilitates but Use and Experience of Particulars gains the Mastery But no Man has yet declared what this Nature is nor in what Class of Causes it ought to be rank'd they only affirm Whosoever pretends to Learning and wants that alone Arts Experience Masters Books and Industry prove but all in Vain There is a great Contest between the Natural Philosophers and the Vulgar about assigning the cause of this Effect The Vulgar observing a Man of great Abilities immediately declare God to be the Author of them without giving themselves any further trouble and with good reason because in Effect every good and perfect Gift cometh from above from the Father of Lights There is no Natural Cause say the Philosophers can produce Effects arm'd with such Force and Energy as God So far they are all agreed that the first Cause heats more than Fire refreshes more than Water illuminates more than the Sun himself and in our particular Formation 't is that which presides over Nature and that dispenses or denies Wit to Men. Which Consideration made the Royal Prophet David cry out Thy hands have made me and fashioned me give me Vnderstanding that I may learn thy Commandments All the Antient Philosophers in a sort confess the same thing by Instinct of Nature alone conducted by right Reason to attest this Truth in spight of all Opposition 'T was upon that foot Plato knowing no City could be built without the Divine Assistance nor any good Laws made to conserve Men in Peace after an Establishment thereof framed a Law by which it was provided That the Divine Assistance should be invoked at the beginning of every Action because without that no good thing could have a just Accomplishment Which is the same thing that was said by King David before Except the Lord keep the City the Watchman waketh but in vain Hippocrates designing to reduce into Method the Art of Curing those Diseases to which Women by reason of their Sex are exposed and esteeming it to be a very difficult matter said He that would treat of these Matters to purpose ought first to invoke the Gods and afterwards to consider and nicely distinguish the Nature Age and Temperament of Women as also the Climate where they live Which the Natural Philosophers could not away with because when they were to search into the Cause of any Effect they stop'd at the First and Universal without looking further of having regard to the Order or Dependence of Second Causes as if they had not been Influenc'd to produce such an Effect Which occasion'd Hippocrates to blame Diana's Priests for moving the Women in their grievous Diseases to offer up at the Temple their stately Garments and most precious Jewels and to leave there the Medicines whereas the proper Remedy for their Malady was as Hippocrates says to Bleed or Purge it may be or advise them to Marry if they were at Age. A Natural Philosopher being in Discourse one day with a Grammarian a curious Gardiner came up to them and asked them what was the reason that having taken such pains with the Earth to dig to sift to cleanse and dung it yet it never brought forth so good Seed as he Sow'd whereas the Plants it produc'd of its own accord grew up with a great deal of ease The Grammarian answer'd It came to pass by the Divine Providence which had so dispos'd it for the good Government of the World But the Natural Philosopher fell a Laughing at that answer seeing he had recourse to God as being Ignorant of the Connexion of Natural Causes and in what manner their Effects are produced The other seeing him laugh ask'd him if he ridicul'd him The Philosopher answer'd it was not
it will I would present to a Moral Philosopher a Luxurious Drunkard and a Glutton to manage him according to the Rules of his Art and to instill into his Soul the contrary good Habits of Chastity and Temperance by these means reducing him to act with all Moderation and Sobriety without introducing into his Constitution Cold and Driness and without correcting the over-ruling Heat and Moisture there was before let us see how he will go about it Without doubt the first thing he does will be to shew him the Sordidness of Luxury and to lay before him the Train of Evils it draws after it and in what danger his Soul would be if Death should happen to surprize him on a sudden without giving him respite to repent of his Sins After this he gravely admonishes him to Fast Pray and Meditate to Sleep but little to lie hard and without Delicacy to wear Hair Clothes and Discipline himself to fly the Company of Women and to give himself wholly to Pious Works all which are comprized in this fine Aphorism of St. Paul I keep under my Body and bring it into Subjection By means of these Austerities if he practises them long he 'll appear Meager Pale and much Alter'd from what he was insomuch that he who before hunted after Women and that plac'd all his Happiness in the Pleasures of Eating and Drinking will hardly have Patience to hear them spoke of The Moralist beholding the Lewd Man so changed will say and not without reason this Man has now acquired a Habit of Chastity and Temperance But because his Art reaches no further he vainly imagines these two Virtues are come I know not from whence to make him a Visit and to take up their Lodgings in his Rational Soul without having so much as part through his Body Instead of which the discerning Physician who knows whence his loss of Blood and Spirits proceeds and how the Virtues are Begot and the Vices Extinguished will be apt to pronounce that this same Man has now the Habit of Chastity and Temperance inasmuch as by means of these Austerities he has impair'd his Natural Heat in whose stead the Cold is introduc'd For if we reflect a little further we shall clearly see this new way of living is capable of cooling him more the Horror into which the Reprimand he received threw him and the awful consideration of the Pains of Hell prepared for him if he had died in mortal Sin had without doubt mortified and chil'd his Blood Whereupon Aristotle proposed this Question Why those who are in fear falter in their Speech tremble with their Hands and hang their Lips It is says he because this Passion is a defect of Heat which commences from the Parts above Whence comes the Paleness of the Face Abstinence likewise is one of the things which chiefly mortifies the Natural Heat leaving the Man cold For our Nature is supported says Galen by Eating and Drinking in the same manner as the Flame of the Lamp is fed by the Oil and there is so much natural Heat in the Body that has digested Flesh-meats that they afford him Nourishment in proportion to his Heat and if they should yield him less in quantity his Heat would insensibly diminish Which made Hippocrates forbid the letting of Children fast because their natural Heat Evaporated and Wasted for want of being fed The Discipline given if it be dolorous and reach even to the fetching Blood every man knows it extreamly dissipates the vital and animal Spirits and from the loss of Blood the Man soon comes to lose his Hair and natural Heat As for Sleep Galen says it 's one of the things which most fortifies our Heat for by it's means that insinuates into the hidden recesses of our Bodies and Animates the Natural Virtues and much after the same manner our Food is assimilated and turned to our Substance Whereas Waking generates Corruptions and Crudities and the reason is because Sleep warms the inward Parts and cools the outward as on the contrary Waking cools the Stomach Liver and Heart which are the Vitals and inflames the external Parts the less noble and less necessary Hence he that does not Sleep well must needs be subject to many cold Diseases To Lie hard to Eat but once a day and to go Naked Hippocrates said was the utter Ruin of the Flesh and Blood wherein the natural Heat is plac'd And Galen giving the Reason why a hard Bed weakens and wastes the Flesh said That the Body was in pain and suffered deeply for want of Sleep and that by the uneasie changes of motion from side to side it was Harassed in the vain pursuit of restless Nights and how the Natural Heat decays and is dissipated by bodily Labour the same Hippocrates declares teaching how a Man may become Wise In order to be Wise a Man must not be oppressed with too much Flesh for that belongs to a hot Temperament which is the Quality that destroys Wisdom Prayer and Meditation cause the Heat to mount up to the Brains in the absence of which the other Parts of the Body remain cold and if the Intention of Mind be great they soon lose the sense of Feeling which Aristotle affirmed to be necessary to the Being of Animals and that the other Senses in comparison of that served only for Ornament and Well-Being For in effect we might live without Tasting Smelling Seeing and Hearing but the Mind being busied in some high Contemplation fails to dispatch the Natural Faculties to their Posts without which neither the Ears can hear nor the Eyes see nor the Nostrils breath nor the Taste relish nor the Touch feel insomuch as they who Meditate are neither sensible of Cold Heat Hunger Thirst nor any Weariness whatever And Feeling being the Sentinel that discovers to a Man the Good or Ill done to him he cannot be without it So that being Frozen with Cold or Burnt up with Heat or Dying away with Hunger or Thirst he is not sensible of any of these Inconveniencies because he has nothing to report them to him In such a state Hippocrates says the Soul neglects its Charge and whereas its Duty is to Animate the Body and to impart to it Sense and Motion yet nevertheless it leaves it wholly destitute and unprovided of any Succours They who are hurt in any Part of the Body and feel no Pain assuredly are distempered in Mind But the worst Disposition observed among Men of Learning and those that are devoted to Studies is a Weak Stomach because the Natural Heat required for Digestion is wanting that very Heat being usually carried to the Brain which is the cause the Stomach is filled with Crudities and Phlegm For which reason Cornelius Celsus recommends it to the Physicians care to Fortify that Part in Men of Meditation more than any others because Prayer Meditation and hard Study extreamly cool and dry the Body rendering it Melancholy For which reason Aristotle demanded Whence it is
one should know how to make Verses without any Master 's teaching and the other after all his Labours in the Art of Poetry should not know how to Compose any He might Answer perhaps That he who is Born a Poet is possest with a Demon that Inspires him and the other not It was therefore with reason Aristotle reprehended him seeing he might have fairly imputed it to the Temperament as he did in another Place As for the Lunatic that spoke Latin without having learn'd it when he was well it shews the Analogy and Correspendence between the Latin Tongue and the Rational Soul Or it may be as we shall hereafter prove because there is a particular and proper Wit to invent Languages Latin Words and the manner of speaking this Tongue are so Rational and so agreeably strike the Ear that the Rational Soul meeting with the Temperament necessary to invent a very eloquent Language immediately stumbles on the Latin For that two Inventers of Languages may forge the same Words having both the same Invention and Ability may be clearly understood if we suppose that as God created Adam he presented all the Creatures to him to give them what Names they ought to have so he might have made another at the same time with the same Perfection and Supernatural Grace Now I demand had God presented to this other the same Creatures for him to give them Proper Names what Names would he have given them It is not to be doubted but they would have been the same that Adam gave them and the reason is clear because both in Naming would have consider'd the Nature of the Creature which was but One. In like manner the Lunatic might stumble on the Latin Tongue and speak Latin without having learn'd it in his Wits because the Natural Temperament of his Brain being altered by that Distemper he might do it in a short time after the same manner as he who first invented the Latin Tongue and so he might pronounce almost the same Words though not such laboured Periods or with such a continued Elegance because this is a sign the Devil moves their Tongue according to what the Church teaches her Exorcists The same thing is affirmed by Aristotle to have befallen some Children who at their Birth pronounced distinctly some Words and afterwards became mute He reproves the Vulgar Philosophers of his time who being ignorant of the natural Cause of that Effect attributed it to the Demons Though he could never discover the Reason and Cause of Childrens speaking at their Birth and being afterwards mute yet notwithstanding it never once entered into his thoughts that it was the Invention of the Devil or any Supernatural Effect as the Vulgar Philosophers vainly imagine who finding themselves entangled with the sublime and subtle things of Natural Philosophy possess them that know nothing that God or the Devil are the Authors of such rare and prodigious Effects because they are Ignorant of their natural Causes Children that are begot of cold and dry Seed as those got in old Age begin to reason and discourse a few Days and Months after they are Born because the cold and dry Temperament as we shall prove hereafter is more appropriate to the Operations of the Rational Soul and what Time and the long succession of Days and Months might effect is supplied by the sudden Temperament of the Brain that after this manner is pushed forward by many Causes leading to that end Aristotle tells of other Children who began to speak as soon as they were Born and afterwards were mute till they arrived at the Age allotted for speaking so that this Effect was occasion'd by the same thing as that we remembred in the Page and the other Lunatics nay and of him who all on a sudden spoke Latin without having learn'd it in his Senses Now that Children while yet in their Mother's Wombs and as soon as they are Born may be afflicted with the like Distempers is a thing not to be denied As for the She-Lunatic who Divined how that might be I will make more intelligible from Cicero than from the Natural Philosophers who describing the Nature of Man speaks after this manner That Creature of Foresight Sagacious sharp-witted capable of all Things of good Memory endued with Reason and Council which we call Man And more particularly he affirm'd That some Men by Nature surpass others in the Knowledge of Futurities For there is a power and kind of Nature which penetrates and predicts things to come the Force and Nature of which has never been yet explained by Reason What led the Natural Philosophers into an Error was their not considering as Plato did that Man was made after the likeness of God and that he participates of the Divine Providence being qualified to distinguish all the three differences of Times with Memory for the Past Sense for the Present Imagination and Understanding for the Future And as there are observed some Men surpassing others in the Remembrance of what is Past and some excelling others in the Knowledge of the Present so are there some who are naturally more capable than others in guessing what is to Come One of the strongest Arguments that enforced Tully to believe the Rational Soul incorruptible was the observing with what certainty sick People predict Futurities especially when they are nearest Death But the difference there is betwixt the Prophetic Spirit and this Natural Wit is this what God has by the Mouth of the Prophets declared is Infallible because it is his express Word But that which a Man Prognosticates by the strength of Fancy has not the same certainty Those who say the She-Lunatic discovered the Virtues and Vices of those who came to see her by the Artifice of the Devil may understand that God gives to Men a Supernatural Grace by which they may know which are the Works of God and which of the Devil This St. Paul ranks among the Divine Gifts calling it The Discerning of Spirits 'T is by this we know whether it is a good or bad Angel comes to move us for the Devil comes often to us under the Appearance of a good Angel the better to deceive us Upon which occasion we shall stand in need of this Supernatural Gift to know and distinguish him from the good Angel Those who have not a Genius proper for Natural Philosophy will be furthest from this Gift because both that Science and the Supernatural which is Inspired by God fall upon the same Faculty which is the Understanding at least it is so for the most part when God in the Communicating of his Gifts accommodates himself to each Man 's Natural Genius as I have said before Jacob being at the point of Death which is a time when the Rational Soul is the freest to foresee Futurities all his Twelve Sons came into his Chamber to see him he told each in particular their Virtues and their Vices and predicted what should
Understanding Now I assert and will prove that Preaching which is the Practic is a Work of the Imagination And accordingly as it is difficult to join in the same Brain a good Understanding with a great Imagination so it cannot well be that a Man should at the same time be a great School-Divine and a famous Preacher And that School-Divinity is a Work of the Understanding we have elsewhere already proved shewing the Inconsistence between that and the Latin Tongue therefore there is no need to prove it again Only I would have it understood that the good Graces by means of which good Preachers draw the People after them and hold them Charm'd and Ravish'd are all but a Work of an Excellent Imagination and in part of a happy Memory And to the end I may better explain my self and touch it as it were with my Finger it must first be supposed that a Man is a Rational Creature sociable and politic and to the end his good Natural Parts might be improved by Art the Antient Philosophers found out Logic to teach him how he was to Reason by what Rules and Precepts how to define the Nature of Things distinguish divide infer judge and chuse without which Acts it is impossible for any Artist to proceed And to the end he should be Sociable and Politic it was but reason he should speak and make known to others what he conceived in his mind But lest he should deliver them without Order or Rule they have invented another Art call'd Rhetoric which with its Rules and Precepts embelishes his Discourse with fine Words and elegant Phrases with Affections and Colours that are moving In like manner as Logic teaches a Man to Discourse and Reason not only in one Science but in All without distinction so Rhetoric instructs how to speak in Divinity Physic Law the Art-Military and all other Sciences and Modes of Conversation among Men. So that if we would feign to our selves a perfect Logician or compleat Orator they cannot pass for such unless they are knowing in all Sciences because they are all within their Province and in each of them without distinction he may Exercise his Art 'T is not so in Physic Natural and Moral Philosophy Metaphisics Astronomy and the rest that are all limited in the Matter they treat of which made Cicero say Wherever the Orator sets Foot it is his own Ground And in another place That in a compleat Orator all the Philosophers knowledge was to be found For which cause the same Cicero affirmed that there was no Artist found with such difficulty as a perfect Orator which he might have said with more Reason had he known the Repugnance there is in Uniting all the Sciences in one particular Art Antiently the Men of Law held the name and office of Orators because to make a compleat Advocate no less is required than the Knowledge and Skill of all the Arts in the World because the Laws Judge all indifferently and to know the Rights and Pleas of each distinct Profession it becomes necessary to have the particular Knowledge of them all and accordingly Cicero said No Man is to be ranked in the Number of the Orators but he that is compleatly furnished with all the Arts. But seeng it was impossible to learn all the Sciences first because of the brevity of Life and next from the Wit of Man being so limited they let them pass contenting themselves in such necessities to give credit to the Masters in every Art whose Cause they pleaded without more ado After this way of Pleading of Causes immediately succeeded the Doctrin of the Gospel which might better have been persuaded by the Art of Rhetoric than all the Sciences in the World as being of greater Truth and Certainty But Christ our Redeemer charged St. Paul to Preach not with Wisdom of Words lest the Gentiles should have thought what he taught was one of those Well-contrived-Fables which the Orators of those Times made use of to persuade by force of their Art But now that the Faith is received and established many Years since it is allowed to Preach with Rhetorical Topics and to make use of Eloquence since we need no longer apprehend the Inconveniencies that attended it in St. Pauls Time Besides we observe the Preacher who has the qualifications of a compleat Orator does more good and has a greater Auditory than he who is none The reason of which is very clear for if the Orators of Old made the people swallow Falsities for Truths applying to that end the Rules and Precepts of their Art the Christian Auditors will be much better convinc'd when they are persuaded by the same Artifice of the things they already Understand and Believe Besides that the Holy Scripture in a sort is all things and to interpret it well there is occasion for all the Sciences according to that famous saying She has sent forth her Maidens she cryeth upon the highest places of the City There is no need to recommend this to the Preachers of our Times nor acquaint them how far it is allowed them for besides the particular benefit they pretend from their Doctrin their principal Study is to seek out a fine Text to which they may pertinently apply many thoughts and fine passages drawn out of Sacred Writ Holy Fathers Poets Historians Physitians and Lawyers not leaving out any one Science launching out copiously with Eloquence and abundance of fine Words By which means they spin out their Sermons for the space of an hour or two if there be occasion Cicero said that this was proper to him that made profession of the perfect Orator in his time The Power and Profession of an Orator in speaking well seems to promise and undertake so much that let the Matter handled be what it will to discourse of it fluently and amply Now if we can prove that the Graces and Qualifications requisite to a compleat Orator belong all to the Imagination and Memory We shall make it out that the Divine who possesses them shall be a very great Preacher But if he applies himself to the Doctrin of Scotus and St. Thomas he will make little of it because this is a Science pertaining to the Understanding in which Faculty he is but very Weak We have already elsewere declared what things belong to the Imagination and by what Marks they are to be known and now to refresh the Memory we are a going to repeat them Whatever is spoke in good figure close to the purpose and on a suddain are Gifts of the Imagination and so are pleasant Jests Allusions Sentences and Comparisons The first thing a Perfect Orator should do when he takes his Theme in hand is to look out some Argument some apposite Sentences and Passages with which he may amplify and prove the same and not to make use of any sort of Words but only of the well-Sounding to the Ears as Cicero said I esteem him truly
Miracle to find things with all the Perfections the Understanding feigns in them That the Law be just and reasonable that it foresee and provide against all that may happen that it be Writ in clear Terms void of Ambiguities or Oppositions and admit no different Senses is not always to be attain'd because in a word it has been established by Man's Council which is not of sufficient force to provide for all Contingencies as is seen by daily Experience for after a Law has been Enacted upon due Advice and Consultation in a short time it comes to be Abrogated because between its Promulgation and Execution a thousand Inconveniences discover themselves which were never dreamt of in the Consults of Making it For which reason the Law directs Kings and Emperors to think it no shame to mend and correct Laws because after all they are Men and no wonder that they Err. So much the rather because there is no Law that can comprehend in Words or Sentences all the Circumstances of the Case to be decided because the Wicked have more Fineness to find out Tricks than the Good have Skill to try or give Judgment upon them And therefore it was said That it is impossible to write Laws or Ordinances of the Senate in such a manner as they shall embrace all Cases that may happen and therefore it is enough to determine those that ordinarily fall out For if there come any other which are not pointed to or decided in the express Terms of any Law the Law is not so lame in its Rules and Principles but if the Pleader or Judge have a good Understanding to know how to apply them they may find out their true Determination and Defence and whence to draw them If it should so prove that there are more Cases than Laws it is requisite the Judge or Advocate should have a great deal of Understanding to make new Laws not any how but such as from their Consonance to Reason may be received without contradiction This the Lawyers of a great Memory cannot effect for if the Cases that Art has thrown into their Mouths are not minced and chew'd before-hand they are at a loss what to do The Lawyer of large Memory is compared to a Sales-man that has in his Shop abundance of Suits ready made and to fit him that wants lets him try 'em all and if none of them will do he let his Customer go but the Lawyer of good Understanding is like a good Taylor with his Sheers in his Hand and his piece of Cloath on the Board who having taken Measure cuts out the Suit according to his Size that is to have it The Sheers of a good Pleader is his sharp Understanding with which he takes measure of the Case and Cloaths it with a Law that decides it and if he finds not one all of-a-piece to decide it in express Terms he makes a Suit of the Remnants and Pieces of the Law wherewith to cover and piece it out The Lawyers who are furnish'd with such a Wit and Ability are not to be stiled Letrados seeing they don't Construe the Letter nor are tied to the Terms of the Law they seem to be rather Legislators or Counsellors of whom the Laws themselves go a begging what they will have them to determine for if they have Power and Authority to Interpret to Restrain to Amplify them to draw Exceptions and Failures from them if they may correct and amend them it was well said that they seem to be Legislators Of such a Skill as this it was said By the Knowledge of the Law is not meant to have by rote the formal Terms in which they are Written but to take notice of their full Force and Power But to know the Laws is duly to comprehend how far their force extends what point they have power to determine the Reason of them being subject to many Alterations upon the score of Circumstances of Time Place Person Means Matter Cause and the Thing it self all which Considerations diversify the Determination of the Law And if the Judge or Pleader have not Understanding sufficient to conclude from the Law or to take away or add what is in express Words in the Law he will commit many Errors in sticking to the Letter Upon which ground it is said The Words of the Law are not to be taken in the Jewish manner which is to Construe the Letter and take only the literal Sense From what has been said we may conclude that Pleading is a Work of the Understanding and that if the Lawyer have a great Memory he is not in the least able to Judge or Plead because of the Contrariety of these two Powers and that is the reason why the Lawyers of great Memory as Plato observ'd defend not Causes well nor apply the Laws as they ought But here arises a Difficulty in this Doctrin and that in appearance no slight one That if it be true that the Understanding is that which puts the Case in the Law and determines the same by distinguishing limiting amplifying inferring and answering the Arguments of the contrary Part how is it possible that the Understanding should do all this if the Memory present not all the Law to it for as we have said before it is order'd That in Actions and Judgments no Man is to follow his own Sense but is to be led by the Authority of the Laws According to this he must first know the whole Body of the Law and all the Rules thereof before he be able to meet with what is for the purpose in his Case for though we have said the Pleader of good Understanding is Master of the Laws yet all his Reasons and Arguments must be built on and drawn from the Principles of that Faculty without which they are of no force or validity But to be able to do this there ought to be a vast Memory to keep and retain so great a number of Laws as are Writ in the Books This Argument proves it necessary for an accomplished Pleader to have a great Understanding joined with a good Memory All which is confessed but what I would say is that since a great Understanding with a good Memory is not to be met with because of the Repugnance there is between them it is better that the Pleader be provided with a good Understanding and an indifferent Memory than to have a great Memory with a small Understanding seeing that to supply the Defect of Memory there are many Remedies such as Books Tables Alphabets and several other Inventions of Men but if the Understanding be defective there is no Remedy to be applied to that Besides Aristotle said that Men of great Understanding though they be deficient in Memory have yet a great Remembrance by means of which they retain confused Notices of all they have seen heard or read revolving upon which and running them over they come to recollect themselves And tho' there be
not so many Expedients to represent the whole Body of the Law to the Understanding yet the Laws are so grounded upon right Reason that the Antients as Plato reports called the Law it self by the Name of Prudence and Reason So that the Judge or Pleader that is furnished with a good Understanding when he is Judging or giving his Opinion though he hath not the Law before him shall yet commit fewer Errors because he hath with him the Instrument made use of by the Emperors in forming the Laws themselves Accordingly we see it often happen that a Judge being a Man of ready Wit pronounces a good Sentence without knowing the Decision of the Law and afterwards finds the same so answered in his Books and this we see happens also to Pleaders when they give their Opinion in a Case without Studying The Laws and the Rules of Right well considered are the Spring and Source whence the Pleaders draw their Arguments and Reasons to prove what they pretend which Work for certain is performed by the Understanding of which Power if the Pleader be unprovided or have it in a very low degree he will never have Skill to form an Argument though he knew all the Law by Rote We see plainly that this befals those that Study the Art of Rhetoric wanting the Ability proper for it that though they learn without Book the Topics of Cicero which are the Fountains whence flow the Arguments that are to prove each Problem by the Affirmative and Negative yet they never know how to raise an Argument And others of greater Wit and Ability there are who without seeing a Book or learning the Topics raise a Thousand Arguments accommodated to the Case in question The same comes to pass in Lawyers of good Memory who can recite the whole Text of the Law very faithfully and yet out of the vast Body of Laws know not how to draw one Argument to ground their Opinion upon On the other hand there are others who never Studied hard at Salamanca and yet without poring on Books or taking their Degrees work Wonders when they come to plead a Cause Hence we understand how much it imports the Common-wealth that there should be a Choice and Trial of Wits fit for the Sciences since there are some who without Art understand what ever they are to do and others with a Cart-load of Precepts and Rules commit a Thousand Absurdities because they have not the Disposition which the Practice requires So then if to Judge and Plead is to be performed by Distinguishing Concluding Arguing and Chusing it stands with Reason that he who applies himself to the Study of the Law should be furnished with a good Understanding since these Works are the Effects of that Power and not of the Memory or Imagination How to find whether the Youth have this Difference of Wit or no is worth knowing but it will be fit before-hand to distinguish the Qualities possest by the Understanding and how many Differences it Embraces to the end we may know more distinctly to which of these Differences the Study of the Law belongs As to the first it is to be noted That though the Understanding be the most Noble Faculty in Man and of the greatest Dignity yet is there not any that is so easily led into Errors about Truth as that Aristotle attempted to prove it affirming That the Sense is ever true but that for the most part the Understanding reasoned ill Which is plainly seen by Experience for were it not so amongst the Divines the Physicians the Lawyers and Philosophers there would not be so many Dissentions so Divers Opinions such Variety of Judgments and Conceits upon every Point there being no more than one Truth Whence it arises that the Senses have so great a Certainty in their Objects and that the Understanding is so easie to be imposed upon on its part is not hard to conceive if it be considered that the Objects of the Five Senses and the Species by which the Objects are known have a real firm and stable being by Nature before they are known but what Truth the Understanding has to Speculate if the Understanding does not give it a Frame and Fashion has no formal Being of its own All lies dispersed and loose in the Materials like a House resolved into Stone Earth Timber and Tiles with which so many Errors may be committed in Building as there are Men that undertake to Re-build it with an ill Imagination The same thing happens in the Building raised by the Understanding in framing of a Truth For all except those that have a good Wit will commit a Thousand Absurdities with the self-same Principles Hence comes that great Diversity of Opinions found among Men concerning the same thing for every one gives it a Form and Figure according to his Understanding From these Errors and Opinions are the Five Senses exempt for neither the Eyes make the Colour nor the Taste the Savours nor the Touch the Tangible Qualities but the whole is ordered and compounded by Nature before any one of the Senses knows its Object Because Men are not well acquainted with this wretched Condition of the Understanding they so confidently give their Opinion without knowing certainly what kind of Wit theirs is whether it forms the Truth well or ill And if it be not so let us ask some Men of Letters who after they have Writ down and Confirmed their Opinion with many Arguments and Reasons and have after changed their Sentiments and Opinions at another time when or how they can be assured that they have found out the Truth at last The first time as they themselves confessed they have failed seeing they unsaid all that they said before And for the second I affirm that they are to be yet more distrustful of their Understandings because they are to suspect that that Power which already once so ill framed the Truth in Confidence of its Arguments and Reasons may yet again slide into Error when it is supported by the same Reason More especially because it is often seen by Experience that the first Opinion is more Probable and the latter they take up with is worse and less Probable They think it a sufficient Token that their Understanding lights upon the Truth when they perceive it enamoured of such a Figure and that there wants not Arguments and Motives to move it to conclude in that sort but in effect this is a Fallacy because there is the same Correspondence between their Understandings and its false Notions as there is in each of the other Inferior Powers with regard to their Objects For if we ask the Physicians What Meat is best and most savory of all in use among Men I believe they would answer There is not any that for Distemper'd Men and weak Stomachs that is absolutely good or bad but that it is such as the Stomach that receives it Since there are Stomachs according to Galen's Saying that
will appear by his Death or Recovery which had the best Reason of the Two Nevertheless for all that the Success is not yet a Proof sufficient for whereas the same Effect hath many Causes the Success may well be by means of one Cause and yet the Reasons be grounded upon a Contrary Aristotle says also That to know what Reasons conclude it is good to follow the received Opinion for when many Wise and Considering Men affirm the same thing and conclude all from the same Reasons it is an Argument though it be but Topical that they are concluding and that they comprehend well the Truth But if it be well considered this Proof is still very Fallacious and Deceitful for in the Force of the Understanding weight avails more than number for it fares not here as in bodily Forces where many Hands joined can do much to lift up a Weight and a few but little But to discover a hidden Truth one piercing Understanding alone shall do more than a Hundred thousand that are not And the reason of it is because the Understandings help not one another neither of many make one as it fares in Bodily Forces Therefore well said the Wise Man Provide thy self with many Peace-makers but with one Counsellor of a thousand According to which Opinion Heraclitus spoke pertinently when he said One to me is as good as a Thousand As for Causes and Pleadings each Advocate gives his Opinion the best grounded upon Law he can but after having well discoursed he cannot know certainly by any Art if his Understanding has composed such a Judgment as true Justice requires for if one Lawyer proves in form of Law that the Plantiff is in the right and the other denies it also by way of Law by what Expedient shall it appear which of the two Advocates Reasons better The Sentence of the Judge makes no Demonstration of true Justice nor can it be called Success because his Sentence amounts to no more than an Opinion and he does no other than fall in with one of the Council And to increase the number of Learned Men in the same Opinion is not an Argument to believe that their Sentiment is the Truth for we have already said and proved that many weak Capacities though they join together to discover some dark and hidden Truth shall never arrive at the point or degree of Strength as a single one that is of a deeper Reach And that the Sentence of the Judge makes not Demonstration of the Truth is clearly seen in that it is reversed in a Higher Court where they very often Judge after another manner and what is yet worse it may happen that the Inferior Judge may have a better Understanding than he before whom the Appeal lies and his Opinion may chance to be more conformable to Reason That the Sentence of the Superior Judge is no more a sufficient Proof of Justice is a thing yet more manifest for we see every day that in the same Cases without adding or diminishing any thing and from the same Judges quite contrary Sentences issue And he who has already been once mistaken in confidence of his own Reasons may very well be mistaken again so that his Opinion is the less to be depended upon because He that is Once in the Wrong is ever presumed in the Wrong says the Wise Man Pleaders observing the Diversity of Opinions amongst the Judges and how each is sway'd by the Reason that seems most to prevail with him and that sometimes they are concluded by one Argument and sometimes by another quite contrary thereupon they boldly undertake to defend any Cause indifferently in the Negative or Affirmative the rather because they see by Experience that on one side and the other they may obtain Sentence in their Favour And so it comes to be Verified what Wisdom has said That the Thoughts of Men are full of Fear and their Foresight Vncertain The Remedy then for this since the Reasons of the Law remain without Proof and Experience is to make choice of Men of great Abilities to be Judges and Pleaders inasmuch as Aristotle says the Reasons and Arguments of such are as firm and riveted as Experience it self And by such a Choice it seems that the Common-wealth may be better secured that her Officers shall administer Justice Whereas if as it has been used the Door be open for all without distinction to enter and possess those Posts without making Trial of their Wit the Inconveniences we have noted will happen every day By what Signs it may be known that he who would apply himself to the Study of the Laws has the Difference of Wit required for this Science we have heretofore in a manner explained but to refresh the Memory and prove it more at large we must know that when the Child who learns to Read shall know well his Letters and shall readily give the sound to each after the order of the Alphabet it is an Indication of a good Memory for it is certain that such a Work as this is neither performed by the Understanding nor Imagination and that it is alone the Office of the Memory to preserve the Figures of things and to report the Name of each as there is Occasion And if he has a great Memory we have already prov'd that by consequence he wants Understanding To Write a running fair Hand as we have noted discovers the Imagination so much that the Child who in a few Days knows how to hold his Hand upon his Paper to draw his Lines strait and to cut all his Letters even and in good Form and Figure gives Proof of a mean Understanding because this is the Work of the Imagination and these two Powers have a great Contrariety between them as we before noted And if being set to Grammar he learn the same with ease and in a short time he makes good Latin and Writes Epistles Elegantly with the round Cadences of Cicero he will never prove either a good Judge of Pleader because it is an indication he has a good Memory and without a Miracle he will be defective in his Understanding But if he be unwearied in Plodding on the Laws and stay a long time in the Inns of Court he will not fail to be a famous Reader and to be followed by abundance of Hearers for the Latin Tongue is very agreeable in the Chair and to Read publickly with great Applause there will be occasion of many Allegations and to muster up in every Law all that has been Written upon it to which purpose the Memory is of much more use than the Understanding for though it be true that in the Chair he is to Distinguish Infer Argue Judge and Chuse to gather the true Sense of the Law yet in the end he puts the Case as best likes him raises what Objections and solves them how he pleases and gives his Opinion as he will without any gain-saying for which things a mean Understanding
that shall be a very able Practitioner undoubtedly will be but a mean Theorist for a great Imagination cannot be united with a good Understanding and Memory And this is the reason why none are so consummate in Physic as never to fail in their Cures for not to fail in their Performances there is need to know the whole Art and to have a good Imagination to reduce the same to Practice but these two things as we have proved are Incompatible The Physician never attempts the Cause and Cure of any Disease but that he secretly frames to himself a Syllogism in Darii unless he be but an Emperic And the Proof of the first Position of his Premises belongs to the Understanding and the second to the Imagination For which reason the approved Theorists ordinarily Err in the Minor and the expert Practitioners in the Major as if we should speak in this manner All Fevers that depend on cold and moist Humours are to be Cured with Medicines hot and dry in taking the Indications from the Cause But the Fever which affects this Man depends on cold and moist Humours therefore it must be Cured with Medicines hot and dry The Truth of the Major is proved by the Understanding because it is an Universal Proposition affirming that Cold and Moisture require Heat and Driness to moderate them for that every Quality is abated by its Contrary But when we come to the Proof of the Minor the Understanding avails not because it is Particular and so is out of its Jurisdiction and its Cognizance pertains to the Imagination which draws from the Five Exterior Senses the proper and particular Symptoms of the Disease But if the Indication be to be taken from the Fever or its Cause it is that which the Understanding cannot reach only it teaches to take the Indication from that we apprehend most danger But which of the Indications is greatest the Imagination only can comprehend in weighing the Evils the Fever does with those that proceed from the Symptoms or Cause the little forces or great strength To learn this Notice the Imagination has certain ineffable Proprieties by means of which it reaches some things which it can neither tell nor comprehend and for which no Arts are of use Insomuch that we see a Physician coming to Visit the Sick who by the Sight Hearing Smell and Touch arrives at the Knowledge of what seemed Impossible so that should we ask him by himself how he was able to arrive at such nice Notions he could not tell because it is a Gift that proceeds from a Fruitfulness of Imagination which may be otherwise called Sagacity and which by some common Signs incertain Conjectures and where there is but slender footing in the twinkling of an Eye learns a Thousand different things wherein the Virtue of Curing and Prognosticating with assurance consists Of this sort of Sagacity the Men of great Understanding are unprovided because it makes a Part of the Imagination Insomuch that having before their Eyes the same Signs that discover to others the Secret of the Disease yet they make no Impression upon their Senses because these very Men are unprovided of Imagination A Physician took me aside to ask me whence it was that having studied with very great Curiosity all the Rules and Observations of the Semejotics of the Art of Physic and being very well versed in them yet he could never hit the Truth so much as from any one Prognostic To which I remember I answered That the Art of Physic was learn'd by one Power and put in Practice by another He had an Excellent Understanding but a very bad Imagination But a great Doubt arises in this Doctrin which is to know how the Physicians furnished with a great Imagination learn the Art of Physic since they are defective in Understanding For if it be true that these cure the Sick better than the most Learned Physicians to what end do these lose time to Study in the Schools To this the Answer is That it is a matter of great Importance first to know the Art of Physic for in two or three Years a Man may learn all that the Ancients were gathering in Two thousand And if a Man should acquire it by Experience he ought to live at least Three thousand Years and in Experimenting Medicines he would kill an infinite number of People before he understood all their Virtues from which he is freed by Reading the Books of Rational and Experimental Physicians who advise us in their Writings of what they have found out in the whole Course of their Lives to the end that the Doctors that come after them may boldly make use of those that are safe and forbear those that are Poisonous Besides which we are to know that the Common and Vulgar things in all Arts are obvious and easy to learn and yet the most Important in the Work and that on the contrary the most Curious and Subtile are the most obscure and least necessary in Curing And so it is that the Men of great Imagination are not wholly destitute of Understanding and Memory so that in the remiss degree in which they possess these two Powers they may be able to learn the most necessary Points of Physic for that they are plainest and with the good Imagination they have they may better know the Disease and its Cause than the most Rational in the Science since it is the Imagination that finds occasion of the Remedy they ought to apply in this Grace consists almost the whole Practice Therefore Galen said That the true Name of a Physician was to be the Inventor of the Occasion but to learn to know Time Place and Occasion without doubt are Works of the Imagination because that carries with it Figure and Correspondence The Difficulty is now to know to which of so many differences of Imagination the Practice of Physic belongs for it is cettain that all these Differences agree not in the same particular Reason which Speculation has more employed my Thoughts than all the rest And nevertheless I have not been able yet to give it the Name it ought to have unless it springs from a degree of less Heat than that difference of Imagination with which Verses and Songs are made But this I determine not positively because all the Reason upon which I build is that all those that I have known to have practised Physic well are little Dablers in Poetry But neither are their Thoughts very elevate nor their Verse very excellent Which may also come to pass because the Heat in a point exceeds that required by Poetry and if it be so it must be because the Heat is so great that it somewhat dries the Substance of the Brain without resolving much of the Natural Heat though if it proceed further it makes no ill Difference of Wit for Physic inasmuch as by Adustion it unites the Understanding with the Imagination But this sort of Imagination is not so good
that it grew into Nature for in tract of time all the Noble Children that were Born were Born with Pointed Heads so that the Art and Diligence of the Midwives was at an end But when they left Nature at liberty without restraint any longer by Art by little and little she received the same Figure she had before The same might have befallen the Children of Israel for say that the Land of Egypt the Manna the delicate Waters and their Affliction stamped in their Seed those Dispositions of Wit yet these Reasons once ceasing and others quite contrary taking Place it is certain that the Qualities of the Manna would wear out by degrees and would acquire others very different and more conformable to the Country they inhabited to the Meats they fed on to the Waters they drank and to the Air they breathed This Doubt in Natural Philosophy holds little difficulty for there are some Accidents to be found that are introduced in a moment and afterward indure for ever in the subject without possibility of Corrupting Others there are that are as long wearing out as they take in Engendring sometimes more sometimes less in proportion to the Activity of the Agent and the Disposition of the Patient For Instance of the First you are to know that from a great Fear a certain Man was possessed with he remained so disfigured and pale that he had all the Appearances of one Dead nor was this all his Paleness did not only stick to him all his Life long but was transmitted also to the Children he had without any Means found to remove it Conformably to this it might well be that in the Four hundred and thirty Years the Israelites were in Egypt and the Fourty in the Desart and the Sixty in the Babylonish Captity there needed more than Three thousand Years for the Seed of Abraham to lose utterly the Dispositions for Wit which the Manna had imprinted since that to remove an evil Colour which a Fright raised in a moment more than a Hundred Years were requisite But to pierce to the Root of the Truth of this Doctrin I must resolve two Doubts incident to the purpose and as yet not cleared The first is Whence it comes that Meats how much the more delicate and savory they are as Hens and Partridges so much the sooner the Stomach does Nauseate and Abhor them And that on the contrary we see a Man eat Beef all the Year round without the least Distast whereas if he eat Hens three or four days together on the fifth he can hardly endure the Smell of them without his Stomach rising against them The second Doubt is Why Wheaten Bread and Mutton not being of Substance so good nor savory as Hen or Partridge yet the Stomach never loaths them though we eat them all our Life long But wanting Bread we cannot eat other Meats or if we do they lose their Relish He that Skills how to resolve these two Doubts will easily comprehend why the Descendents of the Israelites have not yet lost the Dispositions nor the Qualities introduced by the Manna into their Seed and why the Subtilty and Sharpness of Wit of which they were possessed cannot be so soon Extinguished Two very certain and true Principles there are in Natural Philosophy on which the Answer and Resolution of these Doubts depends The first is That all the governing Powers in Man are naked divested of the Conditions and Qualities that are vested in their Objects to the end they may know and judge of all their Differences The Eyes hold this Property which being to receive all Figures and Colours have need to be totally divested thereof for if they were Yellow as in such as have the Jaundice all things they see would appear to them of that Colour So the Tongue which is the Instrument of Taste ought to be void of all Savour and if the same be Sweet or Bitter we see by Experience that all we Eat or Drink has the same Taste It is the very same in Hearing Smelling and Touching The other Principle is that all Created Beings in the World are naturally Adapted to their own Preservation labouring to Endure for ever and that that Being which they have received from God and Nature may never have end though afterwards they are to possess a better Nature By this Principle all Natural Things which are provided with Knowledge and Sense abhor whatever changes and corrupts their Natural Composition The Stomach is naked and divested of the Substance and Qualities of all the Meats in the World as the Eye of Colours and Figures and when we Eat oft though the Stomach overcome it yet the Meat turns against the Stomach because the same is of a contrary Principle and alters and corrupts its Temperament and Substance for there is no Agent so powerful that suffers not in Acting Meats very delicate and savory exceedingly alter the Stomach First because it receives and dissolves them with so great Greediness and Relish Secondly as being of so subtile Parts and without Excrements they pierce into the Substance of the Stomach from which they cannot part again The Stomach feeling that this Meat alters its Nature and takes away that Correspondence it has with other Meats begins to loath it and if it be forced to feed on it several Sawses and Seasonings are prepared to Cheat it All this the Manna had from the beginning for though it was a Meat so delicate and savory in the end the Children of Israel nauseated it wherefore they said Our Soul loaths that slight Meat A Complaint unworthy a People so highly favoured by God who had provided a Remedy for this in making the Manna have those Tastes and Relishes which best agreed with them that it might go down the better Thou gavest them Bread from Heaven which had in it all sorts of Pleasantness For which cause many among them fed thereon with a good Appetite for they had Bones Nerves and Flesh so Assimilated with the Manna and its Qualities that by reason of the great Resemblance they longed for nothing else 'T is the same in Wheaten Bread and Mutton of which we ordinarily eat Gross Meats and of good Substance as Beef are full of Excrements and the Stomach receives them not with such desire as those that are delicate and savory and so they take more time to be Assimilated Hence it follows That to Corrupt the Alteration which the Manna made in a day there will be need of a whole month of contrary Meats and after this Account to extinguish the Qualities that Manna had introduced in the Seed in the space of Fourty Years there needs Four thousand Years and more But if you think not let us suppose that as God call'd out of Egypt the Twelve Tribes of Israel he had drawn Twelve Blacks and as many She-Negroes from the farthest part of Ethiopia and had brought them into Spain how many Years would it have taken to have made
are very Silly After all these are not the kinds of Gates that discover what Wit a Man has but some other far different which consist in certain Gestures and Motions that are not to be noted with a Pen nor exprest with a Tongue wherefore the same Cicero says that they are easy to comprehend when seen but very difficult to tell or write down To be in pain for the least Mote on the Cape and to be solicitous about drawing up the Stockings very strait and that the Cloak set dexterously upon the Shoulders without the least Rumple all this is a part of a base Difference of the Imagination that is contrary to the Understanding and to that other Difference of Imagination required in War The Fourth Mark and Property is to have a bald Pate and the Reason of it is plain inasmuch as this Difference of Imagination as also all the rest have place in the fore-part of the Head and excessive Heat burns the Skin of the Head and closes the Pores through which the Hair is to pass besides that the Matter whereof the Hair is made is as the Physicians say the Excrecrements which the Brain sends forth in time of its Nourishment and by the great Fire there all these Excrements are wasted and consume and so the Matter fails whereof they are produced Which Philosophy had Julius Caesar understood he would not have been ashamed of his bald Head since to cover this Defect he turned over his Forehead the hinder part of his Hair And Suetonius tells us That nothing was more pleasing to him than what the Senate enacted that he might always wear a Laurel on his Head on no other ground than to cover his Baldness Another sort of Baldness proceeds from a Brain hard earthy and of gross Parts but this is a sign of a Man defective in Understanding Imagination and Memory The Fifth Mark by which they are known who have this Difference of Imagination is that they are Men sparing in Words but full of Sentences and the reason of it is that their Brain being hard and dry they must of necessity fail in Memory to which belongs choice of Words To find many things to say arises from a resemblance between the Memory and Imagination in the first degree of Heat Those in whom these two Powers meet are ordinarily very great Lyars and never want Words and Stories if we listen all our life time to them The Sixth Property observed in those who have this Difference of Imagination is to be shame-faced and to take offence at obscene and filthy Talk And so Cicero says That Men who are very Rational imitate the Modesty of Nature who has hid the unseemly and indecent Parts which she made to provide for the Necessities of Mankind and not for Beauty upon which Parts she would not have us cast our Eyes or lend an Ear to their Names This Effect we might well attribute to the Imagination and say that it is offended by the ill Figure of these Parts But in the last Chapter we assigned the Cause of this Effect and reduced it to the Understanding and judged them defective in this Power who are not offended with Immodesty And because with the Difference of Imagination required for the Art-Military the Understanding is associated therefore the great Captains are very modest And so in the History of Julius Caesar we meet with an Act of the greatest Modesty that was ever practised by any Man in the World that is while he was to be Stab'd with Ponyards in the Senate seeing that there was no possibility of escaping Death he fell down on the Floor wrapping himself up in his Imperial Robes that after his Death he appeared stretched out very decently with his Legs and other Parts covered which might be offensive to the Sight The seventh Property and the most important of all is that the General be Fortunate and Lucky by which Sign we shall know certainly that he has the Wit and Ability requisite to the Art Military for in truth and reality there is nothing more ordinarily makes a Man Unfortunate and hinders things from succeeding according to his desires than to want Prudence and not to use the Means convenient for his Undertakings For as Julius Caesar made use of so great Prudence in all that he designed he was the happiest General of all that ever were in the World and in great Perils he animated his Soldiers in these Words Fear not for Caesar and his Fortune attends you The Stoicks believed that as there was a first Cause Eternal Omnipotent and of infinite Wisdom known by the Order and Consent of it's admirable Works so there was another unwise and unconcerted whose Works moved without Order without Reason and were void of Discretion for with a blind affection it gives to or takes from Men Riches Dignities and Honors They call'd it by the Name of Fortune because that it favoured those who did the feat at hap-hazard that is to say by chance without thinking or forecast or the Guidance of Reason They painted her to represent her Manners in the shape of a Woman in her Hand a Royal Scepter her Eyes veil'd her Feet on a round Ball attended by a Mob of Sots and Fellows of no Trade or Employment By the form of a Woman they set forth her great Levity and little Discretion By her Royal Scepter they acknowledged her the Mistress of Riches and Honours Her Eyes veil'd show'd the ill Choice she made in distributing her Gifts Her Feet fix'd on a round Ball signified the slippery Nature of the Favours she does seeing she takes them away with as little Deliberation as she gives them without holding a steady Hand in any thing But what is worst in her is that she favours the Wicked and persecutes the Good dotes on Fools and abhors the Wise degrades the Nobles and raises Rascals is gracious to the Foul and plagues the Fair Many Men placeing confidence in these Properties presuming on their own good Fortune dare venture on head-strong and rash Enterprises which nevertheless succeed well as others on the contrary very Wise and Discerning dare not put in Practice those things which they directed with great Discretion finding by Experience that for the most part they succeed but ill How great a Friend Fortune is to the Bad Aristotle shews when he asks Why Riches are in the Possession of the Wicked oftener than of the Good To which Problem he Answers Is it not because Fortune is blind and not able to choose or discern which it Best But this is an Answer unworthy so great a Philosopher for it is not Fortune that gives Riches to Men and tho' it were yet he gives no Reason why she always favours the Wicked and abandons the Good The true Solution of this Problem is that Knaves are very Witty and have a strong Imagination to over-reach in Buying and Selling and to make all Advantages of Bargaining and laying out
by our Lord because they affected the uppermost Seats at Table and the Chief Places in the Synagogues The principal Reason whereon they rely who bestow Degrees after this manner is that when Scholars are sensible that each of them shall be Rewarded according to the Trial they shall give of themselves they will scarce spare time from their Study to Sleep or Eat Which would cease were there no Recompence for him that takes Pains or Chastisement for him that mis-spends his time in Laziness and Loytering But this is a slender reason and a Colour for it presupposes a very great Falshood which is that Science is attained by poring much on Books by being taught by the best Masters and never missing a Lesson But they observe not that if the Scholar has not Wit and a Genius requisite to the Science he applies to it is in vain he beats his Brains Day and Night amongst his Books And the mistake is such that if these two differences of Wit so opposite to each other are in Competition one man because he is very quick without Study or seeing a Book gains Learning in a moment and the other being dull and heavy labours all his Life long without attaining the least Knowledge And the Judges as Men proceed to give the first place to him whom Nature has qualified and who took no pains and the lowest degree to him that was Born without Wit and who studied hard As if one had become Learned by turning over Books and the other continued Ignorant thro' his own Carelesness And it fares as if a Prize were propos'd to two Runners of whom one had sound and nimble Heels and the other limped with one Leg. If the Universities admitted to the Study of the Sciences none but such as have proper Genius's for them and if all the Students were equal it would be very well done to Establish Rewards and Punishments for in this case there would be no doubt at all but he who was most Learned had taken most Pains and he that was least had complied with his Ease To the second Doubt we answer that as the Eyes stand in need of clearness to see Figures and Colours even so the Imagination has need of Light in the Brain to see the Ideas in the Memory It is a Light which neither the Sun nor Tapers give but only the Vital Spirits breed in the Heart and disperse throughout the Body Besides this you must know that Fear contracts the Spirits about the Heart and so leaves the Brain dark and all the other Parts of the Body chill'd And therefore Aristotle asks Why those that are afraid Stammer in their Speech and Tremble with their Hands and Lips To which he Answers that in Fear the Natural Heat flies to the Heart leaving all other Parts of the Body chill'd But we have already prov'd that Cold according to Galen's Opinion benums all the Faculties and Powers of the Soul and hinders them from the free Exercise of their Functions This being so it is easie to answer the second Doubt and it is that those who play at Chess are in fear of losing because it is a Game in which there is a Point of Honour and in which as we have said Fortune has no Part. The Vital Spirits then flying to the Heart the Imagination is nummed with the Cold and the Images are obscured and for these two Reasons the Gamester plays but very Awkwardly But the Lookers-on as they run no Risque are in no fear of losing thro' want of Skill and therefore see many Draughts that escape the Gamesters because their Imagination retains its Heat and the Figures illuminated by the Light of the Vital Spirits True it is that too much Light blinds the Imagination which happens when he that Plays is ashamed and out of Countenance to see his Adversary beat him Then through very Indignation Natural Heat increases and illuminates more than it should of which the Standers-by are free as being unconcerned From this springs an Effect very common in the World which is that when a Man would muster up all his Forces and make his Knowledge and Ability more Conspicuous then it is that he quits himself worst of all There are others on the contrary who being put to it make a great show and with this great Flourish know Nothing Of all which the Reason is very plain for he that has abundance of Natural Heat in his Head if he be set for a Task an Exercise for instance the Disputation he is to get in twenty four hours time as is done in Spain to all those who Dispute for a Vacant Place a part of the Excess of Natural Heat retires to his Heart so that the Brain remains Temperate In this Disposition as we shall prove in the following Chapter many things offer themselves to a Man to say But he that is very knowing and of a good Understanding when he is hard put to it through Fear retains not the Natural Heat in his Head so that for want of Light he has nothing in his Memory left to say If this were duly considered by them that Censure the Actions of Generals of Armies blaming their Steps and the Orders they give in their Camp they would see what difference there is between looking on a Fight out of a Window and breaking a Launce before it and the Apprehension of the Loss of an Army upon the Spot No less inconvenience Fear in the Physitians produces in Curing for his Practice as we have proved elsewhere belongs to the Imagination which is prejudiced by Cold more than any other Power in as much as it's Operation consists altogether in Heat And so we see by experience that the Physitians Cure the Common People better than Princes and great Lords A Lawyer ask't me one day knowing well that I treated of Invention why in the Cause he was well feed Law Cases and Points of Law come readily into his Thoughts but where the Cause was starved it seemed that all his Law was lost To which I Answered that matters of Interest belonged to the irascible Faculty which resides in the Heart and which if it be not satisfied does not so chearfully furnish Vital Spirits by whose Light the Figures that are in the Memory may appear but when the same is contented it liberally affords that Natural Heat by which the Rational Soul has sufficient clearness to read all that is Written in the Head This defect attends Men of great Understanding who are interessed and selfish and in such may be discerned that Property of the Lawyer But when all is well-weighed it seems no less than an Act of Justice that he be well Rewarded who labours in another Man's Vineyard The same reason holds for Physitians who being well gratified want no Store of Medicines otherwise their Art is starved as well as that of the Lawyer But here a matter of great Importance is to be noted namely that the good
Substance and to renew another in its place seeing he said to them Behold I have given unto you every Herb bearing Seed which is upon the Face of the Earth and every Tree in which is the Fruit of a Tree yielding Seed to you it shall be for Meat For if God had given them a Liver and Stomach Cold and of little Heat it is certain they would not have been able to digest Meats nor to preserve themselves nine hundred and thirty years alive in the World He fortified also his Heart and gave him an Irascible Faculty becoming such a King and a Master as was to govern all the World And said Subdue the Earth and have Dominion over the Fish of the Sea and over the Foul of the Air and over every living thing that moveth upon the Earth But if he had not given him abundance of heat he would neither have had Spirit nor Authority to take upon him Empire Command Glory Majesty and Honour What disadvantage it is to a Prince to have the Irascible Power weak cannot enough be express'd seeing through this alone he comes to be neither feared nor obeyed nor respected by his Subjects Having thus fortified the Irascible and Concupiscible Powers in giving to the Members we have mentioned so great a Heat he proceeded to the Rational Faculty and made a Brain Cold and Moist to such a Point and of so delicate a Substance by which means the Soul might Reason and Discourse and make use of its infused Knowledge For we have said and prov'd before when God had a design to give Men any supernatural Knowledge he first prepar'd the Wit and made them Capable with the Natural Dispositions which he planted with his own Hand to receive this Knowledge And therefore Holy Writ says That he gave them a Heart to Conceive and replenished them with the Discipline of Vnderstanding The Irascible and Concupiscible Faculty being so very powerful because of the great Heat and the Rational so weak and of such small resistance God armed them with a supernatural Faculty which the Divines call Original Righteousness to repress the Motions of the Inferiour Part that the rational Part might remain Superiour and the Man inclined to Virtue But when our first Parents sinned they lost this quality and the Irascible and Concupiscible Faculty held their own and were Superiour to Reason through the Prevalence of the three Members we spoke of and the Man Prone to Evil even from his Youth Adam was Created in the Age of Manhood which according to Physitians is the most Temperate of all and from that Age was inclined to Evil except the small time he stay'd in Innocence by means of Original Righteousness From this Doctrin we may gather in good Natural Philosophy that if a Man is to do an Act of Virtue with Reluctance of the Flesh it is impossible for him to practise the same without the Assistance of Grace because the qualities by which the Inferiour Faculty operates are of greater Efficacy I said with Reluctance of the Flesh in as much as there are found many Virtues in Man which proceed from the Irascible and Concupiscible Faculties being low as is Chastity in a Man that is Cold but this is an Impotence in Working rather than a Virtue For which reason had the Catholic Church never taught us that we are not able to overcome our Inclinations but by the special Assistance of God Natural Philosophy would teach us no less this Truth That Grace fortifies our Will What Galen would have said was that the Temperate Man excels in Virtue others who have not this good Temperament because the same is less solicited by the Inferiour Part. The fifth Property of those who enjoy this good Temperament is to be very Long-liv'd as being very powerful to resist the Causes and Occasions of Diseases And this is what the Royal Prophet meant when he said The days of our years are threescore and ten and if by reason of Strength they be fourscore years yet is their Strength Labour and Sorrow He calls those Strong who are of this Temperament because they resist better than others the Occasions of diminishing Life The last Mark is given by Galen saying That they are very Wise of great Memory for the past of great Imagination to guess at the future and of great Understanding to discover the truth in all things They are neither malicious crafty nor Cavillers for these spring from a Vicious Temperament Such a Wit as this is assuredly was not framed by Nature to learn the Latin Tongue Logic Philosophy Physic Divinity or the Laws for put the case he might easily attain these Sciences yet not one of them can fill all his Capacity Only the Office of a King answers in proportion to it and in Ruling and Governing the same is only to be employed This is easily understood in running thro' all the Marks and Properties we have recounted of Temperate Men and considering how each of them agrees with the Royal Scepter and ill corresponds with other Arts and Sciences That a King be Beautiful and Agreeable is one of the things that best engages Subjects to Love and Honour him because as Plato says the object of Love is Beauty and good Proportion and if the King be hard-favoured and mis-shapen it is impossible to gain the People's Affection in so much that they will highly resent it that an unfinished Man who has not so much as good Natural Endowments should come to Rule and Govern them To be Virtuous and of good Conditions is soon understood how much it imports for he who is to Order the Lives of his Subjects and give them Laws and Rules to live according to Reason it is convenient that he do the same in Person for such as the King is such are the Grandees the Middle and the Lower Sort. Moreover by this means he will make his Commands more Authentic and with a better right proceed to Punish those that fail to observe them To hold a Perfection in all the Ruling Faculties of a Man the Generative Nutritive Irascible and Rational is more becoming a King than any Artist whatever For as Plato says in a well-ordered-State there ought to be Over-seers of Families who may with Skill discover the qualities of Persons that are to Marry in order to give to each Man the Woman best proportion'd to him and to each Woman the Man destin'd for her Were this duly observed they would never be frustrated of the principal end of Marriage For we see by Experience that a Woman who could have no Children by her first Husband as soon as she is married to another has and many Men that could have no Children by their first Wives have had them as soon as ever they married to another More especially says Plato this Art is of use in the Marriages of Kings For as it is a thing of the greatest Importance to the Peace and Security of a
from Woman as Galen says but only in having the Genitals outward For if a Woman be dissected we shall find that she has within her two Testicles two Spermatic Vessels and one Matrix together with the figure of the Masculine Member without missing the least Representation Which is so true that if Nature making a perfect Man had a mind to turn him into a Woman she has no more to do than to turn the Parts of Generation inward And if after she has made a Woman she had a mind to convert her into Man she need no more than turn out her Genitals This has chanced many times in Nature as well to the Foetus in the Womb as to the Child after the Birth Of which Histories are full though some have held them only for Fables as coming from the Hands of Poets yet the thing carries much of Truth For divers times has Nature made a Female that has continued such in the Mothers Womb a Month or two afterwards and abundance of Heat upon Occasion falling on the Genitals they have struck out and she steps forth a Male. To whom this change of Sex has happened in the Mothers Womb is afterwards made known by certain Motions unbecoming a Man being altogether Womanish and Effeminate their Voice Shrill and Squeaking Such persons are addicted to Woman's works and fall ordinarily into awkard Offences On the contrary Nature has often made a Boy with his Genitals outwards and some Cold supervening she has inverted them and the Boy has turned into a Girl This appears after she is Born in that she has a Masculine Air as well in her Speech as in all her Motions and Gestures This seems difficult to prove but easy to believe if we reflect on what we are assured by many Authentic Histories And that Women have been turned into Men after they were Born the Vulgar are not surprised to hear of for besides what many Antient Authors have delivered for truth 't is a thing that happened in Spain but few Years since and what Experience teaches admits no Dispute or Argument What the Cause or Reason may be that the Genitals are engendred within or without and they come forth Male or Female is a plain Case if we recollect that Heat dilates and extends all things and Cold contracts and closes them And therefore it is the Conclusion of all the Philosophers and Physitians that if the Seed be Cold and Moist a Girle is produced and not a Boy and if it be Hot and Dry a Boy is produced and not a Girle Whence may be clearly inferr'd that there is no Man can be call'd cold in respect of a Woman nor any Woman hot in respect of a Man Aristotle said that the Woman should be cold and moist to be fruitful and if she were not so it were impossible she should have her Terms or Milk to preserve the Foetus nine whole Months in her Womb and two Years after the Birth but the same would be dissipated and wasted All the Philosophers and Physitians assert that the Womb bears the same Proportion to humane Seed as the Earth does to Wheat or any other Grain But we see if the Earth be not cold and moist the Husbandman dares not Sow it and though he should it comes to nothing Also among Lands those are most fertile and fructify most that have most Cold and Moisture as appears by experience considering the Northern Regions England Flanders and Germany where the abundance of all Fruits surprises those that know not the reason of it and in such Countries a Married Woman rarely fails of Children neither do they know what 't is to be Barren all the Women there are fruitful and prolific because of the great Cold and Moisture But though it be true that a Woman should be cold and moist for Conception nevertheless that may be in such an Excess that the Seed may be choaked as we see the Grain is opprest with too-much Rain and cannot thrive when it is over-cold Which shews us that these two qualities require a certain Mediocrity which if they exceed or come short of Fertility is in danger to be lost Hippocrates held that Woman fruitful whose Matrix was temperate in such sort as the Heat exceeded not the Cold nor the Moisture the Dryness therefore he said that Women who have a cold Womb could not conceive no more than those that have a very moist or a very hot and dry one so for the same reason that a Woman and her parts of Generation should be Temperate it were impossible for her to conceive or be a Woman For if the Seed of which she first was formed had been Temperate the Genitals had issued forth and she had been a Man So would a Beard grow on her Chin and her Courses have stopt and she become as perfect a Male as Nature could produce Likewise the Womb in a Woman should not have a predominant Heat for if the Seed whereof she was formed had had this Temperament she had been born a Man and not a Woman 'T is a thing then absolutely certain that the two Qualities which render a Woman fruitful are Cold and Moisture inasmuch as the Nature of a Man requires much Nourishment for his Production and Conservation Accordingly we see that of all the Females of Brute-Animals none have their Courses as Women Therefore it was no less than necessary to make her altogether cold and moist and to such a degree that she might breed abundance of Flegmatic Blood and be able neither to dissipate nor consume it I said Flegmatic Blood because the same is proper to breed Milk With which as Hippocrates and Galen are of Opinion the Foetús is nourished all the time it is in the Womb but if the same should be Temperate it would make much Blood which would be very unfit to breed Milk and which would wholly resolve as it does in a Temperate Man and so nothing be left to nourish the Foetus Therefore I hold for certain that it is impossible any Woman be either Temperate or Hot they are all both cold and moist If this be not so let Physitians and Philosophers tell me why all Women are Beardless and yet have their Terms if in Health Or for what cause if the Seed of which she is form'd was Temperate or Hot she was born a Female and not a Male But though it be true that all Women are cold and moist yet they are not so in the same Degree some are in the First others in the Second and the rest in the Third And in each degree they may conceive if the Man answer them in the proportion of Heat which we shall hereafter explain By what Marks these three Degrees of Cold and Moisture in Women may be known and how we may discern which is in the First which in the Second and which in the Third no Philosophy or Physic has yet declar'd But considering the
lay down the Conditions to be observed that a Boy without failing may begot I say then that Fathers in order to attain this End must carefully observe six Things The first is to eat Meats hot and dry The second to procure good Digestion in the Stomach The third to use much Exercise The fourth not to apply to the Act of Venery till the Seed be well ripened and seasoned The fifth to Company with the Wife four or five Days before her Menses The sixth to procure that the Seed may fall on the right side of the Womb. Which Points being observed as we have directed 't is impossible to get a Girl For the First Condition you are to know that tho' a good Stomach digests and alters the Meat divesting it of the Qualities it had before yet it does not entirely destroy them For if we eat Lettuce whose Nature is cold and moist the Blood it produces will be cold and moist and the Serum cold and moist and the Seed also cold and moist and if we eat Honey which is hot and dry the Blood it breeds will be hot and dry the Serum hot and dry and the Blood likewise hot and dry because 't is impossible as Galen says that the Humours should not partake of the Substance and Qualities which the Food had before it was eaten If it be true then that the producing of Males depends on the Seed's being hot and dry in the time of the Formation it is certain that Fathers ought to eat Meats hot and dry to get a Boy However it must be confess'd that there is a very dangerous thing in this Procedure and it is from the Seed's being very Hot and Dry as we have often already said of Course there will proceed a malicious crafty deceitful Man and inclined to all kind of Vices and Ills. And such Men as these if they are not curbed are very dangerous to the State therefore it were better that they should not be Born But for all this there will not be wanting some that will say with the Proverb Nasca me hijo varon y sea Ladron Let me have a Boy and let him be a Thief because Eccles c. 20. The Iniquity of a Man is more allowable than the well-doing of a Woman Tho' this may be easily remedied by the use of temperate Meats and which partake a little of Hot and Dry or by the Preparation as adding Spice thereto Such Meats says Galen are Pullets Partridge Turtles Woodcocks Pidgeons Threshes Blackbirds and Kid which in the Opinion of Hippocrates should be eat rosted to heat and dry up the Seed The Bread they eat should be White of the finest Flower kneeded with Salt and Aniseeds because the Brown is cold and moist as we shall prove hereafter and very prejudicial to Wit Let their Drink be Whitewine mixt with Water in such quantity as the Stomach can bear and the Water that is mixt should be fresh and pure The second Care we have proposed to be observed is to eat these Meats in a moderate quantity that the Stomach may digest them for tho' by Nature they are hot and dry yet they become cold and moist whenever the natural Heat cannot digest them therefore tho' Fathers do eat Honey and drink White-wine they 'l make their Seed cold by these Meats and so get Girls and not Boys 'T is for this Reason the greatest part of the Nobility and Gentry undergo this misfortune and discontent to have more Girls than poor People because they Eat and Drink more than their Stomach can bear or digest and tho' their Meats be hot and dry Sauced with Sugar Spice and Honey through being eaten on too great a quantity they become crude and not to be digested But the Crudity more prejudicial to Generation is that of Wine because this Liquor being so vaporous and fumous causes the other Aliments with it self to pass wholly undigested to the Spermatic Vessels and so the Seed falsely provokes a Man e're yet it be digested and seasoned Which made Plato commend so highly a Law he observed in the Commonwealth of Carthage by which it was provided that the New-Married-Couple should drink no Wine on the Day they designed to lie together importing that this Liquor much incommoded the Child's Health and that it was Cause sufficient to make it Vitious and of ill Inclinatitions but if the same be moderately taken there is no Sustenance affords so good Seed to the end we propos'd as White-wine especially to give Wit and Ability which is that to which we most pretend The third Caution we prescribed was to use more than moderate Exercise for this wasts and consumes the superfluous Moisture of the Seed and heats and dries the same by which a Man is rendered prolific and more able for Generation and on the contrary to give our selves to Ease and not to Exercise of the Body is one of the ways most to cool and moisten the Seed Therefore the Rich and Riotous abound in Girls more than the Poor that work hard To this purpose Hippocrates recounts that the Principal among the Scythians were very soft and effeminate and addicted to Women's Works to Sweep to Scower and to Bake and by this means were impotent in Generation and if they ever begot a Male Child it proved an Eunuch or Hermaphrodite at which being ashamed and disgusted they resolved to offer Sacrifices and Gifts to their God with Prayers not to treat them so or to afford them a Remedy for this Defect since it lay in his Power Hippocrates jeered them saying that no Effect befalls us but what is Wonderful and Divine if it be rightly considered for resolving them all into their Natural Causes the last terminates in God by whose Power all worldly Agents operate but that there are some Effects that refer immediately to God as those out of the Order of Nature and others that mediately refer to him running through all the intermediate Causes leading to the End The Country inhabited by the Scythians is as Hipporcates said Northerly extraordinarily Cold and Moist where through the abundance of Clouds the Sun is rarely seen Rich Men sit there always on Horse-back never exercising eating and drinking more than their Natural Heat is able to digest all which occasions the Seed to be cold and moist For which cause they get abundance of Girls and if they happen to have a Boy 't is such a one as we have described Know said Hippocrates to them that the Remedy for this is not to offer Sacrifices to God and no more but to walk on Foot Eat little and Drink less and not sit always at your Ease and the better to discern this cast your Eyes on the Poor of your Country and on your Slaves who not only make no Sacrifices nor offer Gifts to God not having wherewith but even Blaspheme his Blessed Name and speak injuriously of him for placing them in so mean a