Policy so great so admirable and so long flourishing in Vertue and Happiness without any Institution or Practice of Letters ought certainly to be of very great weight Such as return from the new World discover'd by the Spaniards in our Fathers days can testifie to us how much more honestly and regularly those Nations live without Magistrate and without Law than ours do where there are more Officers and Laws than there are of other sorts of Men and Business Dicittatorie di libelli D'esamine di carte di procure Hanno le mani il seno gran fastalli Di chiose di consigli di letture Percui le faculta de poverelli Non seno mai ne le citta sicure Hanno dietro dinanzi d'ambi i lati Notai procuratori advocati Her Lap was full of Writs and of Citations Of process of Actions and Arrest Of Bills of Answers and of Replications In Courts of Delegates and of Requests To grieve the simple sort with great Vexations She had resorting to her as her Guests Attending on her Circuits and her Journeys Scriv'ners and Clerks and Lawyers and Attorneys It was what a Roman Senator said of the later Ages that their Predecessors Breath stunk of Garlick but their Stomachs were perfum'd with a good Conscience And that on the contrary those of his time were all sweet Odour without but stunk within of all sorts of Vices that is to say as I interpret it that they abounded with Learning and Eloquence but were very defective in moral Honesty Incivility Ignorance Simplicity and Roughness are the Natural Companions of Innocency Curiosity Subtlety and Knowledge bring Malice in their Train Humility Fear Obedience and Affability which are the principal things that support and maintain Human Society require an empty and docile Soul and little presuming upon it self Christians have a particular Knowledge how Natural and Original an evil Curiosity is in Man The Thirst of Knowledge and the Desire to become more Wise was the first ruin of Human-kind and the way by which he precipitated himself into Eternal Damnation Pride was his ruin and corruption ' is Pride that diverts from the Common Path and makes him embrace Novelties and rather chuse to be Head of a Troop lost and wandring in the Path of Error to be Regent and a Teacher of Lyes than to be a Disciple in the School of Truth suffering himself to be led and guided by the hand of another in the right and beaten Road. 'T is peradventure the meaning of this old Greek saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Superstition follows Pride and obeys it as if it were a Father O Presumption how much doest thou hinder us After that Socrates was told That the God of Wisdom had attributed to him the Title of a Sage he was astonished at it and searching and examining himself throughout could find no Foundation for this Divine Sentence He knew others as just temperate valiant and learned as himself And more eloquent more handsom and more profitable to their Country than he At last he concluded that he was not distinguished from others nor wise but only because he did not think himself so And that his God consider'd the Opinion of Knowledge and Wisdom as a singular Brutality in Man and that his best Doctrine was the Doctrine of Ignorance and Simplicity the best Wisdom The Sacred Word declares those Miserable who have an Opinion of themselves Dust and Ashes says it to such What hast thou wherein to Glorifie thy self And in another place God has made Man like unto a Shadow of whom who can judge when by the removing of the Light it shall be vanished Man is a thing of nothing whose Force is so far from being able to comprehend the Divine Height That of the Works of our Creator those best bear his Mark and are with better Title his which we the least understand To meet with an incredible thing is an Occasion to Christians to believe and it is so much the more according to reason by how much it is against Human Reason If it were according to reason it would be no more a singular thing Melius scitur Deus nesciendo says St. Austin God is better known by not knowing And Tacitus Sanctius est ac reverentius de actis Deorum credere quà m scire It is more Holy and Reverend to believe the Works of God than to know them And Plato thinks there is something of Impiety in it to require too curiously into God the World and first Causes of things Atque illum quidem parentem hujus Viversitatis invenire difficile Et quum jam inveneris indicare in vulgus nefas says Cicero To find out the Parent of the World is very hard And when found out to reveal him to the Vulgar is Sin We pronounce indeed Power Truth and Justice which are words that signifie some great thing but that thing we neither see nor conceive at all We say that God fears that God is angry and that God loves Immortalia mortali sermone notantes Giving to things immortal mortal Names Which are all Agitations and Emotions that cannot be in God according to our Form nor we imagine it according to his it only belongs to God to know himself and to interpret his own Works and he does it in our Language improperly to stoop and descend to who grovel upon the Earth How can Prudence which is the Choice betwixt Good and Evil be properly attributed to him whom no Evil can touch How the Reason and Intelligence which we make use of by obscure to arrive at apparent things Seeing that nothing is obscure to him And Justice which distributes to every one what appertains to him a thing begot by the Society and Community of Men how is that in God How Temperance Which is the Moderation of Corporal Pleasures that have no place in the Divinity Fortitude to support Pain Labour and Dangers as little appertains to him as the rest these three things having no access to him For which reason Aristotle holds him equally exempt from Vertue and Vice Neque gratia neque ira teneri potest quod quae talia essent imbecilla essent omnia He can neither be affected with Favour nor Indignation because both those are the effects of Frailty The Participation we have in the knowledge of Truth such as it is is not acquir'd by our own â—orce God has sufficiently given us to understand that by the Witness he has chosen out of the common people simple and ignorant Men that he has been pleased to employ to instruct us in his admirable Secrets Our Faith is not of our own acquiring 't is purely the Gift of an others Bounty 'T is not by Meditation or by Vertue of our own Understanding that we have acquir'd our Religion but by Foreign Authority and Command wherein the Imbecillity of our Judgment does more assist us
Trouble so that I throw out all sorts of injurious words at random and without choice and never consider pertinently to dart my Language where I think it will deepest wound for I commonly make use of no other Weapon in my Anger than my Tongue My Servants have a better bargain of me in great Occasions than in little the little ones surprize me and the mischief on 't is that when you are once upon the Precipice 't is no matter who gave you the push for you always go to the bottom the fall urges moves and makes haste of it self In great Occasions this satisfies me that they are so just every one expects a warrantable Indignation and then I glorifie my self in deceiving their Expectation against these I fortifie and prepare my self they disturb my Head and threaten to transport me very far should I follow them I can easily contain my self from entring into one of these Passions and am strong enough when I expect them to repell their Violence be the Cause never so great but if a Passion once prepossess and seize me it carries me away be it never so small which makes me indent with those who may contend me when you see me first moved let me alone right or wrong I 'll do the same for you The storm is only begot by a concurrence of Anger 's which easily spring from one another and are not born together Let every one have his own way and we shall be always at Peace A profitable Advice but hard to execute Sometimes also it falls out that I put on a seeming Anger for the better governing of my House without any real Emotion As Age renders my Humours more sharp I study to oppose them and will if I can order it so that for the Future I may be so much the less peevish and hard to please as I have more excuse and inclination to be so although I have heretofore been reckoned amongst those that have the greatest Patience A Word more to conclude this Chapter Aristotle says that Anger sometimes serves for Arms to Virtue and Valour 'T is likely it may be so nevertheless they who contradict him pleasantly Answer that 't is a Weapon of novel Use for we move all other Arms this moves us our Hands guide it not 't is it that guides our Hands it holds us we hold not it CHAP. XXXII Defence of Seneca and Plutarch THE familiarity I have had with these two Authors and the assistance they have lent to my Age and Book wholly compil'd of what I have borrowed from them obliges me to espouse their Quarrel and to stand up for their Honour As to Seneca amongst a million of little Pamphlets that those of the Reformed Religion disperse abroad for the defence of their Cause and which sometimes proceeds from so good a Hand that 't is pitty his Pen is not employ'd in a better Subject I have formerly seen one that to make up the Parallel he would fain find out betwixt the Government of our late poor King Charles the Ninth and that of Nero compares the late Cardinal of Lorrain with Seneca their Fortunes to have both of them been the prime Ministers in the Goverment of their Princes and their Manners Conditions and Deportments to have been very near alike Wherein in my Opinion he does the said Cardinal a very great Honour for though I am one of those who have a very great esteem for his Wit Eloquence and Zeal to Religion and the Service of his King and think it was a happiness in an Age wherein he was so new so rare and also so necessary for the Publick to have an Ecclesiastical Person of so high Birth and Dignity and so sufficient and capable of his Place yet to confess the Truth I do not think his Capacity by many degrees near to the other nor his Virtue either so clean entire or steady as that of Seneca Now the Book whereof I speak to bring about his design gives a very injurious Description of Seneca having borrowed his Reproaches from Dion the Historian whose Testimony I do not at all believe For besides that he is inconstant who after having call'd Seneca one while very wise and again a mortal enemy to Nero's Vices makes him elsewhere Avaricious an Usurer Ambitious Effeminate Voluptuous and a false Pretender to Philosophy his own Virtue does appear so lively and vigorous in his Writings and his Vindication is so clear from any of these imputations of Riches and any extraordinary expensive way of living that I cannot believe any Testimony to the contrary And besides it is much more reasonable to believe the Roman Historians in such things than Greeks and Strangers Now Tacitus and the rest speak very honourably both of his Life and Death and represent him to us a very excellent and virtuous Person in all things and I will alledge no other Reproach against Dion's Report but this which I cannot avoid namely that he has so sickly a Judgment in the Roman Affairs that he dares to maintain Julius Caesars Cause against Pompey and that of Anthony against Cicero Let us now come to Plutarch John Bodinus is a good Author of our times and a Writer of much greater Judgment than the rout of Scriblers of his Age and that deserves to be carefully read and consider'd I find him though a little bold in this passage of his Method of History where he accuses Plutarch not only of ignorance wherein I would have let him alone for that is above my reprehension but that he oft writes things incredible and absolutely fabulous which are his own Words If he had simply said that he had deliver'd things otherwise than they really are it had been no great reproach for what we have not seen we are forc'd to receive from other hands and take upon trust and I see he purposely sometimes variously relates the same Story as the Judgment of the three best Captains that ever were given by Hannibal 't is one way in the Life of Flaminius and another in that of Pyrrhus But to charge him with having taken incredible and impossible things for current pay is to accuse the most judicious Author in the World of want of Judgment And this is his Example as says he when he relates that a Lacedemonian Boy suffer'd his Bowels to be torn out by a Fox-cub he had stoln and kept it still conceal'd under his Coat till he fell down dead rather than he would discover his theft I find in this first place this Example ill chosen forasmuch as it is very hard to limit the Power of the Faculties of the Soul whereas we have better Authority to limit and know the force of the bodily Limbs and therefore if I had been as he I should rather have chosen an Example of this second sort and there are that are less credible and amongst others that which he relates of Pyrrhus that all wounded as he was he struck
in the works of Nature some Qualities and Conditions that are imperceptible to us and of which our understanding cannot discover the means and causes by this honest Declaration we hope to obtain that People shall also believe us of those that we say we do understand We need not trouble our selves to seek out Miracles and strange Difficulties methinks there are so incomprehensible Wonders amongst the things that we ordinarily see as surpass all difficulties of Miracles What a wonderful thing it is that the drop of Seed from which we are produc'd should carry in it self the impression not only of the bodily Form but even of the Thoughts and Inclinations of our Fathers Where can that drop of Fluid matter contain that infinite number of Forms And how can they carry on these Resemblances with so temerarious and irregular a Progress that the Son shall be like his Great Grand-father the Nephew like his Uncle In the Family of Lepidus at Rome there were three not successively but by intervals that were born with the same Eye cover'd with a Cartilage At Thebes there was a Race that carried from their Mothers Womb the form of the head of a Launce and who was not born so was look'd upon as illegitimate And Aristotle says that in a certain Nation where the Women were in common they assign'd the Children to their Fathers by their resemblance 'T is to be believ'd that I derive this Infirmity from my Father for he died wonderfully tormented with a great Stone in his Bladder he was never sensible of his Disease till the sixty seventh year of his Age and before that had never felt any grudging or symptoms of it either in his Reins Sides or any other part and had liv'd till then in a happy vigorous state of Health little subject to Infirmities and continued seven years after in this Disease and died a very painful Death I was born above five and twenty years before his Disease seiz'd him and in the time of his most flourishing and healthful state of Body his third Child in order of Birth where could his propension to this Malady lye lurking all that while And he being so far from the Infirmity how could that small part of his Substance carry away so great an impression of its share And how so conceal'd that till five and forty years after I did not begin to be sensible of it being the only one to this hour amongst so many Brothers and Sisters and all of one Mother that was ever troubled with it He that can satisfie me in this point I will believe him in as many other Miracles as he pleases always provided that as their manner is he does not give me a Doctrine much more intricate and fantastick than the thing it self for current pay Let the Physicians a little excuse the Liberty I take for by this same infusion and fatal insinuation it is that I have receiv'd a hatred and contempt of their Doctrine The Antipathy I have against their Art is hereditary My Father liv'd threescore and fourteen years my Grandfather sixty nine my Great-Grandfather almost fourscore years without ever tasting any sort of Physick and with them whatever was not ordinary Diet was instead of a Drugg Physick is grounded upon Experience and Examples so is my Opinion And is not this an express and very advantageous Experience I do not know that they can find me in all their Records three that were born bred and dyed under the same Roof who have liv'd so long by their own Conduct They must here of Necessity confess that if Reason be not Fortune at least is on my side and with Physicians Fortune goes a great deal further than Reason let them not take me now at a disadvantage let them not threaten me in the subdu'd condition I now am for that were treachery And to say truth I have got enough the better of them by these domestick Examples that they should rest satisfied Humane things are not usually so constant it has been two hundred years save eighteen that this Tryal has lasted for the first of them was born in the Year 1402. 'T is now indeed very good reason that this Experience should begin to fail us let them not therefore reproach me with the Infirmities under which I now suffer is it not enough for my part that I have lived seven and forty years in perfect Health Though it should be the end of my career 't is of the longer sort My Ancestors had an aversion to Physick by some secret and natural instinct for the very sight of a Potion was loathsom to my Father The Seigneur de Gaviac my Uncle by the Father's side a Churchman and a Valetudinary from his Birth and yet that made that crazy Life to hold out to sixty seven years being once fall'n into a furious Fever it was order'd by the Physicians he should be plainly told that if he would not make use of help for so they call that which is very often quite contrary he would infallibly be a dead man The good man though terrified with this dreadful Sentence yet reply'd I am then a dead man But God soon after made the Prognostick false The youngest of the Brothers which were four and by many years the youngest the Sieur de Bussaget was the only man of the Family that made use of Medicine by reason I suppose of the commerce he had with the other Arts for he was a Counsellour in the Court of Parliament and it succeeded so ill with him that being in outward appearance of the strongest constitution he yet died before any of the rest the Sieur Saint Michel only excepted 'T is possible I may have deriv'd this natural Antipathy to Physick from them but had there been no other consideration in the case I would have endeavour'd to have overcome it For all conditions that spring in us without reason are vicious and is a kind of Disease that we are to wrestle with It may be I had naturally this Propension but I have supported and fortified it by Arguments and Reasons which have establish'd in me the Opinion I am of For I also hate the consideration of refusing Physick for the nauseous taste I should hardly be of that humour who find Health worth purchasing by all the most painful Cauteries and Incisions that can be apply'd And according to Epicurus I conceive that Pleasures are to be avoided if greater Pains be the consequence and Pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater Pleasures Health is a pretious thing and the only one in truth meriting that a man should lay out not only his time sweat labour and goods but also his Life it self to obtain it forasmuch as without it Life is injurious to us Pleasure Wisdom Learning and Virtue without it wither away and vanish and in the most queint and solid Discourses that Philosophy would imprint in us to the contrary we need no more but oppose the
Society of all Studies Exercises and Commands both Military and Civil in the Common-Wealth and the Philosopher Antisthenes took away all distinction betwixt their Virtue and ours It is much more easie to accuse one Sex than to excuse the other 'T is according to the Proverb Ill may Vice correct Sin CHAP. VI. Of Coaches IT is very easie to make it appear that great Authors when they write of Causes do not only make use of those they think to be the true Causes indeed but also of those they believe are not so provided their Works may be illustrated with the Beauty of Invention They speak true and usefully enough if it be ingeniously We cannot make our selves sure of the supream Cause and therefore clutter a great many together to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them namque unam dicere causam Non satis est verum plures unde una tamen sit And thus my Muse a store of Causes brings For here as in a thousand other things Though by one single Cause th' effect is done Yet since 't is hid a thousand must be shown That we may surely hit that single one Will you ask me whence the Customs of blessing those that Sneeze we break Wind three several ways that which sallies from below is too filthy that which breaks out from the Mouth carries with it some reproach of having eaten too much the third Eruption is Sneezing which because it proceeds from the Head and is without offence we give it this civil Reception Do not laugh at this distinction for they say 't is Aristotle's I think I have read in Plutarch which of all the Authors I ever convers'd with is he who has best mixt Art with Nature and Judgment with Knowledge giving a Reason for the rising of the Stomach in those that are at Sea that it is occasion'd by fear having found out some reason by which he proves that fear may produce such an Effect I who am very subject to vomit know very well that that Cause concerns not me and know it not by Argument but by necessary Experience without instancing what has been often told me that the same thing oft happens in Beasts especially Hogs when out of all apprehension of danger and what an Acquaintance of mine has told me of himself that being very subject to it the Disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him being very much afraid in a violent Storm as it hapned to that ancient Pejus vexabar quam ut periculum mihi succurreret I was too much troubled for my danger to relieve me I was never afraid upon the Water nor indeed in any other peril and I have had enow before my eyes that have been just enough if death be one so as to be astonish'd and to lose my Judgment Fear springs sometimes as well from want of Judgment as from want of Courage All the dangers I have been in I have look'd upon without winking with an open sound and intire Sight and besides a man must have courage to fear It has formerly served me better than some others so to order my retreat that it was if not without fear nevertheless without affright and astonishment It was stirr'd indeed but not amazed nor stupified Great Souls go yet much farther and represent flights not only sound and temperate but moreover fierce Let us make a Relation of that which Alcibiades reports of Socrates his fellow in Arms I found him says he after the rout of our Army him and Lachez in the rear of those that fled and considered him at my leisure and in security for I was mounted upon a good Horse and he on foot and had so fought I took notice in the first place how much Judgment and Resolution he shew'd in comparison of Lachez and then the bravery of his march nothing different from his ordinary gate his sight firm and regular considering and judging what pass'd about him looking one while upon those and then upon others Friends and Enemies after such a manner as incourag'd the one and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to any one should attempt to take it from him and so they came off for People are not willing to attack such kind of men but pursue those they see are in a Fright This is the Testimony of this great Captain which teaches us what we every day see that nothing so much throws us into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting our selves clear of them Quo timoris minus est eo minus ferme pericula est When there is least fear there is for the most part least danger Our People are too blame to say that such a one is afraid of Death when he expresses that he thinks of it and fore-sees it Fore-sight is equally convenient in what concerns us whether good or ill To consider and judge of the danger is in some sort the reverse to being astonish'd I do not find my self strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity of this Passion of Fear nor of any other vehement Passion whatever If I was once conquered and beaten down I should never rise again very sound Whoever should once make my Soul lose her footing would never set it upright again she retasts and researches her self too profoundly and too much to the quick and therefore would never let the wound she had receiv'd heal and cicatrize It has been well for me that never any sickness has yet discompos'd it At every charge made upon me I make my utmost opposition and best defence by which means the first that should rout me would make me for ever rallying again I have no after game to play On which side soever the inundation breaks my banks I lye open and am drown'd without remedy Epicurus says that a wise Man can never become a Fool and I have an Opinion reverse to this Sentence which is that who has once been a very Fool will never after be very wise God grant me Cold according to my cloth and Passions proportionable to the means I have to withstand them Nature having laid me open on the one side has cover'd me on the other having disarm'd me of strength she has arm'd me with insensibility and an apprehension that is either regular or dull Now I cannot long endure and when I was young much less endur'd either Coach Litter or Boat and hate all other riding but on Horseback both in the City and Countrey But I can worse endure a Litter than a Coach and by the same reason better a rude Agitation upon the Water from whence fear is produc'd than the motions of a Calm At the little jerks of Oars stealing the Vessel from under us I find I know not how both my Head and my Stomach disorder'd neither can I endure to sit upon a tottering Stool When the Sail or the Current carries us equally or that we are tow'd