his soul's immortality and by faith of his body's resurrection yet he seeks all ways he can imagine to render the memory of all his actions perpetual 'T is this desire of getting a death-less fame which causes us sometimes to dye immaturely by watchings and study and so cheerfully undergo hazards to eternize the memory of our names Anciently this desire of perpetuation was most visible in the care to keep the life-less body even amongst the vulgar and hence the Mummies of the Egyptians and other Nations remain to this day after three or four thousand years At present through the ignorance of Times this care is practis'd only amongst great persons and yet the effect answers very little to their intention For the Chirurgions do not Embalm a man now a days but only the bones and skin after they have taken away his principal parts the heart liver and brain which constituted him a man and not the rest the cause whereof must be attributed to defect of Invention and means fit to dry up the superfluous humidity which causes the corruption of body for that alone will keep them which can dry them with the moderation requisite to the preserving of their Colour and Figure The Fourth said There 's a resemblance of these Mummies in bodies struck with thunder which are free from corruption the Sulphur consuming the humidity and introducing dryness to resist putrifaction as Fire Salt Vitriol Nitre Chalk Alum Vinegar and Aqua-vitae do by their desiccative and astringing virtue Some poysons also do the same As Placentinus reports of a Venetian Lady who having been poyson'd her body became so stiff that it seem'd to be petrifi'd But the particular temper of every place is of great moment They who inhabit the Southern Countries are so dry that their bodies keep intire eight days after death And they have so little humidity that 't is no less a shame amongst them then of old amongst the Lacedemonians to spit or blow the Nose The Fifth said That the same natural inclination of men to preserve themselves the longest they can which heretofore instigated them to erect proud Mausolaeum's Pyramids and Marbles for eternizing their memory put them also upon the invention of Embalming their bodies which is a refuge after shipwreck a little way after death But as 't is a general law that all things which took their being by generation must lose it by corruption indeed by some artifice we may retard dissolution for a time but perfectly to hinder it is impossible For Heat determin'd to a certain degree by Cold is the Agent which mixes the Humid with the Dry and retains them in that mixture as long as it self remains intire and strong But if this Heat receive any diminution either being suffocated and inclos'd or or else drawn out by a greater Heat of the Air encompassing us the less Heat alwayes yielding and serving for Aliment to the greater this natural Heat being thus weakned presently the Humidity leaves the Dryness and carries away with it self that little Heat which remain'd whence this Humidity is heated it self and excites a stink and at last vanishing away the remainder turnes to powder Wherefore the moistest bodies are most easie to corrupt excessive humidity more easily extinguishing the Heat which retain'd it in its duty And the most solid bodies as Gold and Silver corrupt difficultly because they have very little Humidity and that little which they have is greatly incorporated and united with the Dryness But there are two sorts of Humidity One excrementitious and also alimentous which by the least defect of Heat is easily turn'd into putrefaction because it is not yet united and assimilated to the Body wherein it is found whence it is that foul Bodies Trees cut at Full Moon being full of their sap and Fruits gather'd before their maturity very easily corrupt The other is an Humidity already assimilated which links all the parts together and being substantial is not so easily corrupted as the other Wherefore they who would embalm Bodies well having two Humidities to repress must make use of several means The former Humidity must be absum'd by Hot Drugs amongst which Wormwood and Scordium hold the first place experience manifesting the one and Galen observing that the Bodies of the Graecians slain in a battel which touch'd Scordium were found intire many dayes after The latter Humidity must be preserv'd by Balsames Cold Dry and penetrating which may preserve the figure colour and consistence in the dead body CONFERENCE XXXI I. Whether the Life of Man may be prolong'd by Art II. Whether 't is better to be without Passion then to moderate them I. Whether the Life of a Man may be prolong'd by Art THe duration of a motion or action cannot be known unless the measure of it be known nor can they be measur'd unless they have known bounds Whence neither can it be known whether the Life may be prolong'd without knowing before-hand how long it lasts Now 't is impossible to know this duration For not to mention the long lives of the Fathers in the two first thousand years of the world God told Noah that the age of Man should be no more then but sixscore years Moses and David restrain it to seventy or eighty And yet as there are at this day some who come near a hundred so there are a hundred times as many who do not attain thirty And whereas no body can speak of Death by experience because they who speak of it have not felt it and they who have felt it cannot speak of it more the case is the same concerning Life Let a Man by good order or the use of remedies live as long as he will it will not be believ'd that his life ha's been prolong'd but on the contrary that his hour was not yet come Nevertheless 't is no less consistent with reason to say that he who would infallibly have dy'd of a Gangrene which invaded his Legg and thereby the rest of his Body hath had his life prolong'd by cutting off his Legg or that he who was wounded in the crural vein at which all his blood would have soon issu'd forth ha's been secur'd from death by the Chirurgion who stop'd the blood then to believe as we do that a Rope-maker lengthens his rope by adding new stuff to that which was ended that a Gold-smith makes a chain of Gold longer by fastning new links to it that a Smith causes his fire to last more by putting fresh coals to it And as in all this there is nothing which crosses our Reason so if a sick man who is visibly going to dye receives help and escapes do's he not owe the more glory to God for having not onely cur'd him by the hands of the Physitian or by spiritual Physick alone but also prolong'd his Life as he did to King Hezekias whose Life was lengthened fifteen years and of which our age wants not example If it be objected that this
may hold in violent deaths whereof the causes may be avoided but that 't is not credible that a decrepit old man who hath spun out his Life to the last can continue it the nature and Etymology of the radical moisture not admitting a possibility of restauration I answer that reasons taken from the original of words are not the strongest and that besides there are roots which endure more and others less according as they are well or ill cultivated And if the reason drawn from contraries be considerable being many poysons are so quick that they corrupt the radical moisture in an instant ought we to conceive Nature so much a step-dame as that she hath not produc'd something proper to restore it And that Humane Industry is so dull and little industrious in the thing which Man desires most which is long Life that it cannot reach to prepare some matter for the support yea for the restauration of that Original Humidity Considering that we are not reduc'd to live onely by what is about us as Plants and Plant-animals do but all the world is open and accessible to our search of Aliments and Medicines Moreover we have examples not onely of a Nestor who liv'd three ages of an Artephius who liv'd as many and many more and the Herb Moly the Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets which kept their gods from growing old may well be taken for a figure of the Tree of Life which was design'd for separation of this Humidity but also of compositions proper to produce that effect Yea were it not actually so yet 't is not less possible and God hath not in vain promis'd as a Reward to such as honour their Superiors to prolong their dayes upon the earth The Second said If Medaea found Herbs as the Poets say to lengthen the Life of Aeson the Father of Jason the Daughters of Aelias miscarried of their purpose Indeed every thing that lives needs Heat for exercising its Actions and Humidity to sustain that Heat the duration of this Heat in the Humidity is Life which lasts as long as the one is maintain'd by the other like the lighted wiek in a Lamp Now Nature dispenses to every one from the Birth as much of this Heat and Moisture as she pleases to one for fifty to another for sixty seventy eighty years or more which ended the stock is spent Physick may husband it well but cannot produce it anew Aliments never repair it perfectly no more then Water doth Wine which it increases indeed but weakens too when mingled therewith The Third back'd this Suffrage with the opinion of Pythagoras who held that our Life is a strait line that the accidents which disturb it and at length bring Death constitute another and accordingly saith he as these two lines incline less or much towards one another Life is long or short because the Angle of their incidence and at which they cut which is our Death happens sooner or later and it would never happen if these two lines were parallel Now the meeting of these two lines cannot be deferr'd or put off The Fourth said 'T were a strange thing if Humane Art could repair all other defects of the Body and Mind excepting that whereof there is most need and all Ages have complain'd Brevity of Life For our Understanding hath much less need of an Art of Reasoning our tongue of an Art of speaking our legs of dancing then our Life of being continu'd since 't is the foundation of all the rest Besides Physick would seem useless without this For though it serv'd only to asswage the pains of diseases which is a ridiculous opinion yet it would thereby protract the time of Death to which pain is the way The Fifth said That for the preservation of Life 't is requisite to continue the marriage of Heat and moisture Death alwayes hapning immediately upon their disjunction and leaving the contrary qualities in their room Cold and Dryness Now to know how Heat must be preserv'd we must observe how 't is destroy'd And that is four wayes I. By Cold which being moderate fights with it but violent wholly destroyes it II. By suffocation or smothering when the Pores are stop'd and the issue of fuliginous vapours hindred Thus Fire dyes for want of Air. III. By its dissipation which is caus'd by hot medicaments violent exercise and immoderate heat of the Sun or Fire Whence proceeds a Syncope or Deliquium of the Heart IV. By want of Aliment without which it can no more last a moment then Fire without wood or other combustible matter All agree that the three first Causes may be avoided or at least remedied And as for the Fourth which is doubled of I see nothing that hinders but that as the spirits of our bodies are perfectly repair'd by the Air we incessantly breathe so Aliments or some Specificks as as amongst others Gold dissolv'd in some water not corrosive may in some manner restore the fewel of our Heat And seeing there are found burning Mountains in which the Fire cannot consume so much matter apt for burning but it alwayes affords it self other new which makes it subsist for many Ages Why may not a matter be prepar'd for our Natural Heat which though not neer so perfect as that which it consum'd for were it so an Animal would be immortal yet may be more excellent then ordinary Aliments and by this means prolong our Lives And this must be sought after not judg'd impossible The Sixth said That Life consisting in the Harmony and proportion of the four first qualities and in the contemperation of the four Humours there 's no more requir'd for the prolonging of Life but to continue this Harmony Which may be done not onely by a good natural temper but also by the right use of external things as pure Air places healthful and exposed to the Eastern winds Aliments of good juice sleep sufficiently long exercises not violent passions well rul'd and the other things whose due administration must prolong Life by the same reason that their abuse or indiscreet usage diminishes it The Seventh said That Life consists in the salt which contains the Spirit that quickens it and is the preservative Balsame of all compounds The vivifying Spirit of Man is inclos'd in a very volatile Armoniack Salt which exhales easily by Heat and therefore needs incessant reparation by Aliments Now to preserve Life long it is requsite to fix this volatile salt which is done by means of another salt extracted by Chymistry which is not onely fix'd but also capable to fix the most volatile For the Chymists represent this salt incorruptible in it self and communicating its virtue to other bodies Upon which account they stile it Quintessence Aethereal Body Elixir and Radical Balsame which hath a propriety to preserve not onely living bodies many Ages but dead from corruption II. Whether 't is better to be without Passions then to moderate them Upon the Second Point it was said
be a corporeal substance and Democritus and Epicurus conceiv'd saying that Light is an Emanation of particles or little bodies from a lucid body or as they who make it a species of fire which they divide into That which burnes and shines That which burns and shines not and That which shines but burns not which is this Light For no natural body is mov'd in an instant nor in all sorts of places as Light is but they have all a certain difference of position or tendency some towards the centre others towards the circumference and others circularly The Sixth said 'T is true Light is not of the nature of our sublunary bodies for it is not generated and corrupted as they are It is not generated since generation is effected by corruption of one form and introduction of another But we have instances of incorruptible Light even here below as that in the Temple of Venus which could not be extinguish'd nor consum'd though neither oyle nor wick were put to it and that other found in a Sepulchre where it had burn'd for fifteen hundred years but as soon as it took Air went out And indeed the subtilety and activity of Fire is such that it may be reasonably conceiv'd to attract the sulphurous vapours for its subsistence which are in all parts of the Air but especially in Mines whose various qualities produce the diversity of subterraneal fires as to their lasting continuance and interval which some compare to the intermitting fevers excited in our bodies by a praeternatural heat II. Of Age. Of the Second Point it was said That Age is the measure of the Natural Changes whereunto Man is subject by the principles of his being which are various according to every ones particular constitution some being puberes having a beard or grey haires or such other tokens sooner then others according to the diversity of their first conformation Whence ariseth that of their division Aristotle following Hippocrates divides them into Youth Middle Age and Old Age or according to Galen into Infancy or Child-hood vigour or Man-hood or old age or according to most they are divided into Adolescence Youth the Age of Consistence and Old Age. Adolescence comprehends Infancy which reacheth to the seventh year Puerility which reacheth to the fourteenth year Puberty which reacheth to the eighteenth and that which is call'd by the general name Adolescence reaching to the five and twentieth Youth which is the flower of Age is reckon'd from twenty five to thirty three years of age Virile and Consistent Age from thirty five to forty eight where Old Age begins which is either green middle or decrepit These Four Ages are the Four Wheeles of our Life whose mutations they denote the First being nearest the original hot and moist symbolizing with the blood the Second hot and dry with Choler the Third cold and dry with melancholy the Fourth cold and moist with Phlegme which being contrary to the radical humidity leads to death Now if it be true that they say that life is a punishment and an Abridgement of miseries Old Age as being nearest the haven and the end of infelicities is the most desirable Moreover being the most perfect by its experiences and alone capable to judge of the goodnesse of Ages 't is fit we refer our selves to the goodnesse of its judgement as well in this point as in all others The Second said Since to live is to act the most perfect and delightful of all the Ages of life is that in which the functions of body and mind whereof we consist are best exercis'd as they are in Youth which alone seems to dispute preheminence with Old Age not onely by reason of the bodily health and vigor which it possesses in perfection and which supplies Spirits and Courage for brave deeds whereof that declining Age which is it self a necessary and incurable malady is incapable but also in regard of the actions of the mind which is far more lively inventive and industrious in young persons then in old whose wit wears out grows worse with the body whence came that so true Proverb That old men are twice children For 't is a disparagement to the original of wisdom to deduce it from infirmity to name that ripe which is rotten and to believe that good counsels can come only from the defect of natural heat since according to his judgement who hath best described wisdom old age causes as many wrinkles in the mind as in the face and we see no souls but as they grow old smell sowre and musty and acquire abundance of vices and evil habits of which Covetousness alone inseparable from old age which shews its weakness of judgement to scrape together with infinite travel what must shortly be forsaken is not less hurtful to the State then all the irregularities of youth Now if the supream good be in the Sciences then the young men must infallibly carry the cause since sharpness of wit strength of phancy and goodness of memory of which old men are wholly destitute and ability to undergo the tediousness of Lucubration are requisite to their acquisition If it consists in a secret complacency which we receive from the exercise of vertuous actions then young men who according to Chancellor Bacon excel in morality will carry it from old men it being certain that the best actions of life are perform'd between twenty and thirty years of age or thereabouts which was the age at which Adam was created in Paradise as our Lord accomplish'd the mystery of our Redemption at the age of 33 years which shall also be the age at which the blessed shall rise up to glory when every one shall enjoy a perfect youth such as given to the Angels and put off old age which being not much different from death may as well as that be call'd the wages of sin since if our first Parent had persisted in the state of Innocence we should have possess'd the glory of perpetual undeclining Youth Moreover 't is at this Age that the greatest personages have manifested themselves we have seen but few old Conquerors and if there be any he hath this of Alexander that he aspires to the conquest of another world not having long to live in this Wherefore in stead of pretending any advantage over the other ages old men should rather be contented that people do not use them as those of Cea and the Massagetes who knock'd them on the head or the ancient Romans who cast them head-long from a Bridge into Tiber accounting it an act of piety to deliver them from life whose length was displeasing to the Patriarchs the Scripture saying that they dy'd full of days The Third said That the innocence of Infants should make us desire their age considering that our Lord requires that we be like them if we would enter into his Kingdom and the Word of God speaks to us as we do to children Moreover since Nature could not perpetuate infancy she
or elsewhere Whereby it appears that there is no Rule but has its exception since Nature which gives the same to all things oftentimes dispenses with her self The Third said The Soul is the act of an Organnical Body endu'd with Life and the principle of vegetation sense and motion according to Aristotle an Intellective or continual motion according to Plato a Number moving it And consequently Life is nothing but motion and a thing may be said to be alive when it is able to move it self by any kind of motion whether of generation or corruption accretion or diminution local motion or alteration For the most evident sign of Life is self-motion Whence we call such Living Waters which flow and those dead which stand still although improperly because this motion is extrinsical to them namely from their source and the declivity of the earth The Pythagoreans therefore believ'd the Heaven animated because it is mov'd according to all the differences of place and that this Animal is nourish'd with the Air which it draws out of the spaces which we call Imaginary Now as powers are known so they are distinguish'd by their actions So that the perfecter the motion is which denotes Life the perfecter the Life is Therefore as Oysters and other imperfect Animals endu'd with sense enjoy a nobler life then plants which onely vegetate so they are inferior to other perfect Animals which besides sense have progressive motion and these again the slower and more impedite their motion is the more they yield in dignity to others as the Snail to the Dog and Hare In brief these are lesse noble then Man whose Soul is mov'd after a more admirable manner and who hath the faculty of Understanding the most perfect of all which being found in God in a far higher degree beause it constitutes his whole essence being and Understanding being in him one and the same thing he hath the most perfect life of all Which is the cause why our Lord saith that he is the Life Moreover as the First Matter which is the lowest of all things that are if it may be said to be hath need iof all so the sublimest of all things God hath need of nothing but includes in himself all perfections the chiefest of which is Life which all Creatures enjoy onely by participation from him The Fourth said Life is a continual action of Heat upon humidity the periods whereof are distinguish'd by the several effects of this heat to wit the alterations of temper and diversity of ages For 't is Physically as well as Morally true which Job saith that our life is a warfare upon the earth since a thing is not accounted living unless so far as it acts Death being the privation of actions and there is no action but between contrary qualities of which heat and moisture are the foundation of life as cold and siccity are the concomitants of death old age which leads us thither being also cold and dry Hence they are the longest liv'd who have most heat as Males then Females terrestrial animals then Fish those which have blood then those which have not As also those that abound with this humidity live long provided it have the qualities requisite namely be fat aerious and not aqueous or excrementitious because otherwise it easily cools and congeals and by that means incongruous to life The Fifth said That heat being the most noble and active of all qualities executes all the functions of life when it meets with organs and dispositions sutable thereunto This heat must be in act and not only in power such as that of Lime and Pepper is And though it be not so sensible in plants yet it ceases not to be actually in them so long as they are alive and to digest and assimilate the aliments which it draws for them out of the earth ready prepar'd whence they have no excrements as animals have With whom nevertheless they have so great resemblance that Plato in his Timaeus saith that Plants are tanquam animala and Pythagoras conceiv'd them to be inform'd with the souls of some men who having liv'd in the world without exercising other actions then those of the vegetative life addicting themselves to nothing but to feed and generate are condemn'd to pass into the bodies of Plants as the souls of those who have lead a brutish life are relegated into those of Swine Tygres Lyons and other brutes whose manners they had imitated Empedocles and Anaxagoras as Aristotle reports attributed to Plants a perception of pain and pleasure Moreover they have not only their maladies old age and death as animals have but some too have differences of sex and local motion as 't is observ'd of certain Palmes which bend towards one another and of divers other Plants which recoil from those that are contrary to them and grow best neer others The Sixth said Life is nothing but the union of the soul with the body which requires a fitting temperature and conformation from whence afterwards proceed all actions and motions both internal and external Wherefore life is not an action of an action which is absurd but hath its own actions Nor is it the action of the soul for then the body could not be said to live But 't is the act of the soul in the body which being finite and terminated as heat its principal instrument is this is the cause that all living bodies have the terms or bounds of their quantity both as to greatness and smallness but bodies inanimate have not so because they acquire their quantity only by the approximation and apposition of their matter and not by receiving the same inwardly and because they have no organs which require a certain conformation and magnitude which they never exceed II. Of Fasting Upon the second Point it was said That there are many sorts of corporal Fasts not to speak of the spiritual which is abstinence from sin There is one of necessity and the most intolerable of all which made the ancient Poets declaim against Poverty saying that it was to be cast into the sea against the rocks and which made so few Cynicks in respect of so many other Sects of Philosophers Against which evil there is no other remedy but to make that voluntary which cannot be avoided There are fasts of thrift for the Covetous and others of Policy observ'd in many States to good purpose lest the Country be desolated of Cattle and would be should men eat egges and flesh in the beginning of the Spring when Fowls hatch and Beasts engender at which time the flesh of animals is unwholsome because they begin then to enter into heat There is a fast of Health ordain'd by Physitians to such as are full-bodied and abound with ill humours this is the best lik'd of all nothing being undertaken so willingly as for health whereunto moderate fasting greatly conduces as well to preserve it according to the Proverb that Gormandise hath slain more
which makes water ascend in the Pneumaticks whereof Hero writ a Treatise rendring the same melodious and resembling the singing of birds in the Hydraulicks It makes use of the four Elements which are the causes of the motions of engines as of Fire in Granadoes Air in Artificial Fountains both Fire and Air by their compression which water not admitting since we see a vessel full of water can contain nothing more its violence consists in its gravity when it descends from high places The Earth is also the cause of motion by its gravity when 't is out of Aequilibrium as also of rest when 't is equally poiz'd as is seen in weights The Second said The wit of Man could never preserve the dominion given him by God over other creatures without help of the Mechanicks but by this art he hath brought the most savage and rebellious Animals to his service Moreover by help of mechanical inventions the four Elements are his slaves and as it were at his pay to do his works Thus we see by means of the Hydraulicks or engines moving by water wheels and pumps are set continually at work the Wind is made to turn a Mill manag'd by the admirable Art of Navigation or employ'd to other uses by Aealipila's Fire the noblest of all Elements becomes the vassal of the meanest Artisans or serves to delight the sight by the pleasant inventions of some Ingineer or employes its violence to arm our thunders more powerfully then the ancient machines of Demetrius The Earth is the Theatre of all these inventions and Archimedes boasted he could move that too had he place where to fix his engine By its means the Sun descends to the Earth and by the artificial union of his rayes is enabled to effect more then he can do in his own sphere The curiosity of man hath carry'd him even to Heaven by his Astrological Instrumens so that nothing is now done in that republick of the stars but what he knows and keeps in record The Third said That since Arts need Instruments to perform their works they owe all they can do to the Mechanicks which supply them with utensils and inventions 'T was the Mechanicks which furnish'd the Smith with a hammer and an anvil the Carpenter with a saw and a wedge the Architect with a rule the Mason with a square the Geometrician with a compass the Astronomer with an astrolabe the Souldier with sword and musket in brief they have in a manner given man other hands Hence came paper writing printing the mariner's box the gun in these latter ages and in the preceding the Helepoles or takecities flying bridges ambulatory towers rams and other engines of war which gives law to the world Hence Archimedes easily drew a ship to him which all the strength of Sicily could not stir fram'd a heaven of glass in which all the celestial motions were to be seen according to which model the representation of the sphere remains to us at this day Hence he burnt the Roman ships even in their harbour defended the City of Syracuse for a long time against the Roman Army conducted by the brave Marcellus And indeed I wonder not that this great Archimedes was in so high in Reputaion For if men be valued according to their strength is it not a miracle that one single man by help of mechanicks could lift as much as ten a hundred yea a thousand others And his pretension to move the whole Earth were a poynt given him out of it where to stand will not seem presumptuous though the supposition be impossible to such as know his screw without-end or of wheels plac'd one above another for by addition of new wheels the strength of the same might be so multiply'd that no humane power could resist it yea a child might by this means displace the whole City of Paris and France it self were it upon a moveable plane But the greatest wonder is the simplicity of the means employ'd by this Queen of Arts to produce such excellent effects For Aristotle who writ a book of mechanicks assignes no other principles thereof but the Lever its Hypomoclion or Support and a balance it being certain that of these three multiply'd proceed all Machines both Automata and such as are mov'd by force of wind fire water or animals as wind-mills water-mills horse-mills a turn-broch by smoak and as many other inventions as things in the world CONFERENCE LXXXVII I. Whether the Soul's Immortality is demonstrable by Natural Reasons II. Whether Travel be necessary to an Ingenuous Man I. Whether the Soul's Immortality is demonstrable by Natural Reasons NAtural Philosophy considers natural bodies as they are subject to alteration and treats not of the Soul but so far as it informes the Body and either partakes or is the cause of such alteration And therefore they are injust who require this Science to prove supernatural things as the Soul's Immortality is Although its admirable effects the vast extent of its thoughts even beyond the imaginary spaces its manner of acting and vigor in old age the terrors of future judgement the satisfaction or remorse of Conscience and Gods Justice which not punishing all sins in this life presupposes another are sufficiently valid testimonies thereof should not the universal consent of heathens themselves some of which have hastned their deaths to enjoy this immortality and man 's particular external shape infer the particular excellence of his internal form So that by the Philosophical Maxime which requires that there be contraries in every species of things if the souls of beasts joyn'd to bodies die there must be others joyn'd to other bodies free from death when separated from the same And the Harmony of the world which permits not things to pass from on extreme to another without some mean requires as that there are pure spirits and intelligences which are immortal and substances corporeal and mortal so there be a middle nature between these two Man call'd by the Platonists upon this account the horizon of the Universe because he serves for a link and medium uniting the hemisphere of the Angelical Nature with the inferior hemisphere of corporeal nature But there is difference between that which is and that which may be demonstrated by Humane Reason which falls short in proving the most sensible things as the specifical proprieties of things and much less can it prove what it sees not or demonstrate the attribute of a subject which it sees not For to prove the Immortality of the Soul 't is requisite at least to know the two termes of this proportion The Soul is immortal But neither of them is known to natural reason not immortality for it denotes a thing which shall never have end but infinitie surpasses the reach of humane wit which is finite And the term Soul is so obscure that no Philosophy hath yet been able to determine truly whether it be a Spirit or something corporeal a substance or an accident single
of the radical moisture of plants and animals For they alone are capable of dying as they are of living what they attribute to Fire the Load-stone and some other inanimates being purely Metaphorical Violent death is produc'd either by internal causes as diseases or by external 'T is caus'd by destroying the harmony of the parts and humours which constituted life after which destruction the Soul not finding the organs longer meet for exercising its functions as Fire that wants unctuous and combustible humidity forsakes its matter to retire into its own sphere And though the corruption of one be the generation of another there being no matter but hath alwayes some form as Bees are generated out of dead Oxen yet there is this distinction that the progress of a form less noble to one that is more is call'd generation or life as when an Egg is made a chick but when this progress is made from a more noble form to a less as from a man to a carcase then 't is call'd Corruption and Death if the form preceding were vital Thus all are wayes of Death which lead to corruption The first of these wayes is life for nothing comes under its Laws but is subject to those of Death considering the wayes that we dye as we are borne and that our end depends on our original as there is no harmony but must end in discord the latter note not being capable to accord with the first rest which is the end or death of harmony whereunto our life is not onely compar'd but may be fitly defin'd by it that Galen enlightned by Reason alone conceiv'd the Soul to be nothing else The Third said That onely in the death of men there is a separation of the Soul from the Body seeing that after the death of animals and plants there still remain faculties in their bodies which cannot depend on the sole mistion of the Elements but must be referr'd to some internal principle which can be no other then their Soul Yet with this difference that as during life these faculties were as formes in their matter so after death they are as substances in their place though without any activity for want of necessary dispositions which return afterwards by generation or the action of the celestial bodies producing wormes and other animals which come of themselves and never but from a nature formerly animated not receiving by this new generation any substantial form but onely making the Soul appear which was kept as 't were buried before this resuscitation Thus the death of plants and beasts is the privation of their vegetative and sensitive actions the principle of those actions alwayes remaining But that of men besides this privation of their actions causes the dissolution of the Soul from the Body which is properly death The inevitable necessity whereof is by Avicenna deriv'd from four chief causes I. From the Air which alters and dryes us II. From our own heat which by accident destroyes it self III. The continual motion of our bodies furthers the dissipation of that heat IV. The various Inclination of the Elements some of which are carry'd upwards others downwards and so break the union which preserves our life Albert the Great assignes a fifth cause namely the contrariety of forms and qualities death happening when humidity hath given place to drynesse But because this excesse of drynesse might be corrected by its contrary therefore the Moderns lay the fault upon the radical moisture Which some of them say we receive from our Parents and is continually impair'd without being at all recruited from the birth But this is absurd for then the Son must have infinitely lesse then his Father because he receives but a very small portion which besides cannot be distributed through a great body nor afford supply to so many actions Others more probably affirm that the Humidum which is repair'd is not of the same purity with that which we derive from the principles of our birth by reason of reaction and its being continually alter'd by our heat But that which indubitates this reason is that the Elements do not maintain themselves but by reaction notwithstanding which they cease not to be alwayes in the same state Fire as hot Air as moist as ever it was Inasmuch as the substantial forms expell all Qualities which are not suitable to themselves and recover their natural ones without other assistance Moreover when old men beget children they communicate to them an excellent radical humidity otherwise there would be no generation and consequently they can do as well for themselves as for their posterity But if they give them such as is bad and corrupt it follows that their children who live after their death re-produce much better by their nutrition then that which they had receiv'd and consequently the radical humidity may not onely be repair'd but meliorated And there 's no reason why an exact course of dyet may not keep a man from dying as the Chymists promise I had therefore rather say that as the union of the Soul with the Body is unknown to humane wit so is their disunion which I ascribe rather to the pleasure of the supreme Ruler who causes us to abide sentinel as long as he thinks meet then to any natural thing which is the reason why those that deprive themselves of life are justly punish'd because they dispose of what is not their own although it seemes to the vulgar that they do wrong to none but themselves because 't is by their own will and act The Fourth said What is compos'd of contraries between which there is continual action necessarily receives sundry changes and alterations in its being which by degrees bring it to a total corruption This is conspicuously seen in the life of man the ages and all other mutations whereof are as so many steps towards death 'T is the most worthy employment of a man to consider that he dyes every day For as Seneca saith that which deceives us is that we consider death as afar off whereas a great part of it is already pass'd for it already possesses all the time that we have been which is the cause that instead of employing our time profitably we consume a great part of it in doing nothing a greater part in doing ill and all in doing other things then ought to be which proceeds from not thinking often enough upon death as which no Preacher is so powerful For the fear it imprints in the soul vertue it self cannot wholly eradicate the sole aspect of the shades of the dead or their voices imprinting paleness upon the countenance of the most resolute Therefore the Philosopher holds that the fear of death is not only competible with courage but that he who fears it not at all rather deserves the name of mad then valiant The Fifth said That they who have had recourse to death to deliver themselves from their miseries as Brutus Cato his daughter Portia and some others have
the dead and into which they return But the most common and us'd throughout all Europe is Black which also was always worne by the Romans when they went into Mourning except during sixty years that they wore white The wearing of Mourning continu'd ten moneths at Rome the Athenians wore it but one moneth the Spartans no more but eleven dayes The reason why they have all chosen Black for denoting Sadness is because Black is the privation of White and proceedeth from the defect of Light so Death is the privation of Life and Light Possibly too the reason why the Cypress Tree was esteem'd a Funeral Tree was because the leaves were of a dark Green and the Nutts tincture Black and being cut it never puts forth again as also Beans were in regard of the blackness which appears in them and their flowers The Second said That Experience shews us sufficiently that the Black colour doth not onely put us in Mind of our griefs and sadnesses pass'd but also is apt excite new This is known to the Senses and unknown to Reason by a certain Divine Appointment which hath caus'd that what is manifest to the one is hidden to the other As appears for that nothing is so natural to the Sense of Seeing as Light and Colours But yet there is nothing in which our Mind sooner finds its weakness then in the enquiry into the Nature and properties of Colours and Light Now there are two sorts of blackness the one Internal when the Soul turning it self towards the Images upon report of which a judgement is made if that Image is Black and deform'd the Soul must conceive that the Objects represented by it are so also and thence ariseth horror and sadness the other external for the explicating of which I must crave leave to deflect a little from the ordinary opinion touching the Nature of Colours I affirm that Colour and Light are one and the same thing and differ onely in regard of the Subject so that the lustre of a simple Body is Light but the lustre of a mixt Body is call'd Colour By which account Light is the Colour of a simple Body and Colour is the Light of a mixt Body Whence Mixts approaching nearest to the simplicity of the Element predominant in them are all Luminous as precious stones which are a simple Earth and without mixture of other Element and rotten Wood which having lost the little Air and Fire it had its humidity also being absum'd by the putrefaction and there remaining nothing almost but Earth you see how it keeps its splendour amidst the darkness of the night And this in my conceit is the meaning of what Moses saith when he saith that God created the Light before the Sun For God having created the Elements in their natural purity they were sometimes in that state before mixture the Earth appeared not but the Water cover'd its whole Surface Every Element was in its own place and the purity of its Nature for which reason they had then their first Colour which is splendour But as soon as God had mingled them for the forming of Mixts their Light became clouded and chang'd into Colour And hence it was necessary to form a Sun in Heaven far from all sort of mixture and composition to the end he might alwayes preserve his Light and enlighten the world therewith The Fire preserves it self the most of all in its purity by reason of its great activity which consumes what ever approaches near it The other Elements would do so too if they could preserve themselves in their purity as well as the Fire But because they would be unprofitable should they remain such it is necessary that they be mingled one with another as well to serve for the production of Compounds as for their Aliment and several uses Hence their Light becomes chang'd into Colour which is nothing else but a Light extinguish'd more or less and accordingly we see some Colours more luminous then others The White is still wholly luminous the Red wholly resplendent the Green less and the Brown begins to grow dark Lastly the Black is nothing but Light wholly extinct and a kind of darkness and consequently hath nothing of reality but is a pure Privation which our Eyes perceive not As our Ear discerneth or perceiveth not silence but onely by not hearing any sound so neither doth the Sight behold Black and darkness but when it sees neither Colour nor Light So that to hear Silence and see darkness is to speak properly a vain attempt of the Soul which would fain exert its action of seeing and hearing and cannot Hence ariseth the sadness and terror which a deep silence and the sight of extreme blackness and darkness excites in the Soul For the Soul knows well that Life is nothing else but Exercise of its Faculties of which as soon as any thing is depriv'd there remains nothing to be expected but death She would fain exert her action and cannot she distinguishes not whether it be through default of the Object or whether her Faculty be lost but she finds a privation of her actions and represents to her self to be in the state of Death whence ariseth Sadness and Fear For as our Soul dreadeth nothing so much as Death so the least suspition the least sign and umbrage of Death is apt to put her into great dejection And this makes way for the Second Reason why the Soul becomes sad at the sight of a black Colour namely because it never appears in the Body but Death is at hand For this Colour is produc'd by the mortification and extinction of the Spirits as a Gangrene which is either caus'd by Adustion whereby Coals become black or by extreme coldness thus Old Men are of a leaden Colour tending to blackness Now the excess of heat and coldness is equally contrary to Life Wherefore as often as the Soul perceives blackness either in her own Body or in another she remembers the Qualities which produc'd it and are contrary to Life which she loves hence ariseth sadness And hence also it is that we naturally love a Countenance well proportion'd with an agreeable Colour wherein there is found a redness mingled with whiteness bright and lively with Spirits which is nothing else but an effect of the Love which our Soul bears to Life For knowing this to be the Colour of Health it affects the same even in another as on the other side it abhorreth Death Look upon a living Body it is full of brightness but a dead one is gloomy and dismal and at the instant that the Soul parts from the Body a dark shade seemes as it were to veil the Countenance Now that the Soul may understand it must become like to its Object Whence Aristotle said that the Intellect is potentially all things forasmuch as it can form it self into as many shapes as there are Objects So then it will perceive blackness it must become conformable to Black which it
or seen some ridiculous thing we many times laugh at it though the Object be not present 'T is also Disproportion that makes us laugh for we do not so when we behold a great Beauty but we do so when we look upon some odd ill-contriv'd countenance or when we find little sutableness between the Objects which are represented to us as an Old-man making Love a huge Hat upon a small Head one intending to make a graceful Reverence or cut a fine caper and falling all along in brief every thing that is said or done incongruously besides our expectation especially if no other more violent Passion interpose as Fear Respect and Pity which suppress Laughter We laugh at a Man that falls down but should he break his neck with the fall our Laughter would give place to Compassion In fine it appears that there is made a retraction of the Nerves during Laughter for we see a Convulsion causeth the same motion of the Muscles of the Face that Laughter doth whence cometh that malady which is called Risus Sardonicus in which by the retraction of the Nerves towards their Original the Patient seemes to laugh as he dyes The Third said He knew not whether of the two had most reason Democritus the Laugher or Heraclitus the Weeper For though the Faculty of Laughing be peculiar to Man and inseparable from Reason yet immoderate Laughter is as unacceptable as continual Tears And whereas we read in the Holy Scripture that our Lord sometimes wept but not that he ever laught this may be resolv'd That nothing was new to him The same being recorded of Heathens so stay'd and reserv'd that they were never seen to laugh as Crassus Cato the Censor Phocion and some others There is more difficulty in stating the Cause of Laughter Aristotle attributes it to the Diaphragme which is dilated by heat But seeing we laugh less in a Fever when the Diaphragme is most heated it is certain either that every heat of the Diaphragme doth not produce this effect or some other cause must be joyned with it Which I conceive to be an impression made in our Senses and by them in our Phancy of some agreeable unusual and un-foreseen Object when the same slips into it unawares Which Object exciting Joy in us by the Dilatation of the Spirits which is made first in the Arteries of the Brain and thereby insinuated into these of the Heart which opens to that Joy those dilated Spirits swell the Blood in the Veins which accompanies them so that not being containable in their own place the Veins and Arteries swell till they make a reflux in the Brain Diaphragme Lungs Face and all the parts of the Body where they cause the concussion and agitation observ'd in excessive Laughter and sometimes Tears by the compression of the Brain whilst it is not possible for any to check the eruption what ever respect be presented to them yea sometimes the Spirits are so rarifi'd that they evaporate whence follows sudden death as it befell Chrysippus of old who seeing an Ass eat figgs at the end of his table fell into so vehement Laughter that he dy'd immediately The Fourth said Laughter is a motion of the Body which follows that of the Soul Its Object is a sudden Joy surprizing us as a pleasant word after a serious discourse The scorn we make of any one causeth Laughter likewise because Contempt is a kind of Anger made up of Pleasure and Grief When the Pleasure happens to be greater then the Grief as it happens when our Enemy is so weak that we can be reveng'd on him when we list this contentment causeth us to laugh And hence it is that Sleighting is more offensive then Hatred alone Joubertus thinks Laughter is excited when Pleasure expands the Heart which by that dilatation gives motion to the Diaphragme and this consequently draws the Muscles of the Lipps Aristotle saith that by tickling a motion is caused in the Spirits which go and come to the place where the Man feels the Pleasure which Spirits passing and repassing light upon the Nerves who being too sensible and sollicited by the continual motion and agitation thereof endeavour to drive the same away and to that purpose contract themselves and draw unto themselves the parts into which they are inserted Hence in a great Laughter a Man is forc'd to compress himself and the sides ake with much laughing by reason of the tension of the Muscles and Nerves which are most agitated in that place Wherefore in my judgement Laughter is caus'd in this sort The sudden Pleasure or Titillation excites a motion of the Spirits which being very subtile are easily carry'd up to the Head there their agitation and motion importunes the Nerves and the Brain so that in the midst of this Pleasure there is caus'd a kind of Convulsive Motion And for that this agitation is chiefly inward therefore the internal parts first feel the effects of that gentle Convulsion the Diaphragme being more pliant and receiving more Nerves of the sixth Conjugation is agitated the most vehemently In profuse Laughter the Nerves of the whole Body sympathize with this disposition of the Brain their Common Original which being importun'd by those Spirits who though but natural are yet able to incommode the same by their too great agitation it contracts it self to be discharged of them attracting the Nerves to it self as much as it can whence proceeds this kind of Convulsion The Fifth said That the cause of Laughter is two-fold namely its Object which is of great latitude as good news unexpected joy which it is impossible to receive without laughing and its Subject which is indeed the Diaphragme for they who are wounded in that part seem to dye laughing as Hippocrates in the seventh of his Epidemicks observes to have befallen one Plychon for the same cause And this is no otherwise then as a certain kind of Ranunculus an Herb we call Crowfoot being eaten causeth loss of the Spirits and by the contraction of the Lips represents the Convulsion which is made during Laughter CONFERENCE XXV I. Of the Diversity of Countenances II. Whether Man or Woman be the more noble I. Of the Diversity of Countenances IDentity is so disagreeable that in all the objects of the Senses it displeases us Our Taste is glutted with alwayes eating the same Bread The most excellent Odour at length causeth the Head-ake To look too wistly upon the same object or to be too long together beheld by the same Eye fixed upon us is troublesome The Ear is tyr'd with twice hearing the same Tune and being continually struck upon by one and the same discourse how excellent soever it be The Touch the grossest of all the Senses is weary of one and the same temper of Air whence is drawn a certain consequence That the people under the Equinoctial or other Climate alwayes like to it self are sooner weary of living then others who have not leasure to be
hath found no sweeter Anodyne to the miseries and sadnesses of old people then the sight of children whom they extreamly love and then the memory of things done or learn'd in their non-age which the less distant it is from its source the Deity the more it partakes thereof The Fourth said Youth hath too many extravagancies to be accounted happy nor can Child-hood and Old-age deserve that title since 't would be contrary to the order of nature if the extreams contain'd more perfection then that which is in the middle where she hath establish'd the vertue of all things For as for Child-hood its weakness sufficiently shews that it hath not wherewith to content it self since it needs the help of others and is an object of pity a passion that never arises but from misery There 's no commendation in its innocence which depends upon impotence and the imperfection of the souls operations and they as much want the will and power to do well as the intention and means to do ill But true Innocence consists in the action of difficult good If Infancy hath no apprehension of the future it receives the present evil with much more pain and shews it self as sensible to the least displeasures as incapable of consolation and prudence to avoid them if it wants fear though indeed every thing terrifies it the hope of good to come never anticipates and prolongs its enjoyment In a word he cannot be happy who hath not the knowledge of his happiness which Children cannot have while they want the use of Reason which is peculiar to Man Old-age which is a second Childhood and the more to be dislik'd in that it always grows worse partakes all the defects of the first age and hath this besides that the desires awakened by the remembrance of pass'd conrentments are constantly jarring with his impotence and the ardency of getting and possessing hath a perpetual contract with the necessity of forsaking and losing pains and aches the forerunners of death daily attempt his patience and there 's no hope of other cure but the extremity of all evils not-being Infancy therefore is like the Spring which hath only flowers and expects the fruits afterwards 't is an age of hope without enjoyment Youth hath only Summer fruits of little lasting Old-age is a Winter without either flowers or fruits hath nothing but present evils in possession is to fear all and to lose all But Virility or Manhood holds the middle between them both and resembles Autumn denoted by the horn of Plenty possesses the happiness of life enjoys the present goods and by hope anticipates those to come the soul in this age commonly corresponds with the body its faculties make an agreeable symphonie with the actions hereof and the sweet union of a reciprocal complacency On the contrary in childhood the soul seems not yet well tun'd to the body in adolescence it always jars with the appetites of the Senses and in old age it altogether disagrees with it self and by a sudden departure endeavours to have its part separately CONFERENCE LX. I. Of Quintessence II. Which is the most in esteem Knowledge or Vertue I. Of Quintessence THe mind of man as it is the purer part of him so it is always pleas'd with that which is most pure In conversation it loves the most refin'd and prefers simplicity which is most pure above the windings and double-dealings of deceivers Amongst Metals it prefers Gold and Silver which are the purest above Lead Iron and other imperfect and course Minerals In food Physick and the stomack of the diseased chuse that which is most freed from its gross and unprofitable parts Among sounds the most subtile are the most charming Among artificial things we find more sprightliness in the gracefulness of small works then in others In the Sciences the more subtile a reason is the more 't is applauded But being health is the greatest yea the only true good being the foundation of all the rest and sickness the greatest yea the only real evil of our life therefore our minds have herein most sought after subtilety especially to subtilize aliments and medicaments not but that there may be a quintessence as well drawn from other things but it would not be so useful Now 't is to be observ'd that this word is taken either generally for any body depurated from its more course matter as Spirits Waters and Oyls excluding Magisteries which retain the intire substance of the bodies from whence they are taken only render'd more active by its subtilization or else it is taken properly and in this acception Quintessence is some thing different from all this and is compar'd to the soul which informs the body The Second said That in every compound body there is a mixture of substance besides that of qualities whence arise the occult properties and forms of things which is their fifth Essence 't is no Body for it takes not up place nor yet a Spirit since 't is found also in inanimate bodies but some thing of a middle nature between both and neither one nor the other Of which kind we want not examples in Nature Shadow the Image in a Glass yea all intentional species are neither body nor spirit Now that it takes not up place may be prov'd because a bottle of Wine expos'd unstop'd to the air is not diminish'd in its quantity yet lofes its taste smell and other qualities by which change it becomes another thing from what it was before an evidence that it hath lost its form which is nothing else but the Quintessence we speak of and should another body receive the same it would have the qualities the Wine lost which after separation of them is no more Wine then the carcase of a man is a man after his soul is departed Moreover that which nourishes in food is not a body but the form or quintessence of it since by the observation of the most Inquisitive 't is found that the excrements of all the concoctions equal the aliments both in weight and quantity as the Urine of Drunkards is commonly as much as the Wine they have drunk and Mineral waters are voided in the same quantity that they were taken This fifth Essence is found every where in the Elements and in compound bodies In those 't is the purest of the Element impregnated with the Universal Spirit in these 't is likewise the purest part of the compound animated by the same Spirit The Third said There is no other Quintessence but the Heaven in comparison of the Elements in the mixtion whereof the Heaven concurs as an universal Agent whose influence which is the soul of the World determining the matter informs and renders it active thus the Stars produce Metals even in the centre of the Earth Hence the world Heaven is taken by Chymists for Quintessence because of the simplicity and activity common both to the one and the other But because it cannot fall under the cognisance of
decrepit Parents instead of believing themselves parricides call us cruel for letting ours continue so long in the miseries of age Infinite like instances have caus'd some to say that 't is another nature but I hold it stronger then nature since by it Mithridates render'd poyson innoxious to himself and some whole Nations of India live upon Toads Lizards and Spiders Yea it hath made death as lovely and desireable as life amongst great Nations whereas Philosophy with all its pompous discourses hath labour'd much to render the same indifferent to a few persons 'T is call'd by Pindar the Emperess of the world and caus'd Seneca to say that we govern not our selves by reason but by custom accounting that most honest which is most practis'd and error serves us for a law when it is become publick Lastly 't is stronger then the laws themselves since it gives them all the power and authority which they have The Fifth said That Vertue it self is nothing but a custom For we have it not by nature as Plato holds in his Menander because of those things which we have by nature the faculties are found in us before the actions So the power of seeing hearing and speaking is in man before these acts but we perform vertuous actions before we have the habit of vertue Moreover these vertues are for this reason call'd moral because they are implanted by custom and as an Architect learns his Art by frequent building so by constant performance of acts of justice or courage men become just or courageous Therefore the true way to become virtuous is to be accustom'd to vertue from one's infancy and hence Fathers are so careful to have their children well instructed and to give them good examples For being nothing but difficulty keeps men off from the practice of virtue if this difficulty were remov'd by custom which makes the hardest things easie vertue which seems so knotty would be delightful and pass into nature And 't is a token of perfect vertue when men take pleasure in exercising it CONFERENCE LXIV I. Of the Imagination II. Which is most powerful Hope or Fear I. Of the Imagination BEcause the knowledge of the present suffic'd not for the preservation of animals but requir'd also that of the past and the future therefore Nature hath made provision for the same giving them not only five Outward Senses whereby they know their objects present for every sensation is a sort of knowledge but likewise a Common Sense to Distinguish those objects an Imagination to represent the same to it when they are absent and a Memory to preserve the Species Now as amongst the external Senses those are exercis'd most perfectly whose organs are best dispos'd so amongst the internal those are most vigorous which are found in a brain best temper'd for their action If its constitution be humid then the Common Sense acts most perfectly if dry the Memory is most tenacious if hot the Phancy or Imagination is strongest But if the temper of the same Brain be cold and dry then Prudence reigns in it as we see in old men and melancholy persons For 't is more reasonable to say that the Organ of these faculties is the whole Brain then any one part of it And what is brought for proof of the contrary that oftimes one of the faculties is hurt while the rest are entire some having a sound Memory when their Imagination is deprav'd argues not that they have different seats but as the natural faculty in the whole Liver sometimes attracts but cannot retain retains but cannot digest or separate excrements so the animal faculty equally dispers'd through the whole substance of the Brain sometimes judges well of the difference of objects acknowledges conveniences and disconveniences receives the true species but yet cannot retain them on the contrary the Memory will be sometimes entire although the Imagination be disorder'd because the constitution which is then found in the whole Brain is fit for the exercise of one of those functions not of the other Moreover it happens not unusually that those faculties are wounded although the Ventricles assign'd for their residence be not as in the head-ach or distemper of the Brain and in Phrensies caus'd only by inflammation of the Meninges without any laesion of the Ventricles The Second said That the Imagination is not distinct from the other faculties but our soul resembles the Sun which in the continuity of the same action hath different effects not acting in the diaphanous parts of Heaven refrigerating the middle region of the air heating the lower and again herein corrupting some bodies producing and giving life to others The conservation of the species and their reception not being two different actions but rather as the wax by one and the same action receives a figure and retains it so the Imagination which receives the species of objects must not be distinguish'd from it self when it preserves and retains them unless by reason or mental discrimination whereby we call Memory it self an action although it be but the continuation and preservation of the first The Third said The effects of the Imagination are so marvellous that most of those are ascrib'd to it whereof we can find no other reason As the likeness of Children to their Fathers although they be only putatives because the apprehension of disloyal Wives of being surpriz'd by their Husbands makes them conceive them always present the production of most Monsters the marks imprinted upon the Child in the Womb and the like But that it is the Mistress of Reason and the Will deserves most admiration For the Soul imagining no danger or proposing to it self a good greater then the mischief of the danger carries the body upon the ridges of houses upon ropes and breaches even upon the mouths of Canons makes some swim cross rivers asleep who destroy and drown themselves and are frighted where they have least cause namely when they awake or find themselves alone in the dark so soon as their Phancy proposes some terrible object to them how absurd soever it be Wherefore they who desire to encourage Souldiers heat their Brains with Wine which keeps their imagination from representing the danger to them or raise some extraordinary boldness in them by generous discourses whose new impressions drive their bodies upon dangers Hence the Turks disorder the imagination of their Souldiers by Opium the effect whereof in the quantity wherein they take it is contrary to that whereby it casts sick persons into a sleep in this climate Reason never acquiesces in the propositions which our Imagination hath not apprehended as true and therefore weak minds are less capable of relinquishing an error wherewith they have been imbu'd Offences are not such but so far as our phancy conceives them such For a great hurt which we have receiv'd if an excuse follow it offends us not whereas an indifferent word a coldness a gesture which we interpret for a scorn even a privation
and the holiest mysteries of Religion not onely by the Delians who accompany'd all their prayers with dancing and the Indians who ador'd the Sun by dancing and imitating the course of that luminary but also by the Prophet David before the Ark and by Saul who being full of the Spirit of God fell to dancing with the Children of the Prophets as also did Miriam the sister of Moses Judith when she had kill'd Holofernes and infinite others in testimony of their thanksgiving to God The Muses themselves are painted by the Poets dancing about their fountain upon Mount Helicon Apollo is call'd dancer by Pindar and the Graces are represented dancing Proteus so celebrated by the Poets became famous onely by this Art and which he so excell'd that his nimble in strange postures gave occasion to the fable of turning himself into all kind of shapes because sometimes he counterfeited the fluidity of the water sometimes the lightness of fire the bending of trees the rage of the Leopard the cruelty of the Lyon and in brief the nature of every sort of things The Third said That Dancing is compos'd of three parts Motion Gesture and Indication For there is first a stirring up and down then a representing things by the Gestures of the Body chiefly by the Hand which Art is call'd Chironomy and those which are expert in it Chirosophers that is wise by the Hands Hence Dancing is defin'd a motion of the Body according to rule and number imitating by gesture things or persons either with singing or without As Motion 't is very delightful to Nature which is as much pleas'd therein as rest is disagreeable to it Nor is it less so as it includes an harmonious proportion of measure having this correspondence with Musick Poetry Eloquence Painting Comedy and all other Arts whose end is the delight of man But as it is an imitation it delights marvellously we loving nothing so much as to imitate or to see some thing imitated Hence works of Art please us more then those of Nature because Art doth nothing but imitate her Besides its delightfulness 't is also profitable and honest It s usefulness is sufficiently known to Physitians who make it a part of their Gymnastick Physick which treats of the exercises and motions prescrib'd in order to health and is divided into Palestrical and Saltatory Moreover Galen affirms that he cur'd many Patients by appointing them to dance which is an exercise of all parts of the body whereas walking exercises onely the legs riding the intestines bowling the reins going by ship the stomack and brain 'T is also very honest or decorous since it formes and fashions the body giving it a good grace one of the principal points of handsomeness For the Soul having the Sciences to instruct the Understanding and the Moral Virtues to rectifie the Will the body its dear partner needs some habit to regulate its defects the rather because they have influence upon the Soul it being very difficult for the motions of the Soul to be regular so long as those of the body are not Therefore Plato in the seventh book of his Laws requires that the instructers of youth have equally care of the body and the soul and for this purpose teach them Musick to regulate the motions of the Soul and dancing to frame those of the body and give it gracefulness as wrastling gives it strength CONFERENCE LXVII I. Of Death II. Of the Will I. Of Death AS Being is the first and greatest good because the foundation of all other goods so speaking absolutely upon a natural account the first and greatest of all evils is the privation of that Being which is Death so terrible that not onely brutes abhor the sight of their dead fellows through fear of the same death of which they behold an image of their carcases but men likewise although their name of Mortals be a token of the necessity of their dying yet use all the vain attempts they can to avoid that death which they fear as the most terrible of terrble things Yea all their great and violent actions and passions take their source from this fear which is so much greater as the evil is phancy'd nearer Whence old or sick persons have more apprehension of it then then those that are young and in health The vulgar commonly labours onely through fear of starving A man that is decrepit yet is willing to part with a limb if he may by the loss respite his death apprehended so terrible by some that the fear of it has kill'd some criminals before execution and carry'd others to such madness as to kill themselves for fear of dying Nevertheless he that shall consider Death more nearly will find that being but a privation it is nothing and that what we fear so much is onely the way to this death or the sequel of it the former in respect of irrational animals and both in reference to man who apprehends in the other life the judgement of the actions of this Otherwise Death being onely a poynt and a moment which hath neither quantity nor extent but approaches to Nothing hath therefore nothing in it self for which it ought to be feared For so long as the Animal hath sense it is not dead and so soon as 't is dead it hath no more And because 't is a motion and passage from Being to not Being between which two there is no medium or middle therefore 't is a pure nothing and consequently hath no foundation saving in the troubled Phancy Since upon due perpension of things that which is not is no-wise to be fear'd by those that are insensible yea that exist no more The Second said That to maintain Death to be nothing is to accuse not onely all men of folly in fearing what exists not and consequently is not capable of producing any effects or passions but likewise Nature of imprudence in having imprinted this apprehension in all creatures for their preservation As therefore Reason and Experience teach us that there are substantial generations so the same shew us the true and substantial corruptions of all compounds which corruption in a thing endu'd with life is call'd Death which is the separation of the Soul from the Body For the Platonists are ridiculous when they make two kinds of this separation namely that of the Soul from the Body which they call Extasie and that of the Body from the Soul which alone they say is to be call'd Death For they are both one and the same thing and Extasie is not a separation of essence but of power hapning when the Soul is so glu'd to an object in the contemplation whereof it employes all its powers that there remains none for corporeal functions the Eyes not perceiving what is then presented to them Whence the Soul being more where it loves then where it lives is also more where it understands Now Death is either natural or violent The former caus'd by the consumption
shew'd thereby that death is not the most terrible thing since they embrac'd it as a remedy to their misfortunes But that which renders our experience as well as our reasoning weak in this matter is that none can give account of it either before or after trial for while we live it is not yet and when it is we are no longer Nevertheless Plato in his Timaeus affirms that violent death caus'd by diseases or wounds is painful but not that which comes of old age which he saith happens by dissolution of the triangles which retain the Soul in the Body For the former being against nature is as troublesome to it as the other which following the course of nature is agreeable to it because the soul having finish'd its task begins now to resent some foretastes of beatitude and hence it begins also to have some knowledge of future things At least this sort of death is very little sensible being caus'd slowly and equally and by consequence without pain Yea if it be true that the Heart is the last part that dyes the brain losing sense before the Heart cannot communicate the same to the whole body which consequently feels not the pains of death but those which lead to it and which make their pangs more felt by those that bear up against them by reason of the resistance of their strength then when the strength is overcome and fails whence those that have Apoplexies endure no pain during the course of their malady And such as have been taken down half dead from the Gallows agree that they endur'd nothing but fear For which cause this kind of death is accounted very easie and without any sense the brain being depriv'd thereof by compression of the Carotides Arteries which carry the spirits to it and become apoplectical by the quantity of blood which is included in it as also the heart being stifl'd falls into deliquium and the principal parts are depriv'd of sense by the constriction of the Nerves of the sixth pair Those whom a Gangrene in the leg or arm parts more sensible then those within brings to their end affirm that oftentimes death comes upon them without pain Indeed since life ends as it begins and the soul goes out of the body after the same manner that it enter'd into it therefore as at its entrance it first exercises the vegetative operations afterwards the sensitive so the vegetative faculty remains last subsists in the dying creature when all the rest are extinct and is lost without sense in the same manner as in Plants For the convulsive motions of dying persons argue not their having of sense since those that are in an Epileptical fit suffer much greater without pain II. Of the Will Upon the second Point it was said That every created thing having a tendency towards its chief natural good hath also faculties whereby to attain the same This chief good is the supream perfection of its being And because that of man consists in knowing truth loving good and being united by enjoyment to both the one and the other he hath been likewise furnish'd with powers for this end two wherewith to know and as many to love according to the two sorts of goods whereof he is capable as compos'd of a sensitive part and an intellectual He knows sensible good by help of the Senses which gust the same in its whole latitude and honest good by the Understanding He loves sensible good by the sensitive appetite and honest good by the Will which is a rational desire of good For it loves not any good which hath not first been judg'd such by reason which serves it in stead of eyes being a blind faculty of it self that is without knowledge whence they say knowing must go before loving And 't is not necessary that this good be truly such of its own nature if it be apprehended as such this is sufficient to render it the object of our will Nevertheless being good but in appearance it only takes the will for a while but do's not satiate it as honest good doth towards which we have a natural inclination Whence it is that such as have deviated from it as soon as their understanding is rectifi'd resent an inward grief thereupon which is that dictate of Reason call'd Synteresis The Second said That the Will is the mistress of all the animal powers which it causes to operate and forbear as it pleases exercising its dominion too over the Understanding which it commands to take notice of and contemplate one object rather then another Nevertheless as the pores subject to it are disserent so is the empire distinct which it exercises over them For that which it hath over the loco-motive faculty is a despotical empire such as a Master hath over his servant that which it hath over the sensitive appetite and other faculties is Political like that of a Magistrate over his fellow Citizens who obey him so that yet they forbear not to do many things without him and even against his will The motions of the sensitive appetite being herein like those of the Celestial Spheres which follow that of their superior Sphere and nevertheless have a contrary one of their own And this Appetite is carri'd not only to its particular object without the command of the Will but also towards things wholly contrary to it and this for punishment of the sin whereby the will rebelling against God deserv'd that the appetite at first subject to it should become rebellious to it destroying the agreeable harmony which appear'd in the state of innocence Which contrariety is the greater in as much as the object of the will is honest which is commonly difficult and that of the sensitive appetite delectable which two being opposite draw it several ways and hence arise the conflicts of the flesh against the spirit yea the same man at the same time and for the same thing feels contrary motions in himself a certain evidence of their real difference The Third said 'T is the Will alone that makes us happy or unhappy since it makes us good or bad and nothing is such unless it be voluntary and free Hence it hath so great a power that it alone over-rules the Stars which govern all being capable of having inclinations contrary to theirs It is known as other faculties are by its actions which are either extrinsecal as commanding the animal faculties or within it self as willing or not willing pursuing or aversion joying or grieving For the property of man being to know his end as such if this end be good he wills it if evil he wills it not if absent he pursues it if present he enjoys it if the evil be absent he averts from it if present he is afflicted by it But before the will attain this end it proposes consults and deliberates of the means to arrive thereunto which it compares together in order to find which is most expedient and is carri'd to the
but one life to lose yet this action could not pass for a virtue since Fortitude appears principally in sufferings and miseries which to avoid by death is rather cowardize and madness then true courage Wherefore the Poet justly blames Ajax for that after he had overcome Hector despis'd fire and flames yet he could not subdue his own choler to which he sacrific'd himself And Lucretia much blemish'd the lustre of her chastity by her own murder for if she was not consenting to Tarquin's crime why did she pollute her hands with the blood of an innocent and for the fault which another had committed punishments as well as offences being personal He who kills himself only through weariness of living is ingrateful for the benefits of nature of which life is the chief if he be a good man he wrongs his Country by depriving it of one and of the services which he owes to it as he wrongs Justice if he be a wicked person that hath committed some crime making himself his own witness Judge and Executioner Therefore the Prince of Poets places those in hell who kill'd themselves and all Laws have establish'd punishments against them depriving them of sepulture because saith Egesippus he that goes out of the world without his father's leave deserves not to be receiv'd into the bosom of his mother the earth I conclude therefore that the ignorant dreads death the timerous fears it the fool procures it to himself and the mad man executes it but the wise attends it The Third said That the generous resolution of those great men of antiquity ought rather to have the approbation then the scorn of a reasonable mind and 't is proper to low spirits to censure the examples which they cannot imitate 'T is not meet because we are soft to blame the courage of a Cato who as he was tearing his own bowels could not forbear laughing even while his soul was upon his lips for joy of his approaching deliverance nor the constancy of a Socrates who to shew with what contentedness he received death convers'd with it and digested what others call its bitterness without any trouble the space of forty days Sextius and Cleanthes the Philosopher follow'd almost the same course Only they had the more honour for that their deaths were purely voluntary For the will forc'd by an extrinsecal cause performs nothing above the vulgar who can obey the laws of necessity but when nothing forces us to dye but our selves and we have good cause for it this death is the most gallant and glorious Nor is it injust as is pretended any more then the Laws which suffer a man to cut off his leg for avoiding a Gangrene Why should not the Jugular Vein be as well at our choice as the Median For as I transgress not the Laws against Thieves when I cut my own Purse nor those against Incendiaries when I burn my own wood so neither am I within the Laws made against murtherers by depriving my self of life 't is my own good which I abandon the thred which I cut is my own And what is said that we are more the publick's then our own hath no ground but in our pride which makes us take our selves for such necessary pieces of the world as not to be dismember'd from it without a noble loss to that great body Besides were we so usefull to the world yet our own turn must be first serv'd Let us live then first for our selves if it be expedient next for others but when life becomes worse then death let us quit it as we do an inconvenient or unbecoming garment Is it not a sign of generosity to make Gouts Stones Aches and all other Plagues of life yield to the stroke of a victorious hand which alone blow puts an end to more maladies then all the simples of Galen and the Antidotes of Avicenna The Fourth said He could not approve the determination of the Stoicks who say that vulgar souls live as long as they can those of the wise as long as 't is fit departing out of life as we do from the table or from play when we are weary That the examples of Priseia who accompani'd her husband in death of Piso who dy'd to save his children of Sextus's daughter who kill'd her self for her father of Zeno who did as much to avoid the incommodities of old age which made it pass for piety at Rome a long time to cast decrepit old men head-long from a Bridge into Tiber are as culpable as he who surrenders a place when he is able to defend it For whereas Plato exempts such from the punishment against sui-cides who committed it to avoid infamy or intolerable necessity and what Pliny saith that nature hath for this end produc'd so many poysonous Plants for five or six sorts of Corn that there is but one way to enter into the world but infinite to go out of it the imputing it to stupidity not to go out of a prison when one hath the key adding that 't is lawful to execute that which 't is lawful to desire as S. Paul did his own death yea the example which is alledged of Sampson of Razias and of eleven thousand Virgins who precipitated themselves into the sea to save their chastity in the Church are effects of a particular inspiration not to be drawn into consequence and out of it examples of rage and despair disguis'd with the mask of true fortitude and magnanimity which consists chiefly in supporting evils as the presidents of so many religious souls attest to us CONFERENCE XC I. Of Hunting II. Which is to be prefer'd the weeping of Heraclitus or the laughing of Democritus I. Of Hunting IF the least of goods hath its attractions 't is no wonder if Hunting wherein are comprehended the three sorts of good honest profitable and delightful have a great interest in our affection being undoubtely preferrable before any other exercise either of body or mind For Play Women Wine and all the pleasure which Luxury can phancy in superfluity of Clothes Pictures Flowers Medals and such other passions not unfitly nam'd diseases of the soul are divertisements either so shameful or so weak that they cannot enter into comparison with hunting so honest that it hath been always the recreation of great persons whose martial courage us'd to be judg'd of by their inclination to this sport which Xenophon calls the apprentisage of War and recommends so much to Cyrus in his Institution as Julius Pollux doth to the Emperour Commodus It s profitableness is chiefly discern'd in that it renders the body dextrous and active preserves health and by inuring it to labour makes a firm constitution hindring it from being delicate consumes the superfluous humours the seeds of most diseases Lastly the pleasure of Hunting must needs be great since it makes the Hunters think light of all their pains and incommodities The mind has its pleasure in it by hope of the prey in such as
by expulsion of the noxious humours Moreover humidity revives Plants and Animals and Man Nature's perfectest work abounds most with it to which cause Cardan refers his greater sagacity And being life is nothing else but the Prime Humidity thence thirst comes to be the greatest bodily inconvenience and diseases caus'd by a dry intemperature are generally incurable Rheum is not so dangerous as an Hectick Fever and experience shews us that land too moist may be render'd fertile but there 's no remedy for the droughts of Africa humane Art being puzled to preserve a Garden during those of Summer Lastly Physick takes the opportunity of moist weather for purgations as most convenient for health The Third said That all the first qualities are active but heat and moisture more then the other two whence the air being imbu'd with humidity alters our bodies more sensibly then when 't is charg'd with dry exhalations For our radical moisture is aerious oyly and benigne and the extraneous moisture is aqueous maligne and pernicious a capital enemy to that balsame of life as extraneous heat is to our vital heat which is suffocated by abundance of excrements collected by humidity which stops the pores but dissipated by dryness which opens them Which made the Prince of Physick say Aph. 15. Sect. 3. that of the seasons of the year droughts are more healthy and less fatal then rainy and moist weather in which happen long Fevers Fluxes Epilepsies Apoplexies and divers others putrid maladies Though 't is impossible to determine the question absolutely because 't would be requisite to consider siccity and humidity separate from other qualities and in their own nature wherein they are not to be found being never separated from cold or heat which render their natures and consequently their effects various The Fourth said That the pleasure we take in a thing is the surest evidence of the good or hurt it does us Hence rain is always more grateful to us in droughts then the contrary Besides Death and old age which leads to it is nothing but a desiccation and dry diseases are most perillous because they are either conjoyn'd with heat which encreases them and makes them very acute or with cold which generates Schirrusses and other maladies accompani'd with obstruction which are not cur'd but by humectation Summer and Autumn are the sickliest and dryest seasons of the year but we are more healthy in Winter and the Spring And do's not the humidity of the night repair the loss caus'd by the siccity and actions of the day as in the morning the most humid part of the day our minds are more serene then all the rest of the day whence it was call'd the friend of the Muses The Brain the mansion of the soul and its divinest faculties is not only most humid but the seat of humidity as choler melancholy fear and all other passions common to us with beasts have their seat in the Gall the Spleen and the heart which are dry parts But although humidity seems more a friend to nature then siccity yet the question must be voided by the distinction of temperaments of which the melancholy and the bilious especially receive very great incommodity from droughts and benefit from moist seasons which on the contrary much torment the phlegmatick II. Which is to be preferr'd the contemplative life or the active Upon the second Point 't was said That man being born to live in society and employment the contemplative life seems incongruous to this end and our first Parent was plac'd in the earth to Till it and eat his bread in the sweat of his countenance not to live idly and look about him Moreover the end is more noble then the means which tend to it but we generally contemplate only in order to act In Divinity we consider God's Commandments in order to perform them In Mathematicks Lines Surfaces Solids Numbers and Motions to make use thereof for Fortifications Carpentry and the Mechanicks In Natural Philosophy its Principles and Causes to refer the same to Medicine In Law Right to apply it to Fact In Morality the Virtues in order to exercise them Consider what difference there is between the contemplation of an empty brain and solid action that is to say between theory and practice you will find the former only a chimera and the other a reality as excellent and profitable as the first is useless except to feed the phancy with vain imaginations and fill the mind with presumption there being none but thinks himself a greater master then others before he hath set his hand to the work and yet 't is by their works that our Lord tells us we shall know every one and not by their discourses which are as much below them as effects and things are more then words The Second said Contemplation is as much more excellent then action as the soul is then the body and to compare them together is to equal the servant with her mistress For not to speak of the raptures of an extasi'd soul nor of eternal blisse which consisting in contemplation that of this world must do the like in reference to natural things Nature alone teaches us that things which are for themselves are more excellent then those which are for others But the contemplation and knowledge of truth hath no other end but it self action the common uses of life Whence contemplation less needs external things then action which requires the help of Riches Honours Friends and a thousand other circumstances which hinder a contemplative person more then they help him who therefore delights most in Desarts and Solitudes Moreover the end is to be prefer'd before the means and the end of active life is to bring us rest as the military life is in order to establish and the civil to preserve peace therefore the rest of the contemplative life being the end of the turbulent active life it is much more noble then its means As appears also by its duration which is greater then that of transient and transitory action but contemplation is durable and permanent which is a sign of the Divinity of the Intellect that produces it infinitely more excellent then all the other inferior powers the principles of actions Contemplation being abstracted from matter and earthly things wearies not the body as actions do which require corporeal organs and therefore the pleasure of it is most pure and simple and constant in regard of its object those sublime things which wisdom contemplates whereas that of action is never intire by reason of the inconstancy of its object which are political things continually mutable The contemplative man finds full satisfaction in himself without going abroad to beg approbation and rewards from men without which virtues languish and are imperfect Moreover the pleasure of contemplation is peculiar to men and not competent to brutes who have not only external actions as well as we as Speaking Singing Dancing Fighting Spinning Building and other Works