the minds diversion and not the employment of the Will they polish our Speech and our Actions remain unrectified and all the witty things they propose are but to divertize their Lovers so that the greatest part of our Sciences are properly but specious trifling imaginations and I do not think that he could offend the learned who should define Knowledg to be the Dreames of them that watch and Dreams to be the Knowledg of them that sleep These defects in Knowledg would be tolerable if other more dangerous consequences did not follow them and that after having held their Martyrs in hand with things that fall out to be of little use they did not make them impious or insolent For as she is of an imperious humor suffers no opposition pretends to understand all things and would no less be thought to dive into the mysteries of Faith than into the secrets of Nature she is made use of to uphold Vice and is conversant about what has most of shew and not about what hath most of Truth and by an injustice contrary to that of Idolatry she employs the most sublime part of her skill to bring in question or to overthrow the Maxims and Principles of Religion But not to discredit Knowledg without authority is it not she that hath so often changed the face of Christendom Did not Philosophers become the first Hereticks Did not the ages of the greatest Learning lean more to Atheism than to Religion And was the Church ever more dismembred than when Ecclesiasticks undertook to raise Arguments upon her Dignity and Decrees The diversity of their Opinions stifled that Charity which ought to have united her and they ceased to be Christians when they were become learned men the Desire that possest them of out-arguing their Antagonists made their designs scandalous even to the Heathen and those men of Darkness were sufficiently enlightened to see that they who were looked upon as the Pillars of the Church robbed her Faith of Assurance her Doctrine of Evidence and her Councils of Authority Doth not all Europe complain at this day of the Art of Physick Are not her Remedies as cruel as hazardous The Disputes of her Doctors have they not been the destruction of the greatest number of them that are gone down to the Chambers of Death Do not Physicians make traffick of human Bodies without being arreigned at the Tribunals of Justice when forgoing the Instructions of their Masters they try the experience of new Medicines at the price of our Lives And see we not daily that they send Death to their Patients with the Drinks that ought to cure them The Churches and Church-yards are full of their victims the Marbles that cover them publish nothing but their injustice and if the Stones under which they lie were not insensible they would openly accuse them of Temerity and Ambition they would proclaim to all the world that they are deprived of Life by using too much means to preserve it that Art hastened their Sepulture and that the multitude of Medicaments was the only cause of their Death So that Science which was invented to divert or comfort us is turned into our chastisement and it were to be wisht for the common good that as she is banisht from amongst the Turks and Barbarians she were also unknown to Christians For as she maintains that the Cause from whence she proceeds is infallible she becomes obstinate in her determinations she approves of no waters but what are drawn from her own fountain and building upon the certainty of her own Authority she from thence formeth Consequences no less dangerous than to her they seem evident In fine Knowledg is an immortal evil her fury is without bounds her malice exceeds the limits of time and she is not less pernicious to man in the discovery of false Doctrine than when she invents Reasons to intice him to defend or imbrace it Discourse IV. That the Buildings and Gardens of Grandees are not so much the Inventions of Necessity as Vanity ALthough in the precedent discourse I declare war against Philosophy and by Arguments drawn from Senecas Authority do discover plain enough the vanity and deceipt thereof yet should I think it an offence against that Justice so religiously observed in the Schools if I permitted not her adherents to stand up in her defence and to make their appeals from that condemnation to plead her cause and bringing their bill of review to set forth her perfections to cover her defects Her advantages are so considerable that we must be ignorant of her merit if we slight her too much and Reason must forsake us if we esteem not the most noble and most delightful of her rational productions Some have thought that we owe all our felicity to the observation of her maxims that our glory consisted in her enjoyment and that if our life were sustained by the aids of the Gods we became vertuous by the help of Philosophy In fine they were not afraid to declare that we were more obliged to her then to nature which gave us being That if we received this from Heaven we obtained vertue from that and that a vertuous life being much above that which we hold in common with the Beasts we were more beholding to her instructions then to the bounty of the Gods if they were not as well the Authors of knowledg as of life It is easie to confirm this discourse by the Grandeur of her Employments and to judg of the excellency of her nature by the different effects of her operations in the World For although the most glorious of her exercises tend to the discovery of Truth by her lights to teach us the adoration of God as our Soveraign and to respect our Neighbours as members of our selves Though she take upon her the care of instructing Princes of leading their Subjects in the paths of obedience of shewing Fathers how to educate their Children and of furnishing States-men with those excellent rules by which to retain the people within the lemits of respect and to make themselves dreaded of their Enemies Yet would she think her labours ineffectual to their purpose if she had not first allured them from their Caves and Forests to give them the discipline of good manners and preserving to every one their right taught them to erect Houses Castles and Citadells Indeed it 's she that invented Architecture that contrived the first Mansions and who raised sumptuous Palaces for Kings after she had built Huts and Cottages Ti 's she saith an illustrious Stoick who taught our forefathers to mix sand and lime to square Marbles with Iron to hew Timber with Steel to erect walls by aid of Lime and Plummet and to spread Lead and Copper upon our Houses The proud Buildings which at this day we behold with so much applause are the operations of Philosophy the Architects that raised them are but the Ministers and what industry soever they have emploied to polish
of our life in his hands is able to condemn us to tortures as terrible as infamous Although that Diseases destroy the Body as well as Torments that the Pestilence be not less feared by us than punishments and that there be natural evils that exceed the cruelty of the most ingenious Tyrants yet is there not any thing which so much amazteh us as the sight of torments and nothing so much shakes our stability as the preparations made to deprive us of life or to make proof of our Faith Other evils which arise from our constitution seize us silently and their coming is so sudden that there is often no distance of time between their first arrivel and their violence Sickness overtakes us without warning it runs into our veins without noise and without shew of that which might trouble us it congeals our blood or burns up our entrails Poverty hath not so frightful an aspect she neither hurts our Eyes nor our Ears when she enters upon the ruines of Riches and Fortune changeth not her countenance in making us poor or in placing us in the midst of abundance But Tortures are terrible we are astonisht at their preparations the instruments of Death which they set out before us beat down our courage and that tumultuous noise which attends the ceremony throws horror into the minds of all that behold it There they set in order all the cruelties which the malice of Tyrants hath invented here they set up the Cross raise the Rack expose the boiling Cauldrons to view lay open the pitched Shirts and rowze the cruelty of savage Beasts to devour us all this attracting matter sends Terror into our Soul and it ought not to be thought strange if we are so much afraid of Torments since they are shewed us with so much addition and that they appear to our eies in such frightful shapes that the Executioner even redoubles our Fear by gradually exposing the instruments of Torture and causeth the most resolute to abate his Constancy by the preparation of things that are able to offend it Nothing so much abates our Spirit as the consideration of the evil that threatens us and experience lets us see that pain is always less rigorous than the apprehension we had of it It is not always the thing that wounds us but the opinion that we have conceived of it and we have found some persons that had endured Tortures with constancy had they not first been overcome by the ceremonies thereof A man is not miserable unless he think himself to be so his thoughts are the Regulators of his pains and to become a glorious Conqueror he need but perswade himself that the evil he suffereth is light Although these Arguments be peculiar they cease not to be true and it 's sufficient to observe the effects of opinion to make judgment of what she can say for her self For as she is the Child of the Body rather than of the Soul and borrows her activity from the Sense she takes her part in all the accidents that befall it she shares in his Joy and Grief and by a subtile craft she raiseth the price of what ever pleaseth it and augments the horror of what ever is odious to it From thence it comes that she represents Torments with so much frightfulness and enhauncing upon the evils which the Body suffers she gives them dreadful shapes which astonish us and which equally send their horror into the Soul of the Patient and of the Spectators She is so suspicious that she never represents evil nakedly and she is so little faithful in her reports that she is generally found a lyar If we float upon the Sea and the Winds swell her Waves or never so little toss our Vessel we become faint-hearted Reason and Light make their escape and as if we had already suffered shipwrack or were condemned to drink up the whole Sea we grow pale with Fear and fall into a sweat with fright If Earth tremble under our feet and if the houses that cover us do but shake or make shew of falling upon us what out-cries do we not make and what Deaths faces do we not shew in our countenances Cold takes possession of all our Limbs Fear summons the Blood to the Heart all objects astonish us and as if the whole house were to fall on our heads we are afraid of every part Yet we are not ignorant that a small quantity of water will choak us that a tyle from our house is sufficient to knock out our Brains and that we need but a Hole of three foot to do our business It is the same in matters of Torture of which we have so much apprehension the noise that attends it makes the greatest part of the pain Opinion enhaunceth its violence and the sight of so many instruments set out for shew fills us with more Grief than that Death we are to suffer yet we know that all those armed Soldiers that that Troop of Officers that the Executioner trimmed up in a Wastcoat can but remove us out of the World let out our Soul at the wound to be given us and not to affright our selves with the name of Murther separate our Soul from our Body In fine they can do but what a Worm doth among Children in a Chamber what the Gangreen causeth in the Hospitals and what the Feaver every day produceth in the Courts of Princes and Shepherds Huts An ordinary resolution will serve to endure evils that pass in a moment and which often terminate with the same stroak by which they began It is indeed a difficult thing to gain this power upon our selves we find at this day but few Scaevolas and Regulus's it appertaineth but to those great Souls of Antiquity to brave Tortures and bear them without disturbance We find no more men who dare burn their own hands to abate the confidence of their Persecutors who dare run to meet Death in derision of their tyrannical oppressors and whose Joys in professing their innocence are not interrupted under the hand of the Executioner Modern Philosophy hath made us too tender and the love of our Bodies is become too natural to us not to be afraid of so many evils as do conspire our destruction not to fear a Wedg of Iron which breaks our Bones wild Beasts which rip up our Bowels Engines by which Death is conveyed to us with tedious repetitions and moderate flames which reduce us not to ashes till after our patience is tyred out But as general Principles terminate in examples and that the living draw from them their principal Lights I think I may here propose the courage of a Heathen-Dame to the cowardise of our Christian Men and shew them in the History of her Life that pain is insupportable only to them that are defective in resolution Never was Empire more maligned than that of the first Cesar his Usurpation begat him the hatred of all the Nations of the Earth the Romans often
spirits weakned the activity of their Bodies and if to be in health were to be happy it might be concluded that Wise Men are miserable the one half of their Lives Beauty is but a result of health and as subject to decay as the principle to alteration Yet have we some Philosophers that love her that present her with praises after vows of affection and by a blindness the more blamable for being voluntary fancy her to be the second part of their Felicity they call her the Mate of Vertue they describe her to be Divinely animated and will have it that she doth not less influence the Souls of Wise men then the imagination of Fools To hear them discourse She is the delight of all our Senses and although she be the most pleasing object of our sight yet is she the ravishment of our Eares in the recital of her perfections If we believe some Heathen the Gods themselves behold nothing here below more glorious then a face on which they have bestowed their favours and men draw not more vanity from any thing what ever then to find themselves inriched with a benefit that appears without difficulty and may be enjoyed without Envy For she exerciseth so absolute a Dominion upon humane conceit that she converts all that behold her into Lovers the persecutors of the innocent are friends to her and more happy then Vertue it self she hath not yet found an Enemy to make War against her nor envious persons to bespatter her perfections Do but see her and you love her when you have once seen her you cannot be her Enemy and her allurements are so potent that she takes us from our selves at her very first appearance to our Eyes But alas who is there that may not easily discern that so fading a perfection cannot make us happy and that a Benefit which hath all its glory from our opinion is too light to satisfy our desires too little Solid to stay our hopes for what can there be shewed us upon Earth more frail then Beauty or what is there more to be slighted then a Face whose Charms are only in the Eyes of them that are taken with it and which oweth the greatest part of its Dazling Flashes to the blindness of its Adorers Those Famous Beauties that have put the most ingenious of the Poets into a Sweat and suck't so many Praises from his Pen in excuse of the disorders which they have caused in the World are not so much the works of Nature as his witty Invenâ—ions and if the Love he bare to Corinna had not disturbed his mind Helena had been at this day without Admirers and Penelope without Gallants To be in love is to have sore Eyes and if Passion did not often cajolle mens Fancies in favour of them they adore it might be said that Love had long since had no buisiness in the World or that if he had made new Conquests the Fools head must have been the Seat of the War Beauty is so frail that she cannot be kept a few Years and what Art soever Women use to preserve her they must resolve to become ugly if they will grow old That Clearness which contributeth to her Splendor advanceth her Ruin the Sun which gives her a dazling quality disfigures her Time who is her Guardian is her mortal Enemy The Body that sustains her puts her to Death and if some times the strength of Constitution prolong her Ruin it is but to reserve the Spoils for the meanest of her Maladies To draw Reason from the Proud Mistresses of Beauty that Tyrannize the Spirits of indiscreet men and to be avenged of of the Evils wherewith they afflict their Martyrs it is not needful to Negotiate with death to cast pale Colors into their Faces to employ the Nails of a she Rival to deface their most curious Features or that some strange accident should carry away the Off-sets which they value more then their Lives 〈◊〉 of an Ague or Feaver hath force enough to overthrow these charming Adversaries their choicest Complexions yeild to disordered Seasons the Rose forsaketh their Cheaks when it feels the Cold and as there is no distemper that is not able to change their Comeliness there is not any Beauty but may become the scorn of her Slaves But if sickness did not attack these Beauties if the seasons were sufficiently constant not to alter their hew and if the injurious air had any respect for their perfections yet time which Periods Empires would not spare them in prolonging their days he would diminish their Beauty and by a strange but ordinary Metamorphosis he would change the proudest of Natures works into Monkees and Baboons The Sun when he sets hath charms that attract the consideration of the curious the pleasant raies which he sheddeth at bidding us good night are our Shepheards delights and Astrologers observe that his withdrawing lights are not less beneficial to us then when he apears again in our Horizon and rides triumphant over our heads The latter season hath her pleasures if she carry in commodities in one hand she brings equal advantages in the other She is the Expectation of the Husband-man and the reward of the Vine keeper and if she drive the people from the hills and open Countrey she fills their Cellars with Wines the Garners with Corn and the Barns with fruits of the Harvest But when Women look towards age when their hairs assume the Colour of Ashes when wrinckles furrow their foreheads when their Eyes betake themselves to the faculty of casting Pearls when their Cheeks incline to their Chin and when those two Milky Mountains become one double bag full of Blood they are no more desired by men then they seem horrible to their Lovers they which courted them before now hate them and as if all those lines in their foreheads were so many marks of their indiscretion they shun the sight of them as of the most frightful Monsters of Nature Also those that understand well the Nature of Beauty consider her as a remote advantage and esteem the fruit more then the possession they are content to see her on the Faces of their beloved and knowing that her quality is too inconstant to make them happy they give her freely up to those soft Ladies that seek only to be beautiful But of all that made so great accompt of the benefits of the Body I meet with none less reasonable then they who joyn them to voluptuousness and who believed that to live happily it was necessary that Pleasure should make the last perfection of their felicity For although health be but an even temper of the Body though the concord which proceedeth from the mixture of the Elements be a pure effect of their good understanding and that the vigor of the Body have its dependance on the heat and Humidity of the Blood yet the good offices which health rendereth unto her Land-Lord are considerable enough to gain some reputation
attempted their Liberty and did sufficiently testifie by their enterprizes that they could no longer endure the Government of a Man who had rob'd them of their freedom Brutus engaged covertly in the Conspiration and though he forced himself in hiding the matter from his Wife he could not so well dissemble it but she perceived and observed by the change of his Countenance the disturbance of his Soul Fearing then that her Husband mistrusted her weakness and that he durst not tell her a secret which might be the price of his Life if it took air resolved to make tryal upon her self whether she could keep it undisclosed for retiring into her Chamber and putting out her Servants she laid hold on a Razor which she lets into her Thigh her wound bleeds in abundance her members grow feeble by loss of Blood a Feaver slides into her Veins and seemed to lead her toward the Grave when Brutus entering the Room and surprized by an accident so little expected informed himself of the cause and circumstances Porcia constrained them that assisted her to withdraw prayed her Husband to sit down and promised to tell him her self the original of her indisposition You know said she Brutus that when I came into your House it was not in the quality of a Miss or of a Concubine and that I preferred not your Alliance before that of so many Roman Gentlemen to be only the Companion of your Table and Bed but to lie in your bosom to be the Confident of your Secrets and to have my proportion as well of your misfortunes as of your felicities It is not that I accuse Heaven or complain that you are my Husband but only that you look not upon me as your Wife You must not imagine that I am content with the duties of Marriage and that I expect from your person only those outward Caresses that unite our Bodies rather than our Wills and our Souls I aspire to greater things Brutus I require to be admitted of your privy Council and that you honor me as well with your Friendship as your Love This request is too just to be refused and if you judg it such why are you so reserved Why do you dissemble your troubles of mind and wherefore do you hide from me that glorious resolution you have taken to put a Tyrant to Death If you cannot hope for help from me and if my Sex forbid me to assist you in your undertakings you may at least expect from me some comfort or lessening of your griefs or misfortunes and may be assured that if I am not sufficiently strong to be your Second I shall have always courage enough to bear you company where ever ill luck or fate shall call you consider not the weakness of those of my condition but remember only that I am the Daughter of Cato and the Wife of Brutus and that if this Body which I received from my Father have not vigor enough to suffer death the love that I have vowed to thee Brutus shall make me constant in dispising it Then shewing him her wound see there said she Brutus see there the tryal which I have made thereof do thou now not scruple to open thy Bosom to me to reveal me thy designs know that within this Body is contained Cato's Heart and that if my Sex permit me not to follow thee in that Execution thou hast determined know that my courage is great enough to die for thee and with thee If a punctilio of Honor if a vehement desire of Fame and if a short obstinacy animated by vanity have caused some to triumph over Death conquer Pain and despise the rigor of Tortures what cannot Vertue do when she is supported by Integrity When she stands up for the preservation of Laws when she suffers for the defence of her Temples and her Altars Since she is composed in her Actions and preserves the same measures in delights as in torments Wherefore to acquire this insensibility of pain so familiar to the Stoicks and so little known to other Philosophers let us often have in mind the Actions of those generous men who by their Courage surmounted Tortures let us fortifie our selves against the apprehensions of Death let us not love our Bodies more than necessity requireth let us separate from Torments that solemnity which affrighteth us and let us perswade our selves that those ceremonies contain no more than what is despised by a man in his Bed sick of the Gout than what is endured by one at a Feast who is sick at his Stomach and what is undergone by a tender Woman in Child-bearing Discourse III. That a Wise Man is not afraid of Death and considereth it as the end of his miseries and the entrance to felicity DEath is so terrible and the horrors that attend it render it so dismal that the Lawyers have thought the Fear of it to be just and that it might be accounted among the number of those things which seized upon a man of Resolution They say that the acts then committed are rather forced than voluntary that our promises are not binding that our agreements are invalid and that as she deprives us of Liberty or hinders the use of Reason she acquitted us of performance and annulled our Contracts Divines who consider Death as the production of sin rather than the effects of our constitution conclude that she must needs be a great enemy to Nature since she is so much redoubted since she gives dread to all sensible Creatures and that those which we stile inanimate testified some kind of aversness to be separated from their Principle The Chicken hides at the approach of the Kite the Hare flies before the Dogs and we find nothing in Nature which useth not its force or industry to make defence against Death We cannot seperate the Marble from the Rocks but by violence the Trees groan under the blow of the Ax the Air shuns the Fire that rarifies it and all insensible as it is it makes opposition for self-preservation If the Animals saith St. Austin which were created purely for slaughter love life and are so much afraid of Death how should not man be therewith affrighted when it threatens him since he was born to live for ever and that he should never have seen seperation between his Body and his Soul if he had been careful of his own innocence Philosophers support the justice of their Fear by the necessity of Death they think it reasonable to redoubt an unavoidable evil and which though common to all men hath yet no remedy in Nature They accuse it of cruelty they say that it is she alone of all the Gods that will accept no Sacrifice who refuseth the offerings of men and that it is in vain to dedicate Temples to her or build her any Altars since she is equally blind and inexorable But what Reasons soever these men invent to excuse the apprehension of Death it is not hard to shew
is a gift of God we enjoy it not but so long as it pleaseth him we came not into the World but by his favor and that man would doubtless be insolently audacious who would dare to abuse a benefit which he received not but upon condition to preserve it As none are permitted to choose the Country where they will be born nor the Parents that shall beget them it is not allowable for any to destroy themselves and it is but just that He only that placed us in the number of the Living without our consent should remove us from thence at his pleasure For although we are born for Command and that we behold nothing upon Earth that is not subject to our Authority nevertheless the disposing of our selves is not within our Commission our Life is in the hands of him that gave it us and since the Son of God hath redeemed us by his Blood it is no longer lawful for us to undervalue it because of a few incumbrances that attend it Even as the Laws of Men forbid particular persons to rescue the guilty from the hands of the Executioner the heavenly Commandment permits not that sinners should diminish or change their Chastisements and they are thereby oblig'd to suffer all sorts of calamitys rather than to abandon the rights which God hath over their Life to the discretion of fortune If we desire Death let it be the Death of our Passions let us avoid every thing which makes us miserable let us forsake all those false opinions which seduce us and let us die to our selves if we will not feel the evil which we are so much afraid of THE FOURTH TREATISE OF GRIEF Discourse I. Of the Nature of Grief AS Nature is an enemy to Ease as she brings forth all things for action as the more noble of her works terminate in motion and as she allows them no divertisements but for the reparation of Strength decreased by Labour as sloth is hurtful to the Body as it converts it into excremental humors as it encreaseth Flegm as it changeth the natural heat and hindering the concoction of Food renders it feeble and weak The Stoicks forbid their wise men to live at ease they make it the Seed-plot of Sin and knowing it to be nearer allied to darkness than to light they enjoyn him to shun those retirements wherein he may learn to practise evil for want of employment The truth is it falls out very often that nothing is more fatal to us than retirement and solitudes our Vices become less vigorous when they are seen when the Disease is discovered it 's half cured and a dissolute life is never more dangerous than when avoiding the Eies of men we retire into private places Yet such is the humor of Grief she delights in retirement and seeks out solitary places to entertain her self with her own miseries and as if she were possest of an evil Spirit she shuns the company of them that are able to cure her She resembles those idle delicate persons who know little or nothing of their own actions who think not of eating but when they are called to it and who know not whether they be sitting or standing unless you ask them they live without sense they divert themselves and know it not and they are employed without knowing to what purpose If the other motions of the Soul put us into agitation they propose some end and the greatest part of them do aim at things that give us some sort of content Affection pursues the Object we love and laying open its Beauties or Benefits entertains us with the Joy of its possession or advantage Anger meditates revenge she considers the injury done her and is never appeased till she have had satisfaction Covetousness applies her studies to Riches the comfort she expects from their enjoyment is her motive and she ceaseth to hunt after them when she hath once lost the hopes of finding them But Grief is always idle she propounds to her self no ends she is altogether taken up with her own misfortunes and without extending her thoughts beyond her self her food is only her own affliction Nothing is so little at our command as this Passion she ariseth without our leave she encreaseth by her own motion and contrary to the other distempers of the Soul she is made worse by the Remedies which ought to be her Cure The Journies or Voyages we undertake wherewith to charm her the cares we apply to correct her nature and the divertisements of which we make use to allay her anguish avail us nothing she soon returns and all the witty inventions of Prudence serve not so much to destroy as to deceive her For Opinion coming in to her assistance renews her Sorrows shews her the cause with aggravations and as if it drew strength from her respite it strives to make her yet more miserable And it is from this reason that Seneca doth infer that Grief is not natural to man since she is so fickle in her humor so variable in her wounds and so inconstant in her affliction What ever comes from Nature is not sensibly apprehensive of alteration it preserves every where the same order and the diversity of matter it meets with changeth not its course Fire which is a natural Agent spareth none it equally devours the Prince and the Peasant it consumes the Wife and her Husband and it must be Brass or Diamonds that is able to resist its fury Steel enters into every part of the Body it divides all Metals it separates the most solid things it conveys Death to the greatest number of Men and we cannot reckon a Martyr in our Annals that was able to oppose its violence But sorrow is partial she wounds one without touching another that which afflicts us reaches not our Neighbours and we often see that one and the same disaster makes some contented and others unhappy The original of all this disorder is self-love our Griefs proceed from our affections we grow not sad but because we are in love with our selves and as that Matron said in Quintilian we regret not the loss of outward Goods or of our friends but because we affected them too much If the Enemy ravage our Country if the Pestilence depopulate the Provinces if the Hailstones become the Harvestors of the Husbandmans hopes if the Thunderbolts batter down our Steeple-tops if the Famine decrease the number of our Compatriots we do not so much lament their misery as our own private calamity we apprehend our own ruine in their destruction and their misfortunes and losses touch us no farther than that the same disasters may fall upon our heads For by a contrary reason if news be brought us that the Armies have quitted our Borders that they are gone into Ethiopia or marched into Persia and are become Masters of their most considerable strong holds if we receive advice that the Plague hath tumbled twenty thousand Indians into the Grave