as often of apprehension as they thought of that sad fate Which fear ended with the Swine's meat and the Ship 's arrival at a safe Port where it appear'd that that vile Animal had felt none of that trouble which the Tempest had caus'd in the more unhappy men and consequently that their Imagination was the sole cause of it The like may be said of all other afflictions which men give themselves call'd therefore deservedly by the Wise-man Vanity and vexations of spirit For most of the inductions and consequences which the Mind draws from events prove false and nevertheless they give us real sorrows we see frequently that a great Estate left by a Father to his Children makes them debauch'd and worthless and degenerate from the vertue of their Parent who having receiv'd no inheritance from his own was constrain'd to labour and by that means attain'd Riches and Honour Whence it appears that the trouble of a Father leaving a small Estate to his Children at his death hath no foundation in the thing but only in his abus'd Imagination and consequently cannot be a real Evil and yet this is the most general Evil of all with the Vulgar Thus two men lodging under the same roof lost both their Wives not long ago one of them was so afflicted therewith that he dy'd of sorrow the other receiving the consolatory visits of his friends could not so well dissemble his joy but that it was perceiv'd and yet their loss was equal So that the sadness of the one and the joy of the other depended only upon the different reflection they made upon this accident Thus also the same affront that made one of Socrates's Disciples draw his sword made the Philosopher himself laugh at the sottishness of his enemy and every thing which the Vulgar calls Good or Evil Pain excepted is a Medal which hath its right side and its reverse CONFERENCE CLXXXII Whether Man be the most diseas'd of all Creatures and why A Disease being a preternatural disposition hurting the Functions every living Body capable of action may become sick by some cause impeding its actions Hence not only Men but also Animals and even Plants have their Diseases which Theophrastus diligently describes Amongst Beasts though some are subject to particular Diseases as the Dog to Madness the Swine to Leprosie the Goat and Lyon to Fevers yet there is none so invaded with all sorts of Maladies as Man who is not exempt from any the least of his similary parts that is nourish'd being subject to twelve sorts of Diseases namely when they attract their aliment either not at all or but weakly or otherwise then they should or when they are defective either in retaining or concocting it or in voiding superfluities But if such part have sense too it may have fifteen if motion also eighteen And if it not only be nourish'd it self but labours also for the publick 't is lyable to twelve more according to the three ways that its Functions may be offended in attraction retention concoction and expulsion The Eye alone is subject to almost 200 infirmities and as if there were not ancient Diseases enough we see daily new ones unknown to former Ages Now the reason hereof lyes in the nature of Man who being the most perfectly temper'd and best compounded of all Animals because design'd to the greatest actions is therefore apt upon the least occasion to lose that evenness of proportion which as it requires a great train and concurrence of many things so also there needs but a little thing to subvert it by defect of the least of those requisites Indeed there are but two causes of Diseases to wit Internal and External and man is alike subject to both to the former by reason of his hot and moist temper which is prone to putrefaction and the more upon account of his variety of Food whereas other Animals never change their Diet which is the most probable cause of their health and good constitution For diversity of aliments incommodes Nature weakens the natural heat produces Crudities the Sources of most Diseases which also are frequently caus'd in Men by the internal Passions of Anger Fear and Joy The most ordinary external causes are the evil qualities of the Air pestilential vapours and malignant influences whereof Man's body is the more susceptible by reason of the tenderness of his Flesh and the porosity of his skin which on the contrary in other Animals is hard and cover'd with Hair Feathers and Scales and renders them less subject to the impressions of external bodies as also to Wounds Contusions Fractures and other solutions of continuity The Second said That such perfections or defects of things as we know most exactly seem to us the greatest as the excellences and defects of Pictures are not well observ'd but by those that are skill'd therein and he that is unacquainted with some certain Nation cannot know its Vices so as they that converse with it do Now Beasts being unable to signifie to us the differences of their pains and the other circumstances of their diseases hence we judge them to have fewer although the contrary appears in the Horse in whom observant Farriers remark a great number of Diseases to which we are not subject So that other Animals may have as many or more than Men who being less concern'd therein less understand them 'T is true the parts of Animals resemble ours saving what serve to distinguish their outward shape as appears by the Dissection of Apes whereby Galen learnt Anatomy and no difference is found between the Ventricles of a Man's and a Calfe's brain If their blood and other humors differ so do those of one Man from those of another Moreover Beasts have the same inward Causes Fear Anger and the other Passions in short all the other Non-natural things and not at their discretion as Man hath If a Dog hath the harder skin yet man is less lyable to blows and the injury of the Air. In fine who knows but it may be with these Animals as 't is with rusticks who though Men as well as we and subject to the same inconveniences yet all their Diseases are reduc'd to a few Heads since the true and spurious Pleurisie the Asthma the Cough the Palsie and other Maladies whereof we make so many branches are all reckon'd by them only for a hot or a cold Rheume The Third said The nearer Nature promotes Bodies to their utmost perfection the more frail she renders them And as in Mixts Glass which is her utmost atchievement is weaker and brittler than Stones so in Animals Man the most excellent and perfect is the most frail and weak by reason of the part wherein he abounds more than they and which advances him to wit the Brain the root of most Diseases And as the most noxious Meteors are form'd in the coldest Region of the Air so those that have a moist Brain are soft and less vigorous as Women and
Valour is deduc'd from the Fathers side Upon which principle is grounded the account we make of Nobility which comes seldom but from the Father's side whereas the want of Nobility on the Mother's side does not make the Child less a Gentleman Nay some have made it a Question whether the Mother did contribute any thing to the formation of the foetus or only found it nourishment But those who have treated more nicely of this matter unanimously agree that the Woman's Seed is much weaker and more watery than that of the Man serving only to qualifie it as Water does Wine yet so as that the Water is converted into the nature of the Wine and is call'd Wine as soon as it is mixt with it As to those Children who chance to be more like their Mothers than their Fathers 't is to be conceiv'd one of Nature's fagaries who delighting in variety cannot produce many children but there must consequently be a great diversity of Lineaments in their faces and figures in their members among which the idea of a Woman imprinted in the imagination of the Father may be communicated to his Seed which consequently expresses that figure The second said That there were three kinds of resemblances to wit that of the Species that of the Sex and that of the Effigies as to the Body and that of manners as to the Soul or The resemblance of the Species is when a Man begets a Man a Woman proceeds from the material Principles of Generation which the Mother contributes more plentifully then the Father the proof whereof may be seen in the copulation of Animals of different Species For if a Hee-goat couples with a Sheep he shall beget a Sheep which shall have nothing of the Goat in it save that the fleece will be a little rougher then it is wont to be And if a Ram couples with a She-goat the production will be a Goat whose hair will be somewhat softer than otherwise But as to what is related of Aristo's having had a Daughter by an Ass who for that reason was called Onoscele of Stellius's having another by a Mare who was thence called Hippona and of a Sheep which brought forth a Lyon in the pastures of Nicippus to whom it presaged Tyranny of Alcippa who was deliver'd of an Elephant having been impregnated by an Elephant are to be look'd on as monstrous and possibly fabulous Productions The resemblance of the Sex depends on the temperature and predominancy of the Seeds For if the seed of both Male and Female be very hot Males will be engendred if cold Females and both of them will be either vigorous or weak according to the predominancy of heat or cold Whence it follows that this resemblance does not proceed more from the one then the other of those who are joyn'd together but the resemblance of Effigie and the other accidents of the Body and of the manners is more hard to resolve there being a secret vertue in both the Seeds which as Aristotle affirms is continu'd in it to the fourth Generation as may be confirm'd by the story of Helida who having lain with a Negro brought forth a white Child but her Grandchild by that was black Plutarch affirms the same thing to have happen'd in the fourth Generation of a Negro And yet this resemblance proceeds rather from the Mother's side than the Father's for if the causes which communicate most to their effects imprint most of their nature into them by that greater communication those effects accordingly retain so much the more of their Causes Now the Mother communicates more to the Child then the Father does for she supplies him with Seed those who have maintain'd the contrary being persons not much skill'd in Anatomy and after she hath contributed as much as the Father to that Generation she alone nourishes the foetus with her menstrual blood which then begins not to follow any longer the course of the Moon whereby it was regulated before Besides coming thus to furnish the said foetus with nourishment for the space of nine Months it is no wonder she should absolutely tranform it into her own nature which is thence accounted but one and the same in respect of both Mother and Child Now there is not any thing liker or can retain more of it then the thing it self which cannot be said of the Father who is not only different from the Embryo whom he hath begotten but also hath not any thing common with it after that first action So that there are many Children posthumi and born long after the death of their Fathers which thing never happens after the death of their Mothers nay it is seldom seen that a Child taken out of the body of a Mother ready to dy ever thrives much afterwards Though we shall not stick to acknowledge that what is related of the first person of the race of the Caesars from whom that Section was called the Caesarean might possibly happen according to the Relation yet is it done with this restriction that most of the other Stories told of it are fabulous But if the Mother comes afterwards to suckle her Child as Nature and the Example of all other Animals teaches her which is haply the reason of their being more vigorous and of a continuance of life more regular than that of the man that second nourishment added to the former being drawn from her milk which derives the quality of the mass of blood from which it is extracted makes him absolutely conformable to the Mother For if nourishment may as we find it to be true change the Temperament of Persons well advanc'd in years with much more reason may it work a remarkable alteration in the Body and Mind of a Child newly come into the World who is as it were a smooth Table susceptible of any impression Whence it is to be concluded that they proceed very rationally who are so careful of the well-fare of their little ones when the Mothers either by reason of sickness of upon some other account are not able to bring them up as to be very inquisitive about the Nurses they put them to and the quality of their Milk Nay what is more are not the changes caus'd by Nurses in the Body of the Infant as considerable as that which happens to the two seeds of Male and Female mixt at the Generation which recover their increase by the irroration of the Maternal Blood which flows thereto and if it be impure does communicate its impurity to it as on the contrary being pure it is many times able to purifie the corrupted seed of the Male Whence Physicians have observ'd that sound Children have descended from Fathers subject to the Leprosie and such diseases Add to this that the safety on the Mothers side is greater than on the Father's Moreover they are the Mothers from whom proceeds the Imagination which acts upon their Embryo all the time they are with Child and thence it comes that
Melancholly in regard of their heat and driness which resolve and dissipate the animal Spirits as a vapourous humidity hinders their effusion by the obstruction which it causeth in the original of the Nerves or which is most probable because the clouds of those vapours occupying the ventricles of the Brain by their humidity moisten and relax the animal Spirits which remain immovable till they be deliver'd from the importunity of those vapours which moreover more easily ascending when the Body is at rest it happens that Sleep is frequently caus'd not only by watchings cares labour bathing heat and other things which dissipate the Spirits but also by sounds gentle murmurs of water frictions and motions silence and darkness unless we had rather say That the animal Spirits being most subtle and luminous bodies retire inwards during the darkness which is contrary to them The Sixth said That Sleep being not only a depravation but a total privation of actions since a thing exists but so far as it acts at the same proportion that we love our own Being we ought to hate Sleep and love Watching The great George Castriot the scourge of the Turks never slept more then two hours and the Poets had reason to term Sleep The Image of Death which the Scripture also expresses by Sleeping As therefore Death is to be avoided as much as possible so also ought Sleep were it not that both of them being inevitable evils all we can do is to keep as far off them and suffer our selves to be led as little to them as may be The Poets themselves seem willing to imprint in us a horror of Sleep when they feign it the Son of Hell or Erebus and Night the brother of Death the father of Morpheus and that his Palace was amidst the darkness of the Cimmerians Moreover the most imperfect Animals sleep more then others which is the reason Zoophytes or Plant-animals as the Sponge Coral and Oisters sleep continually Snails and some Flys three or four months Bears longer then other Animals and amongst these Birds as partaking more of the nature of Heaven sleep less then four-footed Beasts A Child so long as it approaches a bestial life in its Mothers belly and for the first years sleeps more than when 't is grown to Manhood and being again become by Age a Child sleeps more than formerly till he comes to the last sleep of death which reduces him to nothing Women phlegmatick persons drunkards and block-heads sleep more then Men sober and witty persons For we are no more to refer to the abuse of these Times in sleeping very much then to other Vices of the Age amongst the rest Idleness Eating and Drinking wherein there is none sober at this day but exceed their just measure Upon the Second point it was said That Strength as well as most other things in the World hath not an absolute but only a relative Being a thing being called strong in comparison of others which are less so Thus Antaeus was strong in respect of all other men but weak compared to Hercules And as Achilles was invulnerable in every other part saving the heel so Nature seems to have left in us a certain weakness and defect in some parts wherein some are more tender then others So that 't is hard to find one thing alike powerful towards all men since by reason of our several inclinations every one is differently affected The Ambitious will hold for Honours the Amorous for Women the Drinker for Wine and Truth which in the Scripture was judg'd strongest by King Darius who propos'd the present Problem to his four Courtiers would possibly be deemed the weakest in the Judgment of the most for to them that should take her part the same question might be put which Pilate ask'd our Lord What is Truth It is so frequently disguis'd by lying in moral matters so invelop'd in darkness and subject to the deceit of our Senses in natural things that as it is the least understood so we may say 't is the least follow'd our inclinations never tending towards an unknown object The strongest thing therefore is that which hath most power to incline our Will towards it self which Will following the counsel of the Understanding as again this acts not but by the species wherewith the Imagination supplies it 't is to the Imagination that I ascribe the greatest strength in the world since all other things borrow all their power from the Imagination by the opinion of Honour Profit and Pleasure which that Faculty makes us conceive therein and on the contrary the same Imagination ruines and destroys the force of all things accounted the most powerful whilst it considers them with a different biass 'T is by it that one abhors nothing more then Women whom so many others idolatrize Pleasures Honours Riches and all the Goods of Fortune are but so many crosses and punishments to those who have conceiv'd an aversion against them Death it self as terrible as it is oftentimes is despis'd and sought after out of a powerful consideration of Honour this too being nothing else but a Fancy magnifi'd by the opinion rais'd of it in the world Even Virtue draws all her power from Imagination alone for many a one thinks he embraces her quite naked whilst like Ixion he embraces nothing but a cloud and a phantasm and yet is as well satisfi'd with this as if he had a perfect fruition of her The Second said That the solution of this Problem depends upon the understanding of the term Strength If it be taken for a certain quality and power which renders things active that must be the strongest thing in the world which acts with most efficacy and power upon the most excellent things But forasmuch as there are as many sorts of agents as there are degrees of Being in Nature in Morals and in Transcendants and we may compare things together which are of a different genus yet there being no congruity and proportion but between those which are of the same species 't is hard to know absolutely which is the strongest thing since every one hath a vertue wholly peculiar because it hath a proper nature which is the principle and cause of the diversity of motions and actions According to which distinction I am of opinion That of agents purely natural Fire is the strongest since it alters and destroys all natural Bodies and its quality Heat is the most active of all Amongst living things Man is the strongest inasmuch as he renders himself master of all the fiercest Animals which he knows how either to subdue or tame Amongst men Kings are the strongest since they dispose of our Goods Lives and Wills Moral agents are different in force and activity according to the divers constitution of subjects upon which they act and make a different impression Honesty alone acts upon very few spirits Pleasures upon most Interest upon all Nevertheless since they act only by the opinion which they
that as Plumeor Stone-allume is an eternally incombustible Wiek provided it be supply'd with new Oyl when the former is spent this Earth may do the like Unless we had rather that wise Nature dispenses combustible matter in the bellies of Mountains after the manner of Vitruvius's his Lamps which need filling but once a year and those Water-Receptacles for Birds which are supply'd with fresh as fast as the former Water is spent Or else that Nature excepting the extraordinary eruptions which seldome happen to these flammivomous Mountains and then only when the Fire cannot get issue but by violence makes what the curious often aspire to an inextinguishable Fire or perpetual Light by resolving again into oyly and combustible matter that which was evaporated by Inflammation as Water elevated in vapour by heat falls down again in the same form The Architect Nature finding Cavities great enough in those vast Mountains to facilitate what Art finds impossible by reason of the smalness of Vessels which extinguish Fire when it hath not Air or suffer its Matter to exhale when it hath although S. Austin and Lodovicus Vives make mention the former of a Lamp in the Temple of Venus which could not be extinguish'd or consum'd though neither Oyl nor Wiek were put to it and the latter of another burning Lamp found in a Sepulchre where it had been fifteen hundred years but upon admission of Air forthwith went out Although without recurring to this subtilty that of Fire and its activity is sufficient to attract or fetch in its sulphureous food which being only an excrement of the Earth and like the soot of our Chimneys is found every where but especially in Mines which are repair'd in less time than is believ'd and whose various qualities make the variety of these Subterraneous Fires of their duration continuity and interval which some have compar'd to Intermitting Fevers excited in our Bodies by an extraneous heat which holds the same place in us as Fire doth in the Earth Upon the Second Point it was said That Age is the measure of the Natural Mutations to which Man is subject by the Principles of his Being and which differ according to every ones Nature some being Puberes having a Beard and gray Hairs and such other tokens sooner than others according to the diversity of their first conformation whence arises that of their Division Aristotle following Hippocrates divides them into Youth Middle-age and Old-age that is to say the Beginning Middle and end Or according to Galen into Infancy Man-hood and Old-age According to most into Adolescence Youth Age of Consistence and Old-age Adolescence comprehends Infancy which reaches to the seventh year the Age of Puerility to the fourteenth Puberty to the eighteenth and that call'd by the general name Adolescence to the twenty fifth Youth which is the flower of Age reaches from twenty five to thirty five Man-hood and Consistence from thirty five to fourty eight when Old-age begins which is either green middle or decrepit These four Ages are the four Wheels of our Life whose Mutations they mark out The first next the primordia's of generation is hot and moist symbolising with Blood the second hot and dry with Choler the third cold and dry with Melancholy the fourth cold and moist with Phlegm which being contrary to the primogenial humidity leads to death Now if it be true as 't is said That Life is a Punishment and a Summary of Miseries Old-age as neerest the haven and end of Infelicities is the most desirable Moreover being more perfect by experience and alone fit to judg of the goodness of Ages which it hath run through we must refer our selves to the goodness of its judgment as well in this as in all other Points The Second said Since to live is to act the most perfect and agreeable of all Ages of Life is that in which we best exercise the functions of Body and Mind namely Youth which alone seems fit to dispute the Prize with Old-age not only in regard of the health and vigour of the Body wherein it surpasses that declining feeble Age but also of the actions of the Mind which is much more lively in young inventive and industrious Persons than in the aged whose Spirit wears and grows worse with the Body which hath given place to that most true Proverb That Old-men are twice Children For 't is to give Wisedom a shameful Extraction and to make it the issue of Infirmity to call that ripe which is rotten and to believe that good counsels proceed only from defect of natural heat since according to his judgment who hath best decypher'd Wisdom this Old-age traces more wrincles in our Minds than Faces and there are few Souls which by growing old become not sowr and rancid and acquire not many vices and ill habits of which Covetousness alone inseparable from Old-age and an Argument of weakness of Mind in heaping up with so much solicitude what must soon be parted with is not much less prejudicial to the State than all the disorders of Youth But if the Chief Good consists in the Sciences the Cause of Young-men is infallible for acuteness of Wit strength of Phancy and goodness of Memory which wholly abandons Old-men and ability to undergo pains and watchings must contribute to their acquisition And if it consist in the secret delight we take in exercising virtuous Actions Young-men who according to Chancellour Bacon excel in Morality will carry it above Old it being certain That the best actions of our Lives are perform'd between twenty and thirty or thereabouts which was the Age at which Adam was created in Paradise as our Saviour accomplish'd the Mystery of our Redemption at the Age of thirty three years which shall be likewise the Age at which the Blessed shall rise to Glory in which every one shall enjoy such a perfect Youth as we ascribe to Angels and put off Old-age which not much differing from Death may like it be term'd the Wages of Sin since had our first Parent persisted in Innocence we should have possess'd a perpetual Youth Moreover 't is at this Age that the greatest Men have appear'd Few Old Conquerours have been seen if any he hath this of Alexander That he aspires to the Conquest of another World not having long to live in this Wherefore instead of pretending any advantage over other Ages Old-men ought to be contented that we use them not as those of Cea and the Massagetes did who drown'd them or the Romans who cast them from a Bridg into Tyber thinking it a pious act to free them from life whose length displeas'd the Patriarchs the Scripture saying That they died full of or satiated with days The Third said That the Innocence of Children should make us desire their Age considering that our Lord requires us to be like them that we may enter into his Kingdom Moreover Nature unable to perpetuate Infancy hath found no sweeter Anodyne for the miseries
undeserving person causes Compassion Indignation proceeds from the happening of Good to one that merits it not Now among all these Passions Ambition which aims at a general superiority seems to me the first and since it hath serv'd to excuse Parricides and Violators of the publick faith whom it hath caus'd to say that for the sake of command nothing is unjust it may very well be excus'd every where else besides that it hath been the instigator to the most glorious Actions the source whereof is that laudable Ambition which every one hath to out-vie his companion The second said If the Passions are Diseases of the Soul as the Stoicks held and the Question seems to presuppose I conceive none more agreeable and excusable than Love whose sweet violence insinuating into the severest brests finds nothing capable to resist it Hence those that are taken with it wish nothing less than a cure which cannot proceed but from oblivion of the thing belov'd wherein they live more than in themselves the soul being more where it loves than in the body wherein it lives Moreover this Passion is the most natural and common of all and consequently the most excusable being found not only in all men but also in all Animals who feel the assaults of Love which makes them naturally tend towards Good And as Love is the most common so it is likewise the source and principle of all the Passions for we neither hate nor fear any thing we have neither joy sadness desire fear nor anger but because we love something the true course to become exempt from these Passions being To love Nothing The third said That the most violent Passions being the most excusable because the hardest to subdue those of the Irascible Appetite particularly Anger being more vehement than those of the Concupiscible Appetite are also the most worthy of excuse The former possess the noblest part of Man the Heart which is the source of Anger the latter the Liver which is the seat of Love whose weakness the Poets have sufficiently demonstrated by representing it to us under the form of a Child which hath no power over us but what we suffer it to take But Anger which is proper to the Generous as Love is to the weak and effeminate makes it self master of the Soul and by its sudden and impetuous motions obscuring the light of reason makes us the more excusable in that we are no longer masters of our own actions And as Madness excuses the Frantick from blame and punishment so Anger which is a short Madness as the Poet saith deserves the same excuse its violence being so much above that of all other Passions that it is the most quick and passes like Lightning for when it takes root in the soul it loses its name and degenerates into Hatred The Fourth said That he was for Joy because all the other Passions acknowledg its power such that they are contented to be its servants Love and Desire are only in order to some hoped Joy Hatred and Flight only to remove all objects that may trouble it Despair then only seizes us when we can no longer hope for Joy Hope is for it alone Fear is only of what is contrary to it Boldness to break through all Obstacles opposing our contentment and Anger serves to express the displeasure we resent for its delay or interruption If a man injure us in his anger or in his sadness yea or in his despair we will not excuse him but be we never so displeas'd we not only excuse the joy of others but take pleasure in it And whereas Contraries are known by their Contraries since nothing displeases us so much as Sadness nothing pleases us so much as Joy whose violence is manifested by some that have dy'd of it as none ever did of Anger In fine we cannot better prove and approve the power and empire of any one than by becoming his subjects as we all are of Joy to which the greatest part not only give part of their time but also quit the most important affairs to seek it in places destinated to the god of Laughter whose Festivals are now more frequen then in in the days of Apuleius And what makes us in youth bear and endure all the pains of study Apprentices of each Trade the hardships which they undergo Soldiers the danger of Death but a pre-conceived hope of Joy which he that possesses becomes so master'd by it that he forgets all his past evils The Mariner no longer remembers the perils of the sea nor the sick person his pains In short every one suffers himself to be possess'd and govern'd by this Passion which is therefore the most excusable The fifth said That Grief brings greater Evil than Joy doth Good because Evil wholly destroys the Nature of a thing which Good only renders more complete whence it follows that the former is much more just and excusable than the latter which gives only Well-being but Evil destroys Being it self to the preservation whereof all Creatures being naturally enclin'd more carefully eschew such things as may hurt them then they pursue those that may procure joy and contentment Moreover the accents of the Voice which testifie Grief or Sadness are much more violent than those of Joy which being nothing else but a bare complacency receiv'd in the enjoyment of Good consists rather in rest then in motion whereof Grief partakes more largely by the endeavours which it causeth the soul to put forth for removing of what torments it The sixth said That the Passions being Appurtenances of our Nature and part of our Selves are all excusable in themselves because natural and inevitable but especially those whereto we are particularly most inclin'd by Temper so Love and Joy are most excusable in the sanguine Choler and Despair in the Bilious Hatred and Sadness in the Melancholick Hope and Boldness in Youth and Bashfulness is excusable in a Child but culpable in an old man Yet Hope which accompanies Man not only while breath lasts but extends even beyond death seems by that duration to plead that as it is the least separable so it is the most excusable CONFERENCE CXXXIV Which is the most laudable Temperament TEmperament is the Harmony and Proportion of the four first Qualities resulting from the mixture of the Elements whereof all sublunary Bodies are compounded which being destinated to several ends requir'd therefore different Tempers and Qualifications Now although the diversity herein be almost infinite yet it may be reduc'd to three Supream Heads For either the four Qualities are so mix'd that they remain in an equal proportion or one of them excels the rest or else two together have the advantage The first makes the Temperament equal the two latter make it unequal The equal Temperament is two-fold one call'd Temperament by Weight ad Pondus as they speak when the qualities are so perfectly proportionate that could they be weigh'd in a balance not one would preponderate above
knowing nay many times having an aversion for the others it is impossible that these Philtres should be able to force People's Wills and Inclinations which are always free to love what they know not or if they know it have a horrour and aversion for it Otherwise it would amount to as much as to give them a certain Sovereignty over a free power such as the Will is which it cannot endure as being above all Corporeal Agents such as these Medicaments are Among which as there are some have the vertue of extinguishing the flames of Concupiscence and Carnal Love by correcting the heat of the Blood diminishing the quantity of the Seed and dispersing the Spirits whereby it is raised so on the contrary there are others which as it were awake and excite that Passion by the production they make of abundance of good and spirituous seed and consequently may indeed invite those who use them to that base and unbridled Love but not to a mutual Love such as is particularly directed to him who finding his affection sleighted is forc'd to give these Remedies that he may be belov'd by the person whom he courts The Second said That Love and the Graces if we may credit those Authentick Authors the Poets always kept company with Venus whereby they would signifie to us that the most effectual means which any one can use to insinuate himself into the Love of another was to become himself amiable and agreeable and that those who pretend to do it by other wayes do many times come short of their intentions or if they at last come to be lov'd it is by such a perversion of the party's imagination whom they court that instead of framing a rational and well-regulated Passion they raise therein that fury and rage which the Physicians call Erotomania Thence it comes that to accomplish their desâ—res besides such means as are natural they also make use of all the diabolical Artifices and Inventions that Magick can furnish them withall to compass that piece of Witchcraft To that purpose they make use of Mandrakes wherewith the women prepare a certain Drink for the men administring the female to procure themselves to be lov'd by them and the men cause them to take the male that they may belov'd by the women They assign the same properties to the Herb Calamint affirming that it gains the Heart and raises it into such a heat that it is inclin'd to love him who gives it and the same thing is said of several other odoriferous Herbs which seem to have a stricter connexion with the effect they promise themselves from them than an infinite number of other impious and absurd things whereof they make an extraordinary account As for instance among others the Menstrua of Women the Navel-string of a Child newly born reduc'd to powder and taken in a potion as also the skin of such a one where-with they make their Virgin-parchment on which they write their Characters Eggs dipp'd in the Blood of a Toad a certain bone taken out of the throat of a salt Bitch the feathers of a Scrich-Owle and especially the parings of the Nails together with the Hair of the Head or of any other part of the Body and for want of those some small thread of the person's garment whom they would engage to love which these impious Ministers of Sathan hide under her bolster or if that cannot be done under the threshold of some door through which she is to pass adding thereto according to their common practise certain words and figures forg'd by the old Spirit of Lying Nor are they content with all these palpable fooleries but they must add thereto some enormous sacriledges by their abusing the most sacred Mysteries of Christian Religion profaning not only the Olive-Branches and hallow'd Palms the holy Oyls the Habits and Ornaments of Priests whereof they make use of some parcels as they do also of the scrapings of the hallowed stones of our Altars but also the sacred Host it self on which they grave certain Marks and Characters with Blood and having reduc'd it to powder put it into the meats of such as they would bewitch with those Love-Sorceries There are also others who pretend to do the same things by Images of Wax made like the persons whose Love is desir'd which they melt at a fire made of Cypress or some rotten pieces of wood taken out of Sepulchres imagining that by vertue of the words which they pronounce during that Ceremony the Heart of the person belov'd will be softned and grow more tender the hardness whereof if they cannot overcome by simple melting they prick the waxen figure with the points of needles presuming that the thing which it represents will be sensible of the like treatment There are others yet who content themselves with this Ceremony that is to burn the leavs of Lawrel or the stones of Olives used anciently according to the testimony of the Prophet Baruch by Women to reproach their gallants with their neglect towards them But the famous Sorceress Canidia makes it her boast in Horace that she had wrought this effect with the marrow of the Bones and the Liver of a young Child which she had taken out of his Belly after she had starv'd him to death buried in the ground up to the chin promising her self by means of this powerful Philtre so far to recover the affections of her Gallant Varâ—s who had been debauch'd from her that she would enflame and make him burn more violently than pitch set on fire So certain is it that there is not any crime how heinous soever which this furious Passion will not inspire into those who so earnestly endeavour the satisfaction of it which for that reason the Laws punish with so much severity Nor do they less condemn the superstitious remedies which some others propose for the prevention of them as being such as are no less dangerous than the mischief they would hinder of which kind are these to carry about one the privy parts of a Wolf a Secret recommended by Pliny and Pompanatius to drink of the Urine of a Hee-goat to cast on himself the dust of the place where a Mule had wallowed and such other unlawful and suspitious means CONFERENCE CCXXX Of Atoms IT is a Truth not question'd by any of the Philosophers what Sect soever they were of that there must be certain Principles whereof Natural Bodies consist Their Generation and Corruption confirm it since that according to the former there being not any thing made of nothing and according to the latter it being not imaginable that any thing can be reduc'd to nothing there must be some first Principles from which primarily and of themselves natural things do proceed and whereto they are at last resolv'd But it hath not yet been fully decided to what this prerogative is to be granted Heraclitus would bestow it on Fire Anaximenes on the Air Pherecydes to the Earth Thales on the Water