Passions and to behave himself upon all occasions with moderate Reason We must as necessary to our happiness purge the Mind from Passions and learn how to animate our selves against whatever may happen to us Now that which can best instruct us in this way and teach us the inclinations of a right spirit and a will governed by reason is Prudence which is the beginning and end of all Vertue For that making us exactly and truly to know the condition and quality of things objected to us renders us sit to distinguish what is according to Nature what is not what we ought to pursue and what we ought to fly She removes the erroneous opinions that afflict us restores our natural affections and in her Train follow all other Vertues of which she is at once the Mother Nurse and Guardian Oh! the life of Man were happy if alwaies conducted by this excellent guide But alas by how much this Vertue is excellent by so much is it rare and is in our minds like the veins of Gold in the earth found in few places It is in my judgement that great magnificent and impenetrable Buckler sorged by Vulcan for Achilles in which he carried the Heavens the Earth the Ocean Clouds Stars Thunder Cities Armies Assemblies and Battels and to be short what in this world is to be seen thereby intimating to us that knowledge renders the Soul of Man more invulnerable than a large seven-sold sheild can do the body But as Achilles went to the School of Chiron to make himself sit to bear this massy sheild so must you come to that of Philosophy to learn the use of Prudence which will teach you that Prudence is to be exercised two waies one to advance us to good the other to repell evil But as we bring not our minds pure to Philosophy our Physitian but rather prepossessed and contaminated with froward popular humours we must like a skilful Chirurgion who before he make any application to the wounded part draws forth malignant humours begin by purging our mind of all such rebellious Passions as by their smoak obnubilate the eye of Reason otherwise the Precept of good manners and sound affections is of no more advantage to the Soul than abundance of of food to a corrupt body which the more you endeavour to nourish you offend We call that Passion which is a violent motion of the Soul in her sensitive part and makes her either apply her self to what she thinks is good or recede from what she takes to be ill For though we have but one Soul cause of life and action which is all in all and all in every part yet hath that one Soul very different agitations even contrary to one another according to the diversity of Vessels where she is retained and the variety of objects presented to her In one she hath her Encrease in another her Motion in a third her Sence in a fourth her Memory in a sift her Discourse as the Sun who from one essence distributing his raies in diverse places warms one and illuminates another melts wax and dries the earth dissipates clouds and exhausts lakes and marshes When the Parts where she is inclosed only keep and imploy her to the proportion of their capacity and the necessity of their right use her effects are sweet benigne and well governed but on the contrary when they usurp more motion and heat than they should they change and become more dangerous like the raies of the Sun that wandering at their natural liberty warm gently and faintly but contracted and united in the Concave of a glass burn and consume what they were wont to give life to and nourish Now Nature hath given this force and power borrowed from the Soul to the Senses to apply themselves to things to extract their forms and as they are fit or unfit harmonious or dissonant to Nature to embrace or reject them and that for these two Reasons One that they should be as Centinels to the Body for its preservation the other and the chiefest to the end they should be as Messengers and Carriers of the understanding and soveraign part of the Soul and to serve as Ministers and Instruments of discourse and Reason But in giving them this power she hath also prescribed her Law and Command which is to be satisfied with a careful observation and intelligence of what shall pass without attempting to usurp the more high and eminent power and so to put all things into alarm and confusion For as in an Army the Centinels oftentimes not knowing the design of their Commander may be deceived and take an enemy disguised for a friend or for enemies such as come to their relief so the Sences not comprehending the whole sum of Reason are oft abused by apparence and take for advantageous what is wholly against us When upon this judgement and without expecting the command of Reason they come to disturb the Irascible and Concupiscible powers they raise a sedition and tumult in the Soul during which Reason is no more heard nor the understanding obeyed than is the Law or Magistrate in a troubled estate of civil discord Now in this Commotion the Passions which disturb the peace of the mind and mutiny against the Soul make their first insurrection in the Concupiscible part that is to say in the place where the Soul exerciseth this faculty of desiring or rejecting things offered to her as they are proper or contrary to her delight or conservation They move then according to the apparence of a Good or Ill. If it be a present good and of which they enter into a present fruition we call that Motion Pleasure or Delight If it be of a good to come from which we are far distant we call it desire if of a present Ill of which we already resent the incommodity and distast and which we lament in other men we call it Hate or Horrour if of any Ill we bewail in our selves vexation if this vexation be occasioned by what concerns us nearly we call it Grief if by mischance in another Pitty if occasioned by an apparent Good in which we pretend to share Jealousie if by good we have no part in Envy if occasioned by an Ill to come we call it Fear This is the first body of Mutineers that disturb the peace of the Soul whose effects though very dangerous are nevertheless much inferiour in violence to them that sollow For those first motions formed in that part by the presented object immediately shift thence into the irascible part that is to say into that part where the Soul seeks the means she hath to obtain or shun what appears good or evil to her and there as a wheel already moving by a new access of force falls into a prompter speed so the Soul already stirred with the first apprehension and adding a second effort to the first is hurried with more violence than before and raises up Passions more powerful and more
ZENON THE Morall Philosophy OF THE STOICKS Written Originally in FRENCH by that Ingenious Gentleman Monsieur du Vaix first President of the Parliament of Provence Englished by Charles Cotton Esq Ea Philosophiae vis est ut non solum studentes sed etiam conversantes juvet Sen. Epist. LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North door 1664. Perlegi ingeniosum hunc Libellum cui Titulus The Moral Philosophy of the STOICKS quem non indignum censeo qui Typis Mandetur Joh. Hall R. P. D. Humf. Episc. Lond. Ã sac Dom. April 13. 1664. To my Honoured Friend and Kinsman Iohn Ferrers Esq Honoured Cozen IT is so long since I writ to you that I am now ashamed to appear before you any other way then this where this little mark of my respect may something pretend to your pardon for what is past by shewing you That however I may have neglected I can never forget you and although I am sensible that I repair an unkindness by an injury whil'st I impose this Trifle upon your Patronage yet I cannot much consider that when I call to mind how kindly you have ever entertained my friendship and how unapt you are to interpret your friends to their disadvantage This little thing that I present to you and to the world in your name I translated seven years ago by my Fathers command who was a great admirer of the Author so that what you see was an effect of my obedience and no part of my choice my little studies especially at that time lying another way neither had I now puhlished it but that I was unwilling to have a thing how mean soever turned to waste Paper that cost me some hours pains and which however I may have disguised it is no ill thing in it self For what concerns the Dedication of it to you I must confess that besides my gratitude to which I am ever bound I had a collaterall design upon your protection supposing that the censuring world would use me with more respect upon your account and although you stand in need of no Morall precept to make you a perfect good man yet perhaps it may not be altogether unpleasant to you to look back into your own practice and to read over your own Vertues which are such as amongst many others and many worthier have particularly obliged me to profess my self Honoured Cozen Your most humble Servant C. C. February 27. 1663. THE Morall Philosophy OF THE STOICKS THERE is nothing in the world that tends not to some End Even insensible things seem to advance and adapt themselves to their proper use and being applyed thereto discover a kind of consent and seem to apprehend the Perfection of their Being Things that are endowed with action move of themselves as we see and all the Animals in generall and every of them in this kind pursues with fervency and Emulation That for which he was born and is apparently delighted with the fruition of his desire What then shall man do to whom Nature above things without life hath given Sence and above the Common Sence of other Animals hath given discourse and Reason to know and choose of things presented to Him the most excellent and proper to his use May we not conclude Him to have his proper end decreed him as the utmost aim of all his actions And that as the happiness of all things is their Perfection and Perfection the fruition of the End so the Felicity of Man shall consist in the acquisition and atcheivment of that he proposes to himself and to which all his Actions tend Now the End of Man and all his thoughts and Inclinations is Good And indeed there is none amongst you that desires not good and flyes not Ill and who being asked why he doth this or that will not answer because he thinks to do well And though in the Number of our actions the greater are found to be Ill notwithstanding the general Purpose by which we are led is ever to arrive at Good But as he that shoots at a mark if his aim be obstructed either by the infirmity of the Eye or the corruption of the Air or if he mistake one thing for another though he earnestly desire to hit must err so we not rightly knowing in what consists our good and often mistaking that about it for the thing it self dispose our particular actions wide of the general Intent Good is not truly exposed here to the view of all the world Nature hath strewed below but weak sparks of its light which nevertheless purely applyed to our minds breaks out into a glorious flame and makes a true discovery of it self We must then seek it and we shall find it and finding know it For as truth presenting it self to the understanding is received with great Content and satisfaction so Good presenting it self to the Will shall there be joyfully embraced as its natural object I think that properly to define Good a man may say it is nothing but the Essence and operation according to Nature who is so wise a Mistress as that she hath disposed all things to their best Estate hath given them their first inclination to Good and the End they ought to seek so that who will follow cannot fail to obtain it By Nature Man should be so composed that the most Excellent Quality should govern in him and that of things presented to his Choice his Reason should make use of such as are most decent and most to his purpose The Good then of Man consists in his healthfull Reason that is to say his Virtue which is nothing but a constant Disposition of the Will to pursue things Honest and fit There is none but will acknowledge this for Good but many will say that in this alone the Good of man cannot consist but that withall he must have a Body sound and well disposed Commodities without which Life cannot stand or at the least be happy But if what we have said in the beginning be true and that the end of every thing is his Good and his Good his End and that these two so weave themselves into one another that the One cannot subsist without the other a man may say that neither Health nor Body are the Good of Man seeing they are not his End for he possesses not them but to serve him to a further Use and the most part of his Age he is miserable with all this unless we shall approve them for happy to whom wealth and strong Constitutions serve only as to very many to nourish their vices and foment their Passions But a man may say They help us to arrive at that End and they are Instruments without which Man cannot reach this principall Good and consequently as they are necessary to the acquisition of That ought themselves to be reputed Goods To which I shall answer That it is improper to call that good
of this life by their cares we lessen our own and repose under their diligence We must therefore return them a respect sit to entertain and nourish the respect they bring and value their good and their peace as persons who are part of our selves But especially we ought to assure them that that respect and honour proceeds not from any pride we take in their youth and beauty least that exalt them to sierceness and least the sires of our own affections lighted at such fading things too soon burn out but rather from the expectation we have of their sidelity chast manners and vertuous care of our common Children and to establish their assurance let us shew them that we will admit no separate interest of goods thoughts or affections for in this communion good-will and friendship have their encrease which on the contrary are dispersed and lost in the diversity of inclinations and designs This affection passes from our Wives to our Kindred to whom Nature hath ally'd us and conveyed with the blood a secret inclination and good will towards the Persons derived from the same stem and as they are nearer this affection is more lively and obliges us to more vigilant endeavours of service To observe then in this as in all other things the order Nature hath proposed as the chief ornament of all her works we must discover the affection we owe to our Kindred according to their place and as they are nearest in blood render them all the offices of assistance and service we possibly can Thus far Nature with her own hand guides our affections we must now come to the motion vertue gives them who allies us in Friendship with wise and vertuous persons and of all the goods that civil Society begets there is none we ought more to cherish and esteem than the friendship of honest men as the basis and pillar of our felicity 'T is that friendship that sweetens what is bitter and seasons what is sweet that teaches whom in prosperity to oblige with whom to rejoyce in our good fortune who in our affliction are sit to comfort and relieve us in our Youth to teach and instruct us in our old age to support us and who in our flourishing age of man are sit to second and assist us As the profession of this friendship is pretious so ought we to make use of our Prudence in acquiring it such as it ought to be And first amongst men we must seek out the most worthy love and honour them as given by God himself to engage with us in the society of good and laudable actions We ought to contract them by honest opportunities and once acquired to preserve them to us by industrious Offices for all Creatures and principally men are born with an inclination to love whatever is advantageous to them The vertuous man notwithstanding proportions not this benefit by the abundance of what we call Goods and Riches but by the advantage he receives by his Friends of advancing himself in vertuous qualities and if it so happen that we have any contest with our Friends in a share of Goods Honours or the like we ever ought to give place to them since all these can never be better imployed than in the acquisition of Friends And there is only one excuse for our withdrawing from them which is when they abandon Reason and Philosophy that unites us in that correspondence And when we do quit them we must do it with all modesty not therefore becoming their enemies but sincerely rip without tearing and without blaming their actions or opinions seek all means to restore them by Reason to their deserted duty fighting them with arguments which are the sacred arms of friendship and though we lose all hope so to reclaim them we ought notwithstanding never to become their enemies for though the good man forsake his friends when they forsake their vertue and renounce his familiarity and former intimacy he nevertheless retains for them the charitable affection which ought to be among men which obliges him to wish them well imitating the bounty of God who loves the good and yet hates not the wicked And 't is a common Proverb The Good man hath no enemies for he hates no man These are the degrees betwixt Man and the things that are without him But because it oft falls out that they draw us to diverse ends and consequently hold us suspended in doubt and anxiety we must establish our selves a Rule by which we must ever prefer the first to the last An Oath ought to be dear unto us but we had better violate an Oath than offend God by observing it Our Parents ought to be had in high reverence but if their wills be contrary to Right reason and to that which God hath put into us for our better government we ought rather to abandon them than God and Reason Our Kindred should be dear to us but if our Kindred would provoke us to things hurtful to our Parents we must not consent with them Our friends have a great power over us but after our Wives and Children There are indeed certain particular offices which we owe to persons of less interest rather than to others to our Neighbours than our Friends to our Friends than Kindred but it is ordinarily in matters of little consequence and where civil society something usurps upon Nature for the common necessity of Man I have thus far represented to you the respect that man owes to things that are without him it is now time to make him descend into himself and into himself to retire his affections as lines to their Center The wise man no doubt payes a great respect to himself and though it be only discovered to his own thoughts he is nevertheless very wary of doing or saying any unbecoming thing For right Reason which ought to sway his actions is to him the same with the severest Judge and the most rigid Censurer We must then be very circumspect as well in publick as in private so to compose our actions as not to blush at them and that Nature according to whose rule we ought to compose our selves be not violated Nature hath given us a body as a necessary instrument of life we must be careful of this body but only careful as of a thing under the tuition of the mind to which it owes a regard and not a service and ought to entertain it as a Prince not a Tyrant to nourish not to make it fat and to shew that it lives not for it but cannot here below subsist without it 'T is no little address to an Artificer that he knows how to prepare his tools nor no little advantage to a Philosopher that he can so order his body as to make it a fit instrument to the exercise of vertue The Body is to be preserved in an estate of health two wayes by moderate diet and seasonable exercise for the nature of sublunary things is so gliding