often Truth and discover what really we are but our Tongue yet more frequently layeth us open to the understanding sort and perchance more certainly too especially if we take it for the very substance of the things we say for then by the coherency or incoherency of our discourse we betray our selves either to be Fools or wise dull or Witty But as a Physiognomist precisely I mean here the out-side only if I may so speak and the accidents of our Speech as the Sound Precipitation Stammering Duration c. As to the Sound To speak High and boisterously without any rational occasion is a surer mark of a sharp voice than of a sharp Wit Precipitation proceeds sometimes I confess from a too quick apprehension that conceives more things than the Tongue can well utter in a short time but more often 't is occasion'd by the confused Idea's of the Soul By the duration of our discourse I mean that excessive one whereby we become insufferable to those we converse as being talkative beyond measure whick I take to be no sign either of Wit or judgement unless we admit that the talkative sort are the wittiest and most judicious which no man of Sence will ever grant as being sufficiently confuted by obvious reason and daily experience For as Loquaciores avium quae minores the smallest Birds for Instance the Sparrows Nightingales c. make more noise than the greater ones do as the Eagle the Swan c. So those petits esprits shallow Wits and superficial Understandings are commonly more talkative than the Judicious and most thinking sort of Mankind SECT VII The Imperfection of humane Wit and Knowledge 1. That Science does rather make us humble than proud 2. That our clearest Knowledge of Natural things is but meer Sceptisisme and the Learnedst Men but meer Scepticks 3. That we have a self-evidence of some truths but no true demonstration of most things we undoubtedly believe 4. That meer matter may do by God's Omnipotency what our soul supposed Spiritual performs 5. That not only the Mysteries of our Religion but the most Obvious and known Objects are above the reach of our limited Capacities 1 T Is a common saying Scientia Inflat but I doubt if it be not likewise a vulgar Error For I am so far from believing that true Knowledge does puff up a Man and swell him with Pride that I can conceive nothing fitter to make us truly humble without either Hypocrisie or Dissimulation 'T is easie to conjecture upon what grounds I run thus contrary to the Stream and the general Opinion of most men because methinks 't is evident that the chief Source of true Humility Humiliation too is a perfect knowledge of our own Weakness and Imperfections of our Incapacity and little Insight in most things which I take to be proper to those only who are the most knowing sort of Mankind I look upon such as true Scepticks in this Sense That whatever is not laid open to their Eyes either by the Light of an undeniable demonstration or by some sort of self-evidence they justly doubt of Because they understand perfectly the difficulties on both sides which holding their Judgement in aequilibrio equally in the middle and in suspence hinder them from joyning closely with either of the extreams Hence it appears that as the greatest Wits have most Doubts so the Dullish are commonly those that doubt almost of nothing I speak not here in matters of Faith for as Christians we are meer Believers not Phylosophers but of Nature and Natural things of the World and what it contains or whatever is within us or without us whereof we have so little Knowledge that the self-evident principles excepted we know nothing evidently or at least by demonstration We know indeed certainly that we are as having some sensible Foundation both in Essence and Existency That there is in us a certain internal principle whereby we move subsist and understand which we call the Soul But how it performs all these things what it is whether Spiritual or Corporal we know not I believe my Soul to be both Immortal and Spiritual And I have read several Treatises pretending to a clear demonstration of its Spiritual Nature which I cou'd never yet see nor any Impartial judge I am afraid shall ever be sensible of because we can have no certitude from the light of Reason that she hath either being or operation not depending upon matter or some Material Phantasma and what in the other Life shall be her way of acting we shall not know so long as we remain in this I am not altogether unacquainted with the chief Prerogatives of our Souls which are to conceeive and frame general Notions to prescind or rather divide by her sharp Edge the matter into various parts severally intellegible to raise Influences from the general to the particular and from the particular though more Illegally to the general to remember things past envisage the present and frame not unlikely conjectures of what is to come But all this amounting to no more than to some degrees of probability offers nothing like a demonstration of the Spirituality of our Souls For I conceive no reason why God who made all things of nothing may not likewise make what he pleaseth of something Where is there then any contradiction if we say that God who created the Matter of nothing may change the same into a being capable to do and in a more perfect manner to whatever our Soul performs For I conceive it to be but a meer prejudice and not reason that leads us to say that whatever thinks or reasons is of a Spiritual Nature 'T is observable then whensoever we pretend to reveal by demonstration such hidden Mysteries we always suppose what in first Instance we should prove I mean that God is neither so powerful to elevate the matter to what he pleaseth nor so skilful as to change it into a form capable of most perfect operations or at least of those that we allow to our Souls supposed to be Spiritual But if we understand not the nature of ouâ— Souls we can conceive almost aâ— little of the Fabrick of our Bodies Here we are Admirers and not Philosophers since we can give but a very imperfect and a scarce rationaâ— account of what we behold in our selves and know not neither how we live how we grow how we move nor from what part of the Body the Bloud begins to circulate or in what part of the eye the vision is made or whether the Child breath 's in the Womb or not c. In one word the wholâ— Texture of our Body is such a piece of wondeâ— to the understanding sort that iâ— seems to some to be no less beyond the reach of our capacity than the very Nature of a meer Spirit 2. I do firmly believe what all true Christians believe but this fundamental article of all Religon that there is a God though I were no
sort can pretend to for nothing more true than this common Word Qui velit ingenio cedere rarus erit Yet even those on whom Nature has bestowed it most Liberally are put to a stand and know not what to answer if you press them to determine what in realty it is But pretending sometimes to know more than really they do and being resolved to say any thing rather than nothing they will endeavour to put you off with great and empty Words Splendid Descriptions Tedious Tautologies affected Metaphors and whatever may seem a sufficient Veil to their Ignorance What is it then we commonly call Wit I confess I never either read or heard any thing on this Subject that looks like a satisfactory Resolution of this Question And perhaps what I shall set down here will prove far short of the thing I aim at For I am of Opinion we do so little understand the Nature of things that we cannot confidently boast yet of any true Notion or Definition Yea I hold that this very Definition of Man Homo est Animal rationale so familiar in the Schools is near as imperfect as this Homo est Anima rationalis Man is a rational Soul My Reason for this assertion is because the latter Proposition presents to my Understanding nothing but what is in some Sence true though not all the Truth For a man indeed is a rational Soul tho' something else The former besides its obscurity gives me just grounds to suspect its containing more than the Truth I mean that this rational Soul which in the Second Proposition I conceieve in a manner free from matter is really material as depending on an Organical Body as to its first being conservation and functions For if you take asunder this Notion and consider it in every respect you shall find that this reasoning faculty supposed to be in man is never exerted without the concurrence of the matter or of some material Phantasm The contrary whereof is a prerogative granted only to those perfect Spirits the antient Phylosophers called Daemons and by the Grecians Angels who by the priviledge of their most refined Nature are happily freed from that gross and massie substance which our Souls how Spiritual soever they be are clogg'd with in this Mortal Life 3. I cannot then pretend to give you a true and genuine Notion of Wit but an imperfect and rude inchoate description thereof yet so general and comprehensive that it contains all such Creatures as without any violence done to the Word we may truely call Witty Yet shall I not say with a great Man of this Age that Wit is un je ne scay quoy I know not what For this would be to say nothing at all and an easie answer to all difficulties and no solution to any Neither shall I call it a certain Liveliness or Vivacity of the Mind inbred or radicated in its Nature which the Latines seem to insinuate by the word Ingenium nor the subtlest operation of the Soul above the reach of meer matter which perhaps is mean't by the French who concieve Wit to be a Spiritual thing or a Spirit L' esprit Nor with others that 't is a certain acuteness of Undestanding some men possess in a higher degree the Life of discourse as Salt without which nothing is relished a Celestial Fire a Spiritual Light and what not Such and the like Expressions contain more of Pomp than of Truth and are fitter to make us talkative on this Subject than to enlighten our Understandings But what then is Wit To hold you no longer in suspence Wit is either a senceful discourse word or Sentence or a skilful Action This Notion though short being as you see disjunctive is upon this account the more comprehensive Where ever then you shall meet with Sence in discourse c. Dexterity and Skill in Actions there and no where else you shall meet with Wit As this is so clear that it needs no more proof than the Sun needs Light so I leave it untouch't and to your own Meditation as a self-evident Principle I shall only say that Sence is so necessary for meriting the Honourable Name of a Virtuoso and a true Wit that Men without this advantage are deservedly not only reputed not Witty but meer Fools and senseless Yet do I not mean that every kind of Sence in our discourse allowes our Discourse to be stiled Witty else the number of Wits would be fargreater than we are commonly aware of Yet certain it is there are but few true Wits in comparison of those that have Sence enough not to be meer Fools We speak then here not of Sense only but of Sencefulness neither of a dead and down right flat Sence for nothing more common but rather of a Lively one as being animated by a certain Tour not usual to the duller sort This sort of Sence is not unlike to a bright and polish'd Diamond the other may be represented to us by a Brute and unpolish'd one They are both of the same Substance not of the same Value both of the same matter not of the same form I mean of the same Light Splendour and Brightness 4. As to the other part of this Description wherein I mention a dexterous or skilful Action as a piece of Wit I confess ingeniously I design'd by this Addition to declare that I am not so great an Admirer of mankind as to think that no other material Substance but that which is congenial to my self may be and deservedly too called Witty Phylosophers may pretend what they please unless they prove themselves Semideos to be more than Men they shall never convince me that they are otherwise differenced than in Speech and Figure from those living Creatures we call commonly Beasts and which I have always conceived to be in reality Animalia rationalia rational Catures but of a lower Rank and less perfect than Men. Neither shall any Man laugh me out of this Phylosophy with their innate instinct which in the judgement of common understanding is their first inward Mover and the sole principal of all their Actions For unless you understand by this Instinct God himself which would be no less surprising than Deus e Machina and besides no satisfactory answer you will I hope confess 't is nothing else but an obscure and insignificant Word invented only to heighten that too vain conceit we have of our own nature by depressing that of other inferiour Creatures For Men considering the wonderful and most skilful and inimitable Actions of Apes Elephants Swallows Bees Dogs c. were loath to allow them to be endowed with some kind of Reason as if they should thereby range themselves among the Beasts Yet being forced to give some account of these undoubted peices of Wit we daily observe in that lower sort of living Creatures they call'd subtily their most ingenious Actions the Products not of Reason but of Instinct whereby if they understood nothing
great Volumes wherein we may read the wonderful effects of Gods infinite Power and Wisdom but you shall see no Characters there that express the Contingency of things to come and the occasional determinations of our free Wills For what connexion can any rational man imagine between the Aspects of the Stars and a Childs being one day either a King or an Emperour or to dye such a death We know neither the Nature Properties nor Influences of the Celestial Bodies how can then a man not a meer Fool presume to determine their contingent Effects Astronomy indeed is somewhat better grounded But how many things are we yet here ignorant of the quantity of the natural year shall never be exactly determined because we can never know the critical Minute of the Suns first step backward from one Tropick towards the other The new Kalender is not as yet perfect and may one day stand in need to be corrected a second time We can give but a very uncertain account of the Nature of Comets and debate often about their hight periods movement and bulk whether the light of the fixed Stars be innate or only borrowed from the Sun we are not as yet certain We do but guess at their real distance from us and among themselves We speak rashly and perhaps upon not very good grounds of their wonderful Rapidity and Swiftness I shall say nothing of an infinite number of other things that we can give no rational account of as for Instance of Antipathy Sympathy Poisons and of that sort of Remedies we call Specificks If I chance to meet with two men I never saw before I find my self more inclin'd to serve the one than the other but why I am to seek As soon as the Lamb cometh into the World it flyeth from before the Woolf as from a known Enemy Now by what kind of Impulse or Impression it behaves it self so rationally I shall willingly learn from any of the Modern or Antient Philosophers The strange effects of Poysons are but too well known whereof some are quick some are slow some cold and others hot But they all agree in this that they destroy at length the structure of our Bodies I remember to have been present at the overture of a Lady that had certainly been poyson'd which nevertheless we could not affirm by any visible Impressions made upon her inward Parts the alteration made by this subtile Poyson being quite insensible I am of opinion that in this Life we shall never reach to a perfect knowledge of such odd pieces of Wonder Let us then acknowledge that there is no true Philosophy in the World but Sceptisism not that I take Scepticks here for men that doubt of every thing yea and of their own Existency too for 't is perhaps a vulgar Error to believe that there were ever any such in the World and withall not meer Fools I mean then by Scepticks those that are come to such a pitch of Knowledge as to doubt rationally of every disputable matter because seeing nothing under one light only and looking narrowly into the reasons of both sides they discover but some few or more degrees of probability without the very Twilight of Evidence SECT VIII The Character of a great Wit 1. That there are few great Wits 2. Who are not to be reckoned among the great Wits 3. The truest notion of a great Wit 4. That great Wits are Wary in their decisions and not at all Dogmatical 5. The difference between Aristotle and Descartes 6. Thomas Aquinas upon what account to be most esteemed 1. I Doubt if I may not say of great Wits what Cicero says somewhere of great Orators that scarce one was seen in an Age For as Aristotle calls little men comely but not beautiful so likewise I take the most part of those that the World admires most to be but jolly Wits des esprits jolly as not throughly deserving because of some considerable deficiency a more honourable Title or rather not filling in all sense what is in rigour meant by a great Wit For I conceive none to be such who has received but one Talent though in a just measure Thus a man may be an excellent Poet a skilful Astronomer a good Geomatrician a subtile Logician and yet unfit for all other Sciences such an one then can be reckoned but among the jolly Wits and that is Honour enough for him I do far less judge those to be great Wits who understand nothing but what is beyond common Sense and Understanding as these Metaphysical Whymsies abstracted Idea's and Airy Notions that fill the empty heads of some speculative Virtuoso's Neither could I ever have a great Opinion of such as preferring themseves before the rest of the World condemn whatever flows not from their own Pen or whatever is beyond the reach of their short Capacity For this is no more than what the duller sort are equally capable of I am likewise somewhat out of conceit with most of our Modern Philosophers who will have none to be really Witty and Ingenious but such as understand perfectly Mechanism or the Texture and Structure of things or how to knit weave and knead one Corpuscle with another For at this rate Apothecaries Smiths and Bakers and the rest of the Mechanical Tribe are to be accounted true Philosophers Yet I ever conceived Philosophy to be something beyond the reach of this common sort and would be very loath to become either a Smith or a Baker in order to gain the Honourable Name of a true Philosopher I have a great respect and I am forced to it by the very name for what we call in England Divines yet I look not upon them as great Wits because if they be good Christians they must renounce the use of their Wit and believe the most inconceivable Mysteries of Religion upon no better ground than the Simplest sort that is upon the surest of all the Authority of a Divine tho' obscure Revelation I conceive then to be short no other Notion of a great Wit than what Sceptisism affords me Not that I mean a man that doubts of every thing but rather one that can show demonstratively the incertitude of all disputable matters those of Faith with which we meddle not laid aside The doubts of such men are not meer Negative ones for those are groundless but rational positive and grounded upon such reasons as may demonstrate our little Capacity and Insight into most disputable things So as the greatest Wit of Angels consists in knowing the greatest Wit in Men consists in doubting whoever than after a due consideration of any difficulty in what Subject soever seeth the Pro and the Con or whatever may be find for maintaining either part of the contradiction so clearly that he is forced to ballance his understanding in the middle by an almost equal Weight of counterpoizing Reasons This Man I say and no other may assume to himself without Usurpation the Name of a