runs to meet the evil afflicts it self before it come and Audacity finds its divertisement in peril and dangers They divide all these different qualities and establish their number according to the diversity of their objects For say they when the Soul moves she has generally good or evil for her object and that begets Love or Hatred she either considereth them particularly as absent and that 's Desire or present and that 's Joy or pleasure When the evil she hates makes her already feel his incommodities they commonly call it Dolor or else vexation and when he 's absent and though remote enough yet producing horror they change his name into that of Flight Then if good be her object and she find it uneasie to acquire and that maugre all the difficulties that surround it she promise her self the possession they name it Hope when she sincks under the evils that attack her they give it a contrary title and call it despaire When the mischief she judgeth hard to repulse torments her and when she bustles to overcome it they call it Anger and when it barely threatens and the Soul employs her dexterity to prevent or give it Battel it assumes the name of Fear or Audacity Some others who are indebted to vain glory for their Eloquence or to the affection they bear St. Austin for straying from the common opinion of Philosophers acknowledg but one Passion they assure us that Love only is the disturber of our quiet and that our pleasures our paines our fears and wishes our hopes and despaires are but so many different shapes which love assumes when he feels an evil or swims in content when he pursues what delights him or fears what is contrary to him and when he promiseth himself some felicity or looseth the fancy of obtaining it Although I have a venerable value for the favourers of this opinion and that the Reasons wherewith they lay their foundation be sufficiently solid to command my esteem yet it seemeth to me as if they had not throughly examined the nature of Love when they make him the Author of Despair and Hatred when they imagin that the most generous of our Passions should become the Fountain of the most timorous and violent and that how ever they cannot make Flight and anger bear the name of Love without confounding the cause with its effects For as Love is a disposition of the Soul resideing in the will and as Sorrow and Fear Desire and Hope are Passions of the inferior part of the Soul that immediately or mediately are loves attendants I think according to the rigor of Reasoning we ought not to give them the same name and that it is to injure the most noble of our Passions to bestow his characters upon those wild and savage effects that have no coherence with his nature But without staying to contend this opinion and to shun the uncertainties that arise from Peripatetick divisions and to avoid the incumbrances that enclose the unity of other modern instructors I conclude with St. Hierom that there are but four principal Passions which comprehend all the rest of which some have respect unto good and evil as present to wit Pleasure and Grief and the two other as absent namely Fear and Desire This distinction is not hard for them to prove who place aversion and despair under fears and who for avoyding multiplication in unnecessary matters reduce Hope Audacity and Anger under Desire All the difficulty that can arise from this division is that it seemeth lame that it comprehends not all the motions of the Soul and that by the distribution thereof made by this Doctrin the two fountains Love and Hatred have no share in those great agitations This objection that in Aristotle's judgment hath so much seeming weight concludes nothing in the opinion of Seneca and it may suffice them that hold too violently with Aristotle to know that Love and Hatred are not so much Passions of our Soul as natural inclinations and aversions which we have for good and evil in General These sentiments are so powerfully ingrafted in our Soul that it is not possible to divorce them we are carried to what is good by motion of nature alone and we abhor what is evil without being thrust from it otherwise then by the inclination we naturally have to preserve our selves The will it self as much a Soveraign as she is in her operations works according to nature when she tends to her own perfection she ceaseth to be indifferent when she regards her chiefest good and in the opinion of the witty Doctor when she respects her felicity she is no more at liberty then a heavy Body that runs to its Center or then Beasts that hasten to the springs of Water when they are thirsty It is true that she indeed is absolute in her Dominion she can suspend her motion when the imagination offers her a pleasing object and she can shun or embrace a thing for which the mind hath conceived an aversion But then this good which she seeks must be peculiar and rather her divertisement then her felicity for if her glory consist in it she steers to that by a natural motion she approves it without choice and she loves it without having it in her power to make Election Thus may we exercise Reason upon the Subjects of Love and Hatred and assert that they are not so much Passions of the Soul as impulsions of nature which engage us to pursue that which is good and fly from its contrary Discourse III. That Passions are not Natural to Man PLato who seeks Truth among poetical Fables and draws the strongest of his Arguments from the most wild Fancies of the Ancients doth in my opinion at no time more dexterously oppose the Impiety or Sordidness of that age than when he renders Vertue a Stranger to Mankind engaging Socrates to dispute her Advantages with his Jupiter and proves that she is not so much the Portion of Heaven or of Nature as the Daughter of the Mind and the Will His Discourse is shaped according to the ordinary proceedings of the World and the same Maxims that preserve Kingdoms and States justifie his Reasons and confirm his Doctrine For if Vertue saith he be natural and the Country where we are born or the Climate under which we live be sufficient to make us vertuous Rewards in Common-wealths are idle things the Commendations given to them that deserve them are unjust and all the Laurels and Crowns wherewith the Heads of Conquerours and Kings are adorned will not be so much the Testimonials of their Justice or Valour as the Marks of their Nature and good Fortune From whence he concludes that Vertues are voluntary that they owe their Birth to Practice and that Perseverance which endureth Grief and laughs at Fortune is the chief Principle Though Passions be opposed to Vertues and their humour rather contrary than different though some are insolent and others modest some irregular and
as that of conquerors it is not therefore less real and if their sobriety be less published then that of our strictest Monasticks it produceth not fewer chast and continent persons And even St. Austin though an Enemy to the Vertues of the Heathen attributing with much heat all to Grace and seeming to grant Nature nothing that all might be owned to the assistance of Jesus Christ is astonished that Sin which brought all our Senses into a Cloud of Error darkened our minds depraved our Wills and poured into our Souls the Seeds of all Vice could not choak the inclination we have for that which is good that we should be naturally just after our Fathers Revolt and guilty as we are we should retain a Love for Vertue and a hatred for her Contrary Some of his Disciples doubted his Arguments they could hardly comprehend how that which makes the Fountain of our Crimes should be the Original of our good Deeds and that against those inclinations which he maintains she often brings forth perfections instead of Monsters They admired that the first Men that succeeded in Adams sin should become righteous by conversing with Nature that they should put Laws in Practice which they never read off and by consulting this prudent Mother they should conceive a Reverence for their Creator compassionate care of their Subjects and an affection for their Equals Methinks it is not very hard to clear all these Doubts and without stumbling at the Difficulties they lay down it may Suffice to propose them a Dilemma to shew them the Truth by day light For after Adam's fall it must be that either God forsook his Works or that he knew Nature potent enough to do well without the aid of Written Laws If to augment the guilt of the first Man or diminish the rigor of his punishment you represent God infinitely offended who justly denies his assistance to Adams Descendants be careful that you do not equally question both his providence and his Mercy and remember that you cannot take from him the Care of his Creatures without offending his Bounty But if you believe that Nature is impotent in the Exercises of Vertue without particular Grace That Man in the State of Sin hath more inclination for Vice then Vertue that the one is natural to him and the other a stranger Where are those commandments that brought him back to his Duty Where are the Written Laws that decided his Doubts Where the promises and threats for reward of the Righteous and punishment of the Wicked It must then be concluded that Nature is not so corrupted but that we may draw some advantage from her That though we be guilty there remains something of our innocence and with a little Labour to keep her in Breath we may avoid Vice practice Vertue and triumph over our Passions Discourse III. Continuation of the same Subject and of the Advantages of Reason THough Nature be the common Mistress of Philosophers though the Cynick Sect morose as they are court her as well as the Academia and may boast that Plato was her Lover and the Wise Roman her Slave Nevertheless they that carress her set her out in such Different shapes and the Formes they give her are so disproportionable the one to the other that it may be doubted whether they knew what they describe or whether they do not imitate those jealous Suitors that disguise the perfections of their Beloved to divert their Rivals Some have thought her gentle and easy to be intreated that much Art was not needful to gain her That such as were faithful to her obtained her and that a constancy of Life was the way to possess her They affirm that to keep her Laws we need but an even Temper and that contrary to the humor of vicious men that delight in change it was enough to will and not to will the same thing Some others a little more elevated derive her Original from Heaven they distinguish not her Author and her Self and mistaking the Effect for the Cause perswaded themselves that following her Documents they might become the Children rather then the Slaves of the Gods whom they Worshipped They changed the Name of God into that of Nature adored his power in His shaddow and imagining the World to be Eternal they mixt the Creator with the Creature These were the two Opinions of the Ancients and consequently suspicious to those that esteem their good works but splendid sins and the greatest part of their thoughts matters of Crime Nevertheless they are not very far distant from the Truth and by a little light brought in to unmist them they may easily pass for Articles of our Faith and Maximes of our Religion Saint Ambrose explains the former to be of the number of the Faithful he wills us to have but one Resolution That our Endeavours correspond with our first undertaking and that we learn of the Painters not to varnish without preservation of the first Lineaments The other seemeth so reasonable to them of that Party that they think it needs no Authority to support it and if Clement of Alexandria had not laid forth his Eloquence to render it probable it is sufficient to know that Nature is a Law more ancient then Adam that Men reverence her Decrees that it is she that governs the Universe directs the Inhabitants and that all Creatures found therein own her for their Soveraign to Judg that she merits not a meaner Title then the Daughter of the Diety If the Novelty of these opinions put doubt upon the Truth of them if we could run the hazard of becoming infidels by favouring the sentiments of the Heathen yet should I not be afraid by embracing the Doctrin of Chryssippus to stray from the common consent of Divines or by reserving to Nature her own Benefits think my self injurious to the Religion I profess For placeing the Felicity of Man in his own Nature viz. his Reason I concern my self in the glory of God and the honour of Nature and as I shew her to be so obedient to her Father that she observes all his Laws I make it appear that Reason is so submissive to her Mother that she followes all her Dictates So that it may be said without offence to those grand Doctors That Reason composeth Mans real good that his Felicity consisteth in the use of it and that to live happily a man need but be conformable to the Councels of Reason To apprehend this Learning well we must suppose with Seneca a great difference between the Reason of the wise and the Judgment of other Men For as this is but a bare opinion that ariseth from our Flesh which erects her Empire in the Senses and hath no other Considerations but what proceed from the meanest part of a Man she seeks nothing but sensuality and prefers the desires thereof before those of the Soul and as a grateful Child speaks ever well of the Parent Opinion is a thing
impious perceive her in their debaucheries if their Mouth protect them Reason condemns them if the night favour their Crimes the Sun laies them open and it 's but small comfort to have Companions in Sin when they find every where a Witness to accuse them a Judg to condemn them and the Executioner to punish them Reason is then Man's only benefit he must use it to climbe Heaven he must consult it to govern his Life and if he do but hearken unto her he shall be vertuous and tame the most insolent of his Passions Discourse IV. That a Wise Mans happiness is not built on the Goods of the Body SOme modern Philosophers seem to wonder that the least of all Causes should in our Actions be of the greatest use That the End which subsisteth but in Idaea should be the Motive of all our works and that that which hath so little share in all humane productions should be so necessary a Midwife to bring them forth They build their opinions upon Aristotles discourse and as they Learn of him that that which hath no being must needs be barren and that nothing can be drawn from it but what is imaginary they conclude that seeing the End is nothing in substance and that its being depends on our intelects it can conceive nought but Chymera's and bring forth nothing but conceited apparitions Others somewhat more ingenious do say that its subsistence is not so sensible as that of the matter that its manner of operation is different from that of the Form and efficient Cause and that when this unites the Soul with the Body and maketh them agree in one the End doth but figure out Idaea's and form imaginary Resemblances Nevertheless convinced by the deductions of the first of Philosophers they avow that if the End be not the more Noble of the four principles she is how ever the most necessary and that if she make less shew then her Companions she hath so much the ascendant of them as to make their operations Suitable to her Designs True it is that all our Projects would be monstrous if our intentions prevented not their birth and Nature that is so regular in her Works would commit nothing but Debaucheries if she directed them not to the End appointed by her Maker As Goodness is the most illustrious Object of Morality and all that is there intreated of tends to the acquisition thereof we are not to wonder if all men seek her if the guilty as well as the innocent court her and if she often procure her self real Lovers by the bare appearance of Goodness When a Tyrant oppresseth his people ransacks his Neighbours Countries depriveth the innocent of Liberty and to enlarge his Frontiers intrencheth upon those Bounds where wise Nature had limited his Authority Policy which is always self interessed excuseth all these disorders by Pretext of a greater Good and the advantages she hopeth for by weakning the Subject and ruining the Enemy seem considerable enough to justify such iniquities when a Criminal is accused and brought before the Judg finding himself engaged to shew innocency in the matters layed to his Charge he borroweth a good Countenance to excuse himself and as there is no man so impious as in his Crime purely to intend Evil he throweth his offence upon the sincerity of his intentions Goodness is so Natural to Man that he cannot loose the Love of her and when ignorance hides her Truth from him or that Opinion cheats him in the search of her he forbears not to Scuffle for her and to catch at all her Resemblances The Academia that made profession of understanding her Essence is of this an evident proof for designing to form a Felicity that should surpass all our desires they invented happinesses that have hitherto only bore the Name They would have it to consist in the health of the Body that Pleasure should be its inseparable Companion that Fortitude should have no other employment but to defend and preserve its healthful state and that Beauty which is but the Feminine ornament was part of a Wise Mans Felicity As Experience taught these Disciples that health was a fountain that watered all the parts with her perfections that its Comliness consisted in a good intelligence with the Elements and that all the Favours of Nature lost their Splender in an infirm Body they set up health as the Principle of their Felicity They averred that to live happily it was necessary to have a sound Body and that all our other Faculties were useless to us when the visage had lost its Color and the Members their strength and when the food that was for our nourishment became offensive to the Eyes They compared health to a Calm Sea They would have it that as this favored the Alcyons in laying their Eggs and in bringing forth their young the other assisted the Conqueror in the obtaining of Victories Princes in the Conduct of their Subjects Artificers in their Labours Orators in their Praises of vertue and Philosophers in outbraving their misfortunes That it was health that charmed the disturbances of our Life and that we should be condemned as eternally miserable if this did not sweeten the Travels of our Pilgrimage and change part of our miseries into delights If these Philosophers had well studied the Nature of Man's chief happiness and not ransact the Flesh for matter wherewith to content the mind I perswade my self that in seeking to be happy they would have put some difference between their own felicity and that of brute Beasts and that distinguishing their own condition from that of impious persons they would have learnt that that which entertaineth vice nourisheth all our Passions could not be a Principle of their Felicity For albeit that sin be familiar to us that we bear the seeds thereof in our Souls and that to will the commission of it be sufficient to make us guilty Mean while it is never more dangerous then when it meets with aids to second it then when it causeth our advantages to serve its designs and when by the health of our Body it throws Infection into our Souls There are some Men that know not what Vertue is till they become impotent in Vice Sickness must disable them to cure them of sin and they would never call to mind that Hell may be one day the place of their punishment if the enflaming feaver did not feed upon their Intrails Others there are that owe their innocence to the absence of health their Method of Life would be always criminal if they were not sometimes infirm and if some violent agitations did not overthrow their designs they might be ranckt in the Number of dissolute Persons As health is a benefit as frail as dangerous God bestows it but on few the Men of great action have been ever much concerned those high Enterprizes that have disturbed the whole World have afforded them little rest the violent eruptions of their
subordination in the faculties of the Soul that the inferiors seldom or never stir but according to the motion of the superiors and as Souldiers obey their Commanders or as the higher Sphear is followed by all them that are Subalterne so Reason and the will engage the sensitive appetite to side with them and cause it to embrace all as good which they approve and to reject all as evil which they condemn So then we must conclude with Seneca that Passions reside in the will it is there that all the operations of the Soul are perfected and the same powers which form our sins crimes comprehend our affections and desires For by the principles of this Learned Philosopher our Passions are not bare motions that arise from the appearance of good or evil which receive their succors from the imagination and finally stop in the inferior part of the Soul But productions of the mind sentiments of the rational faculty and to use the Stoick Language opinions that deprave the mind and corrupt the will perswading them to be approvers of their advices and to follow their irregular motions Also St. Austin who I look upon in this matter as Senecas warrant intermixeth our Passions with our rational appetite he giveth but one name to the cause and to the effects and well knowing that we have no Passion but what is in the will he assures us that the most dangerous motions of the Soul are but so many affections which draw their good or their evil from the objects to which they have respect our desire according to the words of this great Doctor is nothing but a will to an absent good which we pursue with much earnestness our hope is but a will to a good that flatters us and which we impatiently expect and fear and sadness are but wills of which the one opposeth the evil that threatens us and the other the mischief which we already feel contrary to our good liking So that the matter must get into the will before a man can be said to be in Passion and pleasure could never seize our wishes if the will were not consenting neither would our desires make such extravagant fallies out of the Fort if the will did not bear them company in the pursuit of the benefits we hunt after Upon the authority of this great man I think it can be no Error to declare for the Stoick Party and their Enemies are obliged to allow their sentiments unless they will contradict the opinion of the most solid and most enlightened of the Fathers Discourse II. Of the Number of Passions according to the Stoicks LEt Monarchs be absolute in their Territories let their orders in Council pass for Laws and let the publication of their edicts be sufficient to require obedience in the Subjects let flattery perswade them that they are the Gods of the World that they hold their power from no Earthly Soveraign and that the Dominion they exercise over the People is nothing less then the mark of their Independance yet those that understand the nature of Goverment consider them rather as Slaves then Free-men they call them the Tutors not Masters of their Subjects and demonstrate that as private Interest rules the Fathers of Families that which we call publick commands Kings and Potentates For indeed be it that they treat with their Neighbours be it that they assist their Allies be it that they govern peacably their Conquests be it that they defend them that implore their Protection and take up Armes to relieve the oppressed from Tyranny and the innocent from distress self interest is the end of their labors as well as the aime of their designs and when they prefer the good of their Subjects or the preservation of their Neighbours before their own private contentment it may be said that the same is but a tendency to the encrease of their Empire or at least to the securing of their own Kingdoms That which is practized at Court is but the constant exercise of the Schools and Cicero's testimony of Philosophical affaires is significant when he declares that to govern well Kings should become Philosophers or Philosophers Kings For if these be truth's combatants if they lay new Foundations if they form new arguments wherewith to establish the most probable methods if they return to the principles which they had once forsaken and if by a liberty permitted in the Schools they invent new explications to disguise the sense of their adversaries meaning they are rather governed by interest then the incitements of Justice they seek not so much to instruct the World as to be admired of men they labor more to glorifie their own fame then to edifie their Disciples When they declaim against the Reasons that support the Doctrin of their Predecessors it is that they hope for reputation from the novelty of their opinions or heighten their own credit by vanquishing the sentiments of their Teachers and Antagonists This truth appears evident in the Subject of Passions and if we examin well the design of those that describe them it must be owned that they are divided among themselves touching their number those that find it their advantage to engage with Aristotle and rather to leane upon his authority then upon the strength of his arguments endeavor to perswade us that they are in number eleven that nothing is to be added to or diminished from that division and that they are not to be multiplyed without mixture of superior Species nor retrencht without wrong to their diversity To ground their opinion they seperate the Soul into two faculties whereof one draws her name from Desire and the other from Anger In the first they place those Passions that are least violent and in the other them that are never at rest For they will have it that the six contained in the Concupiscible appetite are divided that some are but little employed and others active that some are sordid and others generous that some wander abroad and the other satisfied with their domestick Entertainments In fine they tell you that Love follows the inclination of the Body which tendeth to his center that desire is the moveing Orbe and that Joy represents him a place of content and rest that Hatred resembles that aversion which he discovers when he is placed in an uneasy condition that Flight imitates those earnest endeavors used to get out of trouble and danger and that Sadness respects the dislike that appears upon a violent detention therein But they inform us that the five Passions that are placed in the Irascible powers are all impetuous resembling the Heavens ever in motion that they create combats and scorn to retreat and that as they look upon good and evil as difficult they can delight in nothing but agitation nor love any thing less then rest The truth is Dispair is wretched Anger is out rageous Hope is negligent of the things she possesseth in aspireing to what she expects Fear
violence upon all her faculties They puff out the light of his Understanding they corrupt his Will they seduce his Judgment and by a power not much inferiour to Magick Art they throw illusions into his Spirit to trouble his mind If men account Exile cruel because it separates us from all the delights of our own Countrey who will not own that the Tyranny of our Passions is the most severe of our torments since they violently take us from our selves deprive us of the power of Reason and rob us of that liberty which the most unfortunate retain under a load of Irons Fortune which hath set up that unjust distinction amongst men and created Lords and Vassals hath no influence upon Passions as she abandons great men to the fidelity of their Servants she commits the meaner sort to the discretion of their Superiours and she is so little absolute in her Government that we often see the Slaves give Laws to them that command some find ways to be their Masters Companions by the assiduity of their services and others have been made free for their fidelity some others are comforted in their bondage that they have but one Master to satisfie and do easily perswade themselves that an ordinary ingenuity will serve to please a mans humor with whom we daily converse But the passionate are subject to so many Tyrants as they have Passions the agreement we hold with them provokes their displeasure our submission renders them insolent our fidelity augments their fury and they are never more cruel than when we observe their orders or obey their commands Sometimes Bondage is rather to be chosen than Liberty and there be some slaves that would not change conditions with their Masters for though these impose upon their Liberty and permit them not the disposing of their goods or their persons yet must they be charged with the care of providing for them they are responsible for their miscarriages they must take an account of their actions and buy with money that authority which they exercise upon their Wills so that their pretended dominion amounts to a specious subjection and they ought not so much to be stiled their Lords as their Atturneys and their Stewards But Passions are ever savage they form nought but evil designs against their subjects they increase their wounds instead of giving ease they violently over-run Vertue and Liberty together and abusing all their faculties they make their conditions equal with the damned sometimes they give them looks so frightful that the Earth hath nothing more terrible or more insolent and anon they leave in the Soul such a Fear and Grief that nothing is more unhappy Their evil entertainments have procured them the hatred of all Philosophers and even they who out of respect have countenanced the vice of their wise man would not permit that he should be subject to Passions Those to whom servitude is irksom may apply themselves to flight for their deliverance and forsaking the Masters whom they serve betake themselves to Countries where their pursuits cannot reach them if the persons with whom they live be difficult or if the Law of the place admit no Affranchizement they may remove into another and seek that liberty in foreign Dominions which they could not obtain in the Land of their nativity But they who serve Passions carry always their masters with them into what part of the world soever they travel they cannot hide themselves from them and so unhappy is their condition that they cannot sheer clear of them without danger of sinking their Vessel If they abandon their habitations if they throw themselves into the arms of Princes for protection and if all the Provinces they pass thorough be so many Sanctuaries and places of freedom yet are they shackled they carry their fetters with them they remain slaves even in the very bosom of Liberty and the Tyrants under whose command they are listed are so outragious that they spare them as little abroad as at home All that pleases the sense stir up their Grief and that which would cure a sick man is matter of their punishment For if in their Travels they observe spacious Countries if they measure the height of Hills if they fix the Eye upon the current of Rivers if they contemplate the Flowers of pleasant Meadows and meet nothing in their way but what imploys or diverts their Fancy they rather charm than heal their Torments and do not so much deceive their thoughts as their eyes and ears By an unhappiness that shews the misery of their condition they often convert their Remedies into Poisons and change the Objects of their divertisements into subjects of their Grief The sight of remote Lands puts them in mind of their own Countreys the Cities through which they pass represent them the places where they began to suffer the Inhabitants seem to discourse of the passages of their former life the things and beauties they find there awaken their desires and although they are far removed from all that can anoy them they forbear not to conceive Love Hatred Joy and Grief What greater Punishments can be inflicted upon Criminals than to expose them to the Will of so many Tormentors And what more cruel Vengeance can be drawn from an Enemy than to see him a slave in places of the greatest freedom Tormented in the arms of Rest And unhappy amidst all that which ought to deliver him from it Who is not toucht with compassion to behold Alexander when he cuts the Ocean when he traverseth all the parts of the world when he enters the Indies when he makes war upon the Persians when he had conquered Asia when he turns Kingdoms upside down and makes the limits of the Ocean the Frontiers of his Empire For if he command his Army he obeys a multitude of his Passions which act the Tyrant with him if he vanquish his enemies by the Sword he is overcome of his vices and if he be the only Monarch of the Earth he is the subject af Ambition Anger and Impudicity One while he bewailes the death of a Favourite whom his own hand had massacred another while he laments the loss of a Captain which he left in the heat of the Battel one while he retires into solitude to entertain his misfortunes another while deceiving his enemies he is contriving the Conquest of a new World and he whom flattery perswaded to be the God of the Earth tacitly confesseth that he is the most miserable of all men Who judgeth not Hannibal very unhappy when he forsakes the Command of his Souldiers to be made obedient to his Love and when in the midst of a victorious Army brought back from Thrasymene he could not defend himself from the allurements of a Strumpet All that warlike glory which he had acquired in Battel could not divert his Affection and the thought of Triumphs that were preparing for him is not powerful enough to disswade him from laying his Arms at
the feet of his captive Slave her Beauty ravisheth his Soul and stops in a Passage where a hundred thousand men durst not have attended his approach without terror From these two Examples it is not hard to conclude that Passions debase us that we cannot treat with them without becoming their slaves and that we must of necessity renounce our liberty when we obey such insolent Masters To prevent then this shameful servitude a wise man must take Reason into his Counsel he must stay till she has examined the Nature of the Objects that present themselves before he let in Love or Hatred and he must conclude nothing touching their perfections or defects till this Sun have inlightned his Will and have approved or forbidden the pursuite Discourse VII That a Wise man may live without Passions I Wonder not that man should be so miserable since he himself is a Conspirator against his own Felicity since he makes vanity of augmenting natures defects since he takes pride in his own miseries and emploies all her benefits to make himself unhappy or guilty Those that have exercised their Eloquence in decifering corrupted nature thought it sufficient to be the Sons of Adam to render us disobedient that the sin of that first revolter against his God was the spring of all our evils whereof Passions became the Children after they had been the Mother and that man never committed an unjust act but by the instigation of concupisence which becomes the chastisement thereof Although the Authors of this Doctrin be to me very venerable and though the opinion which they maintain be approved by all Christians nevertheless I perswade my self that they will not absolutely deny to allow me that we derive not all our defects from his crime that we may as well bewaile the perfections which we still retain as those we have lost and that we find orderly motions in our Bodies which are rather arguments of the Excellency of the Soul then the defection of nature Some men would be innocent if Heaven had not honoured them with favors their rare qualities occasion their misery they are poor because they are too rich they run themselves into dangers by being too much enlightened and they engage not in Error but by being more perfect then others What ever renders a wise man accomplisht makes them miserable they anticipate misfortune by their foresight their memories call to mind the injuries done them their wits are busied about useless or hazardous things and all their qualifications become pernicious or disadvantagious To augment their own miseries and add to natures defects voluntary errors they take counsel from the noise of the People they regulate their lives by their reports they act but by their example and they approve all for reasonable that hath many Approbators and not that wherein truth most consisteth Likewise they who have made so many invectives against the sin of our first Father have almost depraved the whole stock of man-kind by endeavouring to explain the most difficult Principle of our Religion and have taught them undesignedly to justify their defects and to form excuses for their lewdness For if that inhumane Father say they have bequeathed us death with our being if he have made us Slaves by the loss of his innocence if the Passions which arise in our Soul be the effects of his Rebellion if they be as inseparable as our members and if we cannot shun their Surprizals but by the aids of grace who shall resolve to labour their Conquest seeing they are born with us and proceed from the conjunction of the Soul with the Body since the seeds thereof are in us and that that grace to which they have recourse is a bounty which God only bestows upon his Favorites To avoid then all these complaints it must be owned that human nature is not so depraved as they describe her that she yet retains some remains of her purity and that man hath still a power to combat vice follow vertue and conquer his Passions When those famous men that laid the foundation of Romes Empire would instruct their Subjects by their precepts or reform them by their Laws they rather disordered then settled them they taught them crimes of which before they were ignorant and they made many guilty persons in designing to keep men innocent Parricides saith Seneca first began in Rome by the prohibition thereof the punishment threatned to those that should be found so monstrous inspired them with cruelty men became barbarians when they were forbidden to be inhumane and they feared not to murther them from whom they had received life after the Law had informed them that such a sin might be committed So that those men must be Enemies to nature who throw all their faults upon her infirmities and we must deny that we often employ our perfections to procure our own unhappiness This truth appears evidently in the Subject of this discourse We render Passions which are but the pure effects of opinion and the will to be the productions of nature we fancy that they are born with us and we conclude from our weakness that a wise man cannot defend himself from them but by a Miracle In fine we deem all things difficult which we fear to undertake and judging of other mens strength by our own we take all for impossibilities which we our selves cannot perform Also I am of Senecas judgment and do maintain with him that there is as much difference between the Stoicks and other Philosophers as between men and women and as these two sex are necessary for the building of Families and States the one is born to command and the other to obey For let Epicurus be commended let his Disciples protect him and let them ransack the Body of Morality to shape excuses for his opinions yet it must be owned that he has made no Scholars but Slaves and that when he designed to create Philosophers he innocently formed vicious and impious persons Aristotle Father of the Academia is not more vertuous then Epicurus though he seem more reasonable for he makes but Bastard wise men he moderates the violence of their inclinations to render their conduct easy and allowing them ordinary distempers he hath taught them that they cannot be healthy unless they have infirmities that they cannot become liberal without covetousness that to be valiant they must have the help of ambition and that vertue would be of no use to them if they had not Passions to execute what she projects This opinion seems so little generous to Zeno's Disciples that they cannot forbear vigorously to oppose it and Seneca has condemned it for so unreasonable a tenet that he thinks he pleads vertues cause so often as he is ingaged in the Combat Where replies he is the freedom of the wise man if he may not act but by the intermediation of his Passions If he be obliged to fly to their Counsels and if he must borrow of them
conclusion one Woman should have all men for Suitors or one Man should have all Women for Mistresses But because the inclinations of Men are different that one and the same object procures Love and Hatred to divers persons and that one views with indifference what another beholds not but with Admiration They infer that love is not natural that opinion is the Mother of this diversity of wills who represents us things other then indeed they are and makes us conceive a Love for that which is unworthy of it Those Faces to whom Heaven hath not been liberal in favors are not altogether freed from suspition some men fall in Love with Baboons in feminine habits Uncleanness is sometimes as ugly as shameful and it is not more ordinary for the deformed to love then common for the beautiful to be courted All the parts of the Body unite when they are employed in the work of Nature the senses that are uncapable of conduct constrain their assistance to succor or enlighten her and the faculties of the Soul are so subserviant to her that they always abandon their private differences to execute her orders But Love dispiseth all her Precepts weakens her vigor corrupts her inclinations opposeth her dictates and by a fury as blind as unjust poureth confusion into all her Dominions Never is man less reasonable then when he is seized by this Passion and he never appears more indiscreet then when he gives ear to his Counsels or admits his suggestions The most noble of his habitudes vanish at the appearance of this Tyrant his courage flags his Counsels are uncertain his strength transmutes into Temerity and having no thought for any thing but the Subject of his Passion he becomes as useless to his friends as burthensome to himself The Poets had some Reason to feign that their Jupiter intermitted his own felicity when he descended from Heaven to be a companion of women that the conversation of Creatures so little valuable debased his condition that the Empire of Love was incompatible with his Person and that he did necessarily cease to be a God so often as he subjected himself to his Slaves Although these wise Prattlers might think that their God was unchangable and that they had more in design to publish the power of Love then to make him a Soveraign of the Diety to whom they paid Divine adorations yet may it be said that this fable is become a real truth upon Earth and that the Passion which they feigned to prescribe Laws to their Gods swallows up mankind and guides the inclinations contrary to their Nature He is so powerful upon their minds that he changeth all their faculties he makes the fearful audacious he inspires the Niggard with liberality he engageth the most generous to serve in vile and ridiculous actions he abaseth the proud he makes wise men carry Fools baubles and by a new Metamorphosis he turns Dunces into Poets and Orators But as these are strained disguises which ought to be rather attributed to the force of Fancy then to the power of the thing loved they easily return to their first inclinations they renounce their Amours to pursue what is more suitable to their humors they become at last the Persecutors of those Beauties which before had made them Idolaters for as soon as the Sun of Reason begins to dart forth his Lights that the judgment examins his first decrees and that the will acknowledgeth his Errors then he learns without much preaching that Love is imperious that he cannot be obeyed without hazard of liberty that a man is a Slave so soon as he becomes subject to his Laws and that Kings ought to think of laying down their Crowns from the hower that they become Amorous Let Plato exercise his Oratory in favor of Love as much as he will let him make it the Governor of Arts and Sciences and let him give it if he please the glory of having submitted the whole Earth to his Empire he shall be constrained to acknowledg that it is the most sordid and the most blind of our Passions and that he must have lost both his sense and his Reason that becomes his advocate For what can be shewed us more unworthy of a Man then to subject him to a Woman to make him forsake his understanding to follow her fantastick humor and to creep so far into her Dominion as to have no desires but what are hers no resolutions but what proceed from her lips nor any Authority but what is confirmed by her decrees Sometimes as if the Beauty he adores were a Diety he grows pale in approaching her Person he trembles as often as he sees her his Tongue gets the Cramp when he would speak to her and his Soul distracted with excess of the Passion can form nothing but nonsensical and imperfect words We must truly say that Love is an Enemy to nature since it violates all her Laws changeth the constitution of the most noble part of her Workmanship and that leaving him in a condition where he hath no more the command of himself he can undertake nothing that is not ridiculous or irregular To avoid them all these disorders and to defend our Selves from the Tyranny of so malignant a Passion Reason must timely prevent his assaults and we must consider before we engage with such an Enemy that the object to which he would draw us is not in our Power that it is a benefit that cannot contribute to our felicity and that the greatest Beauties are Heavenly presents placed upon Womnes faces only to punish the folly of indiscreet and curious Persons That this delightful proportion of parts is an advantage of as small continuance as of great danger that it 's a flower that fades in few days and a favor of Nature to which all the accidents of life may prove injurious In fine that Beauty is but a Sun that borrows all his Vertue from our opinion and which would be void of light if it drew not it's splender from our blindness Indeed if Love had not found the way to put out mens eyes he had long since been a King without Subjects we should have been no more Souldiers listed under his command those who fight under his Banners would become his greatest Enemies and they would disdain to prostitute their affections to a Mistress whose chiefest excellence is nothing but what she hath borrowed from the vain esteem of foolish men But Love knows so well how to disguise her defects that he sees not any thing in her of which he raiseth not the price he makes her apparent blemishes to pass for currant perfections and though she be often endued but with ordinary Charms he forbears not to give her excessive praises He ravisheth the Lilly of her whiteness to colour her face he steals the Blush of Roses to embellish her Cheeks he dims the glistering of the stars to increase the brightness of her eyes and to hear him speak of
her Nature hath nothing wonderful in the Creation which is not summed up in her Person He resembles those Idols that have eyes and see not he sees notable defects but observes them not and although his sight be continually fixt upon her Face yet can he not discern her spots from her perfections Mans condition were very deplorable if this Passion were without remedy and if the Fountain whence it springs were as necessary as common But as it draws its original from opinion its duration is equal to that which supports it the same cause from which it hath its original stifles it and Lovers most commonly find the Cure of their distemper in the cause that procured it Some have Conquered their Amours by seeing their Mistress in a morning undrest those whom they beheld in the day time as Goddesses seemed Monsters at the escaping from their Beds they could no more consider their aspects without disdain and they began to learn without the consultation of Philosophers that Women owe their glory to the splendor of Ornaments and the greatest proportion of their Beauty to the opinion of their Slaves Others have prevented the love of this Sex by that of Arts and Sciences they have withdrawn their senses from pleasure to employ them in the contemplation of Nature and charmed by the attractions of truth they preferred the study thereof before the possession of the greatest Beauties of the Earth The consideration of the shortness of the Pleasure has made others treacherous to their own affections and they became the Enemies thereof by the remembrance of the Pains which they caused them to suffer they could not resolve any longer to cherrish a Mistress whose conversation furnisht them with nothing but shame and Repentance and who after a moment of divertisement plunged them into a condition equally shameful and unhappy Alexander the Great was cured of this evil disease by Ambition the desire of fame begat him the Title of Continent as his Valor did that of Conqueror of the World and in St. Austins sentiments it 's not easy to decide whether he was prouder when he fought against himself or when he gave Battle to his Enemies But every one sees that Reason is more effectual then these several ways of curing this distemper that she is more absolute in man then Ambition that her Power is beyond that of Curiosity and that she that regulates all his Actions may more easily become the Soveraign of Love then opinion and covetousness For as mans will is free he may cease to love when himself pleaseth he may recover his liberty as often as he looseth it and even as to love a thing he need but will it so to chase away the desire of it it is sufficient not to will it Discourse III. That Learning is vexatious and the Pleasures of Knowledg are mixt with Grief Danger and Vanity PHilosophy owns nothing in Nature more glorious than her self all her Participants take share in her Grandeur and although she suffers not her Suitors to draw vanity from their applications she dares commend her self without fear of offending against the good manners she makes profession to teach them The Delights she promiseth to such as court her seem to her too innocent not to attract their Love and she concludes that a man must be without Courage or without Reason to refuse her his affection when he has discovered her merit She is so noble in her pursuits that she is busied only in the contemplation of the chiefest Good and she is so delightful in her employments that her conversation is never without satisfaction for besides that she is the Companion of Vertue that she shews us the secrets of Nature that she lifts us up into Heaven to inform us of her Wonders and that she anticipates our felicity by the knowledg she gives us of our future happy estate she fills the Soul with content she unites our spirit to the object which it seeks after and opening wide the Gates of Truth and disclosing all her Charms she seemeth to transport us from darkness to light and from Bondage to a glorious Liberty The contentment which man receiveth from the enjoyment of other things is always imperfect the frailty of their nature threatens him with their deprivation the crimes that usually follow it make him doubt their possession and the difficulty he meets with to preserve them leave him but a mixt satisfaction of fear and grief But understanding is a benefit which fortune cannot reach the oppressors that rob him of his Wealth cannot touch it it remains with him when his goods and honors are sled away and a wise man may boast of being happy so long as he preserves it The utility of wisedom gives place in nothing to the contentments she promises and if she have attractions to draw our Love she hath benefits to satisfy the hopes of her Suitors The Prince of Orators is not deceived when he stiles her the Nurse of young men the stay of the aged the succour of the afflicted and the Protector of the vertuous He assures us that Religion would be doubtful if she were not enlightened by knowledg and that necessarily the Spirit must disunite from the senses by understanding to conceive her misteries that their is nothing more dangerous in a state then an Ignoramus who emploies himself in explicating that Doctrin that is above his reach and that a Kingdom looks towards it's ruin when Philosophers cease to command and the people to obey them But though Antiquity make so high an esteem of knowledg and that the honors she bestowed upon the Ancients obliged them to give her such glorious Titles yet the Professors of Divinity make her the most rigorous of their Torments and the most ingenious among them have confest that her pains surpass her pleasures and the labours that must be undergon for her do much exceed the delights she affords us Her greatest business is to entertain us with matters as vain as useless all her instructions are little more then eloquent words invented by subtilty to amuse us and doubtless a man is not much wronged if he be denied that learning which he may be ignorant of to his advantage and which he cannot know without danger Truth is so gentle that she permits all that court her to take her by the hand not to despise her is sufficient to be admitted into her presence and as the Sun imparts his light liberally to all men she comunicates freely to all those that seek her she is obscure only where science hath bemisted her Those Tracts which art hath beaten to come at her have made her inaccessible that which ought to conduct us to her has turned us out of the way and man is assured to miss her so often as he emploies learning to find her Nature had endewed us with more ready helps to become better she hath fixt our felicity to our will as she condemns all those habitudes which
there made their Panegyricks in vertues favor and that Philosophers there taught us quietly to attend our change to resist misfortunes with a resolution and to expect death without fear But I also know that Gardens were made but for diversion that they are the ordinary employments of insignificant men and that the greatest number of such spend their time therein but for recreation Some are so linckt to them that they make it their whole business they pass away all their life in the observation of party coloured flowers they form and contrive spacious walks only for delight they invent mazes and labyrinths only to have the pleasure of being at aloss and if they adorn them with murmuring Rivers and reflecting Fountains it is but to renew their Pleasures to be charmed into a sleep by the noise of the waters that run from them They spend a proportion of their revenues to buy Onyons they turn Merchants of forraign Plants they value nothing but what was unknown in the Gardens of their Ancestors and they would never be content if they thought they had not comprehended in their ground all the rarities that the Earth produceth What an extasie of joy are they in when their Garden has brought them forth a new flower when a Tulip is curiously streaked when an Emony is finely doubled and that a Pinck hath delightfully coloured her leaves with the mixture of bloud and milk But then again how are they distasted when the Worms have got into their onion Beds when the Sun hath withered a Plant which they had carefully cherished in a curious Pot when the wind or the cold has kill'd a young wall Tree We shall see some as much afflicted for these losses as others for a Kingdom and I cannot tell whether they would not better bear the death of the dearest of their friends then the miscarriage of a fine Tulip or a curious Emony What more vexatious occupation could curiosity have invented to torment us then to affect us with the art of Gardening to exercize a mans care to preserve flowers and to convert the most innocent of recreations into matters of grief and vanity If then Heaven have permitted us the delight of Gardens let us use them as places of refreshment and not as retreats for idleness let their shady beds and seats serve to unweary us not to sleep in let their obscure Arbors put us in mind of the habitations of the dead and not serve to act our private debaucheries in and let all that we there meet with serve modestly to divert not to employ us Let us not bid more for things then they are worth let us judg of the beauty of our Gardens by the report of wise not of curious men and let us learn of them that all these odoriferous stars which we so much esteem are but party colored knots of Grass and to use the words of a Greek-Poet Zephyrus breaths that last a few days and flatter our sight the better to make us bewail their loss when they have changed their glory into corruption Discourse V. That the gaudiness of Apparel discovereth the impudicity or pride of them that use it MAn hath so great an affection for that which is good that he cannot forgo the desire of it the impious seek it in their dissolute actions the damned who live altogether in despair wish for it and they cannot forbear to hope the injoyment of that which is not possible for them to possess As the presence of good is the cause of happiness the absence thereof procures their Torment The impossibility of obtaining abates not their desires they are constant to it in the midst of their punishments and what pains soever they take to loose the love of it they cannot banish it from their will without the extremity of Violence They love God though they be his Enemies and they reverence his Excellence in the person of his Children though they are not any more in a condition to communicate with him This violent Passion is an evident proof of their wants they affect what is good because they are indigent and they desire not their Creator but because he only is able to supply their necessities Although the love we have for beauty be not so natural as that which we bear to goodness that the one be affixt to our substance and the other attend upon our will that the one be an inclination of nature and the other but an effect of opinion it is therefore not less universal and I know not if there be any Nation under Heaven that have not therewith been attainted The Meridionals who banish formal courts and reveling from their assemblies despise not gay cloathing they put on rich apparel so oft as they desire to be seen in publick and deeming that their vestures set off the beauty of the Body they array it with their choicest ornaments They set tufts of Feathers on their heads they fix Diamonds and Pearls to their Ears they dress the skins of Beasts to cover them they set off the blackness of their Bodies by the whiteness of fish bones and as if the Pomp of their apparel made their Persons more honorable they draw vanity from the costliness of their attire This Passion though guilty is not by them condemned as criminal she hath some qualities that make her glorious her manner of operating is a Copy of that of the Diety and adding to the Body a beauty which before it had not she gives us to understand that our seeking to her is not so much the mark of our indigence as of her liberality She beautifies the Body as the Temple of God and she is of opinion that she pays respect to the Divine Power within it so often as she bedecks it with forraign Ornaments The Politicians who boast of state conduct imitate nature in this point and as she distinguisheth the Animals male from female by exteriour marks they beget a difference of Persons by the diversity of Garments They array Kings in Purple that they may seem the more Majestical to their Subjects they give Robes to Senators as tokens of their Employments they separate the Nobless from the Yeomandry by the fleece and the garter and they will have it that ornaments shall be as well the rewards as the signs of valour but this judicious manner of cloathing is at present out of use opinion hath abolished the motive At this day we apparel our selves only for shew the noble men wear their ornaments only out of vanity and as the low Estate is despicable so the common people put on Genteel habits only to dissemble their condition It is hard now adays to distinguish a Merchant from a Gentleman by his Apparel one cloath covers them both and if it were lawful to judg of the quality of a man by his Garb I know not whether ordinary persons would not often prefer a Citizen before a Knight The Citizens Wives are as exquisitly drest as
our Ladies the Pearls and Rubies which were formerly the ornaments of Princesses now magnify their necks and fingers the Indies have nothing precious but it 's to be seen about their Bodies and some amongst them are such flebergebits that their attire must not be inferior to the Rings and Jewels of Dames of the greatest quality But as the one and the other are inexcuseable they will not be angry if I place them together if I make it appear that they cannot adorn themselves without sinning and that they become not less suspected of impudicity then Pride so often as they bedeck themselves to Excess Nature doth so much resemble truth that nothing upon Earth can corrupt her Art which brags of being her Ape could never debauch her works that Purple which makes a King and the Cowl that makes a Hermite alters not his Face and what artifice soever industry emploies to raise or abase it's beauty she is not able to disguise the Air and lineaments thereof We see some Women so charming that they dart love into men in despite of the Rags that cover them and some are by nature so ill proportioned that all our Court inventions cannot render them pleasing the splender of their Attire encreaseth their defects and they are never more deformed then when they are best accoutred all that should set them off makes them ugly and they cause their beholders to confess that if ornaments do sometimes diminish the graces of the beautiful they always augment the imperfections of the unhandsome Ladies if this Principle be true and if experience constrain you to own it though with some difficulty wherefore waste you so much time in your attire What is that Spanish red with which you force your Cheeks and Lips to blush good for And of what use are all those Jewels which rattle at your Ears If you are deformed all these ornaments increase your defects your faults are more visible when they approach the glory of your attire and you carry nothing of less use about you then that which you employ to hide your unhandsomness I know that you will fancy your selves to be beautiful and that it would be an offence against that civility which you imagin to be due to your sex not to think as you do But if you believe it why do you betray your own judgment by your practice Why seek you after ornaments to adorn you and thereby silently confess that ye are unhandsome seeing ye have need of a forreign beauty to set off your own innocence and purity are Enemies to disguises impurity and unworthyness seek Coverts and off sets things decent suffer not concealment and a Woman becomes doubtful of her own perfections when once she calls to her Jewels and her Silks for their assistance to purchase the vain Title of beautiful It 's true that what some of the most witty of the sex have to say for themselves is ingenious For they plead that it is to please their Husbands and as their happiness consisteth in the enjoyment of their good graces they ought to employ their utmost skill to obtain and preserve them But they forget that in designing to preserve the love of a man they loose the favor of God that in contenting their Husbands they beget impudicity in others and these committing Adulteries upon their Faces they are the cause of unlawful desires What a folly is it for a Woman to prefer a bastard complexion to her own To drive nature from her Cheeks by Vermillion and forfeit her own judgment for fear of her Husbands censure It must be concluded that they esteem themselves deformed since they falsify their own faces and that they are first unpleasant in their own Eyes since they seek matter out of themselves wherewith to delight others In fine All that they alleadg for their excuse tends to their condemnation and without a formal Philosophical Process they may easily be found guilty by their own Arguments For if they be handsom wherefore do they disguise themselves under so many different forms And if they be unhandsom why do they betray their defects by smug pots and ornaments This Dilemma puts the less extravagant to a Nonplus those that are not become shameless do own that they cannot adorn themselves without sinning that their attires offend their Conscience as well as their honor and that if Adultery be odious because it is a violation of Chastity the Luxury of apparel ought to be abominated for that it corrupteth our Nature Those Christian Ladies that lived in the Primitive Church were far from this vain humor of Apparel they despised outward ornaments because they were the Testimonials of sin they never clothed themselves without consideration of their Mothers nakedness and as they were chast and penitent they would not make use of attires that should not put them in mind of her disobedience They thought they were going to their own funerals so often as they were obliged to dress themselves and making judgment of the misery of their condition by the greatness of the punishments inflicted on them they believed themselves condemned to dye because they were constrained to carry about them the marks of their crime Being the daughters of Eve they were content if their shame were but covered a peece of Cloath served for that they thought it a sin against Justice to be more richly clad then their Parent and glorying in the meanest of their Apparel they taught the Dames of our days that there is no beauty but that of vertue no comely white but that of purity no lovely red but that of shame-facedness no handsome or graceful behaviour but that of modesty If the Women of the World would take the pains to consult their guides upon this Subject and if these had candor enough to lay open their injustice as they have sordid flattery to hide it they would long since have learned that they cannot have recourse to artifices without fowling their Conscience and that they become guilty so often as they make use of gaudy attire and painting to set out their Earthen Vessels and to imbellish their complexions T is not to be a Christian saith the learned Tertullian to falsify the Work of that God whom we pretend to adore to preprefer fraud or art before that simplicity which he teacheth us to cheat a man under pretence of pleasing him and to disguise the face with design to ensnare him Doubtless our vain Women must have given themselves up to the Tempter since he hath so much power over their will since he draws services from them so disadvantageous to their own Salvation and hath so much the ascendant of their understanding as to induce them to break the Oath which they made in the day of their Baptism For if they will look back into that they shall find there that they dedicated their liberty to the Son of God they promised to be his spouses they protested the renounciation of
Seas the winds favorable and their Navigation prosperous Who can warrant the Souldiers that their Arms shall be victorious and assure them of the Rout of their Enemies Who shall be able to promise a lover that the Marriage he designs shall be happy that the Woman he courts will be faithful to him that the Children she shall bring him will be obedient and that they shall honor him as their Father and that she shall love him as her Husband We reason according to outward appearances and not according to that which shall happen we look upon that which is profitable but we examine not the difficulties that surround it Our arguments are rather grounded upon our Opinions then upon Reason and according to the good liking we have to the objects we easily promise our selves the possession although it be sometimes impossible From thence cometh that we live always in instability that our resolutions are various that we add injustice to danger and that we are but little afraid to become guilty provided we can but obtain what we desire But we see likewise that when fortune opposeth our designs that the success of our affairs answereth not our Hopes and that our toilsome labours have only served to increase our unhappiness we fall into sadness we leave the event to chance we condemn our own easiness to hope and we are troubled that the injustice of our enterprizes was not able to give us possession of the good we had in pursuit This caused Seneca to say that our parts were fatal to us and that our good qualities rendred us miserable or guilty The ingenuity of our Spirits serves to discover the evils before they come our memory calls them back when they are past and the will often shuns them before they make shew of assaulting us In fine we convert all our faculties into torments and as if we had made a conspiracy against our selves we turn all the distinctions of time to our own affliction But the wise man that is a friend to Tranquillity and whose felicity consisteth not so much in the calmness of his Spirit as in an innocent assuredness despiseth all the counsels of Hope he laughs at her promises he braveth Fortune and finding nothing out of vertue that is able to content him he as little desireth her presents as he feareth her disgraces He considers indifferently all the advantages of the Earth he builds all his glory or pleasure upon the innocence of his actions and satisfied with vertues merit he avoids the delights of the unchaste the Grandurs of the ambitious and the treasures of coveteous men Discourse V. That Anger is blind in taking of Revenge Rash in Quarrels and insolent in Chastisement ALthough I were not obliged to follow Seneca and betraying the opinion I have conceived of his Doctrin I were disingenious enough to forsake his party or so unfaithful as to side with his adversaries yet would it be a repugnance to me to believe that Anger can be serviceable to Vertue and that she must necessarily be employed by Commanders in giving of Battells by judges in the condemnation of the guilty and by Kings in the chastisement of the Rebells of their State Her fury is too much suspected to approve her Conduct her manner of proceeding is too much void of equity to justify her decrees and the punishments which she ordaineth are too rigorous to clear her from the imputation of injustice and cruelty If our other Passions be sufficiently odious because they rebel against Reason and that it is not for nothing that we so much apprehend their Tyranny since they drive us from our selves to the subject of their fury the benefits wherewith they keep us in hand do alay their rigor if their defects beget our hatred their fair proffers cause us to affect them and all savage as they are they have charms that tempt us to give them employment Desire doth not at all times torment us if it disturb our mind it tickles our imagination this languishing humor is mingled with delight and if it sometimes ravish our rest it labours to give us possession of the advantages we stand in need of If love pitch his Tents in our Souls if he break in upon our liberty and if by an injustice which gives the lye to his name he give us our Slaves to be our Mistresses he unites us to the oâ—ject we affect and so much delights us with her perfections that we prefer her enjoyment above all the Grandures of of the Earth If Hope hold us in suspence and by a too ingenious foresight she redouble the measure of that time which we remain in expectation she gives us with it the promise of fortunate success she assures us that our Travels shall not be in vain and our reward shall bear proportion to our patience If fear darken our judgment if it fling horror into our Spirits and cause us to apprehend mischiefs contrary to our hopes she teacheth us moderation in prosperity she foretels us of our evils to come and prepares us to bear them with constancy when they have laid hold on us So that all our disorders have some charms if they persecute us they do us good service if they are violent they abate sometimes of their cruelty and give us intervals that cause us the more to esteem our liberty but anger is ever insolent and take her which way you will she is equally savage and precipitate If she punish the guilty her blindness causeth her to commit excess if she force satisfaction for outrageous actions she her self becomes guilty of the prophanation of all natures Laws if she assault her Enemies she often runs headlong into their ambushes and like unto those tumbling ruins that throw down the houses on which they fall she finds her own punishment in her revenge her own defeat in her victory and her own execution in her condemnations But that which yet better discovers her blindness and makes her injustice less supportable is that she makes fuel of all wood she proceeds from love as well as hatred takes up Armes against friend and foe and falls not less violently upon those that have obliged then on those that have done her injury Those pass times which heal or charm the other Passions discompose this she is as much displeased at play as at serious business as much offended at a jest as an afront and it matters but little whether the motives which excite her be considerable if the person who has them in apprehension be but susceptible of her violence For as the fire operates but according as it finds the disposition of the matter and its activity is not always the measure of its working as we find bodies that indure not its heat and others that retain a spark till it amount to a flame Anger waits upon cowardly Spirits she burns them up in giving them courage and seldom forsakes them till she hath made them scornful
blamed in a man but so far only as she passeth into excess yet doth Despair design her ruin it opposeth all her Principles and engageth the most tractable of all Creatures to become his own enemy He breaks those Cords of Love which bind him so strongly to himself it causeth hatred to succeed his Love and by a fury wherewith miserable souls and mad men only are possest it forceth him to be his own Executioner to put a period to his misfortunes I know that Seneca did allow his wise man this sentiment that it was his opinion that we might depart this World without offence that there was always Glory by letting in Death by our own hand and that that man was able to live at liberty who could die without constraint That a Wise Man was Master of his Life as well as his Actions that he was to live as long as he ought and not so long as he could and as he withdrew himself from a Feast when he was satisfied or quitted his sport when tired he was to leave the World when he became weary of it In fine he maintained that this Passion was an honor to him and that if it appertained to men of great courage sometimes to forsake the Earth in their prosperity it was a mark of folly in a man to desire to live being discontent and unhappy This sentiment is so often repeated in his Works that we cannot deny but he was of that opinion and I must give the lye to my own judgment if I would defend or justifie him in that escape But he seemeth to me excusable enough being a Stoick since his error proceeded from the Principles of the Sect he was of and for commending Despair in his Wise man since it passed in his time for the most glorious act of our courage yet no sooner was he undeceived in this Doctrine no sooner had Christianity forbidden Homicides and that no attempt could be made upon a mans self without breaking in upon the Rights of his Lord but he quitted his judgment he retracts from his errors and confirmed by the close of his Life the truth of his Belief For having received the Sentence of Death he would not execute it upon himself with his own hands he permitted his Veins to be opened by them about him and suffered them to let his Soul with the Blood out of his Body without his own assistance In a Letter which he writes to Lucilius he exhorteth a wise man not to deprive the Executioner of his Office and without fear to wait for the termination of his days he saith that there is fortitude in despising but not in hating of Life and that it is rather a sign of madness than of wisdom to work our own dissolution by the fear of dying Indeed amongst all the Passions of the Soul none are more sordid than Despair those that have made use of it to recover their Liberty or to deliver themselves from the Tyranny of Princes have not so much made proof of their constancy as of their weakness and they have passed among men rather for impatient than couragious persons Cato is not blamed in History but for having hearkened to the advice of Despair his Death is the shame of the Romans his homicide blemisheth all his other actions and what praises soever Seneca gives him in his Book of Providence he cannot be exempted from the imputation of cowardise in having recourse to Death to shun the power of a victorious enemy It is a defect of Courage not to be able to undergo Adversity to wish for Death because our Life is unpleasant and to anticipate the end of our Days to free our selves from pain and infamy Regulus to whom the like evil befell shewed himself much more generous to Posterity than this Philosopher for being fallen into the hands of the Carthaginians he would not lend his own to Despair that they might be deprived of the Glory of his overthrow and although he was become the Captive of them whom he had formerly vanquisht in pitcht Battel he chose rather to suffer in being their Servant than violently to ease himself of their Tyranny by the commission of a homicide He received his disaster without murmuring against Heaven he bore the Domination of his insulting Lords with patience he retained the same greatness of Courage in his Captivity as in his Authority and though far removed from the Roman People he ceased not to preserve his affection inviolable for them If his enimies loaded his body with Chains they could not tear from his Soul the love he had for his Country he was faithful to it in the midst of his miseries he made vows for its welfare and as he knew that he could not go out of the world without the leave of him that placed him in it he waited for Death from his Enemies without daring to prevent it by attempting upon his own life But Cato never surmounted Cesar if he became his Prince he was also become his Conqueror by the Law of Arms and if he deprived him of Liberty it was after he had subjected the Roman Commonwealth to his Authority Likewise his Despair is an evident sign of his imbecillity he did not kill himself but because he envyed Cesars fortunes and set not the Dagger to his breast but because he could not bear the prosperity of a victorious Antagonist If Despair be found guilty of infirmity we shall find her no less full of fury violence gives not way to weakness and as we deem a man a coward whose heart faileth him in the day of Adversity he is esteemed cruel when he contracts with Death for his deliverance Those Tyrants that break in upon our Lives come short of the violence of Despair they discharge their Rage only upon our Bodies they leave our minds at liberty and afflicting the meanest part of us they often see the more noble victorious over their Cruelty But Despair that exerciseth its fury upon both it depresseth the Soul with the Body it sets us wholy on fire against our selves and more outragious than the evil that assaults us it constrains us to make use of Steel or Poison to deprive our selves of Life Then it is that we become our own enemies when we turn our advantages to our destruction when we employ our Reason to procure our ruine and to avoid Pain which is but the trouble of effeminate men we summon the worst of evils to our assistance Likewise an Orator hath excellently said that Despair was but the Passion of furious persons that it took its Laws from Impatience its Power from Indignation its Weapons from Fear and Pain and that a man called not for Death but because he hated himself or forgot his own Salvation Moreover Despair is accounted the most unjust of our Inclinations and whosoever should approve the use thereof amongst reasonable Creatures would no less offer violence to the Laws of Nature than those of Christianity Life